Title:  Journey 
Author:  Zuffy

Journey - chapter 4

Little of the late afternoon light filtered into the isolated basement
office. Skinner's assignments sat on the desk underneath two books on
quantum mechanics and a copy of The Physics of Star Trek. That
dog-eared volume had turned up on the used book table outside a shop
three blocks from Scully's apartment where he used to hang out when he
wanted to be near her but didn't have the guts to knock on her door.
He brought it up once over dinner in Indiana, but she'd pinned him
with her please-Mulder look and when he pointed out that Stephen
Hawking had written the introduction, she merely sighed. Yeah, well,
Scully, maybe Captain Kirk can bring you back.

His jacket went over the back of the chair. Mulder loosened his tie
and rolled his shirt sleeves three times. Sitting down, he pulled two
sharpened pencils from the drawer and lined them up at the base of the
lamp, point to eraser. When he was satisfied with their alignment, he
rested his elbows against the desk, covered his mouth in a prayerful
gesture, closed his eyes, and breathed out heavily. Something would be
in the files, something unexpected, something that Skinner had noticed
but could not say. Mulder moved the books onto the floor and and
pulled the first folder in front of him. Background checks. He flipped
the pages quickly, glancing at the photos: humiliating driver's-licenc
e shots. A flash of red hair stopped him and he turned the pages back
one by one looking for it. A man. Parker could have these.

The next file contained the preliminary report of a security breach. A
laptop full of classified codes had been stolen from a locked safe in
the anti-terrorism office three weeks before. Well, they'd better have
someone else on the case by now. He opened the third. A report of
haunting in a defense plant that had suffered thefts of strategic
materials. He and Scully had looked into that earlier in the year and
discounted the ghosts right off the bat. Whoever set up the story
hadn't even bothered to do minimal homework about poltergeists. The
photos of energy fields were so pathetic that Chuck had laughed out
loud when he held them to the light. They'd passed that case on to the
security boys. Mulder turned the pages quickly. Witness reports,
security logs, itemization of evidence but it was all from their
original investigation, except for one new thing. A main witness had
recanted his ghost story. The case had still died.

Top Secret stamps labeled the next file in three places. Reports from
Naval officers of "shadow people" - glimmering figures at the edge of
vision hovering just beyond reach, fading in and out, paralyzing the
victims so long as the illusion persisted. Sounded more like ghosts
than the ghost case. The interviews were dated over a period of weeks,
but some men reported that it had been happening for years. Maybe
somebody got drunk and spilled the story and pretty soon the brass got
word of it. Nobody in a high security job is going to admit to
hallucinations if they're sober.

He and Scully had seen a case like this once, a chemical engineer.
Mulder suggested apparitions or pre-abduction sensing, she thought
some sort of drug reaction was more likely. He ventured his old theory
about a succubus, the old woman who visits men in the night. She
called it a hypnopomic hallucination, which sounded like she might
actually be admitting he was right. Neither of them had a word to
explain why the hauntings took place when the victim was wide-awake.
Then their engineer turned up dead. Under Scully's knife, the brain
had looked normal, and the tox scan turned up nothing. The Navy had
slapped the tag of stress on the men. No medical records, and the
dates on the investigative reports suggested that the whole thing had
been wrapped up pronto. This should have been his case. How did
Skinner get it and why only now?

His cell phone rang twice and he frisked the pockets of his jacket to
retrieve it. A whisper on the other end of the line asked, "All
clear?"

Mulder imagined his caller cupping a hand over the mouthpiece. "Hello.
Yes?"

"The eagle has landed." Frohike had been watching B films again.

"Yeah. Thanks. I've got to wrap something up first."

"Right."

He measured the height of the remaining files with his thumb.
Skinner'd hinted that there something here would give him a line on
Smoky.  Take him down.  Mulder tipped back in his chair, hands joined
over the top of his head, balancing with a slight wobble. The pull of
Scully's boxes, now safely retrieved, was almost overpowering. He
needed to see what she had seen, read the words she'd recounted to
him, put his mind where hers had been. He glanced at his watch.
Another hour at most.

The next folder held old surveillance reports on their office. A
couple of video captures, a transcript of a conversation he and Scully
had had about the African biologist. Someone had been bored enough to
doodle faces on the edge of the page. Not his face or hers, but whose?
He turned over a piece of photographic paper to find  a grainy print
of himself, feet up, mouth open in mid-speech and eyes closed in a
momentary blink. It made him look like a pompous ass. The security
staff preferred Scully. There she was, eyes cast down, hair tucked
behind her ear, thinking Scully thoughts. If he'd been lucky that day,
maybe she was hiding the slightest smile. He slipped it into his
pocket.

Five missing person cases were stuffed into the next envelope, the
pages mixed up. He kneeled on the floor to sort them into piles. He'd
heard about one of disappearances, a scientist. Also missing were a
congressional aide, a senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion lab
working on the Mars shots, a chemist who'd had a breakthrough in
creating artificial materials to repair human nerves, and a doctor
whose name seemed familiar. From the look of the scribbled notes, it
appeared one agent had handled all five cases. Five dead-ends. Batting
average .000 for Marcia Wilson. On reassembling the papers from the
floor noticed that one Louise Spencer had investigated the
congressional aide. He checked the others. Five agents. One
handwriting.

He looked under the last file, just to confirm that his task was
almost done. A file of scientific papers on using human DNA in
computer chips. He started reading but quickly got lost. If Scully
were here, she'd know. The authors' names weren't on the list of
missing persons. At least not yet.

His watch read 9:30. He'd eaten nothing but a burger in the Hoover
cafeteria since the Gunmen's that morning. A quick check of his desk
yielded a crushed package of saltines and a half dozen sunflower seeds
that had fallen into a drawer during some moment of idle
contemplation. He stood and stretched, then emptied his pockets onto
the desk. Pushing the quarters, dimes and nickels into a pile, he
counted quickly, and locked the office behind him.

Mulder wove through the deserted snack room toward the vending
machine, shoving a couple of the orange plastic chairs underneath the
tables. The day's litter had still not been tidied; a crumpled brown
bag sat on one table, along with a pile of crumbs, neatly pushed into
a little mound. Mulder sorted his change for a can of soda, chips and
a plastic wrapped sandwich of chilled white bread, soggy by now but
with nothing growing on the outside, at least not visible from where
he squinted. He put his coins in the soda machine and punched a
button. The money clanked down into the change window. He dropped them
in a second time and tried another button. The money came back again.
He switched quarters and this time the coins stuck, but released
nothing. He pressed the buttons in random order, pounded on the change
box, and finally kicked the scuffed bottom panel twice. The machine
hummed, then produced a whoosh of vapor and flickering lights that
danced against the rear wall before it went dark. Hell. Might be a
ghost in there. Can dying machines give off ghosts? Scully wouldn't
buy it. ~Ghosts are remnants of living spirits, Mulder.~
Her voice would carry a little sigh on his name. He wouldn't let her
get away with that: ~So now you believe in ghosts?~ ~Most certainly
not. But I especially don't believe machines emanate anything when you
dent them and they certainly have no spirits to persist when the big
fuse has blown.~ ~Well why not? Machines and living organisms: it's
all electricity in one form or another, and what if... what if you
connected the living and nonliving?  The flexible human brain and high
speed computer.   Put human DNA in processors and put control chips in
humans. Wire them together in some kind of outsize organo-machine.~
Scully would try to hide a smile at that one.
~But think about it, Scully. A network like that might just transcend
consciousness and... then you'd have something no one would recognize.~
His mind raced ahead. Mechanical ghosts would create their own energy
fields. Of course the aura would look odd in the photos.
He looked down at the sandwich that had appeared up in his hand.
~Mulder, there must be a simpler solution.~ She'd roll her eyes or
raise that perfect eyebrow. ~Put the robotmen on hold let's look for
the simplest, logical, actually *possible* solution. And don't trust
anyone, Mulder. Don't trust anyone but me.~ How could he possibly be
both halves of their partnership all by himself?

***

A knock at the door pulled Mulder's head up off the desk. His watch
read 8:30. He drank down the last swallow of cold coffee in the
styrofoam cup, pushed his hair back with his fingers and unlocked the
door.

"I'm sorry if I disturbed you, Agent Mulder." Arms crossed, Agent
Parker stood in the hallway, a single sheet of paper dangling from her
hand. Her eyes scanned him from the tousled hair down to his unshod
feet. She leaned forward and he watched, bewildered, as her slender
fingers approached his chest and plucked a small post-it note from his
shirt. "Nelson Stockman," she read aloud.

"Sorry. Been up all night." He returned to his desk, sat down and
rubbed the heels of his hands in his eyes. "Christ," he said, looking
at his watch again, "I promised to meet someone last night. I gotta
run. We'll talk later, ok?" He ducked under the desk to find his
shoes, and slipped them on, quickly knotting the laces. His feet felt
trapped, tight. If only there were a couch in here... He began
straightening Skinner's files into a stack, tucking in loose papers
and twisting the little string closures around the office envelopes.
"I should be back this afternoon. Maybe late."

She had followed him in, swaying slightly on three-inch heels. She
lifted a slide projector off a chair, brushed the dust off the seat,
and settled back. Her movements caught the corner of his vision as he
pulled a black gym bag from under the table, set it on his chair, and
pitched a pair of running shoes into the corner of the room. He began
tucking the files in the bag. The top secret labels blared out in red
and he wondered if she would report that to her bosses.

"It's not ok, Agent Mulder. I expected you to call me yesterday. I
assumed you'd be eager to have your report." She toyed with a single
pearl on a chain around her neck.

"Yeah, well, sorry. I've been pretty busy..."

"With important things, I see. So you regard this Mars case as
ridiculous as I do?"

"No, no. It's not ridiculous, it's just... Sorry, I've been up all
night." He breathed out once and twitched an apologetic smile at her.

"You said that already." She handed a single sheet of paper across the
desk. "It's pretty straightforward. The Mars Explorer fell off a cliff
on landing and was destroyed. Case closed."

"That's all you found?" He glanced down the page and handed it back.

"That's all there is to know."

"You found pictures of the debris?"

"Not yet."

"No body, huh?" He rubbed his hand over his eyes then back through his
hair once again. "Then can we assume 'death' of the victim? Let's
suppose -- *suppose* -- you're right. What pulled it to a cliff? With
all our mapping capability, we knew where to put it down. The terrain
was gently sloping, two percent incline, five at the max."

"Then they were off in their calculations. The terrain becomes more
rugged. A small computational error and..."

"Why would there be an error? The math's not hard."

"Even with the best computers, a small discrepancy can..."

"And, Parker, the craft lost contact before it reached the surface."

"That's not unusual."

"Did you happen to notice that few months before, another craft was
lost approaching Mars?"

"That was an engineering error. Someone forgot to convert English
measurements to metric."

He leaned over to pick a couple sheets of paper off the floor. "Do you
really buy that? Scientists don't even *use* English measurements any
more."

"Some do, obviously, or there would have been no error. Not everything
results from a conspiracy, Agent Mulder."

"Not every lie deserves to be believed, Agent Parker." He shrugged on
his jacket and fished a striped tie out of the pocket.

"Look, I've been assigned to help you. Now you can take advantage of
what I have to offer or not."

"Ah. What exactly are you offering?" His eyes assessed her pointedly,
her short dark hair sculpted into a wave that morning, the heavy black
eyelashes, the thin nose pushed slightly downward at the tip like a
comma, tight beige sweater and skirt, crossed knees, and high heeled
foot swinging impatiently. She rolled the pearl in her fingers.

"Are you planning to deliver on that look or should I consider myself
dismissed?"

He picked up the final folder from the desk and inspected its
contents. "I'll let you know when an easier case comes up."

Parker spun the seat of the chair as she got up and walked out the
door. Was that a test, Agent Parker? Is partial credit given for wrong
answers? He still held the last folder, the ghostly thefts. The
answers in Skinner's files were all wrong, wrong for a reason, wrong
in some damning way. Skinner knew that. A twist, a lie, a slide from
truth to falsehood, from known to hidden, from knowing to hiding. The
point being, the point..., the point of Parker? To be wrong.

"Parker," he shouted and took off after her. They met at the stairway
door. "Yeah," he said. "There is a case I need your help with.
National security" He held out the file. "Theft of strategic
materials. There was a story of ghosts that, uh, some of the witnesses
recounted to us." She was looking away from him, down the hall. "But,
uh, it never made sense. I mean Agent Scully and I never believed in...
and the main witness recanted that story. Would you find out what
happened?" She took the folder as if it were a dead animal. "Really,"
he continued. "I think there's something here."

***

The wooden date box sat upended on the floor, looped Arabic writing on
the label unreadable to them, pictures of smiling brown fruit carrying
the message. An anemic leather camel stitched in red yarn stood amidst
the papers on the table. Its large eyes were fringed with seductive
lashes.

"And there were no letters when you went to the Post Office?" Byers
thumbed through a sheaf of handwritten pages, also in Arabic.

Mulder shook his head. He ran his hand down the bottle of beer sitting
in front of him, and wiped the moisture on the side of his pants. His
other elbow rested on a black leather journal with the name Captain
William Scully embossed on the front.

"Well, Mulder, honestly, I think it's a good thing."

"What do you mean, Byers?" Langley tipped his beer bottle at his
housemate, then at Mulder. "Geez man. It's bad enough that she shipped
herself back to 1996. Now the trail's ended..."

"Shuddup, Langley," Frohike hissed.

Byers put the papers down and jumped back in to defend himself. "No,
it is a positive sign. She told her mother she was coming back and the
fact that there are no more letters means that she was able to do
it."

"So where is she now, smart guy?" Langley snapped at the implicit
rebuke.

"Well, it's hard to say. She's been gone what, Mulder, about two
weeks?"

Mulder nodded, looking not at them but at the gold-edged label his
fingers were slowly prying loose from the brown bottle.

"So," Byers continued, "she's either still there or she's on her way
here. I suppose she could be hiding in the present somewhere... the
logic of her passage just a little unclear..."

"What, what logic?" Langley wasn't giving up.

"Well, I mean, is there an exact day-to-day correspondence? If she
leaves on November 12 can she travel only to other November 12ths, you
know, because of earth's orbit? Or can she move from any date to any
other? "

"Yeah, well, that's not even the hard part. It's a lot easier to go
back in time when all you have to do is hit a certain date. What about
trying to hit the right moment returning to the present?" The others
stared at him. "I mean, what if you were off by a couple of minutes?"

"What's your point, man?" Frohike's chair scraped against the floor as
he stood up to get more beer.

"You'd, like, be behind everybody else, like you'd arrive late at
conversations and keep saying things everybody else already said and
you'd miss the bus and stuff, never get to the phone before it stopped
ringing..."

"You missed your calling, Einstein. That's really stupid." Frohike
shook his head.

"Yeah, well, what would be stupid is if you overshot the present and
ended up a couple minutes ahead. It'd be like flying through a
windshield.  Nobody'd be there yet, you'd just be in a kinda big void
cause time hadn't filled it yet. And then how'd you get back?"

"You're saying the future doesn't exist yet?"

He shrugged. "We sure can't trust that slimeball Mercer to send her to
the right time, and maybe he ..." Langley met Mulder's eyes.

"She's coming back." Mulder responded. "She said it, she meant it,
she'll figure it out. I went over this in my head already. For all I
know someone got to the Post Office first and took her letters. There
may have been a hundred of them." It hadn't been crowded when he went
to check the box, the key gripped tightly in his hand. The other
patrons - a blond young woman in leggings, a man whose stooped
shoulders thrust his head forward parallel to the ground, a
gray-haired woman in a fur coat - moved through the lobby toward the
service windows and minutes later, back out the door. C475 was in a
corner, in the bottom row, a large box, a box that could hold three
years worth of letters, one a day from solitary confinement. He waited
until a woman with two shopping bags peeled the stamps from her
booklet and mailed her bills before he stooped to try the key. Scully
had bent over just like this, wearing something loose. She'd had
sunglasses perched in her hair, he was sure, and she'd been breathing
quickly as she opened the embossed metal door and ran her hand along
the bottom of the box. He put his own shaking hand therewhen he found
it empty.

"Mulder? Are you with us?" Frohike was inches from his face. "Who
would know about the Post Office?"

"Who? They way things are going, I'm beginning to think just about
everyone."

Byers cleared his throat. "You'll need to get a translator for some of
those papers she sent us. In the meantime, we found some stuff on
Mercer."

Mulder nodded and followed his friends to one of their workstations.
Langley ran the mouse across a Doom II pad as the screen slowly
restored itself.

"Looks like time travel has been at the back of his mind since the
start. We downloaded his resume from the Net and Byers here went over
the publications."

"I can't speak as an expert," there was a soft click from his throat,
"but I'd say that even at the start of his career he had time travel
in the back of his mind. Here, you see some of the things he published
in the early 1970s about relativity, it's always that angle...'

"There's Scully's name." Mulder brushed his finger across the screen

"Yes, well, that's much later. Her article came out in 1987. High
quality journal, too. They must have coauthored that based on her
senior thesis. But that's still background stuff. Look, it's here,
1993 when he suddenly starts to get serious about time travel, though
he's not calling it that."

"Let's look at the funding."

Langley scrolled down to the list of grant support. Mulder eyed the
names of the agencies. "Military."

"Well, nothing unusual about that..."

"Except for who might be interested. When did it start?"

"Can't tell," Byers said. "He only lists current grants. We'll have to
hack in to the agencies. Might take a couple days."

Langley hit print and an old dot matrix clacked into action beside
them.

"How you gonna bring her back, man. You ought to go there yourself.
Take Mercer with you. A gun positioned right there." Langley held his
index finger against his ear.

"Why'd she do it in the first place, Mulder?"

"Yeah, it seems so unScully."

"CounterScully."

"AntiScully."

"Yeah. There's something big going on, isn't there?"

The room grew silent except for the hum of the electronics, different
pitches for the computers and printers and the faint sound of Pearl
Jam playing in one of the bedrooms.  Mulder's neck knotted as he
swallowed.  "I'd like to get some of those papers translated."

"You trusted us with..."

Frohike put his hand on Langley's arm. "It's personal man. Let it
be."

***

His apartment felt cold and empty as he stretched back along the
couch, one foot settled atop the gym bag containing some of Scully's
father's papers along with the files from Skinner. A comfortable bed
stood in the other room, tidily made up with clean sheets and a wool
blanket and new pillows he bought just a month ago in a fit of
domesticity that had surprised Scully when she settled in next to him
that night. "Goose down," she'd said with an appreciative smile. He
couldn't sleep there now, wouldn't, not until she returned and held up
the sheet in welcome. Couldn't sleep on the couch either, or anywhere.
But while he was telling himself this, she appeared, suddenly, in a
white void, a place not so much lit as light. Her back was to him. He
stood at his doorway, looking out to where there was no up-down or
back-forth, no symmetrical dimensions or reversibility. He let go of
the doorjamb and raised his foot to join her but he was paralyzed,
held back by the air itself pressing against his chest. He called her
name, forced it from his lungs and she half-turned. She was naked and
he saw the swell of her stomach. As she looked away, he shouted,
"Scully, are you cold?"

He awoke in a sweat. The heat must've come on but the thermostat
registered just 62 degrees under his tapping finger.

***

The next day

The door to his office was ajar when he returned from a fruitless
attempt to track down one Captain Nelson Stockman, retired, one of the
men who had admitted to the hallucinations. Fucking train station, he
thought, gun in hand, as he pushed door with his foot. CGB Spender
stood with his back turned reading the clippings on the bulletin
board. Mulder holstered his weapon.

"No one invited you in here."

"I wasn't aware that law enforcement was by invitation only."

Mulder walked around to his desk and touched the things on top
lightly.

"I assure you, I have tampered with nothing. I doubt there's anything
here worth tampering with." The Smoking Man moved away from Mulder and
thumbed the latch of one of the drawers of the filing cabinets. "What
has your obsessional pigheadedness achieved? Now your partner has
disappeared. Of her own volition, if I am to understand correctly. Not
a vote of confidence in you."

"Agent Scully's whereabouts are none of your business."

"Oh, but they are. You see, I was responsible for assigning her to the
X-Files in the first place. I'm concerned about her."

"Spare me."

"Who says you know who your allies are, Agent Mulder? You assume I'm
the enemy, whereas I think we want the same thing. Peace, prosperity,
the well-being of our loved ones. Like Dana."

Mulder rose from his chair, opened the door, and stood to the side,
but Spender didn't move.

"I can help Miss Scully. I'd like to, actually. Guarantee her
safety."

"Go to hell."

Spender shrugged. "You're no different from anyone else. There's
always something that a person can't say no to." He looked down at his
hand and rubbed his thumb along the top of his nail. From the hallway
came the sound of the elevator whirring open and shut. "You help me,
and I promise a pleasant life for Agent Scully and her child - your
child, is it fair to say? Much as I admire your partner, I doubt this
was an immaculate conception." His mouth twisted as he reached inside
his jacket, then let his hand fall. "You won't be together, alas. But
they'll be well cared for. The child will thrive and grow, he'll
probably be the spitting image of his father -- isn't that what every
man wants, Mr. Mulder? He will be the joy of Agent Scully's life."

"Get out of my office."

"In return, I need your promise of cooperation. And the things your
partner has entrusted to you."

"Anything you propose would be a betrayal of her."

"Depends on how you define betrayal. I've restored her before. Proof
of my good intentions. Some people might find your present course a
betrayal - refusing to grab a chance for her safety. Her child's.
After all the grief you've brought her, it's the least you can do."

"I intend to bring her back myself."

"Maybe you're missing the big picture here. You see, your partner has
quite unexpectedly discovered a way to disrupt fate. That can't be
allowed to happen. No one is bringing her back here."

Spender walked slowly to the door and looked around the office before
stepping into the hall. He took out his package of Morleys and put one
in his mouth. " I thought...at one point I thought you had the stamina
for the truth. So few people do, you know. Able to look it in the face
and make the necessary personal sacrifices without worrying about
their own little lives. You think I haven't had to make choices
myself? You may doubt it, but people have loved me. They believe in my
strength."

"Some fine love you've shown them."

"I never put myself above the common good, Mulder. You think I'm
unscrupulous. I'm not. I'm merely unsentimental. Don't confuse the
two."

*
Spender hadn't lit up, but the sour smell of old smoke now hung in the
air like a curse. Mulder dropped into his chair, withdrew three photos
from his pocket and laid them on the desk : the video capture of
Scully, Maggie's picture of her, and the ultrasound. Spender had
smirked when he talked about Scully. He had paused for a second before
saying "immaculate conception," and his eyes flashed confidence,
triumph, glee. What did the world look like through those eyes? Was it
insect vision, reality prismed into a thousand isolated points, or a
predator's eyes calculating distance and motion rather than color and
beauty, or did his dark soul cast a shadow over the retina itself?

Mulder spun his chair and faced the bulletin board. Spender had been
standing right there, his calm unruffled by the sound of the door
being kicked open. Mulder rose and positioned his feet in the same
spot, relaxing his body and imagining the slight weight of cigarettes
in the pocket of his shirt. He looked coldly at the collection,
straightening one clipping about a werewolf, lifting the corner of
item about alien autopsies, and inspecting the back of a hazy shot of
a UFO. ~So-called leads. Momentos from silly cases that no one else
wanted. Scattershot.  Once in a while hitting something important by
sheer, blessed random chance. Or design.~  His face curved up on one
side. ~Let Fox glimpse the truth now and then, who would listen to his
rantings after all? Just like Bill. Vulnerable. Easy to mislead,
confuse, control. Blinded by loyalties to people and ideas.
Vulnerable.~ Vulnerable.

He kneaded the aching muscles in his neck. Something had made Spender
vulnerable all at once.  Something Scully had seen or found or
thought.  Her father's journal, maybe, or the photos of camouflaged
trucks at the salt flats or the documents the Tunisian officer had
sent to the ship.  Something that would upset the balance, nullify
Spender's carefully constructed game plan. Some flaw in his own
certainty.  No wonder he called it disrupting fate.

Mulder turned back to his desk and sighed. What if turning over the
things from those boxes would protect Scully forever?  A sure thing,
no treachery.  Could he let her go, deal away part of himself, his
truth? The only person who believed his soul was whole, when it was
only her presence that made him so?  Would it be enough to know he'd
done the right thing? She asked him to make life safe for them and
took the chance of never seeing him again. She'd accepted that risk.
He slipped the photos of her into his pocket, grabbed	his coat, and
headed outside.

*
Now that the cool weather had settled in, the mall would be quiet
again, visitors alone or in small somber groups at the Vietnam
memorial tracing the names or shyly looking for a place to put a
single rose or lily. The schoolchildren would cluster in unruly lines
up at the Washington Monument, elbowing each other whenever the
teacher's back was turned. But here, near the museums, there would be
a quiet bench where he could run over everything once again: papers,
photos, ghosts, machines, magnetic fields, and one seriously missing
woman. He walked past the old Gothic post office and Justice
Department, glancing up for anyone who might be tracking his
movements. As he crossed Constitution Avenue, his phone rang.

"Mulder."

"Yeah, Mulder. You free? We've been checking on your friend."

"Go ahead."

"What's that sound?"

"Squealing brakes. I'm outside."

"Yeah, well take it easy. You're my ticket to getting Agent Scully
back."

Mulder paused on the sidewalk and closed his eyes. "Sure, Frohike, but
remember, the pleasure will be all mine."

"I was afraid of that. I'd ask for Parker instead if she was a real
person."

"Fake identity?"

"So it appears. No Amandas in the right age range on the active lists
at the Bureau, MI, or the CIA. "

"You hacked the spooks?"

"Yeah, piece of cake. You have anything else you can give us? Photo?
Prints?"

"Not... no. I'll work on it. Skinner might have a file..."

"Yeah, well, whenever."

***

Two days later

Autumn's brilliance had dwindled to clumps of damp brown under the
skeletal trees.  Gusts off the river  stirred the few leaves that
still clung to the exposed branches, occasionally sending one flying
across the still green lawns. The traffic over nearby bridges hummed
low underneath the sound of feet beating an automatic rhythm along the
asphalt path.  Mulder concentrated on breathing, the feel of chilly
air in his lungs and the rise and fall of his diaphragm and the way
his arms arced out slightly to the side if he expanded his chest. Head
steady, hips tracking a line parallel to the ground, the body holding
itself in balance and in motion at the same time. If you visualized
your muscles, you could feel them, feel them work together and resist,
feel the smooth machine moves and forget about anything else as your
feet beat an automatic rhythm.

His attention flickered to a slower runner ahead and as he approached,
he noticed that the man was pushing a jogging stroller. He cut to the
left and pulled ahead, glancing back over his shoulder. The baby was
tiny - asleep as far as he could see - wrapped in a red plaid blanket
with a pink hat pulled low over her forehead. The father tipped the
bill of his Knicks cap toward Mulder's shirt. Mulder slowed and let
the other man catch up.

"That's a clever idea," he said, nodding at the stroller. "Where'd you
get that thing?"

"Any good running shop has 'em these days. Puts the kid to sleep like
that. You never seen one?"

"Never really paid attention."

They jogged in silence for another twenty yards, the man swerving the
stroller around a hole in the asphalt. "Your first on the way?"

"You can tell?"

"Yeah, you can always tell first timers. There's so much you never
notice before and suddenly you're expected to grasp all this stuff
that's not on your Y chromosome. You won't believe what your wife
knows by instinct." Mulder veered onto the damp grass so the man could
guide his daughter around a puddle. "When are you due?" the stranger
asked.

"Me? Ah, a couple months, I don't know the date exactly, maybe March,
April. It's a little up in the air right now."

"You don't know?" The man stopped. "Look, it's none of my business.
But get it straightened out with your girlfriend. You don't want to
miss this."

Mulder looked down at the sleeping child again and nodded. "Thanks,"
he said. "Thanks for the advice." He resumed his earlier pace,
imagining his hand on the grip, the hum of wheels against pavement,
and the weight of a baby lifted warm from sleep. All he needed to do
was get it straightened out.

A few minutes later the slap of feet behind him pushed him into higher
gear and the steps behind him sped up, too. He glanced over his
shoulder.

"Agent Mulder." She smiled, open-mouthed, and he wondered idly how
long she could match his pace.

"Afternoon Agent Parker. I didn't know you ran."

"Yeah, yeah, I do. You live near here?" she asked. She was blowing
out, her mouth a neat O on exhale.

"Not really. I just like this park."

"You look like you're about at the end. So am I. Stop by and have a
drink?"

"I have work to do." He sped up, but so did she.

"There's no reason to be unfriendly," she said.

"There's no reason to be friendly either."

"Water, then. And I'll tell you about your ghosts."

He stopped, bent over to slow his breathing and took his pulse. Her
feet kept moving in front of him, small feet in new running shoes.
"Ok. Water. And ghosts."

"Fine. This way." She headed out toward the street at a slow trot,
crossed at the green and led him three blocks into the old warehouse
neighborhood, now converted to condominium lofts.

They stepped into the old freight elevator, freshly carpeted but
making no concessions to modern elevator speed. He wiped the corner of
his mouth against his sleeve.

"I tried to find you yesterday, Parker."

"I'm flattered. I was working on your case."

"Success?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

He kept his eyes on the numbers. At the third floor, they got off and
she opened the locks. He followed her into a large open space with
ceilings fifteen feet high, wood floors, and brick walls hung with
art. To the left, lower walls curved around to make a kitchen and
other rooms out of sight. To the right were an overstuffed white sofa
with red cushions and a glass coffee table six feet across and a vase
of gold and orange leaves. Behind the sofa, the bed sat on a raised
platform with four deconstructed posts twisted with gauze. Several
large photos of nudes dominated the wall behind the bed: body parts,
curves and hollows.

She came back with the glass of water and a coaster.

"I think I'm going to ask for a bigger raise this year," he said.

"Oh, this? Belonged to my ex. Made it big as an investment banker.
Cashed out of his job to pursue his first love, photography, then
checked out of here to pursue his second, Cecelia. I got the
apartment, the car, and the pictures he considered 'meat.' He got the
money, all tucked away where my lawyer was never going to find it."

"Nice."

"I didn't care by that point. It was over."

"About the case..."

"If you don't mind, I'm going to take a quick shower." She walked away
from him, pulling her sports bra over her head. "Make yourself at
home."

Mulder downed the water and set the glass on the table. The television
and VCR sat across from the couch. He found the remote attached to the
side of the tv and hit "play." A grainy video came up, a naked man and
woman circled each other on the bed laughing. The woman wore a mask
over her eyes, the man was blindfolded. Mulder looked up at the track
lights and calculated the camera angle. Squatting down next to the
set, he opened the doors of the cabinet. Several of his favorites
stood on the shelf alongside other cassettes initialed and dated on
the white spines. He wondered if he'd find himself and Scully in there
someplace, and pulled one out, shaking the cassette from its box.
Written on the label were names unknown to him in the handwriting he
had seen earlier in the missing persons files. He closed the doors as
he heard her emerge from the bathroom. The thin white robe stuck to
the damp spots on her body.

"Ready for a beer?"

"I think I'll be going." He was leafing through a magazine from the
table.

"I'm not chasing you out. If you're feeling sweaty, shower here. There
are plenty of towels back there."

"The FBI has rules about fraternization, Agent Parker."

"Who said anything about fraternization, Agent Mulder? Don't you want
to hear about your ghosts?"

"Okay. Shoot." He walked over to the unadorned windows and looked down
at the street lights flickering on.

"The thefts were stopped."

"And the thieves?"

"Handled administratively."

"Ah. Administratively. The truth wins again." He turned around and
perched himself on the windowsill. She had sunk back against the
cushions on the couch, bare feet tucked underneath.

"More harm would have been done to national security by exposure than
by the actual theft."

"The right people have a gift for making themselves too embarrassing
to prosecute. How did they do it? I mean, carry the stuff off."

"That's really the heart of it. If that secret got out, it would be a
disaster. Hackers can get into anything, as you well know."

"So, case closed?"

"Case closed."

"You're not going to tell me what happened?"

"I can't.  You don't have clearance.  You'd find some interesting
things if you did."

He nodded. "This isn't the way Agent Scully and I usually solve
cases."

"Agent Scully." She tugged at her robe, pulling at it to cover her
leg. "You know, there's a way out of her fix."

He rubbed his finger along the window sill and inspected it for dust.
His stomach tightened and the spot just below his lungs felt hollow
and cold. Outside, the parking spaces were rapidly disappearing; a
well-dressed woman stepped out of her car and brushed something off
her coat. She held her hand out and headlights blinked once before she
hurried down the sidewalk. He pressed his face against the window
until she disappeared from view. "What makes you think she's in a fix?
Or that you could help?"

"Sure you don't want a beer?"

"Is it necessary?"

"Actually, yes," she laughed as she walked slowly to the kitchen. "I
can sympathize with her, you know. There are certain problems, maybe
of a personal nature..."

"Are there?"

"The kind of thing that can happen when a man and woman ... what should
I say, Agent Mulder? Fail to take precautions?"

"You're making a lot of assumptions."

She returned to the couch, leaning forward to pour the beer into two
tall glasses. "You don't have to stand, you know." She held a glass
out to him; he took it, walked back to the window, and waited. "Well,"
she continued, leaning back sideways and stretching her legs out along
the couch, "You should accept the deal you've been offered."

"What do you know about a deal?"

"I know it's fair. More than fair. She'll have everything she needs,
including safety. That's something she hasn't had in a long time. 
Seven years?"

"I get it now. I'd been flattering myself that your mission was a
little more personal."

Parker tilted her head to the side and smiled, then drank. "Don't you
think she deserves better than she has now? I'm surprised you won't
take some responsibility."

"She'd never submit to Spender's control."

"She's carrying a child now. She's seen it, heard its heartbeat,
probably felt it move. Speaking as a woman, I'd say that changes
everything. She might be willing to risk her life for you, but the
baby's life is another matter."

"If your concern for her is genuine, help me bring her back."

"No. Impossible."

"Physically impossible or just no or do you have a price, too?" He
walked across the room and put the glass on the table. "Tell me your
price, Parker."

"What's he's proposed to you is best for everyone. Everyone, not just
you. She chose a route to safety, now she's depending on you to
guarantee it."

"Fuck that.  His deal's not going to protect her."

"He keeps his promises. I've seen it."

"If you believe that, then you've been thoroughly duped, bought, sold,
and screwed."  He walked toward the door.

"Agent Mulder, do you have a choice? Need I add that the flip side of
that particular coin can be pretty brutal? Would you expose the child
to that? Would you choose the sorts of... things... that might happen to
both of them?"

His hands ached from the palms out and his heart was racing. "Well,
you can tell him you delivered the message. I assume that our
'partnership' is now over?"

"No, it's not." She picked up the remote from where he had left it on
the table and turned on the set. "You know, our working together
doesn't have to be unpleasant."

"The hell it doesn't."

End of part 4. 

Journey, Part 5

The door behind Mulder opened and closed, briefly allowing the sound
of laughter to penetrate the laboratory. Melody Franklin blushed as
she walked quickly past him to the other side of the counter carrying
a white mug with a big red heart.   "Agent Mulder, I didn't realize
you'd get here quite so quickly."

"Eager to find my culprit."  He was playing with a snow globe that had
been sitting on the counter, a tiny model of the Capitol in a swirl of
iridescent flakes.

"Well, you've given us a good bit of business lately." She put her mug
on a small hotpad, glancing across at her officemate. "Not that we
mind." Lisa smiled at Melody over the edges of her glasses and quickly
looked away. Neither woman was meeting his eyes.  What was the latest
rumor tagging him, he wondered, and did it include the news of a hot
visit to Parker's apartment?

Melody wiped her hands on a white towel and picked up a sheet of
notes.  "That slide projector has been touched by a good number of
people. You want everyone?"

He nodded.  The projector sat in a clear plastic bag on a table
against the wall alongside the fax and the printer. An evidence tag
hung over the edge of the table.

"Well, you, but that's obvious.  Agent Scully, too.  One Charles
Burks.  Two regular members of the cleaning staff, Bettina Wilson and
Marvin Morena.  This Mr. Burks..."

"I know Chuck.  He's not the one who broke into my office."

"You're sure this... this individual moved the projector?"

"The prints should be there."

"Well.  There are a number of smudged and indistinct prints I couldn't
get a reading on and one impeccable set I couldn't identify from the
current listings.   I was going to do a little extra checking before
you got here..." The corners of her mouth turned up again, then she
began typing, glancing up and down between her fingers and the screen.
 Mulder continued to shake the snow globe absently.  He had a clear
picture of Parker lifting the projector from the chair and putting it
down on the desk. Bend, lift, pivot, put.  The picture ran over and
over in his mind, stripping itself down to a mechanical figure, like a
robot in a cartoon or the pared down human frame in a graphic design
program. A fair deal, she'd said, he keeps his promises.  Seen it
herself.  What promise kept and when? Keeps his promises, the robot
figure now stretched across the couch, head turning and mouth moving. 
Keeps his promises.  I've seen it.  I've seen it.

"Did you want to wait or..."

"I'll wait."

Melody sipped from her mug.  The phone rang and she picked it without
moving her eyes from the screen.  "It'll be done this afternoon," she
said holding the receiver between her ear and shoulder.  "Umm-hmmm. 
Sure." Her fingers kept tapping the keyboard and then she hit one key
over and over, scrolling.  She put the phone down.

"Well, this is odd.  I have to go 'way back, but the unidentified
prints are a match with a former agent, Camilla Turner. "

"Former?  When did she leave the Bureau?"

"I'll have to look that up for you."

He turned the globe upside down and let all the flakes settle, then
unleashed a furious storm on the Capitol. His mother had given him a
globe with a tiny house inside when he was a child and he'd liked to
think there were tiny people inside staring in wonder at their own
private blizzards.  He hadn't seen his globe after Sam disappeared,
when good magic had ceased...

"...I can't seem to pick up anything on her.  Her records have been
blocked."

"A physical description at least?"

"Nope.  Nothing official.  I could... you won't tell anyone this, will
you Agent?  There are some informal routes..."

"Whatever you've got."  He walked around the counter and stood behind
her chair.  A row of asterisks appeared on screen, then the slow load
for Financial Records.  She entered another password.

"Accounts," said Mulder.

"We can trace her last charges.  No secrets from the money boys."

"I'm sure that's true."  No secrets. That's what Scully always said
when he showed up with tickets for some unlikely lead, but it never
stopped her from packing her bag.  Well, almost never.  And she still
insisted on separate rooms,  even that night in Missouri when they'd
had to keep driving at midnight to find a place with two vacancies. 
Some nights she even agreed to mess up both beds the way he
preferred.

"Well, that's interesting."

"What?"

"Her account was closed as deceased in 1992 and then reopened shortly
after that.  Then she disappears altogether."

"Deceased?"

"Clerical error, you know.  They're just dealing with strings of
numbers when it comes to you guys.  I bet she was pissed," she chewed
her lip.  "Angry, I mean.  Obviously the prints are in good shape and
they're on top, so draw your own conclusion."

"Camilla Turner?"

"That's your girl.  Dead or alive," she giggled and hastily put her
hand over her mouth.

"You're terrific, Melody."

***

The rain had let up but the wind continued, rattling the window where
the putty had come loose. Below, the streetlight flickered behind the
swaying maple across the street, bare now, branches sweeping back and
forth on a tight hinge. A small instability, he thought, captive arcs
of motion, meaningless and hypnotic, going nowhere, no take-off speed
or launch velocity. At the edge, the window glass reflected quick
movement and a glint of light moving behind Mulder. Then it
disappeared and reappeared at his other side.

"There's no doubt that she's in this deep, but it has nothing to do
with being dead."  Byers sank down in the armchair and drummed his
fingers on the leather.  Mulder lowered the blinds.

"Did you reach all five field stations?"  Byers continued.

"Four.  I talked to four." Mulder searched the ceiling with his eyes
and breathed out.  "In every case, a special agent was dispatched to
the field before the local boys were even aware that anyone had
disappeared. She took charge of the investigation, conducted all the
interviews, commandeered evidence, closed out the local police on
national security grounds.  Left the field office with next to
nothing. The descriptions were more or less the same, identifiably
Parker."

"And back at the ranch?"  Frohike lifted the pillow from his eyes. 
His hiking boots did not reach the far end of the couch.

"Washington has only what Skinner gave me.  He came across the files
when he was following up for an old friend in San Francisco who was
stewing about the way he'd been shut out of the case."

"Have you confronted her?"

Mulder shook his head and pushed off from his perch on the edge of the
desk.  "Beer?"

"Sure."

He walked across the room, stooping to pick up his basketball and pass
it to Frohike.  "Heads up, Michael." He returned a minute later with
three bottles.

Frohike inspected the label before drinking.  "It's unlikely she's
going to confess her own death."

"Didn't they say it was a clerical error?"  Byers asked.

"Yeah, but that's exactly the cover they'd give."

"Let's look for the simplest solution here, Mulder.  She cleared her
trail by assuming someone else's identity. Flipped the fingerprint
file around. Smoky's guys could do it.  Right?"

"Too obvious. This death thing is tied in with the disappearances. For
all we know, the missing people have been time-traveled to some secret
base.  She's probably time-traveled herself."  Mulder scratched the
outside of his thigh.

"So, what are you suggesting?  Time travel makes you a ghost?" Byers
frowned as he spoke, his brows pulled down.

"Yeah, kinda that.  What if the magnetic field reorders your... your
life force and you can never really return except as an apparition? "

"Your life force?"

"Okay, your molecules, cells.  Alters the chemicals controlling
synapses.  I don't know."

"Does Parker look like a ghost?  Have you put your hand through her?" 
Frohike swung his legs to the floor and put his beer on the coffee
table.

Mulder snorted.  "No, but I think I was invited to.  If not my hand,
then something else."

"Hey, you could get lucky."

"With Parker the trick would be not getting lucky."

Frohike shook his head.  "Line of duty, man."

The nervous laughter in the room vanished as Mulder pressed his
fingers to the bridge of his nose, circles of imaginary light drifting
across the back of his eyes. Cold electricity shot to every point in
his body followed by a surge of warmth to his face. When he opened his
eyes, Frohike's lips were still moving and Byers was raising his foot
to rest it on his other knee.  Both faces turned toward him and Byers
seemed to mouth his name.  Mulder focused on the ceiling and the words
came out in a whisper.  "Scully's pregnant."

"Oh Jesus,"  Byers murmured on the exhale, catching Frohike's eye.

"I thought you said..."  Frohike swallowed and slapped his hand against
the leather seat.  "Look. Come on.  Parker left prints. Whether they
link to her records or someone else's, in my book that says she's
alive. Forget the ghost stuff."

"There's some knot here and I can't see what it is."  Mulder dropped
onto the far end of the couch and held the beer bottle to his
forehead.   "Skinner gave me some other cases having to do with
hallucinations, bodily displacement, night terrors.  I talked to one
of the men who'd been spooked.  I thought, maybe some kind of brain
experiments or machine-simulated consciousness."

"Just a minute..."

"But, now I think maybe those cases tie into the time travel, too. 
What if the supposed hallucinations are just people who got stuck at
the edges of the present, maybe just a few nanoseconds away...like
Langley said.  See, they connect only with some prior self we've
already shed, so we see them as a dim, unrealized memory."

"So the time travel screwed up?"  Frohike was more willing to follow
Mulder's logic than was Byers.

"Or they're doing it on purpose." Mulder replied.

"But Parker's not like that?"

"No. Still, if they can suspend people just out of reach..."  He bit
down on his lip and put his bottle down on the table. The window still
rattled like marbles in a jar.

"Scully'll come back, Mulder."

"The way I figure it, if I can reach her while she's still safe...."

"Go back?"

"There's no point in my staying here beating my head against the
wall."

***

Mulder glanced at his watch as he opened the door to Skinner's outer
office.  At quarter to eight, the A.D.'s assistant had not yet
arrived.  Her desk shined from its nightly polish; only the phone, a
pad of paper, and a silver-framed photo of her son sat on top. In the
instant Mulder paused to admire the little boy in his soccer uniform,
the inner door opened and he heard his superior's voice.  "Yes, of
course, I'll requisition a key today."  Parker was shaking his hand.

"Thank you.  You appreciate the obstacles...," Skinner's eyebrows
flicked up and she glanced over her shoulder before quickly turning
back to her boss. "Until then I'll be at my temporary desk in the
bullpen."

Smiling triumphantly at Mulder, she continued, "I was just coming down
to see you."

"I thought we settled things the other day, so you may as well stop
wasting your time."

"As your partner, I have co-responsibility for the X-Files.  Director
Skinner will obtain a key to the office for me if you refuse to bring
me cases."

"Then I'll change the locks."

"That's against Bureau policy, Agent Mulder."  Skinner wiped his
glasses on a handkerchief and resettled them on his face.

"Director Skinner would be glad to transfer you," Mulder continued.

"I don't fail in my assignments."

"No one is talking about failure.  You could simply offer your skills
where they'd be more welcome."

"Maybe there's too much at stake."  She started to walk past and he
reached out for her wrist.

"Tell me, Parker, does the future exist?"

"Not in the sense you think.  Time is running out, Agent.  But you can
change that."  She twisted her hand and pulled it back.

"Mulder, I have only a few minutes."  Skinner motioned toward the
inner office.

On the A.D.'s desk, a 3" television was tuned into CNN and the
announcer was somberly describing the Russian bombing of Grozny.

"Co-responsibility?  What is this shit?"

"She's your partner, Mulder.  You have to live with it until Scully
comes back."  Mulder stiffened under the A.D.'s scrutiny, supposing
that his boss was inspecting clothing and skin tone for signs of an
imminent breakdown. Skinner continued,  "Parker was talking about
filing a harassment complaint, I figured a key would... "

"Harassment?"

"Have you been following this story, Agent?"  Skinner walked to his
desk and turned up the volume on the television.  Captured Chechen
rebels marched in front of the camera, looking defiantly at their
unseen audience, their shouts muted in favor of the announcer's voice.
  Mulder approached to watch the unfolding news.  Skinner continued in
a whisper barely audible over the correspondent from Moscow.  "The
requisition'll give you a few days.  It's the best I could do.  They
want those papers."

"What's in them?"

"I haven't been told.  Only that you can make it hard or easy on
yourself and Agent Scully.  Do they have her?"

"No, not yet. She still has a little more time."

"One other thing.  Actually, the reason I called you in here."  The tv
suddenly went silent and Skinner seemed to stop in mid-breath.  A
commercial came on and he continued, "One of those men who disappeared
is back, claiming he was on extended holiday."

"Who's talked to him?"

"Jennings and Rosello.  He's got receipts, tickets, photos, bug
bites."

"So, what are you suggesting?"

"I'm no longer sure.  Here's his number."  Skinner put his hand on
Mulder's sleeve. "I know this is hard for you. The choice they've
asked you to make."

"The choice would be harder if I could trust them to protect her."

***

His pocket calendar contained notes each day about the activities she
reported in her letters. Time was out of synch for them. He lived
ahead of the present, his only focus the day her letters stopped,
November 12, everything leading up to it like one compressed moment he
relived, dreaded. Her days vivid with life from now until the wall of
silence - the empty mailbox, a film of dust all along the edges and
the clean spot in the middle.  That one suspended moment in his
apartment when they had dissolved into each other, neither intact any
longer, and then her voice disappeared.  Time was a wall with no door.
 No, it was the spot where the flat earth met the sky and sheared off
into nothing.

He sat in his car beneath the Bureau, key hanging from the ignition,
and read what he had copied into that day. She was working on her
father's papers, still congratulating herself on her hiding place,
past the boredom now, sliding unstoppably toward unseen danger.  For
today, all was well, another 24 hours of safety, the pleasure of her
mother's company, and the cozy warmth of the baby inside her.  What
had Smoky said?  The joy of Agent Scully's life.  Never had his words
been truer and more grotesque at the same instant, and Mulder had
wanted to seize him by the throat for the obscene presumption of
mentioning the child.

He slipped the calendar back into his pocket.  On his timeline, the
chase had begun. He had a few more days, but only that, a small chance
to rescue, to change that history.

*
Mercer picked up on the first ring as though he'd been waiting for a
call.

"Yes."  His voice was sharp, angry, ready to continue an argument

"Professor Mercer, this is Special Agent Mulder, with the Bureau.  I'd
like to talk to you again.  I'm on my way to your lab now."

"I'd say we already covered everything, Mr. Mulder."

"No, look.  I've been thinking about what happened.  You didn't bring
her back to the present, that's what I'm figuring.  Tell me.  Did she
make it to your lab in 1996?  Did she beg for your help?" Voices
sounded in the background at the other end, muffled.

"I am ready to lodge a complaint with the Director, sir."

"Wait. Wait.  Just send me back. You know, plug me into the equation,
the way you did her. Even better, you come with me.  That way we can
all make the trip safely and after that..."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Did she tell you she was pregnant?"

"No.  No, she didn't.  Well, frankly I think she is better off away
from you Mr. Mulder.  I hope the child inherits from her side."

"You don't seem to understand what you've joined.  The man, Spender,
whatever he calls himself to you.  Think of what he's doing to Dana.
She never intended to stay behind. She told you that, didn't she?  You
assured her that she could come back.  You promised her."

The other voice sounded in the background again; it could have been a
foreign language or just a low rumble of annoyance.

"I'm telling you, you're not safe either. It's all power to him and
when he no longer needs you, what do you think will happen?"

The dial tone returned.   Mulder headed north toward College Park.

*
A sharp rap on his window brought him out of a deep dark hole.  He
looked up, but no one stood alongside the car and no one was dashing
out of sight.  Traffic sped by outside his left-hand window.  For a
second in the rearview mirror was a face, a patch of fog the size of a
man's head and the flash of eyeglasses.  And then it was gone.
Mulder's knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel.  He
slowly stretched his fingers, the muscles stiff and numb. His other
hand held the cell phone, blinking with an incoming call.  A buzzing
came from far away, gradually increasingly, the vibration touching his
fingers and registering in a slow climb up the nerves of his wrist,
arm, shoulder, brain.  He glanced at his watch, but had no sense of
how much time had passed.

*
The dark blue Saab sat between a Wrangler and a Honda, a small red
light blinking on the dashboard.  Mulder double-checked the plates. 
Byers had said that Mercer usually left around seven and went straight
home to a golf course condo in Silver Spring where he lived alone.
Fifteen more minutes if he was going to be true to form. Mulder tried
the door and shined his flashlight inside.  On the front seat lay the
morning's Post and a pair of leather gloves and in back a gym bag held
a tennis racket zipped into the side pocket.

"Excuse me."

The voice pulled Mulder up from the window.

"Dr. Mercer, I..."

"Your superior will hear about this..."

"...need to talk about Dana."

"...and I've made my position clear."

"Someone is pursuing her.  I think you know who.  I think they stopped
you from bringing her back."

Mercer put his key in the lock and disarmed the security system.

"Wait, professor, tell me one thing first.  Tell me something
scientific.  What if you were off a few seconds. I mean would she and
I be in separate worlds or would we just be a little out of synch? 
How do you get the person exactly to where you need them to be?"

"Do you read scifi on company time or is this a private obsession?" 
The lights from the parking lot cast a long shadow from the bill of
Mercer's Orioles cap down past his chin.

"That's what you've been doing, isn't it?  Creating spies by..."

"There's really no point..."

"Or are they failed experiments?  Can you bring them back to the right
moment?  Do you care?"

"Mr. Mulder, none of your personal problems has anything to do with
me.  Have you tried counseling?" He pulled open the door and slid into
the driver's seat.  Mulder grabbed the top edge and held it open.

"I have a binder from the military.  It's got equations that will
prove just where your research comes from." Mercer put his hands in
his lap and looked down.  "So here's what I'm thinking.  Maybe you
need to start telling me the truth."

There was still no answer.

"Do you realize how ruthless the men you're dealing with are? I can
tell you stories, name names, Spender's own wife.  His son for
Christ's sake.  His lover, his daughter.  They're all dead because of
him.  What makes you think he'll pause for half a second if you're no
longer of use.  I am your only chance."  And you are mine, he thought,
aching at the words. "My boss is ready to provide round-the-clock..."

"If your enemies are so strong, Mr. Mulder, what good do you think
this protection is going to be?"

Mercer slammed the door and started the car.

***

Mulder was shuffling his keys in his right hand as the elevator opened
onto a darkened hallway.  Faint illumination entered through the
window at the end, a few steps beyond his apartment.  He reached
instinctively for his weapon, missing from his jogging sweats.  His
breath came shallowly as he slid along the wall toward the stairwell. 
He wiped his hand over his shirt, gripped the knob and swung the door
open quickly.  The stairs were empty up and down, and no movement
echoed off the dingy concrete block walls.  Returning to the hallway,
he could just make out the rhythm of an argument, quickly followed by
a burst of electronic laughter.  Passing his neighbor's flat, he heard
another voice from his end of the hall.

"Check again.  Maybe he hasn't gone yet."  He leaned close to his
door. "Can't you reverse it?" the voice continued, rising.  "Dammit I
have the equations.  I have them right here."

Mulder twisted his key in the lock and pushed the door slowly.  She
stood with her back to him, one hand on her hip, dressed in leggings
and an oversize jacket, her feet in running shoes rather than heels.

"I'll be right there. I want the exact date." She waved a piece of
paper in the air.  "You set up for me."

Mulder's gym bag sat on the coffee table, its contents strewn about
the room.  The maroon binder lay empty on the floor.  She turned
around suddenly, her face pale, and snatched for her tote bag, but he
had already reached her in a few quick steps and grabbed her wrist.
"What the hell is going on, Parker?"

"Damn them, damn you," she tried to twist away.  She swung at his
face, pushing up and back against his chin with the heel of her hand. 
From the shift of her body, he sensed the movement of her knee, the
slight pull back before the swing forward and up. His left hand
deflected the kick and he took advantage of her momentary unsteadiness
to push her onto the couch.  He kneeled on either side of her legs and
pressed her upper arms against the back. She was sobbing now and
squirming underneath him.

"They'll kill him.  I need to stop it."

"Who?  What's in these papers?"

"I have to go back before it's too late." She twisted over to one
side, but he again pinned her fast. Her eyes were reddened and he
could see that her makeup was streaked into the half-moons below her
eyes.  He pulled her back into a sitting position.

"It's the time travel, isn't it? D'you help disappear people or just
cover it up for your friend Spender?"

"He's not my friend, he..."

"Keeps his promises. I remember.  Did he tell you to make Scully
disappear?  Did he pay you to trap her?"

"No, that's not it, I..." She licked her upper lip in a quick motion, 
"I...he told me to keep a watch, that's all."

"Just an innocent little employee.  Doing God's work."

"Would you just listen.  He lied to me.  He knew all along what was
going to happen.  I can stop them but I need to go right now." They
sat for a moment, each breathing hard.

"Bravo.  Converted to the side of good.  *You,* Ms. Parker-Turner-whoe
ver, are my ticket. You're going to take me back to Scully."

"It doesn't happen that way. If I show up with you they'll...."

"It doesn't?  So tell me how it does happen?"

"I...I bring her back...it's all written...in her letters..."

He looked at the papers on the floor and coffee table.  "Don't
bullshit me. I know what's in her letters."

"Agent Mulder!"  Skinner stood at the door.  "What the hell is going
on?"

"Sir, Parker has..."

"Release her at once."  He pushed his jacket back to show his weapon,
a threat not yet an ultimatum. "That is an order, Agent."

Mulder eased back and stood.  Parker kneaded the muscles in her arms
for a moment, ignoring Mulder, then nodded at Skinner as she swept up
her bag.  "Thank you, sir."

"For Christ's sake, Mulder.  What do I have to do to keep you out of a
hearing?"  Parker paused in the doorway behind Skinner, pulled her
keys from her jacket pocket and worked one off the ring. "Your
partner's letters are in my apartment."

Mulder stepped toward her against Skinner's restraining hands.  She
tossed the key to Mulder.

"You trust her, don't you?" said Parker

"How did you get them?"

"They're in a box.  By the bed."  She paused for a second at the
doorway, rubbing her arm again.  "Do you believe in fate, Agent?"  She
disappeared into the darkness, her feet sounding softly down the
hall.

Skinner grabbed Mulder before he could pursue and pushed him against
the wall.

"I need to follow her. She can get to Scully.  Let me go."

"What?  Follow her into some trap?  She's one of Spender's.  What the
hell do you think she was doing here?" Skinner closed the door.  "It's
not going help anything if you disappear, too. I've got a man on
her."

"Your man didn't do much to stop her here.  Was that him behind you?"

"There was no one with me."

"Tall, close-cropped hair, round face.  There was something shiny
about here."  Mulder touched the top of his own chest.

"No.  No one.  Have you been sleeping lately?"

Mulder closed his eyes, conjuring the face.  The man had been calm,
inquisitive-looking, and he had seen him for just a second.  		 "Yeah,
yeah I'm fine except for the small fact that Scully is missing and you
just freed my best chance of finding out how to get to her."

"Mulder, you're operating on pure adrenaline.  Think about it.  Why
would you trust Parker?  What would lead you to give her the slightest
credence?"

"Well, how the hell else do I get Scully back?"

"Not that way.  You have to trust that your partner will..."  He stood
at the door to the living room looking over the disarray.  "I don't
know, Mulder.  If I had one answer in the world to give you, that
would be it."

Mulder had moved to the window.  A man was tugging a large dog away
from the tree in front of the building. Otherwise, no one moved. "She
said that Cancerman had betrayed her.  He's going to kill someone.   I
was hoping to leverage..."

"Spender lies.  So do his minions. Look, Parker hasn't gone anywhere
where we've been able to find a trace of Scully."

"University of Maryland.  Physics Department."  Mulder turned and
picked up a handful of papers, then flung them around the room.

"No, look.  We searched the building."

"So you saw Parker there."

"Yes, but..."

"That's where they do time travel."

"Put it out of your mind."

"I'm sure it's in these papers.  I have to try to go back."

"Wait." Skinner scooped up a handful of papers and put them on the
coffee table.  "I actually stopped by to tell you about the man who
reappeared yesterday.  The one who claimed he was on vacation.  Did
you see him?"

"Talked on the phone, he wouldn't meet me."

"He's dead.  Found him in Baltimore harbor.  Very sloppy for an
execution.  Something's making them nervous and I don't want you to
get in the way."  Skinner picked a photo off the floor, the faded
image of a turbaned man holding the reins of a camel.  An officer in
an old-fashioned military uniform stood off to the right.  "These the
papers?"

"Yeah, some of them."

"What do they say?"

Mulder tore off the corner of a magazine cover and scribbled a number.
 "If I don't come back, a friend of a friend is working on the
translation."

***

At first he thought an ambulance was parked under the street lamp in
front of the Physics Building, but as he drew closer he saw that it
was a large, unmarked white van.  He scanned the other cars as he
drove through the mostly empty lot and pulled in next to a blue Saab. 
The little red light on the dashboard was flashing and a glance in the
backseat revealed that the gym bag and tennis racket were still there.
 A few cars closer to the building was a red Miata.  "Parker," he
whispered to himself.  As he approached the van, he kept a hand on his
weapon, testing the doors to the back, then circling around to check
the driver's compartment.  It was deserted.

A young man with thick black hair and glasses stood just inside the
main entrance to the building, adjusting the zipper on his jacket.  As
he pushed out, Mulder grabbed the door and went in.  A few graduate
students stood by a classroom door comparing notes, but otherwise the
hallway was deserted.  He took the stairs two at a time.  Skinner had
delayed him long enough to give Parker time to get away and Mercer had
surely taken off earlier. How exactly he was going to force the
assistants to send him to the right place was not yet clear; only the
possibility of kidnapping one of them seemed even remotely realistic. 
Realistic.  The word least likely to describe his life, so why expect
realistic now? At the top of the stairs, he pressed his face to the
window in the steel fire door. The hall was empty in the twenty foot
radius visible.  He touched his weapon again and opened the door
slowly. The smell of overheated wiring was familiar now, mixed in with
the scents of unidentifiable solvents.  Voices drifted from one of the
labs down the hall.  He walked along the wall until he reached the
cross-corridor.  The voices were louder, all male, one man cutting off
the others, terse and sharp.  Mulder stepped around the corner.

A gray-haired man in a suit stood in the doorway to Mercer's lab.  He
turned with half a smile and put his hands in his pockets.  "Well, Mr.
Mulder, it looks like we are both a little late."  The smug
self-confidence returned to his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Dr. Mercer has chosen to send himself on a little trip."

Mulder looked over Spender's shoulder.  A man in blue coveralls was
unplugging the computers and winding the wires neatly into loops. He
had looked up only briefly at the sound of Mulder's voice.   "Where is
everyone?"

"We're shutting this facility down.  It's become something of a
liability, sorry to say." He pulled a pack of Morleys out of his
jacket pocket.  "Would you mind if we continued this conversation
outside where I can..." He lifted the cigarettes in a mock toast. 
Mulder walked past him and grabbed the wires from the workman's hand.

"Come now, you don't think you can set up the equipment yourself, do
you?" Spender said.

"When is Mercer coming back?"

"Panic is a toxin.  It must be contained, stopped before it destroys
the larger body.  Please." He gestured toward the corridor.  "I'm sure
you understand. Work like Dr. Mercer's requires a cool head and
selfless devotion... His departure is a setback, but that's what happens
when a man puts himself above the Project."

Emerging into the chilly evening air, Spender paused on the steps to
light up, sheltering the flame with his hand. He walked down the
stairs ahead of Mulder and turned left, away from the parking lot,
continuing at unhurried speed past the Physics Building and its
neighbor.  Campus was relatively quiet, an occasional cluster of two
or three students in jeans and dark jackets hurrying down the lighted
sidewalks, a bicyclist with a flickering strobe swerving around the
walkers.  Spender stepped off the cement pavement and cut through a
dark grove of trees.  He exhaled with a small cough.

"You probably fault me as a creature of habit.  Or worse, an addict.
I'm sure the thought has crossed your mind."  He held the cigarette up
in the deep shadows and twirled it slightly between his fingers. "We
are all slaves to the chemicals our bodies produce, or in my case,
demand." He flicked the cigarette onto the ground, where it glowed
orange for an instant then died.   "I know why you've come, Fox.  But
I told you no one was bringing her back.  Not you.  Not anyone else."

"Then you can't reach Scully either."

"Well, my agent has already gone back to handle matters. She left a
half hour ago at most."

It felt like a physical blow to his abdomen, a pain radiated from
Mulder's gut to his back, the muscles in a spasm that shot upward and
squeezed his breath from his lungs. His gun, so familiar on his body
as to be weightless most of the time, now pressed heavily against his
side.  Spender was leaving the shelter of the trees, walking out into
a grassy field. "You bastard," Mulder called after him.

"Come now.  You were given a chance.  A clear and simple exchange. 
Yourself and those documents -- the safety of the Project -- in return
for the safety of your loved ones. Men have always had to make these
choices. Don't imagine yourself singled out for some special
punishment."

"No.  You're bluffing.  She's still safe.  I've kept..."

Spender shrugged and looked up at the few stars bright enough to shine
in the urban sky.  "How little we actually know of the universe.  A
few planets detected outside our solar system.  Not actually seen with
the eye -- the primitive human brain is attached to its habits, after
all -- but a string of numbers indicating that a star is wobbling
under an unseen force. What lies out there is beyond our imaginations.
 And when it comes to call, it's too late for us to engage our puny
minds.  For fifty years, we've tried to master their technology so
that we might fight back as equals, but at each turn we find ourselves
outwitted.  I had hoped that this experiment might change that..."

"You're not shutting down, there's something in those papers about
another site, another facility..." Mulder hesitated as he spoke. 
"That's how they're coming, isn't it.  Through time, not space. 
That's why you said they're already here on earth.  The invasion
site's in those papers..."

"Exposure would trigger it.  You see the danger, surely."

"You keep the technology to yourself.  Use their power against the
rest of us for as long as you can." He backed away from the Smoking
Man toward the path through the trees

"You might not find what you're looking for at your apartment." 
Spender raised his voice, then started coughing again.  Mulder stopped
and walked back toward his enemy.  "I made copies, Spender.  I made
copies and copies and copies."

Spender shook the last cigarette from the pack and crumpled the
wrapper.  He patted his pockets for a lighter, and as he withdrew it
from his jacket, the cigarette fell from his fingers.  He bent over
and patted the grass, then, standing slowly, brushed off the small
white addiction.   "Perhaps you did.  Perhaps you did just that." He
flicked the lighter and inhaled slowly; the short-lived flame
illuminating the deep lines on his face. "Now that I think about it,
perhaps something could still be arranged. You'll have access, perks. 
Other... women.  A chance to change fate."

"Including my own?"

"Our fate, Fox. Ours."

The taste of smoke crept down Mulder's throat and he turned away.

***

He sat on the edge of the bed and picked at the tiny clasp of a box
inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ebony.  It had been sitting on the
floor, atop a pile of magazines - Vogue and Nature and the Economist,
the combination surprised him - and two French novels in creamy white
paper covers.  Inside the box were three letters, envelopes slit open.
Had she read them just once, he wondered?  Stealing Scully's words and
cutting him off from hope.  Blast Parker.  Had she been laughing at
him the whole time, flaunting her gauzy robe and knowing that Scully's
letters sat by the side of the bed?  He slowed his breathing and
extracted the first:

Mulder, I never doubted that I would be able to return. I believed,
odd as it may sound, that I would be able to sense your call, your
"All clear."  I hear your call.  It does not say that all is well, but
that nothing can be well when we are apart. I've been staying at a
back road motel for the past two days while I try to figure out what
to do.  It feels so familiar here.  I remember long nights of lying in
the dark listening to the sound of your pacing or channel surfing or,
I swear, throwing a tennis ball against our common wall, and wishing
that I could walk through that door and somehow bring you peace.  We
had too few nights of peace, didn't we?

I went to Jeremy this morning.   His assistant said he has gone out of
town and he refused to help me. It's so clear to me now that his
loyalties are to your enemy, Mulder.  Our enemy.  How could I fail to
anticipate that such revolutionary science would attract the best and
worst in our government.  That it would be used for private gain and
to enhance the power of those who already hold far too much sway.

I refused to imagine us apart forever and have now caused it by my own
actions.  I have never contemplated such bleakness.

The second was on a small square of motel notepaper.

Someone called 5 min. ago. If they can find me here, won't they follow
me anyplace else? I need to reach the old you. Did I ever show up and
beg for help in those days?  I'm afraid that it didn't and therefore
that therefore it cannot happen now. Then what will I do? I'm leaving
now to pick up my medical records and then will try to find you. Pray
for me.

How like her to remember her records even as the world was falling
apart.  November 1996. At some point he took off for Russia with
Krycek. He'd been there that one night when she surprised him -- he
swallowed at the memory -- but then that rock sample had turned up
and... He looked at the window across the room.  There'd been a
chance, a chance to protect her, save her from her pursuers, expose
the whole damn enterprise, change history... She'd have opened his
apartment, seen the signs of his hasty packing... Not there.  Not
there for her. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift.  What
would the old Scully have said if confronted with her pregnant self? 
He smiled for a moment trying to conjure her open-mouthed stare.

There was a small spot of blood on the third envelope, postmarked
Dulles, and he stroked his thumb over it before pulling out the final
letter.

Mulder.  Our flight is being called.  The nurse -- I mentioned her
before - said she can take me to the present. There's a convoluted
story, but the important part is that she says she's been betrayed by
Smoky and wants to set things right.  She's taking me to a place
called Dougga not far from the salt flats. I feel terrified and
intoxicated. Will you be there?

***

Mulder pulled up at the gate, a single gray metal pole pulled down to
block the narrow road.  The sign said, in French, "Ouvert de 8h30 a
17h30" and presumably the Arabic said the same. His watch read 7:30. 
Stone outcroppings dotted the steep hill to his right, the ruined
Temple of Saturn at the top out of sight.  To his left and ahead, only
a blue truck from the Antiquities Service sat in the small gravel
parking lot.  Mulder climbed out of his car and stretched.

Driving down the access road, he had passed the guardian of the site
sitting in front of his flat-roofed cement house. His maroon wool cap
covered most of his gray and black hair; his abundant mustache had
already turned while. The man waved a greeting now, beckoning with his
hand.  Mulder slammed the driver's door and jogged back up the road. 
"Hello.  S'bahal... S'bah..."  He shook his head, "Sorry, Si Hamid, I
thought I had it."

"S'bah al khair, it mean good morning," said a girl of 11 or 12
standing in the bright blue doorframe of the house. She parted the
curtain to lean inside and shout something that he couldn't
understand.  "You learn it," she said, turning back to him.  "I learn
English."  She pronounced it 'Angleesh.'

"At-tay?"  Hamid offered a glass of tea and motioned to one of the
squared-off limestone blocks moved from across the road sometime in
the last 2000 years.

"Thanks.  Merci."  Mulder stretched his legs out, brushing the dust
off his jeans.  He'd thrown just a few things in a bag after he'd read
Scully's summons, too dazed by the prospect of finding her to think
about how long he might be gone.  Three shirts, underwear, a spare
pair of jeans, his shaving kit, a navy blue sweater she had bought him
on a whim, and his running clothes.  The woman at the one-star hotel
down in Teboursouk took pity on him and washed his tees.

"You will live in Dougga now?"  the girl said, giggling.  She swung
her dark brown braids forward to put on her backpack.  Despite the
cool weather, she was wearing sandals with her blue fleece jacket and
calf-length skirt.  Each time he'd seen her in the past three days,
those braids recalled Samantha - Samantha as a schoolgirl safe in a
white house out beyond nowhere, drinking syrupy mint tea for
breakfast, and speaking English with an accent.

"No," he said smiling back. "I'm waiting for my friend.  My friend
comes soon."  He spoke slowly and carefully.

She looked at her father and shrugged.  Voices rose from inside the
house and suddenly two younger boys dashed out, one tucking his shirt
in his trousers as he ran, and the children set off laughing, the boys
leaping and chasing in circles, their sister tugging them back onto
the shoulder of the road.

The guard sipped his tea with a hissing sound and watched until they
were out of sight.  "La femme, woman." He jerked his head upwards
slightly to point his nose toward the gate.

"La femme?  She's here?"

The guard repeated the gesture and Mulder rose.

"Deux.  Deux femmes ce matin."  He held up two fingers, then placed
his hand lightly on Mulder's sleeve. "B'shweeya. Votre the," he said
pointing to the glass.  Mulder sat down and drank the steaming liquid
through his teeth.  It burned the roof of his mouth, but he sipped
again quickly with a smile at his companion. Two women.  His stomach
churned, empty.  It had been dark when he woke that morning.  He had
unfolded the map of Tunisia under the room's bare bulb and traced what
he knew of the country for the tenth or twentieth time.  Sfax where
Scully's father had docked and the salt flats where the UFO had
crashed and Dougga a hundred miles north of the Chott.  He hoped that
there was only one Dougga in the world.

The guard picked up a pewter teapot, swilled the contents and gestured
to pour a second glass.  Mulder looked again at the Fiat parked in
front of the gate.  In the distance, a heavy truck downshifted for the
long hill, and the motor dopplered loudly as it approached the
turn-off then faded toward the west. The wind carried a faint smell of
diesel just before the horn sounded once and the low rumble
disappeared. From inside the house came another voice; the guard
responded and a woman dressed in a heavy black dress and shawl, her
hair hidden under a red and yellow scarf, pulled back the curtain
shielding the doorway and came out to pick up the teapot.  She smiled
at Mulder and disappeared into the house.

The guard rose and swept his hand across the sky.  "Fait beau
aujourd'hui." The rains had stopped and the low gray clouds that had
misted the valley had now blown to the east. He tugged a brown scarf
tighter around his neck and tucked the ends into his slightly frayed
tweed sports jacket.  "Allons.  Go."

Hamid stood to the side as Mulder drove the car past the barrier, then
he lowered the bar into place.  "Where is she?  Ou?"  Mulder said a
minute later, locking the car door.

"La-bas." The man gestured toward the old limestone street leading
into the site.  "Votre femme est la-bas."  He patted Mulder on the
shoulder and turned back toward his house.

Mulder headed down the route he'd memorized over the previous three
days, winding down the main street rutted by centuries of carts
rumbling to market, where men and women in tunics had once hurried to
the Forum or the public baths or stopped at a corner shop for olives
and wine.  The theatre where they had sat in their provincial finery
was to his right, a semi-circle of stone seats banked into the
hillside.  He dipped through the doorway and climbed onto the stage,
still lined with columns.  The morning sun cast long shadows down the
deserted tiers. He leapt down to ground level where the back wall of
the stage had long ago crumbled.  Ahead, he knew, was town center
dominated by the temple of Jupiter.  Six fluted columns still
supported a triangular gable - there was a fancy word for the top
piece but it escaped him at the moment - the mythological scene still
visible despite the wind and rain of twenty centuries.

He never doubted that was where he'd find her.  Each day the six
strong columns drew him back as he circled through the streets of the
ancient city inspecting tumbled houses and fountains, the old
fortifications with their pre-Roman foundations and the triumphal
arch, cisterns and amphitheater. He timed himself, decreeing an hour's
walk before returning. He followed the local boys who guided small
groups of tourists hurriedly up and down the streets, and tried to
figure out the snatches of their monologue:  Haus, hus, dar, maison,
home.  The boy with the bright yellow shirt and a cocksure command of
English called every tumbled building a home.  Home for rich man, home
for gods, home for bad women, the latter said with a wink.  Mulder had
been enchanted to tag along until his hour of exile ended and he made
his way to the temple.

He knew exactly how she would look.  Sitting halfway up the broad
steps, she'd hunch over for protection, arms crossed, unwilling to
smile until she could read his face.  Her hair would shine in the sun;
the breeze rising from the valley would sweep it across her face. When
mist had changed to drizzle the previous afternoon, he refused to move
from the damp steps where she would get chilled waiting for him to
finish his wandering.  Si Hamid had brought him a sandwich and a glass
of hot tea, shaking his head and returning to the gatehouse under an
old black umbrella. At dusk, the guard took him home for dinner where
his teenaged son translated Mulder's semi-lucid explanation for his
vigil.  The younger boys had begged for stories about time travel, but
Mulder went back to Teboursouk to lie on the old metal bed and stare
at the ceiling.

He broke into a jog now, crossing the Place of the Twelve Winds and
cutting around the wall near the base of the temple.  The staircase -
still pale gold in the early light - was deserted. He stared at the
empty place, the wind brushing over his neck and down inside his
jacket.  He shivered and for a moment the breeze stopped, his body
froze, and the scene flattened from three dimensions into two, a
glossy brochure photo with an anonymous tourist in jeans captured
mid-stride. After a minute, his eyes began moving again.  He took the
stairs two at a time.

At the top, half out of sight, her shoulder rested against one of the
limestone pillars as she looked away into the distance. She had pulled
her sweater tight around her with a scarf tied at her neck, and she
did not turn at the sound of his approach.

"Are you cold, Scully?"  He took off his leather jacket, draped it
over her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her.

She leaned her head against him.  "Is this then or now or someplace in
between?"

"It's now. Permanently now."

The valley spread before them, green with winter rains, great swaths
of sun and shadow cutting across the land under slow white clouds. Odd
blocks of stone poked from the earth where no one had yet dug and in
the distance a funeral tower commemorated a long dead chief. Her hair
smelled of rain and salt and diesel fuel.  It was a long time before
Scully spoke again.

"She told me that time created these ruins.  It settled its account
with this place and does not need to move further."  She ran her
fingers over the fluting on the columns and he covered her hand
lightly with his. "Once upon a time sweaty workmen carved each one of
these lines by hand."

"Advanced technology of its day..."

"Maybe more beautiful for all that.  Will ours last two thousand
years?"

"Will anyone be here to notice?"

The renewed silence was broken by slamming doors and a shout.

"It was an act of faith for you to come here," she said, finally.

"What was my choice?  Yours was the act of faith.  To follow Parker."

"Parker?  Stephanie. She was with them, until the end."

"So why did you trust?"

"She said... she said something about you."

"I don't think she liked me."  It suddenly seemed funny.

"She said you shouted the truth at her.  The first person in a long
time who had not lied, deceived, or manipulated."

"I didn't shout, Scully."  She pulled away and looked at him for the
first time, smiling.  He continued, "So on the strength of my alleged
shouting..."

"I threw myself into the void."

"A hole in time..."

"Just so, at the salt flat, a facility.  Theirs, Mulder."  She started
laughing.  "Everything looked the same coming out as it had going in
and I was beginning to think it was all a horrendous joke.  Maybe I
never really went anywhere."

"Oh, no, don't talk yourself into that.  You were gone, you were over
the edge and out of sight, a thousand Earth revolutions away from
me."

"Spender betrayed her, you know."

"Through Mercer?"

"Jeremy was her father.  She served them because of him. Idolized his
genius, thought he could change the world.  In your apartment she
found the truth."

"In Arabic?"

"Yes. Her father had been killed in Tunisia.  He'd gone back, you see,
to get the extra copy of the equations, the evidence of his own
plagiarized science, and he was killed there.  Trabelsi had the police
report.  When she realized that, she brought me here. "

"Her revenge."

Scully nodded.  "She left for the Chott a little while ago to follow
her father.  She felt she had to try to get to him first."

"I wonder if she saw her own end in those papers.  Imagine, Scully,
imagine living past your own death, knowing that it happened, yet
compelled to return to it."

"I felt I had lived past my own death.  Can you forgive me, Mulder?"

"For what?"

"For not trusting?"

"How did you not trust?"

"I looked for safety and chose foolishly."

"You've never looked for safety before, you wouldn't know how to
recognize it."

"No, I think the truth is that there is no safety."

*
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, they were in his
white-washed hotel room down the road in Teboursouk. A plain wooden
armoire took up the wall next to the window, his running shoes
half-tucked underneath.  A sink with two faucets sat opposite, on her
side, with a hot water tank above.  The gas flames had flared in the
little window when he turned the hot water on to shave that morning,
the mirror reflecting his hope that a clean jaw still mattered. A
woven rug with fanciful geometric camels lay beside the bed on a stone
floor polished by years of daily washing. Over the bed hung a black
and white photo of the temple.  Moisture had seeped inside the frame
and one edge of the picture curled. She lay on her back, eyes open,
picking at a burr caught in the homespun wool blanket.

"Come to bed, Mulder."  She tugged the covers down on his side.

.  The sole wooden chair wobbled on an uneven leg at the slightest
shift of his weight.  He sat perfectly still, elbows on knees, chin
propped on his joined fist. "Are you a ghost, Scully?"

"A ghost?  Mulder, you're exhausted."

"I don't think we have it right.  Not yet.  There's a piece missing."

"What piece?"

"You know, I had a plan.  I was going to force Jeremy to send me back
to 1996 and I would pick you up and we'd keep going to a time before
all this started."

"1890.  Holmes and Watson."

"You're an unlikely-looking Watson."

"I'm putting on weight."

"That's not what I meant."   The chair rattled as he stood and
stretched.  Outside, lights still burned behind the shutters of the
houses across the street. "Maybe come all the way back to this place
in its heyday. There's one spot by the baths where the walls are
higher than my head and if you stand perfectly still you can smell
bread baking and wood burning and hear a dog in someone's courtyard
barking at a peddler..."

"Mulder..."

"...and what they wanted then is about the same as what we want..."  He
tugged the sheer curtain across the window. "You said there is no
safety.  Are you satisfied with that?"

"No."

"Then what's the consolation?"

"What's it ever been?  Shelter in a storm that never seems to end."

"I'd say it's the moment when time stops and in awe we find wholeness
and fearlessness and a sudden lighthearted sense of freedom."

"Mulder, can you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive."

She looked at him steadily as he pulled his tee over his head.

"Okay.  I forgave already.  I just want to get it right."

*
He closed his eyes and when he opened them he lay on his side in the
old metal bed.  Her skin was pale in the moonlight. She blinked at him
slowly.

"Are you a ghost?" he whispered.

She took his hand and ran it under her shirt, across her swelling
stomach.

*
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, the dawn filtered through
soft rain beading on the window.  Her body was pressed against his
back and her hand came around his waist. "What will it take, Mulder,
to get it right?"

"You needed to run.  It was... a fair choice, for the child. I wouldn't
have let you go."

"It was dishonest, secretive and I thought it made eminent sense at
the time."

"The you who planned that flight is still the woman I love. It's who
you are and who I am and why we are something different together."

"You didn't mind?"

"Oh, sure I minded.  I hated it like hell."

He turned over to face her.  "I feel like I'm sitting on the edge of a
deep pool.  It's fathomless, dark..."

"And cold?"

"No, not cold, just deep.  Maybe there's no bottom.  I can't tell. 
It's frightening."

"For you?"

"Above all, for me. So I think I could lower myself very slowly, inch
by inch.  I want the minutes to stretch. To bend around us and
entwine.  But I also want to push back against time, resist, as it
tightens us in its web. I want to sink slowly into the pool, so I'm
aware of every tiny change, every instant of losing myself."

"How are you lost?"

"What we had before... as lovers...that was...great.  It was great."

She placed her hand along the side of his face.  "Was?"

"Is." He smiled. "We have always been - both of us -- lonely souls."

"I thought I knew what loneliness was, but I didn't because you were
there and I could imagine myself alone and independent because I had
the strength of you behind me.  Your friendship and your acceptance
well before there was a glimmer of anything else between us."

"There was always a glimmer of something else, Scully."

She blushed. "I thought of it as your nature, a need to bring things
together and to make them right.  Not just right with yourself, right
with the world. Your healing always seemed to need a cosmic healing,
something no person could do for you,"

"You did..."

"You indulge me.  You need to fix the universe, Mulder, and you need
to do it yourself."

"Ah, but my sense of self now depends on the part of me that is also
you."

"Let's go home."

*
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, they were in his
apartment.  The afternoon sun filtered through the blinds, heading for
an early dusk.  Stretched out, she took two-thirds of the couch, light
striping across her legs.  Her hair was damp from the shower and his
Georgetown sweatshirt engulfed her.  He sat on the floor, knees pulled
up, his back against the couch. "What was it like, time travel?"

"I'm surprised it took you so long to ask..."

"Come on.  If I'm going to be a father, you're not going to let me try
it on my own."

She laughed.  "It's hard to describe.  It was like everything and
nothing."

"Everything and nothing.  Could you restate that in scientific
terms?"

"Scientific terms?  Like how they generated the magnetic field and the
frequency of the vibration and how matter and energy create gravity
and ..."

"I'll tell you what I imagine."  He reached over his shoulder and put
his hand on her leg.  "I imagine it's like love, when you close your
eyes and leave your body but at the same moment you feel more
intensely physical than ever before. And as time rushes it also
suspends itself, hanging in the air like something tangible but
meaningless, no longer a shot fired from here to there, but a vapor
dissipating slowly. Then come tremors from the outside in and the
inside out that meet just below your skin and when you open your eyes
nothing looks different but you are not the same and the mind has no
way to wrap around what has happened so only the body understands and
remembers."

She ran her fingers through his hair and held one shock straight up. 
"The precise words I was about to speak."

He lifted his face and smiled.

The END.

Hope you enjoyed this little tale.  E-me if you did.  I'd love to hear
from you. -Zuffy
zuffynuffy@yahoo.com