From: SpearmntXP <spearmntxp@aol.com>
Date: 9 Sep 1998 23:45:01 GMT
Subject: Hide & Seek Part I (32/39)

TITLE: Hide and Seek (32/?)

DISCLAIMER: Characters from the television show The X-Files used herein are the
property of 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting Corp. 
CATEGORY: X, MSR
RATING: Segment, R (language, violence); Story, NC-17
ARCHIVE: OK for Gossamer. Others, please E-mail for permission.
SPOILERS: Fifth season (up until Folie a Deux)
SUMMARY: Continuing what I hope will be an online novel.
PREVIOUS SEGMENTS: E-mail to spearmntXP@aol.com
FEEDBACK: Please, to spearmntXP@aol.com
NEXT POSTING: before 11:59p EDT 7 September

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Good news--double shot of H&S today. Bad news--maybe no shot of
H&S tomorrow. But check anyway. If the hands agree, I'll post something.
Spearmnt

<32>

It had been Pete's house that burnt down.
	He and Pete and Dave had been playing Force Recon in the patch of woods behind
his house. It wasn't Mulder's favorite game--the only thing he'd liked about it
was that his friends called him *Mulder* instead of *Fox* while they were
playing--but it had been Pete's. Pete's older brother was due back from Vietnam
shortly, and Pete had kept going on and on about how he couldn't wait for Bruce
to get home, how he'd have so many stories to tell, so many adventures to
recount.
	There had been stories when Bruce returned, and Pete'd never wanted to play
Force Recon again.
	But they had been playing that night. Mulder had "died" early, tripping over
the rope-and-tin-can "Claymore" Petey'd set, forced to lay there and watch his
two friends skulk back and forth, deadly shadows amidst the black knot of
trees. Finally, Pete, who had been in the middle of creating a *punji* pit to
trap his enemy, accidentally stepped on a twig, and Dave--who often pretended
to be a crack sniper, despite his Coke-bottle bottom glasses--had "shot" him.
	The sky had seemed lighter, almost purple, as they emerged from the woods.
	"You're such a klutz, Fox," Mulder remembered Dave saying.
	"At least I'm not a buttmunch," he'd replied.
	"Shut up, assface." This from the future rabbi.
	Both of them hadn't been watching where they were going, and they ran right
into Pete, who'd come to a dead stop at the rim of the little depression that
held the wooded patch.
	Brilliant orange flames were devouring Pete's home.
	Mulder had been awestruck with the speed of the devastation. He saw the fire
blow out the bay window in the living room; he blinked, and re-opened his eyes
to see white flames shoot through the shingles on the roof; he blinked, and the
porch columns were now pillars of fire, rippling yellow blades cutting the
house to shreds.
	Hot, dry waves rolled from the house, crisping his hair, parching his skin.
	The conflagration had cast a crowd in silhouette. A couple of the shadows had
begun running toward them. "Oh, Peter! Peter! Oh God Peter," one of them had
screamed hysterically. His mother. She clutched at her youngest child. "We
thought... we didn't know... oh thank God, Peter."
	Pete's dad had been on her heels. And then Samantha. "Fox? Fox!"
	At that moment, the fireman had run off the porch, screaming.
	He'd caught fire.
	"*It hurts, it hurts, it hurts oh sweet Jesus IT HURTS*" the fireman had
screeched at the top of his lungs.
	A horrible, burnt-meat smell had cloyed Mulder's nostrils.
	And the fire had mercilessly blazed on, so loud, filling the sky with a roar.
	*Like this one will,* Mulder said, looking up at the ceiling, where the flames
had already turned orange.
	"*Mulder.*"
	Scully turned his jaw toward her, finding his eyes. Hers were hard jewels, but
they quivered a little.
	"We're going to be OK," she said carefully.
	*She remembers. Cecil L'Ively.*
	"I got the kids out," he mumbled. *On the second try. But I did.* 
	"And we'll get out of here," she said, raising her voice to outshout the fire.
She turned away. "Miles! Miles, there must be another way out of here."
	Seligman stood, transfixed by the fire above him. He was almost growling, a
fear-soaked, brittle, wounded-animal sound.
	"Miles!" Scully stepped over and shook him.
	"Other staircase," he finally said, looking toward the left-hand wall. "Opens
outside. Cellar access."
	"Great," said Scully.
	"I bricked it up," he continued. "In case they came."
	"Oh, *fuck,*" she said. "Show me."
	Mulder's nerves chattered with terror. *I have to get out of here, out of
here, out of here...*
	"Mulder, come here," she called.
	He followed her to the wall, slick and solid stone, except for one, door-sized
section, apparently blocked with cinderblocks and quick-dry cement.
	*Lucky our mason here's a drunk,* thought Mulder's brain, examining the uneven
bricks, the hit-and-miss trowelwork betrayed with criss-crossing streaks in the
cement.
	His nerves weren't listening. *Get us out of here,* they screamed.
"We're going to *die,*" Seligman bawled, sinking to the floor.
	Mulder's eyes sprinted around the room, looking for something, anything. They
tripped across a shovel, leaning against the corner.
	*Maybe Scully's right about God.*
	Two steps later, it was in his hands.
	*Now you have to get angry,* his mind shouted.
	But the nerves were now a Greek chorus: *You're going to die, going to die,
going to die...*
	He looked back for only a second. Glowing embers fell from the ceiling like
deadly snow, falling on the tables. The whole room began to crackle.
	Scully had brought over the folding chair from behind the computer table and
begun to smash it into the wall, marking each blow with a dull grunt. 
	*They've taken my sister,* he thought.
	With a roar, Mulder drove the shovel point against the wall. His only reward
was a dull *clang.*
	*They killed my father.*
	Another roar, another *clang.*
	*It's going to hurt, going to hurt, going to hurt,* sang his nerves.
	"I'm so dizzy," Seligman said. Mulder glanced back. Somewhere he'd found a
half-full liquor bottle. He cradled it like a baby.
	"The fire's eating up the oxygen," Scully shouted. But her voice held less
power than before, and she'd begun to cough. "Replacing it with carbon
monoxide."
	*Oh, so we won't burn to death,* Mulder thought, a manic chuckle escaping his
lips. *We'll just suffocate.*
	With a magician's *poof,* one of the tables erupted in flame.
	*My mother wasn't faithful.*
	*Clang.* This time Mulder saw a crack form in the cement. Scully struck with
the chair, widening the fissure.
	The air felt so heavy around him.
	His chest involuntarily began to spasm. The harsh coughs ripped up the inside
of his throat.
	*They call me 'Spooky' and laugh.*
	*Clang.*
	Had he moved a brick? He couldn't tell.
	*We're pawns in someone else's sick game.*
	*Clang.* Powdered cement cascaded down the wall, but he didn't seem to be
making any progress.
	Scully swung the chair around again, letting go of it this time. It clattered
against the wall and fell to the floor with a *bang.*
	She fell too, sinking to her knees, coughing up a lung, hands around her
throat. Haze obscured his view of her.
	"Scully, stand up!" he shouted.
	"Mulder..." she croaked. "Can't... sleepy..."
	"Dammit, Scully."
	She keeled over to the left, hacking, spitting up phlegm.
	*I won't let her die.*
	With a scream, Mulder drove the shovel back into the wall.
	*I won't let her die.*
	His throat cried out in pain. He couldn't tell if he was screaming or
coughing.
	The harsh, spark-filled smoke stuck hot pins into his eyeballs.
	*I won't let her die.*
	He drove, withdrew, drove, withdrew, moving faster and faster, like a piston.
	His nerves changed their tune. *She's going to die, going to die, going to
die...*
	And then a bolt of ice-cold air struck him like lightning.
	White light dribbled through a centimeter-wide crack.
	Mulder's veins throbbed with adrenaline. He wielded the shovel like an ax,
chopping into the wall.
	One cinderblock finally fell out the other side. Then two more. One more blow,
and a huge chunk of dried cement vaporized into a cloud of dust.
	He quickly assessed the hole. *Big enough for one.*
	The ceiling groaned ominously. He heard a series of *pop-pop-pops* detonate
above him, like firecrackers only ten times louder. *The mirrors are
shattering.*
	Scully's cough became louder. He turned to find her slowly rising back into a
standing position. She greedily gulped in air, chest heaving.
	"*Gemini!*" Seligman suddenly screamed.
	Mulder watched the man's body spasm, as if he was waking from a dream. He
dropped the liquor bottle and began to crawl toward the table nearest him. It
was already ablaze; what had been piles and piles of papers was now only a
black, charred mass, almost corpse-shaped.
	Except for one black loose-leaf notebook, half-hanging over the table's edge.
	Seligman began crawling toward it.
 	Mulder dropped the shovel, reached toward Scully, dragging her forward.
	He felt her try to turn around. "Miles," she sputtered. "First..."
	Mulder put his arms around her waist, lifting her toward his makeshift window.
	"Mulder... no...." Coughs angrily punctuated her speech.
	He began to shove her through the hole in the wall.
	The inhuman howl made him look back.
	Seligman was now standing. His head was burning. Mulder saw the likely
ignition: a chunk of burning wood from the floor-cum-ceiling above, now lying
at the drunk's feet.
	Tufts of burning hair fell from what had once been Seligman's beard, what was
now a wreath of fire angrily circling his face.
	Mulder grimaced as the victim's skin melted, clinging to his facial muscles
before dripping down his neck. *Like cheese on a nacho,* he thought. A dry
heave of nausea passed through his stomach.
	Seligman flung his arms about, as if he could find life at the last minute and
grab hold. He let the notebook fly. Mulder watched it sail across the room,
landing fifteen feet away. 
	 In a puddle of water, with a soft splash.
	*That must be the only place in this whole room that's not on fire,* Mulder
thought.
	A thick, rotten, cloying smell filled the room, and Mulder remembered the
fireman, spinning in Peter's front yard, dying in front of his eyes.
	He looked at the now-sodden notebook, lying close to the far wall.
	*Scully's name is in that.*
	He took a step toward it.
	He felt ten sharp objects bite into his upper right arm.
	Mulder whirled to see Scully, leaning back through the hole, digging her
fingernails into him. "No," she shouted.
	"I can get it." He thrashed his arm about in a rough circle, shaking off her
grasp.
	"Goddammit, Mulder, no!" she screamed, managing to take hold of his wrist.
	Mulder extended his other arm, as if it could reach all the way across to the
black book.
	Above, the ceiling issued a death moan. Mulder heard a crack as loud as a
gunshot. He looked up for a second. A pregnant bulge had formed in the funhouse
floor, as if the pine one-by-sixes were holding back the next Great Flood.
	He brought his eyes back to the notebook, still intact in its watery landing
spot.
	*I can get it.*
	He tensed his torso muscles to break free of Scully's hold, when he felt
dozens of little teeth clench around his wrist.
	He looked back to find a steel bracelet around his left wrist.
	Scully was clasping the other handcuff around her right hand.
	He reached into his pants pocket for the ring that held his house, car, office
and handcuff keys.
	And realized that he'd left the ring in his coat pocket.
	His coat. Now on Scully's back.
	"What the *fuck* are you doing?" he shouted at her.
	"Let it go, Mulder." Her eyes burnt brighter than the flames around them.
	"But--"
	"*Now,*" she said in a voice he'd never heard before, one she must have
inherited from Captain Ahab, clearly a voice to which the only acceptable
response was *yes, ma'am.*
	A loud creak began above his head, one that quickly rose in volume and pitch.
	Mulder looked one last time at the notebook.
	He then took two quick steps toward Scully, jumping into the hole in the wall.
	She felt her hands grab him by the shirt, by his belt, yanking him through.
	For a moment her right hand flew backward, and Mulder braced for the ripping
sound that'd accompany the dislocation of his shoulder.
	But then he was through, falling on top of her. They collapsed at the bottom
of the stone staircase.
	He heard an explosive snap, and then a mighty groan as the floor finally
collapsed. He turned to see a long tongue of flame lick out of the gap in the
cinderblocks.
	Scully was dragging him up the stairs. He let her.
	At the top, they both took ten long paces away from the building, then
collapsed in the snow, face up.
	Puffy, white cumulus clouds floated through the blue ocean of sky.
	To Mulder, they all looked like loose-leaf notebooks.
	"That was the Gemini list," he said.
	"I don't give a fuck what it was," he heard her reply.
	"I coulda got it."
	"No, you couldn't have," she said. Her voice was a medley of anger,
exasperation--and, somewhere in there, a note of relief. "And I'm not finishing
this alone."
	Mulder heard the *crunch-crunch-crunch* of running footsteps approaching.
	A weatherbeaten face, topped with a baseball cap that said SHERIFF, filled
Mulder's vision.
	The gray eyes crinkled in confusion.
	He felt Scully sit up next to him, dragging his left arm along for the ride.
With an annoyed grunt, he grudingly followed suit.
	He heard Cujo--now apparently a very angry Alsatian--barking from afar, but
didn't see any brown-colored blur bounding toward them. *Maybe Seligman tied
him up...*
	"Sheriff, I'm Special Agent Scully," his partner said.
	But the sheriff didn't look at her. Instead, he stared for a moment at the two
agents' manacled hands, then behind them at the cellar-access stairwell, then
at the blazing funhouse.
	"I think I saw something like this once on *Cops,*" he said, "but maybe you'd
better walk me through exactly what happened here."

<33>
Pinck Pharmaceutical headquarters
Blue Bluffs, Indiana
2:24 p.m.

"Say something, Byers," Mulder hissed into the cell phone.
	But the Lone Gunman remained silent for another minute.
	Five rapid beeps interrupted the connection.
	"John?"
	"I'm here."
	"What the hell was that?"
	"Just the scrambler. Apparently your friends at Pinck are trying to tap the
call. Where are you calling from?"
	"A corridor right outside the corporate boardroom."
	"From *inside* their headquarters? Are you *nuts?*"
	"I haven't told you anything Scully and I aren't prepared to tell them in a
few minutes."
	"What, you're going to demand they fess up and show you the database and the
documents?"
	Now Mulder remained silent. 
	"Oh, Christ, Mulder," said Byers.
	That actually *was* the plan. He'd proposed it to Scully as they sat shivering
on a bench in the Decatur County sheriff's office, wrapped in mothball-smelling
blankets, sipping lukewarm coffee that tasted as if it'd been brewed three
times already.
	"But we have no evidence," she'd initially protested. "No U.S. Attorney in the
entire country would listen to us."
	"That's not the point," he'd replied.
	That had earned him an eyebrow and a pinched look that said it all. *Say
what?*
	"The point is *they'll* know *we* know. And if we imply we know *more,* that
should trigger a response. They'll have to do something."
	"They may not have to do anything," she'd countered. "We're powerless without
proof."
	"Look how fast they came after Miles, once they caught him looking."
	"But they left him alone for *years* before that."
	He'd taken a deep breath. "I'm not saying it's a perfect plan, Scully."
	"None of ours ever are, are they?" she'd said with a wan smile.
	They'd sat silently for a minute, looking at each other.
	"So," she'd finally said, "we put ourselves on the hook as bait?"
	When she'd said it like that, the plan changed color in Mulder's head.
	"Maybe I'd better do this alone," he'd said.
	She'd withdrawn her cell phone from her jacket pocket and had already begun to
dial.
	"Fort Wayne, please," she'd said. "I need a number for the office of the
Assistant U.S. Attorney." She'd placed her hand over the mouthpiece. "Maybe we
can get a subpoena."
	"I'll get the laptop," he'd said, "and start on the paperwork."
	The Assistant U.S. Attorney's name was Ross Winston, and he'd agreed to meet
them in Fort Wayne on short notice, but only, he'd said, because he had a soft
spot in his heart for special agents, having served eight years in the Bureau
himself. He'd simply laughed in their faces after Scully had outlined their
request.
	"Don't they teach law at Quantico anymore, missy?" he said.
	Scully had swallowed her lips and locked her jaw in vain attempts to stop the
crimson blush that'd blossomed across her face.
	"You don't even have what you *saw.* You have what you *think* you saw. And
you're accusing the largest employer in northeastern Indiana of... treason? Is
that it?"
	"Thanks," Mulder had said, standing, lightly placing his hand on Scully's
shoulder.
	"Jesus Christ, they're turning out agents like *you two* now? When *I* was at
Quantico--"
	"Dinosaurs ruled the earth," Mulder had finished. "Bye."
	So their subpoena had become a weakly worded (and, Scully kept insisting,
possibly illegal) "request for cooperation" which they'd faxed to Pinck's CEO
at around noon. A starched secretary had called Scully back to say no one was
available to speak with the FBI today; perhaps tomorrow?  
Mulder had responded to that by calling the Fort Wayne *Journal-Gazette* with a
"hot anonymous tip" about a "wide-ranging Federal investigation" underway at
Pinck Pharmaceutical.
	Thirty minutes--and probably one phone call from a pit-bull reporter--later,
the same secretary had called Scully to offer a two o'clock appointment. They'd
showed up fifteen minutes early only to be told to wait. And that gave Mulder
the breathing room he needed to call the Gunmen and let them know what
happened.
	But he hadn't expected a reaction like *this* to his story.
	"It's... kind of hard to believe," Byers said sheepishly.
	"You've known me how long?"
	"You know as well as I do, Mulder."
	"And I've told you pretty much everything I've seen? Serial killers who can
slide through walls? Television shows that make people insane? Inbred mutant
psychopaths?"
	"Think about this for a moment. Please," Byers begged. "What you've just
described is a scenario where the U.S. government has entered into a conspiracy
to destroy the world through nuclear war. Isn't this a little too 'Doctor No'
for you? Aren't you expecting Q to come out and give you the keys to the Aston
Martin?"
	"If this is a James Bond movie, where are the girls?" Mulder asked.
	"You've already got one of the prettier ones," Byers replied.
	*Touche, John.*
	An awkward pause. "Look," Byers finally said. "There are theories about
conspiracy theories, believe it or not. All conspiracies are alliances designed
to accomplish a goal that somehow furthers the cause of the conspirators. Like
topple a government. Hide the truth. Fix a football game. But here there's no
cause. If the conspirators are successful, everybody dies. The end."
	"Not everybody."
	"Hey, Mulder, those SIOPs you saw? We've seen a couple ourselves."
	Mulder opened his mouth.
	"Don't ask, don't tell, OK? Anyway, under those rules of engagement, even the
so-called 'limited' nuclear exchanges swap enough payload to render the world
inhabitable for thousands of years. You saw the ending of *Planet of the Apes?*
A *real* nuclear war would make *that* look like Disney World."
	"Maybe some new tenants want us to redecorate."
	"You mean extraterrestrials want us to nuke ourselves? I do believe we are not
alone. But there are some pretty incontrovertible laws of nature and one of
them is that almost any lifeform doesn't fare well in nuclear winter. If our
friends from the heavens wanted to annex us, I'm sure they'd rather take over a
world that wasn't a playground for radioactive isotopes that had a half-life of
twelve days short of forever."
	"I know what I saw," Mulder said.
	"Yeah, I know what you saw too. We saw some of it here," Byers said. "But I'm
still have trouble putting two and two together."
	"You're coming up with five?"
	"I'm coming up with turquoise, Mulder, it's that apples-and-oranges." Byers
sighed.
	"But it was definitely a Pinck database," he said, easing away from the
subject.
	"*That* we can say without a doubt."
	"In court?"
	"Well, through anonymous informer affidavits, if we had to. Remember that what
we were doing was illegal. Although Pinck really pissed us off with this
overkill defense of theirs. The feedback virus they shot at us might as well
have been a Tomahawk missile. Blew out two of our servers and almost crashed
our entire system. Pinck's cost us a lot."
	Mulder glanced back toward his partner. She sat in a chair outside the
boardroom, staring fixedly at a point on the floor. Her shoulders and eyelids
sagged. Every so often she held her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes.
Her entire posture seemed on the verge of collapsing.
	"Not as much as some have paid," he said softly. "I'll call you when we get
back."
	"Right."
	He turned around to face Scully. "Any word about our meeting?"
	"Not yet," she said.
	Mulder dialed his voicemail at the Bureau. "You look exhausted," he said to
her. "Do you want me to do the talking this time?"
	She looked up and slowly nodded, twice. "Thank you."
	"You have one message," the automaton told Mulder. He stabbed the appropriate
buttons. A recording of his mother's voice began. He clicked off without
waiting for it to finish and dialed her home in Greenwich.
	"Hello?" she answered.
	"Mom." He turned away from Scully.
	"Fox." The syllable floated on a torrent of emotions, and Mulder realized he
hadn't spoken with his mother in a very, very long time. 
	"Please tell me you're coming home for holidays," Teena Mulder said.
	*I've missed you,* was what he'd heard.
	"Mom, I need you to remember something," he said quietly.
	Humid silence from the other end. *Most conversations I begin that way,* he
thought, *probably haven't ended well.*
	"I'll try," she said, a slight stammer of hesitation in her voice. "You know,
since the stroke.."
	"I know, Mom. Do you remember a necklace Samantha had?"
	"She had several."
	"This one was Egyptian, or looked Egyptian, at least. A *cartouche*-- an oval,
with some hieroglyphs on the inside. Silver or pewter. On a leather string. Do
you remember?"
	The pause was too long. He heard two liquid clicks, her mouth opening and
closing, trying to find some words, and he knew. *She's going to lie.*
	"I don't think she ever had one like that," she finally sputtered.
	"You don't think? Or you can't recall?" Mulder heard himself use his
interrogation voice. *This is my mother.* He closed his eyes.
	"I don't think she did."
	"Mom, *I* remember it. You gave me holy hell for cutting the leather thong. I
had to tie it back together and give it back to her."
	He felt Scully behind him, gently resting a hand between his shoulder blades.
He leaned back into it. Just a little. Enough to feel it a little more.
	"Well, maybe, I don't know, the stroke..."
	"Mom, who gave that necklace to her? Did you?"
	"I would *remember* that." But her voice asked, *Would I?*
	"If you didn't, who did? Dad?"
	One sob floated through the telephone ether, puncturing Mulder's heart.
	*No, no, no. Please no.* He felt his throat begin to swell shut. "*Him?*" he
managed to rasp.
	Two stifled sobs. "I... I can't remember a lot of things, Fox," she said.
	Scully's hand pushed a little harder. He returned the pressure.
	"Fox," Teena blurted. 	"Please come home for Hanukkah. We can... we
can start over."
	He didn't answer. Instead, his photographic memory dialed up a recollection: a
hot summer night, unrelieved by the Vineyard's usual sea breezes, him and Peter
and Dave and Laura, all looking seven or so, bounding onto the front porch in
the twilight, sitting next to his mother on the steps. She poured lemonade and
listened intently, without condescension, to whatever they were babbling about
that night. 
	When Laura had given him the shell, she'd taken it to Mom and told her what
happened, confused as to why she began smiling and crying at the same time.
	She'd been his confidant, until Samantha had been taken.
	"I might not have much time..." she began, trailing off, obviously embarrassed
to use such a ploy. *Or maybe not,* the more spiteful part of Mulder's mind
shouted. "Please, Fox."
	He squinted his eyes closed, so hard it hurt.
	With fumbling fingers, he stabbed the OFF button.
	"Mulder," Scully said softly. "They're ready for us."
	One quiet sniffle, and he was ready.
	"Let's go," he said.

The woman looked like a starched secretary: blue hair dyed gray, wardrobe by
Talbots, pinched nose and glasses hanging on a necklace. "Mr. Drosser is on his
way up to speak with you," she said primly, opening the doors to the boardroom.
	"We asked to see Dr. von Brattsden," Scully replied, a point to her voice. "We
represent the people and government of the United States. The least your chief
executive could do is spare us five minutes."
	"Unfortunately, he is in Frankfurt, overseeing the first stages of our merger
with GSK," the secretary said. "Mr. Drosser is our corporate counsel. He would
be your contact in any event. Please make yourselves comfortable and he'll join
you shortly."
	The boardroom was immense and obviously designed to intimidate. A massive
panoramic window looked out to the west, across the Indiana plain. Mirrors on
the walls made the room feel twice its already considerable size. Huge, ornate
chandeliers, now dark, hung from the ceiling. 
	Mulder glimpsed himself and Scully in the mirror and shuddered. *We look like
hell.* Attempts to clean themselves up at the sheriff's office earlier in the
day had only partly succeeded. A fine coat of soot added a pallor to both their
faces. A portion of Scully's hair continued to defy her brush; Mulder found
another piece of ash in his, and shook it out onto the boardroom carpet. Tiny,
ebony-ringed holes pockmarked both their suits.
	*And we must really stink,* Mulder thought.
	They took seats on either side of the table's head, but immediately stood back
up as a balding man lumbered into the room. Mulder sized him up; he was packing
a spare tire above his belt, but the expensive-cut charcoal suit he wore had
been tailored to hide it. Two gold rings flashed from a meaty hand that
clutched a stack of file folders, which he promptly dropped on the boardroom
table before collapsing into the chair between the two agents.
	"So you're the two that fucked up my day," he said.
	"How's that?" Mulder began.
	"I'm trying to prepare legal documents for the European Union mergers
commission, which needs to sign off on the deal we've announced. Instead I need
to deal with this... 'request for cooperation.' Whatever the *fuck* that is.
This isn't an official FBI document."
	"Maybe this isn't an official FBI investigation yet."
	"Yet? What do you mean by that, Agent--" He looked down at Scully's fax, which
sat on the top of his paperwork stack. "*Fox* Mulder? Is that your *real*
name?"
	"It means," Mulder said, struggling to keep a lid on his boiling-over anger,
"that we'd simply like to take a look around to nip some outstanding
allegations in the bud."
	"You mean some *extraordinary* allegations, don't you? You've accused us of,
let's see..." He read the fax. "'Hoarding classified military documents and
invading privacy'?"
	"We have--" Mulder began.
	"'Graverobbing?'" Drosser exploded. "Where the *fuck* do you get that from?"
	"You've been accused of stealing a corpse, transporting it across state lines
and conducting an autopsy without a medical examiner present."
	Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder watched Scully's lips become a thin,
tight line.
	"Don't be fucking ridiculous."
	"As for the other charges, we have a statement from an individual who claims
he found documents, appearing to be the property of the U.S. government and
classified for national security purposes, on the premises here."
	"From *Miles?* Had to be Miles. You guys are going to build a case on a drunk
carnival-ride operator who's now dead? I called Sheriff Hammon before I came up
here. He says the state fire marshal's officers are ruling that Seligman's old
funhouse held enough liquor to burn down half of Fort Wayne. They're going to
rule the fire accidental."
	"Like someone accidentally mixed a Malatov cocktail."
	"Just calling 'em like I see them, Mulder. And what the fuck is this
graverobbing charge?"
	"We believe your Gemini project is accountable for that."
	"I'm not at liberty to tell you anything about our codeword projects, but off
the record, we don't have anything here codenamed fucking Gemini." Flecks of
saliva dribbled off Drosser's lips. He reached across to a silver tray on the
table, poured some mineral water into a thick crystal rocks glass, and took a
long sip. "The government already used that one, remember? On spacecraft?"
	"Sir, if you'd just let us look around, we can quell these accusations and be
on our way, without disrupting your merger."
	"Is that a threat?"
	Mulder rubbed his chin as if he hadn't considered it before. "It could be."
	Drosser leaned closer. "You listen here, boy."
	*My father called me that.*
	Mulder imagined his fist smashing through Drosser's nose and coming out the
back of the lawyer's fat head. It gave him a small, almost sexual, thrill.
	"I called a friend I have at the FBI," Drosser continued, "and he told me all
about you, *Spooky.*"
	Mulder dug his fingers into his thighs, anything to keep them from forming
fists.
	"How all you do is go around chasing UFOs and weird monsters and basically
waste a shitload of taxpayer money, protected by some fucking wishy-washy
liberals on Capitol Hill. And the line on you," he said, turning to Scully, "is
that they hired you to stop him but you just egg him on, maybe because of some
sick sexual thing you two have going. You *were* handcuffed together when the
sheriff found you."
	That almost was Mulder's final straw, until he saw Scully's eyes.
	They'd become gunmetal gray, and were boring through Drosser's head like
lasers.
	Mulder shivered. *This isn't going to be good. Maybe I'd better end it now.*
	He stood. Scully followed suit.
	"We'll have to come back with a subpoena, I guess," Mulder said.
	"Go ahead. We'll quash it on grounds of harassment," said Drosser. "Besides, I
also put a call into Winston, so I know you've already tried."
	"We'll go to his boss over in Hammond," Mulder said.
	"Get the fuck out of here," the lawyer replied.
	Mulder went to the door, opened it and turned slightly, holding it for Scully.
	She began to walk around Drosser's chair to the exit.
	Then, in one sudden and swift motion, she reached around with her left hand,
picked up the crystal glass and smashed it against the table.
	With her right, she yanked backward on Drosser's ear. *Hard.*
	The lawyer yelped.
	She then began to propel Drosser's head forward toward the table.
	The sharp glass fragments twinkled in the sunlight from the window.
	"Oh God please *don't,*" Drosser screamed.
	At the last possible instant--when the attorney's face was only millimeters
from the crystal shrapnel--Scully jerked his head back an iota, stopping the
descent. 
	She leaned over, placing her lips very close to Drosser's ear.
	Even in the quiet room, Mulder could barely hear her voice.
	"I will find out who killed my daughter," she breathed. "You *fucking*
bastard."
	With one final, almost careless, yank, she pulled him back to an upright
position in the chair.
	She wordlessly passed Mulder and walked out the door.
	*That,* thought her partner, *should get someone's attention.*

<34>
FBI Headquarters
7:09 p.m.

Skinner wrinkled his nose before he looked up.
	*We must really reek,* Mulder thought.
	But he was following orders. Within 20 minutes of leaving Pinck, Skinner had
called him on the cell phone.
	"Return now," the assistant director had said without preamble.
	"We followed orders," Mulder had retorted.
	"Agent Mulder, I don't recall ordering you to burst into the headquarters of
what will be the world's seventh-largest drug company and demand to search the
premises."
	*You didn't order us* not *to,* Mulder'd thought.
	"Get back here now. And after you land, you report directly to my office. Do
not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Do not stop for a piss.
*Immediately.* Clear?"
	"Crystal," Mulder'd replied.
	"Close the door," Skinner directed Scully. She complied before collapsing into
a chair in front of her boss's desk. Mulder followed suit. His body was a
chorus of aches and pains; every muscle groaned, every bone creaked, every
organ complained. 
	*Hot shower, hot food, sleep of some sort. I don't care in what order.*
	Skinner apparently planned to offer none of the above. His mandible muscles
twitched, sliding his jaw back and forth. Ebony eyes barreled into the two
agents like runaway freight trains.
	He leaned across his desk, turning toward Mulder. "You are a sworn officer of
the law," he began. "When you took your oath, you promised to protect the
citizens of this country. You did *not*--" Skinner bellowed that word, eyes
squinting as he shouted. "You did *not* agree to use your badge as an excuse to
bully and intimidate people."
	The assistant director stabbed his telephone receiver with a finger. "I have
two voicemails here. One's from the chief executive of Pinck Pharmaceutical,
advising me that his in-house legal counsel has recommended suing the Bureau
for harassment. Then I have a message from the in-house legal counsel, who
tells me that he may file criminal assault-and-battery charges in U.S. District
Court after he was struck today." The finger moved from the phone to Mulder's
face. "Goddammit, Mulder, I've had it. Every time you cross the line, I cover
your ass and move the line back a little. Well, now my back's against the
fucking wall, and you're going to be--"
	"I did it, sir," Scully interrupted.
	Skinner stopped in mid-sentence, mouth agape.
	"I struck Mr. Drosser," she clarified, crossing her legs, sitting up a little
straighter, taking a deep breath.
	*Getting ready to take a punch,* Mulder thought, and he resisted an urge to
reach out and touch her hand. That was his job--fucking up, having Skinner yell
at him, and then having Scully bail him out.
	"*You* struck Mr. Drosser?" Skinner obviously was still having trouble getting
his head around the concept.
	"I took the Quantico manual-arms combat--"
	"I know you're *capable* of doing it, Agent Scully. I'm just surprised that
you actually did." The ex-Marine visibly deflated. "Well."
	Scully's eyes flickered. Mulder almost cheered. *An emotion.*
"*Well?* That's it?" she shouted.
	Skinner's brows knitted. "What?"
	"Had it been *Mulder,* you would've thrown every book on the shelf at him. But
because it's *me,* I get a *well?*"
	"Any lecture I could give you, Agent Scully," Skinner said softly, "I know
you've already given yourself."
	And Mulder knew that was true. He'd kept conversation to a minimum on the
flight back, hoping she'd fall asleep. Ever since leaving Pinck, her eyes had
been dull, her voice had been flat, her movements sluggish and weighted down.
But he'd spent the whole flight watching her look out the window, eyes wide
open, replaying a scene in her mind over and over.
	He had been able to tell whenever she reached the part where she'd broken the
glass. She'd winced each time.
	*She's beating herself up.*
	Mulder didn't understand this part of her. Scully stood for rules. But she
*always* broke rules to save him, to protect him, to help him.
	She'd risked contempt of Congress--and went to jail--rather than betray his
location in front of people who would've swiftly killed him, had they known
where he was.
	*What I'm worried about is you, Mulder, and how far you'll go,* she'd told
him. *And how far I can follow you.*
	But she'd kept following him, even when he'd visited her in the hospital,
nearly dead of cancer. Even now, he dropped his head into his hands as he
remembered. 
She'd offered to take a murder rap for him. 
	*Could she care for me that much?*
	*Could anyone?*
	*If I can save you, let me,* she'd said, fiery words delivered in a hoarse,
weak voice that couldn't hide the iron convictions that the cancer would never
have been able to eat away. Remembering those words still made it difficult for
him to breathe, even more than a year later.
	Yet Scully wouldn't break a rule to save herself. Today was the closest she'd
come to doing just that, but it was Emily she was saving, Emily who made her
break the glass and her composure into a thousand glittering pieces across the
Pinck boardroom table. Emily remained a deep and vast wound inside her soul,
one which even he wasn't able to fully map.
	Just like it was Samantha whom he was always rescuing, always searching for.
	*If I could give you one thing, Scully,* he thought, *it'd be yourself six
years ago.* The way she'd walked into his office, dropping her briefcase like
she owned the place, fixing him with a smart-aleck grin by the end of the first
day.
	A Scully who still had a sister.
	A Scully who could still bear children.
	"Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked, a foreign note--of concern--hanging in his
voice.
	"Huh?" Mulder looked up with a start.
	"Agent Scully's been telling me what happened in Indiana." The furrows in his
forehead grew deeper.
	*How long have I been woolgathering?*
	"Mulder," Scully said tenderly.
	He turned toward her.
	She reached out with a Kleenex and brushed his cheek.
	*Doctor's fingers. So soft.*
	He felt the teardrop pull away from his skin, soaking itself into the fibers
of the tissue.
	"The fire," Mulder said awkwardly. "Smoke--ashes--still in my eyes."
	She let her fingers linger for a moment, worry passing across her face. Then,
suddenly remembering where she was, she turned back toward Skinner, crumpling
the tissue. "We were unable to retrieve any of the data," Scully said,
apparently finishing her description of the day's events, "including either the
Firelake or Gemini lists."
	"And so you're telling me you illegally hacked a Pinck database?"
	"We discovered that Miles Seligman had accessed a data source, possibly
illegally, and during the course of that investigation we accidentally viewed
Pinck proprietary data," Scully said.
	Mulder smothered a smile, hearing the rules creak as Scully bent them.
"You were in Firelake," he said, changing the subject. "It listed you as an
Epsilon subject. Same as Anne Doyle, same as my father. Does that mean anything
to you?"
	Skinner shook his head, his eyes paging through memory. "No. I'd met Doyle
once or twice in DOJ roles, but I didn't know her at all. And I'd never met
your father, Mulder."
	"You're all government employees," Scully said.
	"But none of us had anything to do with defense planning or nuclear war.
Unless your dad, Mulder--"
	"Not that I know of," Mulder answered.
	"And not that I'm giving this crackpot's idea of a U.S.-brokered nuclear war
any credence. But I am concerned that so many classified documents were found
in a funhouse basement. Christ, the world keeps getting more dangerous. Take
today."
	Scully and Mulder looked at each other, then at Skinner.
	The assistant director realized his agents probably hadn't seen a newscast.
"The Iraqis detonated another bomb in the desert around five o'clock."
	"Which means the Israelis will likely explode another as well," Scully said.
	Skinner nodded. "The President has called the Prime Minister again to plead
for restraint, but I doubt it'll work. The Iranians are now also starting to
rumble. U.S. intelligence reports that Tehran's issuing mobilization orders and
moving its poison-gas reserves closer to the Iraqi front."
	*Cry havoc,* Mulder thought wryly.
	"None of this adds up," Skinner muttered, almost as much to himself as to
Scully and Mulder. "Alphas, Epsilons and Geminis. Pictures of Agent Scully in
some medical facility somewhere that she can't remember. Blueprints for
Armageddon and all of our names on some list."
	"Not all of our names," Mulder said. "I'm not on the list."
	Skinner took off his glasses and pinched his nose.
	Mulder heard a nearly-silent sharp intake of breath to his left, but when he
turned, Scully had swiveled away, her body shifting uncomfortably in the chair.
	"And we don't know who else is on that list," he said. "Everything burnt."
	Scully's body suddenly twitched. She whirled back around. "I forgot. Not
everything. Check your coat pocket."
	Mulder took the coat, which he'd draped over the arm of his chair, and began
patting down its pockets. Scully, who always seemed to keep a spare something
everywhere, finally insisted he take it back when they arrived at headquarters,
where she knew she had another, albeit much older, coat hanging on the rack in
their basement office. 
	He felt something flat and hard in one of the inside pockets.
	Pulling it out, he saw it was the black, leather-bound hieroglyphic book. He
handed it across the desk to Skinner, who leaned back in his chair and began
flipping through it.
	"And we do have Miles Seligman's body en route here, for what that's worth,"
she added. "Decatur County handed it over to us as soon as the ME declared him
dead."
	But Mulder noticed Skinner wasn't listening. He'd sat bolt upright again,
placing the book on his desk, close to the lamp. He was pointing at the
volume's inside back cover.
	Loopy, ornate Cyrillic script sat under his finger, written in black ink faded
nearly sepia with age and wear.
	Mulder and Scully leaned over to get a closer look.
	"I didn't know you could read Russian," Mulder said.
	"I can't, not well. But this is just a name." Skinner looked up, eyes wide
with surprise. "Krycek. Yevgeni Ilyich Krycek."

<35>
FBI Headquarters
8:13 p.m.

"His *father,*" Mulder said to Scully, shaking his head as he unlocked the
office door. "Truth is stranger than fiction. I always thought Krycek made up
anything he said about his parents. That he actually rose from the ooze
instead."
	But Skinner had quickly found the records in black-and-white--well, as black
and white as a computer monitor could get. Krycek's old FBI background
file--Mulder kept forgetting that the little prick, at one point, had been a
special agent--confirmed that Alexander Peter Krycek's father was in fact a
Yevgeni Ilyich Krycek. Krycek *pere* and his wife, Irina, emigrated from the
Soviet Union in 1964, apparently on a medical visa issued to Yevgeni's weak
heart. They became U.S. citizens in 1965, Alex was born in 1968, and then
Yevgeni died of congenital heart failure in 1973, followed by Irina some 13
years later. 
	And although Yevgeni Krycek had been a Russian history professor upon arriving
in the States, before he left Russia he held tenure at Moscow University as an
*archaeology* professor.
	Mulder and Scully had simply looked blankly at their boss as he read the
dossier.
	*We're drowning in questions,* Mulder'd thought. *We need someone to throw us
some answers.* Any *answers.*
	He opened the door, flipped on the overhead lights, let his paranoid eyes scan
through the room, checking for furniture moved out of place, items present
where before absent, anything that might have been disturbed.
	*Anything more disturbed than myself,* he thought.
	Scully wordlessly trudged over to pull her spare coat from the rack. Nothing
sparkled in her face. Pale thin lips expelled a forlorn little sigh.
	*She looks so miserable.*
	"Hey, Scully, how about I buy you something to eat at the Bellevue Diner?" he
said, hoping the words sounded nonchalant to her; to him, they felt like lead
on his tongue, falling to earth with attention-grabbing *thuds.*
	"*You* buy *me* dinner? Between this and two apologies yesterday, we'll have
to start a whole new drawer of X-Files." But her banter sounded wooden and
forced through her teeth; instead of graceful parries and thrusts delivered on
tiptoe, she was simply going through the steps on lifeless feet. "No, thanks.
I'm not hungry. Raincheck?"
	"Sure. You know if..."
	"Yeah, I know," she said, giving him a tight grin. "Good night."
	She opened the door, stood there for a moment with her hand on the knob, then
closed it again, remaining in the room.
	Mulder stood quietly, waiting.
	She turned. "I'm sorry," she said.
	"For what?"
	"For what I did at Pinck today."
	"You certainly don't have to apologize to *me.* I don't think you have to
apologize to anybody."
	"Yes, I do. I'm supposed to justify actions with facts, not emotions. Isn't
that what I always criticize you about?"
	*In spades,* thought Mulder, remembering yet another Virginia prison. His fist
connecting soundly with John Lee Roche's jaw. Striking a prisoner--an
actionable offense.
	*I didn't see it,* the guard had said.
	*I did,* Scully'd replied.
	That, Mulder knew then and now, had been a warning.
	"I feel like a hypocrite today, and it's not a good feeling," she continued.
	"I think there were extenuating circumstances in this case."
	"There are *never* extenuating circumstances for what I did." Her tone was
sharp. "We're supposed to use facts to--to justify our actions, and I didn't do
that today."
	"You can't live your life based on facts alone."
	"I have to do my job based on facts alone. That's what we do, Mulder. Evidence
is the cornerstone of prosecution. If I didn't believe that as a cop--as a
*scientist,* for God's sake--where would I be? *Who* would I be? Facts are all
I have."
	"Facts are nothing," Mulder retorted. "They're not the truth."
	She put her hands on her hips. Flint sparked in her eyes.
	"Well, they're not," he continued. "If they were, we'd be done. This whole
room is full of *facts.* It's the *causes* that string them together. The
emotions behind the reasons. The whys behind the whats. That's what we don't
have."
	"I didn't say otherwise."
	"But you'll never get that just looking at the facts." He walked around to the
front of his desk.
	"And why not?"
	"There are no emotions in facts, Scully."
	He could almost hear the *whoompf* as her eyes lit.
	"Really?" she said, rolling her tongue around her teeth.
	"Yes." 
	But watching her face made him feel as if he'd begun to sink into soft, warm
quicksand.
	She began to walk toward him, very slowly. She balanced on the balls of her
feet, her legs moving with an almost feline grace.
	It was a very *predatory* walk.
	Her blazing eyes locked onto his, refusing to let go.
	In one liquid motion, she shrugged off her coat, letting it fall to the floor.
	She came closer, gently extending her index finger to poke him lightly in the
chest.
	He almost collapsed backward over his desk.
	Then she got even *closer.* Only a charged whisper of air separated their
bodies.
	And even under the soot and the grime and the sweat he could smell Scully,
smell her skin and her hair, a better signature than even her DNA, a scent that
he'd know and follow anywhere.
	She lifted moist lips to his ear.
	"My medical school textbook described male sexual arousal as a two-stage
process," she whispered.
	He felt her breath tickle his earlobe.
	This, too, was a new Scully voice, more throat and less tongue. The consonants
had more curves, dangerous ones. And it wrapped itself around more commands
than questions.
	*I've got to be dreaming.* 
	 Her fingers ran across the knot in his tie, loosening it a little.
	"The first stage," she continued, refusing to raise her voice above a breath,
"begins when pheromones released by a female trigger a sexual response in the
male."
	She gently reached up, brushed her fingers against his cheek.
	His mouth became a desert. He tried to gulp and failed.
	"This response is often heightened following stimulation of the male erogenous
zones," she said.
	Mulder began to feel himself stiffen, and closed his eyes. *What if she feels
that?*
	*What if she* wants *to feel it?*
	*Didn't we just agree yesterday to take some time away from one another?*
	*Give me the Alphas and the Epsilons and the Geminis,* he concluded. *They're
far less confusing.*
	He tried to shrink away from her a little, but the desk trapped him, its hard
edge unyielding against the backs of his thighs.
	"While the number and location of erogenous zones differs according to the
individual, common ones include the earlobes."
	Her breath was a Santa Ana wind that set his ears on fire.
	"The neck," she continued, brushing the tip of her nose against it.
	*That was no accident.*
	"Sc-Scul--" he began.
	"Mulder," she said in an old-Scully annoyed tone, "I'm trying to make a point
here." She made an exasperated noise. "Where was I? Oh, right. Adam's apple."
	She leaned in even closer.
	*How can we not be touching?* Mulder wondered.
	"Nipples and aureolae," she continued.
	She lifted her hand, holding it a millimeter from Mulder's right pectoral.
	"And others," she whispered.
	He could feel his whole body quivering, taut as a wire.
	"These erogenous zones include a higher-than-average concentration and number
of nerve endings supersensitive to touch and designed to respond to a variety
of interpersonal stimuli, including a caress... a lick..."
	She looked up, slightly crossing her azure eyes to examine his lips.
	"A kiss..." she breathed.
	His right hand began to writhe behind him, checking the contents of his
desktop. *Anything breakable? Can I sweep this off very quickly?*
	*Is that what she wants?*
	"Wh-what--" he tried again.
	"His heart rate will increase significantly," she droned on, looking back into
his eyes, commanding his attention. "His respiratory rate will also increase,
usually by at least 10 percent."
	*Try forty,* he thought. He felt as if he was hyperventilating.
	Her eyes dropped to his mouth again. "As arousal progresses, appropriate nerve
centers in the cerebral cortex will transmit neural messages that restrict the
flow of blood to the penis. The erectile tissue in the penis will fill with
blood and make the organ erect and..."
	She blended a half-moan into her sentence's final word. "...hard."
	Then she dropped her eyes demurely--almost shyly--downward, letting them
slowly roam down Mulder's body.
	When they came back up, they sparkled but gave no answers.
	He kept trying to dig his fingers into the desk behind him.	
	"Is--is this--" he stammered.
	"A lesson," she whispered.
	*What?*
	She reached back up toward the knot in his tie.
	She straightened it, and retightened it.
	Then she stepped away, retrieving her coat from the floor.
	"Maybe you're right, Mulder," she said in her doctor's voice. "Those were just
facts, after all."
	Mulder felt the quicksand close over his head.
	"G'night," she called over her shoulder before shutting the office door behind
her.
	For a very long time, Mulder remained standing in front of his desk, stunned.
	*If that's the first stage, I think the second would've killed me.*
	His respiratory and pulse rates finally returned to normal.
	A black rectangle poking out of the nearby garbage can caught his attention.
He stepped over to retrieve it.
	*Sleazy Rider,* proclaimed the videocassette's title card.
	"Amateurs," he muttered derisively.
	He tossed the tape back into the garbage and looked back toward the closed
office door.

<36>
Dana Scully's apartment
Annapolis, Maryland
9:49 p.m.

"What a day," Scully muttered to herself as she twisted on the bathtub's water
faucets.
	*Just like any other,* she attempted to rationalize. *Get up, argue with
Mulder, find something you can't explain, argue with Mulder, place your life in
mortal jeopardy once or twice, argue with Mulder, deal with local law
enforcement officers who treat you as if you've just stepped off Mars, argue
with Mulder, then go to bed.*
	She upended the bottle of bubble bath, shooting a huge squirt of the pink
liquid into the water tumbling from the spout. Thick, frothy foam instantly
resulted.
	But today wasn't like any other day.
	For one thing, she'd never done anything like what she'd done to Drosser.
	And, for another, she'd never done anything like what she'd done to Mulder.
	*What was I doing?*
	As the tub filled, she stripped, placing each article of fire-destroyed
clothing into a thick green garbage bag. She'd learned to put a box of Hefty
bags in the bathroom just for occasions like these. They'd become more frequent
lately.
	"I should just start wearing scrubs to work," she muttered.
	She stood back and appraised her nude body in the full-length mirror--not like
a fashion model, but like the doctor she was. She'd been worried after the
cancer. Ribs had shown, her muscle tone had slackened, her skin felt and looked
like chalk. But she'd recovered a lot of ground in twelve months. Tighter
muscles rippled under healthier-looking skin, and her flat abdomen gently
sloped upward to meet her torso without showing any protruding ribs through the
skin.
	Scully brushed a finger across her right nipple as she examined her breasts.
The nub was still erect, and she gasped lightly as a powerful, tantalizing
shock passed from it through her entire body, making her skin tingle from head
to toe.
	*Mulder,* she thought, shutting off the faucets and climbing into the tub,
biting her lip as she slid into water that was at first nearly scalding, then
just hot, then simply wonderful.
	*What was I thinking?*
	Like a girl, she used two fingers to pinch her nose closed and plunged under
the surface. She came back up, lathered her hands with shampoo and sighed as
she washed Decatur County out of her hair.
	She'd only meant to stand next to him, delivering the same sentences but in a
dry clinical monotone, believing that Mulder, like any man, couldn't hold a
just-the-facts discussion about sex without tuning out or turning on. And
almost always the latter. She'd planned to simply wait until he appeared a
little uncomfortable and then give him her standard told-you-so eyebrow before
leaving.
	She sank below the surface again, rinsing her hair.
	But as she stood next to him, breathing in his musky, male aroma--seemingly,
and inexplicably, enhanced by the fire--and watching the muscles in his chest
tighten and relax, tighten and relax, as he breathed, she found herself turning
on.
	Rapidly.
	*So I can't have a just-the-facts discussion about sex either, not without
becoming aroused,* she thought, resting her head back against the edge of the
tub.
	*At least not with Mulder.*
	Every near-touch had just added to the crescendo of pleasure coursing through
her body.
	When she had seen one of his nipples harden through his shirt, she'd had to
take her left foot and step on her right to keep from touching him.
	His lips... she could go on forever about those.
	And when she'd looked down... well, she'd seen him naked before. But not in
an... extracurricular?... situation, and even through his suit pants, she'd
seen enough to be surprised.
	*Pleasantly* surprised. *I did that.*
	She dragged her hand back across her breast, and this time she moaned.
	*Mulder.*
	*What would sex with Mulder be like?*
	*Would he want to be on top or bottom?*
	*What kind of face would he make when he...*
	She suddenly felt hotter and wetter than the water around her.
	*No... no... this is dangerous.*
	She felt her hand lazily move down her belly, down below the water.
	*I can't think about Mulder this way... I can't lose him the way he is now.*
	Her hand kept moving.
	*How come this always happens... when I think of him this way? I can't, I
can't do this anymore.*
	But she couldn't stop it.
	*Oh, fuck it.*
	Just as her fingers were about to travel the final inch, however, she heard a
foreign noise.
	The front door clicking shut.
	Her first thought was a mixture of apprehension and ecstasy: *Mulder?*
	But no, that didn't make sense. Mulder called first. Mulder *knocked.*
	She heard soft footfalls slowly make their way toward the bathroom.
	*Not Mulder's.*
	She flailed her left arm out from the bathwater and reached toward the shelf
where she always placed her gun when she bathed, ever since Eugene Tooms had
tried to take her liver.
	But there was no gun there, of course; Skinner had probably already tossed the
weapon into the Potomac, or wherever bad guns went to die.
	The footsteps stopped right outside the bathroom.
	Scully shriveled into the bottom of the tub, only holding her head and neck
above water, as if the bubble bath suds were bulletproof.
	There were two sharp raps on the half-opened door, and then it swung open.
	She saw the puff of smoke before the gray hair and wrinkled face.
	*I should've known he doesn't die,* she thought.
	The Cigarette-Smoking Man held his cigarette in his left hand.
	Because his right held a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol.
	"Forgive the ungentlemanly intrusion, Agent Scully," he said softly, between
drags on his Morley. "But I'm afraid we have to talk."

<37>
Western Iraq
The Bloody Crescent
4:55 a.m. local time
8:55 p.m. Eastern time

Alex Krycek sat cross-legged on the desert floor, tending the campfire and
drinking thick black coffee, watching morning extend its purple and orange
grasp from the horizon into the eastern sky.
	He heard the short German doctor wheeze and puff his way toward him.
	"Krycek?" called a voice, English slathered with a thick layer of Bavarian.
"The American satellite will be overhead soon. You should get back
underground."
	"In a minute, Herr Doktor," Krycek replied. "We have some time before the
satellite pass. Help me finish this coffee."
	With a weary grunt, Dr. Rudolf Bronschweig collapsed next to Krycek, accepting
a tin cup of coffee with a muttered word of thanks. For a few moments, the two
men watched the sunrise. 
	"*Verdammt* weather," Bronschweig finally said. "Not even morning and it
already feels like an oven out here."
	"You're a long way from the Black Forest," Krycek agreed. "No skiing holidays
here."
	Bronschweig *harumphed* his opinion about Krycek's joke. "You don't seem
bothered by this much."
	"Genes, probably. My father loved the desert," Krycek said, looking east
again. "Before he died, he told me some fabulous stories about his
archaeological digs in Egypt. Real *Indiana Jones* shit."
	"Indiana Jones?" Bronschweig's voice registered confusion.
	"Never mind. You know his favorite quote? It was from T.E. Lawrence. About the
desert being clean. Father thought Moscow was the dirtiest city on earth, in
more ways than one. He fled to Egypt whenever he could. As a professor. As a
military advisor. However he could get the visa. Did you meet him?"
	"No," Bronschweig said.
	"Greatest storyteller in the world. Kept me up *all* night. My *mat*--my
mother--got so angry with him." Krycek sipped his coffee.
	"Those stories are why you're here," Bronschweig said.
	Krycek snorted. "Not quite. I have five million reasons to be here, and each
one bears the signature of the American Treasury Secretary."
	"Ah, Krycek," said Bronschweig. "Being a mercenary doesn't suit you well.
Mercenaries don't watch the sun rise. They wait anxiously for it to set."
	"I prefer to think of myself as a consultant rather than a mercenary."
	"Whatever," Bronschweig said. 
	Krycek looked in the bottom of his coffee cup, as if reading tea leaves. "My
father hated these men," he said softly.
	"It's fair to say these men don't like each other. I'm not even sure I like
you," Bronschweig continued.
	Krycek chuckled at that.
	"You really believe the cartouche holds the key," said Bronschweig.
	"I believe that if it doesn't," Krycek said, "then hope is lost."
	"The Elder will not be pleased if he discovers our efforts."
	"If we're successful, the Elder won't be around to complain about it," Krycek
said, beginning to shovel sand onto the fire.
	"You know that Baghdad exploded another device," Bronschweig said, changing
the subject.
	Krycek stopped digging, looking up with wide eyes. "When?"
	"About one o'clock."
	Krycek slowly exhaled through pursed lips. "That's ahead of schedule on the
agenda."
	"Apparently Mr. Hussein has a different agenda."
	"What if everything happens too fast?"
	Bronschweig shrugged. "I don't know. Angel Four's out of the bottle. We can't
put it back inside."
	Krycek did some mental calculations. "When does the boy arrive?"
	"Tonight, unless something happens. But even then, the timetable remains
unclear. We still have several pieces of unfinished business. We need another
seventy-two hours. At least."
	Krycek began stomping on the now-smoking embers with his combat boot, making
sure he'd truly extinguished the fire. "Bronschweig, answer me one question.
Honestly. For once let's deal in the truth."
	Bronschweig gave a little shrug that said, *fair enough.*
	"Do you think this will work? In your heart of hearts?"
	The doctor looked east, his mind several worlds away.
	"God only knows," he finally said. "Come, come. The Keyhole satellite will
come over the horizon soon. Let's get out of sight."

<38>
Dana Scully's apartment
9:58 p.m.

*I need a weapon* was Scully's first thought.
	*I need to stall* was her second.
	The bathwater now felt positively arctic.
	"I thought you were dead," she said.
	"Reports have been greatly exaggerated," the smoking man replied.
	"I don't allow smoking in my home."
	"A wise rule. But I'm afraid I'm a difficult house guest." He reached over and
tapped a long ash into her sink. "Conducting a conversation like this may prove
a little uncomfortable for both of us. Would you put something on?"
	"Not in front of you," she said. "Mind waiting outside? Say a couple hundred
miles away?"
	"Let's try on the other side of the door," he said, stepping away and closing
it behind him.
	In a flash, Scully launched herself out of the tub and into the thick white
terrycloth robe on the back of the door.
	*Weapon. Weapon. Weapon.*
	She opened the tub drain to create some noise, and then carefully opened the
medicine cabinet door.
	 A plastic bottle of Tylenol fell out into the sink with a *clatter.*
	"Shit," she whispered.
	*Not much time.*
	Her eyes pored through the cabinet, looking for something, anything.
	*Goddamn safety razors.*
	*Could I use Drano?*
	*Sure. And hold it in what? Your hands?*
	Her eyes fell upon a pair of cuticle scissors. "They'll have to do," she
muttered, sliding them into her robe pocket.
	She opened the door to find the smoking man standing against the opposite
corridor wall, aiming his pistol right at her head.
	"Let's move into the kitchen," he said.
	"I'm afraid I have nothing in the house," she deadpanned.
	"Thanks, but I've already eaten. Keep your hands where I can see them, please,
Agent Scully."
	Scully lifted her arms away from her body. "Mulder's never indicated you're
this jumpy when you pay him a visit."
	"Agent Mulder doesn't scare me as much as you do," the man said.
	*That might be the ultimate left-handed compliment,* she thought.
 	He marched her into her kitchen. "Sit," he commanded, jerking the gun toward
the table. "And keep your hands on the table. At all times."
	Scully complied. He leaned against the counter directly opposite her,
continuing to hold the gun but maintaining a loose firing stance, drawing a
lazy bead on her body.
	He looked exactly the same as he did nearly six years ago, when she first met
him: another rumpled suit and cloud of cigarette smoke in Section Chief Scott
Blevins' office, sitting in the corner silently as Blevins fed her some bright
and shining lie about her future with the FBI. 
	Now she knew how they really saw her: as a red-haired stealth bomb they could
lob into Mulder's basement empire, using her scientific mind to debunk his
quixotic quests. That was a plan that backfired. *Showed them, huh?* 
	Blevins now lay dead, but this one still stood: hard yet wrinkled face, a
civil servant's stooped posture, and cold silver eyes that had seen the end of
the world.
	Scully shivered inside her robe.
	"I understand you and Agent Mulder visited Blue Bluffs this afternoon," he
began.
	"We did."
	"Did you enjoy Indiana?"
	"We found it more exciting than we'd been led to believe."
	"You caused a lot of excitement as well. I hear Pinck plans to sue the Bureau.
And now that they're owned by GSK--"
	"No merger commission has yet approved that transaction," she interrupted.
	"Now that they're owned by GSK," he continued, "they'll have plenty of
deutschemarks to spend on lawsuits. Trust me, Agent Scully, no merger
commission will raise a finger to stop this corporate marriage. I've seen to
that."
	"We learned a lot from Miles Seligman," she said.
	"Miles," said the smoking man, as if remembering a college roommate or a
distant cousin. "Miles was almost a threat. He had all the pieces, just not in
the right order. But he didn't worry me. You and Mulder, however, do. You tend
to stumble across the right things at the wrong time."
	"We've become very good at stumbling. We excel at it," Scully shot back.
	But the iron in her voice wasn't present in her revolving stomach, her
thundering heart.
	*What does he want?*
	"This leaves me with a problem," the smoking man said, "because your
interference at this point would prove... inconvenient. So I must take action.
The simplest apparent solution, of course, would be to kill you."
	"You've tried that already," she said, letting her anger modulate her voice,
keep it steady. "Someone might have told you that I almost died from cancer
last year."
	"Really?" he said, overacting his feigned interest. "I'm sorry to hear that.
Had I known, I would've sent flowers."
	"You bastard," she hissed.
	"Agent Scully, *you* removed the chip, not I. Had you left well enough
alone..." He shrugged his shoulders. "You might have saved yourself a lot of
medical bills."
	The cuticle scissors burnt white-hot in her robe pocket.
	*I think I'll start with your eye,* she silently seethed.
	"In any event, your... experience... last year simply underscored a conclusion
I've been drawing for years now--that removing one of you from the equation
simply makes the other one stronger," he said. "One murder creates a martyr.
Two murders create an inquiry, likely led by Assistant Director Skinner, quite
an uncooperative fellow of late. And three murders represent a scandal."
	"You'll have to forgive me and my math," she said. "How many murders make a
conspiracy? And how many comprise genocide?"
	"Do you play chess, Agent Scully?"
	She shook her head.
	"A shame. It was actually Bill Mulder who taught me how to play." The smoking
man used his left hand to fish another cigarette from the open pack of Morleys
next to him on the counter. He took a cheap Bic butane lighter and expertly
used his left hand to light the end, inhaling deeply. "Bill was very, very
good, much better than I could ever be. I have this propensity to avoid any
direct confrontation. My style is to circle the wagons, to keep my army intact.
Bill would attack on several fronts, sacrificing pawns for bishops, bishops for
the queen. And he always won. Because he knew which pieces to keep and which to
lose."
	"Like his son," Scully said with a sneer, "and his daughter. Or is it *his*
daughter?"
	She remembered standing in Teena Mulder's house in Connecticut, watching
Mulder's face shatter as his mother began to dodge questions about Samantha's
paternity. She'd barely resisted an urge to slap his mother, take Mulder's hand
and lead him away.
	But all the smoking man did was raise his eyebrows. "Believe what you want.
This isn't some B movie where I stand here with the gun and explain the entire
plot because I'm going to shoot you anyway. First of all, I'm not going to
shoot you anyway. And secondly, I'm running out of time. Which is why I'm
forced to do something I never do, Agent Scully, and that's negotiate."
	He reached inside his overcoat and tossed a videocassette onto the kitchen
table.
	Scully cast a wary eye upon it. "Apparently you've confused me with my
partner," she quipped.
	"Look at it," said the smoking man. "It won't bite."
	Scully picked it up. It was a plain, Sony VHS videotape. She picked it up to
read the label on the spine.
	SCULLY DANA KATHERINE, it read in black, block penmanship. ADMITTED 8 AUGUST
1994.
	The videotape began to softly rattle as her hand started shaking violently.
	"You went missing on that date, didn't you, Agent Scully?"
	"You know I did," she replied, wrapping her right hand with her left in a vain
effort to stop the trembling.
	"That cassette should answer all your questions. It's what a football fan
would call a 'highlights' tape."
	Scully looked at the tape, hefted it in her hand as if trying to guess its
weight.
	*I'm holding time in my hands. Four months of time I thought I'd forever
lost.*
	*This is more than truth... this is an answer.*
	With a degree of effort, she placed the tape back on the table. "This is
obviously not a Christmas gift."
	"Quite correct." The smoking man reached back into his pocket and withdrew a
thin, unsealed white envelope.
	Scully opened it and unfolded the single sheet that sat inside. Her eyes
quickly scanned it.
	"This is a resignation letter," she said.
	"*Your* resignation letter. My offer is simple. Sign that letter. Leave the
country. Take the tape."
	Scully felt the bottom of her stomach fall to her feet.
	*Leave Mulder?*
	"If I leave," she said, "Mulder will just work harder."
	"No," said the smoking man. "If you are *taken,* Agent Mulder will work
harder, because he'll think doing so will return you to him. Or maybe he won't
work so hard. Do you think he was working really hard with that woman in Los
Angeles while you were missing?"
	The words cut her soul like rusty scalpels. She looked away, struggling to
keep her face composed.
	"But if you *leave* of your own accord, then you'll open up this Pandora's box
of doubts he has inside him. Because if you don't stand behind him, who will?"
	*You're my one in five billion, Scully,* she heard Mulder say.
	Angry tears burnt her eyes like acid.
	"Nuclear weapons can destroy nations, but only guilt can truly destroy a man,"
he added, drawing deeply on his cigarette.
	"What if I say no?" Scully said.
	"Then I have a Plan B. But it's far less clean," he said. "Do you know what
China White is?"
	"Number four heroin. High degree of purity, very expensive."
	"*Incredibly* expensive. I found out how much it would cost to buy an amount
large enough to earn whoever possessed it a life sentence in federal prison.
Then I bought twice that amount. I thought I'd dump it in your separate cars
and call the police."
	Ice crawled up Scully's spine.
	"You'd adapt well to incarceration. You like rules," the smoking man said in
an almost conversational tone. "You'd probably run the prison library or start
one of those jailhouse universities. Not Agent Mulder. I've watched him for
almost four decades now. I know him almost as if he were my own son. Cut off
from his work, his sister, you, the truth, and confined to a six-by-six cell?
You know what he'd do."
	Scully shuddered. She knew. In an abandoned Rhode Island cottage, a delusional
and armed Mulder had shown her the darkest corner of his heart, a sight that
scared her more than an army of flukemen, more than a battalion of Donnie
Pfasters.
	"Why not just frame us anyway?" she asked.
	Now his eyes looked away for a moment. He inhaled half the cigarette, blew the
smoke toward the ceiling.
	"It'd devastate Teena," he said quietly, then offered a wry half-smile.
"There, Agent Scully. You squeezed one secret out of me."
	"He'll find me," she said.
	The smoking man began to laugh, a horrible, condescending sound that made her
look down in embarrassment.
	"Oh, Agent Scully, I thought *he* was the naive one," he said. "Do you think
he loves you? He may think he does. He's certainly attracted to you. But
leaving the country to find you would mean he'd have to leave the Bureau and
the X-Files. Even Skinner wouldn't authorize Mulder to waste taxpayer money
playing some global game of hide-and-seek with his lover. His *supposed* lover.
Because you and I both know who his real lovers are. Those drawers of
candy-striped folders. You're just the mistress in this sad little triangle."
	*That's not true,* she thought. *Is it?*
	She felt two boiling-hot tears trace tracks down her cheeks.
	He leaned toward her, blowing smoke into her face. "Given your religious
heritage, I'm sure you see me as the devil right now. And if I could make this
deal any more Faustian, I would. If I could walk into this room holding
Emily--"
	"Don't you *ever* say her name again," Scully shouted.
	"If I could walk into this room holding Emily, and trade her for your
cooperation, I'd do it in a second. That's how dire my predicament is right
now. But there are some things even I can't fix."
	Scully lifted the cassette, turning it over in her hands.
	"Now I know how much time costs," she mumbled. "Thirty pieces of silver."
	"Enough melodrama," said the smoking man, tossing the remainder of his
cigarette into the kitchen sink. "I need a decision, Agent Scully."
	Scully looked at the videotape.
	*Mulder, what would you do? This is a dead end. We're damned if we do and
damned if we don't, and I've lost the game and I'm so sorry.*
	She remembered him in the funhouse cul-de-sac, feeling for secret latches.
	*Is there one here?*
	And then the idea came to her.
	She slid the videocassette back across the table.
	"Which federal prison would you prefer?" the smoking man said.
	"I want something other than this," she said calmly.
	"This is a fixed-price deal," he responded.
	"You said this was a negotiation. But if that's the way you feel, I hope
you're ready to tell Teena Mulder about her son's drug problem. Or his suicide
in prison."
	It took every atom of strength she could muster to keep from letting the last
five words break up in her mouth.
	*Oh, God forgive me. Mulder, please forgive me.*
	The smoking man stared at her for a moment, sizing her up.
	"I'd like a cigarette," she said, in the best commanding tone she could
achieve.
	His eyebrows shot up. But he placed the pack of Morleys and the lighter on the
table, sliding them over.
	With fumbling fingers, she fished out a cigarette, slid the filter into her
mouth and lit the business end. She inhaled deeply, feeling the nicotine hug
her nerves, soothing them with deadly kisses.
	He handed her a coffee mug from the sink drainboard to use as an ashtray.
	"Well?" he said. "What's your price?"
	She took another deep drag, hoping the smoke would burn away the chill that'd
seized her entire body, and rested the cigarette in the cup.
	She said one word.
	His eyes grew wide.
	"That's my price," she said.
	"Absolutely not," he scoffed.
	"Then take me to prison," she said. "Or better yet, shoot me. Right now."
	She stood, reached across, grabbed his gun hand and pulled it toward her,
placing the barrel of the Beretta right against her forehead.
	The smoking man stood motionless, and for one moment, Scully was sure he'd
pull the trigger.
	Instead he reached for the cigarette in the coffee mug, putting it in his
mouth. He moved the pistol away from her forehead, but kept it aimed.
	"That price is too high," he finally said.
	"What you're asking of me is very expensive," she replied. "I'm assuming I
won't be allowed to tell Mulder anything? Or contact him once I leave?"
	He nodded.
	*Then that means,* Scully realized, *I can't tell Mom.*
	Near the end of the cancer, in the dark days before the remission, she
remembered awakening from a nap to hear her mother crying from her chair next
to the hospital bed. It hadn't been a hysterical sound; only a gentle weeping
punctuated with occasional sniffles and sobs. And yet it'd frightened Scully to
her marrow, scared her enough to feign sleep instead of face her.
	Mothers were supposed to wipe away tears, not make them.
	*And I keep making you cry. Melissa. The cancer. Now this.*
	"Then, in my eyes," she said, taking a deep breath, "this is the only fair
deal."
	He puffed on the Morley, eyes narrowing.
	"You should work for me," he said softly.
	"I'm only improving your chess game," she whispered. "Making you lose pieces."
	"Resign tomorrow and leave the country by midnight," he said abruptly,
beginning to move toward the door, leaving the pistol trained on her head.
"Keep your hands on the table and don't turn around."
	"Then I assume we're in agreement?"
	She heard her front door open.
	"We are, Agent Scully," the smoking man said gruffly.
	As soon as she heard the latch click closed, she bolted up from the table and
ran into the hallway.
	Of course, only a cloud of cigarette smoke remained.
	She slammed the apartment door shut.
	She tore the cuticle scissors from her robe pocket and flung them across the
room.
	*Useless. I was so fucking useless.*
	She sank to the floor, back against the door, shoulders shaking with sobs.
	"Mulder," she mumbled. "I'm sorry. I did the best I could. I'm sorry."

<39>
December 4, 1998
Dear Mulder,

I write to ask your forgiveness for my sins.
	When you came to my hotel room two nights ago, I watched you shiver in the
doorway, your body rippling like wind on seawater.
	I thought you were cold. I now know you were scared.
	My hand now trembles as it crosses the page.
	I lied to you three times today.
	It's not the first time we've hidden the truth from each other. You held back
your demons; I held back my sickness. We tell ourselves we do it to protect the
other; we actually do it to protect ourselves.
	But I've never twisted truth into a lie before your eyes, until today.
	I did it with the best of intentions, those that form the bricks of the road
to hell.
	Does the end justify the means?
	Two days ago, outside Jason Doyle's bedroom, I told you no.
	Now I'm not so sure. It's hard to separate gray back into black and white.
	As I write this, I see your smile, that laconic leer that lazily stretches
halfway toward one ear and teases me with a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't
dimple.
	If I can keep one part of you with me until I die, it will be that smile.
	But I know that you will see my self-doubt as victory, proof that I have now
opened my mind to your extreme possibilities.
	Just as you will know that I can only see that as defeat.
	
The first time I lied was when right after you gave me the gift-wrapped box,
when I returned from upstairs around lunchtime.
	I saw your eyes spark with worry for a moment as I took the package.
	My face must've betrayed me. I almost cried. Knowing what I was about to do...
and then you give me something...
	But of course, you hadn't bought me anything. Just taken my new service
pistol, issued by Skinner and the armory to replace the one that killed Jason
Doyle, and served it to me as a gag gift.
	I didn't lie when I said you were a brat. You have been and always will be,
one whom frustrates me to ecstasy.
	I didn't lie when I told you I'd been examining Miles Seligman's body and then
evidence from the Doyle residence.
	You raised one eyebrow before you asked why the D.C. police had turned
evidence back over to the FBI.
	I almost laughed. Do I look like that when I do it?
	Think horses, not zebras. If you keep part of me, I hope you keep that
eyebrow, that initial skepticism.
	I hope you keep some part of me, Mulder.
	I didn't lie when I told you the evidence came back just as it always does
from the D.C. labs. Choked with drug murders and drive-bys, they have neither
the time nor patience for detailed forensic work and have come to rely on the
"professional courtesy" we offer all law enforcement agencies.
	Then you chuckled and said you thought I was avoiding you.
	A laugh in your voice, a question mark in your eyes.
	And here I lied: I said no.
	But I was. I had been all morning.
	You go through life thinking you remind me of everything I've lost.
	Untrue. Through yesterday, you've only reminded me of everything I've fought
to keep.
	And someday, maybe sooner than I think, your memory will remind me of why I
gave up what I did.
	But today, you only reminded me of you: the way you smell and the gentle
pressure of your fingers in the small of my back and your lousy sense of
direction and the weight of your hand in mine and how every time I leave you, I
wonder what your good-night kiss would taste like.
	And today, you only reminded me of how I'll never find out.
	And I wanted to avoid that feeling--the raw, empty ache that will now reside
where you used to sit in my heart--as long as I could.
	So I avoided you.
 
The second time I lied was when you asked if I had found anything among the
evidence.
	I said no. But I did.
	They left me alone in one of the evidence rooms with the boxes, which
obviously have not received any priority. This poor family. We shuffle their
corpses and effects from agency to agency, passing responsibility for their
deaths from one bureaucrat to another, as if committing them forever to limbo,
never honoring their memories with an answer or their bodies with final rest.
	Three lives in sixteen boxes. Is that all we stand for at the end?
	You know what's in those boxes. Checkbooks and pocketbooks, passports and
driver's licenses, prescriptions and medical records, the detritus of a life
interrupted.
	I spent hours pretending to sift through them, in reality thinking about what
my boxes would hold. I could only fill one in my mind. Uninteresting checkbook,
uneventful passport, a relatively usual paper trail of bills and diplomas.
	I grew despondent when I realized I held nothing of Emily's. Not even a photo.
I never took one. There was never time. There'd be my cross, which she wore.
Which I'll take with me to my grave. But no more.
	But it crushed me just as much to realize I have so little to prove *us.*
	A *Superstars of the Superbowl* tape. I still have it.
	My Apollo 11 keychain.
	One dried rose petal. Reminds me of what we could've lost, what we could've
had.
	Who knows?
	We never will now.
	I picked up a photo of Jason Doyle. Bat slung over his shoulder, cap low over
his eyes, wearing a blue-and-green jersey: G'TOWN TEE BALL.
	I ended his life with fire and steel two days ago, and I'm not sure why I had
to.
	My hand began to shake a little, and I ended up dropping the picture.
	The glass shattered, the frame exploded into four pieces of wood.
	Something fell out from behind the back of the photograph.
	It was a Swiss banker's business card. Some numbers had been written on the
back of it in pen.
	I pocketed the card before cleaning up the mess.
	So not only did I lie to you, I committed a felony.

The third lie was the deepest.
	When I stood to leave, you said "see you tomorrow."
	And I nodded.
	You'll never see me again.
	And whatever you think about me for the rest of your life, please realize that
I did what I thought was best, given the few choices I had available.
	You would've never let me save you, even when I was dying.
	If what I've done eventually saves you, then it's saved us both.	
	Because I love you, Mulder. So much it scares me, so much it hurts, so much
that I don't know who I'll become without you. 
	Perhaps that's the only truth there is. 
	It's certainly the only one that matters to me anymore.
	And if what I do today protects that truth from evil, then it's been worth the
cost.

With all my love,
------
She almost signed *Dana* but instead voted for *Scully.*
	She had folded the letter and placed it in the envelope, about to seal it when
she realized what she was doing.
	She saw the smoking man at Mulder's apartment, flipping through his mail,
finding her letter.
	She saw him reading it, a half-grin of prurient interest slowly rising to his
face.
	She saw him pocketing the letter with a wry chuckle.
	She saw him hiding the heroin under Mulder's couch.
	"I can't, I can't, I can't," she mumbled.
	She rose from her seat at her kitchen table, walked to the sink, opened a
drawer and dug out a box of matches, striking one against the counter.
	The letter curled at the edges, turned black in an instant and then was gone.
	She blinked back the tears as she looked at the clock.
	11:19 p.m.
	*Not much time.*
	She allowed herself one sniffle and walked into the bedroom.
	The covers on her bed were tangled and twisted, half on and half off the
mattress, a reminder of how she'd kicked and wailed herself into a uneasy,
dreamless stupor last night.
	She touched the pillows. She knew it was her imagination, but they still felt
damp.
	She took a long deep sigh and looked around the room. *It feels empty
already.*
	One of her overnight-size suitcases, still half-filled from the Indiana trip,
sat by the foot of the bed.
	Opening her closet, she looked down on her other tote bag, filled with
underwear and toiletries, a redundant backup for back-to-back adventures with
Mulder.
	*If there's one thing Mulder's taught me,* she thought, *it's how to pack.*

PART I ENDS
PART II BEGINS 17 SEPTEMBER

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