From eponine119@att.net Fri Jan 03 21:46:34 1997

Disclaimer: Characters,  situations and quotes belong to The X Files,
Chris Carter, 10-13 and Fox, not to me. 
Spoilers: Yeah, so?  ;)  Second season.
Title: I don't think it's the best.  Anyone with better suggestions
email me now!  :)
Comments: Yes, please.

_________________
If They Loved
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
December 10, 1996
________________

April 12, 1995
5:02 am

She was aware of him before she even came fully awake.  She could smell
him, feel the heat of his body against hers.  The taste of his skin
lingered in her memory.  

They had made love.

She sighed happily, audibly, and cracked her eyes open to look at him in
the dim just-dawning light.  She had never seen him look so relaxed, so
peaceful.  So...content.  She wasn't sure she even dared to think it,
dared to think that her presence made him happy.

She loved him.  She'd thought so before, in sneaking, quiet moments. 
But she'd never fully admitted it to herself before now.  It still
felt...dangerous.

After two years of friendship, everything had happened so fast.  

She'd dropped by to go over his notes on the Chaco chicken plant.  She'd
put off thinking about it for too long already; she knew she had to face
it now.  Every time she remembered how close they had come to beheading
her...if Mulder had arrived a few seconds later...it made her sick to
her stomach.

He'd just come in himself, from running, she thought, because he was out
of breath and flushed and full of energy.  He couldn't keep still once
he let her in the door, pacing the length of the apartment in long, fast
strokes like a lion in a cage while he drained a glass of water.

The movement in the small apartment distracted her.  It was hard enough
to think about that Arkansas chicken plant even without Mulder catching
her eye every few seconds.  "I'll just go," she'd said, rising from his
couch and heading for the door.

"No.  Don't go."  He bounded over to her and caught her on the shoulder,
turning her around to face him.

Their look caught fire.  Scully dropped the papers she was holding and
for a moment, Mulder was still.  Everything was still.  Neither of them
breathed.  He slid his fingers under her chin and she knew he was going
to kiss her.  She wanted him to.  Her heart pounded in her ears and it
was impossible to even think about pulling away, maintaining their
professional distance.

She had never experienced such passion.  Such reckless abandon.  Mulder
let all of his walls down that night, and she had done the same.  His
energy was fierce.  He was more intense with her that night than she had
ever seen him before, over anything.  It was exciting; it felt good.

She loved him.  And even though she knew the difference between sex and
love, she also knew Mulder.  And she hoped that he felt the same way
about her.  They hadn't spoken any words last night.

A wave of panic rolled through her now.  Nerves.  What if it all went
wrong?  Mulder was her best friend, she trusted him, he was the best guy
she knew, but what if it didn't work?  What if he blew her off?

Not Mulder, she thought.  He wouldn't do it that way.

She thought she should go, but it was cold on the other side of the
covers without his body there to warm her.  She wanted to savor this
moment.  Just a little while longer, she thought as she snuggled back
against him, her eyelids already falling closed again.  And she slept.

><><><><><><><
April 12
9:39 am
FBI HQ

He was gone when she woke up.  The morning had only decayed from there. 
She was late getting in to work because she'd had to go to her apartment
on the other side of the city to brush her teeth and dress before
heading to the office.

Skinner stopped her in the hall the minute she arrived guilt-faced with
the lateness of the hour and the illicitness of the previous night's
activities.  Last night, it had felt like love.  When Mulder left her
there sleeping to go into the office on his own, it began to feel
dangerously like a mistake.

"Agent Scully, may I have a word?"

"Certainly."  It was even hard to meet her boss's eyes this morning.  If
anyone found out, if any of those surveillance teams Mulder routinely
worried about had seen them...it could be the excuse they needed to shut
down the X Files forever.  She hated that awareness, and once she
thought of it, it hung like a millstone around her neck.

Skinner looked like he was searching for delicate words where none would
fit, but she managed to meet his eyes.  "I understand that you were
almost killed on the Chaco chicken matter, Agent Scully, but..."  His
manner softened for a second, as though he really did understand.  "I'd
appreciate your making your report as soon as possible."

"Is that all?" she asked, barely hiding her surprise.

He nodded gruffly and she felt relieved.  "Tell Agent Mulder I'm looking
for him if you see him, would you, Agent Scully?"

Her relief hadn't lasted long.  "Of course," she said and turned away.

She knocked hesitantly on the basement door that read "Fox Mulder,
Special Agent" even though it was her office too.  She didn't know what
to expect; she felt ridiculously like an awkward teenager and she hated
it.  

Mulder looked up at her when she pushed the door open and her heart
melted a little.  He looked terrific. His hair was combed back and his
eyes were bright and clear on hers.  Everything was going to be all
right, she thought.  "Mulder, Skinner's looking for you," she said from
the doorway.

"Come in and lock the door," he said.  Her eyes widened, wondering
exactly what he needed the door locked in order to show her, but he
hadn't said it like an overture, so she did as he said.

"What's going on in here?"  Business, Dana, she reminded herself.

Mulder was too excited by the possibilities he'd been shown in the last
twenty-four hours.  He'd felt guilty leaving her there, sleeping, after
the night they'd had, but it had been early and he hadn't wanted to wake
her.  She looked too peaceful, too beautiful to disturb.  He couldn't
believe he'd finally touched her.  He could have gone back to sleep, but
he could feel the demons lingering in the room, nightmares hovering and
threatening to come.  He didn't want to awaken her with screams.  He
couldn't bear for her to see him that way.  Besides, there was too much
work to be done.

He'd jogged to work to try to burn some of the energy away, the
anticipation that surrounded the envelope he had tucked into his
pocket.  Halfway there, he realized he couldn't not share this with
her.  He couldn't keep it a secret, and he didn't want to.  It was too
exciting, too vital.  So he stopped at a cafe and ate a hearty breakfast
to give her time to catch up before he went in to the office.  And to
savor the last thrills of anticipation.

He wanted to call her and tell her, but he couldn't.  Not after the way
he left.  He was no good at morning-after stuff, and this was not
exactly pillow talk. Not even for them.  He wanted to be cool about it.

But now that she was here, his ebullience burst through the surface. 
"Are you familiar with the ten commandments, Scully?"

She looked wary, but he barely noticed.  Adultery? Fornication? she
thought, with a sinking heart.  "Why?  Do you want me to recite them for
you?"

"Just number four, the one about obeying the Sabbath, the one where God
created Heaven and Earth and didn't bother to tell anybody about his
side projects," Mulder said, fighting back a grin.

"What are you talking about?"  She didn't take her eyes off him.

"The biggest lie of all." He didn't take his eyes off the computer
monitor.  He punched a few keys on the keyboard and a new screen
scrolled up.

His exhilarated mood almost allayed her fears.  Then she looked at the
screen of his computer.  "What is this?" she demanded, scared.

"The Holy Grail."

He was insane, she thought.  Department of Defense, Top Secret, it said
across the screen.  He was going to get himself killed, she thought, and
she was the only one who would care.  "Original defense department
files, hard evidence that the government has known about the existence
of extraterrestrials for almost fifty years."

He was so excited, but a cold chill poured through her.  "How did you
get this?"

"Your friendly neighborhood anarchist," he smirked, typing a bit more to
get a look at the document.  Scully was angry.  She wanted names and
dates and details.  If he wouldn't keep himself safe - and she knew he
wouldn't - she had to be able to do it for him.

He blinked when the next screen came up.  Stunned.  "I don't believe
this," he said softly.  "This is gibberish!"  He stared at it a moment
longer before he jumped out of his chair and took a swing at the
supplies on his desk, flinging them to the other side of the room with a
crash.  "Damn it!  I'm so sick of this crap!" he cried.

Dana watched him, breathing hard.  She had never seen him like this. 
Mulder was not given to these sudden fits of passion, of fury.  She had
never, ever seen him violent without cause.  She looked at the screen
and then back at him.  "Mulder, this may not be gibberish."  She heard a
tremor in her voice and willed it away.

"It's a joke, Scully, a bad one."  He was so furious he could barely
speak.  They'd set him up, those bastards, his friends, this was all a
colossal joke, because they thought he was a joke.  The only one with
theories weirder than theirs, a great source of entertainment.  If
Frohike was here, he'd wring his little neck.  A tiny voice in the back
of his head cautioned him that this fury was irrational, but he didn't
listen.

"I think it's just encrypted and I think I recognize it," Scully said
slowly, wishing she could get a breath.  She had Mulder's attention now,
and he looked calmer. That fast.  "It looks like Navajo.  It was used
during World War Two; my father told me it was the only code the
Japanese couldn't break."  She felt him come and stand behind her and
still felt a twinge of worry about his sudden rage.  "I remember the
long strings of consonants," she said, touching the screen, pointing
them out to him.  Mulder was very visual, very tactile, and she hoped it
would make it more real to him.

"Can you decipher it?"

"Only a handful of people can..."  She just looked at him, wondering
what went on his head sometimes.  Now he thought she might be able to
read Navajo?

"Well, find one of 'em," he said and she knew he was taking off.  And
there was nothing she could do or say to stop him.  She wanted to ask
where he was going, but held herself back.  He touched her on the
shoulder for a second before he crossed the room, an apology and a
reassurance.  I remember last night, she hoped it meant.

She couldn't just let him go.  "Mulder, are you okay?"  She stopped him
at the door, truly concerned.  The sudden temper, it was too out of
character and also, terribly, much like his sudden passion of the night
before.  She couldn't ignore it.

"Yeah," he said heavily, his hand on the doorknob to leave.  "I just
haven't been sleeping."

He slammed the door behind him and Scully stared after him, shocked,
trying to convince herself that it didn't hurt.  That he hadn't meant
what she'd heard.  After a moment, she set it all aside to begin her
report for Skinner.  She took the tape out of the digital drive and hid
it underneath the drawer while the word processing program booted up. 
It gave her a moment to collect herself, to indulge in Mulder's world of
paranoia, before she began to type.

><><><><><><><><><

Mulder stormed down the hall.  He had to talk to the Gunmen, he knew
that they knew more than they were telling. But he couldn't call them
from FBI HQ.  And he needed some air, to try to extinguish the fire of
anger that burned in his stomach.  He needed something to drink, too, he
was parched again.  He'd been feeling bad ever since they got back from
Arkansas, fighting something. He hoped he hadn't gotten it from the
chicken.  He'd had a fever yesterday for a while and glass after glass
of water hadn't slaked his thirst.

He realized too late that his path out of the building took him right
past AD Skinner's office.  And the man himself was just coming out. 
"Sir?" said Mulder, wishing there was some way he could avoid this.  He
didn't want another case; the one he had in his hands was too
important.  The leads were too fragile. If they sent him out to the back
of beyond, he might never learn the truth.  And he didn't want a reaming
for whatever he had done now.

"Agent Mulder, I need to speak with you."

"About?"  I don't have the time for this, Mulder thought, his heart
racing again with the pressure of time, to strike before the leads
vanished.

"In my office," Skinner suggested.

God damn it, no, thought Mulder, not now, not now.  "Why?  Is this
another jerk-off assignment where I end up doing the government's dirty
work?"  The anger bubbled up within him again, the sarcastic words
tumbling out without thought or self control.  It's probably another
freaking sewer monster. This is part of the crap I'm sick of, he
thought. He'd wanted to quit for more than six months, ever since they
shut down the X Files before.  Scully was the only reason he'd remained.

"It's about a rumor that you may be receiving some sensitive files."

"I don't know anything about that," Mulder said. Let him know you're
lying, see if you can piss the big marine off.  In a blatant show of
disrepect, one his father would have beaten him for, Mulder turned and
started to walk away without another word.

"Agent Mulder, listen to me -"  Skinner grabbed his shoulder.

Mulder turned and punched him.  The smack of his fist against flesh felt
wonderful and he couldn't stop himself.  He struck out blindly, his
thoughts buried inside the rage.  A couple of agents tried to pull him
off, but Mulder ignored them.

Skinner jerked him around, pinned him in a headlock.  Mulder couldn't
breathe.  It hurt...not the lock, his chest hurt, a pain inside.  "Are
we finished, Agent Mulder?"  He couldn't say anything, didn't trust
himself to speak.  The fight went out of him then, pinned like a child
in his angry father's arms. He knew better than to fight; he might get
his arm broken for the efforts. It had happened before.  "Are we done?" 
Mulder waited silently for the punishment, for the blows, the pain of
that twelve year old child inside too strong to bear.  "We're done."
Skinner said and released him.

Mulder didn't pause to let his surprise show.  He needed to save face
and not think.  He walked away like not a damn thing had happened.

><><><><><><><
April 13

Scully was worried about Mulder.  She hadn't heard from him since he
left the office the morning before.  She'd been engrossed in writing her
report until after three that afternoon. When she finally emerged to try
hand in the report and grab a sandwich from the snack cart man, she
heard about how Mulder had punched Skinner in an unprovoked attack.

He hadn't told her. He hadn't called her.  Silence prevailed.  And now
she sat in the conference room, called in by Skinner and surprised with
a panel who wanted to question her about Mulder's professional conduct.

Her face flamed and she wondered how bad her blush must look to the
superior agents.  She couldn't meet their eyes as they pretended to be
caring while they pried.  Threatening her with disciplinary action, too,
if she was found to be less than pristine.

She knew they knew about the tape.  Somehow, they knew.  Punching
Skinner was bad enough to get Mulder dismissed, but they wanted her too,
if they could have her.  That was what this was about.  She wondered if
they knew she and Mulder had slept together.  She wondered if it would
come out at the disciplinary hearing, what a cheap slut she would be
made to look like, even though it wasn't like that at all.   She didn't
want to lose her job. She didn't want Mulder to lose his work.

They asked her about his feelings towards her, and his feelings towards
him.  They had to know.  They wanted her to confess, to throw him to the
wolves.  So she lied and covered as best she could.  She'd done it
before and she knew in her heart she'd probably do it again.  The
inquisition pissed her off.  Set-ups and lies and bureaucracy; what
about the truth?  She'd remained cool and calm during their questioning,
but her anger got the better of her and she couldn't help slamming the
door behind her when she left.

End of part one
____________________
If They Loved, part 2
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
___________________


><><><><><><><><><
April 13
Mulder's apartment.

She was worried about him.  He had probably crashed from the anger and
the violence.  She'd seen him depressed.  She was worried he might have
tried to harm himself.  And she needed to see him after the infomal
hearing she'd just been through.  His phone had been unplugged; she knew
it when she heard it ring so many times and the answering machine never
picked up.  He didn't answer his cellular, either.

He didn't even answer his door when she got to his apartment, and she
yelled until one of the neighbors came out of their apartment to give
her a stern look.  Scully turned her back on the elderly man and dug in
her pocket.  She had the key to his door from when the X Files were
closed down and he'd run to Mexico following a trail of lies.  She
traced the scrap of paper she'd labeled the key with: Mulder.  

She knew she shouldn't let herself in, that he could probably hear her
fine and was purposely ignoring her.  He was probably embarrassed about
punching Skinner.  He was probably embarrassed about fucking her, and he
wanted to be left alone.

But the image of him lying on the floor with his gun to his temple
wouldn't let her leave him alone.  She opened the door and walked in.

He was lying on the couch, one arm crossed protectively over his chest. 
She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white
undershirt, watched him breathe.  He was sleeping.  Even so, he looked
tense.

She took another step and he jumped, suddenly awake, knocking the papers
from his coffee table as he fumbled for his gun.  She put up one hand to
stop him, but by then he'd seen her and relaxed, sitting up on the couch
and putting his head in his hands.  He really would have shot her.  "You
didn't answer your door," she explained.

"I took a pill."  He hated to admit it, hated to have to have taken
one.  But he hadn't slept in days, not since the few hours before the
nightmares came after they'd...

"I couldn't find you at work. I was worried about you,"  Scully said
quietly.

The image of her looking for him everywhere touched  his heart, but he
didn't let it show.  He sipped at the glass of water he'd left on the
table, thirstier now for having slept.  It hadn't been good sleep; that
was the thing about sleeping pills.  They knocked you unconscious, but
it wasn't really sleep.  "I came home. Been running a fever," he
admitted.  "Maybe it was the threat of being burned at the stake."  He
couldn't hold back a small cough at the end, but the words served their
purpose in putting her off; she didn't approach and go into her doctor
routine.  He trusted her, but he still had to push her away.  It was not
really different with her than with everyone else.

"They called me in today."

"What did you tell them?"

She didn't miss the worry that flickered through his dark, fever glazed
eyes.  He was working hard for his breath and sweating.  He really was
sick. "That nothing was wrong."

"Telling the truth then," he said, raising his arms over his head.  To
help his respiratory distress, she thought, but didn't move.  She was
angry with him, and typical arrogant responses like that were why. 
Mulder wasn't usually like this but now she expected him to call her
'babe' at any second.  She knew he was doing it on purpose but it still
angered her. There was something wrong.  So much they needed to get out
in the open, but stubbornness and pride prevented.

"Mulder, you opened the door for them, they're just looking for a good
reason now," she said softly.

"I'll say I'm sorry," he said, with absolutely no hint of remorse.  He
was such a bastard when he tried to be.

"Mulder, these files - um - where did you get them?"  She'd asked before
and he had sidestepped the question.   She really needed to know.   
They had to work together on this.  She needed to know he trusted her.

"Why?" he snapped.  Instant suspicion.

After all this, he still doesn't trust me.  He still thinks I'm going to
tattle, go running to Them behind his back.  "Because I had to lie today
and I put my job in jeopardy in order to do so."  To protect you,
Mulder.  You, who has barely acknowledged me in the last couple of
days.  I have priorities too, she thought.  I can't lose you and my job
too.  "If they find out about those files..."

"How would they find out?"

They both heard the rest of the sentence, even though he didn't speak
the words.  How would they find out unless you tell them.

"Maybe they already know.  The question is, is it worth it? Is this
cassette worth risking everything?" she asked.  Including our
partnership, and our friendship?  Is it worth risking us, Mulder?  This
wasn't really about the tape as  much as it was about regret.  Was that
one night together worth the pain and the trouble now?  He regretted
it.  She couldn't help thinking so.  The only thing he cared about was
his quest.  She was second, and then only when she was helping him. 
She'd thought she could deal with that.  Maybe she was wrong.

"I'll tell you when I find out what's on it.  Now tell me who I can talk
to about breaking that code!" Mulder demanded.

Scully retreated, locking her reactions inside.  He had no right to
speak to her that way, no right to insist she help him.  If he cared so
much he could find out himself... "I have a meeting without somebody in
an hour.  I might know something by early in the morning."

He nodded, appeased.  He looked ill.  But she had to push him back.  "I
just need some kind of assurance that they're not going to let us hang
ourselves with this.  That I'm doing the right thing."  She raised her
voice to get through to him.  To get through to herself and hide her
feelings.  She needed reassurances from him, words she knew she was
never going to get, and she could not let that show.

"I'll try to find out," Mulder said quietly, reaching for the masking
tape.  To place his trust in a cipher, an enigma.  Someone he most
likely could not trust.

"I need to know one more thing, Mulder."  He looked at her.  "Why did
you attack Skinner?"  Why the rage, Mulder, like in your office?  Was it
the rage that fueled the passion between us and nothing more?

"I've thought about that Scully," he admitted.  "I honestly can't say." 
The sudden furies  and loss of control puzzled him, scared him.  And he
wanted to confide that in her, but he couldn't.  He couldn't be that
needy.  She turned and walked away and he knew she was angry.  He wanted
to call her back, to touch her, but he only watched her go.

Cold just as quickly as he'd been hot a few minutes ago, he lay back
down on the couch and fumbled with the pill bottle.  He didn't want to
think; he wanted to sleep off the fever.  But he hated being drugged;
his hands were shaking too much to get the cap off the pill bottle.  He
threw it across the room and closed his eyes, struggling to slow his
breathing.  He could sleep on his own.  Let the nightmares come.

><><><><><><><><

She went back to check on him that night, but he was gone.  Without a
word.  It bothered her, but she did her best to shrug it off.  And then
someone shot through the window  and came within half an inch of blowing
her head off.

She went into the interior room of the apartment, the dining room, away
from the windows, to wait.  Mulder wouldn't know it wasn't safe when he
came back. If he came back.  She had to protect him.

She couldn't help thinking of the X on the window.  Mulder could have
gotten information from the man.  The man could have killed him to get
him off his back. That was what the gunshot meant, she thought.  Because
it had been aimed through that taped X.

She jumped when her phone rang and was relieved when she heard Mulder's
voice.  Until she heard what he was saying.  "My father is dead,
Scully."

It took her a moment to absorb the news.  Oh god, if he killed his
father I will never forgive myself.  She shouldn't have argued with him
in his mental state; she shouldn't have left him alone.  Mulder said he
didn't do it, but she'd seen his fury and his rage.  She wanted to
believe him, but she didn't know if she could.  

She had to trust him.  She didn't have any other choice.  He wasn't
lying, she would have heard that in his voice, and he was scared. Those
spoke that he had not done it.  He had not suffered delusions before
this, there was no reason for them to begin now.

And someone had tried to kill her in his stead tonight.  

She warned him away from his apartment and left it carefully.  She would
meet him at hers.

><><><><><><><
April 14
Scully's apartment, 2:47 am

She was almost finished with the book but had scarcely read a word. 
Mulder should have been here by now.  If they'd hurt him...if he'd hurt
himself...she was so worried that she'd never see him again.  That their
last words to each other would be argumentative.  She had such a bad
feeling about all of this.

She heard a scratching at the door and had it open before he could
knock.  She threw her arms around him to kiss him hello, pride be
damned,  and he put his arms around her to hug her, but he didn't make
it.  He fell heavily against her instead and she barely managed to hold
them both up.  "You're sick," she said, pulling at his jacket and
shocked by the blood on his shirt.  She touched him to make sure he was
real, to make sure he wasn't hurt.  He sank down in the chair, ready to
collapse, but she pulled him back up.

He started down the wrong way to her bedroom.  He had never been in her
bedroom, she thought, steering him the right direction and placing him
on the bed.  Seeing him now eased her fears and created new ones.  She
couldn't stop touching him.  He was burning up with fever.  He bellowed
at her and struggled when she went to get a damp cloth to try to reduce
the heat.  "It's okay," she murmured soothingly, wishing she could
believe it.  "It's okay."

They had killed his father. He was delirious and shocky.  That wasn't
all that surprising.  Scully managed to take his temperature before he
crashed and slept.  It was almost a hundred and three.  Worried, she
stripped him down, tossing his dirty clothes aside even though she knew
she should wash them, get the bloodstains out, destroy the evidence just
in case he had...

But she couldn't do it.  She left his briefs on him and draped his
heated body lightly with a sheet.  Then she wound herself up in her
comforter and lay down next to him, watching over him through the night.

The fever brought Mulder nightmares and he tossed and turned beside her,
but he never broke through into consciousness.  She hoped that meant he
wouldn't remember the dreams.  She didn't want him to remember; he'd
been through enough.  What horrors had he seen that night?  Had they
shot his father right in front of him, an anonymous assassin's bullet
like the one through his apartment window?  She held him while he shook
with chills and fear. Finally the fever dropped almost to normal and his
dreams gave way to lighter sleep and she slept herself.

><><><><><><><

He woke afraid although he didn't know why. He didn't know where he was
or why he was undressed or why the sheets smelled like Scully.  He felt
shaky and sick.

When he sat up, he remembered his father was dead.

He reached for his jeans, his gun, and it was gone.

The bitch had his gun.  The spy had...kidnapped him...drugged
him...seduced him...killed...she had...they...  He couldn't breathe.

He grabbed her phone - looking around, it could only be Scully's house,
her bedroom.  Bland.  He recognized a picture of her sister and her
mother on the dresser.  He needed two hands but he managed to dial her
cell phone number.

She'd killed his father as surely as if she'd pulled the trigger
herself.  The only person he trusted and it had all been lies.  All of
it.  She had betrayed him.  With caring looks and soft words. He
half-remembered from last night, even, her hands gentle on his skin. 
All lies.  His anger boiled up again; she kept lying to him, even now. 
Pretending she was helping him, that she only cared about his
interests.  She had all of him.  So much that there was nothing left for
him to keep.

"Don't ask me for my trust!" he screamed at her over the phone and hung
it up violently.  He felt faint and like he was going to throw up.  He
had to get out of there...but he had to rest first.  He fell backwards
onto the bed and passed out.

><><><><><><

Scully only set her teeth against the pain his accusations brought. He
still didn't trust her.  After all their work, all the moments they'd
shared, after they'd made love, he still didn't trust her.  He couldn't
break through the paranoia and let her in.  'Don't ask me for my
trust.'  Let alone your love, Mulder.

She put the phone away and squared her shoulders.  This didn't mean she
would stop protecting him.  She would live through this.  By doing what
needed to be done.  She'd done the right thing taking his gun - she
would have been right if she had feared he would shoot her, which she
didn't.  Although it scared her to think what would have happened if she
had been there when  he woke so deep in his paranoia.  She remembered
the items from his desk flying across the office in front of her. It
might have been her and not Skinner he'd hit.  Easily.

She had more important things to do than think.  She had to go to his
apartment and find out who had almost killed her.

><><><><><><><><

When she came out of his apartment, she almost walked right into the
barrel of a gun.  And Fox Mulder's finger was on the trigger.  She knew
now why he'd been so paranoid.  He'd been drugged.  This was exactly
what the dark forces wanted him to do.  But he hadn't killed anyone
yet.  She couldn't let him start now.

Not even with Krycek.  "I've got him, Mulder!" she called.  "Don't
shoot!"

He looked at her like he'd never seen her before.  She saw his eyes go
from her to Krycek.  She knew he was seeing what he wanted to see - her
complete and utter betrayal.  With Krycek.  And she saw his finger
tighten on the trigger. If he shot Krycek, she would be next.  And no
one would ever know the truth. Not even Mulder.

She did the only thing she could.  She closed her eyes and prayed for
strength and she pulled the trigger herself.

Mulder flew back and hit the pavement with a sick, dull thud.  Krycek
looked at her, his eyes wide, not understanding.  "Crazy bitch," he
mumbled as he ran.  She let him go, kneeling down next to Mulder. 
Either the pain or the fall had knocked him unconscious; it was probably
easier that way.  She pulled Krycek's gun out of his fingers and left it
on the pavement.  The police would be coming soon.  She and Mulder had
to get away.

The bullet had gone cleanly through his shoulder and wasn't bleeding
overmuch.  She'd missed the artery.  Good.  He groaned as she got him to
his feet. He was already coming round.  It took a lot of effort for her
to get him into the car, but she didn't think about it.  She frowned at
the blood smearing on the seat. Thank God it was a bureau car, she
didn't have to worry about the stains, but it would make it easier to
trace.  Hopefully she'd have a few days.  Mulder sank against the window
and she let him.  She needed to bandage his shoulder, but she needed to
get fifty or so miles between them and here first.  She could already
hear the sirens approaching.

She stopped at a rural gas station and mart about half an hour later to
get a map, some bandages and some fuel.  Mulder had almost come round
again once, but sunk back into unconsciousness.  She was full of anxiety
and wished she'd dared to stop sooner.  She went with him into the
unclean men's room at the service station and checked him over.  His
pupils were all right; there was no conscussion from the pavement.  Not
even any bruises.  Same old lucky Mulder.

The wound was clean.  It had clotted up nicely, but she reopened it to
get the gunpowder and germs out.  If she saw a pharmacy, she'd have to
stop for some antibiotics.  Mulder had an appointment in New Mexico in
two days.  She'd already purchased a ticket for him to go to the Navajo
man who had once been a code talker.  Now she called and canceled it,
hoping the men who would be looking for them would assume the
appointment had been canceled in light of their recent circumstances.

But she knew the answers were on that tape.  The names of the nameless
men who were trying to kill them were on that tape.  They needed a
translation more than anything else.

She would have to drive straight through and fast.  She chased two
Vivarin down with a can of Mountain Dew, hoping the caffeine wouldn't
make her as paranoid as the drugs had left Mulder.  She didn't give
Mulder any, although she knew he was getting dehydrated.  It would help
keep him out, and that would make her task easier.

She walked him back out to the car and strapped him in, then took off
for New Mexico at eighty miles an hour.

><><><><><><><
April 16
Farmington, NM

Scully was exhausted when she got to the motel thirty hours later.  She
brought Mulder inside and lay him on the bed, curling up next to him,
unwilling to move.  Her back ached from moving him, and from sitting in
the car. She needed a shower.

She opted for a bath, relaxing in the steamy heat for as long as she
dared. It did wonders for her.  She had a nightgown and clean clothes in
a bag in the trunk of the car.  She settled into the bed next to Mulder
to sleep.  If he came around, she'd hear him.

Two hours later, she woke, refreshed.  She felt like a new person.  She
bathed Mulder and changed his bandages, then called Albert Hosteen,
their Navajo contact.  She'd just finished shaving Mulder when he
arrived.

The older man said nothing, just walked past her into the room and
looked at Mulder.  "He will be all right," he said.

Scully nodded.  That was when Mulder opened his eyes.  He let them fall
closed and then opened them again, focusing on her face.  She smiled at
him.  He tried to sit up and winced and she slipped a few more pillows
behind his head to help him sit up.  Then she put a glass of water in
his hands.  He needed it desperately; she'd purposely dehydrated him
trying to get the drugs out of his system.

It looked as though it worked.  Mulder was back to his old, sweet,
obsessed self.  There was caring and tenderness in his eyes when he
looked at her. Understanding. It was a relief.  She wondered how much he
remembered, if the whole past week had become a blur in his memory.  He
remembered her shooting him.  But he'd been at her apartment for almost
a day before that, away from the drugged water.

Not like when they made love in his apartment.

There was no time to think of that now, she knew.  They were close to
finding the truth.  Albert had already loosely translated some of the
pages she'd been able to print a hard copy of and fax to him.  She and
Mulder could sort out their feelings for each other later, when there
was time.  The feelings would still be there.  For now, the work had to
come first.

She waved from the window as he left with Albert, intending to leave
immediately for Washington.  She had to meet with Skinner.  She'd missed
Mulder's disciplinary hearing, as had he.  She might be able to pursuade
Skinner to look at the evidence.

But she couldn't resist sitting down at the desk to glance over the
notes Albert had made.  Her name was in those files.  Not the part he'd
looked at yet.  All she could make out there were "Dana Scully" and
"Duane Barry" and a couple of other names she did not recognize. 
Ishimuru, that looked more Japanese than Navajo.

She flipped back to the translated part. It was hard to understand. 
"The merchandise"...it seemed to be a bill of lading, a business
contract.  She had a bad feeling...

Her cellular phone rang and it was Mulder.  Calling from a boxcar full
of bodies.  Alien, but not alien.  The merchandise.  When she closed her
eyes, she could see it.  She could smell the smoke...

The line went to static and then dead.

Her eyes opened, but she could still smell the smoke.  "Mulder!" she
screamed into the dead phone, but there was no answer.

Oh god oh god oh god, she had such a bad feeling about this.  There was
no smoke in the room, but she could smell it, it was choking her.  She
called Albert, who told her not to worry.  His grandson had taken Mulder
out to see the omen.  They would be back soon.

Uneasy, she hung up.  She peeked out the window and saw a long curl of
black smoke, hanging like a pall over the desert.  She felt sick and
choked on a ridiculous sob.  Then she sat down at the desk with the
phone to wait.

Hours later, it rang.  Albert told her she should come to his house, and
gave her directions.  Calmly, as he did everything.  She envied that
Navajo mystique.  He wouldn't tell her anything about Mulder.  So she
went to his house.  But she knew enough to assume the worst.  She hadn't
been able to shake the chill that hung over her the entire afternoon.

His grandson had been badly beaten.  He could not, or would not give
details.  The boy had been thrown out of a black car in front of the
house.  Alone.  Men in helicopters, he said, set the boxcar on fire and
took him away.  Leaving Mulder out in the desert.

Scully finished tending the boy's wounds and took off for the desert
herself.  The boy had given her directions, but she didn't need them. 
She could feel where to go.  Where the smoke had been earlier.  

The boxcar was still hot.  Whatever evidence there had been was now
dissolved by flame.  And Mulder had disappeared.  Vultures circled
overhead.  She didn't know what to do, and the feeling of helplessness
carved her out inside.  He was gone without a trace.

She had thought there was all the time in the world, and now he was
gone. 

The end...mostly.

Disclaimer 2: It should be obvious by now that the situations and most
of the dialogue belong to Chris Carter and the episode "Anasazi"

_____________________
If They Dreamed
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
January 20, 1997
______________________

     Mulder was dead.
     She shook her head, feeling a chill in the desert
as the tears came.  Mulder was dead.  Burned alive,
killed by the thing he feared and hated most in this
world: fire.  He died not knowing how much she loved
him.
     She wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her
hand, knowing tears would do her no good now.  They
could not help him.  She did not want to leave without
him, but she had no choice.  He was not here.  There
was nothing more she could do.  Her shoulders slumped
under the weight of her heart and her sins, she began to
walk back to the car.
     The relenting heat of the day gave way to the
dark chill of night before she crossed the slightly sloping
foothills back to the edge of the reservation that was the
Navajo Nation.  She pressed the accelerator harder on
her way to the highway that constituted its borders.  She
slipped into her jacket and sat alone with her thoughts in
the silence of the car.  She didn't turn on the radio.  She
didn't think she could bear to listen to it now.
     Alone.  The silence reverberated loudly in her
ears above the hum of the motor.  Alone.  She fought not
to think, just to drive.  Not to think of what had come
before, or where she was headed.  The present is all you
really have, she thought.  She had known that already;
been reminded of it many times and every time she
forgot
     There was a light up in the sky and she did a
double take when she saw it, her heart catching in terror
as it always did, as it had ever since a chilly fall day half
a year ago.  A day she didn't remember all that well. 
Duane Barry.   His name was in the records with hers.  It
hadn't been men from the sky who took her.  It was the
men who had killed Mulder.
     The light in the sky that she'd told herself was an
airplane drew closer, larger, brighter.  She could hear the
hum in the air, feel its vibration at the same frequency as
her too-fast heart rate.  Oh God, she thought, they have
come for me again. They killed Mulder in the manner he
hated most and now they have come for me.  Foolish to
think they would leave me be.  She was panicking inside
and she knew her only chance was to remain calm.  
     She held her hand up to shield her eyes from the
light, brighter than the sun, as she looked into it,
straining to keep the car moving quickly in a straight
line with only one hand on the wheel.  The light drew
slightly ahead of the car and she saw the glint of metal,
the outline of the craft outside the glare of the
searchlight.
     It was a helicopter.  That explained the hum. 
Not aliens, she thought, but that didn't mean she was
safe.  They had come for her.  She knew that as she
braked the car to a smooth stop.  They pulled her out of
the car, bracing her against it like a suspect.  "Where's
Agent Mulder?" she asked, daring to hope.  Maybe they
had him and he was safe.  Maybe he was in the
helicopter right now and they would dump him on the
pavement at her feet, something they had done in the 
past.  Maybe he wasn't dead.
     "Turn your face away," one of the soldiers in his
desert fatigues ordered her when she tried to see who he
was, what he wanted.  Another searched her for a
weapon, his hands moving vilely over intimate places on
her body, places that ached for Mulder's fingers but felt
violated by this officer's intrusive touch.  They took the
clip from her gun.  "Where are the files?"
     They wanted the printout from the damned tape. 
She knew she couldn't lie.  She couldn't give them an
excuse to kill her.  She had to live to...continue.  What
Mulder could not.  "In the trunk."  She barely hesitated.
     It took them only a minute to check.  "We need
the DAT copy."
     "I don't have it."  She knew they wouldn't believe
it, even though it was the truth.  Perhaps because it was
the truth.  These men, they weren't interested in facts
that weren't of their own creation.
     "Who has it?"
     Not that question.  She knew the tape was fixed
under the drawer of Mulder's desk, back in his office in
the basement of the FBI.  Where they had stashed him
because they weren't interested in his theories - not until
they had become dangerous to the agenda of these men. 
She also knew that tape was her only hope of making
Mulder's death meaningful.  
     She lied.  "Agent Mulder."  It was a hard
decision to make.  But he was dead; there was no way he
could have survived that inferno she'd seen in the
boxcar, it was not humanly possible.  No matter how
much she thought she could hear the echo of his
heartbeat in her ears, how strongly she could feel his
presence with her even now.  He was dead and she did
not believe in the afterlife,  so there could be no betrayal
after death.
     The men withdrew, leaving her as quickly alone
as they had intruded on her solitude.  She looked up at
the helicopter as it retreated, flying away quickly.  She'd
sent them chasing their tails, but it got them off her
back.  Mulder could be their decoy and this time, for
once, he could not suffer for it.
     Refusing to cry, refusing to think about it even as
she felt her emotions crash again, Scully got back in the
car and floored the accelerator again on the way home.

     She didn't return any of the furious messages AD
Skinner had left for her on her answering machine in her
absence.  "Agent Mulder's father is dead, Agent Scully,
can you tell me about that?"  "Agent Scully, where the
hell are you and Agent Mulder?"  "Agent Scully, you are
supposed to be in an Office of Professional Conduct
Meeting in my office at this instant - do not doubt there
will be consequences."  "Scully.  Mulder is missing-"  As
though she didn't know that, she thought, sinking down
on the floor next to the table with the phone on it, her
legs unable to hold her any longer " - you've got better
sense than this.  Come in."  
     She wrapped her arms around her knees and
buried her face against them, breathing in the scent and
warmth of her own skin.  She didn't know how she was
going to get through this, but she had to.  Just a few
short days ago, her world had been bliss, her life
unalterably entwined with Mulder's.  And now he was
just as unalterably gone.  All she felt was emptiness. 
And his eyes on her, judging her, in the darkness.

     In Skinner's office, the next day, she was being
made to feel like a child in the principal's office,
suspended from school.   But not kicked out.  She
wondered why they didn't dare that yet.  Did they know
she'd slept with Mulder?  Would they fire her for that
when they found out, since they were just looking for an
excuse now?  Now that she was not needed and not
willing or not able to keep Mulder close at hand, she
was out.
     Had she ever been a real agent? she wondered, or
had they merely groomed her as a babysitter for Mulder? 
She wouldn't think of that now.  She was angry; they
were supposed to be the justice department and all they
did was lie.  What ever happened to fidelity, integrity
and bravery?  They were just words carved on a plaque;
they didn't mean anything to people like Skinner and the
men he answered to.  But they meant something to her. 
And to Mulder.
     After the meeting and a second argument with
Skinner, she hurried down the stairs to Mulder's
basement lair.  She hesitated at the door because she
thought she heard something behind her.  A footstep. 
Mulder's footstep.  She thought if she turned and looked,
he'd be standing behind her, waiting for a private
meeting.  She turned and looked, almost afraid of what
she might see.  She did not want to see his ghost, even
though she could feel its presence.  There was nothing
but empty air behind her.
     She closed the door and went inside. It felt cold
and strange here inside Mulder's space.  They hadn't
changed anything.  She wondered how long they would
keep up the ruse, pretending he was alive, before they
cleaned out his office.  She remembered the last time
she had been in this office. With him. The morning after
they'd lain in his bed the night before.  When he'd shown
her the tape with wonder in his eyes.  The damn tape
they'd killed him for.
     She sat down in his chair and pulled out the
drawer, her fingers seeking the cassette case.  It was still
where she had left it, taped up to the surface of the desk. 
She worked the masking tape free and released it.
     And sat there staring at the empty plastic box in
her hands.
     The tape was gone.
     It was all in vain.  Mulder died protecting its
secrets and they had it anyway.  Struggling against the
pain to get a breath, she hurled the box against the wall.
It bounced off and clattered on the floor.  All the while
she could feel eyes on her, watching her.  His eyes.
     "Damn it," she whispered, feeling her control
slipping.  "Damn it."  The first tears rolled from her
eyes.  She'd lost her job.  She'd lost him, she'd lost the
tape.  What was left?  She had nothing.  The river rushed
by her and she was caught in the strong current without a
log to cling to.  She  put her head into her hands on the
desk and wept, hating herself for being weak.
     She knew she couldn't do this.  Someone would
come along and find her.  Escort her out of the building
because she didn't work there anymore, she was a
security risk.  She looked around at the walls, at
Mulder's immense collection of things.  Maybe if she
wasn't here, she wouldn't feel him watching her.  
Judging her.  She swallowed back a hiccup and willed
herself to calm.  She had to make decisions.  She had to
know what to do.
     She got up from the desk quickly and moved to
push the chair back in.  That was when she saw the
picture.  It had always been on Mulder's desk, a
reminder of his quest.  It was of his sister.  Samantha. 
The tears threatened to start fresh.  Who would find her
now that he was gone?  Who would help all of the other
little girls like her if not Mulder?
     Scully ran out of the office, suddenly terrified of
the presences she was sensing there.  Of being watched. 
She emerged into the cool spring air and gasped in
breaths.  The tourists and vendors on the wide sidewalk
tried hard to ignore her.  Making up her mind, she began
to walk.  Past the shopping center, and the tourist center,
and the bleachers for the White House tour.  She turned
up the sidewalk to get to the mall, walking quickly as
though there were demons on her heels.
     Past the Smithsonian museums, up towards
Capitol Hill.  Her mind started to clear.  She had to
make a plan, but she didn't know what to do.  She was
almost at Mulder's apartment, she realized, and suddenly
veered off her course, off into suburban neighborhoods,
walking.  It numbed her mind.  She did not want to have
to think.  She wanted to run.
     It started to get dark as she traversed the maze of
streets, barely paying attention to where she was going. 
I failed, she thought.  I failed.  A vision of Samantha
filled her head.  I failed the people who were depending
on me.  I let a man die.  I swore never to let anyone die,
but I let him.  And I love him.  He touches me like no
one else ever has.  And I spied on him, I lied to him, he
never had any right to trust me.  She remembered the
soldiers on the New Mexico highway, demanding the
tape.  "I don't have it," she said to save her own neck. 
"Who has it?"  "Agent Mulder."
     What if he had been alive then?  That was why
they left her alone, in the dark, on the highway, wasn't
it?  To go find Mulder.  What if they found him because
of her lie?  What if he had been alive and they killed him
because he didn't give them the tape?  Couldn't give
them because she'd lied?  To save herself?
     Every step was agony.  She didn't know how long
she'd been walking, but she could feel her shoes rubbing
at the backs of her heels.  She stepped out of them and
carried them, watching the ground to make sure she
didn't step on anything.  She didn't have benefits now,
she couldn't go to the hospital if she cut her foot. She
was going to have to start thinking about those things. 
She had a little money in savings, but not much. What
would she do if she wasn't an FBI agent?  What was she
fit for?
     Nothing. The answer was resounding.  You're a
coward, Dana.  You lied to save your own pitiful life
and it's killed the man you love.  You're a failure.  They
kicked you out.  You were disrespectful to your
authority figure.  You lied.  What other sins have you
broken, Dana?  You've killed.  You've lusted, you've
feared, you've stolen a man's life.
     She knew where she was going and when she got
there, she found she didn't have her keys.  She didn't
have her purse.  She didn't know where she'd left them,
couldn't remember the last time she'd had them.  In New
Mexico, maybe? In her car?  Did it matter?  She pushed
the bell.
     It took a moment for the door to open.  When it
did, she felt a rush of heat and light and  love and she
realized just how cold she was.  Her mother just looked
at her, always calm, her eyes taking in her daughter's
appearance.  "What'd you do with your shoes?" she
asked.
     Dana worried the fabric of her jacket with her
thumb, not knowing what to say. She didn't want to turn
up on her mother's doorstep a wreck. She didn't want to
cry any more. "They started to give me blisters so I took
them off," she said softly.  Practical as always.
     "You walked here?  At this time of night?"  Her
mother was shocked.  And scared for her.  
     For the first time, Scully noticed it was dark and
her mother was in her robe. She'd walked the entire
afternoon.  "Oh mom," she said, unable to hold it back
any longer, wrapping her arms around her mother, the
familiar smell and feel comforting her.  "I've made a
terrible mistake.  Dad would be so ashamed of me."  It
was his voice she heard in her head.  She'd failed. 
Mulder was dead. It was all her fault.  And now, to make
matters worse, she was crying about it.
     Mrs. Scully held her daughter while she shook,
afraid because she didn't know what was wrong.  Dana
was the strong one, the one who worked at being stoic
because that was what her father had expected of her. 
Because the boys had teased her and called her a baby
when she cried, she'd learned not to do it.  After a
moment, Dana's desperate hold relaxed and Mrs. Scully
closed the front door.  "Let me get you some tea," she
said, leaving Dana off in the living room and going  into
the kitchen.
     Dana stared blankly at the photographs on the
mantle, not allowing herself to cry any longer.     She
had to get a hold of herself.  Crying would not make
things better.  Whining about it to her mother would not
make things better.  She had to do something. 
Something more than walk.  She had to make things
happen.  She was the only one who could do that for
herself, and she knew it.  That, too, had been taught to
her by her father.
     When her mother returned with the kettle and
teacups, Dana's tears were dry and her face was no
longer streaky.  "What's bothering you?"  her mother
asked, watching her face carefully.
     Dana shook her head.  Closing back up, keeping
it inside.  There was no need to worry her mother with
her problems. And she didn't think she could explain it
without crying again.  She didn't touch the tea; she didn't
want it.  Didn't think she could swallow it even if she
did.
     "You said you made a terrible mistake, Dana,
what's going on?" her mother asked.
     "Mulder's dead, Mom," she said frankly and her
mother gasped.  Mrs. Scully set the cup she was holding
down quickly, and barely managed it.  "I didn't keep him
safe."
     "It wasn't your fault, honey-" her mother's first
instinct was to comfort her, reaching out to touch her.
     Dana jerked away.  "It was.  They've suspended
me.  I don't know if I can go back.  That I will go back,
even if they let me."  She met her mother's eyes then,
and watched the other woman nod.  I sound so strong,
where is it coming from? she wondered.  "It's just like
Daddy thought when he told me joining the FBI would
be the biggest mistake of my life."  Her voice threatened
to break.  "He was right."
     "You can't think that way," her mother said
firmly.  "You've made a difference.  You've helped so
many people -"
     "And so many more have just slid by."
     "No!  And Mulder..." it hurt her mother just to
say his name.  They had shared something while she had
been gone, Dana knew.  They were bonded.  "He had
you for a little while.  You made a difference with him."
     "It's my fault he's dead," she whispered because
that was the loudest her voice would go. Her throat
constricted again with unshed tears.
     "No, honey," her mother said, and fell silent.  It
would be a pointless argument and they both knew it.
Even though Dana wished she could keep flogging
herself over it, her mother knew when it was best not to
say anything at all.  After a moment, she did speak,
though, because she had to. She had to think of Dana's
well-being. "Maybe you should talk to someone," she
suggested.  Dana had never been good at being open
with her feelings, Margaret knew.
     Dana got to her feet.  Her mother looked at her in
alarm. "Where are you going?"
     "Home," she said, feeling weary. "I need a hot
bath and some rest."
     "You can stay here tonight."
     She shook her head.  It would be bad to get into
that habit; her parents had never allowed them to sleep
in their bed after a nightmare and this was the same
thing. She had to get back to her apartment. Her life. 
Pretend that it hadn't all been destroyed.
     "Let me call you a cab," her mother said,
reaching for the telephone.
     "I'll be all right, Mom."  It wasn't much of a
protest.  They both knew she was too exhausted to walk
home.  Besides, it was late and it was the big city and
she no longer carried a weapon.  She got into the cab
without a word and watched the lights of the city
through the windows.  Paid the man with her mother's
money.  And finally, finally, went into the safety of her
home.
     Except it didn't feel safe any more.  She could
still feel eyes on her back, someone watching her.  It
was an uneasy feeling.   No matter how many times she
looked over her shoulder, there was no one there.  There
would never be anyone there.  It was Mulder she felt
watching her.
     She shivered as she stripped off her clothes and
lay in the hot bath, too tired to move.  But the steam
worked its magic, as it always did.  It made her sleepy,
shut down the frantic portions of her mind so that when
she emerged, she knew she could sleep.  She stumbled
into her pajamas and fell beneath the covers, spent.
     She was awake, but kept her eyes closed.  She
could feel his fingers touching her hair.  The heat of his
body seeping through the covers and warming her skin. 
She could feel his breath against her neck. He was there,
sleeping next to her.  But when she opened her eyes, he
wasn't there.  Was never going to be there again.
     She had to accept that, she told herself, turning
over on her side and pulling the covers closer around her
body.  She didn't close her eyes, thinking.  She still felt
close to him.  Connected to him somehow, by a thin
thread of life.  How was that possible if he was no
longer living?
     She didn't believe in ghosts, even though she had
seen them.  There was no scientific proof that the soul
existed to dwell on earth once separated from the
corporeal body.  It had not been like this when she saw
her father.  She had not felt him so strongly, had not
carried him with him all the time, not like now, with
Mulder.  That had been grief.  She knew her father was
dead; his appearing to her had been a proof of that. 
"Visonary Encounters with the Dead" - Mulder even had
a whole folder full of them in his file cabinet.  It was a
purely typical experience of grieving, something
invented by the unconscious mind to aid in that process.  
     This was not.  Part of Mulder was here with her. 
Part of his soul.
     She remembered drifting in a boat, all alone,
listening to the voices around her.  It was like a dream
she remembered too vividly - they said that comatose
patients had the ability to dream.  She remembered what
that felt like, hearing the voices and knowing the world
was out there and trying to decide if she cared enough to
make the effort to break through and go back.  It had felt
like this - maybe Mulder wasn't dead.
     Could she dare to think that?  To believe that he
hovered in a coma somewhere, his astral spirit left to
roam the earth?  To haunt her?
     It was absurd and impossible.  There was no way
he could have survived the fire.  And she didn't believe
in astral spirits.  Just like she didn't believe in hauntings,
but that didn't explain why she could feel Mulder here.
     The doorbell rang and she sat up to answer it. 
Maybe that was what had woken her, not phantom
touches from a dead lover.  She pulled on her robe and
belted it tightly, turning on lights as she went to see who
was at the door.
     "Frohike," she said, surprised to see the older
man at her door at three-thirty in the morning. But he
was company.  Perhaps they could comfort each other.

End of part one.
_____________________
If They Dreamed, part 2
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
____________________

     She needed Mulder than she had ever needed
him before; more than she had ever needed anyone in
her entire life.  She didn't want to go home, didn't want
to face the utter emptiness of her life without Mulder
and without her work.  She drove to his apartment.  She
didn't know why.  Part of her hoped that he would be
there.  Somehow.  She needed to feel close to him.  
     And the apartment was so empty.  Quiet and
empty and lifeless.  Lifeless.  She put her hand in the
pocket of her jacket before she took it off and found the
glass vial with a microchip in it, a microchip that had
been implanted under the skin of her neck.  Her stomach
clenched in agony.  She was not going to cry. But the
nightmare was not over, she thought, it would never be,
and could feel herself beginning to shake.  She had been
abducted.  They had done god knows what to her.  It
could happen again.
     She'd called Mulder for help and he hadn't been
there to help her.  Had he called out for her in the
boxcar?  He had.  The cell phone conversation.  She
hadn't been taking him seriously, and then the
transmission ended.  And he died.  He died!  The one
fact she could not get her mind around.
     She stripped off her suit in front of the bathroom
mirror, examining herself for other marks, other hints,
other clues.  She saw none.  She remembered standing in
Mulder's arms just a day after she'd met him, asking him
to examine her for evidence of abduction.  How gentle
his fingers had been touching the bare skin of her back. 
She needed him now.  He understood, better than
anyone, about the abduction.  And he understood her
need for facts, scientific facts.  There was no one else. 
If she talked to her mother, she would only worry. 
There was no one else.
     Missy.
     Dana found one of Mulder's shirts hanging on a
hook on the back of the bathroom door, a worn denim
shirt.  Her eyes filled with tears as she pulled it around
herself.  It was warm.  It was like he was putting his
arms around her, holding her.  When he would never
hold her again.
     The sobs gasped out and she sank down onto the
floor, unable to move or stop the tears that racked her
body.  She could only give into it, let the emotion fill her
and pour out.  It hurt so much.  Nothing had ever hurt
like this before.  
     She gathered her senses almost as quickly as the
attack had come upon her, washing her face at the sink
and telling herself to be strong.  Mulder had eyedrops in
the medicine cabinet and she used them to drive the
redness away.  She could not face her sister looking
ravaged.
     She couldn't feel Mulder watching her. But the
memories were strong in his apartment.  A cold chill
washed over her and she left.
     Dana wasn't used to needing someone to turn to.
She was glad in this case that she had her sister to turn
to.  Missy had been there; she knew what it had been
like for her.  And her mind was as open as Mulder's. 
There had been a time, once, when she and Melissa had
been close, when they could practically read each others'
minds.  Missy would understand.  She could help her
through this.
     "Dana," Melissa said when she opened the door
and saw her sister standing there.  She sounded slightly
startled.  Distracted.  But Missy often was, Dana
thought.
     "Hi."  She tried to sound like nothing was wrong. 
"Can I come in?"
     Melissa nodded and left the doorway.  Dana
closed the door behind her and trailed after her older
sister into the kitchen.  "I'd just put tea on.  It was like I
knew you were coming," Melissa said, almost a joke, as
she got another teacup out of the cabinet.  Dana didn't
say anything.  Her sister's words sounded pretentious to
her, as they always did.  Missy could sense things about
people and she was intuitive, so what?  A lot of people
got feelings like that without going around pretending
they were psychic.
     She took a deep breath to try to release the anger. 
She hadn't come to fight with Missy about that.  She
wasn't going to fight with her about it any more, she had
decided a long time ago.  Live and let live.
     "What's wrong?"
     Dana barely knew where to begin.  She put her
hand into her pocket and withdrew the tiny microchip in
the little glass vial and set it on the table. Melissa picked
it up and held it up to the light, examining it this way
and that.  Then she looked at her.
     "What is this?"
     "It's a microchip."
     "I can see that.  Why are you so upset about it? 
Where did it come from?"  Melissa asked.  She paused
before continuing on just as quickly.  "Does this have
something to do with Fox?"
     Just twist the knife a little more, Dana thought. 
"No," she said and Melissa's eyebrows rose at her tone. 
"That was in my neck.  Implanted under the skin."  She
could barely say the words.  They were too personal.
Acknowledging it made it real.  "I don't even know how
long it's been in there.  I have absolutely no recollection
of it being put there."  And even though she liked to
believe in memory as proof, seeing was believing.  It
was not a piece of shrapnel.  It was a microchip.
     "It's frightening, Dana," Melissa said, examining
it against the light.  "This is very serious - you've got to
find out what this is."
     She knew that.  But she didn't even know how to
begin, without Mulder, without her job.  "I don't have
access to the FBI labs," she said quietly.  Ashamed.  The
job she had been so proud of, worked so hard for,
rubbed in her older sister's face a number of times, and
she had been essentially fired.
     But Melissa didn't hear her, or didn't care.  "No,
I'm talking about access to your own memory.  I mean,
obviously you have buried this so deeply that you can't
consciously recall it."
     Why did that sound like an insult? Dana thought. 
"Melissa -"
     Melissa pressed on.  "I want you to talk to
someone, someone who can help you -"
     "NO!"  There was no way in hell she was going
to a therapist about this; why did everyone keep telling
her that she should?  They wouldn't be able to help her;
they wouldn't understand.  She couldn't make them
understand.  She was strong, she could do this on her
own.
     "What are you so afraid of, Dana?" Melissa
asked.  "Are you afraid you might actually learn
something about yourself?  I mean, you are so shut off to
the possibility there could be any other explanation than
your rigid scientific view of the  world."
     Mulder's words.  The ones he'd never said to her,
because he knew they would hurt.  Coming from
Melissa, they hurt a different way.
     "It's like you've lost touch with your own
intuition.  You're carrying around so much grief and fear
that you can't see you've built these walls around your
true feelings - and the memory of what really happened."
     The anger went out of Dana, the will to fight.
Maybe Melissa was right. She was right.  Grief and fear
were the two things she was fighting so hard against. 
The pain of her losses.  A deep empty pain filled her
again, as though something had physically been taken
from her.  She didn't want to believe what her sister was
saying - that her true feelings were locked away.  She
felt.  She loved, she cared, she cried...
     She didn't cry.  Did she love as incompletely? 
Had she disappointed Mulder?  It had taken a bond as
strong as theirs to release her passions.  What other man
would bother with her?
     "Just do this for me.  As your sister.  Please."
     Dana just looked at Melissa, weeping on this
inside. Melissa was right.  She had to face what she was
afraid of.  Right now she was being a coward, hiding. 
Her throat wouldn't work, so she just nodded.  Melissa
met her eyes for a long moment, and then went and got
the name and address of a friend "who does this sort of
thing. He's stuffy, you'll be all right with him."
     Dana crumpled the card in her hand, clenching
her fist around it.  She couldn't manage to even say
thank you.  "It's all right," Melissa told her, knowing.  As
she always knew.  Her sister put her arm around her. 
"It's going to be all right."
     Dana wanted to moan that Mulder was dead, that
it would never be all right, but she didn't.  She just
nodded and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.  And
then she left.
     She thought about it as she drove home, glancing
again and again at the card Melissa had given her.  She
needed to find out what had happened, and this was the
only way now.  With no access to the crime labs or files,
her memory was all she had.  And if it brought about the
catharsis she worked so hard to avoid, maybe she would
be freer. Her mind would be free.  Mulder's ghost would
leave her alone...or it would open the spiritual channels
for him to appear to her more fully.  She wasn't sure
which she truly wanted.
     She walked into the house and began to change
her clothes, her mind made up.  She put on a suit, and
wore it like armor.  It would protect her.  It was
something she could hide behind.  Then she went to see
Melissa's friend.
     Sitting in the chair in his office, she was
terrified. He told her to go to a comfortable place, where
she had always felt safe.  Her partner's arms.  Wrapped
around her when he found her after Donnie Pfaster took
her.  Although she fought the hypnosis, it sucked her in.
She wanted to be in Mulder's arms. 
Deeper...deeper...like the calming waves of the ocean,
the sound of her own slow breathing did it to her.  She
felt her body relax and her mind unfurl into the past.
     Men...a man...she couldn't see their faces, the
light was too bright in her eyes.  The sounds were too
loud in her ears.  She wasn't very aware, it was like a
dream or a haze, like waking in the hospital after the
ship in Norway, or the bugs in the Washington forest. 
She was drifting.  She couldn't feel her body.  They were
touching her, but she couldn't feel it.  They were talking,
but she couldn't hear it.  It was like her ears were
plugged with cotton, she couldn't make out the words.  A
strange ringing sound, oscillating up and down.  An
alarm.  The bright light suddenly broke and gave way to
blackness.  A sea of stars.  She remembered what that
sound meant...a flat line...what did that line mean?  She
could not grasp its meaning.  A touch on her shoulder
brought her crashing hard back to earth, back into her
body.  "Are you all right?" the words loud, slow, like
talking to a stupid child.  She couldn't respond.  She
didn't want to.  She was too weak.  She wanted to go
back to the pretty stars but they were frightening in their
void.  Just as the touches she felt were frightening to her. 
Improper.  These men, she would recognize their faces if
she could see them.  She could hear the droning of their
voices, stealing her control away.  She could not resist
them, they had her completely powerless.  It was
frightening.  She could feel it now.  The cold metal. 
Against her skin.  On her thighs.  The pain in her
belly...god, what were they doing to her...
     The touch on her hands, lying against her thighs,
startled her. It was real.  She caught a gasp of a breath
and her eyes opened.  It was strange to be in reality, in
the softly lit office.  She was aware.  Her heart was
pounding, she could feel the strength of her body.  She
was alive.  Reality crashed over her, the reality of what
she had felt.  The pain, and the vulnerability.  She shut it
out as soon as she was able to manage her thoughts.
     She got to her feet, terrified, with implications
swimming in her head that she did not want to process. 
She certainly did not want to explore them more fully. 
"Thank you, but you'll have to excuse me," she said
professionally, and walked out.  She ran to her car,
drove away too quickly.  Desperate to escape.  Not to
think.
     But the thoughts came once she turned out the
light and lay in bed that night.  Scully was helpless to
keep them away, so she censored out the most painful
ones. Had she been dead, on that table, in that vague
memory?  It was not the death she remembered from her
coma when she had been able to choose to return. 
Perhaps she had not had the strength to choose to return
that time.
     A chill washed over her.  Perhaps it's all a crock. 
Smoke and mirrors.  Something my mind created,
borrowed from a movie or a book or an account I heard
a month ago, she told herself. But it made her no less
frightened when the black void of sleep reached out its
fingers to claim her mind.  It could happen again.

     His body was cold, even wrapped in a blanket
and placed close to the fire.  Or maybe it was his spirit
that was cold.  His soul.  He felt strangely
contemplative.
     "You must not work, change clothes or bathe for
three days,"  the elder told him.
     Mulder looked at him, meeting those wise,
magical eyes.  She won't like that, he thought.  But she's
kept me, sick and bleeding and feverish and horrible.  It
will be all right.     "That's really going to cut into my
social life," he said.  Scully wouldn't want to hug a man
who was as dirty as he would be in three days.  She
wouldn't want to kiss him, take him to her bed and make
him complete.
     The people around him chuckled.  But he had
been perfectly serious.  Same old Mulder humor, he
thought.  Disguising real feelings as a joke.  I guess
some things don't change, not even with an out of body,
near death experience.
     "They have something for you."  Two little boys
got up, placed a bag in his hands. He looked at them
with wonder.  "You asked for them during your worst
fevers."
     The bag was filled with sunflower seeds.  His
comfort food.  A smile touched him.  He didn't
remember asking for them.  He thought he remembered
asking for Scully.  He looked at the older man and knew
it was true.  But he had not gotten her for him.  Why was
she not there, Mulder thought, not so much a question as
an acceptance.
     "You are done," Albert told him, touching him
and then laboring to his feet.  He motioned to the other
men and they left Mulder alone.  Feeling alone, and
small, and vulnerable.  He felt insignificant in the
universe and unsure what to make of this experience that
had stripped him, left him wide open.
     He sat and looked into the fire with apathy.  He
had come through fire twice.  It held no fear for him
now.  It should, because he had seen death.  Purgatory,
he imagined.  Albert would not confirm or deny its truth
as a dream.
     He stared into the dancing waves of fire, at its
beauty.  He began to feel its heat.  He could smell faint
incense, sweet and sickening at the same time.  He
breathed, amazed that he continued to do so, letting the
heavy scent enter his lungs. His mind.  His eyes began to
grow heavy and dull as he stared into the fire.  He could
feel its heat now.  A thin sheen of sweat covered his
body and his mind began to spin feverishly again.
     Scully was in his mind.  She was like the flame,
the eternal flame of his love. He could feel her, just over
the next horizon.  He had felt her often in his
unconscious dreamings.  He had felt her mind then, and
sometimes her body.  Her sweet presence near to him. 
He wanted her to be near to him now.
     He sensed her agonizing fear, her loss, her
strength.  Her incredibly yearning for him.  He could feel
that she was near as he let his mind drift in back into the
void.
     Suddenly a connection was opened.  She was
there, in front of him, lying in her bed.  It was dark. He
could see that her eyes were closed, but if he reached
out, he could touch her mind.  It was a one way
connection.  Something inside of her was crying,
something she had buried deep.  He wrapped his fingers
around her mind, taking control, driving the ugly
thoughts away.  Her body relaxed in the bed.  He wanted
to touch her skin but he was too far removed.
     He spoke to her.  "I have been on the bridge
which spans two worlds, the link between all souls, by
which we cross into our own true natures."  She had so
much love, hidden.  And fear.  And intelligence.  And
spirit.  She did not let all of her true nature show.  But
she was closest with him.
     They were connected on that black plane of
death.  She had stood there before him.  Had been
surrounded by those presences he had sensed, who had
spoken to him.  His protectors.  She had nearly become
one of them, a guardian to his soul.  She had been dead. 
And she had returned.  The revelation from her mind
astounded him.
     "You were here today, looking for a truth that
was taken from you, a truth which was never to be
spoken, but now binds us together in dangerous purpose. 
I have returned from the dead to continue with you."
     Something was threatening his connection.  He
could feel it tapering, fading, and fought to hold it with
his conscious mind.  Because he could sense something
putrid and evil, looking for Scully.
     "But this danger is now close at hand and I may
be too late."
     He opened his eyes slowly in the warm tent.  His
head felt too large and too heavy for his body, and his
stomach protested the drugging smoke.  Mulder labored
to his feet.  He could not remain.  The ritual was
finished. His life was safely in his own hands again.
     And so was Scully's.  He had to get to her - get
the answers he had been so tantalizingly offered by the
dead who still haunted him, and then find her.

     Scully's eyes opened.  Her heart was pounding.
Mulder had been here.  Right here.  But she looked
around the darkness and saw it was her bedroom.  It was
4:29am.  He wasn't here.  It had been a dream.
     But the stars had been like the ones she'd seen
earlier that afternoon.  When she had remembered that
moment of death.  Mulder was not dead - it had a living
presence she had felt with her just now.  Different than
the haunting she had felt before.  He had been here.  He
had warned her.
     The clock flipped to 4:30 and the alarm rang. 
She turned it off and shrugged, slumping back into
reality.  Mulder was dead.  No matter how strongly she
could feel him.  She had to begin to process that
information, and not cling to dreams as truth.  She got
out of bed.  Her plane to Boston left in two hours.  She
was going to Mulder's father's funeral.  Mulder's own
would surely be next.

     Mulder's mother was beautiful.  Tall and strong
and proud, she was not openly grieving for the two men
she had lost.  Scully watched her through the services,
her own mouth set against the same pain this woman
must feel.  Her own emotions closed off much the same
way.  So different than her mother's heartbreak at Ahab's
death.
     It was devastating to her to lose Mulder.  An
impossibly dear friend, and one time her lover.  What
was it like for this woman, thought Scully.  Her daughter
gone for twenty years.  Her husband dead.  Her son
missing now as well, with no hope of return.  To lose
lover was one thing, but to lose her children...Scully
could not imagine.  She felt a tug of emotion in her
belly, a yearning for children that would not be fulfilled. 
She could not stand to lose them, as this woman had
lost.
     Scully wrestled with her vision of Mulder against
the starry sky.  "I have returned from the dead," he had
told her.  She didn't feel like he was dead any more.  She
didn't feel that ghostly presence standing behind her,
looking over her shoulder.  That connection was
diminished, their old connection back in its place.  A
vague feeling of him out in the world. Living, walking,
talking.  She would see him again.
     The power of this feeling made her speak up to
Mrs. Mulder.  She wanted to speak to her anyway,
because she was the mother of the man she loved.  The
woman who had given him birth.  She found herself
telling Mrs. Mulder that her son would be found.  "I just
have a very strong feeling."
     She saw the lack of hope in Mrs. Mulder's eyes. 
It was just as well, Scully thought.  The woman had
probably clung to hope about her daughter's return for
years.  Scully was glad not to be believed.  She didn't
want to inflict that on her over Mulder as well.  His
mother thanked her and squeezed her hand and got into
the limo.  Leaving Scully all alone.
     She waited a minute and then turned to return to
her car.  She didn't like the look of the man standing
next to it.  He had bugged out eyes and rubbery pale
skin, giving him the singular appearance of a frog.  And
he warned her she was going to die.
     Just as Mulder had warned her in her dream.
     Scully got  in the car and drove to the airport. 
Not wanting to believe it.  Trying not to picture her
mother, draped all in black, so unlike Mulder's mother. 
Her mother would cry, and try to remember with open
love.  Mrs. Mulder loved, but quietly.  Because it hurt
too much to remember.

     The phone rang the minute she got to her
apartment.  It was Melissa, wanting details.  Details
Scully hadn't sorted out yet, and didn't want to be
interrogated over.  But she didn't want to be alone.  Not
with that man's threat hanging over her head.
     When she hung up the phone, it rang back.  She
thought it was Melissa, calling back with something
she'd forgotten, but it wasn't. Three clicks sounded
ominously in her ear.  Her heart started to beat double
time and Scully's eyes went to the window.  
     It was starting.
     She had heard those sounds before, on Mulder's
phone.  A wiretap.  A  threat.  A signal.  She tried to call
Melissa back, but she must have been on her way out the
door.  That was very unlike Melissa, who always had to
go about the house gathering her keys and wallet and
crystals and things.  Of course it would only change on a
day like this.  She left a frantic message. She could not
bring her sister into this danger she was unprepared for,
uninvolved with.
     Scully grabbed her own personal handgun and
got out of the apartment.  "They will kill you one of two
ways..." the man's words echoed in her head, "a man will
be waiting for you in your home or garage."
     She was so distracted she walked into the street
without looking.  Escape death and get hit by a car, she
thought.  When the car slowed to a stop and the door
opened, panic increased her heart rate again.  Skinner's
face was illuminated by the interior light of the car. 
"Get in," he said.
     "Or it will be someone you know.  Someone you
trust."
     Skinner had searched her apartment yesterday,
looking for the tape.  She had little doubt he would kill
her for it.
     Her fingers worked open the zipper on her
handbag. He didn't know she had a gun; she had turned
in her service weapon when she had been cast out.  The
gun she had now was her father's.  A slight oversight of
the law not to change its registration to her name, but
safer that way.  She could defend herself if he tried to
hurt her, so she got in the car.  Maybe she could get
some answers from him before she had to kill him.
     He fell neatly into her trap, thinking she'd fallen
into his. He took her to Mulder's apartment. She pulled a
gun on him.  He would give her the answers.  Mulder's
death would not be in vain.  She would find out the
names of the men who wanted to kill her, who had killed
them, and stop them.  Justice would be done.
     She heard footsteps in the hall.  Mulder's
footsteps.  They stopped at the unlocked door of the
apartment.  Scully was distracted a moment too long
talking herself out of hoping it was Mulder, telling
herself it was someone to help Skinner.
     He'd pulled a gun on her.  They faced off, barrel
to barrel.  One of them was going to die.  And it all
depended on who was at the door.
     One of them was going to have to die.  And the
odds were on her.

the end...for now.  

Disclaimer 2: Obviously, this story is a retelling of  the
episode "The Blessing Way" and its usage intends no
infringement.  
_____________________
If They Trusted
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
February 7, 1997
______________________

     She couldn't take her eyes off him, even though there
was someone pointing a gun at her head.  Her heart was
pounding in her throat, and she was aware that her jaw had
dropped open, but there didn't seem to be anything she could
do about that.  Mulder was alive.  And what's more, he was
holding a gun on Skinner, too.
     She looked at her boss, who had turned his gun
towards Mulder.  But the image of Mulder was burned into
her brain: he was alive.  She wanted to throw herself on his
neck and hug him, but she couldn't.
     It would never occur to her, as it did to Skinner, that
Mulder could be the person she trusted who had been sent to
kill her.
     "Come on, Scully, let's go," Mulder said.
     She dared to look at him again, finally, since she had
Skinner's gun in her hand, and Mulder was leaving the tape in
his keeping, whether they trusted him or not.  Right now,
Scully wasn't sure who she could trust - except Mulder. 
"Where?" she said.  It wasn't a question, not really, because
wherever he was going, she was going with him.
     "There are truths out there that aren't on that tape,"
Mulder told her, and headed for the door.  He didn't look back
to see if she was following.
     Scully shot a quick glance at Skinner, wondering what
must be going on his mind.  She doubted he would ever allow
them back into the Bureau after this, but her choice was
already made.  Had been made for a long time.  Mulder's fight
was hers; she would follow him.  She put Skinner's gun down
on the table and walked out, her head held high, incredibly
aware that she had re-armed and turned her back on a man she
wasn't certain she could trust.
     Mulder was waiting for her at the elevator.  She
grinned as she looked up at him, and she saw the warm
sentiment reflected in his eyes.  She looked down for a
moment to try to gather her thoughts, to contain herself. 
"Mulder -"
     He put his hands on her shoulders and the warm
weight and pressure of his touch reaffirmed the reality of him.
This was not a ghost.  He was alive!  "Whatever you're going
to say, Scully -"  His eyes had that clear, boyish look in them
that she loved.
     "I went to your father's funeral," she said, looking for
the words and not finding them easily.  "I told your mother
you were going to be O.K."
     "How did you know?"  He bent his head in a little
closer, intrigued.  
     "I just knew," she said, realizing there was no way she
could explain what she had experienced to him.  His presence
in the darkness of her bedroom, the way he had spoken in her
mind while she was dreaming and yet somehow not dreaming
- it was too ridiculous.
     Besides, she thought as the elevator arrived, she liked
having Mulder intrigued by her.  He turned to her with the full
intensity of his gaze and his mind as the elevator doors slid
closed and the tiny carriage filled with pure sexual tension. 
They needed to touch; she could feel the electricity of that
need burning in her stomach.  And yet she knew if they did,
they wouldn't be able to stop.  Fear had brought their passion
too close to the surface and they had to fight it.  To stay alive,
they had to fight it.
     "I'm so glad you're back," Scully said, trying again, but
the words were weak, considering how strongly she felt.
     Mulder reached over and took her hand in his.  He
squeezed it, hard, and she smiled at him.  He held her eyes
with his for a moment filled with promise.  Everything is
going to be all right.  His message came through as clearly as
if he'd spoken the words inside her own head.  She pressed her
fingers against his in return, feeling the power of his life.
     When the doors opened, he dropped her hand, but it
didn't completely sever the connection between them.  She
followed him to where he had left his rental car.  He got in
and leaned across the seat to unlock the passenger door for
her.  "Where are we going?" she asked as she pulled the door
open.
     "To see some friends of mine about a photograph," 
Mulder said, throwing the car into gear and moving into the
road.
     "What photograph?  What did you find in New
Mexico?"  How did you escape from the fire in the boxcar,
she wanted to ask, but she had the feeling that would never be
spoken of between them.  Thinking him dead, she had left him
there alone.  She had betrayed him.
     "It's of some men my father used to work with, in the
1970s.  I found it in my mother's basement.  She keeps
everything," he added casually, his attention focused on the
road unfolding in front of them, and looking for tails in the
mirror.
     "Oh," Scully said quietly. She had thought...she didn't
know what she had thought, exactly, except that they were
pursuing the tape and its origins and its information - what
had happened to her during the months she had been gone. 
She hadn't realized Mulder would want to find his father's
killer.  She hadn't thought.  "When were you at your mother's
house?"
     "This morning."
     That would have been just after the funeral.  Where
has he been all this time? Scully wondered, looking at him. 
He hadn't called her.  He had let her believe he was dead.  It
had probably not even occurred to him that she would be
worried.
     She remembered his words to Skinner: "I was a dead
man, but now I'm back," and wondered what had happened to
him in the desert.
     "We have a lot to talk about," she said simply, thinking
of the chip she had had removed from her neck.
     "We will," he promised, putting her off.  He patted her
leg briefly, and then turned into a small parking lot.  The
attendant had long since gone for the day.  Scully looked out
of the window. The neighborhood was shabby and she
wondered again where exactly they were headed.  Mulder got
out of the car and she followed him.
     He walked up an alley to the back door of a dark
building.  It opened with a little coercion, and they took a
trembly service elevator up to the fifth floor.  When the doors
opened, a moderately tall man with a neat beard was waiting
for them in the dimly lit hallway.
     "Mulder," he said.
     Scully looked at her partner. Of course he would turn
to the Lone Gunmen.  They had given him the tape.  Whatever
else he might do with them - and she wondered sometimes -
he trusted them completely.  "I've got a picture for you,"
Mulder said, as Byers shielded a punchcode lock that opened
under his fingers and allowed them into the small office.
     "Mulder's here," Byers called.
     "I know," Langly said, barely glancing up at them from
his seat at the drafting table.  The small motion set his long
blond hair dancing and Scully had to smile at his tone.  These
guys knew everything.  She glanced around the cramped
office at all kinds of electronic equipment and gizmos, some
of which even she didn't recognize.  She wandered to the other
side of the drafting table and looked over Byers' shoulder
when Mulder slid the photograph under his nose.
     "That's my father on the left there."   
     "When was this taken?"
     "About 1973."
     "Amazing.  Langly, take a look."  Byers slid off the
stool and Langly took the seat next to Scully, peering through
the high powered magnifying glass at the photograph.
     "Do you recognize any of these men?" Scully asked
Byers.
     He didn't answer her; didn't even look at her.  That was
the one thing she didn't like about Mulder's friends - whether
they didn't trust her or didn't take her seriously, she didn't
know - but they did not treat her with any sort of respect. 
They treated her like she was just a girl; the unwelcome kid
sister in the clubhouse, and that was a feeling she'd always
detested.  "Are you familiar with a post World War II project
known as Operation Paperclip?"  He wasn't really asking; he
was answering her question with a question.
     "Our deal with the devil," Mulder responded.  "The US
government provided safe haven for certain Nazi war
criminals in exchange for their scientific knowledge."
     "I know who this man is," Langly interrupted, then
looked to Byers.  "Victor Klemper."
     "The man standing next to your father is one of those
criminals.  Although not the most famous of the bunch. 
Werner Von Braun, designer of the V2 rocket may be the
most notorious, but Victor Klemper certainly takes the prize
for the most evil Nazi to escape the Nuremburg trials," Byers
explained.
     Scully hadn't realized there was a prize for most evil
Nazi.  This was getting them nowhere, except educated by a
pompous pedant.  "What did he do?" she asked.
     Byers didn't even look at her.  Langly glanced at her,
and after a moment when it was clear no one else was going
to do it, answered her question.  "Experimented on the Jews. 
Drowned them, suffocated them, put them in pressure
chambers.  All in the name of science."
     "Together with Von Braun," Byers jumped back in,
"Klemper helped us win the space race."  Scully looked at the
photo again and then studied Mulder's face. He was taking it
all in.  "..able to put men on the moon before the Soviets."
     "One small step for mankind," joked Langly.
     Ha-ha, thought Scully, not funny.  "What would he be
doing in a photo with your father?" she asked Mulder.
     "I don't know," he answered.  "Do you recognize
anyone else in the photograph?"
     "Operation Paperclip was supposed to be scrapped in
the 1950s.  But if this is 1973..."  Byers let it dangle.
     Just what Mulder needs, Scully thought, another
imagined conspiracy, this one involving his father.  "What
happened to Victor Klemper?"
     "He's still here," said Langly.  "Living very well at the
expense of the American taxpayer."  Something about the way
he said it made Scully wonder if the man sitting next to her
could be counted among the ranks of taxpaying citizens.
     The door opened, capturing all of their attention.  The
Gunmen had been lax in their security and not noticed anyone
approaching.  Frohike appeared in the doorway and a huge
grin captured his face when he saw Mulder.  "Unbelievable! 
We thought you were history."  The smaller man wrapped his
arms around Mulder's neck for a hug and Scully held back a
smile, remembering Frohike's comforting companionship on a
night not very long ago, when things had been so different. 
She liked the guy.
     "You're gonna have to wait a little longer for my video
collection, Frohike," Mulder deadpanned, but Scully could see
he was glad to see his friend.
     "Where were ya?  Been looking all over," said Langly.
     "Down at DC General. I was scanning the police
frequency when I heard the report of a shooting."  Frohike
turned to face the rest of his  room and removed his hat,
holding it over his heart.  "Agent Scully -"
     Her blood jumped.  Suddenly all eyes were on her, and
she didn't like it.  A terrible, knowing feeling of dread filled
her and her face flushed at the attention.  "What, what is it?"
Her mouth was dry; she didn't want to know.
     "Your sister's in critical condition."
     The words thundered through her head.  Her eyes slid
over to Mulder, saying goodbye, before she turned and ran for
the well-marked fire exit.  She had to get out of there; their
eyes on her made the walls close in and she couldn't get her
breath.  She had to get to Melissa, dear God, how many more
people were going to die because of the stupid things she'd
done?
     She heard Mulder calling her name, his feet making
the metal steps clang, but she didn't slow down.  She had to
get away.  He grabbed her arm, twisting it to turn her around,
to make her look at him.  "I have to go there, Mulder," she
said.  He had to understand; but he had no family, he couldn't
understand...
     "You can't -"
     "That bullet was meant for me!"
     Her confession had no impact on him.  His argument
was quiet, controlled.  "If they're trying to kill you, that's the
first place they're gonna look."
     She knew he was right.  Her shoulders fell and she
looked at the ground so he couldn't see the tears that flooded
her eyes. "Those bastards."  She couldn't get her voice above a
whisper.
     "I'm going to call someone who I think maybe can
help," Mulder said, but she was barely listening, thinking
about Melissa.  Where was she shot, what was it like.  Scully
had never been shot, never been wounded, never injured, bad
things didn't happen to her.   They happened to the people
around her. She remembered her mother's face at  Ahab's
funeral. It couldn't happen again.  "The only thing you can do
now is try to crucify them," Mulder told her.
     He was right.  She sucked in a deep breath and it hurt,
but pain was life.  She had to be strong, just a little longer. 
Tell herself the same things she'd told herself when she
thought Mulder was dead...not that Missy was de...but...she
had to stop these men.  She had to get them.  She allowed
Mulder to lead her back into the office, where she stood to
one side, her back against a wall for support because she
wasn't sure how much longer her legs were going to be able to
hold her.  She didn't pay attention as he made a few calls, had
the guys look up some information for him. She didn't care. 
She could feel them glancing at her from time to time,
checking to see if she was all right, morbidly trying to see if
tears were falling.  But they didn't fall.  There weren't going
to.
     The drive to Klemper's was silent as well.  Scully put
all of her anger and fear into questioning him, accusing with
sarcasm, but it didn't make her feel any better.  He may have
been a monster, but he was just an old man, puttering away at
his flowers.  He made Mulder mad too and Mulder stormed
away, but Scully remained behind for a moment, looking into
the man's cold eyes.  The eyes of evil, a man who had brought
death and torment to so many.  "In the name of science,"
Langly had said.  Scully understood this man, and it turned her
cold inside.  He knew that she did.  She shook her head and
turned away, but it didn't leave her mind for a long time.

     They got to the mining company in West Virginia
close to dusk that day, thanks to Mulder's driving.  As the road
stretched out behind them, miles filling the space between
Washington and them, some of the cares that forced them into
silence stretched through as well.  
     They got out of the car and started up the stairs into
the creepy, dark old mining building.  "What would your
father have been doing in a mine?" Scully asked.
     "I don't know. He never came home wearing a miner's
cap," quipped Mulder.  They could feel it, smell it in the
dankness of the air.  Something was here.  Just waiting to be
discovered. Clues. Truth.
     The big metal doors with the high tech locks on them
were odd.  Out of place.  Another thing that told them this
wasn't just any other mine.  Scully pressed in the numbers
Klemper had suggested to them - 27828, Napier's constant, the
basis for all natural logarithms.  The keys on the keypad
turned from red to green. "Mulder," she said, feeling
breathless again.
     He rushed to her side.  "Now, wait, look," she said,
stopping him.  "Whatever we find in here, I don't think you've
had time to process everything that you've been through."  He
mumbled something unintelligible in protest, but Scully was
convinced.  He had to be exhausted and running on
adrenaline.  She was worried about him, and if he wouldn't
take care of himself, she had to.  "You weren't even able to go
to your father's funeral.  If something in here was to cast doubt
on the kind of man he was...I - I just know how it would affect
me," she said.  She didn't know what she was pleading with
him to do, exactly. Take a moment and consider, maybe.  Or
let her go first.  Or for him to just let her comfort him, she
who'd lost her father and knew what that was like.
     He looked into her eyes with tenderness and she knew
that he had heard what she was saying.  For a moment she
thought he was going to kiss her because of the way he was
looking at her; she could see the urge cross his mind.  But he
opened the door to the mining tunnel instead.
     Their flashlights played off metal set into the walls. 
Not typical for a mine.  File drawers.  "It looks like they're
storing records," Scully observed, feeling a little chilled.
     "Of what?"
     She pulled open one of the drawers and began to poke
through it.  "Medical files, by the look of it.  Names,
alphabetized..."  Mulder left her side and found the
lightswitch a few feet down.  He turned it on and the world
around them was illuminated.  Scully looked up and couldn't
help gaping.
     The entire tunnel was filled with medical files, in
drawers that went on for miles, farther than the eye could see,
stacked from the floor to over her head.  "Lots of files,"
Mulder said.
     "Lots and lots of files," Scully agreed, feeling
speechless and awed by the sheer magnitude.  What could be
so important...who could be so powerful...what exactly had
they stumbled onto here?
     "What's in these files?" Mulder asked urgently,
returning to stand next to her.
     "Standard medical forms.  Birth certificate, smallpox
vaccination certificate, and then this."  She flipped through
the pages, and then touched a small glass object she'd not seen
outside of a lab.
     "What?" Mulder murmured, close to her.
     "It's an old tissue collection cassette.  The new ones
are plastic."  It bothered her like a puzzle with a piece
missing.  Why would they be holding tissue samples of
people...lots of people by the look of it?
     "Do all of these files contain the same materials?"
     "Yes.  Exactly."  She couldn't figure it out.
     "What year was this person born?"
     "1955.  All of these people were born in 1955."
     Mulder looked at her.  "What year were you born?"
     That small burning of fear began to spread in her
stomach again.  "1964, why?"
     "Let's go find 1964."  Mulder took off and Scully
ended up having to jog to keep up with him. The records were
extensive; 1964 was almost a city block away from 1955,
deep into the tunnel.
     "You're looking for a file on me?" cried Scully, unable
to keep the scared anger out of her voice.
     Mulder didn't answer her, just flipped through the files
in the drawer.  "Dana. Katherine. Scully."   
     Why did her full name sound so intimate on his lips? 
What was it about middle names, anyway, that worked such
magic?  "What?" she snapped out of it when he pulled the file
from the drawer. It couldn't be there.  Her name could not be
in these files.
     His fingers touched the yellow plastic gently.  "It's a
recent tissue sample," he said.
     Her eyes were wide.  She hadn't had a tissue sample
taken. Wouldn't she know if someone was keeping a file on
her?  Why would anyone want to?  "What the hell is going on
here, Mulder?"
     "I don't know, Scully."  Mulder left her file and took
off jogging again, this time not so certain of his target. Scully
went after him, caught him as he was pulling another file from
another drawer. She looked at it over his shoulder, making out
the words on the small typed tag: Mulder, Samantha Ann.  
     "That's your sister's file."
     "Yeah."
     "What're you looking for?"  It didn't escape either of
their notice that the tissue sample in Samantha's file was in a
plastic cassette as well. Scully only wished she knew when the
changeover had taken place between glass and plastic.
     "Look at this, Scully.  This file was originally mine,"
Mulder said, his voice low as he peeled back the label on the
file.  She could hear his breathing, fast, as he stood beside her.
     "I don't understand," she said. It didn't make sense to
her; she couldn't make the connections.  And then the lights
blinked off.
     "Wait here, Scully," Mulder said, his voice on her
name like a caress as he brushed past her in the darkness.

End of part one.
__________________
If They Trusted, part 2
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
__________________

     "Mulder, where are you going?" she called after him,
but as usual, there was no answer, only silence.  She tried to
catch him in the beam of her flashlight, but he was already
gone. In search of...what?  What did he sense, what did he hope
to find?
     Scully stood still, feeling cold and slightly afraid in the
dark tunnel.  Then she heard footsteps and whispers and froze.
Just as quickly, something touched her skin. People, brushing
past her, in a frenzy.  Bumped by one of them, stunned by their
presence in the tunnel, her flashlight slipped from her fingers. 
They ran past her, towards a light.  By the time she recovered
her senses and grabbed the flashlight from the ground, the light
was gone, like a door being shut.
     It was only then that Scully realized they were not
people that had run past her. They had been tiny, barely up to
her shoulder, and thin, and their touch had felt strange as they
pushed past.  Then there was the chatter of their voices, odd
and in a language she couldn't decipher - but she had heard it
coming from them in her mind.  Not through the air.
     They were aliens.
     The thought terrified her.  It's my imagination, she told
herself, trying to think of a rational explanation why people
would be in this tunnel full of medical files.  Would aliens
collect medical data like this on humans? she found herself
wondering as goosebumps rose on her arms.
     Then she heard the gunshots. Her heart seized up. 
"Mulder!" she yelled.  "Mulder!"  More gunshots.  Finally, she
saw the beam of his flashlight up ahead.  "Mulder, down here!"
     "You OK, Scully?" he called.
     "I heard gunshots," she called back.
     "I've been looking for you."
     With gunshots? she thought, crazily.
     "We've got a small army outside. I think they've got us
trapped," Mulder explained.
     They had been shooting at him. "I think I found a way
out," Scully said without even thinking about it, and began to
lead him the way that the beings had gone past her, to where
the light had been.  Like a door.  It was a door.  Mulder pushed
it closed firmly behind them and they ran for the rental car,
past the dark sedans of the men who had been sent to kill them. 
Victor Klemper had known where they would be; he must have 
told the people who were trying to kill them.  Which meant the
men trying to kill them could be friends of his, the men from
the photograph of Mulder's father.
     There was no sound in the rental car save for the motor
revving in high gear and the harsh, discordant sounds of their
breathing.  Scully couldn't get warm and she noticed she was
gripping the seat so hard her knuckles were white.  Mulder was
the same, she saw, when she looked at him.  It had been close.
They'd almost met their end.  One or two times too many.
     Mulder pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of a motel
and turned off the engine and the car lights.  Before Scully
could reach for the door handle to get out, Mulder reached for
her.  His hands sought her face, touching her almost roughly as
he guided her mouth to his in an impatient, needy kiss.  The
rawness of emotion made her tremble as her hands seized his,
pulling herself closer to him, deepening the kiss.  When he
released her, neither of them could breathe.  The man who
rented them the motel room had no doubts about how they
were going to spend the evening.
     "They almost got us, Mulder," Scully said seriously
once they were inside the bland, impersonal room. So much
like the hundreds - or was it thousands now? - of motel rooms
they had stayed in on so many cases.  They had always had
separate rooms before.  Tonight there was no need; no
question.
     "How did you find the way out?" Mulder asked,
tangling his fingers in her hair.
     She shook her head and pulled away from him. She
couldn't deal with this right now.  She felt like her emotions
were pulling her in a hundred different directions, all of them
terrifying.
     "I saw a craft, Scully," Mulder said, sitting down on the
edge of the double bed.  It sagged beneath his weight.  "The
light was bright and it took off over the hillside.  It was so..."
There were no words to describe it.  She could hear the wonder
in his voice.  "And then I saw the cars pull up.  And I was
worried they would get to you before I did."
     "I saw that light, Mulder," Scully admitted and it was
hard for her to do.  "Standing there, in the tunnel,
something....some beings...pushed past me, trying to get to the
light. That was how I knew where the door was."
     "What are you saying, Scully, that you saw aliens in the
tunnel?"
     She frowned.  "I don't know what I saw.  It was dark,
and my imagination...I don't know, Mulder."  He nodded, his
eyes guileless.  She took a deep breath and let it out.  "I'm
scared, Mulder.  I don't know if I can handle this very much
longer."  She sank down onto the bed next to him, close
enough to feel the heat emanating from his skin, but not
touching him.  "Your father is dead.  And I thought you were
dead. And Missy...and they're trying to kill us.  They almost
succeeded."
     "Don't worry.  You're the only one who can shoot me,"
he joked softly, his breath ruffling her hair as he placed a kiss
above her ear.
     She shivered at the joke and closed her eyes.  His
mouth slid down along the line of her throat and involuntarily
she sighed and moved her head back, so he could kiss her more
thoroughly.  She opened her eyes again.  "I need you, Mulder,"
she said.
     "I need you more."  His hands slid up her arms,
stretching her out and laying her on the bed before him.  She
went willingly, seeking his lips with her own and pulling him
into a deep, desperate kiss.  Her body reacted to his even
through the layers of their clothing, which tangled as they
fought to shed it quickly.  Their passion burned like a fire,
consuming all of the oxygen in the room in a hungry rush and
then falling into a gentle peace.
     Awareness came with the quiet and the satience of their
almost animal need for one another.  They'd been living on
terror for days, fighting everything back, giving into only the
need to survive.  And the need to make love was the same sort
of need, born of adrenaline.  Excitement was processed many
ways; fear often led to sex.  An affirmation of life.  Of love.
     Neither of them wanted to speak or move, because the
mood was already broken.  Mulder noticed that Scully was
cold and drew the blanket up over her, moving away to retrieve
his jeans and put them back on.  A moment later, she rose too,
and began to gather up her clothes.  They could not have a
serious conversation if they didn't have their clothes on.
     Scully dressed in the bathroom, feeling strange.  She
didn't close the door behind her, there was no point in that.  But
she looked at her face in the mirror and rinsed it with water
from the sink, noticing the tenderness of her lips and the faint
shadows under her eyes.  She combed the sexy tangles from
her hair and took several deep breaths to try to keep the sudden
tears of emptiness away.  She loved him and he loved her, but
it didn't matter now.  They were in over their heads; they could
be dead tomorrow.  They could have been dead that night. 
And her sister was lying in a hospital, shot, by a bullet meant to
end *her* life.
     "What are we going to do, Dana?" Mulder asked her
quietly when she came back into the room.
     "I don't know," she answered.  "I think we should call
Skinner.  Tell him what's going on."
     Mulder's eyes were dark as they looked into hers. There
was so much more they needed to say to one another.   But he
reached for the phone.

     It was just after dawn when they sat in the small diner,
drinking coffee and pretending to eat when neither of them
were hungry.  They didn't speak.  There was too much for them
to process separately, there were no words to discuss it, not
enough time.
     That's how it always is, Scully thought, not enough
time.  She wondered how things were going to be.  In the space
of a few days, their lives had changed so completely. There
would be no going back to the way that things were.   She was
scared of how much she loved him, how much he made her
feel.  The way she had felt when she thought that he was dead.
     He was worried, she could see it in his eyes.  It was the
same worry she felt.  The door to the diner opened and Skinner
walked in.  It was time to get on with things.
     "This place isn't even on the map.  How'd you get
here?" Skinner asked, letting them know how irritated he was
with them.  He had that squinchy, pinched look to his face that
he often got when dealing with Mulder.  And Scully noticed he
was holding his hand half in front of his face, as though he
were afraid someone was watching them.
     "You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this
country, and what they would do to keep it there," retorted
Mulder.
     "How's that."
     "Last night we were chased by some kind of hit squad
driving what looked an awful lot like CIA fleet sedans," 
Mulder said.  Of course he would be able to recognize what
kind of hit squad it was, Scully thought, at least there was an
advantage to paranoia.
     "Well, I may be able to negotiate a deal that'll guarantee
your safety," said Skinner.
     That was exactly what she wanted to hear. "What kind
of deal?"
     "I'll turn over the digital tape in return for your
reinstatement," said Skinner.  It was the only thing that made
sense.  Scully didn't think Mulder would go for it.
     And he didn't.  "No, sir.  I need that tape.  I need those
files."
     "I'm talking about a way to save your lives."
     "And I'm talking about an elaborate conspiracy against
the American public. Do you know what we found last night?"
     "What."
     "An elaborate filing system of medical records," Scully
answered.  She wanted to know what was in those files just as
badly as Mulder did; she felt the same frustration as he felt
knowing the answers were there but they hadn't had the time to
look; thinking of all the things they hadn't been able to look up. 
Not enough time, she thought again.  But the files were not her
life the way they were Mulder's.
     "Locked inside a mining vault," Mulder added.
     "For the purpose of?" Skinner asked in that pissy tone
of his.
     "The answer's got to be on that tape, in those files,"
Mulder said.
     "Is that answer worth your lives?" Skinner demanded. 
That was the key question.    
     "It's worth killing us for."
     But does that make it worth dying for, Mulder?  Scully
thought.  There's a difference, isn't there?
     "And what do you possibly hope to find, Agent
Mulder."
     "Why they killed my father." His voice was soft and full
of quietly restrained emotion.  "What happened to my sister. 
What they did to Agent Scully."  The three things that kept
Mulder living; the only three things he lived for.
     But he'd brought her into it.  It was her business more
than his what they had done to her.  "I think we should let him
make the deal, Mulder."  He turned and looked at her, shocked
by her softly stated words.  "Look, those answers mean nothing
if we're going to be hunted down like animals."  Like last night. 
We can't live in fear, Mulder. I can't live in fear.  "We are
operating so far outside of the law right now. We've given up
on the very notion of justice.  We have turned ourselves into
outsiders.  We've lost our access and our protection."
     "What makes you think there's any such thing as justice,
Scully?" Mulder asked her, hurt.   
     "What good are those answers to anyone but you,
Mulder?" she questioned back.
     "What we found last night -" he argued, needing to win
her back over to his side.  He needed her support.  Reminding
her of their love.
     "I want exactly what you want," she promised him. His
fight was her fight, to the death.  But not no matter what.  "But
I need to see my sister."  He had to understand that.  If it were
Samantha, if he had another chance to see Samantha, he would
do anything, give up anything, to see her.  He would leave her
behind in a heartbeat.  He looked into her eyes and she stared
back.  Silently communicating.  Pleading with him to
understand. Until her eyes filled with tears and she had to blink
and look away, to reclaim her mind back from his mesmerism.
     "I suppose you couldn't make a backup of the tape,"
Mulder said to Skinner.
     "Whoever downloaded these files put a copy protector
on it,  I couldn't get a hard copy to print either."  So Skinner
had tried.
     "What makes you think they'll honor this deal?"
     "'Cause if they don't, I'll go state's evidence and testify. 
And they'll have to kill me too."  Skinner pledged.  He really
was on their side.
     Mulder looked at Scully, another of those long looks
that searched to the edges of her soul.  "It's up to you, Scully,"
he said.  Placing his trust in her.  He got up and walked away.
     She could only watch him leave.  Knowing he had
placed his trust in her.  And it was the Lady or the Tiger, she
lost either way.  If she refused the deal, she wouldn't get to see
her sister.  And they would probably both end up dead.  There
was no way she could turn down the deal; the tape wasn't
worth their lives, no matter what Mulder thought he believed. 
They could find the answers another way.  So why then did it
feel like betrayal telling Skinner to make the deal?  
     It was just about the hardest thing Scully had ever done,
walking out of the diner and looking Mulder in the eye and
telling him,  "I told Skinner to make the deal."  His face didn't
fall; he didn't react.  He knew, too, that it was the only real
choice they could make.  They could not choose death for the
answers.  "But not to hand over the tape until you agreed to it." 
Her out. Her giving the control back to Mulder. Because they
were partners; they both had a say in what happened to them.
     "I'm sorry about your sister, Scully," Mulder said. He
understood.
     "I just need to know she's going to be OK," Scully said. 
They looked at each other for a moment longer, and then she
moved away.  She got into Skinner's car, since they had left
their rental stashed at the motel.  In the back.  She wanted to be
by herself; besides, Mulder's longer legs needed the front seat. 
He got in a moment later.  They were both resigned.  This was
the only choice.
     But even so, Scully couldn't run to the hospital to see
her sister.  Not until Skinner made the deal.  They weren't safe
until he made the deal.  And it killed her inside to have to wait. 
They stopped at a K-Mart and got a fresh shirt for Mulder and
a sweater for her to wear to try to ward off the chill she
couldn't shake.  A chill that lingered even when they stood
back in Klemper's greenhouse, kept overly warm for his
precious orchids.
     But they'd killed Klemper, and the man who had
warned Scully about the threat to her life was there, waiting for
them.  Warning them of danger, and feeding Mulder a scifi
story worthy of the movies about aliens using DNA and
creating a human hybrid.  Mulder bought it and it made Scully
angry; why did he listen when they told him exactly what he
wanted to hear, even though it was impossible!
     He said the files in the mine were records of
abductions, abductees.  He threw it in her face when she
refused to believe the man's crazy story.  And it hurt her, to
have him scream that in her face, as he had probably intended
it to hurt.  He didn't know what it was to have lost the time, to
have been in that coma.  He didn't know the things she had
almost remembered.  She didn't want to remember, and she
didn't want to believe.  Because it was too painful.  Scully
threw him an angry look and left the greenhouse.
     The moment she stepped out of the great glass building,
her cellular phone rang.  It was Skinner. The deal was made. 
She could go see Melissa.

     She was alone in the dim, beige room.  The silence was
all around her, and her loneliness went deep.  It was like a river
that raged through her soul; where there had been feelings,
there was now nothing but a gaping emptiness in her belly.
     She sensed Mulder come into the room, turned and
looked at him.  She saw the knowledge in his eyes when he
saw the empty bed, neatly made, and she looked away.  "It
happened two hours ago," she said softly.  "She went into
surgery, but the damage to her brain was worse than they had
hoped."  Medicine, Dana, it's facts, it doesn't hurt, she told
herself, trying to keep the pain away.  "Her blood pressure
started to rise and she just...slipped away."  She looked into his
face.  "She died for me, Mulder.  And I tried to tell her I was
sorry, but I don't think she'll ever really know."  Her voice
squeaked up into tears, the tears she was fighting so hard
against.
     "She knows," Mulder promised, and she met his eyes. 
They were honest.  "Melissa knows."
     "You were right.  There is no justice."  If there was, I
would be the one who was dead.  Not her.  This is my fault,
Scully thought.
     "I don't think this is about justice, Scully."
     "Then what is it about?"
     "I think it's about something we have no personal
choice in. I think it's about fate,"  Mulder said.  Scully
considered it a moment, but said nothing.  "Skinner told me
that he talked to you, that you insisted on coming back to work. 
Now if Melissa's death has..."
     "I need something to put my back up against," said
Scully.  It was the work that caused her sister's death.  If she
gave it up now, that would be in vain.  And she would never
have any justice.  Because Scully didn't believe in fate.  Justice
was all she had.
     "I feel the same way.  We've both lost so much."  A
close relative in recent days.  And they had both lost their
sisters.  Under different circumstances, in different ways, but
almost for the same reason.  The file suggested Samantha had
gone in Fox's stead.  As Melissa had been slain in Dana's place. 
They had to carry on, to make that mean something.  And it
bonded them together.  "But I believe what we're looking to is
in the X Files, I'm more certain than ever that the truth is in
there."
     "I've heard the truth, Mulder," Scully said.  "Now what I
want are the answers."  How am I supposed to carry on with
this hanging over my head every single day?  How am I
supposed to look my mother in the eye?  How am I supposed to
live with myself, knowing that she's dead and it should be me? 
Melissa never hurt anyone and I have.  I have.
     The tears began to roll down her cheeks and she turned
her face away, willing them to dissolve before Mulder saw
them, but he did.  He put his strong arm around her shoulder
and pulled her limp body against him in a warm hug.  A
comforting hug.  She couldn't resist, even though she wanted
to.
     Dana closed her eyes and let the hot tears well up and
seep past her eyelids.  She loved him too much to face losing
him, and she knew she would only be able to hurt him and
betray his trust, as she had done so many times in the past few
days.  She didn't believe in fate - we make our own fate, she
thought.  We can't love each other because it hurts too much. 
They had both known, in that strange way, that the night before
had been their last night spent as lovers.  They would be lovers
forever in spirit, in their souls.   She choked on one tiny sob,
burying her face against his chest and he held her tighter,
stroking her hair.  They had both lost so much.  And they had
almost lost each other.  She could not allow herself to be so
vulnerable again.

The end...
Disclaimer 2: Obviously, this story is set during the events of
'Operation Paperclip'.  No infringement is intended by this
usage.
_____________________
If They Believed
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
February 8, 1997
_____________________

	She had dreamed about him nearly every night.  Vague
dreams, of senses and feelings, dreams that she could not
remember well come morning, but she also could not manage
to shake away.  She had dreamed of him this way once before,
when he was far from her.  She hoped that he was all right. 
She thought maybe that was what the dreams meant, that he
was struggling to return to her.
	What would she do if he didn't? she asked herself and
it hurt.
	She looked around the tiny, brightly lit cell, with
books and papers littering every surface.  It reminded her of
her closet-like dorm room in college, a place for studying as
this was a place for studying.  She had to solve the puzzle.  But none
of the books seemed to point the way to any answers.
	Even she could not think about science every minute. 
And the number of empty, silent minutes to fill in prison was
endless.  Her soul searching only left her cold, and needing
Mulder.
	What if he didn't come back this time?  He had left her
behind - ditched her - many times before, but it had never
been like this.  She had never feared for him, a fear that went
deep into her bones and beyond.  Into her essence.  She was
terrified that she would never see him again.
	It was her fault that he had ditched her all of those
times.  The knowledge was not a comfort.  She had wasted so
much time pushing him away.  Time that could never be
regained.  She knew that now, now that it was maybe too late.
	She loved him.  And it was worse to run away and hide
in fear than it was to risk losing him.  Because she risked
losing him anyway.  To lose him now, knowing how she had
wasted their time and their emotions...
	She had been selfish.  Sorrow and loss and fear had
been all she had felt for such a long time and she had wrapped
herself in it, fighting to keep everything out of her heart. 
Making herself 'safe' so that nothing could touch her.
	But it hadn't made her safe.  It had just made her feel
dead inside.  She didn't want to be dead, she knew that.  She
wanted something to touch her.  She needed it now,
something to show her that she was still alive.
	"You're carrying so much grief and fear that you can't
see you've built up these walls around your true feelings and
the memory of what really happened."  Melissa's words, her
cross to bear. Scully had constructed the walls so carefully,
adding every heavy brick in its place.  She had no idea where
to begin to knock them down.  She wasn't sure she was strong
enough to do it.
	Mulder had seen the wall.  He had respected her
feelings without her ever having to say a word.  He left her
alone, as she had wanted him to.  In his way, in his intimate
knowledge of grieving and guilt, he had understood.
	She wondered now what would have happened if he
had tried to break down the walls when she'd begun to build
them.  If he hadn't been so quick to give in to her will, never
speaking of what had transpired.  What would have happened
if he'd told her he loved her?  Or held her and kissed her until
she couldn't pretend she didn't love him?
	Girlish fantasies.  And she was not a girl anymore. 
She had seen too much.  Any last bit of innocence she might
have carried had gone when she saw her sister die.  Mulder
had probably been relieved that she wasn't one of those pushy
women, who thought making love was the same as saying 'I
love you.'  After all, he hadn't tried to touch her again.
	She closed her eyes against a wave of pain that washed
over her.  If she had lost his love...and it was a real possibility
that she had.
	What would she do if he didn't love her anymore?
	Maybe she had been right.  Maybe it was better not to
try.  Better to keep the feelings inside, locked away.  Dead
inside was better than pain.  Except Scully didn't believe that
any more.  She had changed again, in recent weeks.  She was
ready to punch through the protective cocoon she'd spun
around herself and emerge to face the world again.
	She only hoped Mulder was safe.  She would fight to
keep him safe; she had learned that about herself in this prison. 
She hadn't fully realized it until she'd said the words to
Skinner the night before - that she had her own opinions, but
she would follow Mulder on this.  She had gone to prison for
him, and until he returned - if he never returned - it was
possible she would remain here, in this cell, forever.  She had
pushed him away because she had been afraid of betraying
him again.  Now she knew that wasn't going to happen.  She
was learning to trust herself again.
	And that trust included her feelings, and intuition. 
Denying that she loved him was a betrayal, and she had hurt
him with it every day.  Hurt herself with it, too.  To the point
where they yelled at each other because there was no other
way for them to relieve the frustration and tension.
	She just hoped that these dreams were different than
the previous ones had been.  That they didn't mean he was
lying somewhere, injured and unconscious and in need of
medical treatment, hovering on that black plane between life
and death that terrified her so.  He had to be safe.  He had to
be.
	The guard was at the door, to bring her before of the
subcommittee again.  To ask her again if  she had changed her
mind and would today free herself from prison by telling them
where Mulder was.
	She would never tell them.  Because she did not know.

	Scully stuck to her points; the ones she had made to
Skinner the evening before.  It was no trouble for her to fight
for what she believed in, even knowing she was not going to
give them the information they were looking for and that she
was going to be sitting back in her cell reading up on viruses
again in a matter of minutes.
	"And what is the question?" a voice called from behind
her.  A voice that she knew better than her own.  Hardly
daring to believe it, she turned and looked and it really was
Mulder.  Strong and safe and perfect, save for a scrape on his
temple that made her stomach turn over with the urge to kiss
it.
	He took a seat and the committee demanded her
attention once again. It was difficult for her to remember what
she had wanted to say, with half of her mind focused on the
fact that she could feel Mulder's eyes on her back.  But she
had to make the point.  Even more so now because Mulder
was here, listening.  She was doing this for him.  Holding the
torch when he was absent.
	Finally the gavel came down, freeing her from her
chair.  She rose and ran to him.  "Mulder -" she said, but had
no idea what she would have said if he'd let her get any
farther.  She was so relieved to see him.  She could breathe
again for the first time in weeks.
	His arms were open and he wrapped them around her. 
She found what she had needed in his embrace, as he held her
for a long moment and rubbed her back.  "I needed to put my
arms around you, Scully.  Both of them."  She had been the
only thing that kept him fighting to live in his own cold, dank
prison.  Remembering her warmth and the ways she had
changed; the knowledge that he loved her and had not done
anything to let her know in such a long time.  Thoughts of
Scully had kept him alive.
	She was sorry when he released her, but she did not
cling.  She could not allow herself that luxury; not when
people were dying and she and Mulder were the only ones
who could find the solution to the puzzle.  Not when Skinner
was standing right there, and she knew he was wondering
what was going on.
	Mulder couldn't stop looking at her, and the
knowledge was exciting in the way of a secret.  Even though
there were more pressing things for them to think of.  As she
explained what had been going on, he stood closer to her than
he had in a long time.  And when she asked him a question,
his eyes just slid over her.  As a woman, and as his partner. 
Both.
	What had he been through?  Something had changed
within him just as it had changed within her.  They needed
each other, and were no longer afraid to admit it.  Neither of
them would fight if the passion flared again, not this time. 
That knowledge was enough; there was no need to push
things.  And they had a case to focus on.  Belief was all that
hope required.
	Maybe when it was over, finally, there would be time
for them.  Maybe.

The end.
Comments --> eponine119@att.net
Thanks for reading!!!