From: ANNAOTTO1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 17:49:18 EST
Subject: NEW "Fire Eaters" (8/15) by A.Ensro & A.Otto
Source: xff


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

Part 8/15

XXX. CARD

Once, there lived a little girl. She was a child like many others, 
who had friends, went to school, and argued with her big 
brother. She was loved and cherished, but this love was not 
enough to protect her from the men who decided her fate, and 
from the visitors who came in the night to take her away.

If years have passed, she doesn't recall how they were spent. If 
she brought back a story to tell, it is in a foreign tongue, one 
she can't translate. If she is an oracle, then she can't ignite their 
hope.

All she had was a garden, but it was trampled, first by hooves 
of horses, then by paws of dragons. Ever since the gray wall 
crumbled down, the real world has been infringing on her 
secret hideout. Even now, men roam over the broken grass and 
ruined flowers, depriving them of the chance for a renewal. 
She would seek the protection of her brother, but he is 
nowhere to be found. 

The psychologists switch from one method to another, 
searching for the key that will make her remember. They may 
hope to find the words of wisdom, but she is only a child 
inside a woman's body. What could she say to please them? 
And so, their anxiety refuses to be put to rest, and each new 
method they resort to is less likely to jostle her memory than 
the one before that.

Today, they play a game of word associations. As if they 
believe that she'd forgotten her English lessons, they paint an 
illustration for each word that they tell her. Card after card, the 
pictures and titles flash before her eyes, and Samantha 
cooperates, reluctantly, by describing the connections 
prompted inside her mind. Their frustration is the only weapon 
she can turn against them, and she knows that sooner or later, 
they will grow tired of the game and retire for the day, only to 
come up with a new pastime for tomorrow.

She is barely aware of her answers as she wanders deeper into 
the damaged garden, away from the intruders, searching for 
the woman who called her name in such desperation before. 
The forest is taller, and the sun barely penetrates through thick 
branches. There must be clues left to trace her, there must be 
some connection between them if she'd seen her here before. 
Scully, she reminds herself of the name that Fox used. 

Scully, she repeats like a mantra.

"Chalk," the man prompts. 

"Hopscotch," Sam replies.

"Trap."

"Mouse."

"Car."

"Accident."

There is a barely perceptible shift in the interviewer's pose. 
"What kind of an accident?"

Samantha's tone doesn't alter. "A fatal one."

The man who sits behind the psychologist records her answer 
and smiles, but meeting Samantha's steady and sober gaze, he 
is no longer certain what prompted his mirth. Meanwhile, the 
exercise continues.

"Grinder." The psychologists' voice is lethargic as he throws a 
new word.

"Coffee."

"Cook."

"Meat."

"Fire."

An orange flame suddenly springs on her palm, and Sam 
almost drops it in pain. Frantically, she looks around, 
anticipating the dragon's hooded eyes blinking at her from 
above, but soon she realizes that this fire is different. While 
the dragon's breath wilted her garden, this small blaze clings 
to her hand as if it needs protection. It's an unexpected source 
of light in the thick forest, and she holds onto it in spite of the 
discomfort it causes. A trail, one she hasn't seen before, leads 
her down the unexplored territory, and she follows obediently. 
There, in the small clearing, the red of her hair tarnished, the 
blue of her eyes hidden, Scully sleeps deeply. Sam sits down 
beside her, fire still alive in her hand. No longer does it cause 
her pain.

She believes that as long as she holds on to this flame, the 
sleeping woman will not drift further away. As long as she 
cherishes this fire, it will be merciful to them both, and it will 
not eat her flesh.

"Life," Samantha speaks out loud, and the psychologist 
reaches out to take hold of her left hand, apprehensive of the 
way she clenches it close to her chest. A fresh burn blossoms 
in the center of her palm, and he drops it, terrified. 

The innocent card with a picture of fire drifts to the floor, 
forgotten.


XXXI. BRAIN

Krycek does not dream.

A thin needle of pain pierces his skull behind one eye, 
reminding him to wake. Still, he wants to remain in this dark, 
dreamless sleep, away from conscience, from responsibilities, 
from the tearing agony in his shoulder.

He can't move. Neither of his hands will co-operate. 
Something diseased and rotten has replaced both appendages, 
pumping sick, blackened blood through his veins. He moans. 
Awake now, he cannot ignore it any longer.

Something cool and wet touches his forehead, and his first 
thought is that it is Mulder. It is a ridiculous assumption, and 
one he instantly regrets as his eyes flutter open and Marita's 
skeletal face stares down at him.

"Alex?"

Her voice drives the nails deeper into his brain, a hoarse, 
cracked whisper, the sound of a straw sucking up the last 
water in a near-empty glass.

He tries to sit up, but a conspiracy of pain and gravity forbid 
him.

"Don't move," she says.

Krycek almost laughs - she is so much more damaged than he 
is. "What's this all about, Marita?"

She says quickly, "Jason's gone out. He was angry with me."

Suddenly childlike again, he thinks, a weak remnant of 
affection gnawing at the edge of his migraine. She brushes her 
fingers against his cheek. The gesture is almost tender, but if 
this is the intention, it falls short.
 
"Jason says you have information."

"Is that what he thinks?"

"I...don't want to hurt you anymore." From the way she says it, 
he nearly believes her.

He forces a smile. "Then don't."

"But Jason will."

"I don't doubt that."
 
"They're all coming back, you know. The abductees...the test 
subjects...they keep showing up in hospital rooms. There must 
be forty of them...fifty...and it isn't stopping. You know what 
that means, Alex?" When he doesn't respond, she says, "It's 
started."

"And there will come four horsemen...War, Famine, 
Pestilence...Samantha Mulder..." The red-rimmed eyes stare at 
him. He laughs, but it sounds like choking, painful spasms that 
seem to tear his injured shoulder apart. "It was a joke."
 
"They're coming."

"And you think this is enough to stop them? That if you spill 
enough blood it will somehow atone for what we did?"

"We?"

"I can't help you, Marita."
 
She leans forward, her face almost touching his, the tips of her 
black hair brushing against his face. "You don't have a 
choice." Her hands fluttering to her face, Marita pulls away. 
"He'll be back, you know. I can't save your life again."

"Marita..."

She nearly chokes on the words. "Tomorrow, he won't give 
you any food. Not until you tell him what he wants to know. 
After three days, if you still won't talk, you won't get any 
water..."
 
"And after that?"

"Jason has ways of persuasion."

"Do you love him, Marita?"

Her hand touches his shoulder, barely light enough to be felt, 
then squeezes painfully. He wants to scream, but instead he 
only bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, shutting 
his eyes until the barbed wire around his skull is a welcome 
distraction from the throbbing hell of his wound.
 
"I have my ways of persuasion, too."

Krycek groans as she steps away, gone to cower by the wall 
again, a thin shadow among the many ghosts who haunt this 
room. And the absence of pain - the absence of her touch - is 
somehow worse than its ubiquitous presence.

He tires of watching her, after awhile, and he waits for Hart to 
return.


XXXII. BRASS

He is an isle of stillness in the stormy ocean of visitors and 
patients. He stands out of the way, so as not to interfere with 
the flow of the normal hospital business. But inevitably, all 
gazes turn to him: perhaps it is his impeccable suit, the way he 
holds himself, or maybe it is the visible tension charging his 
entire body. His is a stance of the man whose life depends on 
taking the next step, but he is caught on the hook and can't 
move.

"Agent Mulder," Skinner is astonished. The wave of relief is 
so unexpected that it hits him below the knees, and he 
grapples for words and means of support simultaneously. "It is 
good to see you."

It seems that lifetimes pass before Mulder acknowledges him. 
"Well, I suppose it saves me a trip." He leans against the wall 
and exhales, watching the ceiling. "I need to speak with you."

Skinner studies his agent more closely. "Have you seen Scully 
already?"

There is a barest flatter of eyelashes before the grim answer, 
"No."

"In that case, I'll show you to her room."

Mulder's reply is impossibly soft, but its meaning carries the 
resonance of thunder. "No. When did this happen?"

Shell-shocked, Skinner searches for understanding. "A few 
days ago. Last Wednesday morning, to be precise."

"What is the estimated time of poison intake?" he fires the 
next question. "How much was ingested? Was there any 
investigation into any narcotics missing from hospitals or 
pharmacies?"

"6:45 AM, I can't remember the amount. The investigation 
turned up nothing." Alarmed, Skinner reaches out a hand 
toward him. "Agent, the man who did this had already been 
punished. There is no mystery to solve any longer."

"Do you really think it that simple? Agent Blair was only the 
point man. The men who ordered him, the ones who paid for 
his trouble, are still unpunished."

"Where have you been till now, Mulder?" It should be a 
reprimand, but Skinner does not have enough anger for that, 
not so soon after his anger killed another man, whether 
innocent or guilty. "Do you know how frantic she was, with 
you and your sister both gone? Do you know how many man-
hours the Bureau wasted on searching for you?"

Mulder's face twists into a bitter grimace, and for a moment, it 
seems he has a biting remark ready. Instead, his answer is 
sympathetic, unaccountably gentle. "I apologize, sir. I wish I 
had time to explain..."

"Mulder," Skinner interrupts him. "There is only one other 
man who knows about Agent Blair. So there is no need for 
explanations."

The betrayal, if it is mutual, allows the understanding to take 
the place of wrath. Thus, there is no condemnation in 
Skinner's lined face. Thus, the screams of rage that Mulder 
may have cried yesterday are replaced by a sad smile that 
threatens to degenerate into tears.

"See Scully," Skinner offers again. "This is why you came to 
this hospital."

"I can't," he whispers. "Not until I find the men responsible."

"Mulder," Skinner begs him to reconsider. "Whatever choice 
brought you here, she still needs you." Yet the epiphany they 
shared a moment before is not enough to persuade the 
tormented man before him, and he watches as the 
conventional shutters slide back into place.

"I'll speak to her doctor," Mulder dismisses his superior 
briskly. "Please take care of her."

With a graceful movement of his wrist, his agent summons the 
two men who, until now, have been waiting nearby. Skinner 
doesn't know their names, but he recognizes their ilk - the 
military bearing is hard to disguise by civilian clothing. 
Mulder's gesture speaks of control, as if he is brass who is 
used to ordering lower-ranking officers around.

And though Skinner knows that he has no facts upon which to 
judge him, though he himself is held captive by the same 
force, he cannot prevent the bitterness from flooding his 
mouth, cannot keep the bile down. Abruptly, he turns away 
and walks down the hall towards the room where Scully waits 
in limbo and where her mother keeps watch over her. Neither 
she nor Skinner himself can bring her back.

Once again, he is struck by the vulnerability of Scully's face, 
by its sheer translucence. She is so unlike the steel-willed 
woman that he normally sees at work. She seems much 
younger, more like a small child who needs protection rather 
than a capable FBI agent who can fight and shoot better than 
most men. And he senses that though she is barely alive, she is 
still in danger, left to the whims of her assailants. 

The intuition blossoms into a certainty, but it is only after 
Skinner speaks aloud that he realizes what his next actions 
will be. "Mrs. Scully." He waits until an older woman meets 
his eyes steadily. "What would you do to make sure that your 
daughter doesn't die?"

Her answer is as simple as it is fervent. "Anything."

"In that case, I need your cooperation." Skinner picks up the 
phone and starts dialing Washington Post, unwilling to delay 
another second. The notice in the newspapers will be 
sufficient to attract attention, and his stature at the FBI will be 
enough to make all the arrangements.

"I would like to place an obituary, please. Dr. Dana Scully, a 
loving daughter, sister, and a friend, died this afternoon..."


XXXIII. MOSS

Rumors travel fast, and by the next afternoon, Teena Mulder 
stands with her head bowed by a fresh grave. The cemetery 
itself is old, the gates rusted and headstones covered with 
moss, but this monument is new, and it gleams beneath the 
failing sun.

Several years ago, the family had requested a stone with the 
same name and a similar sentiment, and it would have been 
economical to use it now, but the dates are wrong. Teena is 
unaware of the irony, of course, and her most predominant 
thought is that Dana Katherine Scully is approximately the 
same age as her own daughter.

"Did you know her?" The smoker leans over her shoulder, his 
eyes scanning the words with what she might have mistaken 
for detached disinterest, had he been a stranger to her.

"We met a few times." She faces him, grateful for an excuse 
to turn from the grave. "She and my son were close...closer 
than most partners."

"So I've heard." He tilts his head slightly upwards, so that the 
stream of smoke is directed away from her face. She 
remembers someone telling her once to hold her breath when 
walking through a graveyard, not for the sake of superstition, 
but out of respect for the dead. "I assume that your son is the 
reason you called this meeting?"

"Cut the bullshit," she responds and breathes - the dead will 
forgive her. "Did you kill her?"

"Really, Teena. I thought you knew me better than that by 
now." Her glare narrows, and he says, "No. The man 
responsible has been brought to justice."

"Somehow, I doubt that."

"Regardless, the matter is under investigation."

Her heart speeds up just slightly, and she asks, "Investigation 
by whom?"

"I thought you would have guessed by now."

"You let him out?"

Another puff of smoke. "I had no choice."

"What about Samantha?"

"She's safer on the inside. Think of it this way: at least one of 
them will live."

Was that what he had said the last time? She can't remember.

Movement catches her eye, and she glances away from him to 
see a man standing a yard away, on the hill that overlooks the 
grass where they stand. He is dressed in black, and in the dull 
fog of dead places, she thinks she catches a flash of metal by 
his hand. Wordlessly, she touches the smoker's arm.

At first he seems to misinterpret the gesture, washed-out blue 
eyes widening almost imperceptibly, but then he sees the 
direction of her gaze. If he recognizes the man, if he notices 
the weapon, if he has any fear or emotion at all, he does not 
show it. He moves her behind him, faces the gunman, lifting 
the cigarette to his lips. The face, a blur in the distance, is 
turned towards them, a subtle acknowledgment before the 
figure once again slinks into the distance, a threat made clear 
and a mission complete.

"Which one of us was he aiming for?" Teena asks, when her 
voice has returned.

"Maybe you can tell me."

She catches it then, a faint tremor, and if he had been any 
other man...had he been a stranger...

But he is not, and somehow that makes it all the more 
frightening. If he is not in control, then someone else is. 
Someone who has been watching them all along, waiting in 
the distance with an army of very patient assassins.

If he is no longer in control, then she is running for her life.

They all are.

Teena kneels before Scully's gravestone. She would offer a 
prayer, but she doubts it would carry very far. Besides, it is 
Scully who should pray for Teena, if such things amount to 
anything. Scully was lucky.
The fate that awaits the rest of them could very well be worse.

A long time after the smoker calls a premature ending to their 
meeting, Teena stands up, and leaves through the moss-
covered gates.

End Part 8/15

Part 9/15

XXXIV. CUP

Mulder watches as the man sitting in front of him pours water 
into the paper cup, spilling some of it on the pristine table in 
the process. Undoubtedly, he wishes that it were whiskey or 
scotch, because either would provide a respite from the 
questions that are about to come. The chair in which he sits is 
deep and comfortable, but he perches close to the edge of it, as 
if preparing to flee the room at the first opportunity.

Dr. Phillips whips out a pack of Morley Lights and ignites 
one, then offers it to the interviewer belatedly.

"I'm trying to quit," Mulder declines.

"They don't bother you, do they?" Dr. Phillips inquires 
between quick inhalations. "I haven't had one since morning."

"Feel free," Mulder shrugs. "So what are the duties that kept 
you so busy today, Doctor?"

"I'm an anesthesiologist. I provide the oblivion during the 
surgeries." It would sound lighthearted if not for the anxiety 
that permeates his every word.

"I wasn't aware..."

"That specialists of my kind were employed here?" Phillips 
interrupts. "Surprise."

Mulder grits his teeth, returning the interview on its track. 
"What kind of surgeries do you assist in?"

"Doing a little research on the side, Agent Mulder?" Phillips' 
eyes narrow minutely. "I could tell you, but it would take 
time, of which both you and I have precious little."

Mulder concurs inwardly: every minute that he spends 
questioning the employees in this facility is a minute that he 
could spend by Scully's bedside. And he can't afford to lose 
his focus on the investigation, something he believes to be 
inevitable from the first moment that he will walk inside her 
hospital room and take hold of her inanimate hand. He needs 
to distract himself, needs to forget himself inside this case. 
The sooner that he finds the culprits, the sooner that he can 
have the best assurance of her safety, of Samantha's safety.

Then, he can shake off this nightmare of a temporary 
reassignment. But now, he leans forward, closer to the 
impotent fumes of smoke from a Morley Light and an 
unshaved face of Phillips. "Please elaborate, Doctor."

"I keep the subjects drugged out of their minds while the 
surgeons poke around their reproductive organs. And before 
you ask, no, that's not what I hoped to end up doing when I 
applied to medical school."

Mulder shuts his eyes, willing the image away. "You seem 
unhappy," he comments unsteadily.

"You're very observant." Phillips pours another cup of water 
and gulps it down immediately. "I see now why we have to 
resort to your help. Any idea yet of who is behind the 
murders?"

All evidence points to an inside job, and that is the reason why 
Mulder is willing to endure this interrogation and many others 
to follow. "If you could work up the nerve to pull a trigger, 
Dr. Phillips, you would fit my profile wonderfully," he smiles 
serenely.

The doctor stares at him, the cigarette forgotten on the way to 
his mouth. "For a moment there, I thought you actually meant 
it." There is a touch of hysteria in his laugh. "But you're right, 
I wouldn't have the guts even if I had the will. Besides," he 
adds after a pause, "with the hours I work, I wouldn't have the 
time, either."

"Did you know Dr. Palmett?" Mulder asks of the latest victim. 
"Have you ever worked with him?"

"Yes, I have," Phillips nods. "We were close... as close as 
people become in this line of work, anyway. He was also 
unhappy, you might say - and afraid. Seems that he was afraid 
for a good reason." His hands shake slightly as he pours 
another portion of water, filling the cup to the brim. "You 
want to know my theory on what's wrong with our 
organization, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder, though he has quite a few theories of his own, 
gestures for the doctor to continue. 

"We became too bold. Too secure in our purpose, in our own 
righteousness, in our wealth. But when the cup runneth 
over...this is why our lives overflow with grief now." Phillips' 
shoulders sag in resignation. "We're all sitting ducks. As long 
as we work here, we are targets. And if we quit, we only invite 
the wrath of the remaining ducks. Ducks, Agent, can be very 
cruel when they're scared and are out for revenge."

This litany of apprehension and cockiness is becoming tiring, 
and Mulder shifts impatiently in his seat, despairing of 
extracting any useful information out of this man. "Did Dr. 
Palmett have any enemies that you know of?"

"No," Phillips says helplessly and gets up. "May I go now?"

"No, you may not," Mulder snaps. "How accessible is codeine 
in this facility? Does anyone keep track of the supplies?"

The doctor sits back down carefully. "Normally, we answer 
for every narcotic, including codeine, down to the last 
milligram. Though what with shortage of staff lately, it's been 
fairly easy to get hold of. I also can't think of any reason why 
anyone here would want to be responsible for your partner's 
death."

Mulder appears unperturbed. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't 
write her off yet. She is still alive. She will stay that way."

Phillips chokes on his water, and the sound is akin to a prelude 
of terror. "My god," he hisses once he regains his breath. "I 
cannot *believe* they kept it a secret from you. Sometimes 
they're nothing more than a bunch of selfish cowards. Nothing 
more than that." He slumps in his chair, hands covering his 
face. "Unbelievable," he repeats.

With calmness he doesn't possess, Mulder waits until Phillips 
recovers sufficiently to keep talking. "Would you please 
elaborate, Doctor."

"I wondered why you were so... functional before. Oh hell. 
Agent Scully died - I read the obituary in the newspaper, 
about two days ago. Due to the latest developments, that page 
of Washington Post has become part of my daily reading 
material," Phillips explains nervously. "I can't recommend it 
highly enough."

Mulder is not aware of the sound that erupts from his chest, 
nor does he register the replying shudder of the man sitting 
across the table. The scalpel goes in deep enough to achieve, if 
not complete unconsciousness, then at least a temporary 
oblivion from the pain. Slowly, as if he is waking up from a 
long nightmare into an even more abhorrent reality, he 
becomes cognizant of Phillips' hands on his shoulders, of the 
doctor's distressed face too close to his own. 

"Agent Mulder, is there anything I can do to help?" he asks, 
and Mulder guesses it's not for the first time. "God, I didn't 
want to be the one to tell you, it's just my luck...I have Valium 
with me." He pats his pockets anxiously.

"No," Mulder refuses the offered bottle of pills. Nothing short 
of morphine would provide the relief. "Sit down, Doctor. 
Please, just... stop."

Phillips lets go, still shaking his head and muttering to 
himself. "Unbelievable. Simply unthinkable."

"I should have visited her," he whispers. "I am just as much a 
selfish coward as anyone else in this place."

"Don't waste time on self-recrimination. You must keep your 
focus, Agent Mulder." The doctor moves the cigarettes and 
lighter within the younger man's reach and watches as he 
lights one up, seemingly without any conscious thought. "I 
know why they wanted you to be unaware, of course. Without 
your help, we're all going to die here."

"So, it's that simple." The smoke is strangely soothing, even if 
the flavor is detestable. He wonders if there will be more 
cigarettes after this one. 

"Finding the men responsible should be in your interests, as 
well," Phillips continues. "You've become a target the minute 
you started working for us."

"In that case, Doctor," Mulder comments distractedly, "I've 
chosen my company wisely."

He pockets the cigarettes and walks out of the room.


XXXV. LAMB

They are all gone now.

The garden is silent, the grass burned and trampled, the dragon 
nowhere to be found. Samantha sits and waits for the horses, 
but they too have left. She would be grateful for any company, 
anything but her devastated garden and the still, wan face of 
the red-haired woman who lies as if dead in the clearing.

Samantha and Scully in the garden; it feels as if nothing has 
changed in this place for all of eternity.

Soon, Samantha thinks, there will be other flowers. All of the 
missing ones will come back to the secret garden, and 
everyone will be together. She wonders if they will be 
motionless like Scully, or alive and awake in this dream state, 
in this lull before the storm.

She wishes fervently for someone to talk to her.

Samantha misses the Awake Scully, the sound of her voice 
reading aloud in the hospital room, she misses the 
companionship of someone who understands. Scully walked 
in this garden once - Samantha is certain of it.

She's sleeping now, and she will never wake, she will be here 
until she dies and they've all left her, forgotten her, lying here 
as the world goes up in flames around her. Samantha does not 
pity Scully - pity is a foreign emotion - but even so, she longs 
to trade places with the other woman. She aches for a sleep 
that is not this dream of a garden, for a sleep that is simply 
oblivion.

Samantha remembers, a long time ago, waking from a 
nightmare in her mother's arms, staring up into eyes dilated 
from Valium, the soft voice that murmured, "Awake, 
Samantha, awake..." and she wonders if her mother, too, knew 
of this place. She cradles Scully's head in her pale, trembling 
hands, the flame-red hair as soft as silk against her palms.

She whispers, "Awake, Scully, awake..."

There is a stirring in this place, where nothing was ever 
supposed to change. There is fire at her fingertips - she can 
hold it, command it. And her wish now is to correct the 
wrongs that have been done, some of them committed in her 
own name. She is painfully aware of the sacrificial lamb, the 
victim of someone else's plans, and she wills the red-haired 
woman back to the world of the living as subtly as she weaves 
the fire from her hands.

Scully opens her eyes.

Samantha swallows hard, and she looks up towards the 
bruised, darkening sky. Thunder lurks somewhere on the 
horizon - the beating of hooves, a distant omen. Scully will 
live, but the rest remains. The lamb will still be sacrificed, and 
the garden is crumbling all around them.

Samantha's hands burn from the remnants of a fire, now 
extinguished.


XXXVI. JACKET

Awareness is not a gift, it is a curse.

Scully wakes up confined within the pristine walls of the 
sterile hospital room. Her throat is parched, her fingers are 
numb from inaction, and her mind reels from the 
overwhelming stimuli. The man who served her poison 
disguised by strong smell of coffee and a kind smile stands by 
the window, and she cannot even scream in terror.

Skinner turns around, and though he looks at her, he doesn't 
see the change that occurred a few short moments ago. Scully 
hopes that he leaves, believing her still asleep, but instead he 
pulls up a chair closer to her bed and reaches for her hand. 
She'd like to snatch it away, but she is still too weak, and her 
fingers only twitch in response to her desperate command. 

"Agent Scully?" he whispers, at first uncertain, then more 
insistent. "You're awake?"

"Ummm," she croaks in response. 

As if understanding how difficult it is for her to speak, Skinner 
reaches for a glass of water and brings it to her mouth. Yet, 
her lips remain stubbornly closed, and she doesn't bother to 
disguise the fear in her eyes. His hand shakes, and water spills 
on the sheets. 

"Codeine, Scully," he says tiredly. "It was codeine. I'm sure 
you remember what the lethal dose is and how long it takes for 
it to be absorbed. You hardly drank any coffee that I brought 
you, and you collapsed right after."

"Twenty minutes," Scully calculates, and now her fingers 
obey her enough to travel the short distance to her throat. She 
pauses, and her whisper is colored by disbelief. "Agent Blair?"

"Good guess." Skinner offers her water again. "Now, drink 
this, because we have a lot of ground to cover before the 
doctors and nurses get here."

When she accepts, they both recognize the significance of the 
gesture. It is at once an apology and forgiveness, reaffirmation 
of trust that had been doubted too many times.

"Scully, there are some things you should know," he begins 
reluctantly.

"What is it?"

"This is a hospital in Baltimore, close to your mother's house. 
You're here under a false name, Jane Green. Dana Scully is 
officially deceased, and only your mother and I know 
otherwise."

"You faked my death?" she shakes her head, more alert now. 
"Why?"

"There are many ways to kill someone who is alive, Agent," 
Skinner explains bluntly. "There is no way to kill someone 
who is already dead."

She swallows a lump in her throat and nods in understanding. 
"How long have I been here?"

"Two weeks. You were in a coma, we didn't even 
hope...well," Skinner stands up abruptly and wonders back to 
the window. "It was a close call, Agent Scully. I didn't intend 
to be responsible for another."

Scully allows him a moment of privacy, waits until he is ready 
to speak again. His next words jolt her, at once rejuvenating 
and unsettling.

"Mulder has been in to see you."

"Where has he been? Where's Samantha?" She frowns, 
remembering what Skinner had told her before. "You didn't 
say that Mulder knew of this -" she searches for a word, 
"plan." When he keeps silent for too long a moment, she shifts 
on the bed, trying to sit up. "Please, tell me."

"Scully, you need rest - you're not well enough yet..."

Recognizing the maneuver, she doesn't back down. "Please," 
she asks again.

"I just don't know," he admits helplessly. "I haven't been able 
to reach him - otherwise I would have explained... I certainly 
didn't wish to keep this a secret from him."

"He's back, but you haven't been able to reach him?" Scully 
repeats, incredulous.

"Mulder... is not exactly within my jurisdiction anymore," 
Skinner explains reluctantly. 

The encroaching nausea has nothing to do with her poor 
health, and water will not quench her suddenly dry throat. 
"What do you mean?"

The noise that assaults her ears is dark red, and the pain that 
streams from a blade driven into her temple makes her scream. 
Scully is certain that she will not be able to stand this for much 
longer, but it is over just before she formulates the thought. 
One second, she sees Skinner's panicked face - and then, she 
is plunged into another room and the pain dissipates.

Samantha lies on a bed, shivering under a thick blanket, too 
tired to ask for another. Her energy drained, given away to 
another, she can only wait until it comes back. Scully reaches 
out, wishing to help, but she is merely an invisible spectator - 
impotent to influence any events that transpire within these 
walls. To her immense relief, someone enters a room and 
takes off a jacket, wrapping it around the lying woman, then 
sits down on the floor beside her. Soon, another dark head 
joins Samantha's on the pillow, and Scully finally recognizes 
her partner. Brother and sister, alone against the world.

Somehow, Mulder's appearance frightens her more than that of 
Sam. Dark shadows under his eyes are a deep contrast to the 
skin that's too pale, and she wonders if the wrinkles etched on 
his forehead had been there the last time she saw him. 

"Mulder," Scully calls softly - but he doesn't hear, and her cry 
upsets the fragile connection, awakening the wind that returns 
her to another room, another reality. Not even pain is present, 
and she almost wishes for it to return.

"There, you're back with us." A figure in white smiles down at 
her. "You really scared your friend here," the doctor nods at 
Skinner. "Now, do you remember what your name is?"

"Da..." Scully catches herself. "Jane. My name is Jane Green. 
I have to go, please excuse me."

"Wow, hold on a second," the doctor laughs, inviting the 
patient and the visitor to share his amusement. "You're not 
going anywhere. Not for another week, at least."

"But..." she shakes off his hand. "Mulder and Samantha - I 
know they're in danger -"

"Whoever these people are, they will take care of themselves. 
And you, Jane, are staying right here."

Scully casts a begging look at Skinner, but he remains deaf to 
her mute plea. Desperate, she rubs her eyes, willing the vision 
to come back, but all she has left is this room, this well-
meaning doctor who calls her by a fake name, a body that still 
needs to recover - and inescapable knowledge of an upcoming 
catastrophe.

End Part 9/15

Part 10/15

XXXVII. TOOL

The water from the tap drips in an irregular rhythm as the 
metal sink slowly fills, the echo drowning out the ragged 
sound of one man's breathing, and the pained almost-silence of 
another.

It has been days - Hart has not counted. He sits in the chair, 
his back stiff, eyes searching out a place just slightly above the 
dark shape of Krycek's head, above the bloodstains on the 
dirty white wall. He does not want to see. He can't force 
himself to look.

"You don't expect pity, do you?" Hart's voice is exhausted. 
"How long do you think you can hold out?"
 
Krycek doesn't respond. He is conscious, more or less, and his 
stare is as vacant as that of his tormentor's. Hart wonders, idly, 
what kinds of hallucinations pass before those sunken eyes. 
He wonders if Krycek's world is more or less painful than his 
own.

The smell is terrible, compounded by the pervasive ammonia 
of the laboratory. Hart can block out the sight, the slumped, 
broken body, a crimson stain on a white shirt, turning brown 
as it dries. But the scent creeps into the pores of his skin - if he 
were to leave this place, to scrub himself with soap and water, 
he imagines it would still cling to him, the odor of infection 
and death trailing him like a shadow.
 
"What makes you think I remember anything...after this...?" 
The young man's hand, carved out with red tracks of blood, 
gestures feebly, almost of its own bidding.

"Oh, I know you do. You're not that far gone."

Krycek laughs - it turns quickly into a cough. "Fuck you."

"It can all end now, Alex." He wants to believe it. Perhaps it 
comes out in his voice.

"I tell you where Samantha Mulder is, and I go free? I get to 
walk out of here, alive, and all is forgiven?" Hart can feel 
Krycek's stare burning in his direction, evaluating him, 
judging him. "I'm not that far gone."

"We'll find her eventually, you know."

"I know. So why hasten her death?"

Hart leans forward. "Does he mean that much to you, Alex?"
 
Krycek summons up the last of his strength to spit a gob of 
bloody saliva in Hart's direction. It misses, but the sentiment is 
there. Resistance is a matter of principle with the younger man 
- perhaps his only principle. Under other circumstances, Hart 
would have respected that, but he is tired now, tired and 
impatient and old.

He reaches for the power drill beneath the chair. It comes to 
life with something between a buzz and a roar.

"Creative," Krycek mutters, even as the tool approaches his 
eye. "You plan these things out, Jason?"

"Where is she?"
 
"In a safe place."

The sound of flesh on flesh, as Hart slaps out a final warning. 
He is almost shocked by the sensation of something human 
beneath his palm - he had imagined Krycek's skin as 
something dead and rotten, the details of beard stubble, fever, 
these are unexpected reminders that his victim is something 
alive. Someone. Hart shudders.

"Do you remember the first person you killed?" Krycek asks 
quietly.
 
Hart does not answer, and so Krycek goes on, "How old were 
you? Was it hard to pull the trigger? Did you get him right 
away, or did it take a few tries...did he have to beg for his 
life?"

It is only a brief tap, the slightest pressure on the drill, and the 
young man's cheekbone snaps - shatters - blood and bone 
splattering Hart's own face. He drops the tool abruptly, cursing 
his weakness. Krycek tries to clutch his ruined cheek with his 
useless hand, and Hart tells himself that it's only another job. 
That anything can be justified, if one tries hard enough.

"If you cut out my tongue, I won't be able to give you any 
information." It takes Hart a few moments to process the 
words, garbled through a mouthful of blood.

"Where is she?"

"...Can't stop it Jason and I don't give you any points for 
trying..." He coughs again, splinters of bone visible through a 
wash of red. Abruptly, inconveniently, his eyes roll up in their 
sockets and he collapses against the wall.
 
Hart stands, shaky, supporting himself with chair as he rises. 
He is intensely aware of the throb of his pulse, blood pushing 
through every vein, congealing behind his eyes and his 
quivering, weakening heart.

Marita is asleep when he finds her, but she stirs as he enters 
the room. "Did you get anything out of him?" she asks, half-
interested.

"He passed out."

"Oh." She accepts his kiss, but it is a confirmation, rather than 
an absolution. He is covered in Krycek's blood. "Will these 
little hands never be clean?" she whispers.

"He'll wake up, soon enough." Hart stumbles towards the 
bathroom, towards the pills that will sedate his demons - at 
least for now. "When he does, see what you can find out."

Marita slips out of the room. Perhaps her tactics will be more 
effective than Hart's. He can only hope so.

He swallows the pills with stale water, turned salty with the 
remnants of blood.


XXXVIII. INSECT

Even in sleep, Sam continues to shiver. Mulder asks the guard 
for yet another blanket and covers her up, smoothes the lock 
of wavy hair away from her face. Extreme exhaustion, as one 
of the doctors classified it. Nothing to do but give it some 
time. The only thing missing is the reason for her to be so 
tired, so drained of energy. 

He settles on the linoleum floor beside her, finding comfort in 
her presence. He is free to use a nice office down the hall, 
equipped with every necessity, but his concentration wanes 
there, rendering him useless.

He faces a similar problem everywhere he goes. His mind 
wanders, replaying the scenes from the past that has been lost 
too quickly. His feet, if given free rein, end up in those places 
least related to the investigation. Not once has he noticed the 
raised eyebrows of his watchdogs and surrogate bodyguards as 
he stood at the Potomac, watching the water for an hour, or as 
he walked across the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, again and 
again, measuring the ground in chaotic circles. 

In this room, however, he is reminded of the reason to 
continue. The only reason that still remains.

Not for the first time, Mulder questions his initial assumptions, 
reassesses the puzzle. Though he has been certain that the 
epicenter of the quake destroying the Consortium stemmed 
from within, evidence proves him wrong at every turn. 
Perhaps more telling than any evidence is the veil of terror that 
hangs over every man and woman with whom he comes into 
contact. 

The irony is not lost on him. Yesterday, he would have 
applauded anyone who was responsible for this situation, and 
even today, he might be tempted to simply sit back and watch 
the bloody spectacle unfurl before his appreciative gaze. But 
the disappearing chips of abductees upset the picture enough 
for him to question the motives of the people involved. 

Scully's death does not fit in the pattern altogether. She was 
an innocent, someone who never should have become a target, 
someone who perhaps would have fit into the category of 
abductees rather than those chosen to be destroyed. 

Even the method by which she was disposed of seems 
peculiar. Poison should be less appealing to the killers who are 
as quick and as ruthless. Medical narcotics, especially, provide 
what is almost a merciful sleep in comparison to violent 
deaths that some others have suffered. 

Almost as if the leader, the man ultimately responsible for her 
death, had been reluctant to go through with it and taken pity 
on her. Someone who is equally cruel and compassionate, who 
has the opportunity and momentum to dispose of the unwanted 
people, yet chooses to take what are almost certainly risks 
while removing chips from abductees. Someone who knows 
the names of the men involved in the carefully hidden 
conspiracy, who has access to drugs and weapons, who easily 
avoids the radar of hundreds of people hunting for him. 

Mulder's eyes are unfocused as he creeps through the 
labyrinths of the mind that he seeks. The old exercise is a 
familiar routine, but today is perhaps the first time when he's 
been able to achieve this level of fusion with the killer, still 
not enough to work out a profile, but close. So close that he 
can feel the frustration of the man who believes that he's 
already lost his essence, who's betrayed himself. There is no 
room for loyalty in his aching heart, no room to have faith in 
anyone but one person who...

...who is dying?

Mulder lays a hand on his chest, trying to slow down the 
madly beating instrument, which pushes blood through his 
arteries at an excessive rate. Surely, he projects his own grief 
onto the man he seeks. Again and again, he is presented with 
proof that he is in no condition to continue with this charade, 
that mistakes he makes even now will cost more lives of both 
innocent and guilty. 

Still, work is a reason to fight the encroaching depression, an 
outlet to lose himself in. One more time, he tries to relax and 
opens the door leading back to the labyrinth.

He's always known that he was profiling an insect.

A gray spider weaves a tangled web that spreads in ever-
increasing radii from under its hairy legs. Its abdomen is 
bulbous, grotesquely distended with blood that it drank from 
the victims caught in its lacework. And though they fight, 
hundreds of men and women ensnared within its bonds, they 
can never free themselves. Mulder wonders why the flies 
should struggle so, for how can they prefer life if their 
consciences are so heavy with guilt? How can they choose to 
continue on when everything they used to be has been 
trampled and thrown aside, like so much waste?

When spider's beady eyes turn toward him and a pair of 
appendages extends in his direction, Mulder doesn't resist.

When the guard brings Samantha's dinner an hour later, he 
finds her still asleep, and her brother investigating the corners 
and shadowy places under her bed.

"Are you looking for something?" he asks tentatively. "Did 
you lose a ring?"

Mulder waves him away absently. 

"Just checking for spiders."


XXXIX. SILK

He wakes up beside her.

Krycek feels nothing but a wash of silk against his skin, the 
fever of the last few days dissolved into muted colors, faded 
music, the faint scent of a woman's perfume. He opens his 
eyes to look into the eyes that face him, no longer red, no 
longer blind. She smiles, strokes the ruined cheek that has 
somehow, as if overnight, become whole again.

"Dance with me, Alex?" Marita asks.

He rises to fold her in his arms, the slender body swaying in 
perfect rhythm against his. She is dressed for the evening, her 
gown slipping off one shoulder, moon-pale in the darkness of 
the laboratory. There were nights in Russia when he saw her 
like this, beautiful, perfect. It is only illusion, but it is an 
illusion from which one might never wake.

And so they dance, her breath a whisper against him, corn-silk 
hair fluttering in its wind.

"Where is Hart?" he asks, as if to test the veracity of the 
dream. She will not confirm it. She does not answer.

"Close your eyes," Marita says instead. "Tell me what you 
see."

"A white room."

"Who is there?"

"A man." Krycek thinks for a moment, then adds, "And his 
sister."

"Why are they in the room?"

"Someone has been trying to protect them. Someone else has 
been trying to kill them."

Marita nods against him, and he holds her tighter. "It's all 
right," he says reassuringly, "they are safe."

The walls around them seem less solid, and Krycek decides 
that he and Marita are not confined here any longer. He whirls 
her outside to dance beneath a net of twinkling stars. There is 
a garden here, where the daylight will never come, where he 
can dream, in peace, forever.

He kisses her then, beneath the moonlight. Perhaps it will end 
this way, a love story, a fairy tale, happily ever after. They 
will stay in the garden, dancing. After everything, he would be 
content with nothing more than this.

"Where is this place?" Marita asks.

He responds, "Fort Wiekamp."

When she returns the kiss, it drains his breath away, her lips 
like ice and he collapses, frozen, on a concrete floor. All he 
can smell is the sick sweetness of rotting flesh, all he can taste 
is the salt of blood in his mouth.

A smile splits Marita's face beneath the tangles of black hair, 
and the dream bursts into splinters of glass, a thousand 
reminders of his unwitting treachery. The pain, upon 
awakening, is infinitely worse.

"Thank you, Alex," Marita says. "Jason will be most 
interested to hear about it."

Without another word, she slips away, silk between his 
fingers. His only purpose now is to stay here, alone in the 
cold, waiting to die.


End Part 10/15

Part 11/15

XL. TENT

It is against every precaution to smoke in close proximity to an 
oxygen tent, but he is past regulations - and the man encased 
in protective cover of plastic will not mind. After all, what is a 
harmless cigarette flame to a survivor of the car explosion?

The smoker cannot recall how this face looked before the skin 
that covered it was charred, before the hair was singed off the 
skull. He already knows that this patient refused plastic 
surgery and would have refused treatment at all if he could 
make himself heard. The victim was not in the car when the 
bomb exploded. His wife and two children were.

What would he have done in this situation? It is an idle 
question that the smoker struggles to ignore, but it crawls back 
into his consciousness, refusing to be silenced. Would he have 
run back to the burning vehicle, plunging into the fire to help 
those he loved the most? Would he have stood back and called 
the firefighters and the ambulance - men equipped to deal with 
such a disaster?

Being a hero is easy. 

Being able to sacrifice, to drop the cards held most dearly is so 
much more difficult. Surely, in this case, there was nothing 
that a husband, a father could do. 

The blue color of the opening eyes is startling, somehow 
incongruous in the midst of destroyed flesh. The smoker 
comes closer to the tent, waits until these eyes focus upon him, 
waits for the recognition and memory to trickle back - a tactic 
he judges poor the same instant as impotent tears spill down 
the white bandages. 

"James," the smoker welcomes the crying man back to the 
world of living. "The doctors said you may be able to talk for 
a few minutes today... I wanted to express my condolences."

James doesn't answer, doesn't give any indication that the 
words were heard and understood. 

"This may be difficult to remember now, but do you have any 
suspicions as to how and where the bomb may have been 
placed in your car?" The desperation comes through in his 
voice, and he is ashamed of the weakness. The next questions 
are almost harsh. "Have you given it to any repair shops 
lately? Have you seen any questionable activity around your 
house?"

The burnt lips move, and the Smoking Man struggles to 
understand the words they try to speak. "One," he hears after a 
while. "Only one..."

"One what?" 

"It only took one minute," James whispers. "My kids left their 
lunches on the kitchen table... I should have sent them instead 
of going myself. I should have sent them..."

The smoker inhales deeply, tries to collect himself. "You 
couldn't have known. Please, think of what I asked you 
instead."

But the burnt man seems no longer present in this reality, as 
his eyes go out of focus, as his lips chant words the smoker 
does not recognize - does not want to. His impotence, his 
powerlessness make him tremble suddenly, as the sheer terror 
of the situation finally sinks in. He has never been afraid of 
dying until now, but he is losing the bravado with every 
passing day. He is not as infallible as he had once thought.

His fingers curled into fists, his face tight with anger and fear, 
he steps closer to the oxygen tent. Before he is able to control 
himself again, he feels another presence in the room and turns 
to meet the impenetrable eyes of Fox Mulder.

There is neither judgment nor contempt in the younger man's 
voice as he picks up a phone and calls for a nurse to check on 
the patient. The smoker doesn't make excuses, nor does he try 
to explain away the appearances. He prefers to avoid this 
conversation if possible. The first words out of Mulder's 
mouth convince him that it will not be possible.

"Ever wonder why there is such a high turnover rate on this 
job?"

He remembers to pull out a cigarette, drawing comfort from its 
familiarity. "Because employees aren't able to handle the 
workload?"

"No," Mulder replies somberly, as if he's communicating a 
revelation of utmost importance. "Because their employers do 
not fulfill their obligations towards them. Because they 
interrogate them only a few days after their wife and children 
die."

The smoker's eyebrows draw upward, wordlessly asking for 
an explanation.

"And of course, there is that nasty clause in the contract," 
Mulder continues thoughtfully. "The 'We-will-kill-you-if-you-
dare-leave' part that's written in small type at the bottom of the 
page. That really can ruin family life, destroy every notion of 
normality, and really spoil someone's appetite."

The insolence that permeates the list of complaints, the sheer 
arrogance of the speech should not surprise the Smoking Man. 
However, there is something imperceptibly wrong here, and 
he can't quite pinpoint the source of trouble that makes his hair 
stand up on its end.

"When the only way to quit the unpleasant job is to die, might 
not one consider such a possibility?" Mulder asks earnestly, 
troubled dark eyes leaning in closer to his opponent. "And 
after death, might not one be angry enough to want revenge on 
the men who had made his life so miserable? I can," he pulls 
out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up with the air of 
calculated disconsolateness. "I can imagine that all too easily."

He'd dealt with men distraught and men suicidal, but this 
picture of self-destructive depression is entirely new, and all 
too frightening. "Fox, I know you've lost someone who was 
important to you, but..."

The grief that washes over the face of Mulder is gray - if 
mourning had color, it would be this, the smoker thinks in 
horror. But it is gone quickly, replaced by resignation. "Add 
that to the list of duties: inform employees when their partners 
meet an untimely demise."

This is one of the swiftest decisions that the smoker ever 
made. "You will not investigate these crimes any further." He 
starts to walk away - and is stopped by the suddenly very sane, 
very cold voice behind him.

"You would fire a man who just gave you the best - the *only* 
- profile of the killer you're looking for?"

The Smoking Man turns around on his heel and watches 
Mulder silently.

"How inconvenient that it fits so many men who work with 
you every day. Who used to work with you every day, I 
should say," Mulder laments, a cigarette now limp in his hand. 
"Had I been dead, I would have added myself to the list."

"Are you implying that we're dealing with a particularly 
vengeful ghost?" the smoker inquires sarcastically.

Mulder appears to consider it for a moment. "I see no 
evidence of the paranormal here." He explains, as if taking 
pity: "We're looking for someone who is only presumed dead. 
It is the only reason why he is still walking free instead of 
rotting in the grave with all the other infidel employees. It is 
someone who has reason to believe he was slighted by the 
Consortium, someone who has motives for vengeance."

He rubs his forehead tiredly. Does the young man realize what 
task they're about to undertake? "The list will be long. Too 
long, I should say."

"I wish it weren't so."

If the smoker forgets about their old dispute, about their 
disparity, he can almost hear the note of sympathy and regret 
in that voice. The illusion dissipates when Mulder's features 
grow into an impassive mask, as the gates of emotion close 
down for all intents and purposes.

"And in the future," Mulder throws over the shoulder while 
leaving, "I will be the one interrogating all suspects and 
witnesses - alone."


XLI. STAIR

Her sleep comes sporadically these days, sometimes a few 
hours at a time, flutters of dreams taunting her as she lies in 
her bed, her knuckles white as she clutches the sheets. It is a 
fear she has not known in years, not the constant worry that 
has kept her numb for twenty-five years, but a sharp, acute 
terror that comes with certainty, with the knowledge of what 
will unfold in the days to come.

It was easier not to know, Teena Mulder decides.

At first she thinks the knocking is the rain against the trees 
outside, branches lashing against the windows of her house, 
but it is too regular, too persistent. She throws on a bathrobe, 
catching a glimpse of her drawn, haggard face in the mirror as 
she reaches into the nightstand for Bill's revolver. Buried 
beneath a shroud of satin, it bears the faint scent of her old 
woman's perfume, irreconcilable with its metal coldness. She 
slips it under the folds of her robe, and goes to answer the 
front door.

Every stair creaks on the way down. She and the house have 
grown old together.

Teena is not particularly startled to see the face of a ghost 
through the peephole. She draws the gun, though its weight 
does little to reassure her against the vengeance of the dead. 
Still, her finger is on the trigger as she unlocks the door.

"That won't be necessary," Dana Scully waves her hand 
towards the weapon. "You have nothing to fear from me 
tonight."

Teena loosens her grip on the revolver, but she does not put it 
down, instead moving aside to allow the ghost to enter. Scully 
has been walking in the rain. Her hair clings in wet tangles 
against her face, drops of water on her eyelashes and cheeks 
like tears. She shivers, clad in a T-shirt and jeans, thinner, 
Teena thinks, than she had been in life.

"I can think of better people to haunt," Teena says.

Scully offers her a tired smile. "I didn't come to haunt you 
either."

Teena closes the door against the wind and rain, then leads 
Scully into the kitchen. They sit down at opposite ends of the 
table. Teena does not offer her visitor coffee.

"I need his real name," Scully says. It is not a question - it is a 
demand.

"Whose?"

"You know whose. C.G.B. Spender...the smoking man..."

Teena leans back in her chair. "I can't give it to you," she 
replies.

"Your children's lives are in danger, Mrs. Mulder. He knows 
where they are. He's been keeping them prisoner--"

"Fox is there by his own free will," Teena interrupts, "And 
Samantha is there for her own safety."

"-- and you have done nothing..."

"I've given you all the information that I have."

"And now the same people responsible for my...death...are 
coming for them." Scully half-stands, bracing her weight 
against the table. "Tell me his name."

"It won't do you any good." Teena keeps her voice even, cold. 
"I'm not entirely sure of the name he uses these days. And 
even if I knew, it wouldn't help you track him down...or to 
find them." She folds her hands together, lowers her eyes. 
"He's done everything in his power to protect them. And if he 
can't...what can you do?"

"How do you live with yourself?" Scully whispers.

"I ask myself that question every day." Teena glares back 
now, defiant. "Do you think you're the only ghost who haunts 
me?" She shakes her head. "I'm very sorry, but there is 
nothing more I can tell you. It would only further endanger 
them."

"Or save them."

"Do you expect me to take that risk?"

"Mrs. Mulder...if you do not help me." The ghost trembles. 
Teena looks away. "If you refuse to help me, they are already 
dead."

Teena opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again. She 
clenches her fists together, bites back tears. Scully had better 
be certain - the web is closing in around them from all sides.

"He left two hours ago," Teena says in a low voice, "He was 
headed for a place...Wee-something. An air force base."

"Wiekamp," Scully blurts out.

"That's it."

The ghost stands. "Thank you, Mrs. Mulder."

Teena reaches out, abruptly, to grab Scully's arm. She is 
almost surprised to feel warm, solid skin beneath her hand. 
"Wait."

"I can't."

"Just tell me..." A pained swallow. "I need to know that I've 
done the right thing."

Scully pauses for a moment, then says, "I suppose we'll see." 
She starts to pull away, then reconsiders. "Give me your gun."

"Agent Scully?"

"Agent Scully is dead," the younger woman replies. "My 
name is Jane Green. And I need your gun."

Teena hands it to her wordlessly. She follows Scully out to the 
hallway, stands on the lowest stair as the ghost turns the 
handle of the door.

"Is there anything else I can do for you...Jane?"

Scully looks down at the weapon in her hand. "Lock the door 
when I'm gone," she says, "Don't mention to anyone that I was 
here. And," her voice is oddly gentle, "Take care of yourself, 
Mrs. Mulder."

The sound of the door as it slams shut is barely distinguishable 
from the pounding rain outside.


XLII. WALLET

Hart waits in the line of cars at the entrance to Fort Wiekamp. 
He has picked the busiest time of the day, risking a chance of 
someone recognizing him. Unlikely, considering how much 
he's changed. Reluctantly, he turns the rearview mirror to look 
at his own face. The mirror laughs at him, throwing back the 
reflection of a ghost. Gray eyes are sinking into skin of the 
same color, and his dark, unkempt hair is turning white at the 
temples. If there is a phase between life and death, a time 
when a man's body disintegrates while still allowing him to 
live, surely he has entered it.

The driver behind him honks, and Jason realizes that he is 
supposed to move forward, to the guard's booth. 

"Your ID, please," a supremely bored voice sounds to his left.

Hart hands over an old piece of paper that he carries as a 
reminder of his past sins, and valiantly tries to keep his 
heartbeat steady.

"I'm sorry, sir, this is expired," the guard announces the 
verdict after investigating the document. "Do you have a new 
one?"

Gloved hands tighten on the wheel of the car. Hart doesn't 
want to do this, and yet he knows that he has little choice. 
Reaching into his pocket, he deftly opens a cellophane bag, 
removes a wallet and flips it open to the driver's license. 
"Here," he extends the hand out the window.

"You look exhausted," the guard says sympathetically as he 
accepts the proffered wallet. "Are you sure it's your shift 
now?"

Hart chokes back the tears that spring to his eyes at the 
consideration in the voice of a man he has just killed. The only 
excuse he has is that the poisonous substance that is being 
absorbed in the guard's skin right now has been invented here, 
on these very grounds. Compound number 478 takes only 
ninety-eight seconds to work, give or take. 

He begins to count. 

"This is only your driver's license," the corpse dressed in the 
military uniform tells Jason. "I need your current ID, 
otherwise I can't let you in."

"I'm afraid I forgot it at home," Jason forces himself to meet 
his eyes. "I'm expected, could you let me through, please?"

The guard returns the wallet and opens the barrier. "I can let 
you turn around, and go back home to find your renewed 
identification card."

The count is getting closer to ninety-eight, and Hart stalls a 
few more moments, waiting until the man loses the ability to 
talk and stand straight. At the ninety-seventh second, he drives 
through the opened gate, but doesn't turn around as per orders 
of the guard. There are no screams behind him, and no one 
chases after the vehicle that has just entered the base illegally. 

Compound number 478 is singularly effective.

It's a large base, but realistically there are only four 
possibilities for where Samantha Mulder may be kept. He 
parks the car beside the most likely location and checks his 
weapon, the .45 caliber, loaded with bullets that will rip 
through her forehead and her heart, accomplishing the most 
important part of his mission. 

The guard at the entrance touches the wallet briefly and waves 
Jason through, too busy smiling into the phone to bother 
checking the documents in more detail. Another death left 
behind, Hart walks down the halls, casually scanning the 
narrow windows on the locked doors. When he sees a thin 
woman huddled inside a gray blanket, her long curly hair 
spilling over her shoulders, he collapses against the cold 
metal, unsure if he should believe his luck. He chooses to 
interpret it as an omen.

This is meant to happen. 

After all the blood that he spilt, the days spent in the company 
of corpses, the self-destruction he engaged in, he is finally 
close to his goal.

But when Hart picks the lock and enters the cage, he never has 
a chance to draw the gun. His first thought is that he wasn't 
careful enough with the deadly compound, but soon he 
understands that it's only his body betraying him. After living 
with this disease for years, its culmination is still unexpected. 
The agony erupts within his chest, travels down his 
extremities, and sends him crashing down to the linoleum 
floor. He lies there, gasping for air, as the woman who he 
wanted to kill hovers over him with a worried expression on 
her face.

"Pi..." Hart manages, just as conscious thought is about to 
leave him. "Pills," he gestures somehow to his breast pocket.

He is barely aware of Samantha kneeling beside him, of her 
delicate hands patting down his pockets, searching for the box 
of magic drugs that keep him alive, even if not for much 
longer. Finally, the pill in her fingers, she dangles it in front of 
his face while keeping another hand on his chest, a light touch 
that is surprisingly comforting.

Hart opens his mouth, and the pill drops inside. The 
realization that he could have done without  the medication 
comes a few seconds later. He sits up slowly and searches 
Samantha's face for any indication, any knowledge of the 
miracle that has just transpired in this joyless room.

His heart is still old and tired, but he has been granted more 
time. And his hand falls short while reaching for a gun. 

There is always another day to fire a bullet.

There is, however, never a better day to seize the chance to 
prolong another life, that of a woman who deserves to outlive 
him. 

"Samantha," he whispers almost reverently. "Would you like 
to come for a walk?"

Her eyes, until then wary and pale, suddenly glow brighter 
than stars from which she descended. "To see the sky?" she 
asks. 

She hands him the keys to her heart on a golden plate, and 
Jason gladly takes them. She's only a child, easy to 
manipulate, easy to swoop away.

"Yes," he smiles, the first genuine smile on his lips in months. 
"Outside, to see the sky."


End Part 11/15

Part 12/15

XLIII. TULIP

The smoker does not need to show identification. Even if the 
guard did not know him, the older man possesses a sense of 
purpose that not even a higher-ranking officer would dare 
deny, an aura of authority that only a few hours ago, he had 
considered lost forever.

Another officer leads him into the room where the body lies. 
The dead man is young, in perfect health until ten minutes 
ago, when his heart stopped beating. The flesh is still warm, 
according to the officer, but the smoker, not wishing to 
confirm it himself, keeps his distance.

"How did he die?"

No one responds. He lights a cigarette, strangely unsettled.

"Has anyone recovered the surveillance tape yet?" Again, he 
is greeted with silence, and his hands itch from the sudden 
wish to pull out his gun and threaten them as he would 
suspects. Anything to get a response. "I want the base sealed 
off. The killer might still be on the premises." Someone slips 
out the door, gone to carry out his orders. He takes another 
drag, wondering why his hand is trembling so much. "Where's 
Mulder?"

"He's with James Erickson."

"Get him back here. I want to talk to him." He takes one last 
look at the body, then says, "I'll be down the hall."

And he realizes at that moment the source of his anxiety. 
Samantha...something has happened to Samantha. He slams 
the door closed behind him, his steps echoing down the long 
hallway. Catching a glimpse of the guard seated at the door, he 
relaxes for a moment - no one has gotten through, the fear was 
misplaced. The man leans against the wall with his ear on 
phone receiver. As the smoker approaches, he makes no move 
to end his conversation.

He makes no move at all.

His face is slack but his eyes are open, staring fixedly ahead, 
unseeing. Dead. The smoker touches the man's throat and feels 
no sign of a pulse. He jerks his hand back as if burned, and the 
guard collapses sideways out of the chair to slump against the 
wall. The smoking man kicks his body aside and opens the 
door. He already knows what he will see, but his heart 
constricts painfully in anticipation of the empty room, the 
abandoned blanket.

"Samantha," he whispers, realizing that he should not speak at 
all, that he should do nothing to give away his presence. The 
stretch of corridor from Samantha's cell to the entrance is 
deserted. He is alone with a dead man and a killer.

Careful to make as little noise as possible, he reaches for his 
gun and makes his way down the hallway. This man has 
outwitted the organization - outwitted him - at every turn, but 
at least he is not entirely defenseless. The weight of the 
weapon is reassuring, but with every step comes the growing 
sense that he is walking towards his own demise.

He sees her first, then the man behind her, dressed in a black 
coat, one hand on Samantha's arm. It is the eyes that are 
unmistakable, staring out from a pallid face, the eyes of yet 
another dead man. The smoker's first thought is that he should 
have listened to Mulder, should have figured it out himself 
before now...

"Jason," he addresses the man. "This is a surprise."

Hart blinks. "You would have found out eventually."

"I'm sure." His eyes flicker towards Samantha. "Let her go, 
Jason."

Hart looks around, anxious, then seeing no one approaching, 
leans back against the wall. "Perhaps she does not wish to be 
let go." He stares at the smoker's gun. "Besides, you'll kill me 
either way."

"That's true," the smoking man admits. "But I don't want to hit 
her."

Hart laughs. "You were always so damned short-sighted, 
weren't you? Always concerned with the immediate, with your 
own narrow little goals, your own goddamned plans. The sky 
is falling, everything is coming apart at the seams and all you 
can be concerned with is petty vengeance, is--"

The smoker fires, once, and he hears the other shot, masked by 
a silencer, a split second too late. His bullet is merely an echo 
of the first. He is aware of several things at once - the glimmer 
of Hart's gun, concealed under the coat, the way Samantha's 
eyes widen as she screams - lightning before thunder, he 
thinks, as the world explodes around him.

It does not occur to him that he is dying, not even as he begins 
to fall, blood staining the front of his shirt and the wall behind 
him. Even the pain is delayed by a few moments, allowing 
him the satisfaction of seeing his bullet shred through Hart's 
left hand, severing the last two fingers in a surge of blood. He 
almost fires again and that is when it hits, a burning, tearing 
paroxysm that threatens to rip him in half. He does not cry out 
- neither of them does - as he crumples to the floor in a 
crimson pool.

Hart runs. He grabs Samantha with his good hand and he takes 
off down the corridor, his path marked with smears of red. The 
smoker watches, unable to stop them.

His eyes wander to the splattered blood on the wall. It rises up 
like a flame from behind him, a scarlet flower, a tulip rising to 
greet the sun. The image makes him laugh, sends further 
shudders of agony through his failing body. He glances at it 
for a moment longer, and then closes his eyes.

After all, he thinks, it isn't as though he has never died before.


XLIV. GEM

The old man's blood is frothing between Mulder's fingers, 
resisting the pressure he is applying to the wound. Each drop 
that escapes is another drop in favor of the one who released 
the bullet. Each inhalation that gets lost inside the ripped lung 
is another breath of air for the insect that made the lives of so 
many a living hell. 

Could it be his ancient enemy's body struggling with death 
under his hands? The satisfaction he might have felt before is 
missing, and so is every other emotion. Even the rage that has 
been churning inside him, the need for revenge, is gone.

There is nothing.

The voices of medics fill the emptiness, and their hands push 
him to the side. Mulder straightens up and walks wearily to 
Samantha's room. No need to hurry. She doesn't wait for him 
any longer. 

She never has.

If the room is this immaculate, if there are no signs of 
struggle, if her body is not prostrate on the cold floor of the 
cell, then she has gone away willingly, leaving him behind.

Mulder reaches for a tall crystal pitcher, brimming full of 
water, fumbles with a glass. He can't position it correctly, his 
hands shake, and the pitcher is suddenly too heavy to hold. It 
erupts on the floor into drops of water and pieces of crystal, 
the two matters almost indistinguishable from each other. The 
fluorescent light plays with the gems splattered with red, and 
he looks at his hands, still stained with the smoker's blood.

A memory comes unbidden of his mother tugging at the string 
of pearls around her throat, of his father trying to restrain her. 
The ivory beads spill from her fingers and roll as they fall to 
the floor. Three months after Samantha's disappearance, the 
panic attacks are only increasing in frequency. Fox picks up 
the beads so as not to see the sheer terror on his mother's face, 
the grim resignation on his father's.

Today, his knees crush the pieces of crystal as his hands pick 
them up.

At least, his surroundings are now more suitable to the 
occasion.

"Mulder!" 

The exclamation shakes him out of the void, and he drops the 
gems, leaving them to play under the light. 

Phillips picks him up by the shoulders, leads him to sit on the 
bed. "My god," he groans. "Sit still while I get some 
instruments in here."

"It's not my blood," Mulder mutters.

Phillips doesn't listen and disappears into the open doorway. 
Mulder looks at his palms, noticing the fragments of crystal 
embedded inside the soft flesh, the small wounds from which 
his own blood streams. Funny, he feels no pain, not until the 
doctor returns armed with bandages and tweezers, not until the 
offending objects are extracted from his skin. 

And then the wave of grief crushes him, twists his every bone, 
until he finds himself crying, the tears staining his bandaged 
hands. A grown man, once again he is reduced to a twelve-
year-old boy who lost the sister he was responsible for. 

"The security has recovered the videotape," Phillips informs 
him matter-of-factly, as if Mulder hadn't just fallen to pieces 
in front of his eyes. "You need to watch it."

Mulder nods. "If I don't find her this time..." He doesn't finish 
the sentence. 

He cannot bear to finish it.

"It's only a man," Phillips replies reassuringly. "She hasn't 
been abducted by aliens, she isn't irretrievable, and you're not 
searching for her alone anymore."

"Yes, today I have behind me an army of men who helped 
abduct my sister the first time."

The doctor flinches and silently follows Mulder into a 
darkened room where a video machine rolls through a short, 
poor quality film, over and over again, while several pairs of 
eyes scrutinize it to the smallest detail. 

Phillips gasps, his startled whisper resonating against 
Mulder's shoulder. "Jason Hart!"

The profiler whirls around. "You know him? When was the 
last time you saw him?"

"Before the El Rico disaster," the doctor replies hoarsely. "I 
thought he was dead - I was certain he was dead - he had 
always had a weak heart. One day, we were at work for thirty 
hours straight, and the strain was too much for him - he had a 
heart attack. As simple as that, and... for heaven's sake, I 
attended his funeral!"

Phillips stares at the screen in mute disbelief as the colleague 
he believed lost walks among the living. He doesn't know 
whether it's a ghost who came back for revenge or a breathing 
human being just like him, but now it no longer matters.

Either option makes him shiver in fear, fear that turns to full-
fledged horror when he turns around and sees no sign of 
Mulder.


XLV. FOLDER

All she can see is blood.

It paints the once sterile white walls in wide red slashes, pools 
on the floor, rivers flowing into oceans, and she sways on her 
feet, clutching the doorway for support. Scully does not need 
visions to tell her that she has arrived here too late.

"Mulder," the name escapes her lips, burning as it is released.
 
"He's not here."

The voice comes from behind her. Scully spins, her high heels 
squeaking on the polished floor.

The man, his unshaven face and bloodshot eyes contrasting 
with the crisp professional white of his lab coat, looks as 
startled to see Scully as she is to see him. Lines of worry 
crease his face, he does not possess her breathless panic - all 
she can sense is a sort of heavy resignation.
 
"Agent Scully?"

She blinks. "Do I know you?"

"I was told...never mind." He almost laughs. "I should know 
better by now than to listen to what I'm told." His hand, 
fingers yellow with nicotine stains, stretches out towards her. 
"Phillips," he introduces himself.

"Scully...but you knew that already. What happened here? 
Mulder...is he...?"
 
"It isn't his blood," Phillips says, following the direction of her 
gaze. "Please, we don't have much time." He motions for her 
to follow him, through another doorway and into a small 
room. A television plays what looks to be a security video. An 
overhead shot shows Samantha and two men - a confrontation. 
One of the men is a stranger to her, but a familiar revulsion 
coils inside of her as she recognizes the second to be the 
smoker.

A split second later she sees him fall, the question of the blood 
in the hallway immediately resolved. "Is he dead?" she hears 
herself ask.
 
Phillips shakes his head. "He was listed as critical the last time 
I checked."

Scully is almost relieved. There have already been too many 
deaths. "And the other man?"

"His name is Jason Hart. Up until an hour ago I thought he 
was dead...but...I've been seeing more than my share of ghosts 
these days." She can feel his eyes on her, but she refuses to 
meet his gaze. "Mulder has been profiling him for weeks."
 
Her voice is shaky when she speaks again. "Where did he 
go?"

Phillips looks at the frozen image on the screen - the smoking 
man, a bloody heap on the floor, Samantha, her eyes filled 
with terror, and Hart, his face devoid of emotion as he turns 
from the view of the camera. "He went after Jason."

She asks once more. "Where?"
 
Phillips switches off the screen. She wishes he had done it 
sooner, this final image is too much to bear. "I'm not sure. It 
could be any number of places...wherever Jason has been 
hiding all these years. Or wherever he feels he must take 
Samantha."

He must take her, Scully muses. As if he has no choice in the 
matter. Perhaps he doesn't... perhaps there has never been a 
choice. Even now she feels herself guided by invisible hands, 
pushed unwillingly towards the future.
 
"Mulder thinks you're dead," Phillips adds.

"I know." Scully is distracted. "Do you have any idea where 
they might have gone? Did Mulder say anything... give any 
indication...?"

Phillips pauses for a moment, then reaches for a folder that 
rests on top of the television screen. "As I said, Mulder has 
been assembling a profile of the killer." He shudders visibly. 
"Your killer, Agent Scully. This is what he left behind."

Scully opens the folder, eyes scanning the pages of laborious 
notes, Polaroids in lurid hues of red. Her own picture is there, 
and she shivers at the sight, her body as helpless and immobile 
as the twisted, sprawling corpses in the previous image.

"It's a moot point now," Phillips says, "although Mulder's 
profile was surprisingly accurate."

Scully turns a page. Scrawled across it is her name, again and 
again, intermingled with Samantha's - she turns to Phillips 
with a frown.

"You have to understand the amount of pressure he was 
under..."

"I need to know where they went," Scully says, quickly 
turning the paper over.

"I can't help you," Phillips replies. "Hart was stationed at a 
number of bases during the time I knew him. And there's no 
way to tell where he's been hiding all this time."

"Are all of the bases still active?"

Phillips is silent for a long time, thinking. "Not Fort Marlene. 
It was abandoned after the El Rico incident." He stares at 
Scully. "You don't think he'd choose a place so obvious to the 
organization, do you?"

"It could have simply been a matter of convenience. He-" she 
breaks off. Phillips is no longer in front of her. Instead she 
sees Mulder, on his knees in a darkened room, his face grief-
stricken as he holds up bloodstained hands.

"Agent Scully?"

She blinks up into Phillips' face, realizing that his arms, 
supporting her, are all that keeps her from falling. 
Embarrassed, he helps her stand.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I just..." The glimmer of vision gone, she reaches for the gun 
at her belt. "Mulder followed Hart to Fort Marlene. I'm 
positive of it."

He does not ask permission before he follows her.


XLVI. BLADE

The lamp flickers a few times and dims a notch. The resulting 
light is uneven and ghostly; it creates gray shadows that waver 
along the walls of the cell. Though Krycek's eyelids stay 
closed, he senses the change in surroundings, and his 
breathing quickens minutely until he understands that the 
room is still empty. Before, he was afraid of Jason or Marita 
coming back for another friendly chat. Now, he is only afraid 
of them not returning.

If they don't need him any longer, if they don't come back to 
extract more answers from him, then they have already 
succeeded, and he is the one that ensured their victory. If they 
don't come back, he cannot ask them for water. He doesn't 
blame them - forgetting about prisoners is easy when the fate 
of the world is at stake.

Krycek chokes on the acrid taste inside his mouth and tries to 
stifle the ensuing coughs. Their sharp blade seems to cut his 
chest apart. He is grateful now that his legs are bound, for 
immobility is almost a mercy. It is not the bonds that 
incarcerate him, but the weakness of his upper body, the 
hastily treated shoulder that, he now realizes, was only 
bandaged to prevent the loss of blood and keep him alive.

Before slipping back inside the protected shelter of his 
dreams, he marvels briefly at the perseverance of the human 
body. It endures more than it should, more than he has ever 
imagined possible. Death is never easy, and today she forgets 
about him just as everyone else has. She leaves him alone with 
the apparitions that dwell within these walls.

"What has he done to you?"

Krycek isn't surprised that one of them should have a voice of 
the man he betrayed. He is only bewildered at the absence of 
anger in the words that it speaks. He keeps his eyes closed for 
fear that this dream should end too quickly. Ghosts, after all, 
have a tendency to melt away. 

The response comes almost against his will. "You shouldn't 
be here."

"Oh, Alex." 

Mulder's regretful whisper disrupts the stale atmosphere. 
Then, his voice moves away, and Krycek feels the bonds fall 
away from his feet as the penknife severs them. This presence 
is too palpable, too human to be a spirit. The fingers of his 
right hand are enclosed in the warm flesh of another, and he 
wonders why this vision should be so real. Or why the fingers 
that hold him are dressed in bandages.

"How..." Each sound awakens the hurt in his ruined cheek. He 
ignores it. "How did you find this place?"

"I was looking for my sister," Mulder answers softly, the 
urgency of the statement buried deep beneath the layers of 
concern that could almost be called friendly. "I guess my 
intuition still works."

Krycek moans at the confirmation of his worst suspicions. 
"You were supposed to be kept safe... together..." he whispers. 
"Shouldn't have... let you go."

After several beats of silence, his fingers are released from 
Mulder's grip, and he is certain that the dream has finished. 
There comes an end to any torment, physical or emotional. His 
eyes open wide when he finally hears an answer.

"I worked with them for the last few weeks, looking for the 
men behind the murders."

The prisoner searches Mulder's face and swallows dry air. 
"The old man got you, didn't he?"

His visitor turns away from the penetrating gaze, full of 
lamentation if not judgment. "No," he denies firmly. "The 
spider did."

Krycek trembles slightly, decides that he must have misheard 
the words. "I'm sorry," he says instead. "I was..." The pain is 
suddenly unbearable, and he throws his head to the side, 
grinds his teeth to withstand it.

"Don't talk," Mulder tells him, urgently. 

But he needs to speak now, before he loses his courage, before 
he cannot speak any longer. "I was the one who told Hart 
where he could find Samantha. I...didn't..." he searches for a 
way to explain, but it dies on his tongue. "Please forgive me."

It is almost an eternity before Krycek feels the touch of lips 
placing a careful kiss on his forehead. His eyes pose a numb 
question.

"It doesn't matter," Mulder injects a smile into his answer, 
then repeats it, with more belief, "it doesn't matter."

"Don't underestimate Hart," Krycek hurries to warn him. His 
voice is growing weaker, and now he struggles to stay awake, 
at least long enough to explain the dangers of the trap that he 
was caught in.

"I'll be careful," Mulder promises noncommittally. "Hang on 
until I come back."

"Don't underestimate Marita, either," Krycek adds, but the 
reply never comes. With an effort, he opens his eyes and sees 
the unlocked door through which his visitor has walked away. 
If not for the freed legs, he would almost believe that it was 
only a dream.

He slips back into unconsciousness, but even in sleep the 
dreadful feeling of foreboding envelops him. 

Mulder won't fulfill his last promise.

End Part 12/15

Part 13/15

XLVII. CLAM

Marita wakes to the sound of voices. Trembling, she pulls the 
blanket around her shoulders and stumbles to the door. 
Locked. The voices are faint, and they come from somewhere 
far beyond the other side of the door - she dimly recognizes 
them, but the memory is transient, ephemeral.

"Alex?" She does not realize that she spoke the name aloud 
until she hears the pleading in her own voice.
 
She pulls back as a beep indicates the slide of Hart's 
identification card releasing the lock. The blanket trailing 
behind her, she sits back down on the bed.

"Jason." Marita is relieved. There is still a chance that Krycek 
is already dead. She hopes so. But if this is the case, Hart does 
not mention it.

"I brought someone," he says as he enters.
 
She closes her eyes, opens them again, and then he is in the 
room. Beside him is a woman, as thin and frightened as Marita 
herself, a shadow beneath long, curling hair.

Samantha looks better than Marita expected. She had for 
whatever reason imagined Mulder's features on the frame of a 
female face, and somehow the image was less than appealing. 
Then again, perhaps her standards have changed, perhaps 
anything is more beautiful than what she sees now - the lines 
that force Hart's mouth into a perpetual frown, the memory of 
her own gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, the broken body of an 
old lover in a room down the hall. To see a human being, alive 
and whole, is a novelty.
 
She does not know what to say, and so she does not speak at 
all, acknowledging Samantha only with a slight nod. The other 
woman smiles. There is something child-like about her, open, 
and Marita wants to clam up, to bury herself beneath the 
blankets and hide from this creature, this thing tainted by 
inhuman hands. Samantha has no right to smile.

"She saved my life," Hart says. "I tried to kill her but..."

Marita rises, unsure of what her next action will be.

"She can save you, too..."

She wonders if he is aware of how ridiculous he sounds, like 
some cheap televangelist, like a hypnosis subject. She watches 
his hastily bandaged hand that now has only three fingers, and 
knows that he doesn't even notice the pain when he 
gesticulates with it widely. She searches his face for any trace 
of irony, and finding none, stands trembling before him.
 
How can he suggest that everything against which they have 
fought, symbolized in this woman, everything for which they 
have bled, have killed, how can he begin to believe that it 
could somehow be their salvation? How is it that this man, 
who has shared so much of her pain, can crumble to pieces 
before her very eyes? How could he be such a fool?

"She says that it won't happen," he continues. "Colonization. 
It was a plan by the aliens from the beginning...nothing more 
than a test, a fire drill..."
 
Marita laughs. Hart looks injured. But he cannot possibly 
believe... Samantha is no more than a conduit, a voice for the 
colonists. Her lies are their lies. And Marita will not accept 
that a fifty-year struggle has overnight become meaningless, a 
joke at the expense of all of humanity. But he is still talking, 
telling her that the game is finished, that the battle has been 
won before it has even begun, that the missing ones have been 
returned as a gesture of goodwill and peace.

And he does not see her reach for the gun beneath the pillow.
 
"It's over, Marita," he says, and his eyes glimmer with the 
light of bliss.

She exchanges a subtle glance with Samantha, then looks 
down at the weapon in her hand.

"Yes," Marita says. "Of course it is."


XLVIII. INK

Phillips wishes that he had spent last night at home instead of 
staying at work and catching a couple of hours of intermittent 
sleep on the couch in his office. He hasn't spoken to his family 
in days, always coming home too late and leaving too early. 
His wife no longer waits up for him and doesn't awaken when 
he kisses her sleeping form. His boy and girl, seven-year-old 
twins, no longer quarrel over whose bed he gets to sit on while 
telling a bedtime story. He is becoming a shadow even before 
his death.

It is rather fitting, considering that he is about to confront a 
ghost. He is not a soldier, he hardly knows what to do with the 
weapon which Scully pulls out of the glove compartment and 
thrusts at him. He doubts that he will be much help to her. But 
he needs to understand what pushes a man, a man just like 
him, to turn into a killer. And only Jason Hart can answer this 
question.

Perhaps, he has a lesson to learn from him. Perhaps, he can 
crush the seeds of hatred that are already blossoming in his 
own heart, if he can only see the living embodiment of their 
growth.

The woman beside him pushes on the gas, again, and glides 
the car like an arrow between other vehicles on the highway. 
Except for a laconic phone call to Skinner, "Fort Marlene, 
now," she hasn't uttered a word, and Phillips is thankful for 
her silence. He concentrates on finding the strength to witness 
more pain, more deaths.

The day is still young.

Scully pulls to a harsh stop beside two lonely cars in front of 
the abandoned building. He runs after her towards the 
entrance, through the badly lit halls, while awkwardly trying 
to fit the gun into his back pocket. By the time he catches up 
to her, he is already out of breath, and at first he doesn't hear 
the low moan that comes from an open doorway to their right. 
Scully wavers, as if terrified of what she will find behind door 
number one, then readies her gun and enters.

Phillips looks over her shoulder into the room and knows that 
Dr. Jason Hart has no lessons left to teach him. That the man 
they're hunting has no heart left to spare, that the disease 
which should have killed him a long time ago has eaten 
through his core, transforming him into a monster, a carcass 
made of bones and flesh that only appears human on the 
outside.

Bloodstains, black like ink, seem to cover the floor and walls 
of the gray room. At first, Phillips would almost like to believe 
that the man who lies on the bed in the corner is dead; it would 
be easier to bear. But the bloody figure moans again, and 
Phillips recognizes Alex Krycek, a man he never particularly 
liked or respected. And he also remembers the reason why he 
wanted to become a medic - to alleviate the suffering of 
anyone in need, to stop the pain in its tracks by any available 
means, be it surgery or morphine.

Scully staggers backward. "This is...this is the room I've seen 
before."

He pushes her into the hall, gently. "I'll try to help him. You 
need to find the others."

She closes her eyes, as if trying to forget what they've found, 
and visibly collects herself. "Thank you," she whispers 
gratefully and walks away, never turning around. 

Phillips returns to the bloodstained room and kneels beside 
Krycek. As his fingers wander over the broken body, assessing 
the injuries, he wishes he had brought his medical bag with 
him. The ever-present package of Valium in his breast pocket 
will not help today.

"Water," Krycek whispers hoarsely. 

Two green eyes, wide open and burning with pain, look across 
the room at the sink. The doctor is dismayed to find him 
awake, but obeys and brings back a paper cup with water that 
smells weakly of rust and decay. Krycek seems to faint right 
after he stops drinking, and Phillips is startled when fingers 
covered in black tracks of blood clutch his hand.

"Help me stand."

"You're delirious," the doctor shakes his head. "You should 
remain immobile until we're able to get a medical unit in 
here."

Krycek grimaces. "It's hard...to talk...just help me," he 
emphasizes. "Please."

"What's so important?" Phillips tries to subdue his patient. 
"What is it you need to do?"

The undamaged part of the young man's face smiles. "I need 
to see Hart die."

Phillips searches for arguments to rebuff the statement and 
comes up short. He grasps the injured man around the waist 
and pulls him to the sitting position, then practically holds him 
upright. Krycek sways but somehow holds steady. 

"Ready?" the doctor asks, and sees a nod in return. "Let's go."

Phillips isn't sure when the moment comes in which the ache 
of the man in his arms seeps into him. He only wishes that he 
had spent last night at home.


IL. GRAPE

He always recognizes the men he profiles. He can pick them 
out of a line-up relying on nothing more than intuition, a 
weapon even more formidable than his sharp intellect. And 
yet, Mulder doesn't recognize Dr. Jason Hart, at first. Not until 
the black eyes shift predatorily, not until the drawn face tenses 
in anticipation of attack, does he identify the spider in the 
center of his formidable web, its tangles and knots 
commanded by these wiry gray hands. 

Then, it is easier to aim the gun, to ignore the snarl of a black-
haired woman he vaguely recognizes, and even to tune out the 
terrified whimper of his sister.

"Agent Mulder." The beseeching words are a rush of water 
over the stone, too insignificant to be taken into consideration. 
"I wish her no harm."

Ever so slowly and deliberately, Mulder tightens his finger on 
the trigger and watches Hart grip Samantha more desperately, 
more tightly. 

"I brought her here because she could cure the woman I love," 
Hart pleads. "Just a few minutes is all I need. I'll let her go 
then."

Mulder doesn't care to process the meaning of what he hears. 
"Just let her go," he demands. "You have no right to ask for 
mercy."

"I only ask for understanding. All that I've done, I've done to 
prevent colonization." Hart extends a bandaged hand in a 
gesture of entreaty. "We're alike."

The sharp tug on the heart is sickeningly familiar, but he 
ignores it forcefully. Days ago, months ago, he might have 
believed the similarity. The only difference between them 
would have been the number of lives taken in order to achieve 
the same goal. Today, he remains deaf to the plea of the 
spider.

Surprisingly, Hart releases Samantha, as if to show his good 
will. She stands in the middle of the room, wary of walking in 
either direction, and Mulder reaches out to pull her closer, 
assuring himself of her reality, even if the delay makes him 
more vulnerable. 

"Agent Mulder, I beg you," Hart points in the direction of the 
woman in the corner who stands unmoving, watching the 
proceedings with bloodshot eyes. "I want...I need her to be 
well again."

Mulder's aim doesn't waver, nor does his determination, but 
just before the bullet is about to be released, Samantha's voice 
stops him. 

"Fox, don't," she pleads. "Don't kill this man." Gently, she 
takes his right hand and pushes it down, subverting him both 
physically and emotionally. "I will come with you."

"Why did you leave me, Sam?" Mulder whispers. 

Confused, his sister shakes her head. "I didn't," she denies. "I 
only wanted to see the sky."

He accepts it as the truth, allows his gun to tumble out of his 
hands, and forgives himself for losing her, even if he still can't 
forgive Hart. Awakening from the nightmare, hazel eyes blink 
and change shade, and see, for the first time, the glistening 
metal in the corner where the black-haired woman stands, 
prepared to fire. This war, as any other, will be lost with a 
single bullet.

It takes so little time.

One, and he shifts positions with Samantha.

Two, and he notes nonsensically that Hart's hand starts to 
bleed profusely.

Three, and he falls on the floor, suddenly unable to stand.

If death brings with it the images of those he loves, Mulder 
doesn't mind dying. Scully's face is contorted in agony, and he 
tries to tell her that she needn't grieve, but instead of 
reassuring words, only a trickle of blood is released from the 
corner of his mouth. He notices the broken figure of Krycek, 
leaning bonelessly against Phillips, his face streaked with 
blood and tears. He has the time to sympathize with Skinner's 
aghast paralysis. He even hears dimly the betrayed moan of 
Jason Hart, directed at the woman who fired the gun.

Curious still as to her identity, Mulder concentrates on her 
features and tries to remember. She shakes her head, 
disoriented, and he knows that she can't see. Blindly, she 
touches her eyes and pushes them inward in a desperate 
attempt to make them work. One of them doesn't take the 
pressure and, like a ripe grape, it tears apart, giving way to a 
stream of dark blood pouring down her cheek. Strange that 
only then does he recognize Marita Covarrubias.

With Samantha's arms wrapped around him, Mulder feels safe 
enough to close his eyes for good.


L. LAP

The crack of a gunshot startles her, and for an instant she is 
not in the garden. She is in a cold, gray room, and people are 
bleeding all around her.

Samantha gasps, sways where she stands. She does not 
recognize the faces around her. She sees a woman with blood 
instead of eyes, and she sees her brother lying on the floor, his 
chest torn by the impact of the bullet.
 
She reaches him before Scully does, drawing his broken body 
into her lap, leans in close in enough time to feel the last 
whisper of breath leave his lips. There is no goodbye, no final 
word, only the roll of his head to one side, as if to 
acknowledge defeat. The gray world, of which she is now 
painfully aware, has become unfrozen around her.

It takes only a moment for Scully to wrench her partner's body 
away from Samantha, to attempt to force the breath back into 
lungs that no longer breathe, to try to summon back by science 
what the bullet has taken. It takes only a moment for Skinner 
to twist Marita's arms behind her back, in a futile gesture 
towards order and justice, when the flowers in the garden are 
dying, and the world has gone mad.
 
She hears Scully cry out - only once - and she reaches out to 
grasp the other woman's hand.

"Let go," Samantha whispers.

"I...I..." Scully is drenched in Mulder's blood. "I can't." 
Helplessly, she meets Samantha's eyes. "I can't."

Samantha smiles sadly. "Neither could he."

It takes almost no effort on her part to brush Scully away, to 
brush them all away. The gray walls fold in on each other and 
they are alone, brother and sister, and the flowers have all shed 
their petals.
 
Every garden has its season.

"Thank you," Samantha murmurs, "Thank you for never 
letting go."

She covers his face with her hands, then draws them away. His 
eyes are open, looking up into her face. He does not speak. 
They do not need words, not here, not anymore. Somewhere 
between sleeping and waking, between death and life, they 
understand each other perfectly.

He sits up to take her hands in both of his, then nods, slowly. 
This is the last time they will ever see each other face to face. 
This is the goodbye they never had.
 
She wants to tell him not to be afraid. Scully is waiting for 
him, and the others too. And Samantha will be here in the 
springtime, to watch the flowers bloom again.

But he is not afraid. He pulls her into his arms and holds her 
so tightly she is afraid he will crush her. His lips brush the top 
of her hair and she melts into this last embrace. He does not 
cry. He knows as well as she does that this is her place, that it 
always has been.
 
And so he stands, still holding her hands, his eyes surveying 
the devastation around him, muddied, trampled ground, dead 
branches and wilted leaves. They have eaten fire, and now the 
rain is beginning to fall, a soft mist that will wash the blood 
and ashes away.

"Goodbye, Samantha," he says at last.

"Goodbye, Fox."
 
She watches him leave, turning slowly back towards the cold, 
gray world that she is grateful to have left behind. But he 
belongs there, and she is happy for him.

He turns back to his place, and then Samantha turns back to 
hers, retracing her muddy steps back to where, if she looks 
very hard, she can almost see the traces of green.

End Part 13/15

Part 14/15

LI. PAGE

Scully could have called him a few minutes earlier, he could 
have broken a few more speed laws, and he could have run 
down the barely lit corridors a little faster. Still, he will have 
been late, a thousand times too late, always fated to witness 
this scene post-fact. On the stage, a hero will fall down, a 
villain will be stricken with remorse, and witnesses to this 
bloody act will weep. 

Skinner is the only one left to pass the judgment, the only 
player who isn't otherwise occupied. It is punishment enough 
for his lack of action, the ultimate penalty for losing the game. 
And now, the drama must play out its wrenching coda, the last 
page must be read before the book is closed.

He disturbs no one. He interrupts no concluding speeches. 

Skinner simply walks towards the woman who fired the gun 
and wrenches her hands away from her bleeding eyes, then 
locks handcuffs around her wrists. Accidentally, he brushes 
his fingers against her skin and flinches, repulsed. "You have 
the right to remain silent," he reads from the script. "Anything 
you say may be used against you..."

Marita doesn't resist. "Jason," she calls pitifully in the general 
direction of the stick-thin man who surveys the devastation 
around him as if caught in a trance. "Did I kill her, Jason?"

Hart retreats from her, betrayal in his eyes, even though he 
still extends one shaking hand towards his lover, an invocation 
- a goodbye. His other hand reaches inside his pocket and 
searches for something nervously. Skinner doubts that this 
man presents any danger now, somehow comprehends that if 
the villain could, he would do anything to correct his crimes, 
anything to reverse the flow of time. But the goddess of justice 
has always been blind, and as her servant, he foregoes 
compassion and, for the lack of another pair of handcuffs, 
starts to bind Hart's wrists.

"Fifty-one," the criminal says calmly. 

Skinner doesn't know why these two innocent words unlock 
such terror within him. "You have the right to remain silent," 
he replies unsteadily. 

"Seventy-six."

Skinner misses a beat, then continues. "Anything you say may 
be used against you in a court of law..."

Hart glances at the group of players on the ground and smiles 
in sudden wonder. "Ninety-eight," he garbles.

It takes a few moments for Skinner to realize that he is holding 
a corpse. The frozen eyes are still open, the paralyzed legs are 
still standing firm, and the lips still maintain that incongruous 
smile of relief. But the ears no longer hear the anguished cry 
of the woman who begs for his attention.

"Jason? Jason!" Marita cries, and the first tear shed for the 
dead man is colored in red.

Skinner doesn't listen. Sensing that the scenario was altered 
somehow and actors weren't alerted to the last-minute 
changes, he turns his eyes toward the fallen agent and his 
partner. Perhaps, somewhere before the preordained end of the 
tragedy, the last page has been rewritten by merciful fates. 

The once-dead body is released from Samantha's hands, and 
the gaping chest wound is now closed, the blood that poured 
from it the only proof of its previous existence. The eyes that 
were never supposed to see again are wide open, the hands 
that were never supposed to move reach out for the small 
woman kneeling beside him. And she returns the embrace, 
never questioning the miracle granted to her.

"You're alive," comes a whisper from the lips that were never 
supposed to speak.

"You're alive," Scully echoes, her face tranquil.

Things have been set right, and Skinner doesn't ask for the 
reasons, he only rejoices in the results.

"Compound four hundred seventy-eight," Alex Krycek rasps 
out of sync, unmistakably satisfied. Throwing one last 
reassured glance at Mulder, he promptly passes out. 

Skinner doesn't want to divine the meaning of his words, nor 
does he pay attention to Phillips' incredulous exclamation. He 
releases the dead man from his hands, lets him fall to the floor 
like a poorly sewn bag of bones, and sits down, thankful to 
have a respite from the crushing pain in his chest.

So relieved he is to see Scully's crying come to a stop and 
Mulder breathing again that he never even notices the 
motionless chest of the agent's sister.


LII. BILL

They have cleaned up the premises, washed the blood from the 
floor, and condemned the building to demolition. They have 
sanitized, sterilized, pried bullets from the walls and run test 
after test, transforming the scene of the murder into cold, flat 
numbers on a piece of paper.

All that remains is a mother's grief.

She hides it well, as she has always done, folding it and 
placing it in a box she can access at a later time. She has one 
last duty to perform before she can let go, before she can 
weep.

Teena Mulder crosses the hallway with purposeful strides, 
stopping dead as she reaches the private hospital room. She 
touches her face, as if to adjust the mask that has placed itself 
there.

And then she opens the door.

She has never seen a fallen empire before, and she is not 
certain of what to expect. Rubble, smoking ashes perhaps? 
Certainly not this - the steady beep of a heart monitor, the 
sterile white of sheets and walls, the ammonia scent of 
polished floors.

Haltingly, she walks towards the man on the bed, pulling up a 
chair to sit beside him. He sleeps, unaware of her presence. 
Unconscious, without his ever-present cigarette, without his 
aura of control, he seems brittle, fragile. Teena reaches for his 
hand, threading her fingers through his.

"Samantha is dead," she whispers.

His eyes flutter open, then widen in surprise when he sees her. 
Before he can open his mouth, she shakes her head.

"Don't talk." She runs her hand along the side of his face, and 
he leans his head into her palm, closing his eyes again. 
"Hurts?"

He nods.

"Then perhaps you can understand. What it's like...to lose 
her." Teena pauses, and as if for emphasis adds, "Again."

She feels him shudder. "I know I shouldn't blame you," she 
says quickly. "I know...you did all you could. But..." The tears 
come unbidden, an onslaught against her cheeks, and she 
buries her face on the edge of the bed to hide them. She weeps 
for all of them, for her daughter, lost and found and lost again, 
for her son and his sad, futile quest, for the man who lies silent 
on the bed, now painfully aware that all of his plans, all of his 
sacrifices, were for nothing.

A part of her has always known it would end like this. She 
cannot remember a time before either of them was broken.

"I talked to Fox last night," she says when the tears subside. 
"We...haven't talked for a long time. Not like that...not since 
the first time Samantha...was gone." She wonders if he is 
listening. She wonders if it matters. "We were never really as 
close as we should have been."
 
He is listening. She can tell. Vaguely encouraged, she keeps 
talking. "We spoke a lot about Sam, of course...about what 
happened...and the past...about Bill..." He blinks up at her. 
"About you."

There is a peace in defeat, Teena thinks. The smoker must 
realize this as well, that he is now a man without 
responsibilities, without burdens. They have each given a 
lifetime, but there is a certainty that comes with the knowledge 
that, though the battle is lost, at least it is over.
 
"But I didn't come here to talk to you about Sam," she says. 
"You know that, don't you? I only came to ask you...no." She 
meets his eyes. "To *tell* you to let Fox go."

He makes no response, and she continues, "I know it's in your 
power. The game is over...and they've all suffered enough. I 
can't lose another child. I won't." Almost absentmindedly, she 
brushes her hand over the quietly beeping monitor. "Do you 
understand?"

It is a long time before he speaks, and his voice is raw, 
strained. "I can let him go," he says, "but he won't give up."

Teena folds her hands together and looks away. Her son will 
never be safe, and all the power in the world will not protect 
him. His struggle will continue, without Samantha, without the 
smoker, maybe even without the aliens, and there is nothing 
she could ever have done.

A mother's grief. She has always had her own struggles.

"Good enough," she says.

"Teena...I..."

She reaches over and pats his hand. "You shouldn't try to 
talk," she says, then, "There is all the time in the world." 
Moving to get up, she says, "I should be going."

"You can stay."

Teena freezes for a moment, then sinks back into the chair. 
She has nowhere to be tonight, nowhere to go. And they are 
already in fragments - neither of them can be broken any 
further.

She is almost unaware of leaning over him, brushing her lips 
against his forehead - the gesture comes instinctively, 
involuntarily. "I'll stay," she agrees.

Perhaps some battles are not lost forever.


LIII. BREAD

The hospital room is unlike many others: it has no bright 
bouquets of flowers, no cheerful balloons with various wishes 
for swift recuperation. Its inhabitant has no friends or relatives 
who would visit him at this time. Most of his colleagues are 
dead. And, after all, the absence of adornments doesn't matter 
so much - survival has always been prize enough.

Mulder tries to understand how he wound up being the only 
person to visit Krycek. He sits on the bedside chair and waits 
for the heavily bandaged man to awaken. Mentally, he adds 
each new scar on this too-thin body to the list of injuries and 
deaths he should have been able to prevent. His hindsight, 
especially ruthless upon completing each hunt, reminds him 
sharply of his mistakes, of every minute he spent wallowing in 
self-pity that should have been spent instead on constructing a 
better profile.

The profile that Krycek didn't even need to recognize the 
killer.

"Alex," he forces a smile when the green eyes open. 
Receiving no acknowledgment and no greeting in return, he 
procures something brown and small from his pocket, lets it 
fall on the white sheets. "I...brought you a gift."

"It's a rat." The voice is unrecognizable, transformed by the 
rewired jaw and layers of gauze that cover part of the pale 
face. Fingers move weakly and stop, unable to reach it.

"Actually, it's Tiptoe the Mouse," Mulder corrects the mistake 
and places the toy directly in Krycek's right hand that still 
hasn't regained its range of motion. "A beanie baby."

Perhaps it is the image of the federal agent, most recently a 
Consortium consultant, buying a beanie baby that finally 
places a smile on Krycek's damaged face. Perhaps, it is that 
smile that ultimately reminds Mulder of where he is and 
whom he is visiting, and makes him question his actions.

He paces the room, too anxious to stay, too ashamed to leave, 
while Krycek's eyes patiently track his movements.

"Mulder, you're making me dizzy."

Guiltily, he stops and comes back to sit by the bed, reminds 
himself that he has come here to visit an ailing colleague, 
someone who sacrificed flesh and blood to see Samantha and 
him survive. All in vain. 

"How is Scully?" Krycek asks, displaying no interest in the 
subject.

"I haven't seen her since the funeral," Mulder replies and 
ignores the fleeting look of compassion he gets in return. He 
has spent the last few days in a peculiar state of denial and 
awareness, knowing with certainty that Samantha is gone, yet 
more than ever convinced of her presence. If he closes his 
eyes and extends his hand, he will feel her. He only needs to 
concentrate hard enough.

"I'm glad...it wasn't yours," Krycek whispers wistfully. "How 
lucky you are."

"To have survived?"

"To have had such a sister."

Mulder reaches out to touch the other man's hand and stops 
himself halfway. "I've heard a fairy tale," he starts softly. 
"Once upon a time, there lived a man who met someone he 
thought was a friend. A partner, even." He leans back in the 
chair and closes his eyes, remembering. "Days later, he was 
beginning to trust this partner. Weeks later, he hoped that he 
might give a rest to his justifiable paranoia. But then 
something happened, this friend turned into an enemy...and 
the man realized that he should have never entertained such 
silly notions as friendship and trust. So, even though the 
enemy later had almost sacrificed his life for this man, it 
wasn't enough. And it could never be enough."

Krycek receives the blow with eyes open wide and doesn't 
respond for a long time. His fingers rake through the brown 
fur of the toy. "I used to have a white pet rat when I was 
little," he recounts absently. "This one is different."

"How?" Mulder asks.

"The real one had sharp teeth. It would sink them into each 
little piece of bread I fed it. This one can't bite," Krycek 
explains. "Like me."

"Well," Mulder stands up abruptly. The sudden weariness that 
pulls him downward is hard to fight, and he leans against the 
door with all his weight. "I've always been lousy with finding 
the right gifts."

He meets Dr. Phillips a few feet away from Krycek's door and 
loses his fingers in the tight handshake. "How are you?" he 
asks perfunctorily.

"Have you ever woken up," Phillips asks excitedly, "and 
thought that this day would change your life?"

Mulder finds himself smiling, so infectious is this enthusiasm. 
"I certainly hoped for it every morning."

"I'm being let go," the doctor shares. He looks around the 
sanitized hospital hall with the eyes of a reborn man, one who 
suddenly sees all that life has to offer him. "I might even apply 
for a job here."

"Congratulations, then."

The response is measured and dispassionate, but Phillips 
doesn't take notice of it. "Today is the last day of my work at 
Wiekamp, just settling a few formalities here and there," he 
continues before he realizes that Mulder is gone. Briefly 
unsettled, he walks several steps to the room of the man he 
came to visit, glad to have a potentially receptive audience to 
hear of his happy news.

The words freeze on his lips when he sees tears tracing uneven 
tracks down the patient's face, and the small toy mouse who 
watches them with inanimate interest.


LIV. RAKE

Angela McCarthy watches the woman out of the corner of her 
vision. She has other inmates to supervise, and this is the one 
least likely to escape. Blood still seeps through the gauze 
covering her eyes, drying in dark patches before Angela can 
call the warden, or the doctor, to come and replace the 
bandages. She knows the stitches would not keep breaking if 
the prisoner left them alone, but it does no good to remind the 
woman of this - she seems as deaf as she is blind.

She knows the woman's name, but seldom uses it. The sound 
of it drives the prisoner into a fit of rage. She throws herself 
against the walls of her cell and her fingers rake the thin layer 
of paint, she howls in misery and pulls at her black hair, now 
beginning to show blond at the roots. Angela pitied her, at the 
beginning. Now she can only feel fear.

The guard has heard only fragments of the story that has 
brought the woman to this place. She knows that
Marita Covarrubias, once Special Representative to the 
Secretary General of the United Nations, is facing a charge of 
first-degree murder in the death of another woman. She knows 
that the victim was the younger sister of a federal agent. She 
knows that after firing the fatal shot, the woman plucked out 
her own eyes, then allowed herself to be quietly led away.

She glances through the tiny window, the only source of light 
in the maximum-security cell. Marita is unusually quiet, 
awake, tracing her hands over the walls. Still unaccustomed to 
life without vision, she stumbles as she walks, a frail, thin 
shadow in a darkened room. Satisfied, Angela moves on to the 
next cell, trying to forget the image that has burned itself into 
her mind.

It is a Greek tragedy, only she cannot remember which one. 
The woman is Oedipus, blindness penance for her crimes, 
stumbling off into the mountains to wander for all eternity - or 
is she Antigone, burning and resilient until the end? 
Regardless of the name, Angela has already released her to 
fate. Aware of her own place at the margins of this story, she 
knows that there is nothing she can do to change the way the 
drama will play itself out.

She is surprised to hear the woman speak. In the days that she 
has been here, Marita has not uttered a single coherent word. 
Now she is whispering as she clutches the wall, murmuring 
names in her reed-thin voice.

"Jason..."

"Alex..."

"Samantha..."

Intrigued, Angela draws closer, her eye to the window. Marita 
continues her intonations, oblivious to her silent observer. 
Tears of red drip across her cheeks below the white bandages. 
She drapes herself over the single bed in the corner of the 
room, streaks of blood across the pillowcase.

The guard shakes her head. Prison is the wrong place for such 
a wretched creature. She should relinquish
Marita to a mental institution, or, as she decides is more 
appropriate, the mountains of Thebes. But she has no say in 
the matter, and she continues her walk down the long corridor.

Her steps are punctuated by each whisper. The litany of names 
continues, until the last plea, "Forgive me..."

Angela hears the snap before the meaning sinks in - she spins 
on her heels and runs to the door, the keys twisting in the lock 
a moment too late as she enters to see the thin body dangling 
from the ceiling, the bloodstained sheets knotted around her 
neck. Standing on the bed, Angela can barely reach to untie 
her, but perseverance rewards, and she feels the limp form 
collapse against her.

Before the prison guard can look into the woman's pale face, 
she already knows that she has acted too late. Marita's 
breathing is shallow, each inhale seemingly half of the last. 
Angela yells out for help, then leans close as she sees the 
bloodless lips form a semblance of words.

"We...are all...happy now..." Marita Covarrubias says.

"Yes," Angela replies, "I suppose we are."

When, moments later, Marita takes her final breath, there is no 
need to even close her eyes.

End Part 14/15

Part 15/15

LV. LEAF

The smoker spends much of his time looking out the window 
of his room. Outside, summer dresses the hospital grounds 
into a bright outfit, full of reds and yellows of well-groomed 
flowers, punctuated by juicy greens of leaves. Soon, when he 
can walk without help, he will take a trip downstairs, to be 
closer to this splendor. If this is what retirement is like, he 
might grow to like it.

He tears his eyes away from the glass for long enough to 
glance at his visitor. "What did you say?"

"I said," Mulder repeats with barely restrained impatience, 
"that I quit."

"Such poor manners," the smoker admonishes. "Perhaps you 
should first ask after my health?"

Mulder searches his face inquisitively and chuckles. "You 
don't think we've become friends now, do you?"

He feels a pang of regret. Like a resourceful hunter, he put 
many a trap in the way of this exotic bird, and now he has to 
see it fly away again. Perhaps, this is the only way it can be: 
Mulder will never break, will always find a way out of any 
cage in which he might find himself. And now... now that the 
smoker discovers his life's purpose taken away, he will bear 
this burden alone.

"You fulfilled the terms of our contract, and I'm grateful," he 
says, cautiously indifferent. "I'm sure Assistant Director 
Skinner will be delighted to restore your status at the FBI."

His visitor grants him a surprised look, not having expected 
this to be easy, and the smoker suppresses a smile. "We're 
enemies again, you needn't fulfill any obligations here."

Mulder leans against the wall. "Thank you." His voice is low. 
"For trying to save Samantha...and for giving me a chance to 
fight instead of hiding."

The smoker nods and wonders if the younger man realizes 
how they both have changed. They may be mortal enemies 
again, but instead of trading gunshots, they are now 
exchanging gratitude. "You're welcome," he says simply.

There is a determined knock on the door, and he calls out, 
"Come in." Somehow, he is not surprised to see Dana Scully, 
whose calm blue eyes settle warily first on his face, then on 
Mulder's. 

"I came to ask you to let him go," she says softly. "But 
something tells me I'm not the first one."

"No," the smoker closes his eyes for a moment, immeasurably 
tired. "You're third. Agent Mulder is blessed with people 
looking out for his best interest."

They take each other's hands, and he can see the remnants of 
desperation in the gesture. In the wake of their respective 
resurrections, he isn't surprised at the over-protectiveness and 
need. Silently, he wishes them many years of successful 
partnership, and doubts right away that his wish will come 
true. Neither of them is made for a quiet life. Neither of them 
is destined to die of old age. 

And Samantha is no longer alive to fix the fatal accidents.

In a way, the smoker supposes, she was never meant to come 
back, never meant to exist in this world. Though he couldn't 
find the connection with the young woman, didn't know 
where to even begin, he'd always felt that she was not one of 
them. Judging by the resignation he notices in both Mulder 
and Scully, they realize it as well. Then why can't he force 
himself to say goodbye?

"Thank you," Scully reiterates and shares a glance with 
Mulder. Together, they walk out the door, without backward 
glances, without extra words. 

The smoker watches them stroll through the yard, two figures 
clad in gray among the bright green leaves. Tomorrow, he 
thinks before drifting off to sleep. Tomorrow he will tread the 
same path.


LVI. WEED

Scully accepts the manila folder from Skinner and skims 
quickly over the facts of the new case, then passes it to 
Mulder. There is a comfort in this ritual, in its ageless 
familiarity. The storm swept through their lives, but the X-
Files department is still open, they still work together, and 
their old boss still lectures them on proper conduct in the same 
fifth-floor office. The only reminders of recent upheaval are in 
their memories, in the occasional phone call tinged in 
unfounded anxiety. 

She watches Skinner stand up and walk a few feet toward a 
wall cabinet. Opening it abruptly, he plucks the miniature 
digital camera out of its bowels, like a weed from a well-
tended greenhouse, drops it on the floor and smashes it with a 
shoe for good measure. Satisfied, he listens to the glass and 
metal moan in mortal agony. And then, as if it's a most normal 
occurrence, he returns to the table and postulates, "That will 
be all, Agents."

The customary surly frown on his face is replaced by a faint 
smile, and Scully returns it involuntarily, the old trust 
reaffirmed.

Perhaps, some things do change.

Back in the basement, Mulder opens up the blinds on the high-
placed windows and lets in a bit of sunlight. Its rays explore 
the small room tentatively, and Scully closes her eyes in 
remembrance of another place, another time, that seems so 
close and yet can only be reached in her dreams. The garden, 
once destroyed, is now blossoming anew under the nurturing 
rays of sun and the occasional dash of rain. The woman, once 
dead, is alive and well in this sanctuary.

"I dreamed of Samantha again."

Scully starts at Mulder's words. "What did you see?"

"A beautiful place," he answers. "A garden full of colors, 
alight under the warm sun. She waited for me at the shore of 
the creek..." he smiles wistfully at the recollection. "Human 
imagination is boundless, Scully."

She listens transfixed, previously forgotten details suddenly 
alive in her mind. "Maybe it's not your imagination."

Mulder turns around, curious. "What do you mean?"

"The water in the creek was crystal clear," Scully recounts, 
"and there was a crooked pine tree right next to its origin. It 
was burnt by fire, but it survived somehow. Survived to 
blossom again."

"It's a nice dream," Mulder answers after a pause, and his 
voice cracks. 

"Yes," she agrees softly. "I wish I had had more time to get to 
know your sister."

Her partner turns back to the sun, his features composed in 
calm acceptance. For the first time, he feels no guilt when he 
recalls Samantha. "It seems like a good ending to the story," 
he whispers.

"Mulder," Scully asks tentatively, unwilling to bring up any 
unpleasantness, "do you really believe that the Consortium is 
no longer a threat? Are you certain of your safety?"

"After all I've seen? As certain as I can be," he replies 
assuredly. "Most of them are dead, the rest know that 
colonization will not happen. There are no causes for 
concern."

"I met Dr. Phillips the other day."

"And?" Mulder prods her.

"I went up to him, to ask how he was doing in the wake of his 
new life," she says emotionlessly. "And he didn't recognize 
me."

They exchange an unsettled glance and fall silent, each 
unwilling to articulate the only explanation to this occurrence. 

"It will end one day," Mulder vows. "We will put a stop to 
them one way or another."

Despite Skinner's bravado, despite any recent victories, 
despite the smoker's complacency, Scully knows that they still 
face the old enemies, that the battle will be repeated again and 
again, until one side finally gives. And she is aware that with 
her answer, she promises nothing less than her very life. "We 
will."


LVII. QUILT

In memory there is peace, fulfillment.

Samantha Mulder moves through the ghost-memory of the 
house where she grew up, reacquainting herself with the walls, 
with the doors. She can remember another past for this place, 
one of screaming, of broken glass, of fear, but it seems like a 
separate reality, a nightmare from which she has now 
awakened.

This is her room, with the quilt her mother made for her when 
she was born and her collection of teddy bears aligned on the 
dresser. This is the vase full of blue flowers that she picked 
yesterday.
 
Down the stairs, to the kitchen where her mother smiles at her, 
where Fox looks up from the book he is reading at the table to 
ask her if she would like to go outside. Eagerly, Samantha 
looks to her mother for permission, then follows her brother 
out into the bright afternoon sun.

Here is the garden they planted last year. Her old pair of jeans 
still has grass stains, but the result was well worth it, a 
multitude of flowers against the green. They seem to shimmer 
for miles in her eight-year-old eyes. Here is the tire swing that 
her father made for Fox. She has inherited it - he is getting too 
old for swings, though he offers to push her.
 
One day, she will count the number of colors in the garden, 
give names to each flower. One day she will go down to the 
creek with Fox, climb the oak tree and gaze into the water and 
the infinite worlds reflected in its ripples. But today the sun is 
still high, and the day lasts an eternity.

So she climbs on the swing, the rubber squeaking as she sits. 
She feels her brother pull her back, then push her forward and 
she pumps her legs to go higher.

Higher.

He seems very tiny, standing on the surface of the earth amid 
its quilt of colors, as she soars above him. He waves at her, his 
face lights up as she comes near, falls a little as she rises. She 
wonders if he understands. She hopes that some day, he will.

Higher.
 
She cannot decide which of the two existences she prefers - 
the spectrum of the garden, or the endless blue of the sky. 
Even when she closes her eyes to feel the wind against her 
face, they alternate before her, blue and green, falling and 
rising. She wants to stay here forever, in between the two. 

And even now, closing her eyes seems a waste, though she has 
all the time in the world. In the clouds are all the faces of those 
she has left behind, a blissful gallery of remembrance. 
Samantha smiles back at them.

She has the sense that they are all expecting her. She pumps 
harder, higher, then releases her grip on the swing's chains. A 
child's laughter rings in her ears and she echoes it. And then 
she is falling toward the sky, to its edge where it meets with 
the ocean, stretching out her arms to embrace all the beauty 
that waits for her.

Weightless, she feels herself melt inside the rich palette of 
colors.

This is only the first flight.


"And when the day arrives
I'll become the sky
And I'll become the sea

And the sea will come to kiss me
For I'm going 
Home

Nothing can stop me now"

    ~Nine Inch Nails, "La Mer"~

The End


Authors' Notes

From both of us: many thanks to DJ for editing and going 
alone with the unusual format, Leigh and Rachel for beta-
reading and more encouragement than we probably deserved, 
Miss Elise for information on poisons, Mary Ruth Keller for 
information on the D.C. geography which we blissfully 
ignored, LuvMulder for medical information (all mistakes are 
ours), many others for information on the Bible. This is one 
story that took work of many people, and we're grateful to 
everyone who contributed.

A long time ago, somewhere around chapter 40, to counteract 
the effects of angst and summer heat, we wrote something 
rather sick but funny which we titled "Revenge of the Muse." 
Yes, the fine tradition of parodies on our own stories still 
holds true and it will be posted soon.

From Anna: I owe all the pleasure of having completed this 
adventure, as usual, to my co-author. Every little chapter was a 
welcome challenge, and every plot twist was a surprise. My 
apologies for leaving Krycek with nothing more than a silly 
beanie baby, but believe me when I say that I regret it more 
than anyone else might. 

To paraphrase Mulder, this seems like a good ending to the 
story and to our partnership in XF fandom, and I am looking 
forward to its continuation outside of it. Yes, not counting the 
parody, this is indeed the last story. This has been a blast. I'm 
sure that, down the road, I will want to pick up the pen and 
write about my beloved XF characters once again, just 
because old habits die hard. But I hope I will learn to love my 
original creations just as much, and possibly I might overcome 
those impulses.

I thank everyone who ever wrote me and kindly let me know 
that they enjoyed my writing. I thank and revere every author 
whose stories I loved. To all of my other co-writers - you 
know how I feel, ladies, and we're not finished yet <g>. I will 
keep reading long past the show winds up to a finish. 

Love always,
Anna.

From Ashlea: You know, all the cool kids are doing it, so I 
guess I better join them. <G> It's been going on two years 
since my first foray into the wild and wonderful world of 
fanfic, and what an adventure it's been. And so now I bid 
adieu with a little tear in my eye - I can only hope that the 
world of original fiction will treat me so well.

But back to the story. Awhile ago I came across a wonderful 
book called "In The Language of Love", by Diane 
Schoemperlen. It was a novel based on the 100 stimulus words 
used in the 1910 Standard Word Association Test. Each 
chapter was centered around one of the words, and it somehow 
all came together to form the story of the main character's life. 
So, of course, Anna and I decided to try it too.
 
So, with the exception of the prologue, all of the chapter titles 
are from a word association test found on the Althabasca 
University website, in order. All of the chapters are inspired 
by the words. I would strongly encourage anyone who likes 
this sort of thing to read Schoemperlen's novel, which is 
absolutely incredible.

Those who despise sappiness would be well advised to skip 
this next part.

First and foremost my thanks go out to Anna, who is the best 
co-writer a lazy slob like me could hope for. Not only has she 
put up with my madness and held the whip while I 
procrastinated on a number of occasions, but she somehow 
always manages to come up with brilliant and inspired words 
that never fail to amaze me. Although the beanie baby thing 
was just cruel and heartless. :) 

Hugs and fishes to the fanfic community. Keep telling great 
stories. You have been truly wonderful.

Goodbye, and thank you,

Ashlea.