From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 29 Jun 2002 01:34:09 -0000
Subject: Walking Through Fire (1 of 14) by LoneThinker
Source: direct

Reply To: bardsmaid@imagesmithstudio.com


TITLE: Walking Through Fire (1 of 14)
AUTHOR: LoneThinker (aka Bardsmaid)
E-MAIL: bardsmaid@imagesmithstudio.com
DISTRIBUTION: Yes, but please let me know where.
SPOILER WARNING: Anything before *Drive, early S6
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: X,S,A 
KEYWORDS: the gang's all here
DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters.  I just discovered them 
hitchhiking when 1013 abandoned their real agendas on the Yellow 
Brick Road to Season 6's fantasyland, and I couldn't help offering 
them a ride.  Don't worry: I drive carefully and seat belts were 
provided for all. 
NOTE: Walking Through Fire is the sequel to *Paradise Lost and the 
second part of a completed trilogy that concludes with *Sanctuary.  
All three parts of this trilogy may be found complete at:
http://www.sandarsdimension.com/excavations/XFfic/fanfic.htm   
SUMMARY: Determined to gain reinstatement at the Bureau after 
being unjustly dismissed, Mulder searches for a way to bring 
Cancer Man down while also confronting the grim reality of 
unemployment.  Meanwhile, Scully's responsibilities increase as 
she juggles her new Quantico assignment with her continued support 
of her ex-partner's quest.  But Skinner requests her forensic 
expertise in an ongoing investigation, saddling her with an 
additional burden that may prove more than she can bear.  A ghost 
from Teena Mulder's past prompts her to finally open up to her 
son, though the information she offers has the potential to crush 
him.  And Alex Krycek may inadvertently provide the evidence 
Mulder needs to foil the Smoking Man.
..................................................................
...................
Walking Through Fire (1 of 14)




In the dream she was a little girl again, flying down the stairs 
in the thin light of early morning to check on the rabbit she'd 
been trying to protect the day before.  Bill had threatened to 
kill it, though she could see now, being an adult, that it had 
been an empty threat, designed merely to provoke her in the way 
big brothers often do.  At the time, however, his words had 
terrified her and she had tucked the tiny, squirming bunny, 
unthinking, into an old lunchbox in the basement and then had run 
upstairs.

She had forgotten the rabbit.  When she'd thought of it next, 
shortly after waking up, she'd run down the old wooden stairs, 
heart thumping, to find the small white body stiff, the life gone 
from it. 

She'd blamed herself, though she could see now that there could 
have been any number of causes for the small rabbit's death.  It 
could be that he 'd simply passed through too many small, eager 
hands in the days preceding his incarceration in the metal box.  
Still, she'd shed many tears over the small, still form, 
experiencing a piercing emptiness she'd never known before.  In 
the end, though, the lesson had served her well; it had made her 
more aware of the consequences of her strategies at protection.

It was Mulder she was watching over this time, officially her ex-
partner and yet in reality still very much her partner, the man 
who had--once again--saved her in the process of her saving him. 

Dana Scully rolled over and looked toward the window.  Thin, pale 
light was beginning to fill it.  She needed to be up, in the 
shower, preparing for another day's work--or cover--as a teaching 
pathologist at the FBI Academy. 




Fox Mulder loosened his tie as he emerged from the front door of 
the J. Edgar Hoover Building.  He paused, looked around, and 
headed for a trash can near the curb.  The sheaf of official forms 
and paperwork in his hand slid cleanly through the hole in the 
center, like a polished lay-up shot.  Two points--the final two of 
the game, as it turned out.  He looked up and squinted grimly into 
the brightness.  It was all over; he'd been cut loose.  He 
concentrated on his breathing, on keeping it even, steady.

Albert Hosteen, the old Navajo, had once asked him if he was 
prepared to sacrifice himself to the truth.  He'd believed he was, 
though the drop-off seemed deeper, and the chasm below it more 
treacherous, now that he was poised on the precipice.  

The traffic light at the intersection near him changed and he 
moved into the crowd, letting it give him direction.  On the other 
side he hesitated, looked both ways and then started slowly to the 
right, toward the Washington Monument.  After half a block he left 
the sidewalk and strode out into the grass.  As he walked he 
pulled the tie from his neck and stuffed it into the inner pocket 
of his suit jacket.  Then he took off the jacket and hung it over 
one shoulder.  He concentrated on his stride, deliberate and even, 
left foot and then right--rhythm substituting for certainty--the 
grass passing in a blur beneath him.
   
The exit interview had been an exercise, but he hadn't expected 
anything more.  The decision to cut him had already been made--or 
pressed upon them--their evidence of his contact with the X-files 
trumped up but conveniently designed to feed the preconceptions of 
the men who thought they were making the decision.  Anything he 
could have offered in rebuttal--if he'd had anything--wouldn't 
have been given a second glance; it would have been an exercise in 
futility.  He'd gone to the interview itself only to please 
Scully, to satisfy her that he'd followed protocol and that if 
they could indeed unearth some credible evidence of a conspiracy 
against him, he'd at least have shown himself to be responsible; 
he wouldn't have slammed the door completely. 

And the options now were--what?   His life was like the slow-
motion debris from an exploding grenade, bits flying in every 
possible direction with no center, nothing solid.  His access was 
gone.  The search that had fueled him for years--the search that 
had been his life, the search for his sister--had run into the 
roadblock, or maybe the brick wall, of credibility.  Maybe 
Samantha wasn't who he'd always thought she was.  Maybe she was 
the product of an unspeakable liaison between his mother and the 
Cigarette Smoking Man.  And his mother.  Just when he'd thought 
he'd finally broken through that shell she always carried herself 
in, she'd lied to him again.  What was she hiding?  Who was she 
trying to protect?

Mulder looked ahead and walked faster now, as if to leave his 
speculations behind.  He'd let them overwhelm him three nights ago 
and he'd nearly put a gun to his head.  Had put a gun to his head, 
momentarily at least, until he'd been stopped by fate's idea of a 
practical joke:  Alex Krycek.  The shock of realization had been 
like a cold shower--sudden, chilling recognition of how close to 
the edge, for all his rationalization, he really lived, and how 
easily motives and actions could be justified.  He'd made himself 
believe Scully'd be okay on her own.  She was strong, but for as 
much as she held him up, she was still human.  She wouldn't have 
deserved to find him on the apartment floor with half his head 
blown off.  Sometimes she stumbled, the way anyone did.  And who 
would've been there to pick her up, to help her, or even to notice 
a woman struggling through life wearing the careful camouflage of 
'I'm fine' to ward off all comers?

The Monument was crowded, tour bus loads of people milling in 
clusters near its base.  Mulder skirted the area and kept going.  
Off to the right of the Lincoln Memorial was a quiet pond and a 
spot that--hopefully--would offer some peace, or clarity.   




Walter Skinner sat at his desk, absently nudging the corner of a 
file folder with a pencil eraser.  It was done now; Mulder was 
officially out.  The power of his access--of his position as 
Assistant Director--should have meant something to Mulder in the 
way of backup, and yet he'd exposed himself twice in the last 
week, like a sniper foolishly firing when everything around him 
was quiet, blatantly advertising his position.  He'd gone to 
Senator Matheson to inquire about Mulder and then he'd given 
Scully a tip that had turned out to be a marked bill.  The 
Cigarette Man had seemed unaware of his indiscretion, but that 
hadn't kept Alex Krycek from figuring it out almost immediately, 
and what did that mean in the end?  How far would the information 
travel?  He couldn't afford to stick his neck out and now he was 
like a grunt--an infantryman--suddenly reassigned to the kitchen, 
left to wipe off cafeteria trays while the war went on all around 
him.

Skinner pushed back his chair and went to the window.  Outside, 
the day was deceptively bright.    
 



A knock came on the office door.  

"Come in."  Scully put her finger by her place in the technical 
journal and scanned rapidly to finish the paragraph she'd been 
reading.

The door squeaked as it swung open and a rush of cool air swept 
into the room.

"Agent Scully?"

Scully's breath caught.  Her finger pressed down harder on the 
shiny surface of the page.  Diana Fowley stood in the doorway.

"...Yes?"  Something inside her tensed.

"Do you have a copy of the lab workup you did on Gibson Praise?"  
Diana paused and smiled briefly, as if no bad blood had ever 
passed between them.  "I realize you've just moved in here, but my 
copy seems to have disappeared from our office--"

"Are you accusing someone?"

"No."  Diana's expression revealed only surprise.

Scully looked away, toward the window.  She could feel her pulse 
drumming, the flow of her blood.

"I don't need it today," Diana went on.  "But if I can have a copy 
when you get organized, I'd appreciate it."

Scully forced herself to smile.  "I'll make a note of it."

"Thank you."
 
Scully took a slow breath.  By the time she'd exhaled Diana had 
gone, pulling the door shut behind her.  Scully forced herself to 
loosen her grip on the arms of the chair.  She was a professional.  
Without a dispassionate, professional approach she would have no 
chance of figuring out the significance of this unsettling little 
visit.

She stood and walked slowly around the desk. 




Mulder paused at the stairway leading to the water.  It was a 
large pond--eight and a half acres according to the brochure the 
National Park Service put out--and yet it was off the beaten path.  
Tourists flocked to the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, the 
memorials.  There was no monument here; maybe that's what made the 
difference.  The Canada geese liked it well enough, though.  
Mulder picked a step near the bottom and sat down in a patch of 
shade.

The air was hazy with the humidity it held.  Mulder squinted out 
across the muted green expanse of water and watched it ripple 
slowly with the vague movement of air.  He picked up a large, dry 
leaf from the stair above him and crushed it absently, rubbing it, 
unthinking, between his hands so that only tiny fragments fell 
onto the step below.

Deep Throat had told him, once when he'd hovered on the threshold 
between this world and the next, not to give up, to return to the 
world of the living and not to look into the abyss.  That there 
was truth to be had, but that no justice came with it.  Well, 
maybe justice was a pipe-dream, but the things he'd seen--the 
hybrid corpses on the Navajo reservation, the women abducted and 
tested and made sterile, his partner's cancer--they were reason 
enough to keep searching for it.  The men who'd done those things 
needed to be brought to justice.  And beyond the pawns and the 
thugs and the sell-outs stood Cancer Man.  The smug old bastard 
had to be the key, the peak of the pyramid.  Smoky wasn't likely 
to be reporting to someone higher up on the food chain.  Mulder's 
deductive reasoning told him that, but so did his profiler's 
hunch.  All the man's mannerisms and actions spoke directly to the 
controlling mastermind personality:  the constant, meticulous 
planning; the tendency to view life as a chess game, to seek out 
strategies with high potential payoffs; even the ability to let 
others think they were running things, all the while pulling the 
strings himself from behind the curtain.  

And if Old Smoky, for whatever logistic--and for whatever twisted 
personal--reasons, was waging this campaign against him, then the 
only way to get back his life, and the job that supported it, was 
to go after Smoky himself.  What was it Krycek had said once?--
that the thing these men feared most was exposure?  Expose him, 
you expose his crimes; you destroy the destroyer's ability to 
destroy.  

Mulder pulled a sunflower seed from his shirt pocket, put it in 
his mouth and bit down too hard, forcing splinters of shell into 
the tender seed inside.  He spit it onto the pavement and picked 
another seed from his pocket.  But where to start?  Where did he 
get a handhold, or a foothold?  Trying to nail Old Smoky would be 
like attempting to capture the drifting smoke from the old man's 
ever-present Morleys.

Mulder leaned forward, head in hands.  The sun beat a hot path 
across his shoulders and the back of his neck.  He tried to focus 
on the warmth, to let his speculations go, but the lurking doubts 
were creeping back, seeping into him like the sunlight penetrating 
his shirt.  Maybe he was he falling back into the same old 
pattern, instinctively rebuilding on the same shaky foundation as 
before simply because he didn't know any other way to live.  Maybe 
his life had been nothing more than the manifestation of some 
deep-seated psychological need or deficiency.  

Maybe he was what everyone else said he was.  

But what could you do to Cancer Man?  Anything overt would draw 
more fire than he could combat.  Whatever he did would have to be 
something covert, untraceable.  Otherwise Smoky's retaliation, as 
it had in the past, would most likely target his partner.

Mulder looked up suddenly, his jaw hard, and squinted out over the  
water.  There it was: it was impossible to make a move without 
affecting her.  Smoky'd like that.  Maybe he'd planned it that 
way.  He might not have figured on Scully becoming the kind of 
partner to him she had, but the fact was, their closeness had made 
her vulnerable.  It still made him wince to hear her words when 
she repeated what Kritchgau had told her:  "He said that the men 
behind this hoax... behind these lies... gave me this disease to 
make you believe."  It would have to be different this time, but 
without Scully, how far would he get?

Mulder stood and stretched his legs.  He picked up his jacket and 
shook it, then turned to leave.  Several steps behind him sat a 
pale-looking girl with a backpack and tired clothes, eating 
something from a fast food bag.  She smiled when their eyes met, 
as if she had no qualms about being caught staring.  

"Nice afternoon," she said as he passed her on his way up the 
steps.

"Yeah, nice," he replied without feeling.




Diana Fowley pulled the green ottoman close to the window and sat 
down on it.  So often this apartment seemed too large, too 
impersonal.  She'd preferred the friendly clutter of the Paris 
flat with its welcoming old chair and the wrought-iron balcony 
where red geraniums bloomed.  Life, deep and hearty and sometimes 
painful, seemed to infuse Europe with an intensity she'd never 
known here.  It had almost been enough to make her forget--
momentarily--the bigger picture, the grim future she'd been 
preparing for all her life.  It had nearly been enough to heal the 
tender spot she'd inadvertently allowed Fox Mulder to burn into 
her heart.  He'd been an assignment, a game piece to be 
strategically placed in order for the greater strategy to 
continue.  She'd intended only to do her job, to forward the plan, 
but he'd overwhelmed her--undercut her--with a living, pulsing 
humanity for which she had no ready defense.  His hope, his 
passion, his trust--all beyond the pale of the dark world she'd 
grown up in.  And it was frustratingly attractive, in spite of 
Mulder's obvious impracticality, to have that kind of hope, as if 
the world would go on, as if the future could hold a thousand 
positive possibilities.  Difficult to know that for all the 
attractive brightness of a single candle flame, it was she who 
must control it, starve it, ensure that it would never illuminate 
the shadows.

It was obvious, now, that she'd been used to do it again, to 
manipulate Mulder's search in some way through his untrusting 
partner.  Why had the Gibson Praise file disappeared?  Neither 
Mulder nor Scully would have taken it since they already had the 
information; Scully herself had done the workup.  No one else had 
any interest in the data, or even took it seriously for that 
matter.  Jeffrey wouldn't have bothered to take the time to find 
it and throw it out, no matter how much he disbelieved.  The 
material in the X-files, as well as the shape of the future, was 
completely beyond him.  He was simply a place holder in this 
assignment, meant to keep the Project from being exposed.

Mostly likely her father had slipped the file out himself, knowing 
that she'd go to Scully looking for a replacement.  It was yet 
another small opportunity to augment Scully's simple distrust of 
her as another woman--an untrusted woman--who'd had a tie to her 
partner.  Beyond the basic disorientation, Scully, ever the 
analyst, would deduce that she was being watched, that this was a 
further warning not to step out of line, that she wasn't free to 
press ahead in anonymity with any personal agenda originating in 
the X-files.

Diana rubbed her hands to warm them and looked out over the 
expanse of Washington outside the window.  She'd considered the 
fact before, that windows here never opened to the outside the way 
they did in Europe.  Safety factors would be cited, but the fact 
remained that they were designed to keep life in--your life--not 
open you to the invigorating and often messy contact with the life 
and breath beating beyond the glass.




Scully tilted her head to one side and then the other, waiting for 
the traffic light to change.  If she'd met Diana Fowley under 
completely different circumstances she wasn't sure her reaction 
would have been any different.  There was something stiff and 
closed off about the woman.  Something she was hiding.  Diana had 
set off her internal alarm that very first time, when she'd been 
just an unfamiliar face in a roomful of people gathered at Jeffrey 
Spender's briefing.  A Russian chess player had been murdered... 
or so they'd thought until Mulder had pointed out that little 
Gibson Praise, not the Russian, had been the intended target.  
Diana had spoken up quickly in agreement and Mulder had said her 
name--"Diana--"--as if...

It wasn't any business of hers whether Mulder had a personal life, 
or who it included, including Diana Fowley if that was his choice.  
It was the suddenness of it, and the fact that she'd thought she'd 
known him, that had thrown her off--that combined with the fact 
that Mulder was easily led, that he believed so easily and so 
sincerely that any number of people could take advantage of him, 
and had.  He didn't need someone who agreed with him so readily, 
who would only add fuel to his fire until it flared rapidly out of 
control and burned him.  And there was that something--that 
unreadable Mona Lisa look of Diana's that hid volumes, none of it, 
she was sure, positive or straightforward.

Diana's appearance in her office today had been deliberate--how 
else could she read it?--a warning that though she was out of the 
J. Edgar Hoover Building, she was still being watched, that she 
could not operate with impunity.  But how could she explain that 
to Mulder?  Diana was the one thing that brought the flow of their 
partnership to a skidding halt.  She refused to trust the woman, 
and Mulder couldn't believe that she was anything but his 
supporter.  If she said or even inferred anything at all about 
Diana's motives, they found themselves in an abrupt, standoff 
silence.  Mulder had laughed at her interpretations in the past, 
had even jabbed at them with his sarcasm on the way to admitting 
they were right, but nothing had left him sullen and silent like 
the suggestion that Diana had an agenda, and that it wasn't his.

She'd intended to drop by Mulder's after she got off work, to see 
how the exit interview had gone and how he was doing, whether he 
was holding up under the pressure of everything that had happened, 
but she dreaded the prospect now, the specter of ending up in 
another stony silence when she needed to know they were still both 
on the same team, partners in their fight against the Consortium 
and what it had done. 

Scully shifted in her seat.  She could call him.  It was late and 
miles past her own place to get to his.  She could get a feel for 
his mood over the phone and never have to mention Diana Fowley at 
all. 
 
The light above the intersection turned green and the cars in 
front of her began to move.  Scully eased her foot onto the gas 
pedal and looked ahead.
     
          


He'd paced himself.  He'd refused to panic or to let himself get 
caught up in the apparent hopelessness of the situation.  Instead, 
he'd looked ahead to the goal--to somehow expose Cancer Man, to 
gain some leverage over this man with no humanity, no conscience.  
To take back control of his own destiny.  

Mulder pushed aside the papers on his desk and rested his forehead 
against his hand.  He could see his father again, the way he'd 
been when he graduated from the Academy, not proud but tightly 
congratulatory, almost reluctant.  Somber.  His advice?  Not the 
usual--to investigate carefully, to leave no stone unturned, or to 
make a mark for himself--but to live economically, to put away 
whatever he could as a hedge against hard times, or uncertainty.  
At the time he couldn't have guessed what kind of uncertainty his 
father had in mind.  

Mulder rubbed his temples with his fingertips and closed his eyes.  
He'd taken the advice about saving.  There was money put away--a 
reasonable cushion.  But it wouldn't last forever with the 
expenses he had, but no matter how he ran the figures--and he'd 
been sitting here for nearly an hour pushing a pencil--he would 
have to cut his expenses, and the item with the biggest target 
painted on it was his apartment.  

He took off his glasses and laid them on top of the penciled 
papers, then stood and stretched.  The sky outside the window was 
hung in shades of purple and gray, the last of the sun's strength 
backlighting a spreading mass of dull clouds.  The street lights 
had gone on, spreading bluish light on parked cars and on a 
silhouette emerging from a cream-colored sedan.  Mulder looked 
more closely at the familiar motion of the figure and smiled 
suddenly.  It was Scully.            

         


The door to the apartment opened just as she was about to knock on 
it, and Mulder's face greeted her.  Scully composed herself and 
managed a self-conscious smile as he ushered her inside.

"Hard day at the office, Dr. Scully?"

"Not really.  No harder than any other day."  She set her coat on 
the back of a chair and followed Mulder to the couch.  "It's just 
been long.  I'd forgotten how much I dislike the commute."

She took his cue and sat down.  He seemed unusually quiet.

"So what about you, Mulder?  How did the interview go?"

"It was an excuse, an exercise."  He shook his head.  "Nothing I 
could have said would have made any difference, so I didn't."  He 
looked up at her, the beginning of a smile at the corners of his 
mouth.  "Not even anything I would have liked to say.  You 
would've been proud, Scully." 
 
She raised her eyebrows in return, but no words came.  She was 
tired.  She thought suddenly of three nights ago, sitting here in 
the dark, watching over Mulder's sleeping, exhausted form.  Of 
driving to come here that night, her insides churning, knowing he 
was in trouble, afraid of what she would find.  And of sitting 
hours earlier on a cot in a homeless shelter, filled with the thin 
emptiness of the dispossessed.

"We've got to find those people, Mulder," she said, watching the 
file folders on the coffee table go slowly out of focus.  "The 
Consortium.  Before they take more innocent lives."  She stopped 
abruptly, picturing the little blonde-haired girl with her plastic 
toys, thinking of Glenna Marquez, who she'd never seen--and never 
would, now that she'd been killed for the crime of glimpsing, or 
at least claiming to have glimpsed, the missing Cassandra Spender.

"Scully...?"

His voice was soft.  She refocused on the room, on him.  "Just 
thinking," she said.

He leaned forward.

"Scully, do you remember the time we caught Krycek in that 
fertilizer bust?  With the militia group?"

"You mean when he said, 'I love this country?'"

"Yeah, then."  Mulder shook his head.  "He also said if you expose 
him--if you expose Cancer Man--then you take away his ability to 
destroy."

"So you're going after Cancer Man?"

"It...It's all I can think to do.  He's the key.  He's got to be."

"What do you have in mind?"

He shook his head.  "I'm thinking about it.  Something covert.  
Something he can't trace back to either of us, so he doesn't come 
back at you for it."  He looked away suddenly.  She saw him 
swallow.

"Mulder--"

She sighed.  The room was quiet.  She leaned back against the back 
of the couch and looked at her partner's silhouette.  The line his 
jaw made when he was confident about something was missing now.  
Muffled footsteps came from the hallway outside.  The sounds of 
muted voices came closer, passed and then receded.  

"Ever wish you could have five minutes with your dad, Scully?" his 
voice came finally, quiet.  "You know, to ask him something?"

"My dad had a couple of minutes with me once," she said.

He turned to look at her.  "What do you mean?"

"When I was in the hospital.  When I was...returned.  After my 
abduction."

His eyes urged her on.

"He came to me in a vision, or a dream--"

"What did he say?"

Scully looked down at her hands.  "That he would give up 
everything he had--everything he'd earned, all his medals, his 
promotions--just to--"  She looked away.

She could feel him looking at her, waiting.  It had crept up on 
her suddenly, without warning.  She swallowed against the pressure 
in her throat and ventured a glance in Mulder's direction.  A 
softness in his expression encouraged her.  

"...just to have one more second with me, he said."  Her voice was 
quiet, nearly dry.  "It's very sobering, if you think about it."

He paused and nodded agreement.

"What about your father, Mulder?  What would you ask him?"

"When I went to see him--the night he was shot," he began, not 
looking at her, "he said something to me about having your own 
politics, that once you threw in with the group their politics 
were yours and you could be held accountable.  I... I've just been 
thinking about that, that maybe he wasn't in with the rest of 
them.  Not in the same way, I mean."  He leaned forward.  "You 
know how fathers are sometimes, Scully?--harsh because they want 
to make you tough enough to survive?"

She let her hand rest carefully on his shoulder.  "Sometimes it's 
the only way they know to tell you they love you."  

He nodded without turning around.

"You okay, Mulder?" she asked after a moment.

"Yeah," he said quietly, turning to face her.  His eyes were 
clear.  Something like hope filled them.



(end 1 of 14)

...................
Walking Through Fire (2 of 14)




Alex Krycek hit the floor of his room with a thud.  He gasped, 
forced his eyes open and searched the blackness in front of him, 
heart racing.  No movement came from anywhere in the room.  After 
a moment he focused inward and willed the adrenaline racing 
through him to fade.  It was only the dream.    

Chalk up another scenario in front of the convenience store, the 
numbers on the car's clock flashing their warning.  It was amazing 
that his mind still came up with this one; there were so many 
other nightmares now to choose from.  Maybe it was just another 
reminder that he'd come full circle since he'd arrived in this 
country--hit man to fugitive to independent player who'd almost--
almost--swung by on a precarious rope and grabbed the top rung on 
the Consortium's ladder.  It had all gone to hell within a day's 
time: his leverage, the vaccine sample, the boy.  Marita.  Now 
even his dreams were recycled.  

Though there was always some interesting little twist to the car 
bomb nightmare.  One time he'd be locked in the car, trapped; 
another time the players would be different.  Occasionally the old 
man himself would come up and leer through the window.  Once it 
had been his mother, or at least a mock-up of her.  The closest 
he'd ever come to seeing her was the driver's license picture Che 
had downloaded from the Connecticut motor vehicle database.  It 
was enough, though.

Krycek wiped the sweat from his forehead with his right sleeve and 
got to his feet.  In the bathroom he splashed his face with water, 
then took a small glass from the counter and held it under the 
slow-running faucet to fill.  Before taking Mulder to Tunguska 
there'd been no need for a glass; he could cup his hands under the 
faucet and drink from them like anybody else.  He looked at the 
glass, at the slight shake of his hand from the jolt of the dream, 
then set the glass on the counter and turned off the faucet.  He 
drank slowly, deliberately.  The water tasted metallic, of old 
iron pipes.
    
He returned to the bed, tossed a thin cotton blanket over the 
sweaty sheets and lay back down.  The near side of the bed was 
dry, but lying there wasn't an option.  He slept with his back 
against the wall--had for years.  Life was a lot more manageable 
when you knew what was coming at you.
 
Krycek closed his eyes, then opened them again and looked up.  A 
slash of light ran diagonally across the ceiling, crossing the 
occasional eruption of cracking paint. Great digs.  He was the 
only peasant of the bunch--of the little private army the old man 
had produced to combat the future... or to help him defend his own 
position in it.  His half-sister had a respectable position and a 
prestige address.  But then she was a team player; she did what 
daddy told her to... at least as far as the old man could tell.  
Underneath, she had to be a snake.  How could you be anything 
else, growing up around the old man?

Then there was the old man's current golden boy: Jeffrey, as soft 
and naive as they came, the offspring of the old man's legal wife-
-the woman who'd become the poster child for the Consortium's 
experiments.  What the hell was so special about him?  Maybe it 
was just that he was fresh clay, ready for the old man's shaping.  
Too bad for you, Jeff.

Krycek eased himself a little farther onto his back to take the 
pressure off his stump, which he'd landed on when he fell off the 
bed.  Of all of them, he, the one who'd been raised in a Russian 
orphanage on a diet of too little of everything except harsh 
experience, was the lone peasant and always had been.  The old man 
liked to tell him he was the one he depended on, the one he 
counted on in the clutch.  But it was bullshit, pure and simple, 
applied with the wide, thick brush of the old man's fake smile.  
How could the old man ever think he'd believe? 

Had his mother believed?  Had she been clueless or star-struck, or 
just a lonely woman looking for a warm body to make her feel 
alive?  Living with old Bill Mulder might do that to you.  Still, 
she couldn't have been too smart.  What kind of woman would have 
let the old man get her pregnant not once but twice, and then 
carried both kids to term?  Well, maybe the old man had wanted 
Samantha; she'd have made a good knife to twist into Bill Mulder's 
psyche.  But why bother to carry a kid you knew you wouldn't keep?  
Even poor girls in the town near the orphanage knew how to get out 
of that.




Mulder stretched his legs over the arm of the couch and turned to 
look at the shafts of dull light coming through the living room 
blinds.  There had to be a weakness in the Smoking Man he could 
exploit.  He always seemed so invulnerable, though, like the devil 
himself looking down at you and laughing.  No matter when or where 
you crossed him, he already seemed to know every crack or chink in 
your armor.  However implausible it sounded, his forces were 
always set up, dug in and ready before anyone else appeared on the 
battlefield.  

Mulder smiled suddenly to himself.  Maybe that was it--a place to 
start, at any rate.  If Smoky had a manual for living, it would be 
Sun Tzu's *Art of War.  There was a copy somewhere, in a box he 
hadn't touched since Oxford, probably somewhere in the bedroom. 

He stretched his arms over his head and then glanced around at the 
contents of the room.  He'd need a storage unit someplace to put 
this stuff in, all the boxes, the files, his furniture, when he 
had to clear out of here.  He *would* have to clear out.  He 
couldn't afford to stay here, paying out what little he had left 
in rent.      

Mulder pulled up to a sitting position.  There was nothing about 
the apartment you could pin down as having any real sentimental 
value.  And yet it *was* his headquarters.  It was almost other-
worldly to lie here looking at it and realize he would be 
somewhere else soon, that his boxes and files and chairs and...The 
couch would have to be stored--there was the earth-shaker.  The 
couch--his bed, his command post--locked away somewhere under a 
moving blanket, like Samantha's things stored for so long in the 
Quonochotaug garage.  Gone now, all of them.  Never returned to 
anyone's use.

Mulder reached under the pillow and took out the long, dark braid 
of hair.  Whatever Samantha was--whoever her father--whatever the 
true circumstances of her abduction, or the validity of his 
recovered memories--this hair was the one thing that insisted that 
she'd been *real*, a living, breathing little girl he'd shared a 
life with and then lost.  All the rest--the speculation, the 
ominous possibility--was superfluous.

He eased himself back down and rolled onto his side.  He'd done 
this three nights ago--three *long* nights ago: rolled onto his 
side this way, feeling like shit, lost, to curl around the comfort 
of Scully seated on the middle cushion.  

She'd surprised him tonight. What safety had been left unlatched, 
what alarm disconnected that she'd found herself able to actually 
share something from inside her without having that internal 
buzzer go off--the one that invariably sent her on a scrambling 
retreat into her shell?  It had been nice, the kind of thing that 
usually only happened when they were marooned somewhere, like that 
rock in Lake Okobogee, or sitting at a stakeout.  Mulder smiled 
momentarily.  Scully's interior life was a lot richer with 
possibilities than she'd like to admit.  It probably scared the 
hell out of her sometimes.

Mulder traced the smooth length of the braid with two fingertips 
and returned it to its spot beneath the pillow.  He stood up and 
ran his hands through his hair, then turned on the light and went 
into the bedroom to look for his copy of Sun Tzu.  There was work 
to be done, and one smug son of a bitch to be caught at his own 
game.




Scully pulled her robe around her, glanced toward the steamy 
bathroom mirror and opened the door to the bedroom.  The cooler 
air chilled her face, still damp from washing.  She went to the 
chair and picked up her jacket, brushed off a stray hair and took 
it to the closet to hang.  She'd never told that dream--that 
vision of her father--to anyone; she hadn't intended on ever 
telling it.  It had just slipped out naturally, like breathing, 
and the odd thing was that there was no regret, no feeling of 
vulnerability for having let it out.  There would have been at one 
time, but somehow the awful moment hadn't come.  They'd touched a 
point of common ground, she and Mulder, a place where they both 
stood on the same shore.  There was something solid and reassuring 
about it.

Scully closed the closet door, then went to the bed and sat down.  
A yawn escaped her.  It was only nine-thirty, but it may as well 
have been one or two in the morning.  Maybe it was the commute.  
It would take some getting used to.

She sighed and lay back on the comforter.  

The commute and the fatigue were one thing.  The yearning was 
another matter entirely.  She wanted to be investigating, to have 
access to the kind of material or cases that might give the two of 
them a lead in finding and exposing the Consortium, or finding 
Cassandra Spender, and the fact was that every hour she spent on 
the road, or teaching a class, was an hour that kept her from that 
search.  She had lab access now, and she could analyze evidence 
from now to eternity, but just where would that evidence come 
from?  Before, it had come from Mulder, but now he had less access 
than she did; as of yesterday he had no access at all.  Scully 
looked down and loosened her hand from a fistful of bedspread.   

At the sound of the doorbell, she pulled up quickly.  Nobody came 
by at this hour, unless it was Mulder with something to tell her, 
or show her, something his enthusiasm wouldn't allow to wait.  She 
pulled the robe more snugly around her and retied the belt, then 
hurried to the door.  On tiptoe, she could see her prospective 
visitor through the peep hole.  The woman on the other side was no 
one she knew, an older-looking, thin and poorly dressed.

The doorbell went again.

"Miss Scully--"

"Who is it?"

"My name is Johnston.  Mr. Skinner sent me."

Scully frowned.  "What is this about?"

She could see the woman coming closer to the door, and the voice, 
when it came, was a loud whisper tinged with desperation.

"Please, Miss Scully.  May I come in?"

Scully hesitated, then sighed.  She unlocked the door and opened 
it part way.  The woman slipped inside almost before Scully knew 
what was happening.  Somewhere in the back of her mind a low 
voice--Mulder, or her father, or someone from the Academy--berated 
her about letting in a complete stranger at night.  She turned to 
face her visitor.

"Rita Johnston," the woman said with a slight twang, and held out 
her hand immediately in greeting.

Scully smiled cautiously.  "Dana Scully," she said, taking the 
hand the woman offered, "though I see you already know that."

"Mr. Skinner said you might be able to help me," Rita Johnston 
began.  

Scully sighed, made herself smile, then closed the door and locked 
it again.  Ms. Johnston was a small woman, probably in her mid-
fifties, with gray hair at her temples that streaked back through 
shoulder-length hair, which she wore tied back.

"Help you with...?"

The woman looked around.  She seemed tired.  Scully gestured 
toward the sofa.  "Have a seat.  Please."

The woman sat down gingerly on the first cushion she came to.  She 
looked Scully in the eye.

"My son works for Beeson-Lymon--"

"And Beeson-Lymon is..."

Rita Johnson looked apologetic.  "It's a defense plant.  In 
Kentucky; that's where I'm from.  He's been with the company just 
two years, but he's starting to get sick already; I know the 
signs.  He's gone to the company doctors more than once, but they 
always tell him there's nothing wrong with him, just to cut back 
on the cigarettes."

"But you think it's something else," Scully said, leaning forward 
slightly toward her guest.

"Yes, ma'am.  My husband worked at the plant twenty-two years, 
rest his soul, and it did him in the way it did in those other men 
he worked with."

"You believe your husband died from something job-related?"

"Yes, I do.  And I think the company is covering it up."

"Mrs. Johnston--"  Scully shifted on the sofa.  "Exactly how is it 
that you got my name?"

"My brother served in Vietnam with Mr. Skinner.  When we couldn't 
get anywhere about my husband's death and then Andy started having 
problems, Dale figured it was time to call in the cavalry."

"And Skinner gave you my name?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mrs. Johnston, I'm a forensic pathologist, not a practicing 
physician.  I can't do anything directly for your son, though I 
could give you a list of things an examining physician could look 
for.  Now in your husband's case--"  She looked at the woman on 
the other end of the sofa, trying to gauge her strength.  "It 
would mean exhuming the body so tests could be run.  I know that 
could be a painful decision for you."

Rita Johnson hesitated a moment, then nodded.  "Bill would be 
willing, if it would save our boy."  She paused.  "It's lucky I 
stuck to my guns as far as the burial went."

"Excuse me?"

"The company covers the cost of cremation for employees, but I 
said no thanks, Bill wanted to be in the family plot with his 
mother and dad."

"Mrs. Johnston, did the company pressure you in any way to have 
your husband's body cremated?"

"Mr. Beeson visited me twice hoping I'd take him up on it but I 
guess I'd made my mind up.  He acted like he was concerned for the 
family welfare, the cost and all--"

"But you weren't swayed?"

"Bill'd made up his mind.  I couldn't go against his wishes after 
he was gone."

Scully smiled at the energetic woman on the other end of the sofa.  
"I'm going to do some research," she said.  "Is there a local 
address where I can contact you?"

"I'll be on a Greyhound tonight," Rita Johnston said.  "I'll give 
you my home number."  
      
     


Mulder lay in the dark, a copy of Sun Tzu tented on his stomach.  
"A military operation involves deception.  Even though you are 
competent, appear to be incompetent."  Draw your enemy in with the 
prospect of gain.  Cause division among your opponents.  Attack 
when they're unsuspecting.  Move when they're unprepared.

"Those who render others' armies helpless without fighting are 
best of all..."

It was the original guerilla manual, a classic all-time bestseller 
2500 years old.  Mulder smiled.  The book had been at the bottom 
of a box whose contents he hadn't seen or touched in years, 
covered by Plato, Jung and a copy of *Hamlet that had inexplicably 
called up an image of his old professor standing at the lectern 
and gesturing with both arms as if he were conducting a symphony, 
a man who would probably have been rendered speechless if tied up. 
He could hear the professor's voice again, his exact timbre and 
cadence as he intoned "...the story of a young man whose idyllic 
life is destroyed by the death of his father and his mother's 
betrayal of his father for--"

Mulder sat up abruptly.  For the man responsible for killing his 
father: he hadn't seen the parallel before.  There hadn't been one 
at the time... at least, not one he'd known of.  His mother hadn't 
aided in killing his father, but Cancer Man was the one 
responsible in the end.  And though she hadn't run off and married 
the old cigarette-smoking son of a bitch, flaunting their 
relationship, she hadn't been as repentant as Gertrude, either.  
Gertrude at least had seen herself in her son's impassioned 
protests.  His own mother had slapped him in the face and denied 
everything, as if *he* were the one at fault for having asked the 
question.  Reassuring, in the end, to know your family life was a 
tragedy worthy of the Bard.  

He ran his hands back through his hair, tossed Sun Tzu onto the 
coffee table and stood.  The clock glowed a green 2:13 from the 
end table.  Mulder went to the desk, reached beside it for his 
basketball and began to bounce it slowly, rhythmically-bam.  The 
ball passed through stripes of street light as it rose and fell.  
His mother was at his aunt's house now; he'd have to talk to her 
soon to let her know whether it was safe for her to return home.  
He didn't know if it was safe.  Probably.  Unless something had 
happened to the house in the meantime to indicate otherwise.  And 
what would he say when the conversation reached its inevitable 
pause?  He had nothing to say to her, nothing that might not earn 
him another slap in the face

Bam.

He couldn't avoid her forever.

Bam-bam.  

She always seemed immune--immune to everything.  Except when he 
tried to question her about the past, and then a pain surfaced in 
her face, as if everything he said cut her in some way.

Bam-bam.  Bam-bam-bam.

A sudden thumping came from below the floor, followed by the 
ringing of the telephone.  Mulder caught the ball and went to pick 
up the phone.

"Yeah?  Sorry... Okay, yeah. Yeah.  Sorry."

He hung up and ran a hand back through his hair.  The room was too 
hot--too cramped, too quiet, too closed in.  He held the ball, 
poised to bounce, and finally lobbed it into the leather chair.

In his room he found sweats and running shoes and put them on.  He 
worked the apartment key off his key ring and slipped it into his 
pocket.  When he pulled the door shut he hesitated, then went left 
to the stairwell instead of right, toward the elevator.  Every 
stair, every expansion and contraction of muscle, felt necessary, 
as if it were helping him break through a shell or cocoon that 
held him.  He paced his breathing, eager to get to the bottom, to 
be outside in the cold air.  The street beyond the building was 
silent and motionless, suspended in a freeze-frame of night.  
Mulder hesitated only a second, then turned right and hit the 
street sprinting.




Scully clicked the 'shut down' option and watched the computer 
screen go grainy and then fade to black.  She wasn't tired now, 
though it was nearly two in the morning.  It was a godsend--a 
puzzle to untangle, people to help.  Though she couldn't for the 
life of her imagine why Skinner had given her name to Rita 
Johnston and failed to tell her.

After she returned from taking Rita to the bus station, she'd gone 
surfing for background information.  Beeson-Lymon's Kentucky 
operation was indeed a defense plant, one of five the company 
owned.  This particular one, however, did something only two other 
plants in the country did:  it processed beryllium.  Made into an 
ultra-hard, lightweight metal, it was used in missile casings, 
fighter jets and even in the space program.  It also produced a 
toxic dust that could be dangerous--even potentially lethal--at 
extremely low levels of concentration.  Very possibly it was the 
culprit Rita Johnson was searching for--if the evidence checked 
out.  She would have to run tests on Bill Johnston's remains, and 
as many other victims as possible.  Hopefully not everyone had 
taken the company up on its cremation offer.  

Scully stood and stretched, then headed for the bedroom.  She knew 
now how Mulder felt when he called her in the middle of the night.  
This was a case that would pique his interest, and she felt the 
urge to call and tell him about her visitor.  Mulder would like 
Rita Johnston.  He would appreciate her earnestness and single-
mindedness.  He'd be impressed by the fact that she'd come here to 
talk and then had immediately turned around to spend the night 
riding a bus back to Kentucky.  Scully had suspected that the 
reason for her haste was economic--that Rita didn't have enough 
money for a place to stay the night.  She'd offered to put her up 
in a motel, but Rita wouldn't hear of it, though she had 
gratefully accepted Scully's offer of a ride to the bus station.  

She looked at the phone.  Mulder was probably asleep, and there 
was no point in waking him.  He'd seemed pensive tonight, though 
not brooding; she could tell when that kind of darkness came over 
him.  If he was resting, disturbing him might do more harm than 
good.  She could call him tomorrow, after she'd had a chance to 
talk to Skinner.       

Scully got into bed and reached to turn off the light on the night 
stand.  She had to be up again in three hours.  If she could have 
foreseen the way her life would go, the direction it would take--
if she could have shown this picture to her younger self, the one 
fresh from the Academy--she would have denied that it could ever 
be her.  It had been a long six years.




Mulder came awake to sun in his face.  He grimaced and rolled in 
an attempt to escape the brightness, but it was no use; light 
covered the couch--at least the end he was on.  He sat up and 
covered his face with his hands, then blinked and looked over at 
the clock.  10:17.  It was warm.  The morning was half over.

He reached for the phone and dialed the number of the rental car 
agency and waited, stuck on hold.  He couldn't keep doing this, 
renting cars when he had to go somewhere.  When the Bureau was 
paying it was one thing, but on your own dime it was a different 
story.  Taxis were no bargain, either.

He got up, tucked the phone under his chin and went to the leather 
chair for the basketball.  He picked it up and bounced it twice.  
When the agent came on, he grabbed the phone.

"Yeah, I'd like a car for one day--"  He looked at his watch.  He 
wouldn't be  picking it up much before twelve.  He could make it 
home by tomorrow noon; it should be no problem.

"Midsize...something midsize."

Hold again.  

Maybe has he crazy to be doing this, driving all this way--like 
driving was some kind of treat--to go to his mother's house and 
check it out so he could avoid talking to her.  Was he really 
spending all this time and money to avoid a phone call?  He tucked 
the phone back under his chin and began to bounce the ball, harder 
this time, bam-bam-bam.

After his reservation was confirmed, he hung up and tossed the 
basketball back into the leather chair.  There wasn't much time.  
A shower was the first thing on his list, and packing a few 
things.  He should call Scully, so she'd know where he'd gone--so 
she wouldn't worry that he'd done something stupid again.  Mulder 
headed for the bathroom, peeling off his t-shirt as he went.



(end 2 of 14)


...................
Walking Through Fire (3 of 14)




The ringing of the phone woke Scully with a start.  She forced her 
eyes open to find her desk before her.  Quickly she reached for 
the receiver, clearing her throat.

"Scully..."

"Scully, this is Assistant Director Skinner."

"Sir?"

"I have a case here that I'd like your input on.  Some forensic 
evidence we're going to need analyzed."

Scully blinked.  Her eyes were dry.  She'd only closed them for a 
moment, or so it had seemed.  "Does this have to do with the 
defense plant deaths in Kentucky?" 

There was a brief pause.  "How did you know about that?"

"I spoke with Rita Johnston last night.  Frankly, I was surprised 
that I hadn't heard anything from you first, sir."

"I just spoke with her yesterday afternoon."

"Well, evidently she's in a hurry because she came to my apartment 
last night."

"Sorry about the lack of notice, Scully.  This is a case I already 
have agents assigned to; we believe there may be a conspiracy to 
suppress evidence of overexposure to beryllium."

"Yes, the dust from manufacture can attack the lungs, causing 
beryllium disease."

"It was just another ongoing case until I heard from Dale Lanier 
the other day.  He was a buddy of mine in Vietnam; he saved my 
life once--"  He paused.  "Look, I know we've got a lot of 
competent people in the labs there, Scully, but I'd like your take 
on this one."

Scully's eyebrows rose.  "Certainly, sir.  I explained to Mrs. 
Johnston that her husband's body would have to be exhumed..."

"Wilkins and Acosta will take care of the details.  I'll call you 
as soon as I know when the remains will be arriving."

"Yes, sir."

Scully hung up the phone and leaned forward, resting her head in 
her hands.  She had never--never--done that before, fallen asleep 
at her desk on a lunch break.  Of course, she'd never had a 
private office before.  Still, if someone had chanced to walk 
in...

The phone rang again.  She reached for it automatically. "Scully."

"Scully, it's me."

She smoothed an errant strand of hair from her face.  Her face 
softened and she smiled.  "What's up, Mulder?"

"I'm going up to my mother's.  I need to check the place out and 
make sure Krycek hasn't turned it into fireworks, or doesn't plan 
to."

Silence took over the line.  She waited. 

"...So she can come back home..."  There was a slight grittiness 
in his voice. 

"Mulder?"

Another pause, longer this time.  She thought she could hear him 
sigh.  

"...Yeah?"

"Mulder, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I... I thought I was until a second ago.  Look, I've got to 
go check it out anyway, Scully.  To make sure everything's okay."

She pursed her lips.

"Scully, I can't talk to her.  I was up half the night thinking 
about it.  I went out and ran a couple of miles at two in the 
morning, but--"  His voice trailed off.

"We'll figure it out, Mulder."

"But I have to do this now.  I have to check the place out before 
she can go back home."

"Mulder, do you have your cell phone?"

"Yeah..."

"Call me when you get there."

"Okay."

"Promise me, Mulder."

"I will.  I'll call."

There was a click on the other end.  Scully hung up the phone, 
paused and glanced up at the clock.  She closed her eyes.  

So much was tied up for him in this thing with his mother.  She 
wished him a safe trip.  She wished him strength.




Skinner paused in the doorway to the spare room and stared at the 
closet door.  In a box on the second shelf--a box he hadn't opened 
in years--were pictures and a few odd pieces of memorabilia from a 
time he preferred not to disturb.  But it had already disturbed 
him now, had wakened and begun to stir like a dormant animal 
rousing itself from a long hibernation with the e-mail he'd 
received several days earlier from Dale Lanier.

He'd paced length of the apartment at least six times now, 
avoiding this room.  This time he made himself go inside and cross 
to the closet.  The door creaked as it opened.  

He'd begun as an idealist.  It was the reason he'd enlisted in the 
Marines on the day of his eighteenth birthday: to serve, to 
defend.  To make a difference.  But it hadn't worked out like 
that.  He'd been sent to a place where battles were fought with 
enemies who vanished like ghosts, or slipped like rats into the 
woodwork.  The same villages, the same hilltops were taken over 
and over again and then abandoned, like insignificant possessions 
fought over by two rival gangs for the purpose of marking out 
their turf.  A *show* of force, the only constant being that men 
died.  Boys died:  his friends; thin, smooth, black-haired kids 
from the other side; shaky, green recruits who'd just arrived and 
had no idea in hell how to survive.  

For a while he'd succeeded in convincing himself that he was 
defending a people--until it had become clear that the only group 
being defended was a corrupt regime bleeding its own poor, a 
poverty-stricken people swayed by considerations so basic that no 
government planners, no military strategists, had thought to take 
them into account.  Any lingering pretenses of idealism were 
blasted away the day he'd blown the head off a ten-year-old kid 
rigged with grenades.  There'd been no time for thought; he'd 
reacted the way he'd been taught.  He'd done the right thing by 
neutralizing the threat and saving the lives of the eight men with 
him.  But he'd paid a price.  The realization that sometimes men 
could only be saved at the cost of a child's life, and that a ten-
year-old was capable of unimaginable atrocities had left his 
spirit bruised and numb.  

Skinner reached for the light switch and flipped it.  He'd told 
himself things would be different at the Bureau, that the logic 
missing from the war would make a solid contribution here 
possible.  But bureaucracy had its own complications.  The behind-
the-scenes leverage and corruption that had made everything from 
Hostess Twinkies to American military vehicles available on the 
Saigon black market were at work here, too, killing investigations 
that got too close to some power broker's vested interest or 
moving things in a direction beneficial to a shadow group that was 
not only beyond prosecution but beyond exposure.

The closest he'd come to making a palpable contribution was in 
backing Mulder's work.  Mulder never gave up, never backed down.  
He refused to lose his idealism in spite of the snickers of his 
colleagues or the fact that people in the shadows were continually 
pulling the rug out from under him.  Mulder marched to a different 
drummer--one a lot of people  would claim was nothing more than 
the whispering of an addled psyche.  And yet Mulder did see 
things.  He saw and recognized things nobody else was ready to see 
or comprehend.  And though he was volatile, he'd found his 
grounding in his partner, in Scully the meticulous, steady, solid 
technician, though there was more to it than that; they were a 
team as solid as any two men he'd encountered under fire, one up 
when the other was down, each filling in for the other's weak 
spots.  They hadn't become complacent; they hadn't let the 
bureaucracy wear them down.  It was their vitality he supported as 
much as anything.  It held out the hope that justice was possible 
after all.

Skinner reached out and ran two fingers along the lid of the box 
that sought him.  Quickly he pulled it halfway out, then paused, 
his fingers tentative against the cardboard, and closed his eyes.




Krycek took another handful of pictures from the box and spread 
them quickly across the carpet in front of him as if he were 
dealing out cards.  *Solitaire*--he was here in her house, and, 
predictably, she wasn't home, the way she'd never been anywhere he 
was.  He scanned the pictures rapidly--a potpourri of years and 
situations, everything that had never been put into an album, from 
Mulder's Academy graduation to family picnics showing young 
parents and toddlers to another showing the old men in their 
thirties.  Krycek paused a moment, swallowed, then gathered the 
pictures up, set them aside and dealt another hand.  They looked 
as if they thought there was a chance of turning the future 
around.

It had been a stupid idea coming here, though it seemed to make 
sense at the time: show up posing as anyone--door-to-door 
salesman, utility worker, a guy with car trouble who needed to use 
a phone.  Anything to get her to the door.  Maybe a look at her in 
the flesh would give him a clue as to why she'd done what she had-
-brought him into this life and then tossed him away to sink or 
swim on his own.  Maybe that was asking too much, but hopefully 
afterward he could chase her out of his head for good.  

Never pass up a chance to learn something, though.  She might not 
have been here but there'd been a spare key inside the garage in 
one of those half-dozen predictable places, and the self-guided 
tour had been okay at first: pale gray carpets and walls, 
furniture that looked like it rarely got used--the museum look 
that American old people's houses had.  The waste of space was a 
crime; several Russian families could have shared the place and 
been better off than they were in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

But when he'd reached the hallway leading to the bedrooms, things 
had taken a turn.  Portraits lined the walls, starting with Mulder 
as a baby with an open-mouthed smile.  In each picture he was a 
little older--more serious, longer limbed.  Then there were two, 
Mulder sitting cross-legged and holding his sister on his lap, the 
kid tilted to one side, happy and oblivious, as if she were the 
leaning tower of Pisa.  So the two of them must have had some kind 
of bond, some spark between them.  It happened sometimes.  

In the pictures beyond, the kids got progressively older, the 
girl's hair longer.  For some reason, looking at her made him want 
to turn away.  There might be a DNA overlap, but it wasn't like 
she meant anything to him.  Besides, there was no time for 
gawking; he had an opportunity to take advantage of before Guess 
Who came home and he had to get out.  

Then, in her room, on the dresser, had been the picture that made 
his heart stumble.  There was no way to write it off as just a 
vague resemblance now.  He knew this girl.  Hell, he'd seen a 
dozen of her, braided hair and piercing eyes just like this 
picture, four years earlier at a colonist outpost in the middle of 
Nowhere, Alberta.  He'd spent the night in a bunk below one of 
them, had been wakened by her restless tossing.  She'd been asleep 
but evidently not at peace; he'd watched her for a few minutes in 
the moonlight.

He'd found himself breathing hard, wanting to break something or 
just get out--get away.  But the trip would have been in vain 
then; he'd turn it to something useful.  He'd spit on the carpet 
and made himself move on to the next room, a guest bedroom 
straight out of Martha Stewart: soft maize carpet with matching 
pale yellow wallpaper and white eyelet curtains in the windows.  
Even a strategically-placed quilt on the back of a rocking chair 
to give it that homey touch.  Image must be everything, especially 
for a woman who'd handed over her daughter to be cloned.  No 
language--Smith had said they'd been given no language.  In the 
end it was most likely the old man's doing, not hers, but still, 
both of them were definitely on the short list of candidates for 
parents from hell. He'd made his way methodically through the 
drawers and then the closet shelves and had come up with the box 
of pictures.

Krycek leaned forward, swiping up the pictures on the carpet and 
spreading out another row: Samantha on a rocking horse; a view of 
a dining room before a party; Mulder in a tent in what was 
probably the back yard--maybe nine or ten years old; men around a 
barbeque--Bill Mulder, the old man, the Brit, the old Nazi 
Klemper.  His fingers shook the edge of the photograph.  No matter 
how much he willed them away, every picture was overlaid with 
clone girls: the one he'd seen lying bleeding on the ground of the 
growing tents; others standing in doorways of peelpaint cabins; 
three of them sitting side by side, expressionless, at the long 
dinner table.  They'd served some kind of baked beans and 
vegetables.  Then the one he'd bunked below stirring in the wee 
hours, whimpering as if some part of her--her subconscious at 
least--knew exactly what she was being put through.

He dealt another handful of cards, tight-lipped, then paused to 
look up and listen.  Except for the chainy slurring of the mantel 
clock in the living room, there was silence.  He started through 
the cards once more, his fingers pausing by one of them.  After a 
moment his mouth hardened and he pushed it aside, then scooped the 
row together and added them to the pile of already-viewed 
pictures.  
  
A car door closed in the street.  Krycek's head went up, then he 
was on his feet and at the window, forcing his breathing to slow, 
compensating for the sudden spike of adrenaline.  His own personal 
rain cloud--Mulder--was stretching beside a white sedan across the 
street.  From the look on his face, he wasn't exactly thrilled to 
be here, either, though he didn't have the 'kill' look that said 
he knew who was inside.  For a fleeting second he could almost see 
his way clear to feel sorry for the man.  

Now Mulder looked up, focusing on the house.  Abruptly Krycek 
turned, gathered the photos and returned them to the closet shelf.   
Then he was moving down the hallway, his escape route clear in his 
mind, a single dog-eared picture tucked deep into the pocket of 
his leather jacket.




"Hey, Scully, it's me..."

"Mulder?"

"I'm here.  I just wanted you to know I made it... "  He cleared 
his throat.  "You know--that I'm not jumping out any windows or 
anything."

"Have you checked the house. Mulder?"

"Yeah, I checked everything when I first got here.  No signs of 
forced entry, no evidence of tampering of any kind.  The 
electrical wiring's okay, the phone still works.  She's got a 
water softening system in the basement and I checked the tank--
it's legit.  I even got one of those carbon monoxide detectors and 
put it in."

"You surprise me, Mulder.  You with a screwdriver?"

"Hey, I can do it, Scully.  It's one of my masculine talents."

There was a pause at the other end of the line.

"Scully?"

"Nothing, Mulder."  She sounded amused. "I was just picturing you 
as a handyman."

"Yeah, well I may end up as one if I don't figure out a way to get 
my job back soon..."

He bit his lip and turned to look out the window.

"I've come across something interesting." her words spilled out 
quickly now.  "Something that might interest you.  I nearly called 
you last night to tell you about it."

"You...*you* nearly called *me*?"

"A woman came to my door after nine o'clock last night.  Skinner 
sent her."

"Yeah?"

"Evidently the woman's brother was an old Army buddy of Skinner's 
from Vietnam.  She thinks her husband died from some kind of 
industrial exposure at the defense plant where he worked, and 
she's worried that her son who works there now is coming down with 
the same symptoms."

"Where is this he's working?"

"Beeson-Lymon Corporation.  Lexington, Kentucky--or just east of 
Lexington."

"Don't they process beryllium?"

"One of just three plants in the country."

"No, I don't think so--not anymore.  I...I think I read something 
recently--something the Gunmen did."

"Now *there's* credibility."

"No, Scully, I think they'd come across something important about 
an under-the-table deal in Congress to tighten the screws on their 
competitors, to force them out of the market..."

"In any event, I've done a little research on beryllium disease.  
It's not something you get a lot of background on in med school."

"And what did you find?"

"That the standard testing results in a lot of false positives.  
But a small number of workers *are* affected, often after 
extremely low levels of exposure.  But the other thing that made 
me take note is that the company evidently has a policy of 
offering to pay cremation fees for workers or former workers.  Now 
I know the area's economically depressed and it could be a gesture 
of goodwill, but still..."

"Makes a convenient way to get rid of any evidence of 
contamination."

"Exactly.  And Mrs. Johnston did say she got two visits from a 
solicitous Mr. Beeson intent on helping her with final expenses."

"Sounds like a case."  Mulder looked out the window again, at 
trees that had deepened to black silhouettes against a purple-blue 
sky, searching for... he wasn't sure what. He looked up and closed 
his eyes.  "So how'd you get wound up in this?"

"Skinner said he wanted my take on the forensics.  I think he 
feels like he owes Mrs. Johnston's brother."

"I thought Skinner would have been keeping a low profile after 
last weekend.  Krycek's gotta know where you got that tip on the 
homeless woman, Scully, and Skinner knows that Krycek knew."

"But this was already a legitimate investigation, Mulder.  Agents 
had already been assigned."

"Anybody I know?"

"Wilkins and Acosta."

"They're pretty good from what I hear."  He swallowed 
involuntarily.  He had.  He'd heard some pretty respectable things 
about them.  "I'll let you know, Scully.  You know--I'll check up 
on that angle the Gunmen had.  I'll let you know if I come across 
anything interesting."

"Okay.  Mulder."

"I...I don't think I'm going to stay here tonight, Scully.  I was 
planning to, but I think I'll get a motel instead.  Or maybe I'll 
just grab a few hours in the car and then come back down before 
the morning rush starts..."

He could hear her sigh followed by a long pause.  She wanted to 
tell him to check in somewhere and get a good night's sleep but 
she wasn't going to let herself say it.

"I'll let you know when I'm back," he offered.

"Take care of yourself, Mulder," she said.  It was a soft tone, 
not the perfunctory one she used to brush him off.

"Yeah, I will."  

He hung the phone up carefully and stared up at the darkening sky.  
There were stars now, barely pinpricks in the vastness of space.





In the dream he was barely three years old, maybe younger, dressed 
in pale blue-and-white plaid shorts and a collared shirt, sturdy 
little brown leather shoes and white socks.  He could see himself 
as if he were watching from behind: his younger self in the 
kitchen doorway, watching his mother down on her hands and knees.  
She'd been half-swallowed by the darkness under the sink, 
struggling with a wrench and something else.  Towels covered the 
floor.  An occasional grunt or mutter came from the enclosed area.

He came closer, curious, until he was standing behind her.  
Suddenly she backed out of the dark cabinet and turned around, 
startling him.  She paused momentarily, mouth open, her eyes 
suddenly wide and shiny.  She wiped past one of them with the back 
of her hand.  Suddenly the shape of her mouth changed and she 
smiled the most beautiful smile.  "Fox," she said, as if he were 
the best gift imaginable.  Her arms spread wide and he reached for 
her.




His fingers were cold.  His arms were cold if he let himself think 
about it.  Mulder zipped up the front of his jacket and crossed 
his arms over his chest for warmth, then curled to one side.  He 
groped for the lever that made the seat back recline and dropped 
it down the last few notches.

It was true.  He could actually remember a time when she'd smiled.  
At least before Samantha was born; after that she'd seemed always 
tightened up and pulled in, never quite unworried.  But before 
that he *had* seen her smile.  Scully would attempt to cushion his 
enthusiasm, would remind him that most people recalled very little 
from before they were six or seven.  But he knew this.  There were 
any number of things he remembered from before Samantha.

Something had happened to change her.

Mulder opened his eyes and blinked into the darkness, straining to 
see though condensation-frosted glass.




Sitting in the shadows of Krycek's room, the Smoking Man took a 
drag on his Morley and watched the tip glow red in the dark.  He 
tilted his wrist toward the window and peered at the numbers on 
his watch.  2:37.  Alex would have to watch his drinking; it had 
done many a man in.  It had done Bill Mulder in.

Of course, he could use someone else to take care of the Kentucky 
situation.  There was risk in sending Alex to where the chance 
existed, however slight, that he might cross paths with Dr. Vanek. 
Undoubtedly he would remember her and the connection he would draw 
could only be detrimental.  There was room for only one man at the 
mountain's peak and Alex would be eager to take it, given the 
opportunity..  It was the chance he'd taken, forging an offspring 
in the same fire he'd grown up in, tempering him in the same way, 
knowing how hard it was, how difficult and lonely a life.  But 
Alex had seemed to thrive in it.  He'd developed survival skills.  
He didn't seem to need or want the trappings he himself had longed 
for at one time:  love, family, acceptance.  In that way he was 
much more suited to the work.  It also made him much more 
dangerous.

The Smoking Man pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and 
shined it around the room.  Two utilitarian desks, one with a 
chair, the other with several mercenary magazines on top; the bed 
unmade, the pillow crushed and pushed into a rear corner; the 
bathroom sink, seen through the doorway, with its rusty streak 
running downward from the faucet, the open shelves above it 
dressed sparsely with a razor, a bottle of generic pain reliever 
and a small, clear glass, the kind cheese spread came in.

Perhaps he should have introduced Alex to the concept of 
attachment--to give him a vulnerability--but of course it was too 
late now.  He seemed to have no particular bond to people, no 
stake in them.  No need for their acceptance.  He was the model of 
the perfect soldier... as long as he was kept in check.




Teena Mulder stood at the window, watching huge raindrops splat 
randomly on the broad leaves that canopied her sister's garden.  
The late morning sky was frescoed in shades of gray but a 
yellowish cast in the light brightened the greens in the grass and 
leaves to an almost luminescent state.  Large dark blotches 
appeared on the carved stone bench as the drops became more 
frequent, and water splattered and then streamed down the outside 
of the window, turning the scene in front of her into an abstract 
of grays and greens and whites, foliage and flowers and the gravel 
of pathways running and blending together.

Unlike their mother, Trudy had never criticized her choices, had 
never told her she'd made her bed and now she must sleep in it.  
Trudy's comfortable house, the nice amenities, her way of life, 
had spoken for her priorities.  She'd taken the accepted path; she 
hadn't married 'down', hadn't taken her own road--risky road--
hadn't flouted her mother's advice, or opinion.  Trudy, though a 
widow, had grandchildren and a life that breathed quiet color, 
while she--Teena the rebellious--had an existence that looked much 
like what she could see through this wet pane of glass, mostly 
grays and whites with the occasional vibrant green of her one 
remaining child, the son who mirrored his father's intensity, 
whose ever-present hurt left her always face to face with the 
choices she had made so long ago.

She'd been here too long.  The time spent with Trudy had been 
pleasant, but now the contrasts between their lives had become too 
pointed, too painful.  Trudy had a life laid out in albums.  *She* 
had one she could explain, or confide, to no one: a lifetime of 
men working on secret projects that could not be told, with 
ramifications that would not be believed, that created and 
destroyed people in ways that could scarcely be explained, or for 
that matter, comprehended.

She walked to the desk and pulled the address book from her purse.  
Opening it to the page with her son's number, she picked up the 
phone and dialed.  Four rings sounded on the other end, then her 
son's voice said 'leave a message'.

"Fox, this is your mother.  Call me at Trudy's."

She hung up and breathed in deeply, suddenly aware that she'd been 
holding her breath.  Her home would not be a danger.  He wouldn't 
be after her.  It was her son he was after, seeking to manipulate 
him as he had manipulated her, into a useful tool for his own 
agenda.



(end 3 of 14)


...................
Walking Through Fire (4 of 14)




There was warmth, then a light he could sense, and the familiar 
feel of the leather couch beneath him.  A car horn sounded in the 
street below.  Mulder rolled onto his side, opened his eyes and 
squinted against the midday brightness.  He reached over his head, 
groping for the alarm clock, and rolled back.  1:13.  He set the 
clock on his stomach and closed his eyes again.  He needed to get 
up.

He'd made good time after all.  He'd gotten into D.C. and had the 
car back at the rental agency by 8:15, easily averting the second 
day's charges he would have incurred if he'd slept the night in 
Connecticut and waited until morning to start back, though he 
could still see the road in his mind and feel the motion of the 
car.  His stomach growled, half hungry, half queasy.  He opened 
his eyes again and eased himself up to a sitting position.  There 
was work to do; Sun Tzu had said nothing about waiting until the 
sun was warm to put your plan in motion.

Mulder ran his hands back through his hair and tried to will the 
thickness from his head.  He needed to shower.  He needed a ride; 
maybe Byers would take pity on him and send Frohike like a good 
dog to pick him up.  He could check out that story about Beeson-
Lymon's beryllium maneuverings and then head for the Mall from 
there--that would be Step One.  Then he could sit and think it out 
some more, and while he was at it, figure out what to do about his 
mother, and transportation.  And the apartment, which was hovering 
in his mind like a past-due bill.

He stood and stretched and started toward the bathroom.  The light 
on the message machine was blinking green.  He hesitated, then 
turned and approached it.  His fingers curled, reluctant.  
Gradually he made them loosen and touch the play button.

"Fox, this is your mother.  Call me at Trudy's.

He grimaced, turned away and walked toward the window.  On the 
horizon a few thin clouds drifted toward the north.  His eyes 
closed.  There was rhythm but no thought, just the constant pulse 
of blood pumping through him, steady, regular.

*Just do it.*

He went back, picked up the phone and dialed.  Two rings, three 
rings, four.  He bit his lower lip.

"Hello?"

"Mom?  It's me."  He cleared his throat.

"Fox?"

"You left a message on my machine..."

"Yes, I did.  I want to go home.  I've had a nice time here.  It's 
been wonderful, but I'd like to go back now."

"Good timing."  Go with it.  Just go.  "I was... up at the house 
last night.  I checked everything out; I think it's okay.  I think 
you'll be safe there."  He let out a slow breath.  "It's me 
they're after, Mom."

There was a long pause on the other end.

"...Why?" she said finally, her voice dry.  "Why are they after 
you?"

"You know me, Mom--can't keep my mouth shut.  I can't keep my eyes 
shut and pretend what they're doing isn't going on.."

A sigh could be heard on the other end of the line.

"Your father couldn't hold with what was happening, either, and 
you know what happened."

"Yeah, I know."

"Fox., be careful."  There was a short pause.  "I have to go now.  
Thank you for checking the house.  Goodbye."

Mulder set the receiver down slowly and stared out the window, 
then swallowed and walked to the leather chair.  He picked up the 
basketball and began to bounce it, slowly, thump-thump-thump in 
rhythm with his heartbeat.




"... No, I can be here, sir.  Actually, I'm anxious to see what 
kind of story Mr. Johnston has to tell."

"I appreciate it, Scully.  Wilkins should be there with the 
remains by eight o'clock."

"I'll be ready, sir.  I'll let you know as soon as I have any 
information."

Scully hung up the phone and stared at the blank wall across from 
her desk.  Skinner was sending Wilkins with the remains.  Was he 
just being thorough, to make sure he did the best he could for his 
war buddy, or was there something else going on here?  Did he 
think Mr. Johnston's remains were in danger of disappearing in 
transit?

Scully glanced at the clock.  She had over seven hours, time that 
could be used to any one of many good ends.  The two papers she'd 
found on beryllium disease would make good reading.  Student work 
was beginning to come in; it needed to be gone over carefully.  
This was where her students would learn to be meticulous if 
properly trained--to follow every lead, to notice any abnormality, 
any potential sign of something that might hide a crime, and in 
the process allow justice to triumph over the tragedy in the 
world.

She smiled ruefully.  She loved their eagerness, their courage at 
tackling even the things that seemed most gruesome--the aftermath 
of man's inhumanity, the depth of the dark possibilities revealed 
there--secure in their conviction that they could digest it 
objectively, that it would not affect their weekends or their 
world view.  They were so much younger than they realized.

Reaching for a pen, she rolled it absently on the desktop.  The 
sample of Krycek's hair she'd taken to the lab on Monday for DNA 
testing might be ready.  It had haunted her each day since, and 
each day she'd had to force it from her mind, a Pandora's box 
calling to her when she could only imagine awful things inside.

Or she could be wrong.  There was always the chance that she'd 
misinterpreted what she'd seen. Maybe there *was* no connection 
between Mulder and Krycek, only a chance juxtaposition of Mulder's 
story about his mother's third pregnancy and the tenor of Krycek's 
remarks that had led to a connection in her mind--pure 
coincidence.  There could be other valid explanations.  Krycek 
could--and probably did--have some purely strategic reason for his 
apparent interest in Mulder.

Scully gathered together the materials she needed for her one 
o'clock class and tucked them into a folder.  She glanced at the 
clock-12:40--and left the office, letting the door slam shut 
behind her.  There was an elevator across the hallway but she was 
drawn to the stairwell by the picture windows.  Trees beckoned 
from behind the glass with their intense green.  Scully took the 
stairs quickly and emerged into dappled sunlight through an exit 
door at the bottom.  She paused and took a deep breath of the 
sweet air coming from the greenery.  Then she started to walk.  
From the distance came the peppering of gunfire from a practice 
range.  All over this complex--this campus--hopeful, eager people 
were being trained to probe, to question, to analyze.  To survive.  
To protect the lives of their partners.




Mulder sat on the broad steps beside the pond in Constitution 
Park, head pillowed on his arms, letting the gradual warmth of 
early afternoon seep through his t-shirt and onto his back.  He 
was tired still from traveling, and from lack of sleep.  He'd 
eaten at the Gunmen's but Frohike's spicy cooking hadn't helped 
the state of his stomach.  It was useful, though; it helped the 
quality--the authenticity--of the presentation.  The easiest of 
Sun Tzu's rules to implement, one he could put to good use 
immediately, stated, "Even though you are competent, appear to be 
incompetent.  Though effective, appear to be ineffective."

He hadn't washed his hair, hadn't changed his clothes.  Hadn't 
shaved.  He looked up, out across the water, and squinted into the 
hazy light.  He only needed to be seen.  He was a decoy for 
himself, and a decoy to help protect his partner.  He laid his 
head against his arm and felt the bristle of stubble, like 
sandpaper.  His eyes closed.  He was on the I-95 again, south of 
Baltimore.

He could fall sleep here.  It wasn't like his couch but it would 
do.  It was a talent he'd never honed--sleeping sitting on public 
stairs--though there were plenty of homeless men who had the skill 
down cold.

He drifted...




... And woke to the press of his head against cement.  Pain 
spidered through his side when he moved.  Mulder grimaced and 
opened his eyes.  Clouds were scudding past the sun and a steady 
whisper of wind came toward him off the water.  He straightened.  
2:47.  He'd been here for over an hour.

He had information for Scully.  He should call her, but not from 
here.

Mulder turned and looked around.  Behind him, the same pale-
skinned girl he'd seen on Tuesday was sitting on the uppermost 
stair in the shade.  She was watching him again.

"You okay?" she asked, nodding toward him.  She wasn't eating 
anything this time.  The backpack was beside her.

"You the spirit of the stairs or something?" he said.

She shrugged self-consciously.  "I guess."  She didn't seem 
displeased.  "You just looked a little... bummed."

"Yeah, well I guess that makes sense.  My life's..."  He paused 
and shook his head.  "... hit the fan, in a manner of speaking."

"Wherever you think you've hit bottom, you eventually find 
somebody whose life is in worse shape than yours," she said, not 
seeming to address him in particular.

He turned back again, toward the pond, and watched the way the 
wind rippled the surface of the water.  He dug a sunflower seed 
from his pocket and slipped it into his mouth.

"I lost my job," he said without turning around.  "I'm practicing 
being homeless."  He spit the hull.  It landed three stairs down.

"Your first time?"

Mulder turned around and looked at her again.  Her hands were 
twisted together.  "Losing my job or being homeless?"

"Either."

"I'm not homeless yet."  He looked past her, toward the estuary.  
"First time for my job."

"First time's the hardest for anything," she said.  "Then you 
start to get used to it.  You can get used to anything, whether 
you like it or not.  Whether you should or not."

Mulder eyed her.  She was staring out into the water.

"I'll remember that," he said, standing up.  He rubbed his 
shoulder and started up the stairs.

"Take care of yourself," she said as he passed.

"Yeah.  You, too."

Mulder went down the path leading toward the center of the Mall.  
There was a Metro station close to the J. Edgar Hoover Building.  
He turned right instead, heading for the Smithsonian station.  It 
*was* closer, and there would be enough walking to do on the other 
end of the line.




Krycek rolled to the near side of the bed and cleared his throat 
before reaching for the ringing phone.

"Alex..."

It was the old man's voice.

"Yeah."

"I missed you last night."

"Yeah, I noticed your butts here."  His mouth pressed into a thin, 
tight line.

"How is Mulder doing?"

"I don't know; I'm not psychic."   He rolled onto his back and 
focused on the corner of the ceiling.  "He seemed pretty depressed 
the last time I saw him.  You asking me to check up on him?"

"Keep your eyes open.  I heard he was seen sleeping next to the 
lake in Constitution Park this afternoon..."  Delight tinged the 
old man's voice. "...like a homeless man."

Something cold started to fill Krycek's gut.  "Maybe he's finally 
out of your hair," trying to keep it neutral.

"Perhaps."  Another pause, probably for a drag on the ever-present 
Morley.  "I may need you in a few days, Alex.  We've had a 
little... disturbance at our Kentucky facility.  It may settle of 
its own accord.  But if not, I'll need you to go there and take 
care of things."

"You know where to find me."  He reached to hang up the phone.

"Oh, Alex--"

Krycek put the phone back to his ear.  "Yeah?"

"Bars can be dangerous places.  Too much liquor loosens a man's 
tongue, makes him forget who he is, what he's about."

"The downfall of the weak."  Krycek rolled his eyes.

"Exactly."  There was a last breath--the cigarette--followed by 
the hum of a broken connection.

Krycek smirked.  The downfall of the weak.  He hung up the phone, 
got up off the bed and went to stand at the window.  In a few 
hours he'd make it a point to go out and make a show of being weak 
again.

But what about Mulder?  Would he holding up through all this, or 
would he end up going down the drain this time?  For all his 
tenacity he was fragile, like the little blond Sergei back in the 
orphanage.  He'd warned Vlad and Yuri to leave the boy alone.  The 
kid was too scrawny; it was obvious he was never going to last.  
But they'd taken him under their wing anyway--brought him extra 
food, made him toys.  Let him worm his way into their emotions.  
And when he died they were never the same, never strong again.  If 
Mulder couldn't make it on his own... Maybe he hadn't learned the 
lesson himself.  The strong survived and the rest fell by the 
wayside.  Natural selection.

Krycek looked at his faint reflection in the glass and closed his 
eyes.  In the blackness behind them he saw the photograph of 
little Mulder with Samantha draped over his arm.  Overlaying it, 
half-transparent, was the image of a clone girl restless on a bunk 
somewhere in Alberta.




Scully focused her frown on the clerk behind the counter.

"But how could this happen?"

"I honestly don't know," the girl said, very obviously 
uncomfortable.  "It just isn't there."

"And you've checked the chain of evidence?"

"The paperwork stays with the samples all the way through.  Your 
bag is gone and the paperwork is gone with it."  She shrugged.  "I 
have a computer entry for Monday, the day you brought it in, and 
nothing after that."

"You must be able to check with whoever was working Monday to find 
out who handled it..."

The girl nodded.  "I've already checked with everyone here now who 
was also working that day.  Nobody remembers seeing it.  I have 
messages out to the two people who aren't here today."  She 
paused, her forehead showing worry lines.  "I'm really sorry.  
I'll let you know as soon as I find anything out."

Scully managed a thank-you accompanied by a stiff smile and turned 
away.  It could be a mistake, a simple foul-up, but her instinct, 
the part of herself Mulder had taught her not to discount, if not 
always to trust, didn't believe it.  This was a pattern; it had 
happened too many times before.  Mulder had thought it was just 
him they wanted out of the way, that she would be safe now and 
free to go on with her work.  But it wasn't that simple.  Maybe it 
had never been that simple.

She started back toward her office.  The hallway was deserted and 
yet she felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to run, to escape.  The 
sound of her heels echoed off the polished, vacant surfaces.  
There was no one here, and yet she could feel their presence--the 
presence of the ones who watched, who abducted innocent women, who 
drove to distraction the people who pressed ahead, who wouldn't 
stop searching, or asking questions.




Mulder worked the key in his lock and nudged his bag of groceries 
inside the door with the side of his foot.  He closed the door 
absently behind him, pocketed the key and walked slowly toward the 
living room, pausing in the doorway.  After a moment he let out a 
slow breath.  The leather chair with his basketball in the corner, 
like a baseball nestled securely into the pocket of a fielder's 
glove.  The desk in front of the window, the window that even now 
held the sticky remnants of masking tape he'd used to contact X--X 
who had died so long ago--X who had saved his mother from dying 
alone on the floor of the Quonochotaug house, a house that was 
itself gone now, destroyed.  His coffee table with its clutter.  
The couch.  The plastered-over spot on the wall behind it where a 
bullet had lodged after grazing Scully.  It had been meant to kill 
her.  Or him.  A souvenir of the night his father died.

There should have been more time--to make arrangements, time to 
get used to the idea of not being here, of having to go somewhere 
else and put all this in storage.  But the fast-forward button had 
already been pressed and now here it was: the sudden strangeness 
of looking at all his familiar possessions as if they were only 
ghosts of themselves.  As if they were already gone, dead in their 
own way.

He went to the coffee table and sat down on the edge of it facing 
the couch.  His fingers wandered over the papers on the top and 
then traced the grain of the wood.  He'd come to the decision, 
riding home on the Metro, to go ahead and give notice on the 
apartment.  He'd have a month to find something else.  He had to 
start somewhere, sometime, and in the back of his head he kept 
hearing the words of Miss Muse-of-the-Stairs saying that you could 
get used to anything.  It was true; complacency was a killer, and 
it was all too easy to get worn down--ground down in one place--if 
you didn't get yourself moving.  But he'd have a month.  Everyone 
expected a month's notice.

He'd stopped at the little mom-and-pop grocery on the way from the 
Metro station--better to grab a few things now than to have to 
walk back later--and then had gone straight to the manager's 
apartment on his way upstairs.  He'd have that month's leeway to 
find another place.  Then came the words he'd never expected.  
"Too bad you didn't tell me weeks ago," Carl had said.  "I've got 
someone who's really hot to have one of these places."  How soon? 
he'd asked, uneasy.  "Well, she was dreamin' about this weekend," 
Carl said, though of course he knew Mulder couldn't be out by 
then, and anyway, it was Thursday already, practically Friday.

He'd taken a deep breath, the kind he'd taken before he jumped off 
the bridge onto that train carrying the Japanese scientists--a 
hold-your-breath, hold-your-mind's-breath kind of thing--and said 
yeah, he could do it.  Anyway, Carl was offering him a partial 
refund on his last payment for his trouble and the extra money 
would help.

Mulder leaned forward and rested his head in his hands.  Maybe he 
did need a month; maybe parts of him did, anyway.  But there was 
no month now; there were only two days.  Maybe it was a good 
thing, a necessary kick in the ass.

He got up and wandered around the room, touching chair and lamp, 
letting his fingers slide down the cold glass of the fish tank, 
then went into the bedroom and stared at the boxes.  Some were 
half empty.  He walked up to a stack and opened the top box.  Only 
a handful of files.  The box below--same story.  He took the files 
out of the first box and hesitated.  Different topic; he didn't 
want to mix them.  He set the box aside and opened the one below 
it.  A few more papers, different again, and what did it really 
matter if he mixed them if he hadn't opened the boxes in two 
years, or four?  What if he never opened them again?Mulder set the 
files in his hand on an unopened box.  He leaned forward until his 
head touched the wall and closed his eyes.




Two days was nothing--the blink of an eye--and just what would he 
do if another place didn't fall into his lap that soon?  In a town 
like this, finding new digs in two days was about as likely as 
having Bigfoot show up for a press conference on the White House 
lawn.  Mulder grimaced.  His stomach was still awash in a watery 
sickness.  He was hungry and now that he thought about it, he'd 
left the bag of groceries sitting by the door when he'd come in.  
Which meant the milk was warm.  Then he'd wandered around the 
apartment and finally had copped out completely and sat down on 
the couch, just to gather his thoughts--or who knew, maybe to keep 
it from disappearing from his life like everything else--and here 
he was, horizontal again and who knew how many hours later.

Mulder forced his eyes open and looked as his watch.  10:38.  He 
had information for Scully.  She wouldn't be asleep yet--unless 
she'd drifted off at her desk studying the background for that 
case Skinner had given her.  He should call.

He sat up and reached for the phone.  The Gunmen *had* been onto 
something after all, a couple of documents passed to them by 
someone inside the DOE outlining a tentative government 'deal' 
with Beeson-Lymon based on the imminent demise of its only 
competitor, Chronwell Industrial Metals.

He ran one hand back through his hair and paused.  His mother had 
actually said that--not just the 'be careful', but the part where 
she'd admitted knowing *something*, where she'd said his dad 
hadn't held with what the group was doing.  She'd almost sounded 
as if she were in his corner for a change, as if she was afraid of 
what they might do to him.  He reached for the phone and punched 
in Scully's number.  One ring, two.  He turned; the grocery bag 
*was* still there--by the door.  He sighed.  Three, four--click--
message machine.

"Scully, pick up... If you're screening, pick up.  I've got the 
scoop on that Beeson-Lymon thing for you..."

Empty air.  He started toward the bag of groceries.

"Scully, I'm back in town--"  He lifted the milk out of the bag, 
frowned--too warm--and headed for the fridge with it.  Yellow 
light spilled from the open door.

"Look, call me when you get a chance."

He set the milk on the top shelf, pushing aside half a dozen 
partially empty cans and containers, most of them prime candidates 
for lab experiments.  The phone was blinking.  He stared at the 
flashing light for a moment and shook his head.  He had no idea 
where she was at any given time anymore.  She had another 
assignment, a new life.  He flipped the phone's 'off' button and 
slammed the refrigerator door.  The yellow light that had covered 
the floor was abruptly swallowed up in darkness.




Scully looked up from the open chest cavity in front of her and 
glanced at the dark-skinned man sitting on the lab stool, 
watching.

"Are you sure you want to sit here and watch all this, Agent 
Wilkins?" she said.

"I'm committed for the whole ride."  He was soft-spoken.  "Hey, 
it's always good to learn things.  They tend to come in handy."  
The barest hint of a twinkle lit his eye.

Scully smiled.  "Yes, they do, though this is a lot more than what 
most people are ready to confront..."

"I guess I've got a personal stake in it--facing down an old fear, 
in a way," Wilkins said.  "When I was eight years old my mama 
died, and that was scary enough in itself."  He paused and shook 
his head.  "But the thought of that autopsy, that they'd cut her 
open that way... I never could grasp the need for that--to disturb 
her like that.  It's a hard thing for a kid."

"It can be difficult for anyone," Scully said.  "As the examiner 
you rationalize it to yourself; you give yourself clinical 
reasons...You remind yourself of the good you're doing... There."

She lifted out a lung.  "I believe this is what we're looking 
for."




Mulder set the nested cardboard boxes on the table, gave the front 
door an absent push and sat down immediately with the newspaper, 
separating the heavy sections.  No part of D.C. was a low-rent 
neighborhood--at least, not anyplace you were assured of waking up 
alive--but there had to be an apartment somewhere he could rent.  
Besides, he'd had a dream full of grim foreboding a little while 
earlier, just before he'd wakened fully:  himself, file boxes 
piled against a wall, trying to sleep at the Gunmen's, listening 
to Frohike snore, having to keep Langley from poking around in his 
boxes, catching Byers giving him that quiet puppy look, playing 
the helpful host but feeling sorry for him nonetheless.  Camping 
out at the Ice Capades would be more inviting.

There had to be some way to find a little private space.  What 
about the kid--little Miss Stair Sprite?  Where did she stay?  She 
might just be a local kid just sitting around and thinking.  
Ditching school or some other problem in her life.  But it didn't 
seem like that.  She had the look--the classic look of someone on 
the run--en route--though maybe even she didn't know to where.  He 
wondered what her story was.

He glanced up at an unexpected sound.  He'd hadn't fully closed 
the door when he came in and now a small, round face framed by 
vigorous dark curls filled the lower part of the doorway.  Deep 
brown-black eyes stared at him,  then a small nose wrinkled and 
the little girl broke out in giggles.  Mulder smiled back 
involuntarily.  A woman's hurried footsteps approached in the 
hallway.

"Mavash!" a shrill voice came from just beyond the door, and the 
little face was whisked away.

Mulder stood and peered out into the hallway.  A woman with a 
white head covering and an ankle-length dress was headed for the 
elevator, Mavash in tow, chiding the curly-headed toddler in a 
language he couldn't quite identify--possibly Farsi.  At the 
elevator the little girl turned back and focused on Mulder with 
laughing eyes.

Mulder closed the door carefully and pulled the classifieds from 
the sheaf of newsprint on the table.  He took them to the desk by 
the front window, sat down and reached for his glasses.




"Here, you can see it," Scully said, backing away from the 
microscope.

Agent Wilkins took his place at the instrument and peered in.

"And what we're looking for is..."

"The dark area," Scully said.  "Do you see it?"

"The little long thing?"

"Yes.  It's called a granuloma, a specific kind of scarring.  It's 
indicative of beryllium disease.  It's pervasive throughout this 
tissue."

Wilkins backed away from the microscope.  "So this is all we 
need?"

"Well, it verifies that Mr. Johnston had symptoms consistent with 
beryllium disease.  But I'll have to run a few more tests to rule 
out other possibilities.  If this weren't a criminal investigation 
it would be enough, but we've--"  She stopped.  "I've--"  She 
cleared her throat.  Heat rose in in her face.  "My partner and 
I... ex-partner... saw a lot of very strange things during the 
time we were field investigators.  It's taught me to be very 
thorough, not to discount possibilities."  She studied the 
countertop, then looked past Wilkins into the shadows on the far 
side of the room.

"It wasn't what they said, was it?" Wilkins said quietly.  "The 
reason they let Mulder go..."

"They didn't 'let him go'.  He was thrown out."  The words tumbled 
out unchecked, surprising her.  "No, it wasn't what they said."

"Look, I know a lot of people laughed about him--made jokes about 
you guys.  But hey, I've seen things in my life that *I* can't 
explain.  You guys had guts.  You did good work."

"Maybe we still do," Scully said quietly.  She sighed.  Her whole 
body felt heavy, weighed down with fatigue.  The building was 
quiet; most likely they were the only ones still here.  "Now, as 
far as Mrs. Johnston's son goes..."

"Andy--"

"He'll have to be tested, too, if you're going to prove a 
pervasive overexposure.  There's a blood test--it's called a 
lymphocyte proliferation test--an LPT--that he'll have to take.  
It's not a simple test, because it involves exposing live cells 
from Andy's blood to beryllium and then waiting to see if the 
lymphocytes grow, or proliferate.  I'll have to get you the name 
of a lab that can do the test."

She paused while Wilkins wrote down the information on a notepad.

"Of course, the medical evidence is just a small part of what 
you'll need to indict Beeson-Lymon in a criminal action.  If they 
are indeed doing what you suspect, then someone has to be making 
it worth their while."

"A small percentage of their production ends up in computers," 
Wilkins said.  "But the vast majority of it goes to defense 
applications.  It's sold to a number of different defense 
contractors."

"And ends up in the hands of the military."

Wilkins looked askance at her.

"Corners have been cut in the past, when the need seemed 
overriding.  And I've seen... too many things.  Things you 
probably wouldn't believe if I told you."  She paused.  "I'm only 
saying not to discount any possibilities.  Keep yourselves open."

He nodded.

Scully shook the hand Wilkins offered and headed for her office to 
gather her things.  A yawn overtook her.  Another late night, and 
she wouldn't be home before midnight.  But the first piece of Rita 
Johnston's puzzle was in place; that was worth something.  To Rita 
Johnston it would be invaluable.

And Mulder: in the bustle of everything that had happened she'd 
nearly forgotten about him.  He should be back in D.C. by now.  
She hadn't spoken to him since he'd called her last night from his 
mother's, when she'd clumsily poked him in several obvious sore 
spots.

In the car she locked the door and buckled up, then reached for 
her cell phone and dialed.  She started the car and backed out of 
the parking space.  There was a click as the call was picked up at 
the other end.

"Mulder, it's me," she said.



(end 4 of 14)