From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:04:36 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Reimagined: IWTB by ML 1/5 by ML
Source: direct

Reply To: msnsc21@yahoo.com


Title: Reimagined: IWTB
Author: ML
Email: msnsc21@yahoo.com
Rating: 14 and up
Spoilers: "The X-Files: I Want to Believe"
Synopsis:  a "fanfic-ization" of the second XF movie
Disclaimer:   Please note that I do not claim ownership of anything
to do with the movie or the novel, I am doing this solely for
entertainment/amusement purposes, and not to make any profit or gain
from it.  In fact, this is in celebration of the release of the DVD.

Acknowledgments: To the Posse, for making me stick with it!  Also, I
am so grateful to CC, FS, DD and GA, and all the other folks at Fox
and elsewhere who made the second movie possible.  Spending the last
couple of months with this story is the most fun I've had in a long
time.  I hope you get some enjoyment out of it, too.  More notes at
end: right now, on with the show!

x-x-x

Prologue

Rural Virginia, early January 2008

She almost didn't need her headlights, the moon was so bright on the
snow.

Monica Bannan was feeling good.  She'd made it to the community pool
in time for a good workout, and was looking forward to a nice evening
by the fire before hitting the sack.  The roads had been plowed since
the last heavy snowfall, and at this time of night in her
neighborhood, she had the road to herself.

She actually found herself looking forward to getting back to the
office on Monday.  A couple of days of being snowed in were more than
enough for her.  Fortunately, the power had stayed on so she'd been
able to telecommute, or she really might have gone a little stir
crazy.  As it was, she'd been glad to finally get out for a drive and
some exercise today.

She pulled into her carport and noticed that her dog, Ranger, was
barking furiously from inside.  Instantly she was on the alert.  This
was not Ranger's "welcome home" bark, this was his "intruders!" bark.

She sat in the car for a moment.  As an FBI agent, she had a gun. 
Unfortunately, at the moment it was locked in her trunk.  She might
be able to quietly get it out, depending on where the intruder (if in
fact there was one) lurked.

Then she saw it in the moonlight: the barest bit of vapor, just
beyond her carport entrance.  Like the vapor of an expelled breath.

Quietly she got out of her car, and chose an impromptu weapon from
the wall of gardening tools.  The hand rake would do.  It would have
to do, until she could get into her house for her other gun.  She
gripped her keys in her other hand like an auxiliary weapon:  brass
knuckles with sharp edges.

As she reached the opening of the carport, she raised her weapons. 
When the figure showed itself, she struck quickly once, then again.

An otherworldly groan escaped as the man she wounded reeled back,
clutching his face with his bloodied hand.  Her fleeting glimpse of
him relayed that he looked odd -- very gaunt, and almost hairless. 
Almost inhuman.

Before she could strike again, another man rushed her.  With no time
to strike at him and no time to open her front door, she turned and
ran for her carport door.  It led to the back of her house, and from
there she'd have a head start running to a neighbor's.  She might
have made it but for the snow piled up, keeping her from opening it
fully.

The second assailant tackled her and brought her down.  Still she
managed to wrest herself from his grasp, and crawled through the
door's opening.  She ran away from her house, hoping she might make
it to her neighbor, several hundred yards away.  She screamed, but
had little hope that anyone would hear her.  Everyone was buttoned up
tight on this cold January night.  She would have to save herself.

She ran across the snowy field, only to be tackled again.  As she
struggled to break free, something cold was pressed against her neck,
and the moonlit field went black.

-x-

Chapter One:  Finding Fox Mulder

Calling Fox Mulder in on a case was the best and worst career
decision Dakota Whitney ever made.

Of course, by the time she realized the worst part, it was too late.

x-x-x

The FBI Academy at Quantico was a different place in the twenty-
first century.  Certain changes were to be expected, to be sure: new
techniques and tools became available and therefore were used in
training the new recruits to the FBI.  There were new cases to be
studied.  Instructors rotated in and out, and with them came their
own experiences and anecdotes.

On the surface, at least, someone visiting Quantico after a time
away would not notice anything appreciably different.  Certain
institutional icons still existed, such as Hogan's Alley, and the
Wall of Fame for particularly distinguished graduates.  Nonetheless,
a little revisionist history had taken place.  Certain names and
certain cases were no longer used as examples by any of the
instructors.  Plaques listing achievements of past graduates had been
removed and revised.  It was as if the institutional memory had had a
selective wipe.

Therefore, it was not until after Special Agent Dakota Whitney had
been out of the Academy for a while that she first heard a reference
to "Spooky" Mulder in connection with a case.  

She'd been working on her first big assignment, acting as a lowly go-
fer for the incident team.  Eager to make a good impression, she came
in early and stayed late, studying the files in the situation room
and reviewing anything she could find in the FBI database that might
help.

One evening as she sat reviewing the day's evidence, a couple of
veteran agents came in.  They were talking about the case and did not
notice that Dakota was still in the room.    

She half-listened, because she always listened.  You never knew what
you might hear.

One of the agents said, "What d'you suppose ol' Spooky would have
done?"

"He'd have gotten inside that guy's head, and had the whole thing
solved before lunch time," the other one said.

"Yeah, they don't make 'em like Spooky Mulder any more," said the
first.  "I can remember --"

Agent Two cut his eyes over to Dakota Whitney, hunched over her
laptop.  The conversation abruptly stopped.

"Don't scare the new kid," Agent Two said in a stage whisper. 
"Wouldn't want word to get around we mentioned the unmentionable." 
The two rose and abruptly left the room.

Ever curious, Dakota Whitney went on a hunt.  She searched out any
case with the name Mulder attached.  Eventually she stumbled on an
archived database containing scanned files.  Oddly, many of them
appeared to have been damaged in some kind of fire or explosion, and
had been pieced together and scanned into the database.  

To say that the content was unusual would be an understatement. 
Reading the files became an avocation.  Certainly many of the cases
themselves seemed to defy belief, but the investigative techniques
and the conclusions were usually well-thought out.

Most were signed by both Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, though it was
clear that Special Agent Mulder got the credit for the more
outlandish theories.  Still, they were often supported, at least in
part, by Agent Scully's scientific analysis.

Then, abruptly, the files ended.  She saw the names of a few other
agents in the files, but most of them were dead -- killed in the line
of duty, or "missing, presumed dead."

Agents Mulder and Scully didn't fit into any category easily. 
Whatever had happened, they were out of the Bureau, and no one would
willingly talk about them.  The files themselves were a dead end, and
she didn't want to draw too much of the wrong kind of attention to
herself by asking too many questions.

Dakota Whitney kept her discovery to herself, at least for the time
being.  The knowledge might come in useful one day, and sometimes it
was helpful to have an edge.  She was confident in her skills and
abilities, but it never hurt to keep a little something in reserve.

She did well at the FBI.  She had the brains, and she worked hard. 
She acted as ASAC on a couple of minor cases, and conducted herself
well.  She had a solid career ahead of her.  Though not considered a
"blue-flamer," to be in the upper half of a class filled with over-
achievers was nothing to sneeze at.  At least, that's what she told
herself.  Her time would come, and she would earn her reputation.

And then Monica Bannan was kidnapped.  SAC Fossa named her ASAC and
she went to work with her usual thoroughness.  When the call came in
from a man claiming he had visions about the case, many wanted to
dismiss him as another crackpot, but she insisted that they try him
out.

The first "field trip" with the man yielded a clue, but not the clue
they were expecting.  It was time, she felt, for extreme measures.

"I think he can help us," she told the gathered task force.  "But I
have no idea how to interpret what he's giving us."

"How do we know he's not fakin' it, or somehow connected with the
perp?" asked Special Agent Mosley Drummy.  He was her partner, and he
had little patience with her extreme ideas.

"We haven't turned up anything so far," she said, keeping her voice
even and reasonable.  "I think we owe it to Monica to try every
avenue, don't you?  Time is short."

When she suggested bringing Fox Mulder into the investigation, the
younger agents looked puzzled, and some of the older ones looked
surprised.

"Who is he, another psychic?"  One of the younger agents asked.

"He's a former agent, who used to head a division that investigated
cases like this.  His team had a very high solve rate -- and he may
be able to provide some insight into our informant."

"But didn't he get fired?" one of the older agents spoke up.  

No one seemed to know for sure.  There was a brief, though lively,
discussion on the subject.  It seemed that many had at least heard
rumors of Fox Mulder over the years, but he was never talked about,
for reasons no one seemed to know.  Now they acted like kids being
let out of class for recess.

SAC Fossa stood back, looking disapproving, but she said nothing.

"Whatever happened to him, he's been out of the Bureau -- how long? 
Six, eight years?  Does anyone even know where he is?" asked another
agent.

"I have an idea of someone who does," Dakota Whitney said.

SAC Fossa watched the interchange, still saying nothing.  As Dakota
prepared to leave the situation room, she merely said, "Be very sure
you know what you're doing, Agent Whitney.  An agent's life is at
stake."

"That's why I think I'm justified in using any means at my
disposal," she replied, and headed up to meet with the man she hoped
would be able to help her find Fox Mulder.

x-x-x

"A.D. Skinner doesn't have the time to meet with you today," his
assistant said.  "Let me check his calendar for later in the week." 
She turned away from Dakota to her computer screen.

"It's about Fox Mulder," she said, playing a hunch.

Skinner's assistant barely paused, but Dakota thought she detected a
small change in her demeanor.  "It looks like he might have a few
minutes right now, before his next call," she said.  "Excuse me, I'll
check with him."

A moment later she came out and gestured toward Skinner's open door.

A.D. Skinner was looking out his window, his back to Dakota Whitney.
She stood just inside the door, and said, "Thank you for seeing me
without an appointment, Sir."

Without turning around, A.D. Skinner said, "What do you know about
Fox Mulder?"

She stepped in a little further, not waiting for his invitation. 
"About him personally?  Nothing.  I've done some research, though,
and I know he was once considered a top profiler.  Now no one will
talk about him, and his personnel records are sealed."

No response from the man at the window.

"I've found some of his case files, though.  There were some in the
database, and I found a few more of them stored in the basement, in
an old janitor's closet, of all places.  Why aren't they all in the
database?"

"There are good reasons why Fox Mulder is not mentioned around the
Bureau," AD Skinner said.  "Reasons that are far above your pay
grade."

"Does that invalidate his work?" she asked.  "I know he left the
FBI, and a year or so later was under some kind of investigation, but
that's all."

Not a word from A.D. Skinner.  She pushed ahead.  "I also know that
he disappeared a few years ago, along with his partner, Dana Scully. 
She was not accused of any wrong-doing herself, but for a while was
considered an accessory."

"Why are you bringing all this up?"  Skinner asked sharply.  Now he
turned to look at her.  She usually could read faces pretty well, but
his was as expressionless as a world-class poker player.

"I have a case -- a missing agent -- and I think that he might be
able to help.  The cases I've reviewed -- they are unusual, Sir.  He
may have insights that the average agent would not."

I'll take it under advisement, Agent."  Skinner walked to the door
and opened it.  "I'll be in touch."

Special Agent Whitney started to leave, but turned in the doorway. 
"Sir, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that time is of the essence -
-"

"That will be all, Agent."  A.D. Skinner's door shut in her face.

Alone in his office once more, Skinner picked up his phone and
dialed a private number.  "It's time," he said.

x-x-x

As Whitney re-entered the Situation Room, SAC Fossa looked up from
the file she held.  "Well?"

Dakota Whitney shrugged.  "We'll see."

x-x-x

Skinner left his office and took the elevator one floor up.  He'd
once thought he might have his office on this floor, but time and
circumstances seemed to have taken him off the short list for Deputy
Director.

On the other hand, even if he had made DD, he'd probably still have
to shovel a lot of shit at the direction of someone else.  Even Alvin
Kersh had shoveled his fair share.  

But at least they were both alive to tell the tale.  That is, if
anyone would believe them.

x-x-x

The night of Mulder's escape from the Marine brig, Skinner was
fairly certain that his days were numbered.  The next morning, upon
discovering that the X Files office had been cleaned out, he was
positive.  

He'd been summoned into Kersh's office by the man he'd come to hate
almost as much as C.G.B. Spender, the "man" Gibson Praise had
identified as not human.  He'd entered Kersh's office with great
trepidation; sure that Kersh had done another about-face and was
ready to hang him out to dry, or worse.  Gibson, standing in the
hallway with Doggett and Reyes, had whispered in horror, "He
knows..."  Skinner hadn't heard the rest of it, but those two words
sounded like a death knell.

But instead, Kersh had saved his life.  His own too, of course, but
the really surprising thing was how he'd accomplished it.

Kersh seemed to realize that his fellow jurist was not who he seemed
to be, and he was ready.  Once the door was closed, he tossed
something at the man, who reflexively caught it.

Skinner was not prepared for what happened next. 

The man stared at the object in his hand, and then started to shake.
Within moments, he appeared to be burning from the inside.  And then,
the really impossible thing happened.

He exploded.  At least, that's the best description Skinner could
give.  He simply came apart.  Within moments, there was nothing but
fine particles of ash and charred bits of -- something flesh-like,
but not -- throughout the office.

Kersh looked as shaken as Skinner felt.  

"What the hell was that?"  Skinner asked.  "Some kind of new weapon?
What did you do to him?"

Kersh walked over to where the object lay on the carpet.  "It's just
a rock.  I didn't know what would happen, but Agent Doggett gave it
to me and suggested a use for it."

"Agent Doggett suggested that."  Skinner repeated.

"I was skeptical, to say the least," Kersh said.  He picked up the
rock.  "It's magnetite, or some damn thing.  Agent Doggett insisted
that it would come in handy.  In light of recent events, I was
inclined to humor him."

Skinner said, "Good thing."

Kersh grimaced.  "You gonna help me clean this up?  It's not the
sort of thing I'd leave for the custodial staff."

It wasn't a question, really.

x-x-x

Kersh was standing looking out his window, in much the same attitude
Skinner had assumed when Agent Whitney visited him.

Six years had aged Kersh more noticeably than it had Skinner.  He
was a good political gamesman, or he would never have made Deputy
Director in the first place.  But although Mulder had been a handful
while he was in the FBI, it was the events following his return and
subsequent trial that had stretched Kersh's desire to toe the party
line almost beyond its limits.

It was a tribute to his integrity as well as his political acuity
that he was still here.  He was on the point of retiring, but he had
one more thing to accomplish.

"Walter," he acknowledged AD Skinner in his laconic way.  "I hear
our lamb may be returning to the fold."

"Not exactly," Walter Skinner said.  "He's been requested on a
consult.  It creates the opportunity we've discussed."

"If you say so."  Kersh had always had mixed feelings about Fox
Mulder.  A straight-arrow himself, he had no patience with people who
went outside the FBI mainstream as Mulder had.  His job, as he saw
it, was to rein Mulder in -- and if he couldn't, get him out of the
FBI as precipitously as possible.

Mulder had hung on much longer than anyone could have expected.  
Firing him, however, did not give Kersh the personal satisfaction he
thought it would.  Ever since El Rico he'd had a sense of impending
disaster, and getting Mulder out of the Bureau hadn't lessened that
sense.  Still, he ignored the nagging doubts about some of the things
Mulder had told him, and that he'd read himself in the case files.  

Mulder as an FBI agent was a liability, but Mulder as a private
citizen, investigating the things that some in the FBI didn't want
him investigating, kept him out of Kersh's hair and allowed him
continued plausible deniability.  It hadn't worried him; but Mulder's
reappearance as a prisoner a year later had.  Especially after his
own disturbing interview with General Suveg about the nature of the
trial, and the ultimatum he'd been delivered.

Things had gone from bad to worse after that, and he'd found himself
an accessory to Mulder's escape.  But he could not, in good
conscience, let the man die for the trumped up charges against him. 
He had now seen, and heard, too much to allow the travesty of justice
he'd been witness to.

Still, he'd managed to maintain plausible deniability even after
Mulder's escape.  The fact that no official record had been kept of
the trial helped with that, and the mysterious disappearance of some
of the other key players didn't hurt either.

He didn't even want to think about what happened in his office the
next morning.   Skinner witnessed it, but he could trust Skinner to
keep it to himself.  They now knew too much about each other to be
anything less than allies in this quiet war.

"We've had the plan ready for some time," Skinner said now.  "As a
matter of record with the FBI, he was fired for disobeying orders and
insubordination.  There's nothing else in any official record to say
otherwise.  Anything else is a matter of conjecture, and we know how
to handle that."

"I'm aware of that, Walter," Kersh said.  "Has there been
any...activity of any other kind?"  He wouldn't say that super
soldiers haunted his dreams, but they were among the things he could
not dismiss easily.

"None that I'm aware of, for a very long time," Skinner replied. 
"They are either lying low, or something's happened to change 
things."

"You know as well as I do that bringing Mulder 'in from the cold'
may change things again," Kersh said.

"I think it's time," Skinner insisted.  "He's aware of the risks,
but I'd be surprised if he didn't jump at the chance."

"And what of his partner?"  Kersh asked.  

"She was never implicated in anything," Skinner said.  "It's been
safe for her for a long time.  She just wasn't interested."

"That's not really what I meant, but I think you know that," Kersh
said.  "Well, it's gonna be your problem pretty soon.  My retirement
is official next month."

"It's like the Mafia, you know," Skinner reminded him.  "You can
never *really* retire."

"Assistant Director Skinner, are you comparing the FBI to the
Mafia?"  Kersh said in his sternest tone, though his expression gave
a different meaning to his words.

Both men smiled grimly, sharing the gallows humor that soldiers
who'd been on a long campaign might share.

-x-

continued in Part Two -

Reimagined: IWTB
by ML

-x-

Chapter Two - Go Be a Doctor

Skinner had actually been in touch with his former agents for some
time now.  Never directly; it had always been through intermediaries,
but as soon as he was able, he'd gotten word to them that Scully, at
least, was safe.

It took some time to make the necessary arrangements, but eventually
Scully took the coursework required to re-qualify for medical
practice, specializing in pediatrics.  She found employment in a
Catholic hospital, and set about trying to fit in to a world miles
off course from her former career.

As for Mulder, Skinner told him to lay low.  And that's what he did.

x-x-x

Richmond, Virginia

Our Lady of Sorrows was an older hospital, far from the city center.
They had been in desperate need of a pediatric specialist, and felt
very lucky to get Dana Scully.  The work was difficult and demanding,
and the children tugged at her heart.  But she was doing good work,
she felt.

In fact, she had thrown herself into her work headlong.  She brought
the same attention to detail to her new career that she'd done at the
FBI; perhaps even more so, spending her spare time learning
everything she could.  In medical school, she'd been known as a
grind; here at the hospital some of her colleagues called her "Super
Scully," though not always in an entirely complimentary way.

It beat being called "Mrs. Spooky", she supposed.  On her long
drives home, she sometimes reflected upon what had changed and what
had stayed the same in her life.  She had friends: people to have a
cup of coffee with, or talk over the latest hospital gossip, but few
really close friends.  There were too many questions she couldn't
truthfully answer, and that kept her somewhat apart.  But if she
didn't have close friends, she did have the respect of her peers. 
And most days there were at least small victories to be celebrated.

This morning, however, she was running into a brick wall in the form
of a television monitor, delivering news that she didn't want to
hear.  

"...There is no course of treatment for Sandhoff disease," the
consultant asserted from the videoconference screen.  Then she added,
sotto voce, "...but if there was, I'm sure you'd tell me."

"Thank you," Scully replied in a clipped tone to the monitor, and
turned her back.  The conference room, full of her colleagues as well
as the hospital's administrator, was silent.  She wasn't sure what
she had expected from them; some kind of support on behalf of her
patient, perhaps?  No one would even meet her eyes. 

The news was a blow, but not entirely unexpected.  She had done her
research.  She'd hoped she was wrong.  Nonetheless, Scully would not
show defeat.  This was only a temporary setback; she'd find a way. 
In the meantime, she squared her shoulders and left the conference
room.  The chief administrator, Father Ybarra, watched her go, but
said nothing.  She knew she'd have to deal with him later.

Although Dr. Scully cared deeply for all her patients, the one she'd
requested a consult on, Christian Fearon, was special.  From the
moment she laid eyes on him, she'd felt a bond with him.  He was a
sweet-natured boy, bright eyed with an impish grin.  It broke her
heart that she couldn't do more for him.  That she couldn't save him.

As she approached her office, Margaret and Blair Fearon came out of
the solarium, wheeling Christian ahead of them.  Scully changed her
expression to one of delight, her smile solely for the little boy in
front of her.  "Hi Christian, how are you feeling?"

"I'm okay Dr. Scully.  How are you?"

"Me?  I'm doing just fine."  She raised her eyes to the hopeful
expressions of Christian's parents, keeping her smile in place with
an effort she hoped she was concealing.

"You got some outside opinions?"  Blair Fearon asked anxiously.

She couldn't tell them there was no hope.  She could not let them
think she'd given up.  Not yet.  "I did."

"And?"  Margaret Fearon prompted softly, her tired eyes still
reflecting a ray of hope.

Scully faltered inside, just for a nanosecond.  "I'm ordering some
new tests."

But before the Fearons could ask another question, a new voice broke
into the conversation.

"Dana Scully?"  The deep voice inquired, sounding too loud in the
echoing corridor.  "Doctor Dana Scully?"

Excusing herself from the Fearons, Scully turned.  "Yes?"  

She saw before her a very serious young man, dressed in a dark suit
and exuding authority.  She knew instinctively where he came from.

His next words confirmed it.  "I'm looking for Fox Mulder."  

Her heart started beating faster.  Was Skinner wrong?  Was she not
safe to be out in the world after all?  "I don't work with Fox Mulder
any more," she replied icily. 

"I'm Special Agent Mosley Drummy of the FBI," the stern young man
continued.

"I can tell who you're with," she interrupted.  I don't work with
the FBI any longer."

A lesser man would have backed down.  But Mosley Drummy, while
disapproving of his partner's decision to call the former Agent
Mulder in, would pursue this avenue as far as he needed to.  In a
slightly more conciliatory tone, he said, "The FBI needs urgently to
speak with Fox Mulder.  It could save an agent's life.  Is there some
place we can speak privately?"

Scully hesitated.  What if it was a trap?  So far, she hadn't
admitted to knowing the whereabouts of Mulder.  Where had he gotten
his information?  As far as anyone at Our Lady of Sorrows knew, she
was single, and had always been a doctor.  If she'd ever had a
partner, she didn't now, and she did not share any details about her
past with anyone.  She slept at the hospital on those occasions when
an extra long shift made it impractical to leave.  As far as anyone
at the hospital knew, she lived alone.   She took precautions to
ensure that no one knew of her former life.

With some misgivings, she chose to hear him out.  "Come to my
office," she offered, leading him there.

Once inside, he withdrew a sealed envelope from his jacket.  "I've
been asked to give you this," he said.

Scully remained standing as she carefully opened the envelope
addressed to her.  Inside was a single sheet of paper, on FBI
letterhead, addressed to Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, and copied to
Assistant Director Walter Skinner.

"Re: Fox Mulder

"In light of the new evidence presented regarding former Special
Agent Mulder's activities, any derogatory information leading to his
termination as an Agent will be expunged.  To our certain knowledge,
there are no outstanding complaints or judgments against him, and he
is exonerated from any and all charges that may have been brought
against him.

Robert Mueller, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation"

Scully read it again, and then once more.  It certainly looked real.
It read like the real thing, with just enough vagueness and double-
speak to sound governmental.

"Do you know what this is?"  Scully asked Agent Drummy.

He shrugged slightly.  "Deputy Director Kersh asked me to give it to
you, to give to Mr. Mulder.  He said that it was his part of the
bargain."

Scully remained silent, mulling this over.  Agent Drummy waited,
saying nothing more.  Finally, though, he cleared his throat and
moved toward the door.  

"I appreciate your time, Dr. Scully."  He handed her a card. 
"Should you be able to contact Mr. Mulder, call this number.  Thank
you."  He let himself out the door, shutting it gently.

A short time later, Scully emerged from her office, dressed in
outdoor wear.  She had a long way to drive home, and a lot to think
about.

-x-

Chapter Three: Cave of the Man-Bear

Rural Virginia

The small farmhouse lay silent in the gathering dusk.  The
surrounding grounds had an air of neglect, and the house itself had
seen better days, though to a more than casual observer, the porch
was swept and there was a good, sturdy door with a serious lock 
on it.

Inside, the house was snug and cozy.  The front door opened onto a
small living room.  There was a bookcase crammed with an eclectic
selection of books, and several more scattered on tables throughout
the room.  An aquarium stood on a low stand at the end of the room
farthest away from the fireplace, its watery glow casting the only
light in the room.

At the back of the house, in a small room with well-covered windows,
a man sat at his desk, reading articles and marking the important
ones, sometimes making notes on a legal pad.  Now and then he paused
to fish a couple of sunflower seeds out of a bowl nearby.

Lay low, the message had always been.  I'll let you know when it's
safe.

So here he was, feathering his nest much as he did once upon a time
at the FBI.  

It suited Mulder, at least for the time being.  And, it pleased him
that Scully was able to leave.  It was something that they'd
discussed more than once.  

It pleased him more that she refused to leave him entirely and go
back to a "normal life."  Together, they figured out a life that
worked for them.

Once they'd known Scully was safe from prosecution, they'd slowly
made their way back east.  Mulder concentrated on keeping them safe,
not so much from the FBI, but from other, more insidious threats.  
Armed with the knowledge of what could destroy or at least keep the
super soldiers at bay, Mulder researched locations with naturally-
occurring magnetite.  He finally found an old farm about an hour away
from Richmond, Virginia, where Scully found employment.

He could say that he'd been fairly happy since they'd been together.
If he didn't count the loss of their son, the fact that he was a
fugitive from justice, and the low-level anxiety about the
approaching end of the world that always hummed in the
background...sure, he was happy.

He'd never tell her how much it meant to him that she had stayed
with him, even though she had the chance to leave.  He was afraid
that knowledge would be too much of a burden, should she decide one
day that she'd had enough of this kind of life.  He lived for the end
of the day, though he tried not to count the minutes until he could
expect Scully to walk through the front door.

By mutual agreement, he didn't have a cell phone of his own, and in
fact there was no land line in the house.  He relied more on print
media than Internet these days, exercising caution when he was on
line to never use any former alias or user ID that could connect him
to anyone or anything.

When Scully asked him what he was working on, he told her he was
writing his memoirs.  Anonymously, of course.  "I'll publish under
the name of Kurtzweil," he said with grim humor.  "Then I'll be sure
it won't draw too much attention."

Some days he felt like a bear in his cave, waiting for spring.  He
scratched his chin, still a little surprised to encounter the beard
that he'd grown in the past month, just to be doing something.  The
jury was still out on whether Scully liked it.  

This winter had been especially difficult.  The weather had been
harsher than usual, leaving him housebound frequently.  There had
been a few times when Scully couldn't make it back from Richmond,
long lonely nights that gave him a taste of what it would be like if
he and Scully were truly separated.

He didn't like it one bit.

He heard steps on the porch and the doorknob rattle.  He turned back
to his desk, busily cutting out an article as the door to his inner
sanctum opened.

"You're becoming awfully trusting, Mulder, for a man wanted by the
FBI," Scully said behind him.

"Eyes in the back of my head, Scully," Mulder replied, winding up
for the pitch.  "Auf einer wellenlange, as the Germans say.  It's a
precognitive state, often confused with intuition, in which the brain
perceives the deep logic of transitory existence unaided by the
rational mind."

He could feel her leaning against the door jamb, waiting for the
punch line.  He could almost hear her eyes rolling as he rattled off
his spiel.  "Moments of clarity," he continued, "materializing as
conscious awareness of space and time independent from all sensible
reality.  Such moments of clarity can materialize much as you did
just now, Scully.  Though if you'd actually 'materialized,'" he
added, "you'd be rapidly de-materializing even as I speak."

He turned, and there she was in reality, just as he'd imagined her. 
She gave him a half-smile, still waiting.

He gave her the half-smile back.  "But who believes that crap
anymore anyway?"  He waved his latest clipping at her, about the
Princeton ESP lab closing after 40 years.  Finding a place on his
wall-sized bulletin board/filing system, he pinned the article up.

Scully said, "Evidently they still believe at the FBI.  I had a
visitor today, Mulder."

He stiffened slightly.  "That can't be good."

Her next words surprised him.  "The FBI needs your help, Mulder."

"Well, I hope you told them to go screw themselves," he said.  He
sat down at his desk, but turned toward Scully as if to say he would
at least hear her out.

"They say," Scully said slowly, feeling the words as she spoke them,
"all is forgiven.  They'll drop all charges against you if you'll
just come in and help them with this case."

"They'll forgive *me*?"  Mulder practically shouted, unable to stay
seated.  "I'm the one they put on trial for murder, and they did
their damnedest to invalidate a decade of my -- *our* work.  They
should be asking for *my* forgiveness."

Scully had thought about this all the way home.  "I think they are,
Mulder," she said.  "Desperately."

"How could I possibly help these people?" he asked, not sure he
wanted to know the answer.

"There's a missing FBI agent, and someone who has come forward with
some promising evidence," she said.

Mulder gestured to her to continue.  *And*? he seemed to say.

"He's a psychic, or so he claims."

Now it was Mulder's turn to roll his eyes.  "It's a trap," he
decided.  "They're trying to smoke me out."

Scully sighed.  "Mulder, if the FBI wanted to find you, I have no
doubt they could have, long before this.  I think they've been happy
having you out of their hair."

"Well, I've been perfectly happy having them out of mine," Mulder
huffed.  "I was on trial *for my life,* Scully.  Do you remember
that?"

She looked stricken.  "How could I ever forget?" she asked.  "But I
do believe that they're serious about this forgiveness."  She
withdrew an envelope from her pocket.  "Take a look at this."

Mulder read the short letter over carefully, then read it over a
second time.

"There's a young agent's life at stake, Mulder," Scully said softly.
"I know I don't have to say this, but once upon a time it could have
been you -- or me."

Low blow, Scully, Mulder thought, but he said nothing.  His eyes
slid away to his desk.

Scully tried again.  "Mulder, to be honest I worry about you.  I'm
worried about the effects of this long-term isolation on you."

"Nothing to worry about, Scully," Mulder said expansively, leaning
back in his chair.  "I'm happy as a clam here."

Scully's eyes went from the overflowing trash can up to the ceiling,
where at least a dozen pencils lodged in the acoustical tile.  She
didn't have to say anything; her expression said it all.

Mulder waited her out.  Finally, she sighed and turned back to the
door.  "I'll let them know your answer," she said, shutting the door
softly.

He started to turn back toward his desk, but his eye was caught by
the picture in the center of the door -- the whole reason he got
involved in the X Files in the first place.

Samantha's picture smiled back at him, and he sighed and muttered
"Shit..." under his breath before heaving himself out of his chair
and going out to Scully.

"Okay, I'll go," he said with resignation.  "On one condition..."

Scully smiled at him.  "Of course I'll go too," she said.   

-x-

Chapter Four: I'm a Stranger Here Myself

"Sounds like our ride's here," Mulder said, as the familiar sound of
helicopter blades filled the air.  "Guess they're serious about the
urgency of this case, huh?"  He followed Scully out onto the porch
and locked the front door securely behind him.  It was the first time
he'd left the house by the front door since they'd moved here.

Not just a helicopter, a black helicopter, Mulder noted as he ducked
under the blade wash, helping Scully in before getting in behind her.
He almost said something smart-ass to Scully, but she was wearing her
I-don't-like-to-fly face, and he didn't want to upset her any more
than she already was.  The mere fact that she was coming with him was
enough for now.

The ride to Washington, DC took quite a while but was over too soon.
It had been a long time since Mulder had seen the skyline of the
nation's capitol.  Once it had been so familiar he barely noticed it
when coming in for a landing.  Now, he saw it with fresh eyes, the
lights looking like jewels in the night sky.

It was very impressive, as long as you didn't look too deeply
beneath the beautiful, heart-stirring facade.  Nothing was ever as it
appeared, as they well knew.  The bright lights hid a pool of slime
that a guy could drown in.  He almost had, on more than one occasion,
and taken Scully with him.  He still harbored some misgivings about
this adventure, but when had that ever stopped him before?  At least
he and Scully had each other's backs.

The helicopter landed on the roof of the Hoover Building and one
lone agent awaited them.  It was hard to tell in silhouette -- could
it possibly be Skinner, welcoming the prodigals home?

As they got closer, Mulder could see that the only resemblance
between this man and Skinner was height and expression.  Scully
identified him to Mulder as Agent Drummy as they approached him. 
Which was good, since the agent didn't bother to introduce himself.

"Thanks for the ride," Mulder said as they neared him.

"Don't thank me," Agent Drummy replied.  "I didn't send it."

Great, Mulder thought.  Some things never change. 

If the stone-faced agent had asked him about the flight, Mulder
would have replied, "It was a little choppy," but this agent seemed
to have checked his humor at the door.

It was a familiar sensation to walk down these halls again.  Mulder
looked around him to see what had changed.  In essentials, not much
had.  The walls might have a few different pictures -- there had been
how many new Directors since Mulder had left?  Otherwise, it felt and
sounded and smelled like the Hoover Building of old.  

Even at this late hour, there was a lot of activity.  Agents came
and went from various conference rooms along the hall.  Mulder noted
sidelong glances at himself and Scully, two civilians being escorted
by the dour agent.

"Wait here," Agent Drummy instructed as he entered a conference room
alone.

Mulder looked over at Scully, who was looking a bit bemused herself.
What the hell are we doing here? she seemed to be asking.

Don't ask me, he thought.  This was your idea, Partner.  He gave her
a half-smile, and she seemed to divine what he was thinking,
returning his smile with a small grimace.

Agent Drummy emerged from a different door.  "Come in," he said
without ceremony.

The room they entered was like any of a hundred rooms they'd been in
before.  A low buzz of activity swirled around them.  Only a few
people looked up and noted their entrance.

At the far end of the room, two women conferred as Agent Drummy
approached them and gestured to the two visitors.

One of the women excused herself to the other and strode over to
greet them, hand out in greeting.

Scully watched closely as the agent approached.  She was wearing
dark trousers and white shirt, her dark hair in a neat chignon. 
Scully noted, almost as a reflex, the woman's tall, slender frame,
her dark eyes.  Scully had always done a threat assessment whenever a
stranger entered their sphere.  It was partly her FBI training, but
in some cases, it was more personal.  Fleetingly, it crossed her mind
that Agent Drummy hadn't mentioned that the ASAC on this case was a
woman.  Had the FBI come so far in such a short time that this was no
longer unusual?  Scully pursed her lips slightly and recognized the
odd emotion she was feeling as envy.

"I'm Dakota Whitney," the agent said directly to Scully, shaking her
hand.  "Thanks for making this happen."  This was unusual, too:
almost everyone shook Mulder's hand first, and then hers, if Mulder
introduced her.

Then Dakota Whitney turned her focus onto Mulder.  "Fox Mulder, I
believe," she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.  "Thank
you for coming.  I know this must be awkward for you."

The understatement of this or any other century, Mulder thought.

"My team and I appreciate your trust," Agent Whitney went on.

"Trust being what it is," Mulder replied, "what if I can't help you?
Or your agent ends up dead?"

"The past is the past," Agent Whitney said.  "We know your work on
the X-Files and believe you may be the best chance Monica Bannan
has."  She handed Mulder a file, watching him intently as he perused
it.

Scully asked, "How long has she been missing?"

"Since Sunday night," Dakota Whitney said.

"I know I don't have to tell you this, Agent Whitney, but there's
slim chance, after seventy-two hours, that she's still alive."

"And we have slim reason to believe that she is, that's true,"
Whitney admitted.  "But the facts give us hope."  She picked up
another file and held it out to Scully.  "We found this about ten
miles from the crime scene."

The top picture in the file was of a severed arm.  "But this is a
man's arm," Scully said.

"A man's arm," Mulder echoed, "that is a match for evidence found at
or near your crime scene.  Blood or tissue?"

Whitney smiled slightly but refrained from looking at the rest of
the team, who were now listening intently to Mulder.  "Blood, found
just outside Monica Bannan's carport, and on a hand rake, which she
may have used as a weapon against him.  Although she carried a gun,
we found it locked in the trunk of her car, and her spare weapon was
inside the house."

"What did Forensics say?"  Mulder asked.  Scully could see the
wheels starting to turn behind his eyes.

"Male, thirty to forty, no match for any fingerprints in the
database," Whitney said.

"And you were led to this arm...?"

"Like a needle in a haystack," the ASAC said.  

"By someone claiming psychic powers," Mulder stated.

Dakota Whitney nodded again.  "Joseph Patrick Crissman."

"But you think he's full of shit," Mulder said.

Agent Drummy finally chimed in.  "Now what makes you think that?" 
He asked snidely.

"Mulder matched his tone.  "Maybe *I'm* psychic."

"Look," Agent Drummy said, "this *psychic*, this Father Joe --"

"*Father*?" Scully interrupted the pissing match with her startled
reply.  "He's a *priest*?"

Agent Drummy nodded.  "Catholic."

"And he contacted you?"  Scully went on.

"He cold-calls us six hours after Agent Bannan was reported missing.
Nothing had been made public yet, no one outside the FBI knew a
thing.  And he claims he's had a vision of her.  That he's got some
kind of 'psychic connection' to her."

That was the most Mulder and Scully had heard out of Agent Drummy
the whole time they'd been there.  He appeared ready to go back to
holding up the wall and shooting disapproving looks, but Mulder kept
asking him questions.

"And this Father Joe tells you that Monica Bannan is still alive?"

"That's right," Agent Drummy said.

"And he claims a psychic connection to her.  Tell me, have you
discovered any other kind of connection?"

"To Monica Bannan?"  Agent Drummy was being deliberately obtuse now.

Before Mulder could say anything else, Dakota Whitney said, "No
other connection between the two.  That's when I decided to call you
in."

As if there had been any doubt as to who did the calling.  Scully
did wonder what kind of 'connections' Dakota Whitney had to find out
about Mulder, and then to get permission to bring him back.

"I need your expert opinion," she continued.  "That we're not
wasting time here, going down this road with Father Joe."

It was certainly a road that Mulder had been down a few times, and
he gave it his best shot.  "Well, he's a religious man, plainly," he
started.  "A well-educated man.  He took right action.  He cast no
doubt on himself or his motives.  You say he has no material
connection to the crimes."  He paused.  "You *are* wasting time,
Agent Whitney, only it's mine and your agents'."

She looked at him with shock.

"This is the only road you have, Agent Whitney.  You have no reason
to doubt him, why the hesitation?"

"Well, there's a question of credibility --"

"If you have no reason to doubt the man, why doubt his visions?" 
Same old, same old, Mulder thought.  They never want to believe. 
What did they expect me to say? 

"Look, Mulder," Agent Drummy said, "he didn't lead us to Monica
Bannan, just some guy's bloody arm!"

"This is not an exact science," Mulder retorted, really tired of the
same old shit.  "If I was you, I'd be on this Father Joe twenty-four
seven.  I'd be in bed with him, kissing his holy ass."

There was a gasp in the room, and a choked-off chuckle.  Mulder
looked around, daring anyone to openly laugh at him.

Agent Whitney said quietly, "The reason there's a question of
credibility is that Father Joe Crissman is a convicted pedophile."

Silence in the room.  Drummy looked smug.  Everyone else got busy
looking at the files in front of them.

"Oh."  Mulder said flatly.  "Well, maybe I'd stay out of bed with
him." 

He would not look at Scully, but he felt her hand on his arm.

Dakota Whitney noted it, too.  "Would you come with us to see Father
Joe in person?  I'd really like to get your opinion of him."

Now Mulder did glance at Scully, and she nodded slightly.  She was
still willing to go along, at least.

"Lead on," he said.

-x-

Chapter Five - Seeing Is Believing

Richmond, Virginia, 1:00 AM

It was a long drive to Richmond.  Agents Drummy and Whitney sat in
the front of the lead SUV, followed by another with a second team of
agents.

Mulder and Scully sat together in the back of the first SUV.  Mulder
resisted the urge to check the back of Agent Drummy's neck for a
knobby spine while he mulled over the facts of the case in his head. 
Scully sat quietly beside him, but the steady motion of the car was
her downfall, as it usually was, and before long she was leaning on
his shoulder, fast asleep.

Well, she'd had a long day, he reflected.  Early at the hospital,
then this little jaunt to DC and back -- no wonder she was beat.  He
carefully brushed a strand of hair away from her face, enjoying the
rare treat of being back in the car with Scully.  When she woke up,
he'd be sure to tease her about drooling on him.

The apartment complex they finally pulled up to was a non-descript
collection of buildings.  Three two-story structures formed a U
around an area of open ground.  It was as if the buildings had just
been plopped down with no landscaping or softening.

Nowhere to hide, Mulder thought.  Whether it was deliberate or
unintentional, that was the result.

"What is this place?" Scully asked, gazing around her.  No one would
choose to live in such a bleak place, surely.

"They're dorms for sex offenders," Agent Whitney said.

"Dorms?"  Scully echoed in disbelief.

Agent Whitney shrugged.  "It's voluntary.  They're self-policing. 
Father Joe lives here with his room mate."

Mulder leaned over and said to Scully, "Just avoid the activities
room."

Agents Whitney and Drummy led the way up the exterior stairs of the
closest building.  Agent Drummy knocked on the door as Mulder and
Scully approached.

The door opened and the man who answered recognized them, but he was
not the man they sought.  He turned his head without greeting the
people on his doorstep.  "Joe!"

An accented voice floated out from the bowels of the apartment. 
"Tell them to come in."

The four entered, standing close together in the small living room. 
The smell of something frying permeated the air, battling with the
smell of stale cigarette smoke.  A TV played quietly in the corner,
the theme song to an old comedy which seemed extremely out of place.

Scully could just see into the next room, which appeared to be
Father Joe's room.  He got up slowly from a pre-dieu and shuffled
into the front room. 

The man was a sight to behold.  Gray stubble adorned his cheeks and
wild gray hair floated around his face.  Cheap glasses framed intense
blue eyes and a face that might have been called cherubic in the
distant past.  He wore an old flannel robe and slippers.

Scully was revolted.  She sensed, rather than saw, the discomfort of
the others around her as Father Joe turned the sound down on the TV
and lit a cigarette.  

"Sorry for the mess," he said with the air of a weary host.  "I
haven't been sleeping."

Agent Drummy said, "Father Joe, this is Fox Mulder."

Father Joe looked at Mulder, unimpressed.  "Okay," he said.

"He'd like to ask you some questions --"

"Actually," Scully broke in, "I'd like to ask you a question."

"Okay," Father Joe said again, as if it was the most ordinary thing
in the world to be visited by strangers with questions in the middle
of the night.

"I saw you praying in there," Scully continued.  "Just what were you
praying for, sir?"

"I was praying for my immortal soul," Father Joe said in a soft
Scots burr.

"And do you think God hears your prayers?"  Scully asked.

"D'you think he hears *yours*?"  Father Joe countered with a half-
smile.

"*I* didn't bugger thirty-seven altar boys," Scully said in a flat
tone.

Mulder grinned.  This was the side of Scully he missed, the agent
who brooked no subterfuge, who didn't call a spade a spade but a
damned shovel.  He loved it, and he especially loved the shocked
looks on the two FBI agents' faces.

"Ooh Scully, that's an interesting way to put it," he said, sotto
voce.

"I have another way if you'd like," she said crisply.

"I bet you do," he said admiringly.

Father Joe himself interrupted their repartee.  "I have to believe
that He does hear me," he said, with no sign that he'd heard Scully's
last comments.  "Or else why would He be sending me these visions?"

"Maybe it's not God doing the sending," she replied.  

Mulder stepped in.  Time to play Good Cop, or at least, Neutral Cop.
"These visions.  How do they appear to you?"

Father Joe lit another cigarette off the butt of his last one.  "In
what you might call my mind's eye," he said.

"What did you see?"  Mulder asked.

"I see...I see the poor girl being assaulted," he said, fixing his
eyes on a distant point.  "I see...the bloody arm.  I hear dogs
barking."

Agent Drummy shifted restlessly.   They'd heard all this before.

Mulder asked, "Can you show us how you do it?"

Father Joe looked at Mulder, considering, and then turned his gaze
on Scully.  "I don't think I can," he said, "though, perhaps, if
*she* wasn't here..."

"Maybe what you see is a way to make people forget what you *really*
are," Scully said, but she turned and walked out the front door. 
Mulder watched her go with regret but not surprise.

Scully felt better out in the cold air.  The atmosphere in the
apartment was suffocating, with its smells of cigarettes and fried
food.  She looked through the folder she'd carried with her from the
car, studying the picture of the severed arm, looking through the
test results.

The apartment door opened behind her and she turned, hoping it was
Mulder and he was ready to go home.  That he'd determined Father Joe
was a fraud after all, and now that he had his Get Out of Jail Free
card, they were both free to --

-- to what?  They'd never discussed it.  Maybe neither had wanted to
plan for something that might never happen.  They'd been living from
day to day for a long time.

But it wasn't Mulder, after all.  Father Joe's roommate sidled past
her, carrying a bag of garbage.  He looked at her the whole time he
walked along the balcony to the stairs.  She watched him right back,
then when he was out of sight, turned back to the folder.

She was so intent on it that she jumped when she felt Mulder's hand
on her arm.  "Jesus, Mulder."

"I can't take you anywhere," he murmured, echoing her words from a
case long ago.

"I'm sorry," Scully said.  "I've been too long away from this
business -- or not long enough."

"No, no, you were good in there.  All I had were questions, but you
challenged him -- it was like old times."

"Yeah, well, he's a creep -- and a liar.  He knows who did this, and
they're feeding him with information -- really, look where he lives!"
She gestured around the apartment block.  "And this arm that they
found -- it wasn't injured in some accident; it was severed cleanly,
almost surgically.   How is it that Father Crissman could lead them
to this and not have the faintest clue where Monica Bannan is?"

Mulder did not answer, but he was listening to her, his eyes never
leaving her face.

"Two things you're going to find in the next twenty-four hours is a
dead agent, and that this 'Father Joe' is a big, fat fraud."

"You could be right, Scully," Mulder said softly.  "You could be
right.  But, what if you're wrong?"

The apartment door opened and the two agents came out with Father
Joe, who was winding a muffler around his neck.

"What's going on?"  Scully asked Mulder.

"Field trip," Mulder said with a grin.  "We're gonna see if Father
Joe is really the psychic he claims to be."

Scully handed him the file and started down the stairs.  "Yeah,
well, it's been fun."

"Where are you going?"  Mulder hurried after her.  "No one's going
to make you sit with him," he said with a smile, not really believing
she wouldn't go along.

"I've already been taken for a ride tonight," Scully said. 
"Besides, *he* doesn't want me here."

"I want you here," Mulder said quickly.

Scully shook her head.  "I'll get someone to take me back home.  Why
don't you come too?  Nothing says you have to be a part of this."  

But as she said it, she could see the spark in Mulder's eyes.  The
Mulder of old was awakening.  It was good to see, but her joy was
accompanied by a curl of fear.  What had she done by getting him
involved?

"Scully..." he started to try and persuade her, but she cut him off,
walking away.

"This is not my life anymore, Mulder.  I'm done chasing monsters in
the dark.  And I think you've done what was asked of you.  No one can
make you stay."

Mulder touched her arm, and she turned toward him again.  "These
people need my help," he said.  "Desperately."

She grimaced at his choice of words, but didn't turn away.

"And I need yours," he said.  "You don't have to come along.  Just --
just stay involved."  He held the file out to her.

Reluctantly, she took it from him, and was rewarded by a full 
smile.  

She gave him a very small smile back, but she tucked the file under
her arm.

-x-

Continued in Part Three -

Reimagined: IWTB
by ML

-x-

Chapter Six: Field Trip

A sharp jolt awakened Mulder from his uneasy sleep.  They were still
driving, must have been for some hours now.  His watch indicated it
was not long until sunrise, and he wondered where they were.

The excitement he'd felt at being involved in a case again had
dissipated somewhat with Scully's refusal to go along for the ride. 
It was strange, being in the back seat of a car with a bunch of
strangers.  He was still a little unsure about the whole enterprise. 
If the two agents in the front, and the ones following in the second
SUV, decided he was no longer necessary, they could just drop him out
of the car anywhere.  If this whole thing truly was nothing more than
a way to smoke him out, then he was more vulnerable now than he'd
ever been.  No gun, no cell phone, nothing but the coat on his back
and a wallet that probably still had his latest fake ID in it.  Worst
of all, no Scully to back him up.

Scully wouldn't have let him go if she'd felt there was any danger,
of that he was certain.  Still, he missed her.  Being on a case
without her just wasn't the same.

"Where are we?"  He heard the raspy voice of Father Joe ask from the
seat next to him.

Agent Whitney spoke.  "That's for you to tell us," she reminded him.

"I haven't a clue where we are," Father Joe admitted.

"That's okay," Mulder assured him.  "Everyone works differently. 
Just take your time."

Father Joe gave him a sideways look.  "So what are you, the good 
cop?"

"I'm a non-cop, actually," Mulder said with a small smile.  He took
Monica Bannan's official FBI photo out of the folder and handed it to
him.

Father Joe studied it for a few moments, and handed it back.  "I
haven't the faintest idea who this girl is," he said.  "I don't know
what the connection is, I'm sorry."

"There's always something," Mulder said, "a connection of some kind,
however small."

"So you believe in this sort of thing?"  Father Joe asked, rather as
if he didn't believe himself.

"Let's just say, I want to believe," Mulder replied.  "I used to
investigate paranormal cases for the FBI.  It was a long time ago." 
He turned to look out his window at the dim landscape.  

"And his sister was abducted by E.T." Agent Drummy's sarcastic voice
broke through his reverie.

"Is that true?" asked Father Joe.

"It was a long time ago," Mulder repeated.

"Something you don't care to discuss?" the priest asked.

Mulder said nothing.

"She's dead, isn't she?"  Father Joe persisted.  "Your sister?"

Mulder turned and saw the compassion in Father Joe's eyes.  This was
no psychic intuition; Mulder knew he wore his heart on his sleeve.

He caught Agent Whitney's look in the rear view mirror.  He shook
his head very slightly, willing her not to say anything.  He could
see she was familiar with at least one version of the story, and
wondered which one it was.

Suddenly Father Joe's voice changed.  "We're here!"  He exclaimed. 
"This is where she was taken!"

Mulder leaned between the seats and said, "I want him to see the
crime scene."  He caught a look between Agents Whitney and Drummy, as
Agent Drummy brought the car to a stop near a rustic house.

The house was one of half a dozen in a small enclave; far enough
apart to offer privacy but close enough for neighbors to feel
neighborly, if they were so inclined.  The sun was all the way up
now, but it had snowed in the night and all was fresh and pristine
around them.  No footsteps or tire tracks marred the snow, sparkling
in the sun.

Father Joe walked forward to the driveway of the house they'd
stopped near.  He looked around, puzzled.  "This isn't right," he
muttered to himself, and took another step or two forward.  Finally
he turned and said accusingly, "You brought me to the wrong house."

Mulder grinned at the disconcerted Agent Drummy and murmured,
"Pulled that one right out of his ass, didn't he?"

Father Joe was already on the move, and the others followed him,
though not too closely.  He walked without hesitating past another
house and headed for one not visible from the road, where the carport
was crisscrossed with crime scene tape.

Father Joe was already inside the carport by the time the others had
caught up to him.  With a nod, Dakota Whitney sent her partner after
him, while she stood outside with Mulder.  

He raised his eyebrows at her.

Dakota shrugged.  "There were news crews out here, covering the
scene, pictures of the neighborhood -- he could've seen it on TV."

"Sure," Mulder agreed, "but why?  Why fabricate such an elaborate
story?"

"Expiation," she said.  "Forgiveness of his sins."

"Father Joe thinks he can fool God?"

"Not God.  He's written dozens of letters to the Vatican, pleading
reengagement with the church."

"Seems like a pretty far-fetched way to impress the Holy See."

"God's voice talking through a man?  That's been a winner a few
times," Dakota said as they followed the priest and Agent Drummy
through the carport and to the back of the house.

Mulder stopped.  "You still think he's involved somehow, don't you?'

"We do have to consider him a suspect, yes."

"Even though you've found nothing, no connection."

Maybe another agent would have bridled at this, considered it a
criticism, but Dakota Whitney smiled.  "My guys are still looking,
believe me.  And they think they'll find something."

"But you're not so sure," Mulder persisted.  "Otherwise, why am I
here?"

She turned her wide blue eyes on him, and admitted, "Let's just say
I'm not the most popular girl at the FBI right now for calling you
in."

"Well, I wasn't exactly 'Miss Popularity' at the Bureau either. 
Really, what do you think you can gain by calling me in?"

She said earnestly, "You've dealt with psychics before: Luther Lee
Boggs, Clyde Bruckman, Gerald Schnauz...I've read those cases.  The
work done there was extremely impressive."

"Thanks, but," he said, "I'm only half of the team."

"But it's your expertise I need," she insisted, giving him that look
again.

Flattery will get you nowhere, he thought.  I've been down that road
before.  He turned toward the field beyond the house, where Mosley
Drummy was watching Father Joe wander about.

Drummy said nothing, but Mulder could feel the disapproval coming
off him in waves.  It didn't take a psychic to know how he felt.

"This is a waste of time," he said to Dakota, ignoring Mulder
completely.

Mulder was about to argue his point again, when Father Joe stopped
in his tracks and fell to his knees.  Mulder ran toward him.  "Father
Joe?"

"It was here!"  Father Joe shouted hoarsely.  "Right here!"

The others moved to his side as quickly as the soft snow allowed 
them.

"She ran," Father Joe said in a pained voice, "but she couldn't get
away.  There were two men...he pushed her down...it happened right
here...they put her...they put her..."

"Put her in *what*?" Agent Whitney interrupted.  "What did they do
to her?"

"They put her in a car...no, a truck, a truck with
something...something on it..."

"*Where* did they take her?  Who are they?"  The agent continued to
question Father Joe, and would have shaken his shoulder but for
Mulder putting his arm out to hold her back.

"I don't know...I hear dogs..."

"What can you see?  Can you tell where she is?"

"She's in pain, very great pain..."

"We need to find her!" she shouted at him.  "Where is she?"

Father Joe bowed his head again.  "I don't know.  I can't see!  I
CAN'T SEE!"  His shoulders shook as if with weeping.  Sobs escaped
him, an agonized sound.

Impassive as always, Agent Drummy said, "He's pulling it out of his
ass, just like you said."

Head bowed, supported by his hands, Father Joe continued to weep. 
It could be an act, but Mulder wasn't so sure.  Then he noticed the
drops of blood in the snow.

"Father Joe?"  He put a hand on the priest's shoulder.

Father Joe raised his head, and Mulder could see genuine tears,
mixed with genuine blood, coursing down his face.

x-x-x

The sun streamed brightly through the windows of the pediatric ward
as Scully approached Christian Fearon's room.  She'd had a restless
night, what had been left of it when she got home, missing Mulder's
presence in their little house.  But now she put on what she hoped
was a cheerful face to greet her small patient.

"Hi Christian," she said.  "You're looking very chipper this
morning. What's up?"

"Hello, Dr. Scully," Christian replied.  "I was thinking."  He
pleated the edge of his blanket with his fingers as he looked at her,
bright eyes framed by impossibly curly lashes.

"What were you thinking about?"  As always, his trusting little face
squeezed her heart.  She ducked her head, noting that his chart was
missing from its place at the foot of the bed.

"About how I could get out of here," he admitted.  "Dr. Scully, can
I get out of here *soon*?"

Scully looked up at that.  "Why, Christian?  Has something
frightened you?"  She looked around the room, but there was nothing
and no one to be seen.

"The way that man is looking at me," Christian said, and pointed at
the open door of the ward.

Scully turned and saw Father Ybarra standing down the hall, studying
someone's charts.  She had a good idea whose they were.  "Don't you
worry, Christian," she said.  "There's nothing to be afraid of, from
him, or from anyone."

She strode quickly down the hall to Father Ybarra.

"Doctor Scully," he greeted her.  "I've been looking for you.  You
haven't been avoiding me, have you?"

"Of course not," she said, "but I have been looking for Christian's
charts."

"I have them right here.  I was looking at the results of the latest
round of tests you ordered."

"That's not really your purview, is it Father?  It's his primary
physician's, which is me."  She held out her hand for the charts.

"What is in my purview, Doctor Scully, is to ensure that my
physicians are making the best choices -- both for their patients,
and for the hospital."

She was in no mood to argue with Father Ybarra.  Not until she had a
chance to review the results herself, to think about what could be
done.  "The charts, please?"

Father Ybarra handed them over with the sigh of a man who'd been
more than reasonable, and was giving in against his better judgment. 
"We're here to heal the sick, Doctor Scully, not to prolong the
ordeal of the dying.  At this point there are other facilities better
able to handle the care of this child."

Fortunately at that moment a crash coming from the end of the
hallway startled them both and Scully retreated to her office to
review the charts, and to think.

x-x-x

The atmosphere in the SUV was thick with unasked and unanswered
questions on the way back from Agent Bannan's house.  Mulder could
tell that there was going to be quite a discussion between Agents
Whitney and Drummy, out of earshot of the civilians.

"Where can we drop you?"  Dakota asked him brightly.

"Richmond is fine," Mulder said.  "I have some business to take care
of."  

He'd suggested that Father Joe be taken to the hospital to be
checked out, but Father Joe protested.  He just wanted to go home, he
said.  He'd spent most of the trip back slumped against the window,
snoring softly.

There was no mention of Mulder's further involvement with the case. 
Agent Whitney thanked him, and said she'd "be in touch."

It was already afternoon; if he played his cards right, he could
catch a ride home with Scully later.  In the meantime, he went about
getting his life back.

x-x-x

Scully rubbed her tired eyes.  Any time she'd had between patients
over the past few weeks, she'd spent researching alternative
treatments for Christian Fearon.  She'd reviewed every professional
medical database she had access to, and any other source she could
think of.  As the consultant suggested, there were no proven
treatments for Sandhoff disease.  Scully had already read of at least
one experimental procedure, though the highly-paid consultant had not
seen fit to mention it.  She understood why, at least intellectually.
After all, what were the chances of being able to perform such a
procedure?  And would she just be putting Christian through too much
misery for an uncertain outcome?

Her cell phone rang.  It was an unfamiliar number so she answered it
with some puzzlement.  "Scully," she said.

"Hey Scully, it's me," came a familiar voice.

Hearing Mulder's voice on her cell phone filled her with unexpected
joy.  "Mulder, where are you?"

"I'm not far from the hospital.  Can I get a ride home with you?"

"Okay.  You want me to come pick you up?"

"No, I'll come there, if that's okay.  See you in about an hour?"

"I'll meet you in front."

In her concern over Christian, she'd forgotten about her promise to
review the file on the severed arm.  She opened the file.  If she
couldn't do anything for Christian, at least she might be able to
help Mulder a little bit with his case.

She knew, however, that there was no "little bit" with Mulder.  He'd
jumped back into the fray, and it was obvious that his expectation
was that she would be right beside him.  But how could she do both? 
She was happy that Mulder was now free to do whatever he wanted, and
she didn't regret urging him to take this case on, as a way to help
him get his life back.

But was it the life she wanted too?  She was beginning to see how
easy it would be to be pulled back into that world.  And if she went,
what would happen to this one?

x-x-x

The sight of Dr. Scully talking to a mysterious bearded man outside
of Our Lady of Sorrows that evening was a source of curiosity to
those who thought they knew her.  Even more interesting was the fact
that she seemed to know him pretty well, and in fact drove away with
him in her car.

"I think you just put me on the top of today's gossip news," Scully
observed as they drove home.

"Glad to know I'm good for something," he said, only half-kidding.

-x-

Chapter Seven: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Somerset Natatorium 
Somerset, Virginia

Cheryl Cunningham plunged into the pool, enjoying the feel of the
silken water against her skin.  This was her favorite time to come
swimming, late in the afternoon before the commute crowds came in,
and after the morning fitness classes.  She especially liked it this
time of year, when regular attendance dropped off significantly.  She
liked the idea of swimming when it was snowing outside.  The pool
felt cozy and safe, protected from the weather.  Swimming in winter
was so different than swimming in summer, and she liked different.

She picked up a kickboard to do her laps.  She noted that there were
a few other people in the pool, but both seemed done with their swims
and were just cooling down, treading water or floating for a few
minutes before getting out.

The man in the lane next to hers was watching her intently, though. 
He'd been there before, made note of this particular swimmer, as he
had one or two others in the past.

It was a risk, coming back here again so soon, but a risk he had to
take.  Time and options were running out.  He watched her for a few
minutes, then left the pool and went to the men's locker room to
change.

Forty-five minutes later, Cheryl was dressed and ready to go.  Her
hair was still wet, but she was running late and the snow seemed to
be getting worse.  She had promised to be back online for work by six
p.m. and would now be lucky to get home in time to boot up.

A rattletrap truck next to her in the parking lot started up and
backed out noisily, lurching out of the parking lot as a couple of
dogs who had been sniffing around it ran after it, barking.  What a
jerk.  She shrugged and backed out a little more carefully than he
had, hoping that the road wasn't too bad on the way home.

Fortunately the snow hadn't yet made the road impassable, and her
tires were good.  Just ahead of her, she saw the same truck from the
parking lot.  She caught up with it easily.  Should she pass it?  She
could certainly try.  She needed to get home.

But as she tried to pass, the truck nearly lurched into her.  She
laid her hand on the horn, shouting, "Hey!  Hey!" as if he could hear
her.  Maybe he did, because he swerved back over.  She pressed her
foot down on the accelerator, only to have the truck swerve back and
this time, actually hit her, causing her to lose control and sail off
the road, finally coming to an abrupt stop against a hay bale.

The airbag had deployed, and though she was shaken up, Cheryl felt
okay, if a little hazy.  She sat still for a moment, noting that the
driver of the truck was approaching, carrying something.

He walked over the hood of her car, boots making dents.  Not that it
mattered, she thought crazily.  What's another dent or two?

She smiled at him as he came up to her window.  "I'm okay," she
called through the window, leaning down to unfasten her seat belt.

With a crash of glass, the man's fist came through the window of her
car and gripped her shoulder.  His other hand pressed something
against her neck, and Cheryl slipped into blackness.

There was no one else around to see the man open the car door and
carefully lay the unconscious young woman in a body bag, dragging it
with him to the truck idling by the side of the road.  There was
nothing but the falling snow, and the howling of dogs in the 
distance.

x-x-x

Over dinner at home, Mulder told Scully a little bit about the
morning's activities.  Scully seemed preoccupied.  She did ask some
questions, but her mind was obviously elsewhere.  He knew the signs;
she was puzzling something out, and she would talk to him about it
when she was ready.  He'd learned not to push her too hard when she
was like this.

The sudden change in their lives was also a topic that begged for
discussion, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what Scully was
worrying over.

They followed their usual evening routine, finishing up the kitchen
chores together.  Mulder did his nightly check of doors and windows
and by the time he came into the bedroom, Scully was already in bed,
burrowed under the comforter, apparently asleep.  He got ready for
bed himself and crawled in next to her.  He lay still for a while,
listening to Scully's even breathing.  

Finally unable to stand it any longer, he said, "I can feel you
thinking."

He heard her sigh.  "I'm sorry," she said softly.  "I can't sleep."

He rolled over to spoon up behind her, hand on her hip.  "I may have
a little something for that."

She turned her head to look him in the eye.  "Only a 'little'
something?"

He grinned.  "Thank you."  He kissed her cheek.  "But really, what's
the problem?" 

She sighed.  "I have a patient, a young boy, with a brain disease. 
He's very ill."

Aha, Mulder thought.  "You've been carrying this around for a while,
haven't you?  Why haven't you said anything before?"

"I thought there was something I could do."

"And there isn't?"

"Well, there's some radical treatments, but no one wants to talk
about them.  Even the experts say that there's nothing to be done."

"Nothing?"  Mulder echoed.  He put his arm around her, holding her
close.

"Nothing, but...let him die.  That just isn't acceptable."

Mulder murmured his assent.

"So, I've been lying here cursing God for all his cruelty."

"And do you think God is losing any sleep over this?"

She turned toward him.  "Why bring a kid into this world just to
make him suffer?  I don't know, Mulder, I just feel such a connection
to this boy."

"How old is he?"  Mulder asked.

Scully didn't say anything for a few moments.  "You think it's
because of William, don't you?"

Now it was Mulder's turn to be thoughtful.  "I think...losing our
son left us with an emptiness that can't be filled."

They were both silent for a while, considering the past.  He knew
Scully still blamed herself, just as he blamed himself, despite the
reassurances they gave each other.

"Tell you what," he said at length.  "You go to sleep, and let me
take over.  I'll curse God for a while."

She smiled sadly.  "Thank you."

He leaned in to kiss her, landing a peck at the side of her mouth. 
She turned toward him so she could kiss him back, full on the lips. 
She giggled a little.  "Scratchy beard..."

He'd have to do something about that one of these days.  It wouldn't
do for Dr. Scully to show up with beard burn.  But for the moment he
rubbed his whiskered cheek along the back of her neck, making her
giggle again, then giving her one last long kiss before he turned
back to contemplate the ceiling.

His promise must have done the trick because Scully settled, and
this time it did appear that she was falling asleep.

He was glad to have helped her, but a little disappointed that she
didn't take up his offer for that "little something".  Oh well, she
needed to talk and he needed to listen to her, more than she needed a
physical demonstration of how much he cared for her, he guessed.

What an evolved man he was.  He smirked to himself in the darkness.

"Oh," Scully said suddenly.  

Ever hopeful, Mulder was instantly fully awake, though all he did
was say "Hm?" to acknowledge he'd heard her. 

"I looked at the file again, the one for the severed arm.  There was
something weird in the toxicology report."

"Weird how?" he asked.

"Well, there were traces of a drug commonly given to people
undergoing radiation treatment.  And also traces of a drug called
acepromazine."

"Why's that weird?"

"Because acepromazine's an animal tranquilizer."

Mulder sat up suddenly.  "Now I can't sleep."  He vaulted out of bed.

Scully sat up too.  "Mulder?  Mulder, what is it?"  The air in the
bedroom was cold after being huddled under the comforter next to
Mulder.  She put her robe on and followed him to the bathroom.

Mulder never seemed to notice the cold; he'd been wearing only
pajama bottoms to bed, and here he was in the chilly bathroom, still
bare-chested, splashing cold water on his face.  

"Why is there an animal tranquilizer in a man's severed arm?" he
asked his reflection, and Scully standing behind him.

"Maybe the doctor involved isn't licensed to practice, but could
obtain the acepromazine through a veterinarian."

"Father Joe said he heard barking dogs.  He said it more than once."

As she watched, he got out the shaving cream and lathered up.

"Mulder, what are you doing?"  What did what she said have to do
with him getting up to shave in the middle of the night?

"Is it a tranquilizer you'd give a dog?"  He pulled the razor over
his cheek, wincing a little at the unaccustomed feel.  He met
Scully's eyes in the mirror, waiting for her reply, willing her to
work with him on this idea.

"Mulder, this Father Joe -- he's a phony.  He's pulling these so-
called visions out of thin air, and now he's got you straining to
connect them.  It's the oldest trick in the book.  We've both seen it
a time or two."

"Well, when I see someone crying tears of blood at a crime scene he
recognizes, without ever having been there before, I've got to go out
on a limb and say that maybe he's got something."

"Tears of blood?"  Scully repeated.

"Yeah," Mulder said.  "Tell me how you fake *that*."

Scully drew breath to continue arguing, but at that moment she heard
her cell phone ringing.  Not many people had that number; it could be
the hospital --

Praying that it wasn't bad news about Christian or another of her
patients, Scully answered.  "Scully."

"Please hold for Dakota Whitney," Agent Drummy said without preamble.

"I'm sorry for calling so late, Dr. Scully," Dakota said.  "I'm
trying to get hold of Fox Mulder."

Mulder appeared in the doorway as if he'd heard his name, face half-
shaved and a dollop of shaving cream on his bare chest.  "Who is it?"
He asked.

"Is there a break in the case?"  Scully asked, and Mulder asked
almost simultaneously, "Did they find her?"

"We've got another lead," Agent Whitney said.

Scully suppressed a sigh.  "A new source?"  She asked.

"No, but he's got a new lead.  Can you ask Fox if he can get to the
same scene as this morning?"

"I'll ask him," she said, making a face at the agent's familiarity.

Mulder watched her from the doorway.  It was plain to her that he
wanted to go.  He wanted to see this thing through, wherever it took
him.

"But you'd better give me the directions," she said.

x-x-x

Location Unknown

Cheryl Cunningham had no idea where she was.  She could hear muffled
sounds, and as she came to full consciousness, she realized she was
in a box of some kind.  Not so small that she couldn't move around a
little, but only if she crawled. Someone had taken her clothes away
and put her in a cotton shift of some kind, and there was a pile of
blankets in one corner, a bedpan in the other.  She felt like a
trapped animal.

She explored her surroundings as best she could.  Her prison
appeared to be heavy plywood, its surface unfinished.  There were
small holes at regular intervals, like air holes.  She put her eye to
one of them, but could see nothing.  Some light seeped through an
oblong slot cut at about her present eye level, and she peered out of
it, trying to glean more information about her location.  Even
through this larger opening she couldn't see much, but she could
smell and hear plenty.  There were dogs barking nearby, and the stink
of wet fur.  She tried to reach her hand out of the slot, but it was
too narrow to get more than part of her forearm through it.  The raw
edge scratched her skin.

The dogs set up a louder chorus of barks and howls, and she realized
that someone was coming.  Instinctively she tried to stand up,
banging her head.

A face appeared at the slot, wearing a white cotton cap.  She reared
back, fearing it was the man who'd driven her off the road, but this
man was a stranger to her.  His face was older and not unkind
looking.  She spoke to him.  "Please," she said, "help me get out of
here.  I didn't mean to hit his truck.  I won't tell anyone.  Please,
help me!"

The man said something she didn't understand and stood up, speaking
to others out of her sight.  The box began to move, as if it were
being pushed on casters.

Cheryl kept up her begging and shouting as the box juddered along. 
It swung around and now she could see a brightly-lit room.  At first
it appeared as a confused jumble of bright lights and metal tables. 
When the box came to a stop, it came to her:  it was a makeshift
operating room.

By now her shouts had diminished to a whimper as the import of what
she was seeing struck her.  One of the tables contained a body, and
she feared the worst, but its head turned toward her.  His face was
streaked with healing cuts and he looked as though he was in great
pain.  His body was draped with a blanket, though somehow it looked
too small for his head.

"Help me," she whispered, seeing his attention on her.  "Help me,
and I'll help you.  I'll help you get out of here."

The man opened his mouth but made no sound.  His face contorted with
pain, and tears ran down his face.  Not just regular tears; tears of
blood.  

Cheryl Cunningham howled, her voice blending with the cacophony of
the dogs.

-x-

Chapter Eight - Ice Field

Rural Virginia

Even if Mulder hadn't known where to go, there was no mistaking the
place, with all the activity there in the wee hours of the morning. 
Several flashlights illuminated a snowy field, like out of season
fireflies in the wintry night.  A phalanx of FBI agents, in their
regulation jackets, searched the field in an organized chaos.

Mulder and Scully approached the clearing where Agents Whitney and
Drummy were in the middle of a heated discussion.  "Another ten
minutes," she was saying to him, and Agent Drummy turned away, his
face tight with disapproval.

"Did you find her?"  Scully asked as they approached.  

Agent Whitney started to greet Scully, but her eyes were immediately
drawn to the tall man behind her.  She stared a little longer than
was polite, and then seemed to realize what she was doing.  "What did
you do?" she asked.

Mulder looked puzzled.  Agent Whitney reached out to his face, where
a bit of tissue was stick to a small nick on his cheek.  He batted
her hand away, and Scully repeated her question:  "Did you find her?"

"No," Agent Whitney said.  "Father Joe has led us back to the first
place we searched.  I'm afraid it's looking like a false alarm.  I'm
sorry I dragged you both out here."  She signaled her partner and
after a brief discussion, Agent Drummy whistled shrilly, calling the
agents in.

Mulder stalked past Whitney, toward Father Joe.  Whitney's eyes
followed him.  What was he up to?

Scully looked at the female agent, sizing her up yet again.  This
had better not be just an excuse to bring Mulder back into it, she
thought darkly.  I'll have a thing or two to say about that.  She
followed Mulder.  

"She's out there," Father Joe was saying.  "I *feel* her."

"What do you see?"  Mulder asked him. 

"I see -- a face.  I see eyes.  Staring out."

"Is it Monica Bannan's face?"  

"Can't tell," Father Joe said between puffs of cigarette.  "It's
like I'm seeing it through dirty glass."

Mulder turned to Scully.  "Scully, what do you suppose he means,
'through dirty glass'?"

"Mulder," Scully said warningly.

Mulder turned to face her.  "What?"

"Stop," she said.

He considered her for a moment, then said, "Okay, sure, feel free to
give up, just like everyone else."

"This is not my job any more, Mulder," Scully said.

"So you keep reminding me," Mulder said.  "What does that make you,
my booking agent?"

That one struck home, he could tell.  He was immediately sorry he'd
said it.

"You're right, this is all my fault," Scully replied. 

"What?" asked Mulder.  "What do you mean, your fault?"  

"I should never have talked you into this," she explained.

Mulder shook his head.  "It was the right thing to do, Scully."  He
began to follow Father Joe.

"Mulder, please stop.  This isn't getting you -- or Agent Bannan --
anywhere.  Father Joe is leading you down the path, same as he's
leading everyone else."

"Except that I do expect him to lead me to an answer.  I get that
you disapprove of the man, that you think he's a fraud.  But I don't,
Scully.  I think there's a connection here, something outside of the
crime."

"I know you want to believe, Mulder.  But I think this has become
about more than a missing FBI agent for you.  I think it's about
finding your sister."

That stopped him in his tracks.  And he'd been worried about hurting
Scully's feelings.  "My sister is dead," he said very deliberately.

"Yes, she is.  But that hasn't stopped you from looking for her,"
Scully said.  "Mulder, I've been down this road with you too many
times to stand by and say nothing.  Every case, you're there again. 
Believing you can save her.  But you can't, Mulder.  Not now, and not
ever."

Mulder stared at her.  Maybe he wasn't used to this anymore, but the
words stung.  Scully stared up at him earnestly, her eyes pleading
for him to understand what she was saying.

He turned and walked away from her before he said something truly
unforgivable.

"Mulder, where are you going?"

"I'm trying to ignore you," his voice floated back.

She could, in fact, leave right now if she wanted to.  It was her
car, and she had the keys.  But that was not a line that she could
cross.  Not now, and certainly not in front of all these people. 
What passed between them was meant to be private, and it would stay
that way.  She hadn't said it to hurt Mulder, though his words to her
had hurt.  That was the thing with knowing someone so intimately, she
reflected.  You knew everything about them -- including what would
hurt them the most.

She followed in Mulder's footsteps as he followed Father Joe.

Dakota Whitney watched Mulder and Scully from a distance.  Her mind
was running a hundred miles a minute, and not all of it was on the
case.

What was it about those two?  Yes, they'd been partners for a number
of years, and on the one hand she'd have sworn that they were a
couple in private life as well.  The phone call tonight seemed to
confirm that, and the looks Dr. Scully threw her would have melted
snow at ten paces.

And yet the way these two treated each other...it didn't make sense.
Maybe what she was seeing was the remains of a personal relationship.
She, Dakota Whitney, had forced a reluctant reunion between the two
of them, and they were not going to show any real rift in public.

She'd bet that in private they'd gone their separate ways, no matter
what had been between them at one time.  She could see the signs. 
The kind of life Fox Mulder had been forced to live the past six
years -- obviously Dr. Scully was ambitious and had gotten restless
and gone off on her own.  How they both ended up in the same vicinity
was something she'd have to work out later.

Or maybe she'd ask Fox Mulder.  When this case was over, she'd take
some time to get to know him better.

Past the edge of the snowy field, the ex-priest stopped at what
looked like the base of a waterfall, frozen solid.

"It's here!"  He cried, dropping to his knees and starting to dig
with his hands.  Mulder turned and gave out an even more piercing
whistle than Agent Drummy had, minutes ago.

"I need those men back!  Bring shovels!"  Mulder shouted, and Agent
Whitney rallied her reluctant troops to trudge across the snow.

Mulder had dropped to his knees near Father Joe and helped him to
clear the accumulated snow from the frozen ground. 

"Feel free to join in," Mulder suggested to the agents standing with
their shovels at the ready.  Agent Drummy handed him one.  He
shrugged and kept scraping away at the snow.  After a minute or so, a
dull metallic clang indicated that they'd gotten down to ice.

Mulder kept scraping away at the snow, throwing shovels of it behind
him.

"It's solid ice," Drummy observed.

"Hand me your flashlight," Mulder said in reply.  He shone it along
the surface, and in the added light, something encased in the ice
caught the beam.

"Not ice," Mulder confirmed. "'Dirty glass.'"  He angled the
flashlight so that all could see what he saw:  a female severed head,
staring out at the group.

Tossing Agent Drummy his flashlight, Mulder addressed Agent Whitney.
"You're gonna need resources."

She nodded and got on her phone, ordering the heavy equipment they'd
need.

Shoulders slumped, Mulder walked right past Scully, following the
agents who were hurrying back to their vehicles.  She turned to
follow him and realized that Father Joe had been standing right
behind her.

Startled, she just looked at him.  His gaze was intense, his eyes
narrowed behind his glasses.

Staring directly into her eyes, he said simply, "Don't give up."

She waited a moment, but he said nothing else.  For less than a
second, she had a fleeting glimpse of something else besides the
monster that she saw whenever she looked at him.  She stared at him,
and he continued to stare back.  Then she turned away, following
Mulder to the car.

x-x-x

Unknown location

The pain was nearly unbearable.  And yet he would endure it.  For
Janke.

For Janke.  Janke who had endured so many things in his life;
couldn't *he* hold on just a while longer?  

He floated in and out of consciousness, not always aware of where he
was or what was happening.  He remembered a few things.  He'd gone on
a collecting job with Janke, and it had not gone well.  He generally
had left that side of the business to Janke.  Although he'd
reluctantly agreed to Janke's pleadings, he hadn't really wanted to
be a part of this.

But it was wonderful, the persistence of life.  When given a chance
to prolong it, he'd grasped at it, just as anyone would have.  He
could tell himself it was for Janke, but it wasn't.  Not entirely. 
He wanted to breathe freely again.  To stand, reveling in a strong,
healthy body: it was his dream, too, not just Janke's.

Yet he could sense that he was in trouble.  He felt things that
didn't seem to be a part of him.  He thought things that didn't seem
to be his thoughts.  The doctor said they'd have to operate again. 
Janke told him not to give up.  So he lay in his semi-dreaming state,
waiting.

-x- 

Chapter Nine - Allies

Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital
8:15 a.m.

"We can resolve then, in good conscience and without objection, to
relocate this patient to a facility better suited for and humane to
his condition?"  Father Ybarra was saying as Scully entered the daily
patient status meeting.

She had rushed to get here on time, but the continuing snowy weather
and the long drive from the crime scene meant she'd barely had time
to change her clothes.  Mulder had elected to stay and watch the
excavation at the ice field.

But she couldn't think about that right now.  "I'm sorry?"  She
asked, with the sinking feeling that she knew whose patient Father
Ybarra was referring to.

Father Ybarra said smoothly, "As we discussed, Dr. Scully, I was
informing the staff and doctors of the hospital's decision on
Christian Fearon."

"Decision?"

"To remove him to a hospice that can better manage his palliative
care," Father Ybarra said.

"That was a discussion, not a decision," Scully corrected him.

"Well," Father Ybarra said with a great show of patience, "it has
been discussed here at length, and with no objection from your
colleagues."  He looked around the room, and indeed no one said a
word.  In fact, few even looked up to meet either Father Ybarra's or
Scully's eyes.

"*I* have an objection," she insisted.

In the same patient tone, Father Ybarra said, "What you have, Dr.
Scully, is a patient with an untreatable condition.  You requested,
and received, an outside opinion, which is that there is no course of
treatment.  Now that's all very sad, and very unfortunate -- no one
disagrees with that --"

"But he's my patient," she said a little desperately.

"Yes, he is, but unless you've come here today with a cure for
Sandhoff disease, we all respectfully request that you let the boy go
in peace."

She wasn't sure what she'd expected from the other doctors in the
room, but no one spoke up.  The silence pressed on her; she couldn't
think.  Why this morning, of all mornings?  She felt blindsided by
Father Ybarra.  She hadn't been prepared for this conversation to
take place yet.

Father Ybarra took her silence for acquiescence and said, "Thank
you.  Now, let's get this meeting wrapped up so we can get on with
today's good work.  We have one more case to discuss --"

The eyes of her colleagues swiveled to Father Ybarra.

Father Ybarra's words became a drone in the background as Scully
gathered her wits.  She couldn't allow this.  She couldn't give up.

*Don't give up*  

She turned back to the room.

"There is a treatment," she said, interrupting Father Ybarra.  Now
all eyes were upon her.

"The matter is closed, Dr. Scully," Father Ybarra said, his tone
gentle but his eyes cold.

"No it's not," she said.  "The boy can be treated with intercostal
stem cell therapy."

There was a gasp in the room, though some doctors looked in-
terested.  

Only one doctor spoke up, however, one of her lunchroom
acquaintances.  "You'd put that boy through hell for an uncertain
treatment?"

"Would you do it if it was your son?"  Scully countered.

Before the other woman could reply, Father Ybarra said, "It's not
her son, nor is he yours, Dr. Scully.  The decision has been made to
send the patient to hospice."

"I don't believe," Scully said in a tone she'd perfected at
countless OPR hearings, "that it's a decision for hospital
administration.  It's his doctor's decision.  If you want to
challenge that, I suggest you take the matter to a higher authority."

"I *have* taken it up with the *highest* authority, Dr. Scully,"
replied Father Ybarra, casting his eyes up to the crucifix on the
wall.  "As should you."

She did not answer, leaving the room in stunned silence behind her. 
Once in the hallway, she faltered a bit in her iron control, her
shoulders slumping for a second as she gathered her forces again.

*What have I gotten myself into?* she thought.  She knew that Father
Ybarra would do everything he could to prevent this procedure, and if
he did take it up with the governing board, she wouldn't stand a
chance.  She went to her office and gathered all the research she'd
done on the treatment, preparing to do battle.  She would not give up
on this boy, even if everyone else had.  

There was a tap on her door.  It opened slightly, and Dr. Michael
Fitzpatrick peered around it.  "Am I disturbing you?"

Scully gestured for him to take a seat.  Dr. Fitzpatrick had
befriended Scully when she first started at Our Lady, and though he
was probably ten years younger, there had been plenty of match-makers
who thought that the petite red-haired doctor looked good with the
tall, blonde, and handsome doctor. 

There were several reasons why it would never happen, though neither
bothered to correct anyone's misapprehension on that score.  They
both had a healthy respect for privacy and personal space, and left
it at that.

Dr. Mike was generally well-liked, open and friendly where Scully
was reserved.  They had been allies a few times on difficult cases,
and she had in fact been a little surprised that he'd said nothing in
the conference room.

"Are you trying to steal my thunder?" he asked.  "Usually I'm the
one to question Father Y's authority.  You're always such a good
girl."

Scully smiled wanly.  "Maybe I just finally found a case -- um,
cause, I wanted to fight for."

"He'll stop you if he can, you know," Dr. Mike said.

"I know," she said.  "I've got a fight on my hands."

"There might be another way," he said.  "What are you prepared 
to do?"

"Whatever I have to do," Scully said.  "I've got to convince
Christian's parents that this is the right course."  She looked down
at the folders where she'd put all of her research and notes.  *And
be sure myself,* she thought. 

"How soon can you be ready to operate?"  Dr. Mike asked.

"It needs to be pretty soon, or Father Ybarra will find a way to
send Christian away," she said.

"Are you prepared to operate this afternoon?" he asked.

"Me?" Scully said.

"Who else will do it?  I think the sooner the better," her colleague
said.  "I've done some work with this type of treatment myself.  I'd
be happy to scrub in and assist."

Scully stared at him.  "But --"

"You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"No.  But I can't --"

"Can't what?  Perform the surgery?  You're not an amateur, and you
won't be on your own.  Or are you reluctant to accept help when it's
offered?  You don't have to go this alone, Dana.  You have more
allies than you realize, but you have to have faith."

*Don't give up*

She looked at the man standing before her.  That's what it came down
to, she thought.  Trust not just in myself, but in another.  Trust
and belief.

Maybe, just maybe, this was one of those signs along the way.

"Yes, I can," she answered.

"Good," he said decisively.  "Can you get the parents' consent?  You
do that, and I'll take care of the logistics."

"But how can I get an operating room at such short notice?  And what
about --"

"Sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission," he said.
"Remember who you're talking to."

It was true that Michael Fitzpatrick somehow was able to charm
anyone out of anything.  Fortunately, he used his powers for good,
not evil.  Scully smiled for the first time in what seemed like days.

"Thank you," she said.

x-x-x

New rumors had begun to circulate at the FBI -- no one knew from
where.   Former Agent Mulder's reputation was undergoing a
transformation.  Though the most persistent rumor had been that he'd
left the FBI in disgrace, it was now whispered that he had gone
underground -- so deep no one could find him, and it had been doubted
for a while that he would ever come back.  Suddenly there were so
many stories it was hard to tell what to believe:  His firing had
been part of a disinformation campaign.  He had infiltrated a
terrorist cell.  He had been on a joint task force with the CIA.   A
couple of wags suggested he'd been abducted by aliens, not once but
twice -- but these were soon dismissed as old jokes.

Intertwined with the rumors about Fox Mulder were those about Dana
Scully -- she had a child, she didn't have a child, she'd pretended
to have a child -- that she was part of the disinformation campaign
against Fox Mulder, that she was his champion.  That he had gone so
deep undercover, she was the only one who could find him and bring
him back.

This last rumor seemed to be validated when it was reported that Fox
Mulder had been seen stalking the upper corridors of the Hoover
Building, with Dana Scully by his side.  He looked like he'd barely
come back from his deep undercover, still in his guise as a
survivalist, or a member of a terrorist cell, someone who'd had to
forget everything about his real life and live a lie. 

In his office, Kersh heard the rumors and grinned to himself,
patting the folder that contained his retirement papers.

One floor down, Skinner listened to, and denied some of the more
outrageous rumors with an abruptness that made others think that
there must be something to them after all.

Skinner rarely allowed himself to smile, but sometimes, as he drove
home, he felt a grim satisfaction that his two best -- albeit most
high-maintenance -- former agents were well on the way to coming in
from the cold.

x-x-x

Quantico, Virginia
FBI Forensics Lab

The boulder of ice stood in the middle of the lab, slowly melting
away, revealing its horrifying contents.  Forensics techs swarmed
around it, using blow dryers and small drills and saws to hasten the
process, carefully extracting more and more grisly specimens from its
grip.

Mulder paced around the perimeter, unable to settle.  Scully should
be here, he thought.  He understood that she couldn't just walk away
from her work, but he thought she would at least try to stay in touch
with him.  She had promised to stay involved, after all.

He tried calling her again, still getting her voice mail. 
Frustrated, he hung up without leaving a message.

"We've gotten some preliminary lab tests back," Dakota Whitney said
at his shoulder.  She handed him a folder.  "I'll save you having to
interpret the data.  Of the body parts extracted so far, most appear
to be from distinctly different bodies.  There are obvious visible
differences, apart from any chemical tests."

"Anything to connect them with the arm?"  Mulder asked.

"Not so far.  We expect some preliminary lab tests within the hour. 
Why don't you take a break, go get a cup of coffee or something?  You
look beat."

He made a non-committal noise and gestured to the conference room
next door.  "What's happening with Father Joe?"

"Nothing right now," she said.  "He insists he doesn't know what the
connection is."

"And your guys?  Have they found anything else?"

Dakota sighed.  "No, nothing.  But they're still looking."

Mulder rubbed his eyes.  He'd not gotten any real sleep for more
than forty-eight hours and it was beginning to tell on him.  *I'm
getting too old for this shit*, he thought.

"Maybe I will go get that coffee," he said, and walked out of the
lab.  

As he headed for the cafe, a familiar voice called him from the end
of the hall.  "Mulder!"

John Doggett was advancing on him, holding out his hand.  Right
behind him was Monica Reyes.

"I don't believe it!"  Doggett pumped his hand, grinning like a jack
o'lantern.  "You son of a --"

Monica caught up and swooped down on Mulder, giving him a hug and
kissing his cheek.  "It's so good to see you!  Where's Dana?  Is she
here too?"

"Scully's at a hospital in Richmond," Mulder said.

Monica was instantly concerned.  "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she works there.  She's a doctor."

"Wow," Monica said.  "Good for her."

"I never thought I'd see you in these halls again," John Doggett was
saying.  "Doesn't that just beat everything."

"Yeah.  I never expected to see you guys again, either.  I only
heard recently that you guys were -- I thought -- New Mexico...it was
a big explosion," Mulder stammered, uncharacteristically at a loss
for words.

"Yeah," Doggett agreed.  "It was the damnedest thing.  Once they'd
destroyed the pueblo, they didn't even try for us.  They flew off in
another direction.  I though maybe they were after you."

Mulder shook his head.  "No, we didn't see them again."

"Weird."  Monica said.  "I'm surprised you didn't know, though. 
Didn't Skinner tell you?"

"We haven't been in touch, though I have an idea he's why I'm here,"
Mulder said.  "I got called in for this case --"

"Yeah, I know, Monica Bannan.  Hell of a thing," Doggett shook his
head.  "I'm surprised not to see Scully here with you, though."

"I take it you're not on the X Files anymore?"  Mulder asked, to
change the subject.

"Long story.  We've been on a long-term field assignment.  We've
just been called back to DC, something about a new assignment for us
both."

"Huh." said Mulder, his mind was not entirely on the subject at
hand.  

"What about you?" Monica asked.  "Are you really coming back to the
FBI?"

"The jury's still out on that," Mulder said, deadpan.  "There's a
little too much history there."

"I dunno, Mulder," Doggett said.  "We've only been here a day, and
already we're hearing about the return of the prodigal.  You do good
here, you can write your own ticket."

"Seriously, you should talk to Skinner," Monica chimed in.  

"Yeah, well, I've got a lot of catching up to do," Mulder said, "and
a lot of questions to ask."

"Once you get this case wrapped up, we'll talk," Monica said, "and
Dana, too.  Please tell her I said hello."

"Me too," Doggett said, and with one more shake of Mulder's hand and
another hug, the two agents strode away.

Mulder couldn't help but grin to himself and shake his head. 
Wait'll I tell Scully, he thought.

"Fox," he heard from behind him.  He turned, wondering who the next
mystery guest was going to be.  But it was Dakota Whitney, holding a
file folder in her hand.  "We've got some more results."

What he read pushed everything else out of his mind.

-x-

Chapter Ten - Cracks in the Ice 

The phone vibrated insistently just out of her line of sight. 
Scully continued to ignore it as she gathered her research and made
her final notes.  She even wouldn't look at it to see who it was. 
Whether it was Mulder, or Father Ybarra, she couldn't break her
concentration.  She'd have this one chance to get everything right,
and she couldn't risk the life of this little boy, no matter what.
  
"Come on, come on, answer," Mulder muttered under his breath for the
hundredth time.  Why wasn't she picking up?  He'd only requested that
she call him back before, but this time he really needed to tell her
what he'd learned.

Mulder took a deep breath as the call rolled over into voice mail
again.  "Scully, it's me.  I keep leaving you messages, but you're
apparently not picking them up.  Here's what I've been trying to call
you about.  Of the thirteen body parts pulled out of the ice so far,
they're all from different people, men and women.  All cut cleanly,
just as the arm was.  And none of them are Monica Bannan's.  But
here's the thing, what I need you to know, Scully.  In each body part
that's been tested, they've found traces of the same animal
tranquilizer -- acepromazine -- that you identified before.  I don't
know what the hell it means.  I'm hoping you can make some sense of
it."

He hung up without saying goodbye, as always, just as Dakota Whitney
walked up to him.  "Anything new?" she asked.

Mulder shook his head.  "I can't reach her, but she'll get back to
us.  This is a big break.  I'm feeling it."

Dakota shook her head.  "You're feeling it, Father Joe's feeling it,
but all I'm feeling is my head spinning."

"No, this is a big break," Mulder repeated.  "You're going to solve
over a dozen murders here.  This is a serial case you're about to
break wide open.  You should be feeling good right now."

"But it's not bringing us any closer to finding Monica Bannan," she
said.

"We're going to find her," he insisted.  "I know it."

"Well, she might have to wait in line," Dakota said.  "I came to get
you to hear Father Joe's latest vision."

They entered the conference room next door where Father Joe sat with
a half dozen agents.  Everyone but Father Joe turned to them as they
entered; Father Joe remained seated with his head slightly bowed, his
eyes squeezed shut.

"Father Joe, can you please repeat what you just told us to Mr.
Mulder?"  Agent Whitney asked.

"I see another woman's face," Father Joe said, as Mulder seated
himself beside him.  "It's not your agent's face, though."

"Another woman?"  Mulder asked.  "Is she with Monica Bannan?"

"Can't tell," the ex-priest said.  "She's being held...in a box, I
think.  Yes."

"Where is she being held?"  Mulder asked.

"I can't tell," Father Joe said again.

"Did the same men take her as took Monica Bannan?"

"I *think* so...yes, the same men."

Mulder looked around the room at the others.  They'd already heard
most of this.  Now they waited to hear Mulder's verdict on Father
Joe's veracity.

"Can you see them?  Or are you just saying what you think these
people want to hear?"  Mulder asked him.

"No."

"No, you can't see them, or no, they aren't the same men?"  Mulder
persisted.

Father Joe opened his eyes at last.  "They are the same men.  I'm
sure of it."

Without taking his eyes off Father Joe, Mulder said, "I'm going to
need a car."

Predictably, Agent Drummy chimed in.  "To go where?"

"Don't know yet," Mulder said.

"I don't believe this," Agent Drummy muttered.

Now Mulder looked up.  "That's been your problem from the start,
hasn't it?"

"I can get you a car," Dakota Whitney said quickly.  She wasn't sure
why her partner had taken against Fox Mulder so strongly, but she
didn't want it to escalate.

"And I'll need a list of any missing persons in the greater area in
the past twenty-four to seventy-two hours," Mulder said.

x-x-x

The light tap on her office door startled Scully, even though she
was expecting it.

"Let's get this show on the road," Michael Fitzpatrick said.  "All
the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed.  The Fearons con-
sented?"

"Yes," Scully said shortly.  She wasn't having second thoughts,
exactly.  This would be the first time she'd performed this
particular procedure, but she'd operated under much worse
circumstances, and at least here she had someone skilled to assist. 
"Do I want to know how you managed this?"

"Probably not," he said.  "I called in a few favors, and the Chief
Surgeon is not a bad guy, really.  You'll have some of the best staff
in the OR."

"I don't want anyone to jeopardize their jobs for this," she said,
worried. 

"They won't," Michael said with assurance.  Scully wished she had
that kind of confidence.  She wasn't afraid of Father Ybarra or what
the board might do to her; she just didn't want to take anyone down
with her.  For now, her sole concern had to be for Christian and what
was best for him.

She hoped that she was right, and that this was the best thing for
him.  She had to believe.  She took a deep breath and entered the 
OR. 

Christian lay on the gurney, already prepped for surgery, but still
awake.  Scully smiled at him.  "You have a lot of very good people
looking after you today, Christian," she said.  "Don't be scared."

"Okay, Doctor Scully," he said with a tiny smile.  "Don't you be
scared either."

She smiled back at him, and went into the other room to scrub up.

x-x-x

Somerset County, Virginia

The Somerset County Sheriff's Department was already on the scene
when Agents Whitney and Drummy drove up with Mulder.  They'd gotten a
call from another motorist who'd passed that morning and had seen the
car, already half-buried in accumulated snow.  The agents had already
been on their way to investigate another report when Mulder insisted
that they check this one out first.

The car was still mostly buried.  The locals had dug out around the
driver's side of the car and partly uncovered the back, revealing the
license plate that had enabled them to make the ID of the car's 
owner.

Agent Whitney turned to Mulder and said, "Let *us* talk to the
deputy first."  She smiled a little self-deprecatingly.  "These guys
don't always take to civilians asking questions."

Mulder rolled his eyes but complied, walking a few paces behind the
agents.  Agent Drummy showed his ID and started to look at the
interior of the car with one deputy while Agent Whitney conferred
with another.

"Cheryl Cunningham," she told Mulder as he approached.  "She didn't
check in with work last night.  Calls to her home went unanswered."

"Airbag was deployed, but there's no blood on it," Drummy chimed in.
"This was a survivable accident.  She could have gotten out, walked
away, got tired and fell asleep in the snow.  Happens all the time."

"Pretty hard right turn for such a straight stretch of road, don't
you think?" was Mulder's reply, as he stepped forward and examined
the area himself.  "But why settle for *my* opinion?" he added, as
Father Joe came forward.  The ex-priest looked miserably cold as he
plodded along the path cleared by the cops.

Mulder stepped aside and gestured for Father Joe to sit in the
driver's seat.  "Take her for a spin," he said.

Father Joe sat, touching the steering wheel and peering through the
partly-cleared windshield.  He sat for a long time.

Everyone waited, shifting from foot to foot in the cold, as Father
Joe stared straight ahead, then at his lap.

Finally, he said, "I'm sorry.  I'm not getting anything."

"What a surprise," Agent Drummy said.  "*What* a surprise."

Father Joe looked at him a little sheepishly and trudged back toward
the waiting SUVs.

"I think we're about done with Father Joe," Agent Whitney said to
Agent Drummy.  She walked around to the back of the car, resting her
hand on the trunk.

Mulder sat in the car for a moment, recreating what might have
happened in his mind.  There was no purse on the passenger seat or on
the floorboard of the car; could she have done what Mosley Drummy
suggested and struck out on foot?  It seemed too simple an
explanation.

"Has anyone looked in the trunk?" he asked.  He pulled the trunk
release lever.

The first thing Dakota pulled out was a bright orange automobile
emergency kit.  "Well, that didn't do her much good," she commented.

Mulder zeroed in on a gym bag, unzipping it and examining the
contents.  "Take a look at this," he said, pulling out a stiff wad of
fabric.

"It's a swimsuit," Whitney said, "frozen stiff."

"Smells like chlorine," Mulder said.  Then, realizing what that
meant, he turned to the closest deputy.  "Where's the nearest public
swimming pool?"

He'd found the connection that Father Joe couldn't, Whitney
reflected.  Mulder might not be psychic, but he was a damned good
investigator.

x-x-x

Somerset Natatorium

The old facility was shaped like a giant Quonset hut.  The curved
surface helped keep snow from piling up on the roof, and no doubt in
sunnier weather, allowed some outside light through the heavy
translucent fiberglass that made up some of the panels.  

The elderly man at the front desk seemed unsurprised at the sudden
crowd of people at his check in counter.  "Do y'all want lockers?" he
asked.

Dakota Whitney flashed her badge, as did Mosley Drummy.  Mulder
started to reach for his, stopping as he realized what he was doing. 
"We're with the FBI.  We'd like to show you a picture, if you don't
mind," said Dakota.

"Why would I mind?" the old man said.

Dakota pulled out Monica Bannan's photograph.  "Do you recognize
this woman?"

The man looked at the picture for a few seconds, then said, "These
young people all look the same to me."

Exhibiting amazing patience as her companions shifted restlessly
behind her, Dakota persisted.  "Can you tell us if you keep a sign-in
sheet for the pool?"

"Sure do," the man said.  "Every day."

"Do you suppose we could see it?"  Dakota prompted. 

"Don't see why not," he said, and handed over the clip board
containing a few sheets of paper.

Dakota flipped past the first page to a blank one below.  "How about
yesterday's?"

"I threw yesterday's away," he said.  "Why would I want to keep it?"

Mulder rolled his eyes and looked around the lobby.  Spying the
entrance to the women's dressing room, he headed toward it.

This caught the notice of the desk attendant.  "Where's he going? 
Doesn't he know that's the ladies' side?"

Before anyone could follow him, Mulder came back out.  "Do you
happen to have a set of bolt cutters?" he asked their unflappable
host.

"You found something," Dakota Whitney said.

"I found something," Mulder confirmed, looking at Agent Drummy, who
turned without a word and went out to get what was needed out of the
SUV.

"So none of you want to swim?" the elderly gent shook his head. 
"Young people these days.  So flighty."

-x-

Continued in Part Four -

Reimagined: IWTB
By ML

-x-

Chapter Eleven - Good Luck

Dana Scully was beyond tired.  She sat in the empty surgeon's locker
room, still in her scrubs, writing up her surgical notes.  She had no
idea what time it was, but her exhaustion told her it had been a long
day, and it wasn't over yet.

She didn't hear the outer door open, and she started a little when a
familiar voice said, "And people say *I* went underground..."

She looked up to see Mulder's half-smile.  He looked pretty tired,
too, but he seemed elated.  

"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, glancing down at her notes.  "I'm
trying to keep my focus here."

He sat down beside her.  "It's the boy, isn't it?"  He'd almost
forgotten Scully's patient in the events of the day, and he felt a
twinge of guilt for it.  

She nodded, not meeting his eyes.

"I thought there was nothing to be done for him," he prodded gently.

"I'm taking a big chance on something," she said.  "A radical new
procedure."

"The one you said last night wasn't an option?"

She nodded, still looking down at her notes.

"What made you change your mind?"

Scully rose and turned away, unwilling to answer his direct question.

Mulder waited for her reply, chewing his lip thoughtfully.  He had a
sense that there was something she wasn't telling him, wasn't ready
to tell him.  This was familiar, but it had been a long time since
he'd felt her withholding something from him.  He changed tack.

"When will you know if it's a success?"

"This is the first of a series of procedures," Scully said, "and we
won't really know the outcome until they're done."  She looked at him
as he nodded.  "But that's not what you came to talk to me about, is
it?"

Mulder knew she was changing the subject deliberately, but he was
willing to go along for now.  This was too urgent not to talk about,
and there was nothing he could do to help her with her patient.  But
she might be able to help him.

"Another young woman has gone missing," he said, "but this time we
have something to go on.  She and Monica Bannan swam at the same
pool.  And get this: they have the same blood type, and it's a rare
type: AB negative."

"Organ donors," Scully breathed.  It seemed so obvious to her.  "A
donor's and a recipient's type has to match."  

Mulder nodded excitedly, all thoughts of anything but the case now
out of his mind.  "Black market -- someone filling orders?"

"That's how they were targeted -- they must be on a donor registry,
and someone else using that pool had access to that knowledge."

"That's your world, Scully.  Your knowledge of that world will save
us time, and time's our enemy."

"You can start with transporters, get the District Attorney's
help..." Scully said.

Mulder shook his head.  "I need you on this, Scully.  You asked me
to get involved, now I'm asking you to stay involved."

She shook her head, and some of Mulder's enthusiasm dimmed.  "You
don't need me, Mulder.  They don't even really need you any longer. 
You broke the case, now let them handle it.  You've done everything
you can do."

"But we're so close now," Mulder insisted.

"And I'm asking you to let it go," she said gently.

He couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.  Scully had sometimes
been resistant to his enthusiasm for a case in the past, but she'd
never asked him to just drop one.  Why now?

"It's not that simple," he began.

"No, it's not," she agreed.  "It's complicated."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mulder demanded.

She sighed.  "It's something I knew might happen, but I've been
afraid to face it.  Something that I haven't had to face before now,
before this case."

"Just say it, Scully."  He was trying to be patient, but she was
killing him.

She wasn't sure how to say what she was feeling.  There were so many
thoughts, so many fears.  How could she make him understand?  "I'm a
doctor now, Mulder.  Psychics, severed heads, abducted women: they
aren't my life any more."

"I know that," Mulder started to say, but Scully gave him a look,
and he held his peace.  For now.

"When I was with the FBI, the FBI was my focus.  I used my medical
training, yes, but not in the way I'd originally intended.  I don't
regret that time, but things are different now.  My work is here 
now."

"I'm not asking you to give it up, Scully," Mulder said.

"You're not hearing what I'm saying, Mulder.  I can't do it any
more.  I can't look into the darkness with you.  I can't stand what
it does to you...or me."

"But I'm okay with it, Scully," Mulder said, a little bewildered. 
"I'm fine with it, really."

"That's what scares me," she whispered.

"Where else would you have me look?" he asked, frustrated.

"I'm asking you to look inside yourself, Mulder."

"Why?  I'm not the one who's changed," he insisted.  This was
beginning to sound like the kind of argument his parents had, and
that scared *him*.  He struggled to keep his anger in check.

Scully still spoke in gentle, measured tones.  "We're not FBI
anymore, Mulder.  We are two people who have made a home together. 
And I don't want that darkness in my home."

"But it's what I do," Mulder said.  "It's what I did before I ever
met you.  It's all I know."

"Then write it down.  Put it in a book.  You can tell the world
now," she said.  "You've paid your debt, whatever you owed, over and
over."

"Are you asking me to quit?" he asked incredulously.

"No, I could never ask you to do that," she said sadly.  She made
herself look at him.  "But what I can tell you is that I won't be
coming home.  I have my own battles to fight right now."

"Scully --"

"Please don't argue with me," she pleaded.

"Please don't do this," he replied.  "Not now."

"I don't know what else to do," she said.

Mulder reeled with those simple words, and the fight was knocked
right out of him.  Scully could be as immovable as a mountain once
she'd made up her mind, and all the pushing in the world would get
him nowhere.

Except maybe an even more final declaration.

Scully was silent as she watched Mulder process what she said.  She
hadn't meant it as a threat, but she knew that nothing short of this
would keep him from trying to lure her in again.  He couldn't help
himself.  He would use all of his considerable persuasive powers on
her, and she knew it would be impossible to resist him.  Unless she
just stayed away.  She couldn't afford to lose her focus on her
patient.

Mulder rubbed his eyes, finding himself dangerously close to crying.
His throat almost closing, he said, "Well.  Good luck, then."

He got up, and without looking at her again, left the room.

"You too," Scully whispered, the sighing of the shutting door nearly
drowning her words out.

x-x-x

Manners General Hospital
Fairfax, Virginia

The two surgeons worked over the open abdominal cavity, snipping and
stitching with efficiency but without the sort of delicate care for
the patient usually seen in an operating room.  No anesthesiologist
oversaw the procedure, and only two nurses.

The patient before them was past saving; they were removing the
organs specified for donation.  They needed to work quickly; the
transplant agency's courier waited outside the operating room to be
summoned for his role in the process.  It was a miraculous thing, to
be able to prolong the life of someone by gifting them with an organ
that was no longer of use to its original owner.  

The liver was removed and prepared for transport.  The courier
entered, wearing a precautionary mask, gown and gloves to oversee the
placement of the organ in his insulated carrier.

Janke Dacyshyn's mind was not entirely on his work, however.  His
lover lay on a table not unlike this one, waiting for his own
miracle.  Unfortunately, the kind of miracle he needed called for
even more extraordinary measures than an organ transplant.

The most recent procedure hadn't been an unqualified success, and
they didn't have much time.  He couldn't be as careful or as choosy
as he'd been in the past and that worried him.  Josef needed him, and
he was failing.

He discarded gown and mask at the operating room door, hurrying to
the elevator.  He'd noted the uniformed police officer with a couple
of plain-clothed law enforcement types at the other end of the
corridor before he'd entered the OR; he always paid attention to his
surroundings while doing his best to be anonymous.  

He debated taking the stairs; the elevators in this hospital were
notoriously slow.  But before he could make that decision, someone
called to him.

"Excuse me," said one of the suited men, showing a badge.  "Can we
have a moment of your time?"  The uniformed cop was right at his
shoulder.

He had never gotten over his fear of the police.  It was a rational
fear where he came from, as they were often corrupt and were
especially brutal toward boys and men like him.

He had reason to be afraid of these men too, but not the same
reasons as he had in his home country.  He did his best to hide his
fear, trying to sound merely impatient, but coming off as angry,
which put the men on alert.

"I am transplanting vital organ," Janke said.  "I have little time."
As always when he was under stress or feeling emotional, his speech
patterns became more heavily accented.

"I understand," he said.  I'm Richard Koell, with the District
Attorney's Office in Richmond.  May I see your paperwork and li-
cense?"

Reluctantly, Janke put down the ice chest and reached for his
wallet.  "I have green card," he said.

Koell nodded.  What are you transporting and where?"

"Liver for transplantation.  I am due at Bowman Clinic.  There is
patient waiting."

"I understand," Koell said.  Paperwork and license, please?"

Janke handed over the clipboard he carried and pulled his license
out of his wallet.

Koell examined the papers and asked, "Have you ever procured or
transported an organ outside or normal or lawful channels?"

"No!" Janke said emphatically.

"Ever been asked to?"

"No!" he said again.

Koell handed back the clipboard and license.  "You're an employee of
this company.  How would your employer answer these questions?"

"My employer, he is sick.  He has cancer."  He said the last word
with a snarl, showing uneven and yellowed teeth.

"That's not what I asked you, Mr...Dacyshyn?"

Janke didn't bother to correct his pronunciation.  "Am I under
suspicion?  It is important I get this organ to hospital.  I am doing
good work."

"Have a seat, Mr. Dacyshyn.  We'll let you go as soon as possible." 
Koell got out his cell phone and moved a few feet away to talk
privately, but the uniformed officer kept his eye on Janke.

Janke had no choice but to sit and wait.   

x-x-x

Scully walked down the steps to the lobby level, dressed in street
clothes.  She'd finished her notes and managed to avoid Father
Ybarra.  Normally she wouldn't avoid such a confrontation, but she'd
had her quota for that day.

She wanted to go home, but she'd already made her choice, and the
reasons for making it still remained.  And, even if she went home,
the chance that Mulder would be there was slim.  He was determined to
see this case through, whatever the cost.  She just hadn't thought
that she'd be part of that cost.  She stood at the bottom of the
steps, irresolute.

Dr. Mike passed by.  "Dana, is everything okay?  Is Christian okay? 
You look like you lost your best friend."

How apt, she thought.  It's exactly how I feel.

"No, he's fine.  I checked on him and he's back in his room,
sleeping.  Thank you again for your help today."

"No trouble," he said with a smile.  "Seriously, though, has Father
Y been at you already?  I've heard he's not best pleased about this."

"I can imagine," she said dryly, but frankly Father Ybarra was the
least of her worries now.

"Well, go home, get some rest, and it'll look better in the morning,
no doubt," he said.  "That's my plan."

"I'm staying here tonight," she said.  "I'll sleep in the on-call
room."

"Suit yourself," he said, "but if I had a guy like your bearded
friend waiting for me at home, I'd be making tracks."

Scully stared at him in shock.

"Yes, I saw you with him yesterday, and I can read you like a book,"
he said, "but your secret's safe with me.  Honor among thieves and
all that."

She managed to muster a small smile.  "Thanks, Michael."

"No worries," he said.  "See you in the morning."

Scully turned away and saw Margaret and Blair Fearon, not two steps
away.

"Doctor Scully, can we speak with you a moment?"  The couple had
perpetually worried expressions, understandably; however, this time
they looked not only worried, but fearful.

Her heart sank.  Putting a brave face on, she said, "Certainly. 
Have you seen Christian?"

"Yes, he's still asleep," Margaret said.

"That's what we want to talk to you about," Blair said, "our son."

"We think..." Margaret trailed off, and looked up at her husband.

"We've changed our minds about this treatment," Blair said.  "We
think Christian's been through enough."

"But we've only done the first step," Scully said.  "It's too early
to tell if it's working or not."

"We want to put our faith in God now," Margaret said softly, and in
her words Scully heard the echo of someone else's.

"It's nothing against you," Margaret added quickly.  "We know you've
done your best.  But science can only do so much, Dr. Scully.  If you
were a mother, you'd understand."

"I take it," Scully said stiffly, "that you've spoken with Father
Ybarra?"

"Yes," Margaret admitted, glancing quickly at her husband, "but the
decision is ours."

Blair nodded emphatically.

Scully was certain that the good Father made them believe it was
their decision, but in their words she could hear his influence.

She took a deep breath, keeping herself calm.  "I understand your
fears," she said gently.  "But what if it did work, and we find out
later that we've made the wrong choice by stopping?"

The hope in Margaret's eyes was almost painful to see.  "You mean
you can save our son?"

"I'm saying that it's too early to tell.  That if we quit now..."
she stopped.  "I can't promise you.  But I don't want to give up now.
Please give it time to work."

Margaret and Blair Fearon nodded, but she could see that they
weren't entirely convinced.

And now, she wasn't so sure either.  Had she put her faith in the
wrong thing?  Had the words she'd heard meant something entirely
different?

There was only one way to find out.

-x-

Chapter Twelve - Separate Ways

FBI Field Office
Richmond, Virginia

Mulder stared glumly at the files scattered over the table, awaiting
information from the DA's office.

Even when he was officially with the FBI, he hadn't had much
patience with the intricacies of dealing with local law enforcement. 
It made him even more restless now.  He sat trying to concentrate on
the files, drinking bad coffee and refusing to engage in conversation
with either Mosley Drummy or Dakota Whitney.

Mosley was working the phones, talking to hospitals about their
transplant policies and inquiring about what transport agencies they
used.  Dakota Whitney was talking the Richmond SAC.  Mulder supposed
that it meant he wasn't really ignoring them, they were ignoring him.

He missed Scully.  If she were there, they'd be discussing the case,
trying theories out on each other, arguing, and probably solving it
before the locals got back to them, confirming what they'd already
figured out.

Really, what was he still doing there?  Agent Whitney occasionally
threw him a look that seemed to say that she still needed him to
stick around.  Agent Mosley gave him nothing, but that was to be
expected.  But if Father Joe's usefulness had reached its limits,
hadn't his as well?

"We should be getting a warrant any time now," Dakota said as she
entered the room.  "But we have a name at least.  Janke Dacyshyn. 
Assuming the permits he had were legitimate, we should be able to
track down the owner of the business as well."

"We should show Father Joe the picture we have, see if it means
anything to him," Mulder said.  "It might be faster."

Agent Drummy rolled his eyes but Dakota Whitney said, "That's a good
idea.  Let's do that, while we're waiting."

x-x-x

Sex Offender's Dormitories
Richmond, Virginia

Scully shivered in her wool coat.  She'd willed herself up the
stairs, but hesitated to knock.  She raised her hand, faltered,
raised it again.  Finally, she watched her knuckles rap on the door,
as if she had no control over her hand.

A few seconds passed and she backed away from the door, ready to
hurry away.  As she started to turn, she heard the click of the latch
on the door.

An eddy of warm, stale air escaped as Father Joe stepped out and
peered at her, braced against the railing at the far end of the
walkway.

"A vision if ever I had one," he said.

Scully swallowed, her dry mouth not wanting to form words.  At last
she said, "May I speak with you?"

"Of course," he said, and gestured to his door.  "Won't you come in?"

Reluctantly, Scully approached the door.  The last thing she wanted
was to enter that apartment, but she'd come this far now.  

Father Joe stood to one side to let her enter.  "Have you come on
your own?" he asked, looking past her.

She nodded, biting her lip.  This was not a good idea, not at all. 
Maybe she should tell him to leave the front door open.  

"Please, sit down," he invited.  The couch had certainly seen better
days, and tonight it appeared that Father Joe, or someone, had been
using it for a bed.  Father Joe pushed the sheets and blankets aside.

"I won't be staying long," she said.

"Please, I insist," he said, and she reluctantly sat.

Father Joe sat uncomfortably close to her.  "You've come to ask me
something," he prompted.

She nodded, and licked her lips.  She just couldn't ask him.  She
looked around, trying to think of something else to say.

He smiled gently, "My roommate's out.  We're quite alone here, free
to speak in confidence."

Scully gathered her courage.  "You said something to me.  Out in the
field, last night."

Father Joe nodded.  "Yes.  I said, 'don't give up.'"

She hadn't realized how much she'd expected him to deny it until he
spoke.  "I need to know why you said that."

"I haven't the faintest idea," he said.

Her shoulders slumped.  

"You were hoping for another answer?"  Father Joe asked.

Scully couldn't sit still anymore.  She rose and faced Father Joe. 
"Do you know anything about me?"

"Other than the fact you loathe me, no," he replied.  

"You don't know what I do?  What I used to do, or what I do now?" 
She would not let herself fall into the trap that Luther Lee Boggs
had set for her, back when she was a green agent.  "Did you look me
up on the internet?"

"I know nothing at all about you.  Though I can see you're a woman
of *faith*."

The way he said it rankled her.

"Though not the same faith as your husband, it appears."

"He's not my husband," she blurted, and immediately wished she
hadn't.  What Mulder was or wasn't to her was none of this man's
business.

"Would you care to tell me about yourself?" the ex-priest asked.

"No!"

"Perhaps you'd like me to take your confession?"

She almost laughed.  "I don't think you're in any position to --"

"To what?" he interrupted.  "To judge?  Perhaps not.  But *you've*
judged *me*."

"Don't you deserve to be judged?"

"Certainly not by *you*," he said.  "Am I not God's creature, same
as you?"

"I don't think God would claim you, after what you did to those
young boys," she countered.  She headed for the door.  Father Joe
followed her.  

"Do you know why we live here, we men who call this vile box of
monsters our home?"

Scully shrugged, unwilling to engage in further debate with him.

"We hate each other, as much as we hate ourselves for our sickening
appetites."

"That doesn't make them any less sickening," she said.

"So where do these appetites come from, then?  These uncontrollable
impulses of ours?"

"Not from God," Scully said firmly.

"Not from me," Father Joe countered.  "I castrated myself when I was
twenty-seven."

His declaration shocked her.  There was nothing further to say to
him; it was a foolish idea to come in the first place.

"And," he added as she walked to the door, "I didn't ask for these
visions, either."

She didn't even acknowledge him; she reached for the door.

"Proverbs 25:2," he said.

"What?" Scully asked in spite of herself.

"'God's glory to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search
out a matter.'"

"Don't you dare quote Scripture to me!" she shouted.

"Why did you come here?" he asked.

"You said, 'Don't give up'.  Why?  What was it for?"

Father Joe shrugged and started to light another cigarette.  He
couldn't seem to hold his hand still and the match went out.

"'Don't give up,'" she repeated.  "Why did you say it?"

Father Joe peered up at her.  "I don't know," he whispered.

"I don't *believe* you!"

"I'm telling the truth," he insisted.

"You stood there, and said it to me, right to my face!"  As small as
she was, she towered over him.  

Unaccountably, his eyes filled with tears.  "All I wanted was to
serve Him...all I ever wanted..."  He bowed his head.

"You can ask God's forgiveness," Scully said, "but don't expect 
mine."

Head still bowed, Father Joe began to shake.  Was he sobbing?  This
was just too much.

He raised his head to hers, jaw set tightly, eyes rolling back in
his head.

"You can stop the act any time," she told him.  As if she'd be
fooled by this charlatan's bid for pity.

Then suddenly she knew he wasn't acting.  Spittle and flecks of foam
appeared at the corners of his mouth, and his body went rigid.

x-x-x

The barking of the dogs close by woke Cheryl from her half-slumber. 
She thought vaguely that there must have been something put into her
food to keep her so lethargic, but it never quite seemed to put her
entirely out.

She heard the rattle of kennel doors and the clank of metal dishes,
then the barking quieted as the dogs got their dinner.

A face appeared at the slot in her prison door.  It was Hat Man. 
She had no idea of anyone's names, so she'd given them nicknames. 
Hat Man wore a white stocking cap and seemed kindly; he always said
something soothing sounding in his incomprehensible language.  White
Legs must be a nurse; she wore white stockings and Cheryl could see
the edge of a uniform and sometimes white shoes.  There was another
man, whom she called Grey Pants, since that's all she saw of him;
Mean Man, the one who apparently was the reason she was here, was
never in her range of vision, though she was sure she'd heard a third
male voice from time to time.  

Otherwise, there was Scarface on the table.  He mostly lay quietly,
and sometimes the others hovered around him, tucking in blankets or
checking the IV that hung by his head.  She caught a glimpse once of
a distinctly feminine looking hand by his side, but maybe it was
whatever drugs they gave her that made her think so.  It couldn't be
possible.

Hat Man was talking to her again, showing her a tray with a battered
enamel bowl on it.  Steam rose from it; she must be on the same
feeding schedule as the dogs.  She hoped it wasn't dog food.

The man said his soothing nonsense and made lip-smacking sounds that
needed no interpretation.  Her door rattled as he unlocked it. 
Evidently the soup bowl wouldn't fit through the slot.

But as he removed the lock, a commotion started behind him.  Beeping
from various machines, and a metallic rattling sound distracted him.

Through the slot, Cheryl could see people gathered around Scarface
on the table, who appeared to be having some kind of seizure.

But of more interest to her was the fact that her prison door had
swung open.  In his haste, Hat Man had left her door unlocked.

Without a second thought, Cheryl quietly crawled out of the box and
headed to the only exit that she knew she couldn't be seen from: the
dog door at the end of the kennels.

The dogs were already baying frantically; the commotion in the lab
had disturbed them.  She hoped that they were all locked up.

Only a few feet more...her mind was focused only on the door, not on
what lay on the other side, or how she would survive in a hospital
gown in the bitter cold which was seeping around the edges of the
door flap.  She tumbled down a small incline, mere feet from freedom.

She burst through the door onto a snowy, moonlit yard, and breathed
in the fresh air.

Something was coming toward her, though.  She could hear barking and
snarling but couldn't tell where it was coming from.  It sounded like
two dogs.  She looked frantically around.

It was coming straight at her.  Was it a trick of the moonlight? 
She saw one dog's body...but with two heads.

Instinctively she threw her hands in front of her face, trying to
protect herself from attack.

Meanwhile, inside the makeshift lab, the doctor and his assistants
were trying to help their patient in the throes of a mysterious
seizure.  Two attendants held the body down while the doctor
administered a shot.  The blanket covering the patient's body fell
away, revealing a slight female form, its flesh looking pale and
clammy in the harsh overhead light.

Even through all the activity, Hat Man heard a high, thin scream. 
He spat out an order to Grey Pants, who ran out of the room to rescue
their escapee.  Without her, there would be no reason to save the
person thrashing on the table before them.

x-x-x

Mulder could see the flashing red and blue lights from the back seat
as their vehicle negotiated the icy streets and pulled into the sex
offenders' dorm parking lot.

"This can't be good," Dakota said.  She opened her door and got out
even as the driver put the vehicle into park.  Mulder followed suit
from his back seat.

The paramedics had just made it down the stairs and were approaching
the ambulance as Mulder and the others got there.  One look at the
stretcher confirmed their worst fears: it was Father Joe, oxygen mask
over his features but his wild grey hair identifying him.

Another familiar figure stood nearby, talking to one of the
paramedics and on her cell phone at the same time.  She was the last
person Mulder expected to see anywhere near Father Joe:  Dana Scully.

Mulder got to her side first.  "What happened?" he asked without
preamble.

"He had a seizure and collapsed," Scully said.  "That's all we know
right now."  She said something further into her phone and ended the
call.

"Who called you?"  Mulder asked.

"No one," Scully said.

"Then what are *you* doing here?" Mulder asked more pointedly.

Scully looked past him, ignoring the question.  She turned back to
the paramedics.

Dakota Whitney said from behind Mulder, "What's going on?"

Mulder replied, "Let me ask.  Civilians don't always take to you
guys asking questions."

If Dakota recognized the dig from earlier that day, she made no
sign.  She did, however, back away.

Mulder approached Scully again, supervising the loading of Father
Joe onto the ambulance.

"We need to talk to Father Joe," he told her.

"That may not be possible for a while," Scully said.

Only a step behind Mulder, Dakota Whitney said, "It's important.  We
have a suspect."

"In custody?"  Scully asked.

"No," Dakota said.  "We're working on getting a warrant to search
his employer's office.  Here's the suspect."

Scully found it easier to talk to Dakota than Mulder at the moment. 
She took the picture of Janke Dacyshyn from her and examined it.

"We've got a fairly credible witness who says she's seen this man at
the same pool as Monica Bannan and Cheryl Cunningham," Dakota told
her.   "He was identified as being there the last day Cheryl swam
there."

"Credible enough to make an arrest?"  Scully asked her.

Mulder fumed in the background as Dakota answered, "We think so. 
We're moving in on him."

"Then why do you need Father Joe?" she asked.

"To show him that picture," Mulder said, loudly.  Scully still
wouldn't look directly at him.

Damn it, they'd been through too much together to let work get
between them.

Another black SUV entered the parking lot with a squeal of tires. 
After speaking with the new arrivals briefly, Agent Drummy came up
and spoke to Dakota, who excused herself and walked over to the 
newly-arrived agents.

"I'm convinced that's the man in Father Joe's visions," Mulder said
to Scully, tapping the picture in her hands.

Scully looked at the picture again, then up at Mulder.  "I think now
you're wasting *their* time, Mulder," she said, and turned back to
the ambulance.

"Tell me why you're here again?"  Mulder called after her.

"Here's a vision for you," Agent Drummy approached with Agent
Whitney.  "Couple of my guys just brought it over."  He held out a
second photocopied image.

A gaunt face stared back from the page.  His face was thin and
angular, with almond-shaped eyes, and a head either bald or shaved. 
Franz Tomczeszyn, it said below the picture.

"This man is Janke Dacyshyn's employer," Drummy continued.  "And an
old friend of Father Joe's, we've just learned."

Scully turned around at that news.  "Are you saying Father Joe is
connected to a man who is trafficking in black market body parts?"

"*Allegedly* trafficking," Drummy said.  "It's an old association. 
The Father knew him some twenty-odd years ago."

"Knew him how?" Mulder asked, in spite of himself.  As if he didn't
know.

"Turns out Franz was one of Father Joe's special altar boys," Drummy
said, enjoying his moment of vindication.  "And three guesses who
Franz is married to in the state of Massachusetts?  Our friend 
Janke."

Dakota Whitney had been on her cell phone and now said, "We've got
it covered.  We have the warrant for the offices."  She took the
pictures from Mulder and Scully, and turned with Drummy to the SUV.

Mulder turned to go with them.

"Mulder," he heard Scully say softly.

When he turned to look at her, there was nothing but compassion in
her eyes.  She knew how he felt; they'd been partners for too long
for her not to.  How many times in the past had they been right here?

"It's over," she said.  "Let them take it from here."

It wasn't over for him.  He wasn't going to quit now, no matter
what.  Without a word, he turned from Scully and flagged down the
second SUV.

-x-

Chapter Thirteen - Cornered

The SUVs pulled up in front of a building in an older part of town,
not many blocks away from Our Lady of Sorrows.  Mulder spilled out of
the second vehicle with everyone else and started toward the entrance
to the building, but Dakota Whitney stopped him.

"Why don't you hold up," she said with a slight smile.  "Let these
men do their job."

He didn't argue with her, but it stung all the same.  He didn't need
to be reminded again that this wasn't really his job anymore; he had
Scully to do that.

Yeah, even thinking that was unfair to Scully, but right now he
didn't much care.  

"Look," Dakota was saying, "we were all fooled on this one.  I
wanted to believe this as bad as anyone."

Mulder grunted an acknowledgment, his eyes on the door the agents
had disappeared into.  Any moment now, they'd see some light on the
floor above.

"It didn't break the way we expected," she continued, "but still,
give yourself some credit.  *You* broke the case."

Damn straight I did, he thought, and glanced at her.  She had on a
very sincere expression, her blue eyes shining in the darkness.  Her
eyes were almost the same color as Scully's, but not quite.

"I don't need the sweet talk," he said, turning away.  "I'm a big
boy."

"But it's true, you led us here," she insisted.

"Father Joe led us here," Mulder corrected her. 

"I called you in because I thought you could help with this case. 
Because I valued your beliefs."

He wasn't sure how sincere she was; this was certainly a line he'd
heard before, and the person who'd uttered it had turned out to be
the biggest betrayer in his life.

"Yeah?" he said.  "And what do you think now?"

"I think," she said, her eyes wide, "that this is a longer
conversation."

He wasn't wrong; that line was definitely a come-on.  He didn't need
psychic powers to tell that much.

The adrenaline Dakota Whitney had felt when they were finally on
their way to search the building was still zinging through her
system.  She should be up there, searching with the others, but she
couldn't leave Mulder on his own, and she valued her job too much to
let him in on this search.

She was playing with fire, and she knew it.  She hadn't overstepped
the bounds of professionalism yet, but she was teetering.  The longer
they stood out here, the more likely she'd say something, take the
gamble that she could interest Mulder in sticking around, getting to
know her better.

Neither of them noticed the white van pulling into the alley half a
block away, driven by their suspect.

Janke Dacyshyn knew immediately that there was something wrong. 
After being detained earlier that day, he knew he had to act. 
Fortunately the DA hadn't been able to get a warrant that afternoon
to search his van.  He decided he'd better stop by the offices, just
to be sure that nothing incriminating had been left there by mistake.
He could hear the voices and see the lights in the office as he
stepped off the elevator.  As quietly as he could, he took the stairs
down to the lobby and exited.  He'd almost forgotten the transport
container he carried in his hands that he'd been too afraid to leave
in the van.

He managed to slip out of the front entrance without the agents at
the elevator seeing him.  They weren't familiar with the building and
were watching the wrong set of stairs.

Once out on the street, he tried to look as normal as a man coming
out of a dark building late at night could look.  He didn't see the
two figures standing by the SUV about ten feet back from the
entrance; their voices startled him and he turned.

Mulder got a good look at Janke's face, immediately recognizing it
from the photocopy.

Janke dropped what he was carrying and ran.

"Hey!" Mulder yelled, and took off after him.

After a second's shocked realization, Dakota Whitney ran too, gun at
the ready.  "FBI!" she yelled.  "STOP!"

Mulder heard her, but judged that she was too far back to actually
draw down on the suspect.  He put on speed, keeping the fugitive in
sight.

It wasn't easy.  He was out of shape, and the suspect obviously was
not.  Mulder's lungs were burning already as he took gulps of cold
air.

Janke headed up a side street and out into a more heavily trafficked
road.  Mulder still had him in sight, but now had to be more mindful
of his surroundings -- even at this late hour, there were buses and
taxis to dodge.  He turned back to see if Agent Whitney was catching
up, and was almost hit head-on by a bus.  He swerved just in time,
and bounced off the hood of a taxi which screeched to a stop next to
the bus.  He landed on his feet and lurched forward.

There were several buildings in the area under construction, and it
appeared that at some of them, work was going on, even at this late
hour.  Afraid he'd soon lose Janke in the welter of half-built
structures, Mulder pushed himself harder.  

Janke ran through an open cyclone fence, dodging around an earth-
mover.  Mulder was gaining ground now that they were no longer in the
open.  It was almost as dangerous as the road, though.  The crews
here were working overtime, and there was movement of heavy
machinery, building materials, and people to watch out for.  

"Stop that man!" he shouted to a couple of hardhats he saw in the
distance.  They looked up, startled, but Janke had already run past
them and up some temporary access stairs.

Mulder heard him clamber up the stairs and was close enough behind
him to catch a plastic bucket filled with metal pieces right at the
knees.

No damage done, fortunately, though even if there had been, he
wouldn't have stopped.  Failure was not an option; this man
represented their best hope of finding Monica Bannan and possibly,
Cheryl Cunningham as well.   

The unfinished building had nothing more than plywood floors and
great empty gaps where there was no footing at all.  Tattered yellow
tape marked some of the areas, but in the dark Mulder did not want to
take the chance that some were not, and he picked his way carefully. 
The higher he went, the more gaps there were.  Further obscuring his
vision were tattered sheets of translucent plastic, meant to provide
a makeshift windbreak.  Following Janke was a combination of maze,
obstacle course, and booby trap.  What light there was came from the
floodlights being used on the floors below, and the occasional shop
light marking the paths up and down.  Mulder could hear Dakota
calling from a floor below.  "Do you have him?" she called up to him.
He heard her clanking up the stairs he'd run up a few minutes before.

"No," he said briefly.  He was sweating and gasping for air, but he
tried to control his breathing and stood still to listen for sounds
of movement around him.  This was reminiscent of too many chases in
dark places.  He wished he had his gun.

A rustle of plastic and the flash of a shadow alerted him to Janke's
position, heading for a ladder to another floor.  Mulder ran for the
ladder, seeing the soles of his quarry's shoes several rungs above
him.

Once up at the top of the building, he could see more clearly, but
Janke was nowhere to be found.  Another ladder led back to the lower
floor, so Mulder went down again.

"Fox!" Dakota called.  "Do you see him?"

Her use of his first name reminded him uncomfortably that he had no
idea what Dakota Whitney might do, or how she might think.  Where
he'd have known instinctively what Scully would do, here they were
both at a disadvantage, even beyond the fact that he was unarmed. 
And of course, Dacyshyn could hear every exchange between them. 
Their only advantage was that Dacyshyn might assume that they were
both armed.

"I lost him," Mulder answered her.  He heard footsteps, and twisted
around just in time to see Dacyshyn taking another ladder down. 
"He's coming toward you!" he shouted, and ran for the ladder.  He
looked around for a weapon, any weapon, but there was nothing loose
that he could use.

On the floor below Mulder, Dakota turned slowly in a circle, her gun
at the ready.  She was certain that Janke Dacyshyn didn't have a gun,
or he would have used it by now.  Mulder was unarmed, too.  He
shouldn't even be in on this chase, but he'd gotten the jump on her,
recognizing their suspect seconds before she did.  And she wasn't
likely to turn down his experience at a time like this.  

"Where is he?" she shouted up to Mulder, and scanned around again,
and looked out the side of the open floor to see Mulder's head poking
over the edge of the upper floor.

"Do you see him?" Mulder called.

"No," said Dakota.  How on earth did Mulder get up there so fast?
she wondered.  "He must have got past me.  I'm going down."  

As she turned to go, she came face to face with their quarry.  He
was too close for her to raise her gun; as she started to, he knocked
it out of her hand.  She didn't hear it land, but had no time to
wonder why because Dacyshyn was lunging toward her.  He gave her a
powerful shove and she fell back -- into nothing.  Her arms
windmilled frantically as she fell down, down, down.

Mulder ran down as fast as he could, but Dacyshyn was long gone. 
Hoping against hope, he got to street level, calling for assistance
from the workers he could find.  "Call 9-1-1!" he yelled frantically.
"Tell them there's an agent down at this address!"

He found where Dakota Whitney lay at the bottom of an unfinished
elevator shaft.  Her gun lay beside her and she'd missed being
impaled by rebar by mere inches.  Nonetheless, he didn't need
Scully's trained medical eye to tell him that Agent Whitney was dead,
even though her eyes were still open.

He rocked back on his heels but stayed there, keeping watch over the
agent's body until help arrived.

x-x-x

Back at the Medical Arts Building, the agents in the lobby heard the
shouts from outside and went out to investigate, finding that Mulder
and Agent Whitney had disappeared, and a thermal carrier sat
abandoned on the sidewalk just down from the entrance.

"Agent Drummy," one of them said on the radio.  "You'd better come
down here."

Summoned from his so far fruitless search of the office, Agent
Drummy approached the thermal carrier with caution.  He put on his
gloves and carefully unzipped first one side, then the other.  Two or
three agents stood behind him, stepping back slightly as he prepared
to open the lid.  He extended his arm as far as he could, looking out
of the corner of his eye as he opened the carrier.  His observers
stepped back as well -- already there was a horrible smell emanating
from the it.  Drummy recoiled as the contents were revealed to be the
severed head of Agent Monica Bannan, her sightless eyes still open,
unknowingly mirroring the expression of the other murdered agent a
few blocks away.

-x-

Chapter Fourteen - Crossroads  

Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital

Scully wasn't surprised to see Mulder standing at the foot of the
stairs as she hurried down the corridor to her office.  She'd already
seen Agent Drummy, inarticulate with rage and sadness, down in the
ER.  The nurse on duty had told her that "the tall man" had been
ordered out of the ER by Drummy, and she knew he'd instinctively seek
her out.

She couldn't deny him solace at a time like this.  She didn't
hesitate to walk right up to him and take his hand in the middle of
the busy hospital, let people say what they would, and despite their
hard words the day before.  Mulder needed her.

"Monica Bannan is dead," he said, "and Dakota Whitney."

"I know, I heard.  I'm so sorry, Mulder," she said, squeezing his
hand.  

"We were so close," he said dejectedly.  "I thought we were 
winning." 

"I know you did," she said sympathetically.  She wasn't sure who
moved first, but suddenly they weren't holding hands any more, and
Mulder was reaching into his coat pocket.

"I'd still like to see Father Joe," he said.  "I need to ask him
about these men."

Scully looked away, shaking her head slightly.  When she turned back
to Mulder, she said, "You should know that he's been diagnosed with a
terminal illness.  End-stage lung cancer."

Mulder nodded.  "I still need to talk to him, just to be sure."

Scully bit back her opinion of Father Joe.  Mulder had already heard
it and he didn't need to hear it again.  She would be as supportive
of him as she could.  

"Let me ask him, then," she said, and Mulder nodded.  He followed
her down the corridor to the oncology ward.

The ward had only a few patients at the moment so there was some
privacy.  Father Joe was dozing, his face slack.  His eyes opened
slowly as Mulder and Scully approached, and he smiled slightly as he
recognized Mulder.

"Would you believe I was thinking of you?"  Father Joe said,
fumbling for his glasses.  "I had a vision.  Of a man, speaking a
foreign language."

Mulder let Scully do the speaking.  She unrolled the photocopies and
showed Father Joe Janke Dacyshyn's picture.  "Was the vision of this
man?" she asked.

"Yes!" Father Joe said excitedly.  "How did you know?  That's the
man!"

Scully said, "We think that he may have been the one who abducted
Monica Bannan and the other woman you say you saw, maybe more.  And
he was helped by this man."

She showed him the other photocopy, but Father Joe shook his head. 
"I don't know this man."

"Are you *sure*?  Not just from your visions, but from your past?"
Scully persisted.

"I'm fairly certain I don't know him," Father Joe said, throwing a
look at Mulder that seemed to say, can't you get her to leave me
alone?

"I'm fairly certain that you do," Scully said.  "Take a look at the
name.  You knew him as a little boy.  An altar boy?"

If possible, Father Joe's face went paler as he read the name and
realized she was right.  "Oh, no..." he moaned.  "Oh dear God, no...I
don't believe it..."

"Neither does anybody else," she said coldly.

"He must be my connection to those women -- the reason I had those
visions was to save them.  This is God's work.  It's *God's work*!" 
He turned to look at Mulder, appealing to him.

Mulder remained silent, trying to see what the truth was in the
words.  He still wanted to believe, to know that all that had
happened had happened for a reason.

"Just one last question," Scully said relentlessly.  "The young
woman of your visions, Monica Bannan.  Is she still alive?"

Father Joe closed his tear-filled eyes.  "Yes..." he said after a
few moments.  "Yes -- I can still feel her.  I feel that she is
alive."

Without a word Scully turned to Mulder.  Mulder nodded at Father Joe
and left the room.

Scully wasn't sure what she expected, but she was still surprised to
see Mulder already heading down the corridor.  

"Mulder, where are you going?"

He turned at the head of the stairs.  "There's still another woman
out there, Scully.  I need to find her, if she's still alive.  Even
if everyone else has given up."

Once again, they were at a standstill.  Whatever outcome Scully had
hoped for, this was not it.

"Mulder," she tried again.  "You think I don't understand, but I do.
You don't give up.  You can't give up.  It's one of the reasons I
fell in love with you."

That hit home; she could see it.

"Maybe," he said slowly, "that's why we can't be together."  He
looked at her for a long moment, and then turned to go.

"Mulder," she said one last time.

He turned, to see her holding out her car keys.  "You'll need these.
I don't imagine Agent Drummy will help you."

He took the keys, his fingers brushing hers.  He couldn't speak but
he nodded in acknowledgment before he turned away again.

"Be careful," she whispered to his retreating back.

Mulder clutched the keys, imagining that they were still warm from
Scully's hand.  It wasn't much of a lifeline, but he would take what
he could get, especially after what he'd said to her.

How many times had they been here, right here, totally unable to see
eye to eye?  Always, eventually, they'd made peace with each other. 
At least before there had always been the work that tied them
together.

He wondered if what they had together now was enough without the
work, or if the very thing that brought them together originally
would be the thing that finally, inexorably, tore them apart.

x-x-x

This time, instead of barking dogs, loud voices woke Cheryl from her
uneasy sleep.  She'd been rescued from the nightmare dog or dogs that
she'd seen, or hallucinated, by Grey Pants.  They'd treated her
superficial wounds and had given her a shot, which only now was
wearing off.  She had no idea what time it was, or how long she'd
been asleep.

Mean Man was spitting something at Hat Man, who was speaking in his
usual measured tones.  Mean Man waved him away and knelt down by the
gurney.

For the first time since the accident, she could see his face.  He
had an unaccountably gentle expression, and he was speaking to
Scarface.  His tone was so low she couldn't make out the words he
said, but he looked like an entirely different man than the one who'd
run her off the road.  His hand stroked down Scarface's cheek,
avoiding the healing cuts.

Hat Man approached the gurney, waving a piece of paper.  Mean Man
stood up and took it from him, his usual harsh expression returning
as he turned away from Scarface.

x-x-x

Somerset County, Virginia

Under the leaden sky, Mulder paced the field where the ice-encased
body parts had been exhumed.  He paced around the pit, still ringed
with yellow caution tape.  Initial forensic evidence indicated that
the parts had accumulated over time.  He suspected that they hadn't
actually been buried there originally, but somehow had ended up here.
Where did they come from, and how long had they been accumulating? 
Why had the initial severed arm been found elsewhere?

Turning away from the pit, he scanned the mountains around him. 
This was rugged country, not far from the border of West Virginia. 
There had to be something somewhere that they'd overlooked. 
Someplace fairly isolated, or at least without close neighbors.  That
seemed like basic investigation, but the agents had been putting all
their faith in Father Joe, and ignoring what seemed to him to be
obvious clues.  

He trudged back to the car and headed back down the road, back to
the natatorium.  He'd use that as the center of his search, and
search each road from there.  He looked up at the sky, sucking on his
lower lip.  It was getting late, and soon it would no doubt be
snowing again.  Time was indeed his enemy.

x-x-x

Scully made her afternoon rounds, ending as she usually did at
Christian's room.  By all appearances, he'd come through the surgery
just fine, but as she'd told Mulder, it would take time, and more
procedures, before she knew the outcome.  When she looked in,
Margaret Fearon was sitting by him, holding his hand as he slept.  

She held her finger to her lips as she came into the room.  Margaret
smiled tremulously.  Scully noted that she held a rosary in the hand
that held Christian's.  She checked Christian's chart and smiled once
more at Margaret, mouthed, "I'll talk with you later," and went on
her way.

Restless, she found herself in the oncology ward, telling herself
that she was just checking on a patient in whom she had an interest,
nothing more.  What more could she have to say to him, or he to her? 
He had been proved pretty conclusively to be a liar, since it seemed
to be proven without a doubt that Monica Bannan was dead, despite his
"feelings."

And, of course, she hadn't operated on Christian because the ex-
priest had urged her not to give up.  She'd made the decision because
it was the best course of action for the boy.

The ex-priest was asleep when she entered.  She looked briefly at
his chart, though she had nothing to do with his treatment, and stood
at the foot of his bed.  What was it about this man that made Mulder
want to believe in him?  How did he manage to keep on hoping, in the
face of so much evidence to the contrary?

She wished she had his conviction.  After seeing so much over the
years, she still had doubts.  Maybe it came from putting so much of
her faith in science, that her initial reaction would always be
skepticism.  Maybe that's what kept her from confiding in Mulder what
the ex-priest had said to her.

So, instead, they'd argued more fiercely than they'd done for some
time.  She knew she'd hurt him deeply when she told him she couldn't
help him.  He'd wounded her back this morning, with his parting 
words.

She couldn't lose Mulder over this, but she couldn't simply give in
to him, either.  And, of course, there were other, larger concerns
that neither of them had yet talked about.

The ex-priest's eyes fluttered open.  His breathing was somewhat
labored but he seemed otherwise calm.  His fingers moved restlessly,
and Scully noted the rosary in his hands.  His lips moved and she
nodded and began to turn away, not wishing to interrupt his prayers.

"You...gave...up," she heard him whisper as she turned away.

"What?" she said, more sharply than she meant to.

"You gave up," he said again.

"I don't know what you mean," she said coldly.  

His eyes were closed and his lips were stilled, though his restless
hands continued telling his beads.

Scully backed out the door.

x-x-x

One dead end after another, Mulder thought.  He'd tried all but a
few roads, stopped and talked to a few locals, but no one had been
able to tell him anything.

He was cold, and miserable, but he wasn't going to quit.  He came to
a very small town, no more than a wide spot in the road, really,
after the fruitless search of a secondary road led him to another
dead end.  He pulled in front of a small store.  Maybe they'd have
some coffee or something.

He glanced up at the sign: "Nutter's Feed and Fuel," it said, which
seemed a sort of cutesy name for a convenience store.  Then he noted
the smaller print on the sign: "Animal Supply."

The proprietor was at the door when Mulder approached.

"I'm closing," he told Mulder.

"I just need a minute of your time," Mulder said.

The man looked at the sky, sucking his teeth.  "You know, if you're
going somewhere, you'd better get to getting.  It's gonna come down
but good pretty quick."  He stood back to let Mulder come in.

The store seemed to be a combination of many things: a rural one-
stop shop and impromptu community bulletin board, with flyers on the
bulletin board by the door touting casino bus tours and local tag
sales.

"Well," the man said with a great show of patience, "what can I do
you for?"

"Do you sell an animal tranquilizer called acepromazine?"  Mulder
asked.

"Sure, if you got a 'scrip for it," the man said.

Mulder shook his head.  "I don't," he said, and reached into his
pocket for the pictures of Janke Dacyshyn and Franz Tomczeszyn.  He
held out Dacyshyn's picture first.  "Have you seen this man?"

Just as he leaned forward to look at it, the phone rang in his
office.  He rolled his eyes good-humoredly.  "I am *never* gonna get
out of here!"

Mulder waited at the counter while the man answered the phone.  His
eyes roamed idly around the store, waiting for the man to finish his
call.  As he looked out the big front window of the store, another
vehicle pulled up, a large, dirty, rattletrap-sounding truck.  It was
still light enough to see the driver's face as he got out of the
truck: Janke Dacyshyn.

Now Mulder really, really wished he had a gun.  He slipped out the
side door as Dacyshyn stomped the snow off his boots and entered the
store.

The store's proprietor looked at him with puzzlement.  "Where'd the
other guy go?"

"What other guy?" Janke asked.

"There was another guy standing right there!" the man insisted.

Janke shrugged and handed the man a paper.  "I need these things."

If the proprietor thought that it was unusual for two people to come
in asking for acepromazine in such a short space of time, he didn't
comment on it, which was probably fortunate for him.  Janke Dacyshyn
had become a desperate man.

A few moments later, Janke loaded his supplies into the truck and
juddered off down the road, followed by a couple of local dogs who
were very interested in something that was, or had been, in his 
truck.

A short way down the road, a white Taurus pulled quietly behind him,
its lights off in the gathering dusk, gliding like a ghost in the
wake of the truck's diesel exhaust.

The truck rattled along at a pretty good pace.  It swerved into a
side road, thankfully a paved one, since it seemed to consist of
hairpin turns.  Mulder hung back as far as he could.  Dacyshyn
wouldn't know the car, but it would be pretty obvious that someone
was following him if he got too close...and Dacyshyn might recognize
his face from the night before.

The truck took another turn and Mulder fished out his cell phone. 
He didn't want to pester Scully, but he needed to let her know he was
on the trail.  Maybe she'd agree to at least get hold of Agent
Drummy.  He had a card somewhere, but he didn't want to stop and dig
it out, and risk losing his quarry.

He flipped open his phone, keeping an eye on the road ahead as he
looked for the right button on the unfamiliar keypad.  The truck had
momentarily disappeared around a corner and Mulder slowed to
negotiate the tight turn.

He nearly rear-ended the truck, stopped in the middle of the road. 
He managed to swerve around it, but caught a patch of black ice which
caused the car to spin around and fetch up against the snow piled up
along the edge of the road.  The airbag deployed and the car stalled
out, hung up on the icy ridge of snow.

Disoriented, Mulder shook his head.  He tried the door handle, but
it wasn't budging.  He looked out his driver's side window, facing
the road, and was greeted by a startling sight:  the white truck was
now perpendicular to him, and revving its engine.

He didn't think that the guy was going to help pull him out of the
snowbank.  Mulder braced himself for the impact.  There was some kind
of a snow scoop or plow attached to the front, and it loomed larger
and larger as the truck approached.  It didn't have to gather much
speed; it was so much larger than the Taurus and it had the advantage
of the clear pavement. 

The first impact shattered the driver's side window, showering
Mulder with glass and a blast of cold air.  The truck backed up a
little, and lurched forward again.  

The car was now almost sideways over the steep edge of the road,
kept in place only by the amount of snow pilled up around it.  In the
flash of a second, Mulder thought of trying to climb out of the
passenger side or through the broken driver's window, but realized
he'd be crushed by the truck or by his own car.  

In the time it took him to think these thoughts, the truck hit him
again, and the car scraped over the snow bank, hanging for what
seemed like an eternity before gravity pulled it down, tumbling over
and over into the ravine where it finally stopped upside down against
a sturdy tree.  The tree's branches released their accumulation of
snow onto the undercarriage of the car, half-burying it in melting
snow that rapidly turned to ice.  

Janke Dacyshyn watched from his vantage point for several minutes,
but there was no movement from the car.  If he wasn't dead now, the
cold would finish him off that night.  He'd come back later to make
sure.

After he'd made sure that his Franz had what he needed.

-x-

Concluded in Part Five -

Reimagined: IWTB
By ML

-x-

Chapter Fifteen - Don't Give Up

Scully sat in her office, head in her hands.  She'd been so certain
the day before, but today...the interview with Father Joe had been
very upsetting, not just because of the way Mulder had left, but that
the ex-priest now seemed a confirmed fraud.

If he was a fraud, what business did she have taking his words to
her as something to act upon?  And why was she letting the words he
spoke to her just now unsettle her so?

No, she told herself sternly.  You had very good reasons for making
the decision to operate.  Maybe you had a tiny doubt, but it had
nothing to do with the rightness of the decision.  You don't believe
in signs and portents.

Sighing, she gathered up the folders with all her research, stacking
them to one side so that she could transcribe her notes.  She could
have gotten her administrative assistant to do them, but she
preferred doing them herself, just as she'd done in the FBI.

Some discarded articles lay under the pile of folders.  She picked
them up, checking that there was nothing important in them before
throwing them into the recycle bin.

A word caught her eye in the first paragraph: "transplant."  Almost
in spite of herself, she skimmed the article.

She'd printed this one by accident in her haste a few days before,
discovering that it had little to do with her research.  But now, the
subject of the article held her attention for a different reason.

She vaguely remembered reading about these experiments, many years
before; had probably even seen some newsreel footage in some long-
forgotten basic biology class.

Russian scientists, doing early transplant research in the middle of
the last century, using dogs as test subjects.  She looked closely at
the picture accompanying the article.  Even in a poor-quality black
and white reproduction, it was clear, and clearly unspeakable: a
second head grafted onto a dog's body.  

Dogs.  Transplants.  Acepromazine in the human limbs found...

What Scully was thinking was unspeakable.  Why?  What awful
experiments were going on, and what had she gotten Mulder into?

Without even thinking twice, she dialed his cell phone number.

"It's Fox Mulder.  I must be busy.  Leave me a message."

"Mulder, it's me," she started, almost incoherent with fear and
horror.  "You've got to call me back.  I've found something --
whoever it is, they're experimenting, with dogs and humans -- I don't
know why or where, but please call me as soon as you get this."
Just in case she had a bad connection, she went out into the hallway
outside her office, where the reception was better.  Her phone showed
a clear signal, but it didn't ring.

She couldn't wait.  What if he was already in danger?  Knowing
Mulder, he wouldn't wait for backup.  If he could even get backup...

*She* was his backup.  No one else.  There was no one else, not for
him, not for her.

Unwilling to wait a moment more, she went back to her office and
found Agent Drummy's card, dialing the number as she grabbed her coat
and purse.

"FBI, SAC Fossa," a female answered the call.

"I'm trying to reach Agent Drummy," Scully said, and waited
impatiently for him to come to the phone.

"Agent Drummy," she finally heard, after an interminable several
seconds.

"Agent Drummy, I need your help.  Mulder may be in trouble --"

"Is this Dr. Scully?" he interrupted.

"Yes, it's Dr. Scully," she said impatiently.  "Look, I don't have
time --"

"What seems to be the problem, Dr. Scully?" 

"I think Mulder has found something, but he's on his own.  Do you --"

"Where is Mulder?" Agent Drummy interrupted again.

"If I knew, would I be calling you?" she asked in frustration.

"Hold on a moment," he said, and he muffled the phone.  She could
hear some exchange going on in the background but couldn't tell what
was being said.

Agent Drummy came back on the line.  "Dr. Scully, I'm going to
suggest you call the police." 

"WHAT?" she yelled into the phone, startling the few people in the
corridor.

"This is not an FBI matter," Drummy said flatly.

"But he's working on your case!  You called him in!"

"It wasn't my call," Drummy said.  "That was Agent Whitney's."

"I understand that, and I know that she died chasing the suspect
that Mulder is pursuing now.  I need your help!"

There was a pause.  "I'm sorry," he said in the same flat tone.  "I
can't help you."

Unbelievable, she thought.  "Then connect me with someone in the FBI
with balls who *can*!"

Her phone went dead.  She thought her connection had degraded, but
no, it was just as good as it had been a moment before.

In the situation room at the FBI, Agent Drummy looked at SAC Fossa,
who nodded approvingly as she left the room.

Agent Mosley Drummy watched her go.  Dr. Scully was right; someone
should be out there helping Fox Mulder with whatever it was he'd
found.  Drummy didn't agree with his methods, but it didn't mean he'd
leave a man out on his own.

But it wasn't his call.  He watched SAC Fossa's retreating form,
wondering what the hell was going on.

At the hospital, Scully dialed another FBI number.  "I'd like to
speak to Assistant Director Walter Skinner, on an urgent matter."

"Who's calling for him, please?" asked the operator.

"Former Agent Dana Scully."

x-x-x

Rural Virginia

The snow that had started falling before dusk was getting heavier,
covering the tracks in the road where Mulder's car had been pushed.

Down the slope, falling snow and ice had almost covered the car
already.  But if anyone had been watching from the road above, they
would have seen some shifting of the pile forming over the passenger
side of the car.  The shifting turned into a hole, and out of it
reached a gloved hand.  The hand became two, and the hole enlarged to
reveal the dazed and bloodied head of Fox Mulder.  Little by little
he made the hole big enough so that he could pull himself out of the
car through the broken window.  He'd been cut by flying glass, and
was slightly concussed, but it was nothing he hadn't experienced
before.  He knew he had to keep moving -- not just for his own
safety, but to find Dacyshyn's latest -- and, he hoped, last --
victim.

He looked up the steep slope and looked for a place to start the
climb back up to the road.

x-x-x

Cheryl Cunningham knew that there was something afoot.  Her prison
had been moved to the edge of the lighted room, and she could see her
surroundings more clearly than before.  It didn't inspire hope or
confidence in her to see the operating room set up, and to understand
what her fate was likely to be.

The dogs set up another chorus of frenzied barking, heralding the
arrival of Mean Man.  Sure enough, he came through the far door.  He
handed a bag to Hat Man, who handed it to White Legs.

Hat Man and Grey Pants approached Cheryl's box.  She braced herself,
ready to come out fighting.  She was sure her life depended on it;
these people certainly could have no intention of letting her go,
after what she'd seen and heard.

Tense moments passed, and she heard some exchanges in whatever
foreign tongue these people used, and the clatter of metal against
metal.

She heard the hasp of the lock on her prison.  She tensed, ready to
bolt.

The door swung wide and the two men reached in for her.  She
screamed, "NO! DON'T TOUCH ME!" at the top of her lungs, and did her
best to elude their grasp.

She never had a chance.  The two men held her thrashing body as the
woman approached, pressed the pneumatic syringe against her neck and
she stopped resisting, going limp almost immediately.

Janke Dacyshyn watched from his vantage point next to Franz's
gurney, whispering into his ear.  "You don't need this body any more;
it has betrayed you.  I have a fine, strong body for you.  Soon you
will be healthy again."

Franz made no reply.  He couldn't even turn toward Janke; he
couldn't speak if he'd wanted to.  His head was held onto its body by
sutures within and without; the result of a painstaking surgery
performed a few days ago.

But despite the best efforts of the doctor and his assistants, the
body was dying.  It would soon take what was left of Franz Tomczeszyn
with it, if they didn't operate tonight.

So much had been leading up to this moment: the careful
experimentation over the years, both animal and human; the long
periods of time between attempts, so as not to draw attention.  Janke
had ranged far and wide to find compatible donors.  Even when Franz
had been in remission, the experiments had continued.  Janke had
wanted to be ready.  Franz was all he had in the world, and he owed
him everything.  This gift, the gift of a new body, was his 
repayment.

The doctor and his assistants lowered Cheryl's inert body into the
ice-and-water bath that would lower her temperature during the
procedure.  The nurse began to insert the needles and lines that
would connect the girl to the bypass machine for the surgery.

Approaching Franz's gurney, the doctor waved Janke away with
irritation.  He wasn't even sterile, and here he was, hanging over
the patient in his great filthy coat.

Janke retreated, thinking that this might be a good time to go make
sure that the man he'd run off the road -- for all he knew, an FBI
agent -- hadn't survived the crash.  And if he had...

x-x-x

By the time Skinner picked up Scully in Richmond, he'd already
gotten the location and description of the crashed car, called in by
a man who'd seen the accident site on his way home.  They were
approaching the site now.  Scully sat on the edge of her seat,
willing the SUV to move faster through the thickening snow.  She
could see the flashing red and blue lights of the cruiser ahead, and
the spotlight of the tow truck pointing down into a ravine, where the
Taurus was being winched up, foot by foot.

Almost before the vehicle stopped, she was opening the door, rushing
to the deputy who stood by the tow truck.

"My name's Dana Scully," she said.  "That's my car."

"Right," the deputy said.  "I have your name.  Some bigwig over to
the FBI in Washington called already."

"That would be this man," Scully said, gesturing to Walter Skinner,
who'd just walked up.  "Any sign of the driver?"

"Not a sign of him," the deputy said.  "He could have been thrown
clear; the windows were broken.  We did find this."  She held up a
zip-lock bag with a cell phone in it.

"It's got blood on it," Scully said with fear.

Skinner said, "Now, calm down and think, Scully.  He's nowhere to be
found; that says he survived the crash and walked away under his own
power.  Any sign of tracks?" he asked the deputy.

"No sir, but snow's been pretty heavy since nightfall.  We wouldn't
even have seen the place where the car went off the road if it hadn't
been for this man."  She gestured to the proprietor of the feed store
who had talked to Mulder earlier in the day.

Skinner turned back to Scully.  "He had to have climbed out.  If he
climbed out, he climbed up -- so he's probably somewhere along this
road.  You know Mulder, and you were a damned good investigator --
where do we go from here?"

Scully got a grip on herself.  Skinner was right; her worry and fear
for Mulder was drowning out that part of her that could think coolly
and logically in this kind of situation.  She took a deep breath and
looked around.

"Which way would you say he was heading?" she asked.

The feed store proprietor said, "He was at my store about an hour
before.  If he was on this road leading away, he'd be heading up that
way."  He pointed in the direction Mulder had indeed been heading, as
he followed the white truck.

Scully gave her card to the tow truck driver and got back into the
car with Skinner.  At least they had a place to start now.

x-x-x

As he left the compound, Janke lowered the plow into place.  He'd
risked driving without it on the way, but in the intervening hour or
so the snow had gotten much thicker.  It was slow going but he wasn't
going to take foolish chances now.

About half a mile from the main road, the plow mechanism made a
dreadful clanking noise and the truck stalled.  With a curse, Janke
got out of the truck and looked at the plow.

The hydraulic line was broken, and fluid was leaking out of it. 
Pushing that car over the edge had probably caused the damage.  Janke
kicked at it angrily and futilely.  He slammed the driver's door and
considered his options.  Surely the cold and his injuries would
finish the man off.  And if they didn't, there was still no way he'd
find the way to the compound.  Janke headed back there himself.

x-x-x 

Mulder was getting more and more tired.  He knew he was slightly
concussed, and he also knew that if he sat down to rest, he might
never get up again.  He kept on, looking for a road that might lead
off the main road, one that appeared to be recently traveled, even in
this heavy snow.

The thing is, how could he tell what was more, or less, traveled? 
In the end, he picked the first road he saw, shuffling through the
snow, on the lookout for sign of civilization.  As he came around a
curve in the road, he froze in his tracks.

There was the truck, headed straight toward him.  He couldn't hear
the engine running, and the only light he saw was reflected from the
snow.  It was eerily quiet, but he approached with caution, just in
case Dacyshyn was lying in wait.

The engine was still slightly warm, and the driver's door was open. 
There were no keys in it, and Mulder didn't want to take the chance
of being surprised by its owner while he fumbled with half-frozen
fingers to hot-wire the thing.

Instead, he rummaged around in the cab, looking for anything he
could use as a weapon.

-x-

Chapter Sixteen - The Surgery

Janke Dacyshyn was back in the primitive operating room, this time
keeping his distance from the activities.  He could see the new donor
body in its ice bath, and the lines of tubing circulating the life-
giving blood through the dialysis machine.  The doctor and his
assistant were working on Franz now, carefully cutting the stitches
that held him to the dying body.

It had to work this time.  He was sure that Franz could not
withstand much more of this, and neither could he.

x-x-x

It was very slow going, inching along the country roads in this
hellish weather.  Skinner had been on the phone, trying to muster
what support he could, and letting SAC Fossa know that she *would*
cooperate with this part of the investigation.  She was instructed to
send Agent Drummy to the Richmond office, and as soon as they knew
the right location, to dispatch him and his men where Skinner ordered
them to go.

Scully listened to Skinner barking orders into his phone and felt a
bittersweet longing for those days.  

They'd made a good team, she and Mulder.  They'd probably still be a
good team, had things been different.  But they weren't; events had
played out in ways beyond their control, and they'd done the best
that they could in the circumstances.

Now, they'd established a different path for themselves.  They were
together in life, but separate in their life's work.  Again, it was a
choice thrust upon them, but she had made her way through it, and she
couldn't just walk away.

But would she best be able to fight the future by being a doctor?  

No, she hadn't forgotten that there was a larger issue at stake; it
was always in the back of her mind.  Mulder had never stopped
thinking of the big picture either, and had been doing what he could
to find answers, even while hamstrung by his exile.  Now the
opportunity presented itself for them to once again enter the larger
stage.

But first, she had to ensure that Mulder would be there to argue
with, to make the hard decisions with her.

She would find him.  There simply was no other option.

x-x-x

The only way to go, Mulder reasoned, was in the direction the truck
had come from.  He tucked the big wrench inside his coat and jogged
down the road.  The jogging made his head hurt but it warmed him up. 
He kept it up until he came to a tall cyclone fence, locked with a
serious padlock and chain array.  He could see the faint outlines of
tire tracks, partly obscured by the falling snow.  A collection of
dilapidated buildings was illuminated by floodlights, but the area
around the fence itself was in shadow.  

The fence looked impossibly high, and it was topped with barbed
wire.  The wrench was not long enough to use as a lever to try and
break the chain, and frankly it looked too thick to be snapped by
anyone other than The Incredible Hulk.  He squared his shoulders and
started to climb.

He dropped awkwardly into a snowdrift on the other side, thankful it
was there to break his fall.  He crouched down low, in case there was
anyone outside to see him.

Something was outside to see him, but it wasn't human.  He heard the
growling and snapping before he saw anything and he gripped the
wrench tightly in one hand, watching.

The dog came running out of the darkness, barking and snarling. 
Mulder blinked.  Was he seeing double?  Or did the dog really have
two heads?

Then he could spare no thoughts as the dog leaped for his throat.

In the operating room, Janke hovered around the edges, watching the
procedure carefully.  The doctor's assistant was swabbing Betadine
over the girl's neck, marking the path for the surgeon's cut. 
Everything seemed to be going the way it should be.

Then the dogs started up.  Usually once they were in their kennels,
only a disturbance outside set them off.  They were more agitated
than usual, and Janke felt a thrill of fear.  Had someone found this
place?

The doctor paused in his delicate work and suggested rather
forcefully that he go and find out what was happening.

He shouted to the dogs to be quiet, and they began to calm. 
Something still didn't feel right.  He walked past the circle of
light near the buildings and cautiously approached the fence.

There he found it: evidence that an intruder had somehow breached
their security.  The dog the doctor called Cerberus lay dying -- at
least part of him was, one head quiet in the snow while the other
panted, tongue lolling.  There was fresh blood nearby, and not all of
it was the dog's.  He could see a few spots of it leading away,
toward the light.

Mulder burst into the operating room, brandishing his wrench.  The
warmth of the room after being cold for so long made him almost 
dizzy.

"Stop what you're doing!" he yelled as forcefully as he could,
though his voice sounded unbelievably weak in his ears.  He held the
wrench high.

A tall, gaunt looking man turned to look at him, some kind of
surgical instrument in his hand.  He spoke what Mulder recognized as
Russian, though he didn't understand the words. 

He looked around the room, holding his weapon at the ready.  He saw
a female body in a tank of what looked like yellow slush, tubes of
red attached to her.  

"I want her out of there," he said as forcefully as he could.  "Take
those tubes out and sew up her neck.  *Now*!"

The table where the surgeon had been standing held a body covered by
a sheet, and something else nearby, also covered.  Mulder approached
it cautiously, removing the cloth from the smaller object.

A man's severed head stared up at him.  As Mulder looked on in
shock, it blinked.

The doctor, or someone, was still speaking to him, approaching him
slowly.

"Back off!" Mulder said.  "And *shut up*! Do any of you speak
English?"

No one answered, at least not in English.

The doctor put his now empty hands out, in an apparently
conciliatory gesture.  He spoke calmly.

"I don't understand you!"  Mulder shouted.

And then he was grabbed from behind.  He managed to wrest himself
from the grip of Janke Dacyshyn, who then threw a roundhouse punch
that made him reel.  Before he could recover, the doctor had gotten a
hypodermic in hand, and had administered the drug.

Mulder didn't need to speak Russian to know what it was.  And after
a moment, he knew nothing at all.

x-x-x

Scully could feel hope draining away with every moment that passed. 
Skinner drove slowly out of necessity both due to the weather and so
that they wouldn't miss anything, but she was so afraid that they
wouldn't get there, wherever 'there' was, in time...

"Don't worry, we'll find him," Skinner said from the driver's seat,
sensing her worry.  "I know Mulder, he won't do anything crazy."

Scully didn't answer; she just looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"Well, not overly crazy," Skinner amended.

She turned her attention back to her side of the road.  They were
passing a row of mailboxes, battered by years of weather and probably
the random baseball bat.  She didn't look at them closely, her
attention more focused on the road ahead.

And then, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

"Stop," she said.  "Back up."

Mystified, Skinner did as she requested.  The SUV's headlights
illuminated the mailboxes, and Scully saw it:  one mailbox, evidently
missing a digit so that it read "25 2."

"I don't believe it," she breathed.

"What?"  Skinner asked.

"Proverbs 25-2," she said.  

"What?" Skinner asked again.

"'God's glory to conceal a thing...'" Scully quoted softly.  Without
hesitation she opened the mailbox and reached inside.

x-x-x

Mulder had regained a hazy consciousness, but he couldn't move.  He
was aware that there was some activity around him; now he was on the
move, being dragged across the floor, over the threshold, and down
the steps.  He couldn't raise his head, so it bumped against the
steps as Dacyshyn dragged him outside.

He ended up next to a woodpile, in full view of a stump with an axe
stuck in it.

Now I know what the Thanksgiving turkey feels like, he thought.  Try
as he might, he could not make himself move.

As he watched, the axe was yanked out of the stump.  He heard a
scraping of metal on metal, the sound of an axe being sharpened. 

x-x-x

Scully shuffled through the mail, looking for any recognizable name.
Most were addressed to "occupant", but finally she found a bill --
and from a medical supply company.  The spark of hope inside her
grew, just a little.

"Dr. Uroff-Koltoff," she said.  "I think this must be the place. 
It's an address on Bellflower Road."

"I'll check the GPS," Skinner said.

"Wait," Scully said, listening.  Somewhere in the distance, she
could hear dogs barking.  Not one dog, but a chorus of them.

It was more than a spark of hope now. 

Hang on, Mulder, she thought, climbing back into the SUV as Skinner
gunned the engine.

x-x-x

Mulder found that by concentrating very, very hard, he could move
his head slightly.  He turned away from the stump to see what else he
could see.

To his left, there was a very pale, naked body.  Headless.

Even without a head, he was pretty sure that he'd just found Monica
Bannan.  Then Janke pulled the body away, out of his line of vision,
and he heard the sickening sound of the axe biting into flesh and
bone.

Numbly, he waited his turn.  A long, dreadful interval later, the
axe was returned to its stump.

There were more dragging sounds and a rustling of plastic.  Mulder
didn't need to see; his mind supplied the details of Dacyshyn
wrapping body parts in plastic, prior to disposal.

Mulder strained to move his arm.  He was just about in reach of the
axe, if he could just make his arm move...and it did, excruciatingly
slowly, his hand and fingers still limp.  He dragged his arm toward
the stump, willing his fingers to regain their strength so he could
try to grab the axe.

Dacyshyn's hand reached down and pushed Mulder's arm off the stump
as if it belonged to a rag doll.  He pulled the axe from the stump
and dragged Mulder so that his head and shoulders were now resting on
it, face up.  

He heard sharpening sounds again.  He wondered if it was harder to
chop up a living body than a dead one, and whether or not he stood a
chance of rolling out of range at the last minute -- and how long
he'd be able to fight back in his weakened state.

I can't believe it's gonna end like this, he thought disgustedly. 
After all we've been through, it's not just pathetic, it's ludicrous.

He raised his eyes to Dacyshyn, who now towered over him, axe raised
above his head.

"HEY!" A familiar, much-loved voice distracted Dacyshyn and he 
turned.

Mulder heard a loud THWACK that sounded for all the world like a
baseball bat hitting a good, hard, fastball.

The next sound was of a body falling behind him.

His next sight was of Scully.  She pulled him off the stump and ran
her hands gently through his hair, lightly touching the cut on his
forehead.  "Mulder, are you okay?" she asked anxiously.

He smiled up at her.  "Sorry about your car," he rasped.

"Oh, Mulder," she said through her tears.

"Cheryl Cunningham...she's still alive," he said.

"I'll be right back, I promise," she said.  "Don't move."

If he could have laughed, he would have.

Inside the building, Skinner leveled his gun at the group around
Cheryl Cunningham and yelled, "Hands where I can see them!  Now!"

They might not have understood the words, but they did understand
the intention.  Somehow a tall man leveling a gun at them commanded
more respect than a disheveled, bloody man holding a wrench.  They
huddled together, watching Skinner warily.

Skinner approached cautiously, checking for any other entrances or
other persons who might be lying in wait.  He gestured for the doctor
and his helpers to step away from their victim.

He noted a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see,
to his horror, a severed head, seemingly connected to the woman's
body by various tubes.  As he watched, the eyes blinked slowly.

"My God," Skinner breathed.  "What have you done?"

He motioned them to move further away from the operating theatre,
and spied a large plywood box behind them, its door open, obviously
some kind of holding pen or cage.

"Get in!" he shouted, gesturing with his gun, and the three did as
they were bid.  Skinner locked the door behind them and turned to see
Scully entering the room.

He marveled at how calmly she took everything in at a glance, taking
her coat off and rolling up her sleeves.

"Mulder's outside," she said.  "He's alive, but he needs fluids and
warm clothes.  Please, can you help him?  I've got work to do here."

"What about Dacyshyn?" Skinner asked.

"He's out there too," Scully said.  "I don't know if he's alive or
not."

Skinner left her to her task.  He'd already called Richmond and
reinforcements were on the way, but it appeared to him that Scully
could handle it all, without anyone's help.  Including his.

He found Mulder lying huddled next to a stump by the woodpile. 
Dacyshyn didn't look good, but he cuffed him and kicked the axe away,
just in case, and then turned to Mulder.

Mulder opened his eyes as Skinner knelt next to him.  He smiled a
broad, disbelieving smile.  "Skinner?" he asked incredulously. 
"Girl...inside...still alive..."

"Scully's got her," Skinner said, taking off his overcoat.  "How're
you doing?"

"C-cold," Mulder said, and he soon found himself wrapped in the coat
and the arms of his former boss.

-x-

Chapter Seventeen - Home Again

Here he was, right back where he started from.  Mulder sat at the
desk in his study, trying not to pick at the stitches on his
forehead, already itching.

He'd have stayed at the hospital, but Skinner insisted that Scully
wanted him to go home while she made sure that Cheryl Cunningham was
stabilized.

He'd been questioned while they patched him up, and according to
Skinner, Scully had been questioned, too.  He'd been treated as more
or less a victim, but they'd had a couple more questions for Scully,
such as, what did she know about the big dent in Janke Dacyshyn's
head?

When you were an FBI agent and you shot or injured someone in the
pursuit of a crime, you surrendered your gun, you went before a
review board, and maybe had to go in for some counseling.  It
appeared that when you were merely a civilian, there was quite a bit
more paperwork involved.  Fortunately, Skinner insisted that it was
self-defense -- that Dacyshyn had threatened her with an axe.  

It was true enough to pass.  No doubt Scully would have been next,
if she'd arrived just five minutes later.  Those who didn't know
Scully might not believe that she could get the better of an axe-
wielding madman, but that was their problem.  

There was also the mitigating circumstance that she'd saved the life
of Cheryl Cunningham.

Of course, that's not how the paper told it.  Agent Drummy and his
team had arrived on the scene at the same time as the ambulances and
made the arrests, and it was Drummy on the front page of the morning
paper.  

Not that Mulder wanted any credit or the publicity.  He was
perfectly happy to let someone else take the credit; he just didn't
think it should be Agent Drummy.  

That wasn't the main thing that concerned him, though.  What
concerned him more was where he stood with Scully.  They hadn't
really spoken since that last exchange in the hospital the day
before, and he wished he could take those bitter words back.

He wasn't even sure if Scully was coming home, or if she just wanted
him out of her hair.

The sound of a car pulling up outside ended his self-recrimination. 
He sat still, listening.

A key turned in the front door, and light footsteps approached his
inner sanctum.  He didn't turn as the door opened, giving instead his
traditional greeting:

"What's up, Doc?"

There was silence for so long that he was forced to turn around.

It was indeed Scully, looking mournful.  He should have known that
the reason she drove all the way out her was to deliver bad news in
person.  They had a history of this.

"Mulder," she said gently, "Father Joe died early this morning."

Mulder nodded, saying nothing, his face betraying nothing.

"He was obviously a very sick man," she continued.

Mulder picked up the paper he'd been reading, with news of the
grisly crime splashed across its front page.  "Did you see this?" he
asked her.  "'FBI Arrest of Modern-Day Frankenstein'," he read the
headline.  "No mention of all about Father Joe, except as a possible
accomplice."

"Well, we'll never know the truth now," Scully replied.

"*I* know," Mulder insisted.  "And so do you."

"But I don't."

"Well, I can prove it," Mulder said.  "Father Joe died of lung
cancer, right?  Same as Franz Tomczeszyn had.  What time did you pull
the tubes from Cheryl Cunningham's neck and cut off the blood supply
to his head?"

Scully shook her head, but there was no stopping him.

"That's the exact moment Father Joe died, Scully.  Get me the death
certificate and I'll prove it.  And then I'll take it to the FBI 
and-"

"Do you really think after all that's happened they'll take your
call?"

"Skinner would," he said stubbornly.

"And then what?"

"It's an injustice to the man's name.  Father Joe saved that woman. 
We both know it."

"After what he did to those young boys, who's really going to care? 
He doesn't have a reputation to save."

"I care," Mulder said.  "And I think you do, too."

Scully said nothing.  He was beginning to tread on dangerous ground.

"What makes you think that?" she asked.

"I think you believed him, same as I did, Scully," he said quietly.

"I *wanted* to believe," she said, "and I acted on that belief."

"Why don't you just tell me what he said to you?" he asked.

Scully turned away.

For a long, agonizing minute, it didn't look like she was going to.

He waited her out as patiently as he could, knowing that everything
was riding on whether or not she replied.  He bowed his head.  If she
still couldn't talk to him about it, maybe there was nothing more to
be said at all.  He rubbed his eyes.

"He said, don't give up," Scully said quietly.

Without being told anything more, Mulder thought he understood. 
Still, he let Scully continue, and continue she did, her words
spilling out like water over a dam.

"And I didn't give up, Mulder, and it saved your life."  She
swallowed, near tears.  "But I put that young boy through hell, and
I've got another surgery scheduled later this morning.  All because I
believed that God was talking to me -- through a pedophile priest, no
less."  She rolled her eyes at her credulity, and gave him a watery
half-smile.

On surer ground now, Mulder could argue the case in terms that she
could accept.  "Doesn't it make sense, Scully?  If Father Joe was
seeking redemption, what better way?  What if Father Joe *was*
forgiven?  What if his prayers were answered?"

"Why him, though?" she asked.  "Why would God choose to answer the
prayers of a sinner like Father Joe?"

"Maybe...maybe because he didn't give up," Mulder offered.

Scully smiled sadly.  "Try proving *that* one, Mulder."

He smiled sadly back, knowing as well as she did that belief and
proof seldom went hand in hand.

"Why is this still so hard for you?" he asked gently.  "After all
we've been through together, why are you still so afraid to believe?"

"I'm afraid," she whispered, tears starting down her cheeks,
"because I don't want to lose myself in the darkness.  Or lose you."

"I can't get lost if you're with me," he said, "and neither can you.
Not as long as we're together."

"I want to believe that," she said through her tears, "but it's just
so hard.  I believe you, Mulder.  But I doubt myself.  I don't know
what to believe, how to tell what to believe in."

"I have enough belief for both of us," he said.  "I couldn't ask you
to stop questioning any more than I'd want you to stop breathing. 
It's your questioning that's saved me, more times than I can count. 
It's one of the many reasons I fell in love with you."

He watched as she registered his words, waiting for her response.

"I'm due at the hospital," she said, and turned to go.

Maybe it was too little, too late.  Sure, he'd gotten her to confess
her doubts and fears, but had it done either of them any good?  He
couldn't just let her walk away now.

He went after her.  "Scully," he called from the front porch.

She turned from unlocking the car door.

"Why did he say it?"  Mulder asked her, walking down from the porch.
"Don't give up.  Why to you, of all people?"

"Clearly, he meant it for you, not me, Mulder," Scully answered.

"But he didn't say it to me, he said it to you.  Why?"

Scully shrugged.  "I couldn't begin to tell you."

"If Father Joe was the Devil, why would he say the opposite of what
the Devil might say?"

Scully shook her head, but he had her attention.

"Maybe it's the larger answer, Scully.  Not about you, or me, or
even the boy, but all of us."

"What do you mean, Mulder?"

He got as close to her as he could, just as he had in the old days
when he wanted to talk to her, to tell her something that he wanted
only her to hear.  "Don't.  Give.  Up," he said simply.

She closed her eyes briefly, divining the larger question he was
asking in those three small words.  "Please don't make this any
harder than it already is," she pleaded.

Mulder put his arms around her, and she leaned into him.  He held
her close, twining one arm around her waist and the other in her
hair.  He whispered, "If you have any doubts, Scully, any at all,
call off the surgery this morning."

Scully looked up at him.  He wasn't trying to persuade her to give
up; he was telling her as he had at least once before, that it was
okay to be afraid.  To have doubts.  And that no matter what, he
would be there for her.

"And then we'll get out of here," he said.  "Just you and me."

She smiled tremulously.  "As far away from the darkness as we can
get?"

"I don't think it works that way," he said, answering her smile.  "I
think the darkness finds you.  And me."

She nodded solemnly at his words, looking up at him with such love
and trust that it took his breath away.  He smiled into her eyes, and
continued, "but let it try."

He held her face in his hands and kissed her, investing it with all
the love and hope and promise he could.  They held each other close
for long moments, Scully finally pulling away reluctantly.

"I'll be here when you get back," he said.  "Whatever you decide."

She touched his hand one more time, for luck, and got into the car.

He watched her go, silently willing her to believe.

x-x-x

Scully felt that all eyes were upon her as she walked down the
corridors of the hospital.  Father Ybarra stood with the Fearons, and
she had no doubt that he was trying again to talk them out of the
treatment.  The board, almost miraculously, had decided in her favor
after a late meeting the night before, but she knew that there was
still a long, hard road ahead.

If in fact, she was still going to take the journey.  She headed for
the operating room, where Christian and the staff already awaited.

Christian was already prepped, lying so small and vulnerable looking
on the table.  She smiled at him, and he gave her a very small smile
back.

*What if I'm wrong?* the thought came unbidden.  She looked around
the busy OR.  It seemed to her that no one here would look her in the
eye.  Even Michael was subdued this morning.

She scrubbed in and returned to the OR.  Everyone waited for the
word from her.

Will I know when to say, "Enough is enough," or will I insist on
continuing despite all evidence to the contrary?  Will I listen to
what others are telling me, or will I listen to my heart?

Like Mulder.  So often they appeared at odds when really they were
so much alike.  Neither of them wanted to give up, despite the odds,
despite what seemed like the rational course.

"It's why I fell in love with you," she'd told him.

*Don't give up* she heard, this time in Mulder's voice.  She looked
to the door of the operating room and saw three nuns standing there,
watching, waiting.

*Don't give up.* Don't give up on what you believe in.  Don't give
up on me.  Don't give up on us.

"Are you ready to begin, Dr. Scully?" the assisting surgeon asked.

"Yes," Scully said decisively.  And I'm ready to go on, she thought,
turning to the operating table.

x-x-x

Epilogue

The sun went down early in the tropics, but here the darkness held
no fears for them.  

By day they explored their domain, reveling in the freedom such
privacy afforded them, to laugh and enjoy their surroundings and each
other.

By night they were free to explore more intimate territory, without
the fear that any prying eyes could see them.

When their time out of time ended, they returned to their new
reality, their bond strengthened and their faith restored, united in
purpose, and ready to face whatever was to come.

And what was to come?

That's another story...

-x- end -x-


Author's notes:

I loved IWTB the movie.  The novelization, not so much.  I bought it
after seeing the movie a time or two.  After reading it, I shared my
opinion with a couple of friends, and told them I thought any one of
us could have done a better job.

"Why don't you do it?" someone asked.

Why not, indeed?

So what you will find here is a fanfic treatment of the movie, more
or less, with a few added scenes, some different explanations for
things, maybe even a couple of guest appearances.  I tried not to use
the novel at all, though I did use it to check on the order of a
couple of scenes or a setting or two.  Still, overall, I took my
inspiration from the movie.

Special thanks go to Carol, who was always urging me to get back in
that chair and write; Tess and Donna, who dared (or maybe guilted )
me into writing it; and Char, who gave me that final push that made
me buckle down and finish it, already!

All the ladies helped with beta duties.  I owe a debt of gratitude
to them all for some great suggestions and tweaks.  They are better
than any Spell Check or Grammar Check.  I don't think Microsoft
offers Reality Check, but even if it did, I'd still go with these
ladies.  So, HKs all around!

And now, I can go read some of the post-IWTB fanfic that I've denied
myself lo these many months... 

Thanks so much for reading!

ML - msnsc21@yahoo.com

Circe Invidiosa has made a lovely home for my stories here:

http://ml.invidiosa.com/index.html