X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter One

X-X-X-X-X-X-X


The basement office had been solitary but notorious, so to 
Scully the tic-tac-toe bullpen cubicles on the third floor 
actually felt more anonymous. But even six years in, Mulder 
still had a way of shattering her illusions.

He sauntered over, licking a bit of jelly donut from the end 
of his thumb as he paused to lounge by her thin gray wall.  
"These aren't half bad today," he told her.  "You should get 
one before Agent Tankersley gets back from the DMV."

Scully rested her forehead on the heel of her hand.  "The 
man's name is Ankersley, Mulder."

"Oh, is it?" He licked his thumb again.  "I must've heard 
wrong."

"You can ascertain that he's at the Registry of Motor 
Vehicles this morning, but you can't get his name right."

"The registration sticker on his Beemer expired two days 
ago."  He shoved another bite of donut into his mouth.  
"Ordinarily he might not be in such a hurry to get it taken 
care of, but Dick Roberts was saying in the men's room 
yesterday that he was thinking of turning him in."

"I've always wondered what sorts of things men talk about in 
there," she said.  "Now the mystery is gone."

"Don't you want to know *why* Dick Roberts was thinking of 
turning him in?"

"Not especially."

"Paper clips."

"Excuse me?"

"Tankersley took two boxes of paperclips from the closet last 
week instead of one, so there weren't any left when Roberts 
went looking for them."

"If Roberts knows who has the paperclips, why can't he just 
ask Tank--Ankersley for the other box?"

"He did, and Tankersley lied about having them.  Hence the 
plot to turn him in."

Scully shook her head and focused on her computer screen in 
the hopes of getting Mulder to return to his seat.  He didn't 
take the hint though, instead polishing off his donut and 
draping an arm over the top of her cubicle.

"But I'd much rather be slacking off with Bill Keene," he 
said.  "He's off trying to get his wife pregnant.  For the 
third day in a row, I might add."

She squeezed her eyes shut.  "I don't want to know how you 
know this."

Mulder tapped the knot of his necktie.  "He went home for 
'lunch' the other day and came back wearing a different tie.  
Yesterday it was a different shirt.  I'd think maybe he was 
getting a little action on the side, but he's got about 
sixteen pictures of his wife tacked up over there.  
Seriously, the man should just have her face put on some 
wallpaper and be done with it."

It was times like this that she wondered just what he deduced 
from watching her.  For example, her doctor's appointment the 
following week -- she had the number circled discreetly on 
the calendar with no notation as to the significance, but she 
now held out little hope that Mulder was unaware.

"Mulder, don't you have some actual work to do?"

"No," he said flatly, and she looked up at him.  "I've called 
six farmers today and inquired about the size of their manure 
piles.  Six loads of crap is my limit before lunchtime.  And, 
I might add, in no universe with a sense of justice could any 
of this be construed as actual work."

"Then maybe you'd like to go sweep the restrooms for gossip 
and allow me to do my work in peace."

"Sure, okay, Scully.  I know you can't beat the timed level 
on Mine Sweeper without a lot of practice."

"Out. Now."

He whistled as he turned to take his seat, and Scully quickly 
brought Mine Sweeper up from the task bar to quit the 
program.  

"Hey," he said, sticking his head over the wall between them.

"I wasn't playing!"

"No, look at this," he said as he held out a plain white 
envelope marked "Mulder" on the front.  "Did you see who left 
this?"

"No, what is it?"

"I don't know," he said as he slit it open.  "But it wasn't 
here when I got up ten minutes ago."

Ten minutes ago, she had been in the ladies' room, where she 
was the sole occupant and no one had any juicy office tidbits 
to share.  

Mulder took out what looked to be a short newspaper article. 
"What is it?" she asked again as she stood up to go peer over 
his shoulder.

The headline read, "Famed AIDS researcher dies in car crash."  
Pictured was a white-haired man in a lab coat, and the 
caption identified him as Christopher L. Brandt.  

"I've heard of him," Scully said.  "He was one of the 
youngest researchers ever to be awarded a genius grant, and 
there's talk that he's on the short list every year for the 
Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work developing 
antiretroviral medications.  It's a shame he's dead."

"Yeah," Mulder said, not really paying attention to her as he 
read the article.  "It says the crash is believed to be 
accidental but authorities are investigating anyway.  Not 
everyone was a fan of his research."

"Why would someone leave this for you?"

"I was one of the people who wasn't a fan."

"What?  Why?  His work has saved thousands of lives." 

He didn't answer.

"Mulder?" She glanced up from the article to look at him, but 
he was looking elsewhere. 

She followed his gaze across the room and saw Diana Fowley 
standing there.  In her hands was a plain white envelope.

X-X-X-X

It was raining the first night Mulder broke into the NIH 
research lab, a great booming thunderstorm that hid the sound 
of her voice through the earpiece.  "Did you find them yet?" 
she asked as sheets of water coursed down the high windows.

He couldn't answer because he had a flashlight in his mouth.

They had used a stolen keycard to get into the rooms, but he 
still had to pick the lock on the file cabinets in Brandt's 
office.  His teeth cut into the plastic ridges as he conjured 
up some color commentary.

Excess rainwater trickled from behind his ears, where it 
followed the line of his neck down into his already damp 
collar. 

He wasn't even sure he was rattling the right drawer because 
the cabinets weren't marked from the outside.

"We've got five more minutes before the guard returns," she 
hissed in his ear.

The drawer came free at last and he started pawing through it 
as quickly as he could.  The folders were marked with 
numbers, not names.  He yanked out a handful and opened the 
top file, shaking his head back and forth to scan the page 
with the flashlight. 

The printouts meant nothing to him and he didn't see Amber 
Hathaway's name anywhere on the sheets.  He flipped another 
folder to the top and repeated the process.  A fat raindrop 
fell from his forehead down onto the paper, where it created 
an ink-stained smear.

"We've to get out of here," she said from down the hall.  

He let the flashlight fall onto his stack of folders.  "Not 
yet.  I haven't found her."

"There's no more time!"

"Just one more," he said, reaching for the next drawer.

"Mulder, you can't--"

He never found out what it was he couldn't do because she 
crackled and faded out.  Seconds later, an alarm sounded in 
the building.  He shoved the drawer shut, grabbed the files 
and ran back towards the main door of the lab.  Overhead, the 
fire alarm flashed and blasted its warning.  

He heard voices in the hall.

"Diana?"  He fumbled with the earpiece, shouting over the 
terrible noise.  "Are you there?"

She didn't answer and the piece fell down around his neck 
again as he rounded the corner into the actual lab.  His wet 
sneakers skidded on the floor and he crashed into the door at 
top speed.  

Diana was gone and he didn't see anyone in the hall.

"Come on, come on," he said to himself as he turned the 
keycard over to get the strip aligned.  His fingers shook and 
the flimsy plastic snapped through the reader, but the tiny 
light did not turn green.  

Mulder glanced down the hall and tried again.  The light 
remained red and the door wouldn't open.  He threw his 
shoulder against it, jiggling the knob, but the lock held 
steady.

A shadow appeared down the hall as someone prepared to come 
around the corner.  Mulder ducked down and then risked a 
quick look: two guards, both with walkie-talkies, were 
heading his way.  He pressed his back to the door and fumbled 
with the short-wave again.  "Diana, where are you?  Diana?"

He got no answer and saw no sign of her in the hall.  The 
guards had disappeared but the room started to fill up with 
flashing red lights from outside.  The fire department had 
arrived.

Mulder gave the keycard a few more desperate passes through 
the security lock.  The alarm cut out, leaving only the sound 
of the rushing rain and the men's voices approaching in the 
hall.

He backed away from the door slowly and then ran back across 
the lab.  He leapt the high workbench easily but narrowly 
missed knocking over a shelf of glassware.  The small, 
translucent windows had no handle and no visible method of 
opening.  He pushed at them one after the other down the 
line, but they refused to budge.

"Clear!" someone yelled from outside and down the hall.  
"I'll get the next one!"

Mulder jumped down from the bench and threaded his way 
through the crowded lab until he reached a closet door at the 
back.  He wedged himself in with the industrial-strength 
cleansers and the mop and bucket.  After shoving the stolen 
folders down the front of his jacket, he took out his 
flashlight and scoped the tiny room.  

His heart skipped a beat at the sight of an air-conditioning 
vent.

Outside, the heavy footsteps of the firemen grew closer.  
"I've got nothing.  Check the closet."

Mulder squirmed deeper back among the cleaning supplies, 
tucked the flashlight back in his pants, and tried his 
footing on a twenty-gallon container of glass cleaner.  His 
fingers felt numb and useless as he used his lock pick to 
work the tiny screws.

The grate loosened and he discarded it on the ground.  With a 
deep breath, he hoisted his way into the narrow tunnel, 
squinting against the surge of dust that assaulted his eyes.  
He shimmied in like a snake, his feet just clearing the 
opening at the moment the closet door opened.  

Mulder did not so much as breathe as the seconds ticked off, 
just like counting between the lightning and thunder.  One-
one-thousand, two-one-thousand.

"Nothing here," came the voice from outside.

Mulder exhaled just as the next clap of thunder hit.  He 
allowed himself a short rest, his hot face pressed on the 
dirty, cold metal.  Then he began wiggling forward with the 
files pressed against his belly.  He could feel them 
wrinkling at the edges but there was nothing he could do 
about it.

He followed the vent for almost one hundred feet, far enough 
to bypass the entire Brandt laboratory. He emerged in an 
administrative office closer to the front parking lot.  The 
door here had no doubt been locked earlier too, but it stood 
ajar after the firemen had come through the building.

Mulder peered out into the semi-lit hallway before breaking 
for the emergency staircase.  Voices echoed in the stairwell 
above him, so he hugged the wall and headed for the basement.  
The sign on the door said that an alarm would sound if it 
opened, but he had no other choice.

He pushed the door out and a loud, angry alarm began to 
reverberate off the concrete walls.  "What the hell?" someone 
hollered from several floors above him, but Mulder was 
already free.

Rain beat down on him as he ran, plastering his hair flat 
against his skin.  Sweet, salty water dripped into his open, 
panting mouth.  He hit the thin tree line at the edge of the 
lot and ducked behind a large pine.  "It's me," he said into 
the radio.  "Where are you?"

The bark scraped his back as he looked over at the research 
building.  Maybe she had gotten caught inside.

"Diana," he said again.  "Do you read me?"

The line crackled and he got no intelligible response.  He 
was wondering if he could make it to the highway and hitch 
back when he saw a flash of headlights on the other end of 
the trees.

Keeping a low profile, he worked his way along the edge until 
he reached the car.  A flood of relief went through him as he 
realized it was her.  She was wet too, he realized as he got 
inside.  The humid interior smelled of wet hair and denim.

"What the hell happened?" she asked him as she started the 
engine.

He leaned his head against the leather and closed his eyes.  
His heart still pounded out a disco beat and his hands had 
not stopped trembling.  "You were in the one in the hall," he 
said.  "You tell me."

"The fire alarm went off. I assumed you tripped it."

Maybe he had somehow.  His head hurt and it was hard to 
think.

She glanced over at him, looking at his empty lap.  "You 
didn't find it."

"I just had time to grab these," he replied as he withdrew 
the crumpled folders.  

She stretched over just a bit, tilting her head to try to 
read the pages he'd lifted.  "Those are from Brandt's office?  
What do they mean?"

Mulder studied the printouts as best he could in the passing 
streetlamps. "Beats the hell out of me."

"So help me, Fox, if we broke into the NIH to get his dry 
cleaning bill..."

He grinned and nudged her with his elbow.  "You loved every 
second.  You'll be an addict now, breaking into government 
buildings all over the country.  Today the NIH, tomorrow the 
Pentagon."

"Speak for yourself. There was a time I thought I would work 
for the NIH and now here I am conspiring against it.  I hope 
whatever you find in those files is worth what we risked to 
get them."

Mulder settled back into his seat, a smile on his face and 
the contraband in his lap.  The adrenaline had dulled to a 
mild buzz, leaving him pleasantly tingly.  It was true, he 
supposed, that he enjoyed the risk more than Diana.  This was 
his baby, after all, the project he'd been trying to get off 
the ground for almost two years.  

So later, when one of them had to go, it was only logical 
that Diana was the one to leave.

X-X-X-X-X-X

A sharp noise woke Scully and she sat up with a jolt, totally 
disoriented.  For a fraction of a second, she listened in the 
dark, trying to discern what had awakened her.  Her pulse 
thrummed in her throat and she gripped the cushions with both 
hands.

The banging happened again, and this time she identified the 
sound as coming from her front door.  Sleep receded as she 
rose and turned on the nearest lamp on her way to answer the 
pounding.  "Who is it?" she called.

"D.C. Police, Agent Scully."

She cracked the door and found a man with a thin mustache and 
two uniformed officers waiting in the hall.  "Can I help 
you?" she asked without letting them past.

"Detective Rivera," said the man in front as he held up his 
shield for inspection.  "I need to ask you some questions."

"Questions about what?"

He looked up and down the hall.  "Maybe it would be better if 
we talked inside."

"I'm fine right here," she said, still standing behind the 
door.  "What do you want to ask me questions about?"

"It's about Agent Mulder."

"What about him?"

"Have you seen him tonight?"

Scully resisted the urge to look at her clock because she 
didn't want to seem like she was at a loss for information.  
"Why are you asking me about Mulder?"

"Ma'am, I'll consider answering one of your question when you 
answer one of mine.  So let's try this again, hmm?  Have you 
seen Agent Mulder tonight?"

"I, uh, I last saw him at work," she said, hoping she sounded 
sincere.  Her memory was a bit fuzzy on the details.

Rivera made a show of checking his notebook.  "At work," he 
said, "that would be the Hoover building downtown."

"Yes.  Has something happened to Mulder?"

"Not to my knowledge," he said, and glanced up from his 
notes.  "About what time would you say this was that you last 
talked to Agent Mulder?"

"I couldn't say," she said. "I didn't check my watch."

"How was his demeanor at the time?"

She folded her arms.  "I want to know why you're asking about 
Mulder."

"Oh, well, I'm sure I couldn't discuss that out here in the 
hall."

Scully narrowed her eyes at all three of them, but the 
officers' placid expressions gave nothing away.  Without a 
word, she let the door fall open and stepped back so they 
could enter the apartment.  As she turned to shut the door 
behind them, she saw the clock read quarter past three, and 
her stomach seized.  City detectives did not get up in the 
middle of the night unless someone was dead, near-dead or an 
elected official caught in bed with a prostitute.

"I want to know why you're asking about Mulder," she said as 
the two uniformed officers began studying her belongings.  

Rivera went over to the couch but didn't sit down.  "We need 
to talk to him," he said, "and when we went to his place, he 
wasn't there.  I thought maybe you'd know where he went."

"I don't."

"You sure about that?" Rivera asked, looking around.  The 
other two officers paused to watch her answer.

"I'm quite sure.  I told you, I haven't seen Mulder since 
this evening."

"Actually, you didn't tell me that," Rivera said casually.  
"You said you weren't sure about the time you saw him last.  
'I couldn't say,' is what you told me. Isn't that right, 
boys?"

The smaller officer, who looked like he stepped out of an 
extra role on 'The Sopranos,' smirked and picked up the 
paperweight from her desk.

"I can't be sure of the exact time," Scully said, "but it was 
late afternoon to early evening."

"You saw him at work today and not since.  That's your 
story."

"That's the truth."

"No contact since this afternoon.  No phone call?"

"No," she said, putting her hands on her hips.

"And you would have been here if he called?  Didn't leave the 
house for anything?"

"No, I haven't left."

"No email from Mulder?  Nothing like that?"

Her eyes flicked to her computer, which was off.  "No," she 
said.

Rivera followed her gaze to the computer and tilted his head 
as though pondering whether to challenge her reply, but he 
merely turned around again.  

"Why do you need to talk to Mulder?" she asked.

"We think he may have witnessed a crime."

The smirking detective picked up a book from her shelves and 
started leafing through it.  Scully watched him for a second 
before returning her attention to Rivera.  "What crime?" she 
asked.

"A homicide.  A woman was shot to death tonight over in Foggy 
Bottom.  I think you may have known her."  He consulted his 
notes.  "Diana Fowley?"

"Diana Fowley was shot?"

"Sometime this evening, yes she was, ma'am.  Right in her own 
home, too, which is such a shame.  The reason we want to talk 
to Agent Mulder is that a neighbor of hers said she saw 
Mulder leaving Fowley's townhouse right around midnight.  
Midnight happens to be included in the range the time the 
M.E. told us that the murder went down, so we're wondering if 
maybe Agent Mulder might have seen the guy who did it."

Hot prickles broke out across the back of Scully's neck.  All 
three officers were watching her reaction closely, so she 
gave them none.  "How can the witness be sure it was Mulder?"

"You know, I had the same question," Rivera said as he sank 
down onto her sofa.  "But it seems like he'd been there 
before, according to this neighbor.  She'd seen him more than 
once, but of course she didn't know his name.  No, they'd 
never been introduced.  But she did write down this license 
plate number tonight.  See?"  

He held out the notebook for her, and Scully inched close 
enough to see the numbers written there.  It was Mulder's 
plate.

"You have any idea what your partner was doing over at Diana 
Fowley's place so late tonight, Agent Scully?"

"No. I..." She shook her head quickly. "No."

Her phone rang then and the whole room froze.  Scully 
hesitated for a moment, torn between grabbing the receiver 
and letting the machine take the call.

"Someone must think you're up," Rivera said, and she crossed 
the room to the phone.

"Hello?" she said carefully, her back to the cops.  

"Agent Scully."  

Her shoulders sagged as she realized it was Skinner, not 
Mulder, on the line.  "Sir?"

"I'm sorry to bother you at such a late hour, but I need to 
find Agent Mulder right away.  Do you have any idea where he 
is?"

"No, I don't," she said, taking a peek back at the men 
crowding her living room.  "But you're not the only one 
looking for him."

"The cops find you?"

"That's right," she replied as neutrally as she could.  
"They're here now asking about Mulder."

"Dammit, they've been two steps ahead of me ever since the 
call came in.  It's imperative we get to him first, you 
understand?  If you have any way of getting in touch with 
Mulder, I suggest you use it."

"I'll take that under advisement," she said before hanging up 
the phone.

"Not Mulder, I take it," Rivera said as he rose from her 
couch.

"Not Mulder."

"Right.  Of course."  He started ambling toward the door, and 
his backups took the cue to follow.  "I guess we'll just be 
going then, unless..." He turned back and looked at her 
hopefully.  "Unless maybe you feel like giving us the nickel 
tour here, maybe letting us check out your closets."

"I don't think so," Scully answered, yanking open the door so 
they could leave.

"Thought not."  He took out a business card and handed it to 
her.  "If you do talk to Mulder, tell him we have some 
questions, okay?  And the longer this drags on, the tougher 
the questions get."

Scully took the card but didn't answer.  Rivera let the 
uniformed cops go on ahead as he lingered in front of Scully.

"You're sure you want to stick with your story, especially 
the part about how you haven't left the apartment all 
evening?"

"Are you suggesting I'm lying?"

He shrugged.  "I'm not suggesting anything, ma'am, but I do 
find it sort of funny that we come knocking on your door past 
three in the morning, and you answer dressed in a business 
suit."

Scully looked down at her clothes, startled to find he was 
right.  "I fell asleep on the couch," she said.

Rivera pointedly dropped his gaze to her feet.  "In your 
shoes?  You must be some sleeper."

She curled her toes inside her pumps and tightened her hand 
on the doorknob.  "Goodnight, detective."

"Goodnight, ma'am."  He tipped an imaginary cap.  "I'm sure 
I'll be in touch."

X-X-X-X-X


X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Two

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In the car, Scully tried his cell phone to see if he might 
pick up at the sight of her name glowing on the caller ID, 
but it rang through to his voice mail.  "Mulder, it's me.  I 
have to think that youšre aware of everyone whošs looking for 
you right now, and that therešs a good reason you're avoiding 
them.  If you tell me what it is, maybe I can help." 

She hesitated, wondering if she should say something about 
Dianašs death.  "Call me," she said at last, and snapped the 
phone shut with one hand.  She kept it in her palm as she 
drove, clutched against the leather steering wheel.

Pale, watercolor streaks of daylight broke up the night as 
cars began pouring out onto the freeways.  She had lived in 
the area long enough that she knew the traffic rhythm, had in 
fact internalized to the degree that she could change lanes 
to avoid snares without the benefit of conscious thought.  
The car hurtled her forward in space faster than seventy 
miles per hour, but Scully remained only in her head.

She tried to imagine what had happened, picturing Diana in 
her expensively appointed apartment, probably with a drink in 
hand.  Had he rung the doorbell?  Maybe he even had a key.  
Diana would not have been surprised to see him either way.

Perhaps there had been an argument.  She could recall the 
naked fury on Mulder's face from earlier in the day; if he 
had shown that face to Diana, maybe she had been concerned 
enough to go for her gun.  Yes, Scully could see this all 
vividly -- Mulder, disheveled and livid, Diana, cool, still 
believing she controlled him, that she controlled them all.

Scully even knew the things he might have shouted at her 
because she had said many of them to herself.  She could feel 
herself in Mulder's shoes, demanding retribution.  How he 
ended up with the gun, she couldn't say, but she could feel 
the weight of it.  Diana's gun was the same as hers, the same 
as Mulder's, a familiar curved piece of steel with an easy 
trigger.

When the gun went off in her head, she jumped, knocking her 
cell phone to the floor of the car.  She had driven for ten 
minutes without seeing anything.

As she made the last turn into Diana's neighborhood, she 
checked the rearview mirror to see if she was being tailed.  
No one appeared to be behind her.

She parked her car a short way down from the townhouse and 
walked the pavement, her heels overloud against the sleepy, 
quiet morning.

At the front of Diana's place sat two large metal garbage 
cans, spread strangely apart.  One was near the curb with its 
lid on, the other overturned nearer to the walkway, its 
contents strewn across the concrete.

Not a recycler, Scully thought as she noted two empty bottles 
of vodka in the mix.

She stepped over the trash and went up to the small front 
porch.  A uniformed officer wearing sunglasses stood up from 
a deck chair to stop her.  "Protected crime scene, ma'am," he 
said as she reached for the door.  "You can't go in there."

Scully tugged her ID out of her pocket.  "We're all on the 
same side of the law here, Officer..." She leaned in for a 
look at his nametag.  "Traylor. I know procedure.  I won't 
touch anything."

"Well, I appreciate that, Agent..." He leaned over as she had 
and looked at her ID.  "Agent Scully.  But I have specific 
orders not to let anyone in, and that includes members of the 
FBI.  In fact, I do believe your name was mentioned in 
particular."

"Me?"

"Mmm-hmm," he said, folding his arms over his broad chest.  
"So unless you want to sit out here with me all day, I 
suggest you get going."

"The victim was a federal agent.  The FBI has a vested 
interest in this case."

She tried to look casual as she glanced in the tall, skinny 
glass window next to the door. 

"A vested interest doesn't equal jurisdiction.  I'm sorry, 
but I can't let you in."

"I knew the victim.  I might be able to help."

"Yeah?  You should phone Detective Rivera and let him know. 
I'm sure he would appreciate any insights you can give him on 
this case.  We could call him now."  He began getting out his 
cell phone, and Scully stopped him.

"No, no.  That's all right.  I've already talked to Detective 
Rivera."

"Oh, then," said Traylor, clearly not surprised.  "I guess 
your work here is done."  He took a pointed step between her 
and the front door.

Scully did a half-pivot on her heel, considering her options.  
If she tried to go around back, he would just follow.  She 
was half tempted to pull out her gun and force her way 
inside.

The sound of a car engine drawing nearer made them both turn 
to look.  A shiny black Buick glided to a halt right in front 
and Skinner emerged.  "I had a feeling you'd be here," he 
said to Scully as he came up the walk.

"This little porch is getting awful crowded," Traylor said, 
not amused.  "I'm guessing you must be Assistant Director 
Skinner."

"You're very observant," Skinner answered.  "Now how about 
observing this."  He handed over a few sheets of folded 
paper.

Traylor unfolded them and pushed up his sunglasses.  "This is 
a federal witness warrant."

"That's right, and we're going to look for Mulder inside.  
Now."

"I can assure you he's not in there."

"We want to check for ourselves."  Skinner started to push 
past him.

"Wait, I should talk to Detective Rivera about this."

"You can fill him in while we're inside."  Skinner 
mysteriously produced a key, which he used to cut down the 
police tape and then open the front door.  

Scully followed him over the threshold, and they both stopped 
in the dim entryway.  The central air conditioning hummed in 
the background, but otherwise, the house was silent.

"It happened in here," Skinner said as he moved to the left 
toward the living room.  

Scully didn't need anyone to tell her because she could smell 
the blood.  Head wounds bled a lot, and the puddle wouldn't 
even be dry yet.  

The living room was monochromatic, with deep gray walls and a 
long black couch.  On the glass coffee table sat a half-empty 
martini glass.  The bloodstain was at the far end of the room 
near the back window.  Sunlight was just starting to creep in 
through the blinds, sending a zebra-like pattern over 
everything.

"How do they know she was killed with her own gun?" Scully 
asked.

"I presume they don't know for sure yet," replied Skinner as 
he looked around the room.  "Her gun is missing, so the 
presumption is that it's the murder weapon.  Ballistics will 
have to run the tests for comparison."

Mulder had his own gun -- two, actually.  If Diana's was 
truly the murder weapon, then that was a point in Mulder's 
favor.

"Did any of the neighbors hear the shot?"

"Not according to what I know.  The lady who called it in 
heard a commotion outside -- I'm guessing from the overturned 
garbage can -- and that's when she went to her window and saw 
Mulder."

"Mulder knocked over the can?"

Skinner shrugged.

"Something doesn't make sense here," Scully said.  "Detective 
Rivera told me the woman had seen Mulder here on several 
occasions before."

"So?" Skinner was checking the windows but they appeared 
locked.

"So why would she call the cops?  Because he knocked over 
some garbage?  That's not exactly a nine-one-one type of 
emergency.  If she didn't hear the shot, why call it in at 
all?"

"I don't know.  We should definitely talk to her."

Scully crossed back over to the other side of the house, 
where the kitchen resided.  It had been remodeled recently, 
with spotless black granite countertops and a new stainless 
steel refrigerator.  The stove looked like it was straight 
from the showroom floor, never been used.

There were two upturned glass tumblers in the dish rack and a 
small collection of silverware left out to dry.  An empty 
ashtray sat in the sink, and the trash basket underneath had 
been cleaned out.

The seal on the fridge made a whooshing sound as Scully 
cracked it open.  She found soda water, orange juice, some 
old fruit and a collection of take out containers.

Closing the fridge, she went to inspect the back door.  It 
had been dusted for prints but she saw no signs of forced 
entry.  Whoever killed Diana, she had either let the person 
inside, or the killer had a key.

Scully found the stairs and went up to the second floor where 
the bedroom was.  The door was half closed, so she pushed it 
open with the flat of her hand.  In the middle of the room 
sat a king-sized, four-poster bed.  Scully stared at it as 
she realized it had been stripped, the sheets no doubt sent 
to the lab for processing.

Diana had the same thick, light-gray carpet upstairs, which 
absorbed all the sound of Scully's footfalls as she entered 
the room.  The air held the strong scent of Diana's perfume, 
and Scully had the urge to look over her shoulder, as if 
Diana could be pulled back from death by smell alone.  

She wondered if Mulder had ever realized that it was the 
perfume that gave him away.

*Where have you been, Mulder?  I've been trying to reach you 
for hours.*

*I was following Imogene Brandt.  She went to the dentist's 
and returned a library book.  At one point, I had to check my 
pulse to make sure I hadn't expired from sheer boredom*

*You went alone?*

*Of course alone.*

Skinner appeared in the doorway and he, too, looked at the 
empty bed.  He cleared his throat but seemed reluctant 
actually to enter the room.  "I don't see any indication here 
of what happened to Mulder.  We'd better get out before 
Rivera shows up."

Scully replaced the perfume bottle she was holding back onto 
the dresser top.  "I thought you have a warrant."

"I do, but I don't want to be answering any more of his 
questions."  He cocked his head and squinted at her.  "And I 
sure don't want you answering them."

"I don't know where he is."

"Right, so you've said.  But word on the street is that 
Mulder and Diana had one hell of a fight yesterday outside 
his apartment building, and I'm betting you know what it was 
about."

Scully bowed her head but said nothing.

"You're not helping him by keeping me in the dark," Skinner 
told her.

"Rivera didn't mention anything about a fight," she replied.

Skinner's gaze flicked over her.  "No, he wouldn't.  He's not 
going to ask you until he knows the answer first."

They left out the front so Officer Traylor could see they 
weren't taking anything with them.  "Let's see if that 
neighbor is home," Scully said as they walked down the front 
path.

Skinner stopped to look in both directions.  "You know which 
house it is?"

"No," she admitted.

"Guess we'll have to try both of them."

A man answered at the house on the right, and he said he had 
no knowledge of any disturbance the night before.  At the 
other house, they got no answer at all.  "They may have taken 
her in for more questioning," Scully said.  

She took out her card and scribbled a quick note on the back 
before sticking through the mail slot in the door.

Skinner walked her back to her car, which she thought was odd 
until they reached the driver's side door.  She went to get 
in, but he put a hand on the open door, effectively trapping 
her in place.

"You and Mulder have been in some trouble before, but this is 
exciting new territory the two of you have discovered.  I 
can't protect him -- or you -- unless I know what's going 
on."

"I'm not sure anyone can protect him.  I think maybe he's 
being set up."

"Set up by whom?"

Scully looked at his face, wondering if she could trust him.  
"Diana Fowley may have had alliances outside of the FBI."

His jaw tightened just a bit and she couldn't tell whether 
he'd heard this news before.  "What kind of alliances?"

She decided to push her luck.  "I think you know exactly what 
kind."

This wasn't a surprise, she could tell, but he kept his 
expression neutral.  "These other alliances, you think they 
may have been what got her killed."

"I think it's a distinct possibility."

Skinner looked away.  "Well, there's another possibility."

Scully waited, and he took a long time to look back at her.

"If these alliances are the kind I think you're talking 
about, then their discovery could be the kind of motive the 
police are seeking."

X-X-X-X-X

Scully was so lost in thought that she didn't hear Mulder 
approach until he was almost on top of her.  "Earth to 
Scully," he said as he slid his butt onto the plastic-coated 
MDF board that passed as her desk.

She checked her watch.  "You've been gone all day, Mulder.  
You're lucky Kersh didn't come looking for you."

"As long as he thinks I'm tucked in here safely with the rest 
of his lackeys, everything's fine."

"Is that what I am -- a lackey?" 

A smile played at his lips.  "The boys upstairs made that 
mistake about you once, Scully.  I don't think they'd be dumb 
enough to do it again."

"They certainly would never again select me to keep tabs on 
you.  Every time I turn around, you're gone again.  One day 
it's a jaunt to the Bermuda Triangle, the next it's some 
newspaper clipping and you and Fowley disappear together for 
the better part of an afternoon."  She looked around the 
bullpen.  "Where is she, anyway?"

"I couldn't say.  I left her about an hour ago."

"Courting you back to the basement, is she?"

Mulder scoffed and picked up a paperclip chain from her desk.  
"Hardly.  It's not like she could pull us back down there 
even if she wanted to -- the decision is over her head.  No, 
this afternoon's exercise was about old business, not new."

"Oh?"

"Call it an X-file that predates the X-files."

"Is this the part where you break out the slide projector?" 
she asked as she leaned back in her seat.

"No, but I will take you to dinner."

"Dinner," she said, her eyebrows raised.  "And you're buying?  
This must be good."

"Who said anything about buying?" he replied as he hopped off 
her desk.  "I just said I'd take you."

At the local bar and grill, Mulder had his jacket off, his 
tie loose around his neck, and one eye on ESPN.  Scully sat 
in the booth across from him and picked at the corner of her 
beer label.  He lounged on one end of the bench seat and 
palmed a fistful of nuts from the dish.

"I was trying to get the X-files off the ground," he said, 
finally turning his attention to her.  "Collecting old cases 
from Dales's files and adding any new clippings or tips that 
seemed to fit in with the overall theme of the unexplained.  
Diana was helping me.

"One day I get this tip.  A stripper named Lila Krunk is 
trying to get into an AIDS study that involves being abducted 
by aliens.  An AIDS study, I should add, that is run by the 
US government.

"So I tracked Lila down to get her story.  Yes, she had HIV.  
She'd found out about two years before when she got pneumonia 
and it wouldn't go away.  She'd survived the pneumonia but 
AIDS was still out there on the horizon.  Then she heard 
about this other girl named Amber Hathaway who worked at club 
down the block.  Amber, it seems, also had HIV, but she 
enrolled in a clinical trial sponsored by the NIH.  According 
to Lila, the story was that Amber got abducted by aliens who 
cured the HIV and she was returned healthy.  Lila wanted into 
this study too, and she called the NIH several times to 
inquire about the scientist who was supposedly conducting the 
clinical trial."

"Let me guess," Scully said.  "It was Christopher Brandt."

Mulder pointed at her.  "Give the little lady her prize."

"I can imagine the NIH office was thrilled to hear from 
Lila."

"Oh, naturally.  They told her no such research was going on, 
that all of Brandt's trials were currently full, but most 
emphatically none of them involved aliens."

"The story is a little wild, even for you."

"Yeah, I was skeptical at first, I have to admit.  So was 
Diana.  She said that Lila Krunk had become code for 'total 
nutcase' at the NIH, and that if we looked like we bought 
into her story, we'd be nutcases too."

"But you investigated anyway."

Mulder sucked down a sip of beer from his bottle.  "At that 
point, I was taking all comers.  And a story that 
outrageous... well, it would make for good entertainment 
value even if Lila's claims were groundless."

"So the first thing you did was talk to Amber, I presume."

"Yes, and she backed up Lila's story.  She said she'd been 
missing only two days in 'earth time' but in space it was 
over a year.  The aliens gave her transfusion therapy and 
when she was returned, her HIV was gone.  She even 
volunteered to take a blood test for us.  Sure enough, it was 
clean."

For the first time, Scully sat forward with interest.  
"Studies have shown it's possible for the viral load to 
diminish to a point that it's undetectable with current 
technology.  It can also invade other cells and hide."

"Yes, that's what Brandt said when we got a chance to talk to 
him.  He said he was very pleased with Amber Hathway's 
remission, but there was no reason to think she was in fact 
cured."

"And the part about the aliens?"

Mulder smiled around his beer.  "He pretty flatly dismissed 
that part too.  'Preposterous' and 'ludicrous' were the words 
he used, I believe."

"I can't say I blame him.  It's an outlandish claim."

"Yes, I sort of thought so too, even when Amber's blood 
tested negative -- twice, I should add -- but I was able to 
find several other people who had participated in the same 
study Amber had."

"Brandt can't give you that kind of information.  It's 
confidential."

"Yeah, but the HIV/AIDs community turns out to be a rather 
tight one.  The people in the study knew each other, many of 
them, and Amber gave us some names."

"Don't even tell me they confirmed her story."

"No, they all said she was off her rocker.  But the thing is, 
I did a little checking, and three of the four of them had 
unexplained disappearances for several days during the study 
period.  They have no recollection of this time; in fact, 
most of them denied ever disappearing at all.  But employers, 
friend and family told a different tale."

"Did these people all test negative for HIV too?"

"No, only one of them had his viral load down enough that it 
was undetectable.  But I did some checking today on the 
names, and all four of them are still living.  Lila Krunk 
died in 1995."

"So is that where you and Diana were all day today?  Checking 
up on these HIV patients?"

"Partly."  He pulled out the newspaper clipping again and 
handed it across to her.  "But the fact that someone sent 
this to us -- it's got to mean something."

"You're thinking maybe Brandt's car crash might not have been 
accident."

"Think about it Scully -- based on what we've discovered, 
doesn't it make sense that the government might be involved 
in illicit immune system testing?"

"Yes, of course, but that's a far cry from aliens being able 
to cure AIDS."

Mulder swung his legs down and leaned far over the table.  In 
a low voice, he said, "We both know that government has a 
vested interest in studying how to defeat viruses.  I'm 
thinking that these desperate people would have made perfect 
volunteers."

A sudden shooting pain behind her eyes made her suck in a 
breath.  Pinpoints of light danced in front of her as she 
reached for her water.

"Scully?" His voice sounded tinny and far away.  "Scully, are 
you all right?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose.  "Yeah.  It's nothing."  
Blinking rapidly to clear the spots, she braced her hands on 
the table.  "I'm fine."

"That didn't look like fine."

"Ice water headache."  Thank God dinner was almost over.  She 
could go home, swallow a bunch of aspirin, and get some 
sleep.

Mulder fished up the check, still looking unconvinced.  He 
dropped a couple of twenties on the table and slid out of the 
booth.  "Let's you and me blow this pop stand," he said as he 
slung his jacket over one shoulder.

The night was dark but warm, with bone shaving moon hung high 
in the sky.  Mulder lingered by her car.  "You're sure you're 
okay to drive?"

"Of course."

He nodded a little, as if trying to convince himself.  "You 
know, Diana and I are going to talk to Brandt widow tomorrow.  
Maybe you'd like to come along."

"Me?  I don't know the case."

He gave a half shrug.  "Could be good.  Fresh perspective and 
all that."

"And what am I supposed to tell Kersh?" she asked with a 
smile.

"I was going to call in sick."

"I see.  And this illness of yours, is it contagious?"

"Exceedingly.  You don't look well, Scully.  You don't look 
well at all."

X-X-X-X-X

They spread the bounty across his bed.  Her hair was still 
damp, drying in wild tendrils around her face, and she had 
stripped off her wet shirt down to her bra.  "It's just reams 
of numbers," she said, picking up the sheets nearest to her.

Mulder lay sprawled at the foot of the bed with a half-dozen 
of the printouts in front of him.  "They're tagged as the 
Orion project, so they must mean something."

"I'm open to suggestions as to what.  Did you ever have your 
printer go haywire and start spitting out random numbers and 
letters?  That's what these look like to me."

"Some of them have asterisks.  I wonder what the significance 
is there."

"You forgot to grab the key," she said.  "I'm going to grab a 
water.  Do you want one?"

"No, thanks."  He rolled onto his back and held a sheet of 
paper over his head.  He stared at the numbers until they 
blurred together, but he couldn't determine a pattern.  "They 
don't seem like social security numbers," he called out to 
Diana.

She came back and leaned against the doorjamb, a bottle of 
water in her hands.  "Maybe it has to do with viral load, or 
T-cell count, or some other immune system measure."

"Good idea.  We should ask the lab."

"Right," she said dryly.  "We just go in there and ask them 
to evaluate some evidence we lifted from the NIH."

She was upside down from his vantage point, so he tipped his 
head back farther for a better view.  "Okay, so maybe we 
don't mention where we got it."

His phone rang and they both froze.

"It's two AM," she said.

"I realize that."

"Who the hell calls at two AM?"

He stretched across the bed to reach the phone.  "Hello?" he 
said as Diana held his gaze.  

"Agent Mulder, this is Assistant Director Jordan.  I'd 
apologize about calling at this late hour except for the fact 
that I myself was just awoken a bit ago on a matter I'm told 
you're familiar with."

"Sir?"

"Someone broke into an NIH research lab this evening."

"Oh?"  He sat up and put his bare feet on the floor.

"Yes, Dr. Christopher Brandt's office and laboratory were 
both broken into, and a file cabinet was jimmied open."

"That's unfortunate," Mulder replied even as his pulse 
thrummed in his neck.  "I'm not sure how I can be of help."

"Brandt mentioned your name.  He said you'd been questioning 
him about some ridiculous rumor regarding his research.  
Something about aliens.  I thought this couldn't possibly be 
true, but I want to hear your end of things."

"I, uh, I have talked to Brandt about his research."

"And did you in fact mention aliens?"

"Sir, if you'll pardon me, I'm not really sure what my 
questioning Brandt about his research has to do with his lab 
being broken into."

"I'm not sure either, but Brandt seems to think there might 
be a connection.  He says one day you're accusing him of 
conducting secret human trials involving aliens, and the next 
thing he knows, someone is burglarizing his scientific 
records."

"I'd have to be crazy to break into an NIH lab."

"Yes, son, that's the God's-honest truth.  So that's why I'm 
here on the phone asking you -- are you that crazy?  I've 
heard some stories about you and your interests, and I have 
to say, your reputation suggests you just might have this 
sort of behavior in you."

Mulder gave momentary thanks that he'd remembered to wear 
gloves.  "I have no idea what Brandt is talking about."

"So it's your official position that you did *not* break into 
Brandt's lab this evening?"

"Yes, that's my position," Mulder said, going over to close 
the blinds.

"I'll be sure to note that in my report," Jordan answered.  
"But don't think this matter is necessarily settled."

"Sir?"

"Keep your nose clean, okay?  And don't be having 
conversations about aliens with anyone for a while."

Mulder hung up the phone and Diana came around the bed to 
stand next to him.  "What was that about?"

"Brandt thinks it was me who hit the lab tonight."

"I guess it's hard to fool a guy with a genius grant.  Who 
was that on the phone?"

"ADA Jordan. He recommends that I lay off the aliens for a 
while."

"Might not be a bad idea.  Brandt has friends all over this 
town."

Mulder shook his head.  "We've rattled him, and the cryptic 
numbers in these so-called records just make me more 
convinced that he's hiding something.  If it's not aliens, I 
want to know what it is."

She traced the edge of his jeans at his belly.  "Even if it 
ends up costing you the X-files?"

He gathered up the pages from the bed.  

"This is an X-file, the exact type of case that remains 
unexplained because no one wants it explained." 

X-X-X-X-X

She tried Mulder's cell phone three more times before going 
to his apartment, but he did not answer.  She let herself in 
and found it totally silent, as if he'd been gone for years.  
The first thing she checked was his bottom desk drawer where 
he usually kept his backup weapon.  She was not reassured to 
find it missing.

His bed sat unmade, his running shoes akimbo on the floor.  
She picked up an old T-shirt and smelled it, breathing deeply 
before laying it gently on the end of the bed.  A quick peek 
at his closet told her that his suitcase was there but his 
duffel bag was missing.

She listened to the messages on his phone, but there were two 
from Rivera, one from her, one from Skinner, and one from his 
mother.  Out of all of them, his mother seemed the least 
concerned.  "A detective contacted me this morning asking me 
if I knew your whereabouts, Fox.  I told him you'd stopped 
reporting to me when you reached the age of majority.  He 
suggested that I contact him if I heard from you in the near 
future, but it would probably be easiest for you to talk to 
him yourself." She recited Rivera's number twice, in case 
Mulder might have missed it.

Scully found Mulder's computer asleep but not off, so she 
woke it up and typed in his main security password.  For 
someone whose office and apartment were often unkempt, Mulder 
had a neat, almost Spartan desktop.

So her stomach dropped at the sight of a word document marked 
"Scully."

This was all the salutation she was to receive.  Upon opening 
the file, she read the entirety of his terse message in just 
a few seconds:

I'm sorry for the situation I've put you in, and I promise to 
explain as soon as I can.  Do not try to contact me because 
it could prove dangerous for us both.

It was unsigned.

Scully checked the time that the file was created and 
determined he probably wrote it after Diana's murder.

Her phone rang and she scrambled to answer it.  "Hello?" she 
said, and held her breath.

"Hello, have I reached Agent Dana Scully?"

She exhaled and rubbed the ache that had formed at her 
forehead.  "Yes, this is Dana Scully."

"My name is Deborah Reddy.  You left your card in my door 
this morning?"

"Oh, Ms. Reddy, yes.  Thank you for calling."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to speak to you earlier, but the 
police kept me for hours on end.  I told them all I knew 
straight away, and yet they kept making me go over it and 
over it until I thought I'd go mad."

Scully winced.  "Well, I'm sorry to have to ask you to get 
into it again, but the FBI is conducting its own separate 
investigation."

"Yes, I should think so, considering Agent Fowley was one of 
your own.  I'm terribly sorry for your loss."

"Thank you.  If you don't mind, I'd like to start with my 
main question -- what made you call nine-one-one last night?"

"I don't sleep so well these days, you know.  Hot flashes 
keep me up half the night, so I was watching Conan in bed 
when I heard the crash outside.  I might not have heard it, 
but I had the volume muted for the commercials.  I can't 
stand those commercials, the way they all seem to yell at 
you.  I just refuse to listen."

Scully reined in her impatience.  "So you heard a crash?"

"Yes, and I went to the window and saw that Agent Mulder 
running towards me to a car.  I didn't know his name then, 
but the police had me pick his face out of a group today, and 
they told me who he was."

"So you heard the crash, you saw Agent Mulder running, and 
that's when you decided to call the police?"

"Yes, on account of the blood."

Scully's own blood froze in her veins and it took her a 
moment to regain her voice.  "The blood?"

"On Agent Mulder's shirt.  He had a big stain of it right 
down the front of that nice white shirt."

X-X-X-X-X

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Three

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

By the time he caught up with Diana, late afternoon sun was 
painting streaks on her apartment walls.  She stood in the 
bedroom, in front of the mirror, pinning up her hair.  Three 
fat suitcases sat at the foot of the bed, and he felt the 
weight of them go straight to his stomach.

"I guess it's true then," he said. 

Her reflection met Mulder's gaze as he stopped short. 
"Fox..." 

"You weren't even going to tell me?"

She secured the last pin and turned around.  "I wanted to, 
but I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk away if I had to see 
you again."

"Well, here I am," he said, spreading his arms.  "Explain it 
to me."

"I shouldn't have to," she said as she clipped on an earring.  
"You know what happened with Brandt."

"Diana, he has no proof!  He can't force us to do anything!"

"Unfortunately, the Director sees otherwise.  I've been 
reassigned to Berlin, effective immediately."

He took a step forward, blocking her path to the suitcases.  
"You can fight this.  Brandt is making noise right now, but 
he knows he has no proof about the break-in.  If he had any 
evidence, we'd both be waiting tables by now.  The Director 
can't reassign you based on a hunch of one doctor from the 
NIH -- I don't care how many science fair prizes he's won."

"I asked for the assignment," she replied, looking at the 
ground.

"You...what?"

"This wasn't going away.  Brandt was going to keep demanding 
answers, and the more noise, as you put it, the more pressure 
on the FBI to take some sort of action, even if it's just a 
formal investigation."

"Let them investigate.  They won't find anything."

"Don't you see?  God, Fox, for someone so smart, you can be 
dumb politically.  They don't want to open the X-files.  
They'd just like it even less if you were to leave the Bureau 
entirely, so they're humoring you in the hopes that you'll 
wake up and go back VCU in a few months."

Mulder blew out a frustrated breath.  He wasn't blind to 
politics; he was above them.  "You think I don't know that?  
I know damn well that I'm the blue chip here, and they're 
just trying to keep me happy.  That's even more reason for us 
to fight this crap from Brandt."

She shook her head slowly.  "You're still not getting it. 
Brandt wants some sort of action here, some sort of 
demonstration from the FBI that we're no longer going to be a 
problem.  Sending one of us three thousand miles away is an 
excellent show of concern and support for Brandt's point.  
The men upstairs don't give a rat's ass whether we're guilty 
or not, although between you and me, I think ADA Jordan knows 
the truth of it.  If he could prove it, we might both have a 
one-way ticket to Germany."

"I can't believe you'd give up this easily," Mulder said in 
disgust as he turned away.

"Hey, I did this for you," she replied as she spun him around 
again.

"Like hell you did.  First sign of trouble, and you're out of 
here."

"They were sending one of us -- you or me -- one of us was 
getting on that plane."

He searched her face and she nodded shortly.

"I can't run the X-Files," she said at length, her voice 
rough with regret.  "It's not my project to begin with, and 
it's not fair that they try to hand it to me.  That would be 
as good as killing it."

"They wanted to send me," said Mulder as realization slowly 
dawned.  

Diana said nothing.  Outside, a car horn beeped three times.

"That's my cab."

"Diana--"

She shushed him by placing her fingers over his mouth.  "I'll 
be back, right?  This isn't forever.  We just need some time 
to lay low for a while and then I can return.  You'll have 
the X-files going, and we can deal from a position of 
strength."

He kissed her fingertips and squeezed his eyes shut.  "You 
can't actually be leaving," he whispered.

Alone with his monsters, ghosts and extra-terrestrials, he 
thought he might go mad.  When everyone around you says the 
spooks are all in your head, you start to believe it.

She smiled at him sadly and kissed him on the cheek.  "Walk 
me out," she said as the taxi horn beeped again.

Mulder hoisted the strap from one bag over his shoulder and 
picked up the other with his hand.  Diana took the smallest 
and they left the apartment together, the door clicking shut 
behind them.  He felt a familiar outline as her carryon 
bumped against his ribcage.

"What's in here?" he asked at the elevator.

"Just some files."

"Our files?"

"Not really.  I won't be doing this kind of work in Berlin, 
so I won't be needing them.  Fox, don'tŠ"

The elevator dinged as he withdrew the folders from the side 
of her bag.  "These are the papers from Brandt's office."

"I'm just taking them with me for your safety," she said, 
removing them from his hand.

"You just said you're not going to be working these kinds of 
cases."  He yanked the file back.  "And I can't believe you 
were just going to take it."

"Fox, listen to me," she said, her voice low and urgent.  "If 
you get caught with this stuff, it's over.  I don't care what 
kind of Wonder Boy you are, they will kick you out so far, 
you won't hit ground until Boise.  They'll bring charges of 
federal trespassing, theft, possibly espionage and treason."

"How am I supposed to find out what's going on if you take 
all the evidence with you?" he asked as he followed her into 
the elevator.

She leaned against the side, looking tired.  "I think you 
should drop this case for now.  Maybe come back to it later.  
You have a whole file cabinet of unexplained cases demanding 
your attention, and this one is perhaps just a little too hot 
at the moment."

"All the more reason to push it."  He looked down at the 
strings of numbers but they made no more sense this time than 
the other ten thousand times he'd studied them.

"I'm going to be working foreign intelligence," she said.  
"They have some of the best code breakers in the world over 
there.  Let me see if I can show this around -- quietly, of 
course -- and maybe we'll get some answers about what it 
might mean."

Mulder closed the folder but kept it pressed against his 
stomach.  "I don't know."

"Fine," she said with a sigh as the doors slid open.  "Suit 
yourself.  But if I were you, I'd keep that file buried deep 
until Brandt stops jawing in the Director's ear.  If he 
convinces them to search your place..."

"Take it," he answered, shoving the file at her.  "Let me 
know what you can find out."

She smiled as she tucked the file back in the bag that hung 
from his shoulder.  The movement jostled them close together.  
"Is that Mulder-speak for 'call me'?" she asked.

"Just keep in mind that my line might be bugged," he said, 
only half-teasing.  The taxi driver came to load her 
suitcases into the car.

"Does that mean no phone sex?" she breathed near Mulder's 
ear.

"Only if you're into threesomes."

"Kinky."

"Quite.  At least we'd be able to access the transcripts for 
posterity."

"No more illegal break-ins for a while, hmm?"  She pressed 
her lips to his, and he grabbed the back of her head.  They 
kissed until the driver interrupted with a not-so-subtle 
cough.

"Call me," he said, this time for real.

"I will."

She rode off in the direction of the low, setting sun, 
causing Mulder to shield his eyes from the glare. It was the 
last time he saw or talked to her again for almost six years.

X-X-X-X-X

Scully's eyes were pinched and dry, and a throbbing had 
started at her temples.  She couldn't remember the last time 
she'd had anything to eat, her stomach felt like a shriveled 
orange at her middle.  

She expected to find Skinner at his office despite the late 
hour, and indeed light slanted out from underneath the closed 
door.  She didn't bother to knock.

"I need to see the results of the autopsy," she said as she 
entered.

Skinner had a scotch in front of him.  "They won't even let 
me near the results of that autopsy.  You don't have a 
chance."

"We have to find a way.  Something about this whole story 
just doesn't make sense to me.  That trashcan Mulder 
supposedly knocked over was totally out of position.  I find 
it just a little too convenient that he managed to topple it 
right underneath the street light and make a racket good 
enough to be heard from the neighbors."

"You think he was set up?"

"I think he set himself up.  For some reason, Mulder was 
trying to draw attention to himself.  If he'd just killed 
Diana Fowley, why would he do that?"

Skinner rubbed the lip of his glass with one finger.  "I 
don't know.  But if he'd just walked in and found her body, 
why wouldn't he just call it in?"

"I don't know," Scully admitted as she sank into one of the 
chairs.  "But he must have his reasons.  Maybe if we got a 
look at the autopsy report, we could get an idea about what's 
going on."

"Gun shot to the head," Skinner said, sounding fatigued.  "I 
don't think there's a lot of mystery there."

"I want to see it anyway."

"I make no promises.  This show still belongs to the local 
boys, and they're not eager to let us play a part.  I think 
Rivera half believes that we have Mulder hiding out in the 
basement here."

"I looked.  He's not there."

Skinner widened his eyes at her, and she shrugged. "It was 
worth a try."

"You know," said Skinner, "I can help you more if you tell me 
what was going on between them."

"I'm not sure I knew," she said.

"Were they sleeping together?"

Scully considered her words carefully.  "Whatever happened 
tonight, you can be sure it wasn't because of sex."

"There are only three great motives, Agent Scully -- love, 
money and revenge.  One of them must have killed her."

"I think, sir, that in the end it may have been all three."

X-X-X-X-X

In Mulder's car, Scully noticed that the passenger seat, her 
seat, had been altered to fit someone with much longer legs.

"So what exactly did you and Diana do yesterday?" she asked 
as she fixed the seat.

"Not a lot.  We went to the scene of Brandt's accident.  
There were no skid marks that we could see, but of course 
that's not conclusive.  It was raining the night of the 
crash, so it's possible there wouldn't even be marks."

When they pulled up to the Darjeeling Cafe, they found Diana 
sitting outside with a newspaper, an espresso, and a 
cigarette.  She extinguished her smoke as they approached and 
tucked away her Washington Post.  "A bad habit I picked up in 
Europe," she said with a touch of embarrassment.  "You can't 
sit at a cafe there without one, or everyone guesses you're 
American."

Mulder took the chair closest to her and Scully dragged one 
of the white metal seats from another table.  "Coffee?" Diana 
asked them.  "I can also vouch for the raspberry croissant."

Scully had skipped breakfast because her stomach wasn't 
feeling well, but the smell of the strong coffee made it 
grumble.  "I'll have both," she said, and Mulder gave her a 
look of surprise.

"Nothing for me."  He still wore his sunglasses despite the 
shade of the large striped umbrella.  "What did you find out 
from the coroner?"

"They wouldn't give me a copy of the report, but he told me 
basically what was in it.  Christopher Brandt died of 
internal bleeding as a result of his car accident.  His 
abdominal aorta was punctured, and the M.E. says he would 
have died almost immediately."

"What punctured it?" Scully asked, leaning back so the waiter 
could put her food in front of her.

"Looks like the gearshift snapped off and he was impaled on 
the remainder, but that's just a guess right now.  He wasn't 
wearing a belt."

"What about the car?  Any evidence that it was tampered 
with?" Mulder wanted to know.

"They're still picking pieces of it back out of the valley.  
But my understanding is that they're leaning toward calling 
it an accident.  Brandt's blood alcohol was point two -- 
twice the legal limit."  She picked up her cup and drained 
the last of her coffee.  "Apparently, Brandt had a reputation 
as a drinker and was stopped a couple of years ago on a DUI.  
Someone made it go away, though, because he was never 
charged."

"I don't understand then," Scully said.  "What are we hoping 
to get out of the widow?"

Mulder scooped up Diana's paper from where she had set it 
aside.  "Right here on page four," he said, pointing.  
"Imogene Brandt says she thinks her husband was murdered."

Scully took another small sip of coffee.  So far, her stomach 
was not objecting.  "Does she why she thinks this?"

"She said he was involved in highly controversial research," 
answered Diana as she signaled for the check.

"Seeing as how that was our opinion seven years ago," Mulder 
said, "we'd like to know more."

Scully reached for her wallet to contribute her share, but 
Diana waved her off.  "My treat," she said with an even 
smile.

Scully left half the croissant uneaten.

Imogene Brandt also had an office at the NIH, although she 
maintained a research lab at NASA and an emeritus 
professorship at Cornell University.  Her secretary let them 
in, and she joined them in the living area of her large 
office.  

She had a shock of short, white hair, a bright magenta blouse 
and a black pencil skirt.  As she sat in high-backed end 
chair, she took off her glasses and blinked owlishly at them.  
"I remember Christopher talking about you two," she said to 
Mulder and Diana.  "He had half a mind to sue your whole 
agency."

"That was a misunderstanding," Diana said.

"Poppycock.  My late husband might have been a fool 
sometimes, but he didn't misunderstand much."  She frowned at 
Scully.  "You, I'm not familiar with."

"My name is Dana Scully.  I was a big fan of your husband's 
work.  We studied his seminal findings on natural killer T 
cells in medical school."

"You could fill ten text books with his work.  Who knows what 
we've lost with his death -- a cure for AIDS would be just 
the tip of it.  He was unlocking the major mysteries of the 
immune system.  What makes it turn on itself?  Why does it 
become less effective with age?  After nearly forty years of 
marriage, I can understand the murderous impulses, but 
killing Chris would be taking thousands, maybe millions, of 
lives with him."

"Did you collaborate with your husband?" Scully asked.

"Lord, no.  We both knew better.  Thank goodness our research 
interests were far enough apart that we were never even 
tempted.  He left me to my quantum mechanics; I left him to 
his viruses.  We did used to get a laugh sometimes out of the 
fact that we both studied entities no one could see."

"What exactly is your area of research?" asked Mulder as he 
leaned forward.

"String theory, at the moment."

Mulder looked at Scully for help.  "Isn't that sometimes 
called 'The Theory of Everything'?"

Imogene answered for her.  "Indeed it is," she said, arching 
an eyebrow.  "I would often kid Christopher that his nothings 
were contained in my nothings, so he should just sit around 
and wait for me to finish first."

"I'm not sure I follow," Mulder said.

Scully had an inkling now of why she'd been invited along.  
"String theory is designed to explain the movement of all 
particles in the universe," she said.  "Current laws only 
hold if you set aside gravity."

"I'm pretty sure gravity exists," replied Mulder as he looked 
at his feet.

"That's why we need new theories," Imogene said.  "The 
problem is that the strings are too small to be studied 
empirically, so we've got to test other theories that are 
premised either on their existence or lack thereof.  My work 
is also controversial, but the only ones debating it are 
snooty scientists wearing bowties and thick glasses.  Chris 
got death threats from people who thought he was interfering 
with God's plan."

"God's plan?" Diana asked.  "You mean AIDS?"

"AIDS and other illnesses, yes.  Certain religious groups 
took issue with his work because he often included 
homosexuals, drug addicts, and other social undesirables in 
his research.  Tax dollars shouldn't go to support these kind 
of 'alternative' lifestyles, don't you know."

"You think someone killed him because of his work?" Mulder 
asked.

"I think it's possible.  I don't care what the police say 
about Christopher and his drinking.  He knew his limits."

"Dr. Brandt," Diana said, "he had high levels of alcohol in 
his blood when he died."

"Yes, they told me his levels.  Christopher probably woke up 
every day with a BAC of zero point two.  That wouldn't be 
enough to get him even slightly knackered behind the wheel."

"These threats your husband was getting," Mulder said, "had 
they escalated recently?  Are there any that stand out in 
particular?"

"Talk to his secretary, Marian Ellsbury.  She kept the 
complete file.  You might ask her also about Chris's current 
bed partners -- perhaps she maintains that list as well."

"Excuse me?" Mulder said.

"Chris's appetite for knowledge was surpassed only by one 
other hunger, and he indulged early and often in the female 
buffet.  I found the first one before we'd even married.  He 
promised he'd change, but I knew better."  She shrugged.  "I 
married him anyway."

"If you don't mind me asking," Scully said, "why?"

"I knew I was never going to meet another man as brilliant as 
Chris.  That kind of brainpower, it's like being in the room 
with a giant vibrator."

Diana coughed, and Mulder hid a grin.

"You think I'm joking," Imogene said.  "Women didn't go to 
bed with him for his looks." 

"We'll, um, look into that angle," Mulder said.  "Any idea 
who he might have been seeing lately?"

Imogene rubbed her eyes with one hand.  "I tried not to know, 
if you get the picture, and Chris did his best to allow me my 
ignorance.  Last year he wrote a grant with Kendra Thompson 
at the VA, and I suspect some of their meetings were less 
than scientifically oriented.  I overheard him ordering 
flowers for her birthday."

"Kendra Thompson," Mulder said.  "Got it."  He paused and 
shifted on the couch.  "Dr. Brandt, it might help us in our 
investigation if we had access to your husband's research 
files."

"You mean to check for any aliens on the roster?"  She sat up 
with a sigh.  "I know a little bit about you and your work, 
Agent Mulder.  It's partially why I agreed to this meeting, 
because I know you're persistent.  The police seem willing to 
dismiss Christopher's accident as just that.  If you 
investigate and reach the same conclusions as they do, I'll 
have to accept the findings.  But this idea you seem to have 
that my husband was involved with extra-terrestrial 
research... well, it's preposterous, really.  There is 
doubtless intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but the 
notion that they could come here only to collaborate in total 
secret with our government sounds like something only a 
paranoid schizophrenic patient could dream up."

"So I'm guessing that's a no on the research?" Mulder asked.

"Even if I wanted to help you, I couldn't.  I have no access 
to his files, and I'm not a collaborator on any of his 
research.  I've no claim to his data."

"Then I'm not sure we have the time to help you," Mulder 
answered.

"Look, the police don't know what my husband was doing on 
that road, or where he'd been that he'd had those drinks.  
They are mildly curious about the answers, but I get the 
distinct impression they won't be looking too hard for them.  
You, on the other hand, don't seem to stop until you have 
answers, and I know from second-hand experience that you'll 
do whatever it takes to get them.  I want to know where my 
husband was and what he was doing the night he was killed."

"You realize this isn't federal investigation," Diana said.  
"We have no official authority to investigate your husband's 
death."

"That doesn't seem to have stopped you in the past."

"Dr. Brandt," Diana began to protest, but the woman dismissed 
her with a wave of her hand.

"Ancient history as far as I'm concerned."

After they left, they stood around in the hot, sun-drenched 
parking lot and compared notes.  "I can't tell if she 
believes we owe her one because she thinks we broke into her 
husband's office," Mulder said, "or whether she's under the 
impression that the FBI is a private investigation unit for 
all government employees."

"You think her suspicions about Brandt's death are correct?" 
Diana asked.

"I haven't the slightest idea.  All I know is that it's the 
first window into this case we've had in seven years."

"What case?  The alien research angle again?"

"You and I both know that something was hinky with Brandt 
back then.  I don't know what exactly he was up to, but I 
think it's at least as likely that he got killed for his back 
alley research than by some jealous lover or religious kook."

Diana lowered her sunglasses a bit and looked at him.  "Okay, 
I'll handle the jealous lover angle, see if I can get a 
handle on whom he might have been seeing."

Mulder looked at Scully.  "Guess that leaves us with the 
kooks."

"You mean we're not going to start with the alien 
collaborators?"

"You know, that's not a bad idea."

"I was kidding."

"Yeah, but it's still not a bad idea."  He turned to Diana.  
"Those papers we got from Brandt's lab -- we should let 
Scully take a look at them to see if she can figure out what 
they mean.  Maybe there's a pattern there that will make 
sense to her as a doctor that we couldn't see."

"Sure," Diana said.  "Why not?  Let her take a look."

"Are they back in the basement with the others?"

She flicked a bug off her arm.  "What do you mean?"

"The papers.  You took them with you."

"I did?  I don't think so."

Mulder took off his shades and squinted at her.  "Yeah, you 
took them when you left because we were concerned I might get 
searched."

"Fox, I don't remember any of this.  I haven't seen those 
papers in years."

"You lost them?" he asked, incredulous.

"I don't think I ever had them."

"You had them," he said.  "Check the files and I bet they 
turn up."

"I'll check, but I swear to you I haven't seen them in ages."

Mulder shook his head as if clearing it.  "You look and I'll 
look too.  Maybe I have a copy someplace."

In the car, Mulder didn't immediately start the engine.  He 
watched Diana get in her Nissan, back out, and leave the 
parking lot.  "She took the files with her," he murmured to 
Scully.

"It was a long time ago," Scully said, and Mulder turned on 
the car.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," he said, and Scully 
pictured the long goodbye.  

He turned and looked at her. "It's the only time I ever let 
an X-file get away."

X-X-X-X-X

She drove with the windows down, the damp night air breezing 
in to keep her awake.  Her veins were half-filled with coffee 
and she had the radio on low just in case the news reports 
had any updates on the Fowley case.  Every hour or so, she 
tried Mulder's cell phone.

When his voice mail came on for the zillionth time, she flung 
the phone across the passenger seat.  She took a hard right, 
exiting from the highway at the last minute.  It was past 
midnight when she reached her destination, but she didn't 
even pause to think before she rang the buzzer.

"I know you're in there," she yelled at the camera as she 
banged on the heavy front door.  "Open up."

Static crackled from the intercom.  "Agent Scully," Byers 
said.  "What are you doing out so late?"

"Let me in," she said.

The intercom snapped off, and after a few more seconds, she 
pounded on the door again.  

"Listen, Scully, he's not here."  This time it was Frohike on 
the line.  "We don't know where he is."

"Right," she shouted into the speaker.  "You know he's 
missing, but you haven't had any contact with him."

"He's not here," Frohike repeated.  "And I swear to you we 
don't know where he is."

"Let me in."  She wanted to see them lie to her face.

"No can do.  Sorry."

"Mulder?" She braced a hand on either side of the intercom.  
"Mulder, can you hear me?"

"Scully, we wouldn't lie to you," Byers said.  "Mulder is not 
here."

"Then let me in."

She heard some unintelligible chatter and the intercom 
switched off once more.  Her heart thudded in her throat as 
she waited, but the door didn't open.  "What the hell is 
going on here?  Why won't you let me in?"

She was half tempted to take out her gun and shoot the door 
down, but the gunmen had more locks than she had bullets.

At last, the steel drawer in the door slid open.  She peered 
inside and found a cell phone, which seemed to be on.  She 
picked it up and held it to her ear without saying anything.

"Scully?"

"Mulder!" Her knees went out and she sagged against the 
building.  "What's going on?  Where are you?"

"I'm just trying to figure things out.  Are you okay?"

"Me?  I'm not the one who ran from a murder."

"I can explain, but not right now."

"Mulder, I need to talk to you."  She turned around so the 
guys could not read her lips on the monitor or hear her 
through the intercom.  "The police are looking for you."

"I figured as much.  Don't worry, I'm okay for now.  I just 
have to stay out of sight for a while until I can get some 
things straightened out."

"What things?  Tell me where you are. I can help you."

"I can't," he said, sounding genuinely regretful.  "It's too 
dangerous."

"Dangerous how?  Do you know who killed Diana?"

"No."  He paused, and his voice took on an odd tone.  "Do 
you?"

"They won't let me near the investigation, Mulder, but I'm 
pretty sure your name is at the top of the suspect list."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing, of course.  But the detective in charge, Rivera, he 
knows about your fight with her.  He just doesn't know what 
caused it."

"Keep it that way."

"I'm trying."  She clutched the phone tighter and swallowed 
the lump in her throat.  "Mulder, please let me help you."

"You are.  Just...just keep doing what you're doing.  Don't 
give the cops any help at all.  And leave the guys alone, 
okay?  They don't know anything, and you're scaring Frohike."

"They knew how to contact you."

"I'll give you this number and then you can know too."

He recited a foreign number, but the small victory was not 
enough.  "Mulder, if you did this because of me, because of 
what happened, maybe we can find a way out.  Diana was no 
innocent victim."

"That's not going to matter right now."

"Why?"

"Trust me.  It's more complicated than you know."

"So tell me," she begged.  "I can't help you otherwise."

"I have to go, Scully."

"No, Mulder, wait."

"What?"

She wanted to ask him a million questions.  Do you have 
enough to eat?  Are you safe?  Did you really do it?  
Instead, she said nothing.

"Yeah," he answered at last.  "Me too."

"Be careful," she whispered.

"You too."

He clicked off and she held the phone between her breasts, 
head tipped back against the wall.  The intercom came to life 
again, and she vaguely heard Byers calling her.  "Agent 
Scully?  Are you okay?  Scully?"

She placed the phone back in the drawer and walked away.

X-X-X-X-X

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Chapter Four

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The first time he met Diana was not at work but in a bar.  It 
was a hot August night and his air conditioning was on the 
fritz, so he set up shop at the local pub with a pint of 
Guinness, a dish of nuts, and a Braves-Phillies game on the 
TV.

Diana was pregnant with another man's baby, although he 
didn't know it at the time, and it was for this reason she 
sought him out.

She came right up and sat next to him, her painted nails 
wrapped around a seltzer and lime.  "You're Fox Mulder," she 
said.  "I'd introduce myself but I'm quite sure you already 
know who I am."

He crunched a nut and looked her over, trying to decide 
whether to play dumb or not.

"I've heard that nothing much escapes you," she said before 
he could commit.

"I've seen you around," he said at last.  "You're from SIOC, 
right?"

"Since the beginning -- all ten months of it."  She reached 
into his nut bowl and helped herself.  "But after the 
inauguration, things have been a little slow.  I might be 
looking to shift departments soon to someplace more 
challenging."

"Oh, yeah?  You have any one in particular in mind?"

She slipped a peanut between her lips.  "VCU seems 
interesting, fast-paced.  I was a criminology minor in 
school, so the casework would be interesting to me. Do you 
like it?"

"It pays the bills."  He sneaked a look at the TV screen in 
time to see the Braves pull ahead two-to-one.

"Now you're just being modest.  That spree killer in 
Louisiana -- what was his name, Jefferson? -- I heard they 
brought you in to help question the witnesses and you solved 
the case in twenty-four hours."

"I didn't solve it, the witnesses did."

"But they didn't know what they'd seen until you showed 
them," she said, admiration plain in her voice.

Mulder didn't reply, instead gathering another handful of 
nuts.  

"I was wondering about SAC Burkit.  Is he a good guy to work 
for?"

He stopped crunching and looked at her again.  She was busy 
stirring all the carbonation out of her drink. SIOC agents 
did not cross his path very often, so the
place where he'd "seen her around" was in the parking garage, 
with Tom Burkit's tongue in her mouth.

"He's okay," Mulder said, and took a sip of his beer.

"Really?  Because before I make any decisions about jumping 
departments, I want to be sure I'm entering into a good 
situation."

Burkit was married with three kids.  Mulder couldn't speak 
from experience, but he was reasonably convinced that this 
did not have the makings of a good situation.  The intriguing 
part was why she was asking him about it.

"What specifically did you want to know?" 

"Just general aspects of his personality, anything you might 
have picked up from working with him that I should know 
about."

Mulder sighed and pushed his beer away.  "Burkit is your 
classic over-achiever with a self-loathing twist.  Everything 
came early and easy to him.  He graduated college in three 
years, got a Masters in criminal psych and was recruited 
aggressively by the FBI because he speaks German, two 
dialects of Chinese and a little bit of Russian.  He wears a 
cross around his neck for luck from God, and the thing is, he 
believes he needs it.  Burkit works his tail off because he's 
never quite sure he's good enough.  He respects those who 
work hard for him but he becomes alarmed if you seem too 
good, too fast.  He doesn't trust his own ability, so when he 
sees those qualities in others, he doesn't trust them 
either."

"You make him nervous," Diana surmised.

"Yeah, I bet nowhere near as nervous as you make him."

Her smile froze and she clutched her glass.  "You know," she 
said, and bowed her head.

"Not really my business," he said, "at least until you came 
here to make it mine."

"I'm sorry, really. I just saw you sitting here, and I 
thought..."

He waited with his pint halfway to his mouth.  "What?"

"You're renown for your insight into human behavior, so I 
thought maybe you could see something in him that I don't, 
maybe give me some perspective."

"What is it you really want to know?"

Diana hesitated.  "God, I can't even say it."

Mulder found he knew anyway.  "He's not going to leave her," 
he said quietly, and Diana's head jerked up.

"You're sure."

"You can never be totally sure, but yeah, I'm pretty sure.  I 
don't think he wants another reason to hate himself."

"God," she said, covering her face with her hands.  "When you 
put it that way... Christ.  What the hell am I going to do?"

Mulder had the answer to almost anything, but not this.

"Do you think other people know?" she asked him.

"I think if you don't want them to know, you should consider 
waiting until you're off FBI property before going at it."

"You're right.  Of course, you're right." Her shoulders 
drooped.  "I think maybe part of me wanted it to get out.  
Maybe then he'd make up his mind." She glanced at Mulder 
hopefully.

"Listen," he said, turning on the stool toward her.  "I don't 
know you and I'm not judging you, but there's one thing you 
should know: Burkit's mind is made up already.  If you corner 
him, I promise you won't like the results."


"You're saying he'd stay with door number one," she said with 
a heavy sigh.  "I get it.  Thanks."

The Phillies' catcher singled to drive in two runs and put 
them back on top again, and Mulder ordered another beer. "Can 
I buy you something stronger?" he asked, eyeing Diana's 
tonic.

"I don't think I ought to be drinking right now," she said.  
"I'm an armed FBI agent, you know."

"Another tonic and lime for the lady," Mulder told the 
bartender.  "On me."

"You're far too nice.  Here you were, enjoying a quiet night 
and a baseball game, and I came over here and regurgitated my 
problems all over your lap."

"Thanks for that image."

"Sorry," she said again.  "I should be the one buying you the 
drinks."

"You can get the next round."

She perked up a bit at the realization he wasn't going to 
kick her out.  "I won't bug you anymore.  I promise."  She 
sipped her drink and stretched over to see the monitor.  
"What quarter is it?"

"It's the sixth inning," Mulder answered, amused.

"Right, of course."  She lifted her thick hair off the back 
of her nape.  Mulder couldn't help but ogle -- she gave great 
neck. "I know the A/C is on, but it can't ever be cool enough 
for me."

He drank down a quarter of his new beer and licked the foam 
from his lips.  "You know, if you're actually serious about 
wanting to move into VCU, there might be an opening soon."

"You mean after I shoot Burkit's balls off?"

He grinned and ducked his head.  "Yeah, definitely after 
that, because I'm not leaving before a show like that one."

"You're leaving?" she asked, her eyes wide.  "To go where?"

He wasn't sure how much to tell her, but the beer helped.  
"I'm thinking of starting a new department," he said.  "One 
focused on the unexplained."

They talked for more than three hours, with Diana doing most 
of the listening.  She kissed his cheek when she left, and 
two weeks later, it was Mulder who went with her to the 
clinic to have an abortion.

X-X-X-X

Diana materialized almost from nowhere when they arrived at 
the NIH.  She approached them as they were getting out of the 
car and gave a little wave.  "Brings back memories," she said 
to Mulder, touching his arm.  

"I'm happy enough to use the front door this time," he said.

"We should get going," Scully said.  "We have to be back 
before Kersh misses us."

Diana lowered her shades and peered at Scully.  "I was 
thinking about that, and I thought maybe you two would prefer 
it if I took the lead on this.  I can run down the leads from 
the secretary with no problems, but you might come under 
scrutiny."

"That won't be necessary," Mulder told her.  "We're just 
suckers for scrutiny."

"I just don't want you to get into any trouble."

Mulder grinned.  "Now where's the fun in that?"  He touched 
Diana's back and started for the main entrance.

Christopher Brandt's secretary, Marian Ellsbury, let them 
into his large office upstairs from the lab.  For Mulder, it 
was a little too close to returning to the scene of the 
crime.  He focused on the framed photos on the wall, which 
included what looked like an original Picasso pen-and-ink 
drawing of a nude woman and an old photo from the Holocaust, 
depicting an old
man with his head bent and a ramshackle dwelling and barbed 
wire behind him.

"I've been so busy these last few days," Marian was saying as 
she ushered them to a low-backed leather sofa.  "I've 
cancelled all his trips, his speaking engagements, his 
charity events -- everyone's heard the news already but I 
have to be sure.  The thing is, when I'm done putting all his 
affairs in order, there'll be nothing left for me to do 
here."  She paused and folded her hands in her lap.  "I've 
been with Dr. Brandt for twenty years.  I hardly know what to 
do with myself now."

"We're very sorry for your loss," Scully said.

"It's not just my loss.  The world should be in mourning 
today."

"Dr. Brandt's wife said you might be able to help us with the 
names of people who had made threats against him recently," 
said Mulder.

"You believe this wasn't an accident?" She looked from one to 
the other of them.  "I thought Imogene was just speaking out 
of grief and anger.  I had no idea the police were 
considering it anything more than an accident."

"The police aren't considering it," Diana told her. "That's 
why we're here.  Do you know where Dr. Brandt was coming from 
the night he was killed?"

"No, I've already told the police that.  His appointment 
schedule was clear.  He left a little early that day, around 
five, but he didn't say where he was going.  He just wished 
me goodnight and said he'd see me in the morning.  I found 
out he'd died when I arrived to put on the coffee and found 
an officer standing at my desk."

"That must have been terrible for you," Mulder said.

"It was..." She stopped and checked herself, looking at him 
more closely.  "Wait, what did you say your name was again?"

"Actually, I didn't say."  Mulder had managed not to be 
introduced.  "But my name is Agent Mulder."

"Mulder, that's right, I thought you seemed familiar.  You're 
the one who broke into our lab!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scully stiffen.  "No, I 
don't think so," he said to Marian.

"Yes, you're the one.  I remember now.  You accused him of 
conducting research with aliens!"

"I never accused him of anything," Mulder said mildly. "I was 
merely asking questions based on what we'd been told."

"Based on the word of crazy people!  Is that why you're here 
now?  You think that since he's gone you can come back and 
sully his work again with more insane accusations?"

"We're here at the request of his widow," Diana interjected.

"I don't believe it."

"Call her and ask," Scully suggested, and Marian got up to go 
do just that.

"Imogene, it's Marian.  I have three FBI agents here, and--" 
She stopped as Imogene Brandt said something on the other 
end.  "You did?  Do you know who these people are?  I don't 
think Chris would appreciate them coming around like this, 
not after what happened." She listened again, and then her 
tone became quite chilly.  "I see.  Yes.  Yes, of course.  
It's your decision."

She placed the phone gently back in the cradle and then 
rejoined the group, but she did not sit down.  "Dr. Brandt 
asks that I give you any help I can in finding out what 
happened to her husband."

"It's very kind of her to be so loyal," Mulder said, "given 
that the other Dr. Brandt didn't seem to return the favor."

"Just what are you suggesting?"

"Imogene Brandt told us that Christopher had affairs 
throughout their marriage," Scully said, not unkindly. "She 
also said you might be able to tell us his current partner."

Marian pursed her lips.  "I can't believe she'd up and tell 
you such things.  They have always been such private people."

"Death has a way of ripping off the veil of secrecy," Mulder 
answered.

"It wasn't so much secret," Marian said, seeming tired now.  
"Yes, he had his dalliances, but he kept them quiet out of 
respect for Imogene.  He would never have done anything 
willingly to hurt her.  She knew he would always come back, 
and he always did."

"Maybe she got tired of looking the other way," Diana 
suggested.

To Mulder's surprise, Marian didn't launch into an angry 
defense.  She picked at the piping on the upholstered chair 
and brushed away imaginary lint.  "I expect it was tiresome 
for Imogene at times, but I think she was inured to it by 
now."

"Any idea who the current woman was?" Diana asked.

"No, if there was someone current, I didn't know about it.  
But mind you he kept me in the dark when he could help it.  
He knows I'm on friendly terms with Imogene and that I talk 
to her daily.  He didn't want to put me in the position of 
having to lie to her, so he often made arrangements on his 
own.

"Arrangements?" said Scully.

Marian hesitated a moment.  "For hotels and the like. The 
last woman I think he may have been with was his previous 
collaborator, Kendra Thompson.  But I was under the 
impression that the affair had cooled last spring."

"Where do *you* think he was going the night of his death?"

"I confess I did entertain the idea that he might have found 
someone new.  He seemed distracted lately, and that's often a 
sign.  I don't have any names; it's just a feeling."  She 
halted, apparently torn about whether to go on.

"You have an idea about where he was," Mulder said.

"Not an idea.  More like an inkling.  Dr. Brandt had several 
hotels that he favored, and two of them were up in that 
region."

"We'll need the names," Diana said.

"And the names of the people who were threatening him," 
Mulder added.

As Marian went to comply with their requests, he turned to 
Scully.  "Placing any bets on motive?" he whispered to her.

"Statistically, more people are killed over sex than over 
ideology," she replied.  "And if he was truly meeting someone 
in a hotel that night, I'm guessing it wasn't a lunatic 
protestor.  But Mulder, we haven't even discovered conclusive 
evidence that Brandt was actually murdered."

"He was up to something."

"You're just saying that because of what happened before," 
she replied under her breath.  "Admit it, you're still 
working the alien angle here, Mulder.  We may be chasing 
nothing more than a tragic car accident."

But later, as they drove home, he kept an eye on the rearview 
mirror and noticed a black Lexus with tinted windows dogging 
them at a distance.

"We may have company," he said to Scully, and she turned 
around to look.  "He's been with us since we left the lab."

"Who do you think it is?"

"Don't know, but five'll get you ten that it's not an alien."

X-X-X-X

Most of the time, guns were nothing special to her.  Scully 
grew up with guns in the house, with her Navy captain 
father's collection in his den and her brothers' BB rifles in 
the backyard.  She'd learned to shoot by kindergarten and had 
passed the Academy certification program on the first try.  
Her FBI-issued automatic was a tool, a familiar weight on her 
body, and she respected its authority.

In medical school, though, she found most students and 
doctors didn't share her tolerance for guns.  To them, guns 
were sucking chest wounds, shattered bones and pierced 
organs.  Guns were the metallic scent of blood, the lifeless 
eyes of the dead, and the screams of agony from family 
members left behind.  Guns turned a human being into one 
hundred and eighty pounds of meat.

She closed one eye and squinted with the other, focusing on 
the shadowed outline in the distance.  At this moment, she 
didn't even see the gun anymore, could only feel the warm 
steel in her hands.  Her finger squeezed the trigger.

An explosion of sound ricocheted around the room as the 
recoil traveled back up her arms.  Five bullets, center mass. 

She lowered the gun and was about to hit the button for a new 
target when someone else reached from behind and did it for 
her.  She whirled to find Mulder standing there wearing 
earphones and safety glasses.

As the paper target floated up to them, he unhooked it and 
took off his eyewear.  "Not bad, Scully.  If you'd just moved 
this one a little to the left, the holes would be a smiley 
face.  See?"

She took the paper from him.  "What are you doing here?"

"It's about the only place I know to find you these days.  
What is this, your third time this week?"

"I was at my desk all afternoon.  Where were you?"  She took 
out the empty clip and replaced it with a new one.

"Following up on the list of death threats given to us by 
Christopher Brandt's secretary."  He extracted a folded-up 
piece of paper from his jacket pocket.  "According to her, 
the guy at the top of the list is a loner named Keton LaRue.  
He's not part of any organization, but they've caught him 
twice spray painting epithets on the outside of the lab.  He 
apparently believes that AIDS is God's scourge on the 
unclean, and that any efforts to combat the disease is akin 
to singing on with the devil."

"Charming," Scully said as she tucked her gun back in its 
holster.

"Yeah, tell me about it.  The only problem with LaRue as a 
suspect is that he's never really threatened violence against 
Brandt personally.  He's called him a bunch of names and 
vowed to burn down the lab, but mostly his letters are of the 
'God will make you pay for this' variety."

"Maybe he got tired of waiting for God to step in."

"Yeah, I don't recall anything about Œthou shalt not question 
the Almighty's timetable' on the stone tablets."  He refolded 
the paper and gestured with it toward the shooting range.  
"So what's with the sudden interest in artillery?  Do you 
have plans to shoot anyone in particular, and if so, would I 
be safer back behind the lead doors?"

She shrugged.  "I like coming here.  It helps me think."

The truth was actually the opposite -- shooting helped her 
*not* to think.  It was amazing how much one could block out 
when one had to concentrate on placing bullets where one 
wanted them.

In the past year, she had been nearly dead three times; twice 
he'd managed to save her and the third was a point they had 
agreed not to talk about.  In fact, so adept were they at not 
talking, that they had managed to reach this agreement 
without even discussing it.

"Thinking about anything in particular?" he asked, totally in 
violation of their unspoken rules. He folded his arms across 
his chest and lounged against the half-wall.

"No, not especially."

He nodded to himself and then focused on the floor.  "You 
know, I've never been really good at dates, but around 
November, I get really bad.  I'll go to write a check and 
honestly have no idea what day to put on it -- is it early in 
the month?  Late?  I have to check my watch every time, 
sometimes several times in one day.  It's like my brain deals 
with the anniversary of Samantha's disappearance by actively 
suppressing the date."

"This is September, Mulder," she said.

"I know," he replied, with a ghost of a smile.  "My brain has 
no problems with September."

"Good," she replied, and reached for her goggles and headset.

"But I was outside this morning," he continued, and she 
forced herself not to roll her eyes as she stopped and waited 
for him to go on.  "And it smelled like fall for the first 
time.  You know the way the air starts to smell cool, like it 
has an edge to it?  The sky turns a clear, bright blue, and 
you just know that somewhere, someone is burning a pile of 
dead leaves."

"It is officially fall now," she pointed out, "so it only 
makes sense."

"Yeah, but that smell, it was so strong it stopped me right 
on the sidewalk, and then I finally realized why."

She waited, and he raised his eyes to look at her.

"It was the same smell a year ago," he said, "when I was 
going in and out of Trinity Hospital."

Her instinct was to look away, but she held his gaze and let 
him study her.  "Yes, I guess it was," she said at last.

"So that red mark on your calendar -- it's a checkup?"

"Uh, yes," she said, blowing out a long breath.  "Just a 
chance to look under the hood, so to speak, and make sure 
everything's still running.  My blood work was clean six 
months ago, so I don't expect anything different this time."

"Nothing to worry about, then."

"Nothing at all."  She forced a smile.  "In fact, assuming 
everything goes okay, they may enroll me in a new study on 
patients who achieve spontaneous remission from late stage 
cancers."

"A chance to make the record books," Mulder said as he 
followed her back outside to the main desk, where they 
returned their protective equipment.

"I haven't decided whether to do it," she answered.  "I'm all 
for the advancement of science, but I don't necessarily want 
to sign on for lengthy bouts of more testing."

He caught the main door over her head with his fingertips, 
and she walked out underneath his arm.   The sun had just 
slipped below the horizon, deepening the starless sky to 
purple, and with its exit came a cool night breeze.

"You never know, Scully," he said as they walked to her car.  
"This could be your chance to get some answers."

She clicked the locks open.  "I thought about that part, and 
I guess I'm not convinced that the answers I'm seeking will 
come from a government-funded study."

He gave her a delighted grin.  "Scully, is that paranoid 
anti-government, distrust of authority I hear in your tone?   
It just goes to show -- you can take the girl out of the X-
files, but not the X-files out of the girl."

Her fingers automatically went to the base of her neck.  
"Yeah, I guess so," she said, and his humor faded.

He nudged her with his foot.  "It's past seven.  Want to get 
dinner?"

"Dinner two nights in one week?" she asked.  "What's the 
occasion?"

"All-you-can-eat wings at the Naked Armadillo."

"Pass," she said, turning back to her car.

"Aw, come on, Scully -- ladies drink for free."

She hesitated with her hand on the door latch.  A drink and 
dinner with Mulder was certainly better than going back to 
her apartment alone with her thoughts.  "Well, maybe just for 
a while," she said.

"Great," he replied.  "You can buy me a beer."

This time she did roll her eyes as she suppressed a smile.  
She was about to ask where this Armadillo place was when 
Mulder's cell phone rang.

"Just a sec," he said to her as he dug it out.  "Yeah, 
Mulder."

He paused to listen and then turned his back to her.  "How 
important?" she heard him ask.  He checked his watch.  "Yeah, 
I know where that is.  Okay.  No, no, I won't.  Stay put and 
I'll see you in about a half an hour."

"I guess dinner is off," she said when he faced her again.

"Yeah, sorry.  We can go next week."  He was already walking 
way towards his car.

"Everything all right?"

He looked back over his shoulder.  "Sure, fine.  I, uh... 
I've just got to take care of something right away.  See you 
tomorrow, okay?"

Scully didn't bother to reply because there was no way he 
would have heard her.  She stood hugging her open car door, 
watching as he drove off into traffic.  The glowing orb of 
the moon now hung low and large in the sky, but its pull was 
no match for whatever body had Mulder swept up in its orbit.

X-X-X-X

Scully meant to go home but somehow found herself parked in 
front of Mulder's apartment building.  The street was silent 
and all the windows dark.  She rode up to the sound of the 
old squeaking elevator and dug out the key to see what was 
behind door number forty-two.

The fish tank burbled softly in the back, and she followed 
the light across the room.  His fish nipped and tucked in the 
water, swishing violently in their efforts to convey their 
hunger.  Scully obliged them
by sprinkling in some flakes, and then watched as they 
gobbled them all down.

The red light on his machine was unblinking, signaling no new 
messages. She pressed the main button just to hear his voice.  
"Hi, this is Fox Mulder.  Leave a message after the beep."

She played the recording a few more times, but he never said 
anything different.

In the kitchen, she made a cup of tea, standing like a zombie 
with the broken counter edge at her back while the kettle 
whistled away.  She drank it in his living room, sitting on 
what she considered her end of the couch.  Every so often, 
she would look over at the other end and visualize him there, 
legs sprawled akimbo with his knees nearly hitting the coffee 
table.

When she finished her tea, she set the empty mug on the 
table, using a back issue of "The Economist" as a coaster.  
She wandered idly over to his desk and flipped on the lamp.  
It gave no more clues to his whereabouts than it had the last 
time she'd looked.  She sifted through bits and pieces of 
paper, pausing to smile at a doodle-head he had drawn of 
Skinner.

She reached across and picked up one of the phone extensions, 
but then thought better of it and extricated her cell phone 
instead.  "This is Agent Dana Scully," she said when a FBI 
tech answered on the other end. "I need anything you can get 
me on this number."  She rattled off the digits Mulder had 
given her.  "I need this as soon as possible."

"Sure thing, Agent Scully," the woman replied.  "Do we call 
you back at this number?"  She recited Scully's cell.

"Yes, that's fine."

While she waited, Scully walked to Mulder's bedroom.  She 
turned the light on in the hall and leaned against the 
doorjamb, her cheek pressed on the cool wood.  She stroked 
the smooth edge next to her body as she studied the unmade 
bed.

There was no smell of Diana here, just cotton sheets, night 
air, and the combination of male sweat, leather and 
sandalwood that she thought of as "Mulder."

She slipped off her shoes and crawled into the bed, closing 
her eyes as her nose hit the pillow.  She was so exhausted 
her head was spinning. Cradling the cell phone between her 
breasts, she curled in the spot where he slept and drifted 
off into dreams.

When she woke, pale, fuzzy light filled the room.  She lay 
there blinking in the gray dawn, an arm over her head.  Then 
she heard the sound of a drawer closing in the living room.

She sat straight up and listened harder.  The floorboards 
groaned under someone's feet, and Scully slipped from the 
covers and tiptoed down the hall.  Her heartbeat accelerated 
like a subway train as she braced herself for the sight of 
him.

The word "Mulder" was already in her throat as she peered 
around the corner, but she choked it back immediately when 
she saw who was in the apartment.

The man heard her and turned around.

"Agent Scully," Detective Rivera said.  He had a stack of 
Mulder's papers in his hands.  

"What are you doing here?" she asked, feeling less than equal 
as she stood there in her stocking feet and rumpled suit.

"I have a warrant," he said.  "What are you doing here?"

"A warrant for what?"

"For pretty much anything I want," he replied as he returned 
his attention to Mulder's desk.  "My boss is getting rather 
cranky that I haven't been able to find Agent Mulder yet, so 
I have a wide latitude
in where I can look."

He yanked open a file drawer.  "Yoo hoo, Mr. Mulder -- are 
you in there?"  When no one answered, he shrugged and 
straightened up.  "Guess I can cross that one off the list."

"I don't know what you expect to find there," she said, 
crossing to join him.  "I can assure you there's nothing here 
that says where he is."

"As much as I'd like to rely on your assurances, Agent 
Scully, I can't very well take that back to the station, now 
can I?"

He tossed aside an old newspaper. "You sleep here often?" he 
asked without looking at her.

"Your warrant doesn't cover that information."

He did look then, and smiled at her.  "You're a quick one, 
eh?  I like that.  Let's try a different one then: did Agent 
Fowley sleep here often?"

Scully knew he wanted a reaction, so she didn't give him one.  
"I can't speak to Agent Fowley's sleeping habits."

"They were lovers, though, right?" He waited a beat but she 
didn't help him out.  "At least they were a long time ago, 
that's what I'm hearing. Then there was some sort of trouble 
and she left town."  He knelt down and tugged on another 
drawer.  This one was locked.  "I don't suppose you have a 
key for this," he said, looking up at her.

She just folded her arms.

"Right," he said with a sigh, and took out a lock pick.  
"This trouble Mulder got into with Fowley, did he tell you 
about it?  He and she were playing hot prowl over at the 
NIH."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course not.  No one could ever prove it, I guess, which 
is why they both still had careers."  He grunted as he got 
the file drawer open.  "And, from what I gather, they were 
working together again, even though Agent Fowley has taken 
over Mulder's old position on the X-files.  That had to 
sting, huh?  He works his tail off to get that department 
open, she jets off overseas and then comes back to take his 
job away?  I might want to shoot her too."

"You said she was shot in the head with her own gun.  Maybe 
she committed suicide."

"Believe it or not, we considered that.  But the shot was 
fired at least five feet from the victim, and there were no 
traces of gunpowder on her hands.  Plus, you know, the gun 
was missing.  That was a big clue right there."

"Someone could have taken the gun."

"Someone," he mused.  "Yes."

He took out the first file, a blue folder that made Scully 
freeze at the sight.  Oh, God, she thought.  No.

"Brandt lab," he said as he flipped it open.  "Interesting.  
That was the location of the alleged break-in, wasn't it?  
Some papers were missing..."

Scully wanted to rip the thing away from him but there was 
nothing she could do.

"Oh, these aren't research files at all, are they?" he said, 
and he glanced up at her.  "No, this is something else 
entirely.  If I'm not mistaken, this is motive."

"Then you're mistaken," Scully told him as her cell phone 
rang.

She answered it, and it was the lab. 

"Agent Scully?  We have an answer on the number you gave us.  
It's a German cell phone number and the phone is owned by the 
Bureau.  It's been checked out for the last several years to 
Agent Diana Fowley.  I dumped the incoming and outgoing 
numbers for the last thirty days.  Did you want to see them?"

Scully's stomach did a triple back flip.  "Yes, uh, yes I 
would, but let me come get them, okay?  I'll be there as soon 
as I can."  She snapped the phone shut and turned back to 
Rivera, who looked her over.

"Tell Mulder hi."

"If I talk to him, I will."

He waved the folder at her. "I'll be taking this with me."

"Go ahead.  That information is seven years old."

"Maybe so," he said as he wafted the folder under his nose.  
"But the betrayal smells minty fresh."

X-X-X-X-X-

Mulder showed up late and smelling like Diana's perfume.  She 
caught a good whiff of him as he hurried past to his seat, 
but she stopped him before he could sit down.  "Don't 
bother," she said as she stood up.  "Kersh wants to see us."

"Maybe we've won the manure pile sweepstakes," he said 
without humor.

She walked quickly, but still it took him no effort at all to 
fall into step beside her.  "I have a feeling it's about Dr. 
Brandt," she said as they reached the elevator.

"How would he even know?  Brandt's not exactly on the FBI's 
radar screen."

"I expect that will be his point when he reprimands us."

For the first time, she really looked at him and noticed the 
shadows under his eyes.  He'd missed a spot while shaving, 
too.

"Late night?" she asked.

"Not really," he answered shortly as the doors slid open.  

She trailed him inside, and he leaned against the metallic 
wall with his eyes closed.  She wondered if he was hung-over.

Kersh did not immediately look up when they arrived at his 
office, choosing instead to finish reading some document on 
his desk.  He signed the bottom with a flourish.  "Sit," he 
instructed, still not giving them his full attention.

They each took a chair and waited, and at length, he looked 
up at them over the rims of his glasses.  "Christopher 
Brandt," he said.  "Who wants to explain it to me?"

Scully looked at her lap, and Mulder cleared his throat. 
"Explain what?"

"What you are doing investigating his death.  I'm sure there 
must be a very good reason.  In fact, I know there must be, 
because this was not an assignment that I handed down, so I'm 
quite positive that you have adequate justification for this 
insubordination."

"Technically, if you didn't hand down the order, then it 
wasn't insubordination," replied Mulder.

Scully interjected before Kersh could form an answer.  "His 
widow asked specifically for our help, sir."

"His widow.  I see."  He peaked his fingertips together for a 
moment and then scratched the underside of his chin.  "This 
widow, is she a federal agent?"

"No, sir."

"And you two haven't formed a private detective company, have 
you?"

Neither of them answered that one.

"Because the last time I checked, civilians could not just 
call up and requisition help directly from the FBI."

"We're public servants," Mulder said.  "She's the public."

Kersh leaned across the desk.  "Let's get this straight right 
now.  If you're anybody's servants, you're *my* servants, and 
you will do as you're told.  The district police department 
has this matter well in hand, and I know you've got piles of 
work to do downstairs."

"Piles, yes," Mulder agreed.  "Big, fat smelly piles."

Kersh glowered at him.  "One more word and you're suspended 
two weeks without pay, and before you decide to test me on 
that, it will be four weeks for Agent Scully."

Mulder kept his mouth shut, and Kersh sat back in his seat, 
rocking a bit as he contemplated them.

"There will be no more long, unexcused absences," he said.  
"You get a half-hour for lunch and then you're back at your 
desks doing the work that I've given you.  Am I making myself 
clear on this point?"

"Yes, sir," Scully replied.

Kersh waited expectantly for Mulder's answer.  He finally 
managed a grudging, "Yes, sir."

Back at the elevator, Scully hit the button with more force 
than was strictly necessary.  "I see somehow Agent Fowley 
managed to miss out on this fun," she said.  "I wonder why he 
didn't want to rap her knuckles too."

"She doesn't report to him," Mulder answered as he rubbed his 
head with one hand.

"Maybe.  Maybe not."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't you think it's a little funny that yesterday she's 
volunteering to take this investigation away from us, and 
today that's exactly what happened?  You were the one 
wondering how Brandt even got onto Kersh's radar screen."	

"And you think Diana told him?" he asked as they entered the 
empty elevator car.  "What reason would she have to do that?  
I think it's far more likely that Brandt's secretary 
complained."

"Maybe.  I just find the timing fishy."

"Diana didn't talk to him."

"You're sure."

"Yes, I'm sure."  He hit the stop button and the car halted.  
"First of all, she only offered to take on more of the leg 
work, not to take over the entire investigation.  Secondly, 
she made that offer because she knows how hard it is for me -
- for us -- trying to get out from under Kersh's thumb. She's 
on our side, Scully."

"Mulder, you obviously know her much better than I do, but 
things aren't the same as when she left before.  She's in 
charge of the X-Files now, not you.  You want them back and 
she wants to keep them.  I'm not sure that puts you on the 
same side."

"You don't know all the facts," he said, shaking his head.

"A call to Kersh keeps both of us stuck in manure," she 
pointed out.

"She didn't call him."

"Fine," she said, dismissing him.  She reached for the 
button.  "Whatever you say."

"She didn't call him, Scully," he said again, and the 
certainty in his voice made her stop.  

She looked back at him, her hand hovering near the button.  
He held her gaze and let her see the truth.

Mulder knew very well that Diana hadn't called.  He knew 
because he'd been with her.

X-X-X-X
X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Five

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Without an office, Scully took the results of Diana's cell 
phone dump to a rarely-used restroom on the eighth floor, 
where she isolated herself in a stall and read the papers.  
Neither Diana nor Mulder seemed to have used the phone much; 
there were only a dozen calls over the last month.

Scully recognized the Gunmen's number at the bottom.  Based 
on the dates, Mulder had made only one other call, to a 
number she did not recognize, but the area code was local.

Diana had called Mulder twice on his cell, both times after 
Christopher Brandt's death, and the final call came a few 
hours before she'd died.  It had lasted nearly five minutes, 
so she must have reached him.

Scully leaned against the cold metal door and tried to 
imagine what they could have said, whether Diana had denied 
what was in the papers or whether lies and the truth had 
become so enmeshed that she could no longer distinguish 
between them.

The other number that stood out for her was identified as 
Christopher Brandt's office at the NIH.  Diana had called him 
two days before his death, and despite everything, Scully 
still didn't know why.  She didn't like the way the odds 
played out.  Brandt was on the call list, and he was dead.  
Now the owner of the phone was also dead.

This left Mulder holding the phone.

Right before the call to Brandt's office, Diana had talked to 
someone for nearly ten minutes.  The lab had been unable to 
come up with a name to match that number.  It was not a pay 
phone but an unregistered cell, owner unidentified.

The restroom door swung open, and Scully jumped.  As the 
other woman took the stall next to hers, she tucked the phone 
list away and hurried out of the room.  She bypassed the 
elevator and took the stairs, exiting from the side of the 
building.  

Wind rustled the brittle leaves as she jogged down the 
street.  She glanced over her shoulder but no one appeared to 
follow.  

Four blocks later, she found the payphone she wanted in front 
of a deli, where the smell of corned beef wafted out through 
the vents.  She searched her pockets for change and dropped 
in a pair of quarters.  She dialed the number Mulder had 
called and then held a hand over her ear to block out the 
traffic noise.

The phone rang through and a moment later, someone came on 
the line.  "Skinner."

She slammed the phone down, but held tight to the receiver.  
Skinner said he hadn't talked to Mulder.  He had been pumping 
her for information. 

She took out the list of calls again and tried the other 
unidentified number.  Her fingers shook as she punched the 
buttons.

This time, the call went through but the person on the other 
end said nothing.  Scully listened to the static for a 
moment.  "Who is this?" she asked.

No one replied.

"Who am I talking to?" 

The person waited another moment and then clicked off the 
line.  She hunted around until she found another pair of 
quarters and dropped them in the slot.  She hit redial, but 
this time no one answered her call.

X-X-X-X-X

There were many Sundays that Mulder would have loved to 
return home to find Scully waiting for him on his stoop; in 
fact, he'd dreamt similar scenarios over the years so many 
times that he did a quick double take at the sight of her 
sitting there.

The setting sun turned her hair to copper, and she wore a 
pale blue blouse with the sleeves rolled up and sandals on 
her feet.  She bore no traces of makeup and her glasses sat 
perched on her head.  

The total effect was to send him back in time to their first 
days together, when she was as green as a new leaf and just 
as tender.  She'd looked expectant then, too, waiting for him 
to prove himself to her.  These years later, Mulder thought 
perhaps she was still waiting.

He walked over to her and leaned on the railing.  "You were 
just in the neighborhood?"

She picked up a file folder from the step next to her.  "I 
did a little investigation into Agent Fowley's work in 
Berlin.  This is a summary of her accomplishments over the 
past five years."

She handed him the folder, and he flipped the cover to find 
it was empty.  He turned it upside down and shook it.  
"There's nothing here."

"Exactly.  She went to Europe and disappeared."

Mulder shut the folder and handed it back to her.  When 
Scully didn't reach to take it, he dropped in her lap.  "You 
know as well as I do that international intelligence work is 
highly classified.  I'm not surprised that there isn't any 
record of her activities."

"I called the office in Berlin.  No one there had heard of 
her."

"Did you also ask if they had Prince Albert in a can?  Of 
course they're not going to answer your questions over the 
phone."

"Why did she come back here, Mulder?  Did she ever tell you 
that?"

"She wanted to come home."

Scully's chin dropped as she considered this.  "Home," she 
repeated.

"Right.  Back to the states." 

"Back to the X-files?"

He looked down the street to where someone was doing a 
terrible job of parallel parking.  "That was Kersh's idea, 
not hers."

Scully did not answer immediately.  Instead, she took out 
folded sheets of paper from her back pocket, unfolded them, 
and smoothed them over her knees.  "She arrived back in the 
United States on March third of last year.  On March fourth, 
she accessed this file."

He took the pages from her and scanned them.  "This is my 
work history."

"She started with you, but she didn't stop there.  She looked 
up mine too."

Scully stood up, and with the steps separating them, they 
were almost eye-to-eye.  "Well?" she asked.  "Aren't you 
going to say anything?"

"I don't know what you want me to say.  So she looked up our 
files.  I guess she was curious.  But you can hardly fault 
her for behavior that you yourself have engaged in."

"I had reasons."

Mulder's head was starting to hurt.  Scully was determined to 
make Diana into the enemy, and in a way he couldn't blame 
her.  It had been one hell of a year, and there was no other 
donkey around upon which to affix a tail.  "You have no 
reason to trust her," he said softly.  "I get that.  What I'm 
asking you to see is that she's in the same position as you."

"Last I looked she was in your position, Mulder.  In your 
office with your desk and your files.  What I don't 
understand is why I'm the only one asking questions about how 
she got there."

He shook his head.  "You are more alike than you know.  I 
wish you could see that."

"You want me to trust her."

"I want you to trust me."

Uncertainty clouded her eyes and she backed up until she hit 
the rail.  The action made her wince in pain more than it 
should have, and he stepped forward.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly.

"What happened to your back?" he said, trying to see around 
her.

"Nothing.  It's just a bruise."  

She moved to the left at the same time he did and they ended 
up practically on top of one another.  He froze and so did 
she, inches apart, but she would not look at him.  Her skin 
radiated warmth in the cooling night air.

Gently, he traced one finger up her bare forearm until it hit 
her sleeve.  She shivered.  He tucked the finger under the 
fold and crooked it, causing her to tilt towards him just a 
bit more.  She turned her head to the side.  "Tell me," he 
said, his voice just above a whisper.  "You haven't trusted 
her from the beginning and I want to know why."

She shook her head, mute.

He moved his finger from her sleeve to her face, turning her 
back to him with just a slight pressure on her chin. "Why?" 
he asked again.

Her eyes were clear and bright, but her mouth had tightened 
into a thin line.  "She walked away from you," she said at 
last, and the words stunned his chest.

"She left to protect me," he said when he could talk again, 
and Scully looked at her feet once more.

"I know," she said, "but I'm not sure that I ever could."

He tugged her to him with one arm behind her neck, her head 
resting in the crook of his elbow.  She hugged him back and 
pressed her nose against his breastbone.  Her glasses slipped 
to the side but she didn't seem to care.  Closing his eyes, 
he leaned down to breathe her in, her hair tickling at his 
nose.

"Come upstairs with me."

She went rigid at the words but didn't pull away, so he 
tightened his hold and repeated them, his lips hot on her 
scalp.

"Come upstairs."

"Mulder..." His name seemed dragged out of her against her 
will, and he felt her fingernails prick his back.

She had avoided his apartment as much as possible since the 
summer, and he wasn't sure whether it was her collapse and 
near death that had her running scared or if she was just 
that concerned that he might try to kiss her again.

He opened his palm against her ribcage and felt the hammer of 
her heartbeat.  "Scully," he said, just in case she thought 
there was confusion.  He rubbed the side of her breast with 
his thumb, stopping just short of the nipple.  "Scully, 
come."

She let out a choked noise and it was all he could do not to 
drag her through the door.  Her breath tickled his skin 
through his shirt and her hands kneaded his back.  She jerked 
back a little and he thought she was leaving, but instead she 
grabbed his hand from her breast and squeezed so hard it 
stopped his circulation.

He got the door open in record time and pulled her to the 
elevator.  Once inside, he watched the numbers tick by in 
slow motion and cursed himself for not living on the first 
floor.  When the ding signaled their arrival and the heavy 
doors parted, they both stood there.

The hallway loomed.

"After you," he said with a sweep of his hand.

Scully put her head down and walked quickly toward his door.  
She stood there, shifting from one foot to the other while he 
struggled with his keys.  He practically gasped with relief 
when the door came open, stumbling inside with no grace 
whatsoever.  Scully stepped primly over the threshold but 
moved no further than his small pile of shoes.

"You, uh, you want something to drink?"  It was hard to make 
conversation with an erection pressing insistently against 
his jeans.

Wide-eyed, Scully shook her head.  She had her lower lip 
caught between her teeth and he wanted to suck it back out.  
He clenched his fists to avoid reaching out and grabbing her.

"Maybe...maybe I should just go," she said, and took a step 
back.

"No," he blurted, and she froze.  He licked his lips.  
Diana's ghost had bullied her up here, and if that's what it 
took to get her to stay... "You said... you said you wouldn't 
walk away," he told her softly.

The raw emotion that flashed over her face told him he'd hit 
his mark.  He stepped closer.  

"Don't go," he said, and held out his hand.  After a moment, 
she took it, and either she was shaking or he was.  He 
gripped her tightly and started leading her to the bedroom.

It was twilight, drenched in purple shadows with a slight 
breeze wafting in from his open window.  He sat on the 
rumpled sheets and pulled her between his legs. She smiled at 
him almost sadly and laid her palm against his cheek.  Her 
fingertips toyed with the hair at his temple.

He rested his hands on her hips, his thumbs through her belt 
loops, and urged her even closer.  She shifted her hand to 
the back of his neck and gathered his face to her breasts.  
Between them, his fingers went to work on the buttons of her 
blouse.

He had to sit back to finish the job, and she was breathing 
unsteadily by the time he parted the soft cotton.  He circled 
her bellybutton with one finger and it quivered.  Then he 
replaced his hand with his mouth, pressing lingering kisses 
to her stomach, her ribs, her collarbone and her chin.

When he reached her mouth, she held his face in both hands, 
anchoring him by the ears as if he might try to get away.  
The first touch of her tongue sent tingles down the back of 
his neck.  Her tongue was like the rest of her, small, strong 
and quick, and he opened wider to let her have her way.

He was openly fondling her ass by now and her breasts kept 
brushing against his shoulders.  She pushed him back onto the 
bed and climbed up so that her knees were on the mattress, 
straddling him.  His hips bucked of their own accord and 
nearly bumped her off.

The motion sent her glasses back down over her face, where 
they landed slightly crooked on the end of her nose.  He 
reached up to remove them, but she took his hand.  "I want to 
see you," she murmured, and so together they righted the 
glasses on her face.

He repeated the caress several times, tucking her hair behind 
her ears, then letting his hands roam down her shoulders to 
the loose flaps of her blouse.  He tugged it off.  

Her nipples stood out against the thin silk of her bra, and 
Mulder felt his mouth water at the sight.  So intent was he 
on her breasts that he was shocked when they suddenly 
disappeared from view.

Scully was lifting his T-shirt over his head.  He cooperated 
to hurry the process along, and when he laid back down her 
bra was gone too.  She waited, eyes lowered shyly for his 
reaction, her fingers light and hesitant on his belly.

He reached up and she put her chest out slightly, welcoming 
him, but he grabbed her head instead.  He drew her down and 
kissed her eyes, her cheek, her lips.  

When she was squirming, he lifted her up a bit more and found 
her breast.  She tensed and cried out as he licked her, and 
her hands clawed at his head.  He sucked her like she was a 
delicious hard candy until he was dizzy from the effort.

She sat backwards, landing squarely on his erection.  The wet 
tips of her breasts shone in the dim light and her mouth was 
swollen and smudged.  He heard the button on his jeans snap 
open and rocked his hips against her.

She sucked in a quick breath and leaned back to steady 
herself. He took the opportunity to reach under her and unzip 
his fly.  While he was in the neighborhood, he did hers for 
good measure.

He rolled her off him and under him, but she grimaced when 
her back hit the mattress.  This time he was in a position to 
see, so he tilted her for a look.  "That's a nasty bruise," 
he said, touching the edge of it lightly.  "What happened?"

"I don't know," she said, sounding breathless.  She tried to 
get him to kiss her again, but he held her still. 

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I haven't been sleeping well.  I got up in the middle of the 
night once and bumped myself, apparently.  I don't really 
remember."

He leaned down to kiss the offending mark.

"Mulder..."

"Hmmm?"

"I--" She broke off as he licked the circle of her tattoo.  
Her hands fisted bunches of the sheet and she squirmed under 
his mouth.  He yanked her pants lower on his hips so he could 
taste more.  "I don't want to wait anymore."

"God, me either," he muttered and rolled her over.  She 
stroked his chest as he worked off first her pants, then his.  
She traced each nipple with her fingertips and pressed open-
mouthed kisses to his breastbone.

His cock dipped down between them, heavy and hard.  She 
stroked the underside from root to tip and he nearly went off 
in her hand.  "Scully, Scully, Scully..."

"Yes?"  All flushed, with her hair spread out around her, 
wearing just cotton underwear and her glasses askew, she 
looked every bit the naughty schoolgirl.

"You gotta stop that," he said, but he couldn't bear to push 
her hand away.

"Stop what?" she asked, rubbing him some more.

"Oh, God."  He gritted his teeth and grabbed for her 
underpants.  He stripped them down and off her legs in one 
smooth motion.

She obligingly parted her thighs so he could settle between 
them. His penis burned like a hot poker against her leg.  
"You're trying to kill me," he said against her cheek, and he 
felt the curve of her smile.

"Don't wait," she said again, trying to scoot into position.

It was going too fast.  He'd waited so long.  

He sucked in a breath as she brought his penis against her 
wet opening.  He hadn't even touched her there.  Hadn't 
stroked or kissed her.  "Scully," he said with a squeak as 
she eased the head inside.

"There."  She sounded relieved and her eyes slid closed.  She 
put her arms around him and drew her knees up, waiting for 
him to do the rest.  

He thrust gently, tears in his eyes from the restraint of it.  
Her body welcomed him with tight spasms, easing him inch by 
inch until he was buried to the hilt.  "Okay?" he asked on a 
ragged breath.

She hummed a reply and kissed his cheek, her glasses bumping 
against his temple.  She rocked her hips up and into his.  

He tried to think, desperate to make this good for her.  It 
had to be good if they had any chance of repeating the 
experience.  She stretched her neck to kiss him, and he tried 
to pay attention to her mouth rather than the sweet slide of 
his body into hers.

Her thigh rubbed his ass and her hands swept through the 
sweaty hair at his neck.  She was everywhere at once and he 
couldn't keep up.  Orgasm was brightening in him like the 
dawn.

"Oh, God," he said, but it was more like an apology than an 
affirmation.

She held him tight as he exploded in her gloriously, his 
mouth twisted open on a groan.

He passed out into the pillow for who knew how long.  When he 
was aware of himself again, Scully was stroking his shoulders 
and tickling the back of his knee with her toes.  He lifted 
himself up enough to see her face and she gave him a calm 
smile.

"I squashed you," he said, easing his weight.

"No, I'm fine."

Mulder was aware she was not fine and he had unfinished 
business.  He tried to gather his wits and coordinate his 
movements better; his brain was still on permanent hum.

"You were more than fine," he said, and kissed her slowly and 
thoroughly, her head nestled on his arm.  His penis softened 
and slipped out of her, and she tried to close her legs but 
he stopped her with a hand on her thigh.

He stroked back and forth, inching higher each time, until 
his fingers tangled in her soft thatch of hair.  She broke 
their kiss, tensing.  "You don't have to," she said, and he 
covered her mouth again to shut her up.

She remained stiff as he touched her so it was difficult to 
gage what she liked.  Her flesh was swollen and slick, eager 
for him, but he knew there had to be a particular spot.  
"Show me," he said against her neck, and she shook her head.

He took her hand and drew it with his back between her legs.  
"Show me," he said again as he resumed stroking her. 

For a minute he thought she was just going to refuse, but 
then he felt her small hand close over his and shift him to 
the left.  She guided him for a moment and then backed off 
when he seemed to grasp her rhythm.  Soon her hips were 
rocking into his hand.

She wrinkled her nose and screwed her eyes shut.  He kept 
pace with her but she seemed to be fighting it.  He tried to 
distract her with kisses but she turned her head to the side.

Mulder followed her across the pillow and nuzzled her rice 
paper cheek.  He tried the same magic words he'd used to get 
her into the apartment: "Come, Scully."

She stiffened and let out a high, keening cry as her flesh 
rippled against his hand.  When it was over, she clutched him 
close and hid her face against his shoulder.

Night had drawn a curtain around the windows, leaving them in 
darkness.  He stroked the hair back from her face and she 
loosened her hold, falling backwards into the pillows.  "You 
want some water?" he asked, mostly because he did.

She nodded and drew the sheet up over her breasts.

He got up and went naked to the kitchen, where he filled two 
tall glasses with water.  When he returned, the bed was empty 
and the bathroom door was closed.  He set her glass on the 
nightstand and waited.

The sink shut off after a moment, and Scully appeared wearing 
her clothes again.  He frowned and put his water aside.  
"Where are you going?"

"Home?" She straightened her shirt.

"I brought water," he said stupidly.

"I see.  Thanks."  She picked up the other glass and sipped 
from it, avoiding his naked gaze.  After a minute, she said, 
"We have work in the morning.  I have to change."

"Right this second?"

She put the glass down and looked at him.  "I just need to 
think."

"Fine," he said, resigned.  "I can't keep you here."

"I'm not sorry, Mulder, I'm--"

"What?" he asked when she stopped.

"I just need to time to sort this out."

"I thought we might do that together."  His phone rang, and 
his heart almost stopped because he knew instantly who was 
calling.  From the look on Scully's face, she knew too.

She watched him, waiting for him to pick up.  It rang two 
more times before he reached over to answer.  "Hello."

"Fox?  It's me.  Is this a bad time?"

"You know, I just stepped out of the shower," he said, his 
eyes on Scully.  She looked away.  "Can I call you back?"

"Sure," Diana said.  "I'm at home."

Scully was halfway to the door when he caught up with her.  
"It's not what you think," he said.

"Then explain it to me."

God, if it were just that easy.  "I can't," he said, his 
voice breaking.  He reached out and touched her face.  "Not 
right now."

"Good night, Mulder."

She yanked open the door, and naked as he was, he could not 
follow her.

X-X-X-X-X

She woke up restless in the middle of the night and decided 
to go for a drive.  She left the stereo off but kept the 
windows cracked for a breeze.  With no specific destination, 
she took random turns, passing only an occasional car.  When 
headlights appeared in her rearview mirror, she would freeze 
until they peeled off again.

Mulder was out there somewhere and she had no idea where to 
look.  She considered tracking down Skinner and holding a gun 
to his head in case he knew the full story.  At the moment, 
pulling her gun and pointing it at anyone sounded appealing.  
Four days without sleep could make even the finest agent less 
discriminating.

Lost in thought, she ended up in an unfamiliar neighborhood.  
She slowed and tried to read a street sign in the dark.  It 
was a commercial area, with tall silent office buildings.  
She drove on until she saw a lighted sign ahead: The 
Horseshoe Diner -- Open All Nite.  She pulled into the lot to 
get her bearings.

The street was still unlabeled, so she went into the diner to 
ask directions back to the highway and maybe get a cup of 
coffee.  A skinny man with a pock-marked face and a blue 
apron was wiping the counter.  The only other customers were 
a couple of college kids in a booth and a man in a suit at 
the end of the bar.

"Excuse me," she said, trying to get the worker's attention, 
but then the sound of someone lighting a cigarette made her 
stop.

"Can I help you?" the waiter asked.

Scully turned to the man at the end of the bar and watched as 
he took a drag.  "Hey," she called, over loudly, and he 
twisted to look at her.

"Agent Scully," he said, "what a surprise."

She stalked over to him.  "What the hell are you doing here?  
Are you following me?"

"I was here first," he replied, spreading his hands in 
innocence.  He had a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him. 
"I should ask if you were following me."

"I wasn't."

"So you say."  He took another puff.  "As long as we're both 
here, allow me to buy you a cup of coffee."

"No, thank you."

"Some eggs?"

"Why are you here?" she asked again, hands on her hips.

"Even I have to eat."  He eyed the stool next to him.  "Sit."

"Can I help you?" The man with the apron asked her once more.

"Not right now," she answered without even looking at him.  
She took the seat next to the Smoking Man but was careful to 
keep one hand near her weapon.

"It is a lucky happenstance that I ran into you," he said, 
"considering you wanted to talk to me."

"I never said I wanted to talk to you."

"That wasn't you who called earlier?" He tapped his ash into 
the ceramic tray.  "It certainly sounded like you."

She didn't give him the satisfaction of her surprise.  "I 
don't believe we've spoken, no," she replied evenly.

He shrugged.  "Too bad.  I hear that Mulder's in a spot of 
trouble."

"What do you know about Mulder?"

"He's missing, is he not?  And he left a body in his wake?  I 
heard there's a detective hot on his trail.  It seems he 
suspects our Mulder is a murderer."

"And yet it was your number in the victim's Rolodex.  Funny, 
that."

"I don't know what you're alluding to, but I can assure you I 
have only the best of intentions where Mulder is concerned."

"You probably set him up," Scully hissed back.

"On the contrary, I'd like to help him if I can."

"Tell me where he is."

At this, he raised his eyebrows.  "Would that I could, Agent 
Scully, but I expect you're liable to find him faster than I 
can.  He certainly won't be running to me."

"He might if he thinks you did it."

He looked her over appraisingly and then took another drag 
from his cigarette.  "I doubt very much he thinks that."

"Do you know who killed her?"

"I've my suspicions, but there's nothing I can prove."

"Tell me then."

He shook his head and stuffed out his butt.  "Idle gossip 
won't help Agent Mulder, but I've something else that might.  
Though on the face of it, I've got to say it won't look 
good."

"What?"

He reached down near his feet and she put her hand on her 
gun.  "Easy there," he said as he drew up a briefcase.  He 
put an unlit cigarette between his lips and took out a folder 
from the case.  He rested the folder in his lap as he reached 
for his lighter.  "This is fascinating reading," he said 
around the butt.  "I'm sure you'll agree."

"What is it?"

"Agent Fowley's autopsy report."

Scully's heart quickened and she looked around to make sure 
no one else was nearby listening.  "How did you get that?"

"You wanted a copy, didn't you?"  He slid it across to her.  
"Now you have one."

She opened it with a skeptical eye but at face it seemed to 
be the real thing, no obvious fake.  She scanned the front 
page and it confirmed what she already knew.  Diana died from 
a single gunshot wound to the head, fired at medium-to-close 
range with a 9 mm caliber bullet.

"The same as the FBI uses," the Smoking Man noted as if he 
could read her mind.  "Of course, without Fowley's weapon, 
they can't do an exact match."

"It's a common enough gun and a standard Luger 9 mil," she 
said, still reading.  "It proves nothing."

"I quite agree.  That's why the police are so eager to 
recover the gun."  He paused for another puff.  "I expect 
that's also why Mulder took it with him.  Have you gotten to 
page two yet?  The really interesting part is there in third 
paragraph."

Scully flipped the page.  "Oh my God."

"Yes," he said.  "I thought you might be surprised.  It seems 
Agent Fowley was dying of cancer.  An inoperable 
nasopharyngeal tumor.  Whoever killed her wasted a bullet."

X-X-X-X-X



X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Six

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

She didn't have anything as quaint as a breakfast nook so 
they sat at one end of her sleek dining room table, sipping 
black coffee from delicate glass cups.  Diana set hers back 
on the saucer and refolded the napkin in her lap.  "I guess I 
should get to the point of this conversation, shouldn't I?"

Mulder held his cup in both hands.  "You don't need a reason 
to ask me over here," he replied, and cast his gaze down at 
the shiny table.  "All things considered."

"Well, I do have a reason," she said as she smoothed her hair 
back over one shoulder.  "I want you and Scully to let me 
handle the Brandt investigation, all of it."

"I believe that's Kersh's line."

"This isn't about him.  I frankly couldn't give a tiny rat's 
ass what he says or thinks, but I am serious about this thing 
with Brandt.  It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous?  What are you talking about?"

"If our original suspicions about his research activities are 
correct, I imagine there's been some panic over his death.  
Twice yesterday and once the day before, I noticed a man in a 
car tailing me."

"Was it a black Lexus?"

She raised her eyebrows at him.  "Yes, it was.  I tried to 
spot the license number but the plate had been obscured."

"It may have been the same guy Scully and I saw following us 
when we left Brandt's office at the NIH."

"There are people who have a vested interest in making sure 
Brandt's research records remain sealed.  It's very possible 
this man is a spy sent to keep watch and make sure we don't 
try any breaking and entering this time around."

"So we find out who he is.  Maybe then we get closer to the 
people setting Brandt's research agenda."

She shook her head.  "I can't let you risk yourself on this, 
not with the X-files in such a tenuous situation.  Someone 
has to be left standing at the end of this, and by all 
rights, that person will be you. Me, I've got nothing left to 
lose."

"That's not true," he said, leaning forward to emphasize his 
point.  "You...you can beat this, Diana.  I've seen it 
happen.  All we need is to find a chip..."

"No."

"It worked for Scully."

She leveled him with a forceful gaze.  "I'm not Scully."

Taken aback, he let out a slow breath and then scrubbed his 
face with his hands.  He peeked out at her between his 
fingers.  "I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me -- not 
again."

"It's not your choice.  It never was."

"So you're just giving up, just like that."

"No, just the opposite.  There's nothing left they can do to 
me, Fox. I'm finally in a position to demand some answers, 
and all I'm asking is that you step back and let me get 
them."

Mulder tilted the front feet of his chair off the ground and 
set it back down hard. The coffee cups startled in their 
saucers, and Diana looked again at her lap.  He wanted to 
scream and shake her, make her jump like the cups.  

She didn't understand. The small personal battles were the 
only ones he ever seemed to win.

"You're no good to anyone if you're dead," he said.

She gave a wry smile.  "Oh, I don't know. I suspect Scully 
won't be shedding any tears at my funeral."

"That's unfair.  If she knew about your illness..."

"I asked you not to tell her," Diana said sharply.

"And I haven't."

She relaxed back into her chair and fingered the edge of her 
cup.  "Good.  The fewer people who know, the more I can 
accomplish.  I don't imagine she wants to sit around swapping 
bloody nose stories any more than I do."

He recalled Scully on her deathbed, her eyes sunken and her 
hair brittle across the pillow.  *If I can save you, let me.*

If this was truly what she wanted, he wished Diana could have 
let him remain an accomplice after-the-fact. 

"Maybe there is something in Brandt's work," he said, 
"something like a cure."

"Maybe," she agreed, but she did not sound hopeful.  "Someone 
is certainly worried we'll uncover something untoward or we 
wouldn't have an escort."  She hesitated.  "Also, I think 
someone broke in here the other night."

"What?  When?"

"Two nights ago.  I was working late, and when I came back 
home, this window was open."  She turned around and indicated 
the window behind her.  "It was closed when I left for the 
office, but it was unlocked."

She stood up and motioned for him to follow her.  "Nothing 
was obviously missing, but when I went to my office I found 
these marks on the lock to my file cabinet."

Mulder knelt, and sure enough, he saw tiny score marks on the 
lock.  "Was it opened?"

"I've no idea.  My key still works, so it wasn't damaged.  
But whoever it was tried to go through my desk drawers as 
well.  See?"

He touched the small round lock and felt the same scratch 
marks as he'd seen on the cabinet.  "Any idea who it was or 
what they were looking for?"

"I'd bet even money he drives a black Lexus."

"You can't stay here alone, not after this.  What if this guy 
comes back and tries again?"

The end of her mouth curved in a smile.  "I am armed and 
trained, Fox.  If he'd like to take his chances with me, I 
invite him to try.  But I think it's clear from the evidence 
it's not me he wants -- it's whatever he thinks I've got.  
And that's why it's so important that I find it before he or 
anyone else does."

"First you've got to know what you're looking for."

Her smile both thinned and broadened.  "Somehow, I think I'll 
know it when I see it."

X-X-X-X-X-X

The bullpen was quiet for a Monday morning but Scully 
couldn't hear past the static in her head.  She had an F622 
form open on her monitor and her phone tugged protectively 
close to her.  Every sixty seconds, she looked at the empty 
cubicle next door and then back at the clock again.

Mulder was forty-two minutes late and he had not called.

She wasn't sure what she'd thought she would prove to herself 
by sleeping with him.  The horrible lump at her middle hadn't 
shrunk a bit.  

She had applied her makeup carefully that morning, hiding the 
tender bruised spots under her eyes.  In the car, she had 
practiced what to say, how to be when she saw him again.  Of 
all the things in her life that she couldn't control, Mulder 
was the most powerful.  

But Mulder loved mysteries and she had the sinking feeling 
she had given the last of hers away.

She got up to use the bathroom, head down on her way to the 
hall, but she heard women's voice chatting inside and veered 
away at the last minute.  Her feet kept moving down the 
corridor and she ran squarely into Kersh.

"Going somewhere, Agent?" he asked archly.

"I was just, uh, just going to the supply room.  My pen ran 
out."

"Your pen."  He looked down at her but she held his gaze.  "I 
notice your partner is AWOL this morning.  Any ideas about 
that?"

"Perhaps he's ill."

"He'd damn well better be.  If I find he's out bothering the 
Brandt investigation again, it's six weeks suspension without 
pay for both of you."

"I understand that, sir."

"Make sure Mulder understands it."  He started to move past 
her, and then stopped.  "Agent Scully..."

She turned, and he took out a pen from his breast pocket.

"Here you are," he said as he handed it to her.  "Let's be 
getting back to work now, hmm?"

She stood there holding it like an idiot while he walked 
away.  It was warm from the heat of his body.  She had a 
flash of herself jabbing the tip of it repeatedly through his 
eyeball.

Then somehow, she was walking again, but not back to her 
desk.  The red "exit" sign glowed in the distance like a 
beacon.

She ditched the pen in the trash on her way out.


It wasn't hard to guess where Mulder was, but she still felt 
sick at the sight.  There was his government-issued Taurus 
parked in Diana's driveway.  Scully hung back, three houses 
down, with her motor idling and her knuckles white around the 
wheel.  

She knew with sudden clarity that this wasn't about sex, but 
the realization turned the dread in her stomach to clawing 
panic.  Sex was her last card and she'd played it.  Whatever 
this was between Mulder and Diana, she had no way to battle.

She rested her head back against the seat and closed her 
eyes.  She could leave.  Go back to work and wait for him to 
appear and pretend that everything was still the same.  She 
and Mulder were master pretenders.

Or she could ring the doorbell and confront them.  She 
imagined the surprise on Diana's face, the chagrin on 
Mulder's, as she caught them in the middle of... whatever it 
was they were doing.  But unless they harbored an alien in 
there, tied to a kitchen chair while they flogged it with 
rubber gloves, she had precious little hope of finding out 
what they were plotting together.

In the end, that he would leave Scully out, after everything, 
this was all that mattered.

She opened her eyes resolved to going back to work and not 
talking to him for the next ten years.  Just as she was 
shifting into gear, Diana's front door opened and Mulder 
strode out, wearing sunglasses and a suit.

She was parked down the block, but not far enough from 
Captain Observo, because he spotted her immediately.  She 
considered driving away as he started toward her but decided 
this was childish, so she set her jaw and waited for him to 
reach the car.

He opened the passenger door and got in without asking.  "I 
know what you're thinking," he said.

"Actually, I bet you don't.  Kersh is looking for you, and 
you'd better have a doctor's note or a pardon from the 
governor when you get back, or we're both suspended for the 
foreseeable future."

He took off the shades. "I didn't mean to get you involved."

"That much is obvious."

"I'll handle Kersh.  Don't worry."

"I can look out for myself, Mulder."

He studied her a moment.  "I know that."  He reached over to 
touch her knee, but she flinched and he drew his hand back.  
"Scully, I just want to say..."

Her cell phone cut him off, and she yanked it out from her 
pocket.  "Scully," she said.

"Agent Scully, this is Imogene Brandt.  Do you recall the 
name?"

"Of course," she said, eyeing Mulder, who was listening 
openly.  "What can I do for you, Dr. Brandt?"

"I was going through my husband's private study at home, and 
I came across something rather disturbing.  I thought you 
should perhaps take a look at it."

"What is it?"

"I don't wish to say over the phone."  She paused.  "But it 
involves someone you work with, and it's possible it could 
impact your investigation."

We don't actually have an investigation, Scully wanted to 
say, but she held her tongue.  "What would you like me to 
do?"

"I think you should come here as soon as possible.  We're at 
44 Ingleside Drive; just hit the buzzer at the gate and I'll 
let you in."

"Okay, I'm on my way."

She snapped the phone shut but held it cradled in her hands.  
"That was Imogene Brandt.  She's found something of interest 
her husband's study, something that pertains to 'someone I 
work with.'"

"I'll go with you."

"She called me, not you."

"If it involves me, I want to know what it is."

"And if it involves you, she might not give it to us if you 
show up."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take."

"Mulder..."

"Look, did she ask you to come alone?"

"Not specifically."

"Then let's go," he said, fastening his seatbelt.

"What about your car?  You're blocking Diana in."

Mulder considered for a moment.  "Right now, that might be a 
good thing.  Come on, before she catches me."

Scully put the car in reverse, and Diana's house in the 
rearview mirror.

X-X-X-X-X

Scully read every inch of the autopsy report on Diana's body, 
but she found no other illumination.  From the description of 
her tumor and the blood work, it seemed Diana had perhaps a 
few months left to live at the time of her murder.  The tumor 
was large but had not yet metastasized. 

What Scully was looking for, and what she could not find, was 
any evidence of a chip in the neck or anywhere else in the 
body. If the Smoking Man thought this report would somehow 
prove Mulder's innocence, he was sadly mistaken.

The picture remained unchanged.  The cops had a fight, a dead 
woman killed with a 9 mm round consistent with FBI artillery, 
a missing weapon, and Mulder on the run.

Helpless and restless, she took all of her evidence to 
Skinner's office.  Mulder had called Skinner for some reason, 
and she wanted to know why.

Strong afternoon sun filtered through the slits in his 
blinds.  Skinner himself looked tired, with shirtsleeves 
rolled up and his eyes narrow behind his glasses.  "What's 
this?" he asked as she slapped the folders down on his desk.

"Research.  This is Diana's autopsy report.  She was dying of 
cancer, did you know that?  A nasopharyngeal tumor."

From the look on Skinner's face, she gathered this wasn't 
news.  "Where did you get that?"

"Your smoking friend gave it to me."

This was news.  "What?"

"I had to get this on my own, though," she said, shoving the 
phone dump at him.  "Mulder has Diana's cell phone, but then 
you probably already know that because he's called you.  At 
least, I'm reasonably sure it was him and not Diana, since 
she was in the city morgue at the time."

He glanced at the report and nudged it back at her.  "So?"

"So I thought we were both trying to find him.  You never 
mentioned this call to me."

"You've talked to him too.  I didn't notice you coming in 
here to share that conversation."

Scully ignored this.  "I want to know what you talked about."

"I tried to get him to turn himself in.  He refused to listen 
-- much the same way you've refused to listen when I told you 
to stay away from the autopsy report."

"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling me the whole 
truth?"

"You want to talk truth?  Let's discuss that argument between 
Diana and Mulder the day she was killed.  I'm pretty sure you 
could tell us what it was about."

She was surprised he didn't know. Or maybe he did, and this 
was some sort of test.  "You should have asked Mulder."

"What makes you think I didn't?"

"He must have needed something from you or he wouldn't have 
called.  I don't know what it was, but I have some guesses.  
It looks like you and Agent Fowley had at least one name in 
common in your Rolodex.  See that number at the top?"

He looked, but didn't comment.

"It's the Smoking Man.  Now why would she be calling him?"

"I've no idea.  Perhaps she was hoping he might be able to 
cure her illness."

"Why would she think that?"

He blinked owlishly at her.  "Because that's what he did for 
you."

Her heart started pounding so fast she was momentarily dizzy.  
"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That chip in your neck.  Where did you think it came from?"

"Mul-Mulder got it from the DOD."

He shook his head, askance at her ignorance.  "I can't 
believe you didn't know."

She resisted the urge to touch the bump at the base of her 
neck.  "I don't believe you."

"Believe what you like.  The Smoking Man gave Mulder the 
means to cure you, and he no doubt had his reasons.  He 
grants favors only for the purpose of calling later to 
collect.  You might ask yourself why he gave you that autopsy 
report."

"I'll worry about that in the future if I have to.  Right now 
I want to know where Mulder is."

"I don't know," he said, and held up his palms before she 
could protest.  "That's the God's honest truth.  I talked to 
him two days ago and he hasn't called since."

She searched his face and still didn't quite believe him.  
"Fine.  I'll find him myself."

She tried to collect her research from his desk but Skinner 
stopped her.  "I can't let you take this," he said as he 
tugged it from her hands.

"It's mine."

"Not anymore."

"With all due respect, sir, you have no more right to this 
evidence than I do."

"Actually, that's not true.  My name is on the material 
witness warrant for Mulder.  It's my investigation, and I 
decide what agents work under me."

"I see," she said evenly. "And just which agents are those?"

"Not you.  I'll take your ID and weapon too."

"I don't think so.  You have no grounds."

"I have plenty of grounds.  Your partner is the chief suspect 
in a murder investigation.  That alone should earn you some 
desk time.  But you and Mulder have been behaving like rogue 
law enforcement lately, and I don't like it.  You are not 
helping his cause.  If he calls you again, tell him to get 
his ass back in here.  Now hand it over."

"If he calls, I'll be sure to let him know about this," she 
said as she jerked her gun out of its holster.  

"Go home," he told her.  "Get some rest.  I'll handle the 
Mulder situation from here on out."

"You'll pardon me if I don't find that especially 
comforting," she said.  "Tell your Smoking friend I said 
hello."

She walked out into the orange blaze of the setting sun, 
lighter without her folders and her weapon.  She had hit a 
dead end, run around by lies.  There was only one person left 
who would tell her the truth.  Fortunately, she had his phone 
number.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Scully wasn't sure what the formal definition of "mansion" 
was, but she suspected the Brandt homestead would qualify.  
Set on the Virginia border on at least an acre of gleaming 
green lawn, it had a formidable brick face, black shutters 
and large white pots filled with greenery along the front.  
She hit the buzzer at the front gate and identified herself 
over the intercom; the door swung open and she drove up to 
the main entrance.  

A silver Mercedes sat parked in the driveway.

The large white front door opened before she or Mulder even 
reached it, and Imogene Brandt stood on the threshold.  "I 
thought you would come alone," she said when she saw Mulder.

"Then you thought incorrectly," Scully said.  "You had 
something you wanted to show me?"

Imogene held the door close to her body, considering her 
options, and then finally widened it to let them inside.  
"How is the investigation going? Are you any closer to 
proving that Christopher was murdered?"

"I'm afraid not," Scully said.

"We have these day jobs," said Mulder.

"If it's a matter of money, I have plenty of it."

Scully looked around the grand entryway, taking in the high 
white columns, the marble floor, and the large civil-war era 
oil painting on the wall.  "The FBI is not for sale," she 
told Imogene politely.

"I'm not trying to buy the whole Bureau."  She looked them 
over.  "A couple of agents will do."

"Ma'am," Scully began, but Imogene waved her off. 

"I jest. Come let me show you the study.  I think Agent 
Mulder might find this particularly interesting."

They followed her around the staircase and down a short 
hallway to Christopher Brandt's home office.  It featured an 
antique mahogany desk, thick gray carpet and the faint odor 
of cigars.  "I found the key to his files over here," Imogene 
was saying as she walked them to the cabinets.  "Imagine my 
surprise when I found this in the drawer from 1991."

She withdrew a blue folder and opened it up to examine the 
pages it contained.  "At first, I couldn't figure out why he 
held onto this information, but it does help explain his 
certainty that the FBI was involved in the break-in at his 
lab."

She offered the folder to Scully, who accepted, and Mulder 
looked over her shoulder.  The top page was the police report 
from the night of the break-in; they apparently found 
nothing.  But page two was an independent analysis from a 
private firm.

"I always said he was the smartest man I ever knew," Imogene 
said.  "He had them dust all the fire alarms.  Your Agent 
Fowley should have worn gloves."

"Wait, let me see that," Mulder murmured as he took the 
folder from her hands, and then it was she who had to look on 
over his arm.

The report found Diana's fingerprints on the lever of one of 
the first floor fire alarms.

"I guess you didn't know," Imogene said.  "I suspected as 
much, and I'll tell you why.  I got to wondering, if Chris 
had this sort of proof that the FBI was involved the break-
in, why didn't he tell the authorities back then?"

"This isn't proof of anything," Mulder replied, but Scully 
could see the artery in his neck pulsing. 

"It was proof enough to have your job in 1991, if Chris had 
wanted it.  That's the rub, though, isn't it?  Why didn't he 
want it?  So I did some more digging through his records 
here, and I found some old phone records."  She took an old 
bill from the desk.  "Chris saved everything.  He was a total 
packrat, like many scientists are.  You don't want to throw 
out any data because it might become useful in the future."

Suddenly, Scully knew where this was going, but she wasn't 
going to be the one to say it.  She kept her eyes down so she 
wouldn't have to see Mulder's face.

"I mentioned my husband's proclivity for pretty women.  Agent 
Fowley is very pretty indeed."

Out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw Mulder take the 
phone records and look them over; she could guess very well 
what they said.

"Didn't you wonder how she knew the floor plan so well?" 
Imogene asked.

Despite everything, Scully felt the need to rescue Mulder.  
"You said this had to do with your husband's death," she 
said.  "All of this happened years ago."

"Yes, I'm aware.  But since history has a way of repeating 
itself, I went and found the latest phone bill.  This number 
here is Agent Fowley's current residence, is it not?  She 
answered when I dialed it."

Mulder took the second bill, and Scully glanced at it.

"They were in contact during the days before his death, and I 
have to ask myself if it might have been she whom my husband 
was meeting the night he was killed."

"Even if it was, she wouldn't have killed him," Mulder said 
as he folded the bills and tried to return them to Imogene.

"Keep them," she said.  "Keep it all.  It's evidence."

"It's evidence of nothing," said Mulder.

"She's a liar," Imogene answered, her voice turning cold.  
"And she slept with my husband.  That's not enough to 
convict, I'll grant you, or half the city would be guilty.  
But if she's the one at the end of the line, then she's put 
herself on a very short list of suspects."

In the car afterward, they sat in silence outside the Brandt 
home.  Mulder had the evidence of Diana's infidelity tucked 
in the folder on his lap.  He stared out the windshield but 
didn't appear to see anything.

"Mulder, I..."

"Told you so?" He gave her an ugly look.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."  He clutched the folders and turned his 
gaze to the distance again.  "She didn't kill him."

Scully started the car.  For once, she hoped he was right.

X-X-X-X-X-X

She stopped at a shopping mall on her way home, careful to 
make sure no one followed. The sky had turned dusky and 
starless. It was the dinner hour, and most of the traffic 
flowed the other way, leaving a semi-scattered parking lot.  
She concerned herself with the short line of phones along the 
wall.

Scully glanced over her shoulder one last time and then 
blocked the phone buttons with her body, just in case anyone 
was watching from afar.  She dialed the numbers she now knew 
by heart.

Please be there, please be there.  She clutched the receiver 
close to her ear and scanned the lot for anyone who seemed 
overly interested in her conversation.

At the third ring, he picked up.  "Hello."

"It's me," she said, surprised to find tears in her eyes.  
She blinked them away.

"Scully," he replied with relief.  "I was going to call you."

She gave a watery laugh and wiped her eyes with the cuff of 
one sleeve. "That's what they all say."  She rested her 
forehead against the cool plastic.  "Mulder, I need to talk 
to you."

"I'm listening."

"I got the autopsy report.  I know about Diana's cancer."

"Yeah."  It was hard to hear him over the passing cars.  "She 
didn't want me to tell you."

"There's more. I traced this number, and I know it's her cell 
phone from overseas.  She talked to the Smoking Man in the 
days before she died."

"That explains the heavy breathing on the other end.  It 
wasn't phone sex; it was emphysema."

"He called you?"

"Someone did, and the person didn't identify themselves."

She gripped the hard metal cord.  "I'm worried about you.  
Mulder, I know you've been in contact with Skinner, but he 
might not be a friend.  He took the autopsy report and phone 
records away from me today.  He also took my gun and ID."

There was a long silence on the other end.

"Did you hear what I said?" she asked.

"I heard."

"I don't know what to do next.  I don't know how to help you.  
Maybe if you told me exactly what happened the night she 
died..."

"I think we should meet."

Just the forbidden words made her look around again.  "You're 
nearby?"

"Not far.  You know the little park in old Annapolis? The one 
we arrested Fred Murtaw in?"

"Yes, there's a children's playground there."

"Meet me by the jungle gym at ten tonight."

It was really too risky.  She should refuse.  "I'll be 
there."

They hung up and she decided not to go home first.  With her 
luck, Rivera would be waiting there to either drag her in for 
questioning or to tail her on her rendezvous with Mulder.  
Instead she drove around rather aimlessly, watching to make 
sure no one else had a similar lack of aim.  

She stopped at a gas station for a refill and a diet soda, 
but her stomach had twisted into such a knot that she could 
barely drink half of it.  At the last moment, she also 
purchased a wrapped ham-and-cheese from the fridge and a sad-
looking orange.  Mulder could be hungry.

Out of caution, she parked four blocks from the park, in an 
empty church lot.  With her small paper sack in hand, she 
walked back quickly, her shadow cast long and slim from the 
streetlamps overhead.  Her heels made the only sound on the 
quiet road.

She went straight to the jungle gym and waited on the dark 
side, nearest the bushes.  The cold metal bar pressed into 
her back as she looked around the playground.  The swings 
stirred in the breeze.

She tilted her watch toward the light to see the face and it 
read ten of ten.  The bushes rustled and Mulder emerged from 
them, looking both ways before joining her at the bars.  

"You're early," he said.  He wore his glasses and three days 
worth of beard.

"So are you."

He was dressed in blue jeans and a non-descript navy 
sweatshirt she recognized as FBI with the iron-on label worn 
off.

"What's in the sack?" he asked, nodding at it.

"Oh.  Just a sandwich and an orange.  It's not much, but I 
didn't know what your situation was exactly, and--" She broke 
off as he crushed her in a hug.

"Are you okay?" His voice was rough near her ear.  

She nodded, unable to speak.  She hugged him as hard as she 
could with one arm and the gas station food trapped between 
them.  He felt solid and whole and real, not at all like the 
ghost she had been chasing for days. "Where have you been?"

"Never mind that." He pushed her back enough so that he could 
see her face.  His thumbs were warm against her cheeks.  "You 
weren't followed?"

"No, I don't think so."  Shuddering, she broke free and set 
the bag at their feet.  She took his hand again and leaned 
against the jungle gym.  "You can't keep this up forever, 
Mulder."

"I know, I know.  This wasn't exactly a well thought-out 
plan, if you know what I mean."

"They have a witness who saw you, but then again I suspect 
you know that already."

"The lady next door with the big eyes."

She looked up at him.  "You caught her attention 
deliberately.  I just don't understand why."

"Tell me more about the case.  What else do they know?"

"They have the bullet but Diana's gun is still missing, and 
it's presumed to be the murder weapon.  As far as I know, the 
police have not uncovered the content of your argument with 
her the evening that she died."

His hand tightened on hers. "I burned those papers."

"Mulder, it's evidence."

"Exactly."

"No, it's evidence against Brandt, against Diana, against the 
men who run the tests -- you can't have burned it."

"It's also motive, Scully."

Underneath all that hair, his face was troubled, and fear 
began niggling in her heart.  "Mulder, tell me what happened 
that night."

"I was still so angry.  I went there... I don't know why I 
went there.  I wanted some sort of accounting, I guess.  I 
wanted to see if there was anything left of her that I could 
recognize.  She was dead on the floor when I got there."

"I suspected as much," she said, and Mulder looked at her 
sharply.

"The gun was on the floor in the living room.  The phone was 
on the table. I took them both."

"You have the gun," she said, the words just sinking into 
consciousness.  "You took the gun?"

"Yes."  He scratched at the dirt with one sneaker.  "I 
thought it was yours."

"Mine!" She levered herself away from the bars and faced him.  
"You thought I'd killed her?  God, Mulder.  If I'd killed 
her, I'd sure as hell have taken my gun with me."

"Maybe you weren't thinking straight."

The soft words drew her up short.  He didn't appear to be 
joking.

"It's not my gun.  I told you that Skinner took mine today.  
Diana's is missing, so it's bound to be hers.  Mulder, you've 
been harboring the murder weapon.  If the police are curious 
about why you'd flee the scene of the crime, they're 
certainly going to wonder why you took the murder weapon with 
you."

"Scully..."

"And we can't go telling them that you thought I did it 
because that gets back to motive again, which won't do you 
any good at all."

"Scully, it's got your fingerprints on it."

She halted, her mouth hanging open.  "What did you say?"

"The gun has your prints on it."

"No," she said, shaking her head.  "That's not true.  No."

As before, she heard the gunfire in her head.  She saw Diana 
sprawled on the floor.

Mulder caught her before she hit the ground.  She grabbed the 
bar as he held her slumped against his chest.  His fingers 
bit into her flesh, and vaguely she heard his voice over her 
head.  "Now you see why I burned the papers."

X-X-X-X-X-X






X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Seven

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Mulder cupped his hands around his face to peer in the garage 
door window, and he saw that Diana's car was still inside.  
His own Taurus sat parked in the drive where he had left it.  
He went to the front door and punched the bell with one 
finger.  When she didn't appear, he banged on the door 
itself.  "Diana, open up!  I need to talk to you.  Diana!"

He pounded until his hand was sore, but no one answered.  He 
went back down the steps and walked around the side of the 
condo to look in the windows.  The dining room was empty, as 
was the kitchen.

"Diana!" He tried the back door but it was locked too.

As he walked to the front of the house again, he saw a woman 
watching him from the condo next door.  She had a plate in 
one hand and a dishtowel in the other.  "Can I help you with 
something?" she asked him pointedly.

"I need to talk to the woman who lives here," he called back, 
shielding his eyes from the sun.  "Do you know if she's 
home?"

"She left hours ago in a taxi," the neighbor answered.

"Thanks," Mulder said with a wave, and he fished his car keys 
from his pocket.

Of course Diana wouldn't have let his car stand in her way. 
The tires squealed as he peeled out of the drive, but he 
didn't head toward the Bureau, to find where she was.  
Instead, he went north up the coast to find where she'd been.

He picked up his cell phone as he drove.  "Scully," she said, 
answering before the first ring had completed.

"Scully, it's me.  I need you to check those phone records 
Imogene Brandt gave us and tell me if there were any hotels 
on the list."

"Where are you?"

"Driving up I-95."

"I thought you were coming back here."

"Imogene Brandt's says Diana was with Christopher the night 
he died.  Diana won't talk and Christopher can't talk.  The 
only way to find out the truth is to trace his steps that 
day."

He heard paper rustling on the other end, and Scully lowered 
her voice.  "There are no calls to any hotels listed here -- 
nothing from this whole month."

"Damn it, she must have made the reservation."

"Maybe they didn't have one.  Christopher Brandt was a serial 
adultery, Mulder.  He probably knew to cover his tracks, and 
making hotel reservations is not the way to do it."

"Then how the hell am I supposed to find out which hotel it 
is?  There are about six hundred places they could have 
stayed.  I can't go knocking on every door." 

He cut off some guy in a Beemer and got an earful of horn for 
his troubles.  When he checked the mirror, intending to make 
apologetic eye contact, he saw a black Lexus.  "I think I've 
got company."

"The Lexus again?"

"Yeah, he's about fifty yards back.  I can't see the driver."

"Maybe you should just come back here.  We don't know who 
this guy is, and you have no backup."

"Kersh gets one look at me and he'll chain me to my cubicle.   
No thanks."  He kept one eye on the mirror, but the Lexus 
hung back at a steady distance.  "Hang on, Scully.  I'm about 
to make a quick exit."

"Mulder‹"

He dropped the phone on the seat and grabbed the wheel with 
both hands.  Seizing a narrow break in traffic, he careened 
across four lanes to reach the exit, narrowly missing a UPS 
truck that was also lumbering off the highway.  The driver 
laid on his horn as Mulder hit the brakes.  The back end of 
his Taurus fishtailed, almost hitting the guardrail.  He 
brought the car under control and went right on red at the 
end of the exit ramp.

Soon he was cruising down a wide avenue with shopping plazas 
on both sides.  He scrambled to pick up his phone.  "Back," 
he said, a little breathless.

"What the hell was that about?"

"I think I lost him."

He made a quick right into one of the shopping malls and 
drove around so that the steep embankment hid his car from 
view.  He parked so that he could see the entrance, but no 
black Lexus turned into the lot.

"It does you no good if you end up as road kill," Scully 
said.

"I'm fine," he said, still distracted by the cars trickling 
in from the main road.  "I'm out of sight now."

"I have an idea about the hotel," she said.  "But I'll have 
to call you back."

"What is it?"

"Just don't go anywhere.  I'll call you right back."

She hung up and he rested his head against the seat, watching 
the entrance through slit eyes.  In his mind, he could hear 
the sound of the fire alarm, remembered the panic welling up 
inside him as the security officers tromped through the hall.  
All of it, a setup -- she had drawn him a map, helped him 
climb inside and then tried to seal his doom. 

His fingers tightened on the wheel.

When the phone rang, he jumped.  "Yeah, Mulder," he said.

"Are you still alone?" Scully asked.

"No sign of him.  What've you got?"

"If you want to know where a man is taking his new mistress, 
ask his old one.  I called Dr. Whatshername, his collaborator 
from last year.  She said he took her to a place called the 
Stonefield Inn, about thirty miles north."

"You got an address?"

She rattled it off and he scribbled down the directions on 
the inside of a Starbucks coffee holder.  "Mulder, please be 
careful."

"When am I not careful?" 

She said nothing as he started the engine.

"I'll call you when I know something," he said.

"Call me before that," she replied, and he actually smiled as 
he hung up the phone.


Drops of water pelting her face shook her free from 
bewilderment.  Mulder steadied her on the dirt floor as the 
rain began in earnest.  "We've got to get out of here," he 
said.  "The skies are about to open up."

"It's a hurricane," she told him stupidly.  "What's left of 
it, anyway."  The impending storm had been the other big 
story on the radio for the past few days, sandwiched between 
the coming mid-term elections and the manhunt for Mulder.

"Come with me," he said, tugging her hand, but she stood 
rooted to the ground.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"I could be followed.  I could be tracked."  She gestured 
weakly at her neck.  

"I don't care."  He yanked harder and she came free, 
stumbling after him in the rain as they raced for the side 
entrance to the park.  

He half-dragged her to an old Chevy Malibu parked just 
outside the cast of a streetlamp.  Rain beaded hard on the 
roof as he struggled to get the keys free from his wet jeans.  
Inside, it was humid and dark, the smell of wet hair and 
clothing pungent in the confined space.

"Where did you get this?" Scully asked as she stroked a crack 
in the leather armrest. 

"Frohike.  The guys keep it registered under the name John 
Gilnitz."  The engine came to life easily enough, but the 
stick shift needed persuading to find the correct gear.  

Their headlights cut into the sheeting rain as Mulder 
navigated the narrow street.  With the arriving winds, the 
water poured over them in long, angry waves.  The noise 
vibrated the car, competing for attention with the roar from 
the air vents.

Scully let her head loll back against the seat, allowed 
herself to be hypnotized by the falling rain.  She could feel 
Mulder glancing at her even as he leaned out over the dash 
for better visibility.  

She closed her eyes and saw Diana's living room with the 
blood on the floor.  But then Diana was there, alive again, 
dressed in a gray silk robe and holding a drink in her hand.  
She wore a look of disgust, almost contempt, and Scully 
focused in on her lips as she heard the words Diana was 
saying: "You were never going to save him."

Then the gunshot rang out, making her gasp and sit up from 
the seat.

"You okay?" Mulder asked her, looking so alarmed that she had 
only one answer she could give.

"Yes." Rain dripped down, tears from the sky slipping over 
the curve of her cheek and off her chin.  "I didn't kill 
her."  

She tried the words out loud, and they sounded light and far 
away.

Mulder didn't answer immediately.  He fidgeted in his seat, 
both hands on the wheel.  "Either you were there, or someone 
planted the evidence."

"I wasn't there."  

He glanced at her again, clearly gauging how to proceed.  
"Okay, but your fingerprints were."

"I don't know how that happened.  I can't explain it."

"Maybe you touched her gunŠ"

"I didn't."

"Not once?  You can't recall handling her weapon at all in 
the days before she died?"

"Diana knew better than to let me hold her gun."

His shoulders sagged and he paused to rub at his eyes.  
"Yeah, I know."  He hesitated a moment.   "She hadn't been 
dead very long when I found her.  The lights were on and the 
front door was open -- no sign of a struggle or a break-in.  
The shooter fired once from around four feet away, facing 
Diana at the time.  The bullet entered just above her right 
eye."

"I read the autopsy report," she said shortly.  "I went to 
the scene."

"I'm just telling you what I saw."

She pushed a hank of wet hair from her eyes.  "I don't care 
what you saw.  I want to know why you were so quick to think 
I did it."

"Because I might have, if I were you."  He gave her another 
quick look, not really meeting her eyes.

She sank back, speechless.  They drove several miles with 
just the sounds of windshield wipers and the beating rain.  
The city had disappeared behind them.

"Why did you go there that night?" she whispered at last.  
She held her breath because almost any answer would be bad.

"You mean, did I go to kill her?"  

She couldn't even look at him.  He knew very well what she 
was asking.

"I don't think so," he said, exhaling a long breath.  He 
turned to her, and she made herself look.  His eyes were 
black and bottomless.  "I never got the chance to find out."
"You knew she was dying," she said.

"Yes."

"So it didn't matter."

"It mattered."  He swung back to look at the road again.  
"And she knew it too."

"You think she was pursuing Brandt for a cure?"

"Maybe.  It didn't seem to me like she wanted to be cured."

"What do you mean that she didn't want a cure?"  

A cure was all Scully had thought about from the moment of 
her diagnosis; she'd read every journal article on the 
subject and contacted every expert she could find.  At night, 
she laid in bed, thinking of new ways to defeat the tumor 
growing inside her brain.  She'd imagined it shrinking just 
from sheer force of angry thoughts alone.

She would have done anything.

"You offered, didn't you?" she asked him quietly, her gaze 
trained on her lap.  "You were going to get another chip."

Mulder's answer was a long time in coming. "She didn't want 
one," he admitted at last.

They didn't speak at all after that.
X-X-X-X-X-X

The Inn proved to be a sizable building, with a white stone 
face and a garden courtyard in the back.   The front featured 
a circular drive with a small fountain in the middle; brown 
finches splashed each other in the basin as Mulder walked 
past.

The lobby was simple, with an Oriental rug covering the old 
hardwood floors and a carved oak staircase curving upwards to 
the second level.  No one was at the desk, so Mulder picked 
up the bell and jangled it.

A woman with short red hair and freckles emerged, holding a 
hard-backed book and looking at him through the glasses on 
the end of her nose.  "Hello, there," she said with a 
welcoming smile.  "How may I help you?"

Mulder showed off his ID.  "I need to ask some questions 
about a guest you may have had here last week -- a man named 
Christopher Brandt."

Her smile faded.  "I know Dr. Brandt, yes.  He was a frequent 
guest here, and I was so sorry to read that he'd been 
killed."

"Was he in fact here last Monday night?"

The woman ran her hand over the leather-bound guest register.  
"I don't have to look.  Yes, he was here.  It was the night 
he died."

"I'm interested in the woman who was staying with him."

Her cheeks pinked a bit and her lips thinned.  "The first 
time he came here, I assumed the woman he was with was his 
wife.  He wore a wedding band and so did she.  But then he 
returned a few months later ­ same wedding band, different 
woman.  He never wrote their names down, just listed them as 
Œguest' if he noted them at all."

"Did you see who he was with last Monday?"

"She stayed outside with the car while he did the check-in.  
I didn't get a good look at her.  She had long dark hair and 
she appeared to be on the tall side.  They checked into our 
corner suite, room one eleven."

He took out his wallet and looked at it a moment.  Flipping 
it open, he withdrew a small stack of worn photos.  Samantha 
grinned up at him, showing off her six-year-old smile.  He 
had a faded one of his parents from the mid-sixties, mom in 
awful plaid shorts and dad holding a fork as they worked the 
backyard grill.

His photo of Scully was more official looking because she 
wore a suit with her ID clipped to the breast pocket.  He'd 
snapped it two years ago in the basement, a test of a camera 
that supposedly captured pictures of a UFO.

He slipped his finger back into the pocket, trying to draw 
out the last photograph, which had become stuck to the 
leather.  Diana wore a tank top as she lounged on his old 
balcony, a gin and tonic in her hand.  He closed his eyes 
briefly, holding that moment in his mind for the last time.

The woman behind the desk was watching and waiting for his 
next question.  Once he asked it, there was no going back.  
He pushed the photo across the desk.  "Is this the woman who 
was here that night?"

She pushed up her glasses and studied his tiny picture.  
"Very well could be.  I couldn't swear to it since I didn't 
see her up close, but this looks an awful lot like her."

"Thanks," he said, levering himself away from the high 
counter. 

"Wait, sir!" The woman called as he left.  "Your picture..."

Mulder did not look back.  "I don't need it anymore."

X-X-X-X-X

The rain continued to fall, turning the dirt road of the 
trailer park into slick mud, broken up only by periodic deep 
puddles.  His borrowed Chevy bounced and jerked at a snail's 
pace, and Scully held fast to the door handle for support.  
"Sorry," he muttered.

"What is this place?"

"Somewhere they don't ask a lot of questions when you give 
them four hundred dollars in cash."

Everyone else had their own problems to worry about; the 
other trailers were shut up tight, tiny windows shining like 
lanterns in the gloom.  He stopped the car on a muddy patch 
of grass outside his rented home.

They dashed for the door, Scully hovering behind him as he 
tried to get the flimsy lock to come unstuck.  He literally 
fell inside as it suddenly released, managing to flick on the 
one light as he stumbled past.  

"Come on in," he said when Scully stopped just as the 
threshold.  His narrow bed was rumpled at one end of the 
trailer, and an unwashed pot from his canned soup dinner sat 
at the other end, in the kitchen.

Scully looked around at his drab lace curtains and stained 
brown rug.  She was still holding her paper sack of food, but 
it had become totally soaked, threatening to tear.  

"I think I have a clean towel around here somewhere," he 
said, searching among his scattered newspapers and discarded 
clothing.  He found a faded blue towel with a frayed edge, 
gave it a sniff, and tossed it at her.  "This one's okay."

She caught it with her free hand and gingerly stepped deeper 
into his trailer.  He dug out his used towel from that 
morning and dried his hair until it stood on end.

She set the sack down on the board that passed as his kitchen 
counter, and the orange rolled free, landing on the rug with 
a soft thud.  

"You want some coffee?" he asked.  "I've got instant."

"No, thanks."  She peeled off her wet jacket but had nowhere 
to put it. 

"Here, give me that." He hung it on the hook in the bathroom 
door.  "You want a dry T-shirt or something?" he called back 
to her.

When she didn't answer, he poked his head around the door. 
"Scully?"

"Hmm?"  She did not seem really to hear him.  She still stood 
where he had left here, the towel in her hand.

He walked over, took it from her, and proceeded to rub her 
head gently.  "You're going to catch your death from cold.  I 
don't have heat in this place, you know."

"You don't get sick from the cold," she said from under the 
towel.  "It's an old wives' tale."  Her hands closed over his 
and stopped his ministrations.  "Thank you," she said, and 
gave him a squeeze.

He stepped back, uncertain.  "Why don't we sit down?"

He had two cheap folding chairs, which he brought out and 
opened one by one.  Scully sat down with the wet towel in her 
lap.  "You can't stay here forever.  If nothing else, the 
cops will find you eventually."

It already felt like forever to him.  He didn't even 
recognize himself in the mirror. 

"The only way out of this is to identify Diana's real 
killer," she said.  "Where is her gun now?"

"Skinner has it," he answered, shifting uncomfortably.  Off 
her surprised look, he said, "I needed him to run the 
fingerprint analysis to be sure, but don't worry, he hasn't 
told anyone the results.  He's inclined to believe you're 
being framed."

She huffed a short breath.  "Right, sure he is.  Is that why 
he tied my hands?  He's essentially got me on forced leave.  
If he's so sure it's a setup, why take away my ability to 
investigate?  The last I looked, he was the one with the 
ashtrays in his office.  If I'm being framed, maybe Skinner 
is a part of it."

"No," he said mildly, "not Skinner."

"He took my shield and gun."

"He took them because I told him to."

This shut her up in a hurry, and she looked at him in stunned 
silence.

"It's for your own protection..."

"Oh my God," she said, and got to her feet.  "You really 
think I did this!"

"Scully, wait a second."  He lunged to grab her, but she 
scrambled out of reach.

"You think I killed her!  You really think I went over there, 
got her gun and shot her in the head?"

"I don't think it," he said, going after her.  He had her 
trapped at one end of the trailer, near the bed.  "I don't 
want to think it at all, Scully, but I have to make room for 
the possibility you may not remember what happened."

Horror shone in her eyes.  "You think I killed her and just 
don't remember it?"

"Scully."  He reached for her again, but she jerked away.  
"You managed to drive over sixty miles in the dead of night 
and climb up on a dam with no memory of it.  People died 
there.  You could have died there."

"No," she said, shaking her head emphatically.  "That's 
different.  This is murder we're talking about.  I 
wouldn't...I could never.  Mulder, I wasn't there."

"I called you twice that night, both at home and your cell.  
You didn't answer."

She drew up short, blinking at him.  He could see her right 
hand starting to tremble.  "I was asleep.  I didn't hear the 
phone.  I haven't been sleeping well."

"I know."  Her chin wobbled and he couldn't make himself 
press her.  In his head, the voice continued: *But Scully, 
about that unexplained bruiseŠ*

"I didn't do this," she said, more to herself than to him.  
"I couldn't."  Wind rattled the trailer and the floor shook.

He grabbed the back of her wet head and pulled her against 
him, hoping she couldn't hear his pounding heart.  "We'll 
figure it out," he said as she stood stiff in his arms.

"I can never get out."  She broke away from him and walked 
toward the kitchen.  

He trailed after her, watching as she started going through 
his meager drawers.  "What are you looking for?"

She ignored him and kept searching until she found a steak 
knife.  Stroking the pointed tip with her finger, she turned 
to him with a grim expression.  "You need to remove the 
chip."

 "Hold on.  That's a bit drastic, don't you think?"

"Not if you believe I killed her."  She held the knife out to 
him.

"I don't know that you did."

"If it's even a possibility, I want it out."

He shook his head, mute.  She hadn't seen herself in that 
hospital bed, pale and fragile as a wishbone.  "I can't.  I 
won't."

"Fine, I'll do it myself."  She held her hair back with one 
hand and took the knife to her neck. 

"Stop it!"  He grabbed the knife, but her grip was 
surprisingly strong.  "Scully, this is stupid."

"Let me go!  This isn't your choice."

They fell against the counter, jamming his elbow and sending 
shooting pain up his arm. The glinting knife poked between 
them.  "Stop!"  His shout bounced hard off the low ceiling.

"I want it out.  I want it gone."

He pinned her with his hips and wrested the knife free.  They 
were both breathing hard.  "There's no need for this," he 
told her, still keeping her prisoner near the sink.  "We 
don't know anything for sure."

"If I took it out, I'd be sure," she said evenly.

"You could also be dead."

She looked up at him, her mascara smudged around her eyes and 
her hair hanging in wild, wet clumps.  She looked capable of 
anything.  "Diana knew, didn't she.  That's why she didn't 
want one -- she didn't want to become a permanent lab rat, a 
flesh-and-blood pawn."

"I don't really feel competent to speak on the subject of 
what she knew and what she didn't."

The fight drained suddenly from Scully, and she braced 
herself on the counter.  "She knew."

Mulder tightened his grip on the knife.  "Yeah, maybe."

She searched his face for a long moment.  "Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you know what it was when you brought it to me?"

"God, Scully.  No."

She didn't look like she believed him.  "Skinner told me 
where you got it, the whole truth about the Smoking Man."

"I would have done anything.  That's the whole truth."

Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head.  "I knew, after 
what happened with Cassandra Spender, that there could be 
consequences.  I don't think I did this, but if somehow we 
find that I did, I can't pretend to be blameless."  She 
forced a humorless smile.  "Maybe Patrick Henry was right.  
Maybe there really are only two choices -- live free or die."

He tilted her chin up to look into her eyes.  "Promise me you 
won't take it out, not until we figure out what happened."

"It hardly matters.  That you can even think itŠ" She 
swallowed visibly.  "That it might possibly be true... this 
thing was supposed to give me my life back.  A year later, 
I'm alive but it's not really my life, now is it?"

"You were willing to fight this when you thought I might be 
guilty."

She held his gaze.  "That's the thing, Mulder.  I never 
thought you were."

"We don't know yet what happened," he said, easing off of 
her.  He held up the knife.  "But this is not the answer.  If 
I'm going to find out the truth, I need your help."

"If what you think is true, I'm certainly no help."

"I don't know the truth," he said urgently.  "That's why I 
need you."

She shook her head almost imperceptibly.  "No."

He made a show of sticking the knife back into the drawer 
again.  "And I think you should stay with me tonight."

"No, Mulder. I should get back.  The police..."

"There's a hurricane outside.  I bet even Detective Rivera is 
tucked at home in his bed."  As if on cue, the winds picked 
up, battering the trailer like a tin can in the street.  
"I'll take you back to your car in the morning."

Scully acquiesced.  She finally put on the T-shirt he had 
given her, carefully airing out her wet clothes on the backs 
of his folding chairs.  They stood in front of his narrow 
bunk, the one that was barely large enough to sleep him, and 
he cleared his throat.  "You can have it.  I'll take the 
floor."

She eyed the raggedy, stained carpet and shook her head.  She 
climbed into the bed without a word and scooted over to the 
very edge, leaving him the outer half.  

They had no choice but to sleep on their sides, so he decided 
to lie facing her rather than present her with his back.  She 
had tucked her arm beneath her head as a makeshift pillow.  
When she spoke, her voice was gravelly. "You aren't worried 
I'll smother you in your sleep?"

He considered all the times he'd laid next to Diana in the 
dark.  "It might just be a fitting end," he told her.  He 
half-smiled and touched her cheek with one finger.  "Maybe 
you should have shot me dead when you had the chance."

"MulderŠ"

She sounded so pained that he was instantly contrite.  "I'm 
sorry," he whispered, gathering her closer.  "I'm so sorry 
for all of this."

Her fingers tightened and scraped at his ribs.  "It's not 
your fault," she said, her voice muffled against his T-shirt.  
"You couldn't have stopped it."

"Maybe."  He paused and listened to the sound of the rushing 
rain.  "But I should have seen it coming."

She wiggled up so he could see her face.  "Someone wanted her 
dead more than you or me.  The question is why, and I was 
thinking about what you said, that Diana didn't want a cure."

"What about it?"

"If...," she broke off, struggling for words.  "If she knew 
about the chips, about their consequences, she probably knew 
a whole lot more.  Maybe she even thought she was protected 
if she had the Smoking Man in her corner.  Then she turned up 
with cancer.  I'll tell you, Mulder, there were days when I 
was sick that I did think about killing people.  If the 
Smoker had crossed my path at the wrong time, I might have 
shot him between the eyes without a second thought.  I was 
dying, so what the hell would it have mattered?"

"You think Diana might've been keen to take some people with 
her on the way out." 

"And we're the ones caught in the crossfire."

She fell asleep after that, her head so close to his that he 
could smell her hair, still damp from the rain.  Her 
shoulders hitched on a sigh as he pulled the blanket higher 
over her. 

He rubbed his face with its unfamiliar bristle.  His eyes 
were so tired they ached.  Slipping from the bed, he crept 
across the trailer and got the knife from the drawer.   Then 
he got the lockbox from the small freezer.  The cold stung 
his fingers as he carried it quickly to the counter.  He 
retrieved the key, opened the lid, and stuck the knife inside 
with his gun.

Glancing back over at Scully's sleeping form, he tiptoed to 
the fridge and slipped the box into the freezer.   He 
returned shivering to the bed, sliding into place beside her.  

She mumbled something he didn't understand.  He took her hand 
and held it between them, closing his eyes at last.

X-X-X-X-X-X


X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Eight

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Mulder returned from the Inn lost in thought, so he 
registered the sight of Pennsylvania Avenue with some 
surprise.  He was about to head for his usual parking space 
when he spotted a black Lexus sitting on the street with a 
driver inside it.

He made a quick turn and went around to the other side of the 
building, where he pulled over and called Scully.  "Mulder," 
she said, sounding relieved.  "Where are you?  Did you find 
the place?"

"I'll tell you about that later.  Right now I need you to 
come outside and act like bait."

"Excuse me?"

"Our friend in the Lexus is here waiting for us.  I need you 
to get your car and lead him away from the Bureau.  We're 
going to find out who this asshole is, and I don't want it 
caught on tape."

"Where do you want me to go?"

"Just drive east until you find a secluded spot.  I'll be 
tailing you both."

He gave her five full minutes to retrieve her car from the 
lot, and then circled back to watch her emerge.  The Lexus 
took the bait and followed Scully into traffic.  Mulder hung 
back several cars to avoid detection, but this also meant he 
could not get a good look at the plate.

Scully made a series of turns, and traffic thinned.  Mulder 
increased the distance between his car and the Lexus as they 
started down a narrow street.  He took out his phone and hit 
speed dial.  "Danny, it's Mulder," he said.  "I need you to 
run a plate for me.  Tag reads B as in Barry, A as in Andrew, 
numbers six, three, five, two. I need this ASAP."

"Hold on," Danny said, and Mulder heard tapping on the 
keyboard.  "I can have your answer right now."

Scully made a sharp turn, and he held the phone with his chin 
and shoulder to be able to keep pace.  There was a small park 
about two blocks ahead, and he could see Scully pulling over.  
"Danny?  You have an answer?"

"Yeah.  The car, a black 1997 Lexus, is registered to a 
company called Baryon, Inc."

"Got it, thanks."  

Scully had left her car on the street and was heading into 
the park.  The man in the Lexus waited a beat until she had 
disappeared from view behind the trees and then got out to 
follow.  He was carrying at least twenty-five extra pounds, 
but no obvious weapon.

Mulder removed his gun from its holster and trailed after the 
man.  He caught up with him easily enough, because the guy 
had lost Scully.  The driver stood under a clump of trees, 
scanning the park as Mulder quietly approached from behind.  
He drew his weapon and poked the guy in the back of his 
leather jacket.  "I think it's time we're formally 
introduced," he said.  "Turn around."

The man held his arms out, palms up.  He looked annoyed but 
not really alarmed at the fact that Mulder had a gun pointed 
at him.  "Joe Catalona," he said.  "I'm a PI."

"Let's see some ID," Mulder told him.  Scully came jogging 
back up the path.

"You mind?" Catalona said, gesturing at his breast pocket.

"Go ahead."  Mulder still had not put down his weapon.  "This 
guy says he's a private investigator," he said to Scully as 
she joined him on the friendly side of the gun.

Catalona gave them a dated but valid driver's license, in 
which he sported more hair and less girth in the photo.  He 
picked a bit of dirt from under one nail as Mulder studied 
the license.  "Who are you working for?" Mulder asked.

"I work for Baryon doing whatever it is that needs doing."

"Baryon?" asked Scully.

"Dr. Brandt's company."

"I didn't know Christopher Brandt had a company," she said to 
Mulder.

"Not him, the other one.  I work for Imogene Brandt."

"Imogene Brandt has you following us?" Scully asked in 
disbelief.  "What for?"

He shrugged one beefy shoulder.  "Well, she really, really 
wants to find out who killed her husband, and I guess she's a 
little concerned that you may find the answer and refuse to 
share it.  That's where I come in."

Mulder thrust the license back at him and holstered his gun. 
"So you're being paid to follow us around and not do any work 
of your own.  This level of investigating could be handled by 
a chimp." 

"Yeah, but look at it this way -- I'm less likely to fling 
poo at you," Catalona replied, tucking his license away.

"I don't care what Imogene Brandt tells you," answered 
Mulder.  "You stay out of our way and quit following us, or 
we'll charge you with interfering in a federal investigation 
and fling a lot more than poo your way."

"What's the harm in letting me piggyback?  I won't trip you 
up or interfere or what have you.  All she wants is some 
answers about her husband's death."

"You want answers?" Mulder said, a little louder than was 
strictly necessary.  "Go find them yourself.  The FBI doesn't 
play piggyback.  We're leaving now, and we better not catch 
you following us again or we'll have you arrested on the 
spot.  You got that?"

Catalona wiped his nose on his hand.  "Loud and clear."

Mulder and Scully started walking back toward the exit, and 
Catalona's heavy steps sounded behind them.  Mulder turned 
back to glare, and Catalona raised his hands.  "Hey, I'm 
parked this way!"

"Why don't you go on ahead," Mulder said, and he and Scully 
stood still as the other man trudged past them and out of the 
park.

"Meet you back at the ranch?" Scully asked.

"I'll catch up with you.  There's something I have to do 
first."

She hesitated a moment, and then assented with a quick nod.  
He had to walk past Catalona's Lexus on his return to his 
car, and as he crossed, Catalona slid the tinted window down.  
"Hey, Agent Mulder?  Catch."

Out of reflex, Mulder caught the object tossed at him ­ a 
banana.  

Catalona giggled as he drove away.

X-X-X-X-X

His parents had officially divorced ten days before his 
fourteenth birthday.  He'd seen enough of the drinking and 
the silence, punctuated by the random screaming fight from 
the bedroom, to know that his parents' parting was for the 
best.  Still it was strange to get out the dusty wedding 
album from the basement and see them pictured at their 
wedding, smiling faces that belonged to people he never knew.

At sixteen, he'd fallen hard for Marianne Huckaby with the 
long wavy hair and cherry lip-gloss kiss.  He nearly failed a 
semester of advanced algebra because he couldn't stop 
thinking about her. After two months of everything but, 
they'd finally gone all the way on the sofa in her parents' 
basement, with KC and the Sunshine Band playing on the eight-
track.  

A year later, "Get Down Tonight" still got him semi-hard, but 
the sight of Marianne barely didn't even make his pulse blip.  
He saw her in class and in the halls, but she was like those 
old black-and-white pictures from his parents' wedding, stuck 
someplace he couldn't return. 

He thought of her as he picked the lock on what used to be 
his basement office.   He wondered on whose orders the locks 
had changed, and if they really thought a few pieces of steel 
could keep him gone for good.

The place smelled different now.  The fresh paint odor had 
faded, but the new desks and leather chairs still carried 
that showroom smell.  Fire had burned away the old, musty 
scent and replaced it with just a hint of charred plastic.

He crossed to the shiny black file cabinets and tried a 
random drawer.  This too was locked, forcing him to take out 
his pick and go to work on the drawers.  Diana had helped him 
found the collection so many years ago, so they had a similar 
system.  It didn't take him long to find the file he sought.

He flipped it open and there it was: the stolen pages from 
Brandt's NIH lab.  "Son of a bitch," he muttered.

Outside, footsteps echoed on the stairs, and he heard Spender 
talking.  There was no time or place to hide, so he simply 
rested his arm on the open drawer and waited for them to come 
into view.

"Fox," Diana said, stopping dead in her tracks.

Spender weaseled out from behind her.  "What are you doing 
down here?" 

"Looking for some reading material."  He held up the file and 
Diana's expression molded into grim resignation.

"This isn't your office, and those aren't your files."  
Spender walked forward with his hand out, intent on taking it 
from him.

Mulder held it over his head.  "The hell they aren't.  Most 
of these are copies from my duplicates at home.  If it 
weren't for me, there wouldn't be any files."

"I can call security."  Spender started for his desk, but 
Diana stepped forward and blocked him.

"Give me a minute with Agent Mulder," she said.

"He has no right to be here."

"I'll handle it."  

Spender looked uncertain, but deferred to her wishes.  "You 
let him get away with it once, and he'll keep doing it," he 
warned as he left.

Diana returned her attention to Mulder.  "Ignore him.  He 
doesn't understand."

"Neither do I."  He let the drawer slam shut behind him.  "I 
know these files backwards and forwards Diana, and this one 
wasn't in there.  It must have come from you."

"If you say so."  She was casual, dismissive.  "You've always 
had the better memory."  She walked around him to what used 
to be his desk.

"I know about your affair with Brandt."

She froze for just a second, and then seemed to force herself 
to ease.  "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, cut the crap.  Imogene Brandt found the old phone 
records.  She also found the evidence that Brandt had on you, 
that you were the one to pull the alarm that night."

"I was trying to protect you," she said quietly.

"The hell you were!  It was a set-up the whole time, wasn't 
it?"

"Hey, I risked everything for you!  I got us in there, and I 
got us out.  You wanted to know about Brandt.  Well, what I 
knew was that there was one sure way to get into that lab, 
and I took it.  The guards were coming and I had no way to 
get you out of there, so hell yes I pulled that alarm.  If I 
hadn't, you'd be in prison right now and I could be sitting 
in the cell next to you."

"You were sleeping with him," Mulder hissed.

"I was doing whatever it took."  She leaned on her desk, not 
backing down a bit.  "I got us in, I got us out, and when the 
whole thing went bad, I was the one who took the fall.  Or 
don't you remember that part?"

"You expect me to thank you?  You screw around behind my 
back, nearly get me sent to federal prison, and then walk out 
with the evidence."

"That's right," she said bitterly.  "I walked out and you got 
to keep all of this."  She waved her arm at the file 
cabinets.  "You and Brandt, you were just the same.  I gave 
him what he wanted, and make no mistake about it, Fox, I did 
*exactly* the same thing for you.  Maybe it wasn't pretty, 
and maybe you don't like the way I got it done, but you sure 
as hell liked the results."

"Don't pretend for a second this was about me."

"Fine, whatever helps you sleep at night."  She tossed her 
hair back over her shoulder and sat down behind her desk.

He was so angry, he was shaking.  "I never asked for this," 
he said, pointing the folder at her.  "You crossed the line 
on this one."

"I can't honestly believe you're standing here lecturing me 
about lines.  You might as well be a crossing guard for all 
the lines you've been over."

"Did you kill Brandt?"

Her mouth opened and closed without saying anything.  "Did I 
what?"

He enunciated each word slowly.  "Did you kill Brandt?"

"Of course not."

"But you were sleeping with him.  Again.  Don't bother 
denying it because I've got someone who can place you with 
him the night he died."

"I wasn't sleeping with him," she said, avoiding his eyes.  
"Not...not this time."

"Right.  He takes you to his usual love nest for tea and 
conversation."

Her head was bowed.  "I wanted to ask about his research, 
whether he could recommend someone for me."

"I don't believe you."  There had been too many lies.

"It's the truth," she said simply.  "He gave me the name of a 
doctor running a clinical trial at Hopkins.  They're testing 
an immunotherapy, a kind of cancer vaccine.  He said I might 
be a candidate."

"I don't see why you had to go to the Stonefield Inn to have 
this conversation."

She shrugged.  "It was Christopher's idea.  Maybe he 
thought...you know, for old time's sake.  Once I told him 
about the cancer, he quickly changed his mind.  We both left 
early, and he was quite alive when we parted, I assure you."

He paced around in a circle, still holding the stolen papers.  
"You lied to me and said you didn't have these.  Why?"

"Maybe I forgot."

He lunged at her across the desk, and she startled back.  
"You owe me the truth.  Now, at last.  Just the truth."

She pursed her lips and stared at him for a long moment.  "I 
don't have any truth to give you, none that you'll accept.  
Take the folder.  I don't care."

"Tell me what it means."

She shook her head.  "You don't want to know."

He put it down and grabbed her by the shoulders.  "Tell me."

"You wouldn't believe me anyway."  She wrenched free and 
wheeled her chair back.  "Ask Scully if you want to know.  
She can tell you."

"Why Scully?  What are you talking about?

She looked him up and down and then smoothed her jacket back 
in place.  "Ask her.  You'll see."

Spender returned holding a can of Coke.  "He's still here?" 
he demanded.

"Don't worry, he's leaving," she answered, and bent her head 
over her work.

Mulder picked up the folder and stood there a minute, looking 
down at her, but she did not look up.  Spender cringed out of 
the way as he stalked out of the office and up the stairs.

He found Scully in the bullpen, watching for him with worried 
eyes.  "Where were you?" she asked in a whisper as he dragged 
his chair next to hers.

"Guess what I found in the basement?"  He slid the folder 
across the desk to her.

"What is this?"  

"A file that went missing from Brandt's NIH lab about seven 
years ago."

Her neck jerked as she shot him a quick look.  He nodded to 
confirm her unspoken question.  "Diana said you should look 
at it.  She said you would know what it means."

She opened the folder and scanned the first page.  "It's just 
a bunch of letters and numbers."

"Yeah, probably a code.  You don't recognize it?"  He was 
honestly surprised.  She spoke German and read some Navajo; 
could spot a North American P-51 Mustang in a cloudy 
underwater photograph.

"No, not right away.  I can look at it more later, but there 
is nothing here that immediately jumps out at me."

"Damn."

"Why did she think I would know what it meant?"

"I don't know.  She may have been looking for a way to shut 
me up and get me out of her office."

"Well, I'll take it home with me," she said, tucking it away 
in her briefcase under her desk.  "Maybe I'll get it yet."

"He was a doctor.   You're a doctor.  Maybe it has something 
to do with medicine."

She gave him one of her rare smiles.  "I'll put on my 
stethoscope and give it a look."

X-X-X-X

The air smelled like wet earth but the sky was crackled blue.  
She dragged herself up to her front door, wearing clothes 
that were still semi-damp from the previous night's rain, 
only to find Detective Rivera camped on her stoop, reading 
the morning Post.  

He lowered the paper as she approached and gave her a 
cheerful smile.  "Good morning, Agent Scully.  Had a late 
night, did you?"

"What can I do for you, Detective?"  Weary, she leaned 
against the railing and made herself look him in the eyes.

"Oh, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by, 
see if maybe you'd talked to Agent Mulder recently."

"I haven't."

"No?  No phone calls, e-mailsŠ message in a bottle?"

He was far too chipper for this early.  She'd been around 
enough cops to know what it meant: he thought he had a break 
in the case.

"I haven't talked to Mulder."

"Okay, we'll play it your way."  He squinted at her in the 
brightening sun.  "But I found my witness.  You might know 
her since she works at the Hoover building.  Her name is Inez 
Lima, and she's on the cleaning staff.  Her English isn't the 
best, but she overheard the argument between your partner and 
the dear, departed Agent Fowley.  It seems they were fighting 
about you."

Her stomach lurched so hard she thought she might throw up.  
"Oh?" she managed.

"Yes," he said, and pulled out a notebook.  "Let's see.  Yes, 
right here.  The man said Scully knew.  The woman said it 
didn't matter anyway, it was too late.  It gets a little iffy 
here for a while, but then she's really clear on the part 
where the man said, 'I'll kill you for this.'"  He looked up 
at her.  "So the part I'm wondering is, what was it that you 
knew?"

She tried to shrug.  "I really couldn't say.  I wasn't there 
for the argument."

"If this woman is to be believed, you were the argument.  
Surely you can shed some light on the content."

"I'm afraid not."

His smile vanished and he put away the notes.  "I'll have to 
get a warrant to bring you in then.  You sure you want to do 
this the hard way?  You're only hurting Mulder."

"Get your warrant."  She stepped closer and pulled out the 
key to the front door.

"Okay, if that's really what you want."  He moved to leave, 
so she turned to open the door.  "Agent Scully, you have a 
hair here."

He plucked one from the shoulder of her coat, and they both 
stared at it as Rivera held it to the sun.

"Short and brown," he said.  "Just like Mulder's." He put it 
on his palm and blew it away.  "I'll be back."

She waited to be sure he really left and then went inside.  
Her apartment was blessedly calm and shadowed.  After pausing 
to rest against the door, she went to look at her messages.  
She had only one:

"Ms. Scully, this is Dr. Olivardi's office calling to remind 
you of your appointment tomorrow morning at nine.  If for any 
reason you can't make this appointment, please let us know."

She already had it marked on the calendar; one year and 
cancer free.

X-X-X-X

He took the stairs to her door two at a time and rang the 
bell with a hard punch.  She did not appear immediately, so 
he knocked.  "Scully?  You in there?  It's me."

He put his ear to the wood to listen, and after a moment, he 
heard the sound of her undoing the chain.  The door came open 
and she stood silently as he passed by.  "You're not going to 
believe this," he said.  "Our friend the chimp PI has a 
record for assault, and I couldn't find any indication that 
he's actually a licensed private investigator or that he's on 
the official payroll at Baryon."

He glanced over the papers scattered on her coffee table.  
"Hey, did you hear what I said?" he asked, turning to face 
her.

Her hair was pinned back and her face was pale.  When she 
still didn't say anything, he grew concerned.  "Scully?"

She hugged her middle.  "I found out why Diana said I would 
know what the numbers meant."

"Yeah?"  He looked over at the table again.  "What is it?"

She crossed in front of him and picked up one of the pages.  
"I don't know what the letters are.  Some sort of group, I 
think.  Like the As go together, the Bs, and so on.  But this 
one here is the last four digits of my social security 
number...and that's the date I was abducted."

"What?" He grabbed the paper from her, nearly tearing it in 
the process.

"It's a list, Mulder.  A shopping list of test subjects.  If 
you had this in your possession in 1991, then someone had 
singled me out years ago, before Duane Barry, before I even 
met you."

X-X-X-X

X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Nine

X-X-X-X-X-X

Her living room clock ticked off long seconds as she waited 
for him to understand what she was telling him.  Cold night 
air stirred her curtains, and the breeze made her shiver.  
The papers on her coffee table flared up, threatening to 
blow away, and she smacked a hand down on them.

"This...this can't be right."  Mulder clutched a page in 
each hand, looking back and forth between them.  

"You're the one who told me what they were," she said.  
"You're the one who stole them from Brandt's lab."

She'd been shaking since she had first made the connection, 
but saying the words aloud calmed her.  She was no longer 
alone with her knowledge.

"Maybe these aren't the same papers."

"You've had them all this time.  They were just sitting 
there in the file cabinets." 

 How many times had he asked her to read through the old 
cases?  That first year, he must have egged her on at least 
a dozen times, telling her to immerse herself in X-files 
history.  She hadn't bothered.  She hadn't cared where the 
X-files had been; she'd only cared where they were going.  

"No, I never had these.  Not since Diana left.  She took 
this with her so I wouldn't get caught with the evidence of 
the break-in.  She said she was protecting me.  Scully..."

He moved to get in her line of sight, but she turned away.

"You have to believe me.  I didn't know what this was."

She gripped the back of the armchair and looked at the 
ceiling.  "I always thought it was an accident, that no one 
could have seen Duane Barry coming.  That's what I told 
myself.  It's part of working this job, coming in contact 
with dangerous and mentally ill people.  I knew the risks.  
I...I made choices."  She turned to him, and he stood 
there, the pages pinched in his hands, his expression 
troubled.  "I chose to work with you."

"Scully, I swear I didn't know."

"No," she said hoarsely.  "You didn't know."

He held the printouts in front of him again.  "I looked at 
these a thousand times.  It never made any sense.   I 
thought it was about his research, maybe test results, but 
I couldn't break the code.  I went over them every way I 
could think of, but nothing ever clicked.  If I had figured 
it out..."

"Don't," she said, more sharply than she'd intended, and 
Mulder flinched.

"I'll understand if you hold me responsible," he whispered.

She shook her head, her eyes closed.  She'd been holding 
him responsible for years, at least a little bit.  His 
sister, his work, his unceasing search, but somehow she had 
paid the price.  "I wanted it to be true," she said at 
last, "that we had that kind of power.  If you could have 
stopped this, maybe there was a way to stop it from 
happening again."

"There is," he said, a little desperate.  "We finally have 
proof."  He held up the pages, fisting them so tight they 
wrinkled in his grasp.

"Proof of what, Mulder?  Those pages were stolen seven 
years ago from a man who's now been dead for over a week.  
I can pick my name out from this list but untangling the 
rest of it may be damn near impossible, and if precedent 
holds, most of them are probably dead from cancer by now."

"There is still one person left who can put it all 
together," he replied as he started for the door.

"Mulder, wait a second.  What are you going to do?"

His mouth was set in a grim line.  He was angrier than 
she'd ever seen him.  "I'm going to find Diana," he said.  
"And then I'm going to find some answers."

X-X-X-X

Mulder baked like beans inside his tin can home.  He opened 
the only window on the trailer that he could, as the others 
were stuck shut.  The remnants of the hurricane had 
disappeared, leaving strong, clear sunshine and tree 
branches scattered outside on the ground.  He wore his T-
shirt from the night before, scratchy cotton stiff from the 
dried rainwater.

He lay in the narrow bunk and tossed his orange repeatedly 
at the low ceiling.  The pillow still smelled like Scully's 
hair.  He had kissed her part that morning before she'd 
left, her head in his hands.  "Don't do anything rash," 
he'd murmured at her temple.

She'd held his hands and nodded, but she hadn't looked him 
in the eyes.  

Partly he remained trapped from his own handiwork.  He'd 
made himself the target and in doing so had removed most of 
his powers of investigation.  Partly he just didn't know 
where to turn next.  Maybe he didn't even want to know.  If 
it turned out Scully was guilty, she was liable to turn 
herself in or remove the chip.  Either option could be a 
death sentence.

When Diana's phone rang, he stopped juggling the orange and 
checked the caller ID, but the number was not one he 
recognized.  Scully, he thought, from a pay phone.  But he 
said nothing when he clicked it on, waiting for the other 
party to speak first.

"Mulder," said Skinner in a low voice.  "We need to talk."

"This line is secure?"

"Of course, what kind of idiot do you take me for?  But I 
don't know how much longer we can keep this little charade 
going.  Rivera's dogs are circling.  He's got a cleaning 
woman holed up downtown, and the word is that she heard you 
and Diana arguing the night of the murder."

"That's good."  Mulder ran a hand through his hair and 
walked the worn carpet from end-to-end.  "As long as he's 
still focused on me, we're doing okay."  He hesitated.  
"Scully told me you took her gun."

"You've talked to her?  Jesus, Mulder, you like living 
dangerously."

"She wouldn't hurt me."

"I don't mean that.  I mean her phones are probably bugged 
and Rivera no doubt put a tail on her."

"We were careful."

"Did you tell her?" Skinner asked, and Mulder didn't 
answer, so Skinner's voice got even quieter. "Did you tell 
her about the gun?"

"I told her."  He stopped pacing and rested against the 
short kitchen counter.  "She says she wasn't there that 
night."

"That's all well and good except she's been places before 
without any memory of it."

"I know that," Mulder snapped.  No one needed to explain 
the situation to him.  He'd been going over every 
interaction he'd had with her over the past few weeks, 
wondering if there were clues he could have missed.  Scully 
at the shooting range.  Scully exhausted and distracted at 
her desk.  Scully in his bed.

She hadn't talked about it and he hadn't asked.  Now he was 
afraid of the answer.

"I'm going to figure out something," he told Skinner.  "I 
just need more time."

"We have another problem."

"What's that?"

"River a is trying to get a warrant for the Bureau.  He 
wants the gun."

"Can he do that?"

"I don't know.  I don't think so, but it's possible he can 
find a way in on a limited warrant.  I don't want him 
setting foot in here at all if we can help it, but my 
opinion isn't going to carry much merit on this subject."

"We've got to get rid of it."

"I was thinking about that," Skinner said, and the odd tone 
in his voice made Mulder's heart skip a beat.

"What are you talking about?"

"If it's like you say, if it's a frame job...without the 
gun, there's no frame.  I don't think Rivera could build a 
case against you or anyone else if he's missing the murder 
weapon."

He squeezed his eyes shut.  It's not like he hadn't had 
this idea himself, even as he was running out the front 
door with Diana's body cooling behind him.  Just dump the 
gun in the river or bury it in the woods and chances were 
that no one would ever recover it. But then he would never 
know the truth.

"We can't," he said at last, hating the words even as he 
said them.

"Mulder..."

"Not after we've told her.  Can you imagine living with 
this forever?  Whatever the answer turns out to be, Scully 
deserves *some* sort of answer.  And to get it, we're going 
to need that gun.  We can't risk Rivera getting hold of it."

"You realize that if we get that answer for Scully, we may 
not be able to protect her."

Mulder's bleak silence was his answer. Skinner sighed.

"What do we do with the gun in the meantime?"

"I'll take it back," Mulder replied immediately.

"Do you think that's wise?"

"I can't get in any deeper than I already am.  You should 
try to stay out of it from here on."

Skinner snorted.  "Fat chance.  I'll bring the gun myself.  
Where do you want to meet?"

"There's this jungle gym..."

X-X-X-X-X

It was after hours but Diana was still at work, lights 
burning in the basement even as the rest of the Bureau sat 
cloaked in shadow.  She didn't hear him approach so he was 
able to lean in the doorway watching her for a long minute.  
So many times he'd observed her this way, her dark head 
bent over her reading, the glow of the computer screen 
reflected on her glasses.  A million years ago, he might 
have crept up behind her, pushed aside her thick hair and 
kissed the warm spot at the base of her neck -- just about 
the spot where Scully's chip now lay.

Eventually the anger radiating from his being must have 
registered because she looked up with an expectant gaze.  
"Oh, it's you," she said coolly, and removed her glasses.  
She rubbed the bridge of her nose in a tired gesture.  
"It's really too late to argue, if that's why you've come."

"I asked Scully."  He was surprised at how calm he sounded, 
like the words came from another person instead of 
somewhere inside him.

She didn't pretend to misunderstand.  "I thought you might.  
What did she say?"

"What would you expect her to say?" he asked as he moved 
into the room.  "She was marked as a lab rat almost a 
decade ago, and you made sure her torture went ahead on 
schedule."

"Let's not get overly dramatic here, Fox.  I had no idea 
what that list meant back then, and I most assuredly didn't 
know her name was on it."

"Excuse me if I don't quite believe you."

"Believe what you like," she said as she pushed back her 
chair and stood up.  "I couldn't have stopped it any more 
than you could."

"You didn't want to stop it."  She tried to pass and he 
grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into her flesh.  "You 
wanted to stop me.  That's why you took the papers.  If I 
had figured it out, Brandt might have been shut down."

"Let go of me."

"She could have died." He yanked her arm harder, and she 
resisted, her whole body tense.  "They used her up and just 
threw her away like garbage. She came back so weak they 
even took her off life support."

She tried to jerk free again.  "I'm sorry for what happened 
to Scully.  I am.  But this is your problem, Fox.  This is 
exactly why they can continue to manipulate you and why 
you're never going to be able to find the real truth in all 
this.  Here's some truth for you:  it's not about Scully.  
It's not about you, or about Samantha.  You have these 
grand aspirations about saving the world, but your world is 
always so small."

"You're calling me myopic and saying that it somehow 
justifies your deceit.  If I was blind then I must have 
deserved it, is that it?"  He shoved her backwards.  "You 
can call my moral compass narrow, but at least I have one."

"The future's on the line, Fox.  Your way may get us there 
but then again it might not.  Sometimes a person has to 
hedge her bets."

"So that's what you were doing with Brandt -- hedging your 
bets in his bed."

"I was gaining information."

"For whom?" he asked, stepping closer to her again.  "Who 
is the ultimate beneficiary of your services?"

"I am," she replied with grim determination, and he gave a 
bitter laugh.

"So we're not so different then.  Your world is smaller 
than mine."

"I gave you access to those documents, didn't I?  You never 
would've even had the chance to get inside the Brandt lab 
if it wasn't for me.  You'd still be here in perfect, 
blissful ignorance!"

"I'm supposed to thank you for setting me up."

"I told you, it wasn't a setup.  I had no idea those guards 
were coming.  I got us in and I got us both out again, and 
then I took the heat for it too.  A little thanks would not 
be out of the question here."

He took another step toward her, and she backed up.  "Who 
ordered Scully's abduction?" he asked evenly.

"I--I don't know.  I don't know how they chose the names."

"You know."  He had her nearly trapped against the wall.

"I tried to find out, I did.  I never got that far inside.  
I don't know who makes those decisions, but it wasn't 
Brandt."

"The Smoker?"

She licked her lips.  "Maybe.  I don't know."

"But you know him.  You know his friends in low places."

"I can give you a phone number if you want.  That's all I 
have."

"I don't want numbers. I want names. I want places.  I 
want to know everything you know or ever have known about 
the men behind these abductions."

For the first time, her expression turned to pain, and she 
dropped her chin to her chest, shaking her head.  "No," she 
said softly, "You don't."

He pinned her with his knees, staring intently at her face 
as she held herself as far away from him as she could.  Up 
this close, he could see she'd aged, could smell the make-
up she'd used to hide this fact.  Foundation caked the 
wrinkles at her eyes and mouth.  Her cheeks sagged just a 
bit.  "Still like it rough, Fox?" she asked, but he could 
detect the underlying tremor in her voice.

He reached up with one hand and ran his fingers down the 
length of her hair, not quite touching.  "I could kill you 
right here."

She swallowed.  "Go ahead.  I'm half dead anyway."  She 
made herself look at him and would not turn away under the 
force of his gaze.  "Take a good long look.  This is what 
happens to people who know too much.  I don't know how 
Scully got on the list, but I know I got added quite 
purposefully."

"Then tell me."

"I can't," she whispered, and he shoved himself roughly at 
her, making her wince.

"Tell me!"

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes but she didn't 
wipe them away.  "For once, I'm doing things your way.  I'm 
choosing the small victory, Fox.  If I could help you, 
believe me, I would."

He wanted to shake her, rattle her until her eyes rolled 
and everything she'd hidden from him came tumbling out 
between them.   When he spoke, his voice was strangled, 
anger literally choking him.  "I gave you everything...every 
opening, every chance.  And you gave me nothing."

He released her abruptly, breathing hard, and they looked 
at each other. 

"You make me sick," he said as she righted herself.

"Yes, well, at least you still have that luxury."  She 
snapped her suit jacket down over her hips and started 
gathering papers from the desk.

"You can take your secrets to the grave, but they won't die 
with you.  I'll find out eventually."

She halted awkwardly and looked almost beyond him, her gaze 
clouded.  If she was imaging the future or the past, he 
could not guess.  "I'm counting on it," she said.

He left her standing at his desk, surrounded by a life he'd 
built, the evidence of her betrayal folded against his 
heart.  

X-X-X-X

Mulder added a sweatshirt and an old Yankees hat to his 
grunge look as he set out to meet Skinner.  As before, he 
parked a respectable distance from the park and walked the 
two blocks to the side entrance.  The sun shone high in the 
sky but the park was empty; all the kids were in school.

Skinner stood by the jungle gym, his bald head gleaming and 
his dark coat flapping in the stiff breeze.  He squinted in 
Mulder's direction and then looked away.  Mulder scanned 
the outskirts of the park, searching the bushes and trees 
for signs of anyone suspicious.

He loped up the grassy knoll to the playground, and Skinner 
straightened his stance.  "You look like hell," he said by 
way of greeting.

"Hell's my address these days."  He gestured with his chin.  
"Did you bring it?"

Skinner withdrew a paper sack from the inside of his coat.  
"I don't see how this helps you."

"It helps me by keeping it out of Rivera's hands for a 
little while longer."  Mulder felt the heavy outline of the 
gun through the thin paper, and he tucked it carefully 
under his sweatshirt.

"What are we going to do about Scully?"

Mulder kicked the dirt and looked around again.  "You took 
her gun, right?  At least we know she's not going to shoot 
anyone."

Skinner scowled and shoved his hands in his pockets.  "You 
told her about the gun.  There's no way I'll be able to 
keep her away from this investigation now."

"I wouldn't bet on that."  He waited a beat.  "Those 
answers Scully desperately needs...experience says she 
won't be able to bring herself to ask for them."

"I'm going to hold you to that."  

Mulder nodded.  "I'll be in touch."  He pushed away from 
the bars and watched from the corner of his eye as Skinner 
grew smaller and smaller in his wake.  But then there were 
two Skinners, then four, and they were closing in fast.

Mulder whirled and found a SWAT team bearing down on him, 
guns at the ready.  Men surrounded him on all sides, but it 
was a smaller, thinner guy who emerged from the fray.

"Hold it right there, Agent Mulder!"  The business end of a 
revolver pointed at Mulder's chest.  "Don't you move a 
muscle."

Mulder raised his hands in the air.  "You must be Rivera."

"Down on the ground, face first, and keep your hands where 
I can see them.  I don't want any funny business."

Mulder lowered himself to the grass, the smell of dirt 
filling his senses.  The gun dug into his belly as five 
pairs of dark boots gathered around him.

"Put your hands behind your back," Rivera ordered. 

A moment later, the cuffs snapped around Mulder's wrists, 
biting painfully into his skin.  Rivera grabbed him by the 
arm and jerked him to his feet.  Mulder stumbled for 
balance and looked his captor in the eyes.  Rivera assessed 
him with a level gaze.  "You're not the toughest mouse I 
ever trapped."  He jerked a nod at one of his colleagues.  
"Frisk him."

Mulder closed his eyes, resigned as a muscled guy with 
bulging forearms started patting him down.  It took him 
less than two seconds to come up with the gun.  "Lookie 
here," the burly guy said with a leer.

Rivera took the sack and peered inside.  "I've been looking 
for this," he said as he glanced at Mulder.  "Even more 
than I've been looking for you.  And here I find the two of 
you together.  What are the odds?"

Another SWAT team member appeared behind him, pushing 
Skinner roughly.  The AD also wore cuffs.

"Great, now the gang's all here," Rivera said.  "We'll go 
get this gun logged in and then you and I are going to have 
a long talk, Mr. Mulder."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

Rivera shrugged.  "Maybe you talk to me, and I don't charge 
your boss here with aiding and abetting a felon."

"You can't do that."

"Oh?"

"I'm not a felon."

Rivera didn't smile.  "Suit yourself, federal agent man.  
Now you're going to come play in my house, with the local 
boys.  I've got a four-by-seven cell with your name on it."

X-X-X-X-X

Mulder rubbed his hands over both cheeks, his new beard 
scratching at his palms.  He'd been sitting alone in the 
interrogation room for going on three hours, with nothing 
but gray walls and the sight of his own reflection for 
company.  A uniformed officer had dropped off a Coke ages 
ago, and Mulder soothed himself by playing table hockey 
with the empty can.

At last, the door opened and Rivera came in holding a brown 
file folder; his expression was unreadable.

"I want my phone call," Mulder said.  

"Tough.  You turn yourself in, you get a phone call.  You 
bust my balls for four days, you get nothing."  He drew the 
chair across the cement floor and took a seat across from 
Mulder.

"Then I have only one word for you: lawyer."

"Oh, that's too bad," Rivera said, feigning disappointment.  
"Now we don't get to talk.  I can't tell you what we found 
on the gun."  He made a show of opening the folder, licking 
his thumb, and leafing through the pages.

Mulder tried to get a look but Rivera didn't let him get 
close enough.  He held the folder back and really studied 
it.  "Yes, sir-ee, very interesting.  I never saw this 
coming."

Mulder's pulse quickened and sweat beads broke out on the 
back of his neck.  Had Scully already been arrested?  He 
shifted in his chair and the scraping sound echoed in the 
bare room.  

"You say you're not a felon," Rivera said, "but I'm having 
trouble figuring out how that squares with everything I 
know to be true.  I know you were there the night Diana 
Fowley was killed.  I know you fled the scene, and I know 
you hid out instead of coming forward when you had to know 
we were looking for you.  Best of all, I find you with her 
gun right on your person -- a gun you stole from her house 
the night of the murder.  You look like a guilty man, Agent 
Mulder.  A very guilty man."

"Looks can be deceiving."

"Oh, this I know.  Take me, for example."  He closed the 
folder and rested it in front of him.  "People see my dark 
skin, they hear my Spanish accent.  Everyone thinks I am 
Mexican.  They don't realize I am from Colombia." He tapped 
the side of his head.  "False assumptions.  We all make 
them.  So this is why I'm in here with you now, to give you 
a chance to explain yourself, to see if you can tell me why 
I shouldn't book you on murder charges this very 
afternoon."

"Because I didn't do it?" Mulder ventured.  He folded his 
arms over his head.  "I don't know if your dogged 
investigation turned up this key fact, but Agent Fowley was 
shot last year and nearly killed."

"I did learn this.  She was working with you at the time."

"You don't think I'm responsible for that shooting too?"

"They never caught the guy," Rivera mused.  "Funny about 
that."

"Maybe whoever it was tried again."

"Maybe."  Rivera lifted the edge of the folder and peered 
at the contents again.

Mulder twitched and placed his hands on the table to still 
them. Even with the prints on the gun, it wouldn't be 
enough to arrest her, he reasoned.  Not until they proved 
it was the murder weapon. 

"Making you nervous?" Rivera asked.

"Are you trying to?"

Rivera flashed a white-toothed smile, but it disappeared 
quickly.  He leaned across the table.  "I would be," he 
whispered. "If I was you."  He picked up the folder again 
and sat back in his chair.  "What if I was to tell you that 
your prints turned up on the gun?"

His heart stopped but he tried not to blink.  "It was in my 
possession.  That doesn't make me a killer."

"It does if you had your finger on the trigger."  Rivera 
watched him closely for a reaction, so Mulder didn't give 
him any.

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

"No?  You think we didn't find your prints on the trigger?"

"If you did, it's not because I put them there."

"You'd be right," Rivera said, his expression grim.  "We 
didn't find them.  In fact, we didn't find any prints at 
all."

Mulder was glad he was sitting because otherwise his knees 
would have given out.  His mouth went suddenly dry.  
Skinner, he thought.  Shit.  Thank God.

"But here's the part I find really interesting," Rivera 
continued, taking out a page from the folder.  "No prints, 
I can understand that.  You're a long-time fibbie and I'm 
sure you know how to make evidence disappear.  Hell, I 
would've wiped my prints off too.  I wasn't really 
expecting to find anything, but we've got to look.  Not a 
single print anywhere on that gun.  What my lab guys did 
find?  Print dust."

He slid the paper across to Mulder. 

"See there?  Traces of it all over the gun.  And so that 
gets me thinking.  A guilty man flees the murder and takes 
the incriminating weapon with him.  But why on earth would 
he print the gun if he was the shooter?  The only answer 
I've got is that maybe he wasn't so guilty after all.  
Maybe he only wanted us to think he's guilty because he's 
covering for someone else."

Mulder slid the paper back to the detective.  "I think I'd 
really like that lawyer now."

X-X-X-X-X

Scully parked in the visitor's lot of the precinct and 
walked past a half dozen cruisers on her way to the front 
door.  She kept her head down and tried not to look 
directly at them.  Part of her still worried this was a 
trap, but Mulder had called and said he'd been arrested.  
She had little choice but to come.

The desk sergeant summoned Rivera for her, and he appeared 
looking less smug than she would have imagined.  "Agent 
Scully, I didn't realize you held both a medical and legal 
degree.  Talk about an over-achiever."

"What are you talking about?"

"Mulder said he was calling a lawyer."  He bit into a shiny 
apple and started crunching.  "I assumed that must be you."

"Can I see him?"

"I'll even lead the way."

He led her to the back where the interrogation rooms were 
but stopped just outside the door.  The narrow hallway 
filled with the scent of apple.  "Talk fast.  We're going 
to take him to booking in a few minutes."

"Booking him for what?"  Her heart had lodged in her 
throat, pounding out a steady beat just behind her 
epiglottis. She kept her hands in her pockets so he 
couldn't see them shaking.

"Hindering a police investigation for starters.  The list 
grows from there."  He turned the handle with a sharp twist 
and let the door fall open.  "He's all yours."

"Mulder?" 

He stood as she entered, relief plain on his hairy face.  
"Hey," he said.  "Turns out he was following Skinner 
instead of you.  We both got picked up in the park."

"Skinner's here?"  She slid into the seat across from him, 
and he sat back down.

"They hauled him in for helping me.  I haven't seen him 
since."  He reached out and took her hand, and she curled 
her fingers around his.  "How are you holding up?"

She felt sick.  "They're going ahead with the booking.  
They'll prosecute you."

"Good luck to them."  He glanced over her shoulder to the 
two-way mirror behind her.  "They barely have enough 
evidence to hold me.  There were no prints on the gun."

"What?"  She jerked her hand free in surprise.

"Shh. Rivera showed me the report.  They found fingerprint 
powder but no prints."

He'd wiped them off, covering for her.  "Oh, God, 
Mulder..."

"Shh, shh," he said again, trying to get her hand free from 
where she'd clenched it against her body.  "It'll be okay."

"How did he get the gun?"

He looked sheepish.  "I kind of had it on me when I was 
arrested."

"Then they will charge you.  The won't need your prints if 
they found you with the murder weapon."  She pulled free 
and gripped her head with both hands.  "You wanted to make 
yourself look guilty, Mulder, and you did a damn fine job 
of it.  They have a witness at the scene, another who 
overheard your argument with Diana, and now the murder 
weapon.  They won't need fingerprints to convict you."

"Let me worry about that."

"And how am I supposed to do that?  How can I sit here and 
just let you take the fall for this?"

"I'm not taking the fall."  He gave an anxious look at the 
mirror again.  "We can talk more when we have less of an 
audience.  I need you to sit tight for now, okay, Scully?  
I'll figure something out."

Already her head was swimming.  She swore she could 
actually feel her brain bobbing inside her skull. "No," she 
said, her voice breathy but certain.  "I have to find out 
what happened.  I have to."

He shook his head violently and squeezed her hand so hard 
it hurt.  "Scully, listen to me.  You can't fix this on 
your own.  You have to give me time to think.  I'll get out 
of here on bail, right?  We can figure out what to do 
then."

"Mulder, if you're right about what really happened..."

"We don't know what happened.  We don't know that."

"But if, if it's true."  She tried to swallow but her 
throat had gone dry.  "I can find out."

He looked alarmed.  "What are you proposing?"

She leaned way across the table, and he met her halfway.  
Her heart was beating so fast she was surprised it didn't 
knock on the wood. "No matter who pulled the trigger," she 
whispered near Mulder's ear.  "I didn't want her dead.  But 
I think I know who did."

"Scully, no," he whispered back.  He pulled away and looked 
at her.  "It's too dangerous.  You'll never be able to 
prove anything."

Either the Smoker had made her a murderer, or he'd done the 
setup himself.  She was sure of this.  And thanks to Diana, 
she now had his phone number.

"It's the only way."

"No," he said, suddenly loud.  She jumped and he lowered 
his voice again.  "These men leave no loose ends," he 
murmured, reaching for her once more.  This time he touched 
her cheek. 

She leaned into his hand for just a moment.  "I'll let you 
know what I find out," she said as she got up to leave.

"Don't do it.  Scully, please."

Tears stung her eyes.  He'd never begged her for anything.  
"I have to know," she said, her voice thick.  "One way or 
the other."

"At least wait for me to post bail."

"I've got to go," she said, heading for the door.

"Scully, wait.  Wait for me!"

She practically fled -- past the Coke machine, past Rivera 
with his apple core and surprised expression, out of the 
station and into the cold sunshine.  Only when she'd 
reached the car did she let the tears come.  Mulder was 
right that she could be walking willingly towards her 
death, but at least she would have the truth.  One way or 
another, she would be free.

X-X-X-X-X



X-X-X-X-X-X

Chapter Ten

X-X-X-X-X-X

Mulder chewed his thumbnail as he walked back and forth in 
the interrogation room.  They had yet to move him to a cell, 
and he wasn't sure whether this was a good or bad sign.  He 
was grubby, hungry, and his head hurt.  He couldn't remember 
the last time he'd slept more than two hours at a stretch.  
The city cops had a good case against him for murder and/or 
conspiracy to commit murder, and his partner, possibly the 
true killer, was out somewhere offering herself up to a known 
evil.

He muttered.  He paced.  He could hardly hold a thought in 
his head and he wondered briefly if this was what it was to 
be schizophrenic -- dizzy, paranoid, but with a certainty 
that clarity was hiding somewhere within the racing thoughts, 
if you could just sit still to listen.

When the answer came to him, it was perfect and insane.  He 
stopped dead in his tracks and grinned like an idiot.

He pressed his cheek tight against the thick pane of glass in 
the door and banged on the metal frame with his fist.  "Hey!" 
he yelled to get the guard's attention.  He felt like Jack 
Nicholson in 'The Shining,' ready to mash his face against 
the window as he went completely mad. 

The large man with the gun cast him a dispassionate gaze and 
didn't move.

"Hey!" Mulder yelled again.  "I want to make a phone call."

Even then, he wasn't sure it would work.  He still wasn't 
convinced even when the door opened an hour later and Skinner 
appeared.  Unlike Mulder, the AD'd had a chance to get 
cleaned up from their adventure in the park.  Skinner wore 
blue jeans and a white shirt with cuffs turned up to the 
elbows.  Tension strained in his neck as he sat down across 
from Mulder.

"I didn't think they could hold you," Mulder said, and 
Skinner looked annoyed.

"Rivera hasn't decided whether to press charges yet.  I think 
he's waiting to prove you're a murderer first so he can hit 
me with the really good stuff.  Right now, we're just two 
guys who happened to run into each other in the park."

"He's not going to prove I'm a murderer.  For one thing, I 
didn't do it."

"Do you think I'd be here if I thought you did?"

"And for the second thing, there weren't any prints on the 
gun."  He watched Skinner carefully, but the other man's 
expression gave nothing away.

"Is that so?"

"He is curious about the fingerprint dust, though," he said, 
and Skinner scowled.

"Shit," he said under his breath.

"It doesn't matter.  If the gun matches the bullet from 
Diana's body, he's still got me dead to rights."

Skinner sat back, looking defeated.  He took off his glasses 
and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  "I don't know what more I 
can do for you."

"Scully was here.  She's gone off in search of the truth, and 
I think we both know where she'd going to look."

Skinner stiffened. "She can't," he said tightly.  "She can't 
know where to contact him."

"She does know," Mulder replied, leaning over the table.  
"Diana had his number.  If we're right about this being some 
sort of setup, then you know how dangerous it could be."  He 
lowered his voice some more.  "She's a loose end."

Skinner hesitated a long moment.  He placed his hands on the 
table and rubbed the surface with his fingertips.  Without 
looking at Mulder, he voiced the other option in the softest 
voice possible.  "And if it's not a setup?"

"Even more reason to get rid of her.  She's dead and I'm 
rotting in prison.  It's the Smoker's god damned wet dream."

Skinner shook his head, denying even the possibility.  "What 
is it you want me to do?" he asked finally.  "If you couldn't 
stop her, I don't know how I can."

"That's why I called," Mulder replied as he hunched over the 
table again.  "I have a plan."

X-X-X-X

Scully dialed the number from her home phone because there 
was no denying he already knew it, the same way he had 
duplicate keys to her apartment, her car, the office, and 
maybe even her thoughts.  She sat at one end of her striped 
sofa and clutched the armrest as the call rang through.  He 
answered on the fourth trill, cutting it abruptly: "Hello."

She couldn't speak.  The one question she wanted answered, he 
would never reveal: why me?

She heard him puff away, and his voice held a trace of 
amusement.  "Agent Scully, how nice to hear from you again."

"I need to talk to you," she managed at last.

"We're talking right now."

"In person."

"Now?  I'm afraid I have a very busy schedule today..."

"You meet me, or I will take the chip out right now."

He made a tsk-tsk noise and she heard him inhale on the 
cigarette again.  "And after all that trouble I went through 
to get it for you.  If you want to play Russian roulette with 
your health, Miss Scully, I don't suppose there is anything I 
can do about it."

She had only one card left to play, but it was the trump 
where the Smoking Man was concerned.  "I want to talk about 
Mulder."

"What about him?"

"He messed up the plan, didn't he?  Walked in on the body?  
Now he's been arrested, but I presume you knew that.  They 
have a good case against him, good enough that he could face 
the death penalty if they push forward with the trial.  I 
don't know why you persist in tossing him back into the sea, 
but he's caught in your net again, this time apparently by 
accident.  If you don't want Mulder to go down for this 
murder, you need to step in quickly."

"Perhaps this arrangement suits me.  At least in jail, it's 
easier to keep track of him. Nice to have the government pick 
up the tab for a change."

"Forget it then," she said, and her finger was on the "off" 
button when he interjected.

"Fine, I'll meet you. I confess I'm curious as to what it is 
that you think I can do to help Mulder.  Shall I just drop 
by?"

The question was accompanied by a particularly long exhale, 
and she pictured him with a white haze halo.

"No."  He was not going to kill her in her own home.  
"Somewhere public.  The diner where we talked last time."

She had no real belief that a public forum constituted 
safety; he could shoot her dead in a room full of people and 
disappear with a cloud of smoke.  Maybe he'd take out the 
witnesses too.  She'd seen his brand of headlines before: 
Mysterious Gunman Opens Fire on Diner, Vanishes.

"The diner," he agreed.  "In an hour."

She pressed the phone so tight against her stomach that it 
hurt, both inside and out.  All the other times she'd 
disappeared, there'd been no real warning, but this time she 
knew well that she might not be coming back.  If the Smoker 
truly wanted to save Mulder, he would have to find another 
lamb to sacrifice.

She picked up the phone and dialed again, a lump forming in 
the back of her throat.  "Mom," she blurted when Maggie 
Scully answered.  "It's me."

"Dana."  Her mother's voice was surprised, relieved.  "Thank 
God.  I've been trying to reach you for days, ever since I 
saw the news."

Scully bit her lip and looked at the furious blinking light 
on her machine.  "I'm sorry," she said.  Sometimes these felt 
like the only words she knew.

"First they say that Mulder is wanted in connection with a 
murder and now they're reporting he's been arrested!  What's 
on Earth is going on?"

"An FBI agent was killed.  Mulder knew her."

"Yes, the reports say he worked with her many years ago, that 
they were...involved romantically."

Scully rested her head in one hand and closed her eyes. 
"That's true, but he didn't kill her."

"I should think not!  But then why did he flee?  That just 
makes him look more guilty."

He was trying to protect me, she thought.  Oh, if she turned 
out to be the killer, it would be the final blow to her 
mother's heart.  It would be better just to disappear.

"I, uh, it's complicated, Mom."

"Someone must be framing him for it," Maggie said with the 
righteous certainty of good mothers.  "Did you know this 
woman -- this Agent Fowley?"

Unbidden, she had a flash of Diana crumpled on the carpet, 
leaking blood like a puddle of fresh ink.  "I knew her."  She 
stood up quickly, taking in a deep breath so she wouldn't be 
sick.  "Look, Mom, I have to go."

"Of course you do.  You have to help Fox."

"Yes, that's what I'm going to do."

"You be careful, Dana.  Whoever did this crime is a 
heartless, vile murderer."

Tears burned the back of her throat.  "Mom," she said in a 
strained whisper.

"What is it, honey?"

Maybe, she thought, I should have just stayed missing the 
first time.

"Dana?  Are you still there?"

Scully wasn't sure she knew the answer.

X-X-X-X-X

They stood, captor and prisoner, on Diana's front stoop as 
Rivera slit the crime scene tape at her door.  "This better 
be worth my time," Rivera said as he took out the key, "or I 
promise you that you won't much like the consequences."

"They can't be any worse than where I am now," Mulder 
replied.  Behind him, his arms had started to ache from the 
cuffs.

As the door slid open, he took one last look at the quiet 
street and the squad car with the officer parked in it.  
Rivera caught him looking.  "You wanted to do this alone, you 
and me," he said, "and I'm granting your request, but he's 
not going anywhere."

"Fine by me," said Mulder, hoping he sounded calm.  "Let's 
just get this over with."

"My sentiments exactly."

Rivera took him by the elbow and pushed him lightly into the 
foyer.  Mulder halted in the shadowed hall.  He had not been 
there since the night of the murder, when the house smelled 
like blood and gunpowder.   "You want to take these off?" 
Mulder asked, indicating his handcuffs.

"Not on your life."  Rivera pulled out a small tape recorder 
and waved it at Mulder.  "I'm going to be taping this whole 
thing."

"That wasn't part of the deal."

"It is now." He switched the machine on.  "This is Detective 
Rivera.  I have Agent Fox Mulder in custody with me, and 
we're at 1232 Oakwood Lane, a condominium owned by victim 
Diana Fowley and the location where her body was recovered on 
November second."

Mulder glanced to the right but he couldn't quite see the 
spot from this angle.  Diana had still been warm, almost 
alive, with her eyes open and her mouth parted.  

"Agent Mulder, you are now admitting you were in this 
apartment the night of November second?" 

The image of Diana lingered, and he almost whispered the 
word: "Yes."

"Excuse me, could you please speak up for the tape?"

"Yes, I was here."

Rivera nodded to himself, as if confirming what he'd known 
all along.  "And what time did you arrive?"

"I'm not sure.  Past midnight."

"What was the purpose of your visit?"

"I wanted to talk to her."

"To Diana Fowley?"

"Yes."  His muscles remembered the force of his anger, how 
tense they had been as he'd charged up the steps.

"Was she expecting you?"

"No, but her lights were on."

"So you came up here to the front door, is that right?  You 
rang the bell?"

"Yes.  No.  I mean, I came up to the front door, but I didn't 
use the bell.  The door was open."

Rivera raised both eyebrows.  "It was unlocked, or it was 
actually standing open?"

"It was ajar.  I pushed it and I called her name as I 
entered."  He stepped further into the house, as he had that 
night.  "I only called once.  When I smelled the blood, I 
knew something was wrong."

"What did you do next?"

"I drew my weapon."  He took another step, feeling the gun in 
his hands as he walked towards the living room.  "I moved in 
the direction of the smell," he said as Rivera followed him. 
"As I came to the doorway here I could see Diana lying on the 
floor with blood around her head.  The room smelled like 
gunfire, and I figured she'd been hit.  I checked the room 
briefly for any signs of the shooter and then I checked her 
pulse."

He walked to the spot where the stain spread across the light 
gray carpet and crouched down.  At his back, his fingertips 
flexed as he remembered touching her pale neck.  "She was 
dead," he said.  "There was nothing I could do."

Rivera stood over him with the tape recorder in hand.  "But 
you didn't call it in.  Why?"

Mulder didn't answer, but his gaze slid to the place on the 
floor where the gun had laid.  "I knew what this would look 
like," he said as he got to his feet again.  "Diana and I had 
quarreled earlier, and now she was dead and I was stuck with 
the body and the murder weapon.  I wanted to have the chance 
to clear my name."

"If that's what you've been up to these past few days, you've 
done a piss-poor job of it.  Why should I believe any of this 
load of bull you're selling?  You said if we came here, you'd 
prove who murdered Agent Fowley.  All you're giving me is a 
fairy tale about you and a dead body."

"I'm getting to that," Mulder said.

"Get there faster.  What did you do next?"

"I went to the kitchen to wash my hands," he said, starting 
back for the door.  "I took the back way, away from the 
lights at the front of the house."  His heartbeat tripled in 
speed as he led the detective down the hall to the rear.  He 
paused near the rear door.  "I looked out back to see if 
anyone was there."

"And was there?"

"No."

"Did you see anyone else the entire time you were here?"

Mulder didn't get a chance to answer because the next sound 
was the cock of a gun.  Skinner appeared as planned, from 
Diana's hall closet.  "Don't move," he advised Rivera.

Rivera looked more angry than frightened.  "You assholes are 
making a giant mistake here."

"Don't move and shut up," Skinner amended.  "I want the keys 
to the cuffs."

"They're in my left coat pocket."

"Then use your left hand to take them out.  Keep the other 
one up where I can see it."

Rivera took out the key and dangled it from one finger. 
"Please, I'm begging you," he said without any trace of 
pleading, "don't do anything stupid."

Skinner snatched the key with one hand, all the while keeping 
his gun trained on Rivera's head.  "Can you manage on your 
own?" he asked Mulder.

"Just call me Houdini."  He turned so Skinner could place the 
key in his hands and then undid the cuffs.  He toggled his 
wrists back and forth as full circulation returned.

"Now," Skinner said, "hand Mulder your gun -- slowly."

Rivera shoved his weapon butt-first in Mulder's direction.  
"For an innocent guy, you sure are digging your own grave 
here."

"In the closet," Mulder said, backing Rivera up to the place 
where Skinner had hidden.  "And try these on for size."  He 
tossed the cuffs at Rivera, who caught them and looked 
royally pissed off.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Put them on," ordered Mulder.  "Hands in back."

Rivera did as asked, but glared at them the whole time. 

"Get the chair," Mulder said to Skinner. 

Skinner returned in just a few seconds, prepared to wedge the 
chair under the doorknob and trap Rivera inside the closet.  

"As long as you're locking me up like this, I think I should 
get at least one straight answer out of you."  He met 
Mulder's eyes in the dim light.  "Who killed her?" he asked.

Mulder waited a long moment to answer.  "I honestly don't 
know," he said finally, and then shut the door.

"We've got maybe ten minutes before that cop outside comes 
looking for him," Skinner said as he holstered his gun.  "I'm 
parked two streets over."

"This way."  Mulder opened the back door and they both ran 
across the short lawn to the bushes that abutted the 
neighbor's chain-link fence.  Mulder watched uneasily over 
his shoulder as Skinner went up and over.

"Come on, come on," Skinner urged.

Mulder shoved Rivera's gun in his sweatshirt pocket and 
mounted the fence.  As he swung his leg over the top, one of 
the sharp metal spikes ripped through his jeans and gouged 
his thigh.  "Jesus, shit!" 

"Let's get out of here," Skinner said, enunciating every 
word.

Mulder landed hard on the ground and he turned back to look 
at the offending piece of twisted metal that wounded him.  
Blood coated the top edge.  "That's sharper than barbed 
wire," he said.

Skinner was already making his way out of the bushes.

"Wait a sec."  Mulder went back to the fence.  He could feel 
the trickle of blood down his leg.

"Mulder!"

Right next to the spike that had torn his leg open was a 
second, equally sharp one that also appeared to have blood on 
it.  But this blood was dried in the cracks of the twisted 
metal.

Skinner materialized at his shoulder.  "We need to leave 
right now or we're not getting out of here at all."

"Yeah, yeah.  I'm coming."

With a final glance at the fence, he followed Skinner out 
through the thick bushes and into the urban jungle.

X-X-X-X-X

As before, he arrived first at the diner.  This time he 
occupied a corner booth, where he sat with his coffee, his 
newspaper, and his ever-present cigarette.  The sign over 
posted menu behind the counter read "Thank You for Not 
Smoking," but as usual, the rules never applied to him.

The smell of deep-fried fat turned her stomach, but she 
pressed onward toward the back.

A smattering of other patrons spread out around the place, 
but the lunch rush was over and dinner was far away.  Not 
many people had the luxury of sitting around with a cup of 
Joe or a slice of pie on a Tuesday afternoon.

He tucked away the Post as she approached and stubbed out the 
remainder of his smoke.  She felt the keen absence of her 
weapon.  Not that she could have done much with it in this 
situation, but she couldn't believe she was about to have 
this conversation unarmed.  If she was truly a murderer, she 
could think of no one else she'd rather kill than the man in 
front of her.

"Agent Scully, you're looking well," he said as she took the 
other side of the table.

"You're a liar, but usually a good one," she answered, and he 
gave a wry smile.

"Let's just say you look ever so much better than you did 
about this time last year."  He sipped his coffee and let 
that sink in.

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to say thank you?"

"I can't quite figure out what you're to say.  This is your 
meeting, if you recall."

"How about we start with this: Diana Fowley's murder -- I 
think you're behind it."

"An impressive opening gamble," he said as he set his cup 
down.  "I assume you have some evidence to back up this hunch 
of yours."

"She was dying from the same disease I had, a cancer that 
eats away at your brain, a cancer you probably gave to her 
the same way you gave it to me."

"I assure you I have no such power," he replied.

She continued as though he hadn't spoken.  "I know a little 
bit about what she might have been thinking, how life becomes 
sharper, narrower, when you know you're about to die.  I 
think maybe she decided to exact a little revenge on her way 
out."

He paused in the process of lighting up a fresh cigarette.

"She was thinking as long as you considered her expendable, 
then she would spend her last few months wreaking havoc on 
your little operation.  She must have been causing more 
trouble than you could handle, because you decided to speed 
up her death with a bullet to the head."

He inhaled and blew out the smoke in her direction, narrowing 
his eyes at her.  "I know you're concerned for your partner, 
but I admit I'm surprised by your tenacity in this 
investigation. The way I understand it, your prints were on 
the gun."

Her heart skipped a beat but she refused to squirm.  "I'm 
quite sure you could arrange that, yes.  Your people tried to 
kill her once before and failed.  No doubt you sent someone 
better equipped to do the job this time."

"A trained FBI woman, perhaps?"

"Me," she said flatly.  "You want me to believe you sent me 
there to kill Diana Fowley."

He gave a casual shrug.  "You certainly got the job done 
right, as expected."

"I don't believe you."

"Let's say, hypothetically, that you're right, and that Diana 
Fowley was interfering in some key operations, perhaps going 
as far as to eliminate one of our top scientists.  Maybe she 
took some of his files with her, files that we needed to 
continue the work, and we were willing to take on some 
calculated risks in getting them back."

"What kind of risks?"  Her voice nearly quavered and her 
palms had started to sweat.

"Let me ask you something, Agent Scully.  Have you been over 
tired recently?  Not sleeping well?  Maybe your car has miles 
on it that you can't remember driving.  Perhaps you wake up 
wearing different clothes."

A wave of nausea washed over her.  "No."

"Ah, you have.  I can see it in your face.  After what 
happened last spring on the dam, I was surprised that you 
hadn't removed the chip entirely, but we were grateful that 
you hadn't because it made things so much easier."  He puffed 
away, still watching her.  "First we sent you to retrieve the 
files.  That didn't go so well."

As he said the words, she saw Diana's home office in front of 
her, saw her hands prying at the lock on the desk.  She shook 
her head, mute.

"Yes," he told her.  "We sent you twice to no avail.  
Whatever Fowley did with them, she hid them well.  We soon 
had to take other measures.  This time you had much greater 
success."

"I...I wouldn't do such a thing.  You can't make me into 
something I'm not."

He gave her a thin smile.  "You don't remember it.  That's a 
bonus of the technology, but we've discovered the memories 
are in there if you look hard enough.  One day, maybe many 
years from now, maybe when you're an old woman, you'll wake 
up one morning and you'll remember."

She wanted so much to believe it was another trick.  "Prove 
it to me," she said thickly.

He looked surprised.  "We sent you there that night. Where 
did you think you got the key?  Your prints were on the gun, 
and Diana Fowley is most assuredly dead. What more proof do 
you need?  The only slipup was your leaving the gun, but 
there are ways of handling that.  Mulder blundering into 
things was an unexpected and unwelcome wrinkle.  I suppose we 
should have foreseen it -- where you go, he surely follows."

She would not cry in front of this man.  "Why are you telling 
me this?"

"Why not?  You asked."  He tapped the ash into his makeshift 
tray.  "And it's not as though you can do anything about it."

"I can take out the chip."

His eyes glinted.  "You might find you don't like the 
consequences.  Besides, anything you do now doesn't matter; 
it won't change the past."

The rage she had talked about earlier burned hot inside her.  
For the first time, she felt an inkling of sympathy for Diana 
and what she had tried to do.  If I'm going down, she 
thought, I'm taking the lot of you with me.

"Whatever you're contemplating," he said. "I'd urge you not 
to act rashly.  There's the little matter of Agent Mulder, 
who is about to be charged with your crime."

She still couldn't quite make herself believe it. The Smoker 
never offered up any kind of truth, so this must be another 
one of his campfire horror tales, designed to manipulate her 
the old fashioned way.  The only way the Bogey Man looked 
good is when he was standing next to a greater evil, and with 
no greater evil available to him, the Smoking Man was forced 
to invent one.

"I'm sure you could free Mulder if you wanted to," she said.  
"You don't need my help."

"I'm afraid you won't like my solution."  He took another 
drag and suppressed a cough.  "If Mulder is charged and the 
trial goes forward, the real killer will have to confess, and 
the evidence that isn't quite a perfect fit for Mulder will 
look positively marvelous on you."

"As if anyone would ever believe the story, with the chip, 
that I... that I did the things you say.  Besides which, you 
can never expose me without exposing yourself."

He took his time extinguishing the last of his cigarette, 
mashing the butt around in the ash.  "Trust me on this, Miss 
Scully: your suicide note won't make any mention of a chip, 
and when they do your autopsy, they won't find one."

X-X-X-X-X

Mulder snapped Skinner's cell phone shut as they drove 
through town.  "She's still not answering," he said.  "Not at 
home, and her cell phone is off.  You know this guy better 
than I do.  Where can we find him?"

Skinner's eyes were trained on the rearview mirror.  "It's 
not like a I have a Bat signal we can flash in the sky.  He 
just shows up when he feels like and leaves the same way.  I 
have no idea where he lives now, and I don't have a number 
for him."

"Scully did," Mulder said suddenly.  "From Diana's phone 
records.  We can run the same phone dump and get it that 
way."

Skinner looked over at him.  "You think we can just drop by 
the Bureau?  Call up and request information?  By now 
Rivera's out of the closet and raising hell."  He checked the 
mirror again.  "We're lucky to get this far without a tail."

A tail.  Mulder turned around in his seat and regarded the 
traffic behind them.  Cars flowed along at normal speed, and 
there was no sign of the black Lexus.  His job was done.

"Scully had the number, right?" Skinner asked.  "We could go 
to her place, see if she has it written down somewhere."  He 
gripped the wheel with both hands, the tendons in his 
forearms bulging.  "Listen to me going on like this.  If we 
call him, is he going to answer?  Is he really going to tell 
us where Scully is?  Forget the Smoking Man, Mulder.  We need 
to find Scully.  Where would she go?"

Mulder was barely listening.  He had his eyes closed, 
visualizing a memory of an old driver's license.

"Mulder?"

"One hundred and eleven Millwood Lane," he said.

"That's where Scully is?"

"That's where we'll find the killer."

X-X-X-X

Somehow she managed to drive home.  Scully staggered up to 
the door of her apartment, missing twice with her key before 
finally fitting it into the lock.  Her living room was 
blessedly silent, the blinds at half-mast against the 
afternoon sun.  She leaned on the back of the door as her 
knees threatened to give way, her keys remained clutched in 
her fist like a weapon.  

Lies, lies, lies.  Why should she believe him?

She raised one arm to her fevered forehead, the back of her 
hand pressed tight against her skin.  She could smell the 
metal from the keys as they hung down in her face.

Open your eyes.

They flew open and she saw the keys out of focus in front of 
her.  Five keys, one-two-three-four-five.  One for the 
apartment, for Mom's, one for the office, one for Mulder's 
place -- car keys on a separate ring.  One-two-three-four.

She eased away from the door and looked more closely at the 
keys in her hand.  Sure enough, there on her ring was an 
extra key, newly minted.  He planted it, she thought 
desperately.  This wasn't there before.

You didn't want to see.

No, no, no.  She ran to the bedroom and shut the door.

Her hands shook and her stomach had balled itself up like a 
porcupine, needles prickling at her intestines.  She was glad 
Skinner had taken her gun.

She trembled as she drew the shades.  Whether she was hiding 
herself from the world or the world from herself, she 
couldn't say.  All she knew was that, once again, the truth 
lived within her.

One day you'll remember, the Smoker had said.

Scully was not waiting.  If she'd been there that night, if 
she had pulled the trigger, she had to know now.  She wanted 
her memory straight before the Smoking Man plied her with 
more words, making her see things that had never been.

She removed her shoes and sat cross-legged on her bed, 
holding her head in her hands.  Fiery tears pricked at her 
lashes but did not fall.  She took deep, shuddering breaths 
and tried to think.  She didn't have Melissa.  She couldn't 
go to a hypnotist.  This truth had to be hers alone.

She lay back on the pillows and looked at her empty white 
ceiling, trying to project her thoughts onto the blank 
canvas.  She remembered meeting Diana that first time, how 
she had known just from the woman's posture with Mulder that 
they'd shared a secret history.  She recalled the terrible 
little voice inside her that had whispered bitterly when 
Diana had been shot the first time, the one that took the 
news that she would live: too bad.

It's okay to hate her now, the voice said.  You were right.

She closed her eyes tightly against the words.  No, I don't 
want to hate her, she thought.  I don't want to hate.

You were right and Mulder was wrong.  At last, at last.

She shook her head back and forth on the pillow, the ends of 
her hair tickling her cheeks.  No, I won't hate her.  I 
won't. She felt something swelling inside her and she fought 
it, writhing on the bed.  She saw her hands picking at the 
lock on Diana's file cabinet.

The drawer stuck and she had to yank it, sending her back 
against the desk, where the sharp corner stabbed her right 
around the kidney.  No sign of the files.  Where else to 
look?  Must find them.

No, she thought.  I did not do this.

But the Scully in her vision kept right on searching.  You 
were right and Mulder was wrong.  Must find the files.  Where 
is the proof?

Hot tears leaked from her eyes down into her hair.  She 
didn't want to be right.  Open your eyes, she told herself.  
Make it go away.  But her lids were like heavy metal and she 
could not raise them.

The dream Scully was changing now, the memory becoming more 
familiar.  She was with Mulder in her living room, shaking 
with anger as she showed him the meaning of the papers he had 
stolen all those years before.  I was marked before I met 
you.  It wasn't your fault.  It wasn't my choice.

Mulder's face showed her feelings, his handsome features 
perverted by ugly truth.  He was leaving.  He wanted answers.  
Maybe he would find Diana and hurt her.

Scully was glad.

"No," she whispered hoarsely, almost frantic.  "Stop."

But the balloon inside her kept welling, expanding against 
her ribs and taking her breath away.  The memory shifted.  It 
was dark and she was in bed, like now, only it was before and 
she awoke in a cold sweat as the horrible thing inside her -- 
the creature she'd been nurturing with jealousy, watering it 
with rage, loving it even as she pretended not to care -- it 
broke open her heart and she sat up gasping, drowning for air 
as the truth dripped down like sludge inside her body.

She had wanted to kill Diana.

She shook so hard her teeth nearly clattered and she gathered 
the blankets up from the bed, drawing them into her lap.  
Memories came thick and fast, pelting at her painfully and 
she no power to stop them.

She was in her car, driving to Diana's house.  She was going 
to kill her.

The lights were on in the bedroom.  She went right in the 
front door, careful not to make a sound because she was there 
to kill her.

She had her own gun, but then she saw Diana's sitting on the 
mantel.  How perfect, how lovely.  She would kill Diana with 
her own gun.

Footsteps on the stairs.  Her victim was approaching.

"No," Scully whimpered, clutching at the blankets.  She could 
not make the movie end.

Diana appeared with a drink in one hand and a file folder in 
the other.  She was surprised but not alarmed, not even as 
Scully held a gun pointed at Diana's chest.  "You wouldn't do 
it," Diana said, a sneer lifting one corner of her mouth.  "I 
know everything there is to know about you, Dana, and you 
just don't have the guts."

She couldn't speak.  Words would break the spell.  The gun 
was light in her hands, her finger loose and slippery on the 
trigger.  Diana took a sip of her drink and set it down.

I'm going to kill you, the memory said.

"No wonder Mulder gets on so well with you," said Diana, 
because she couldn't hear the voice telling Scully to kill.  
"Are you fucking him?  I bet you are.  I bet you have been 
for years."

Do it.  Do it now.

"Maybe you even love him.  I could understand that.  I did 
too at one time, and I think was probably the beginning of my 
end."  She looked Scully up and down.  "Maybe yours too.  
Funny how he's not here, isn't it?  It comes down to me and 
you and that gun.  Go ahead, pull the trigger.  Do their 
dirty work for them.  It's easier than you think, and once 
you start, there's no going back."

No, no, no.  She shook her head again, trying to stay clear.  
Don't listen.  Just pull.  Do it.

"Just one thing," Diana said.  "He'll smell it on you.  He'll 
know you're one of them and that will be the end for you.  
Wouldn't that be a fitting ending?  I can see you now in a 
murder-suicide, his blood on your hands and yours just 
covering his."

"No," she said, this time in the memory, and the word made 
Diana's expression shift to anger.

"Pay attention, Scully.  Wake up! They aren't messing around 
here.  I'm on my way out but you're still in the game.  You 
can't keep those blinders on or you'll be no help to him at 
all.  You can't save him like this.  You can't save him, but 
I did."

She waved the file folder, the one Scully had been sent to 
retrieve.  Shoot and kill.  Get the file.  Not yet, not yet.  
What does it say?

Her arms were starting to ache, and she felt light-headed.  

"He's on the list," Diana said.  "They're coming for him next 
year.  Don't you see?  I had to stop it.  I had to kill 
Brandt and stop the project.  Mulder was on the list. It was 
going to happen in Oregon, in Bellefleur, but now they can't 
move forward."

The page blurred before her eyes.  Letters and numbers, like 
before.  No, not Mulder.

"You were never going to be able to save him," said Diana.

The shot cracked the room, the smell of gunpowder exploding 
in the air.  Diana's mouth opened in surprise as the pages 
went fluttering to the floor.  She folded like a rag doll, 
blood leaking in a tiny river from beneath her head.

Scully rolled in bed, heaving over the side, but there was 
nothing in her stomach to bring up.  She shook and shook 
until she fell back, spent.  Now that she finally had the 
truth, there was only one thing left to do.

She got a knife.  She got her keys.  She didn't bother to 
lock the door on her way out.

X-X-X-X-X

The Lexus was parked in the drive when they pulled up, so 
Mulder figured the address had to be current.  "You want to 
tell me what we're doing here?" Skinner asked as Mulder was 
already halfway out of the car.  "And why we've asked Imogene 
Brandt to join us?  She could easily ride up here with half 
of the DC police force."

"Somehow I don't think she's going to do that."  Mulder 
watched the windows of the little house for any sign of 
movement.  "Watch your back," he advised Skinner as they 
lounged near the car.  "This guy is armed."

"This guy is...?"

"Joe Catalona, hired thug.  He works for Brandt's company and 
he was following me, Scully and Diana in the days before 
Diana's murder."

"Following you why?"

Just as he asked the question, a silver Mercedes made the 
turn onto Millwood Lane.  Imogene Brandt wore her hair back 
in a tight bun and her eyes were hidden by large sunglasses.  
She placed one spiked heel onto the sidewalk and swung out of 
the car in an easy, graceful motion.  "Who's your friend?" 
she asked Mulder.

"He's FBI."

Imogene slowly tilted her sunglasses down for a better look 
at Skinner.  "According to the news, Agent Mulder, you're 
wanted by the FBI and probably a dozen other law enforcement 
agencies.  It seems you've been a bad boy indeed."

Mulder took out Rivera's pilfered weapon and pointed it at 
her.  "Then you'd better do exactly as I say."

"Jesus, Mulder.  What are you doing?" Skinner asked.

"Catching a killer."

Imogene didn't look fazed.  "Me?" she said with a sharp 
laugh.  "Just who is it you think I've killed?"

"Let's go discuss the matter with your friend inside.  Move."

She put her hands up in the air and tripped a little as she 
started up the walk.  Catalona must have seen them coming 
because he opened the door before they got there, and he had 
a gun in hand.  Skinner had his weapon out in a flash.

"Please do something stupid," Mulder said to Catalona.

"What the hell is going on here?" the man replied, not 
lowering his gun.  "Dr. Brandt, have these guys hurt you?"

"What do you know?" Mulder said to Skinner as he noted 
Catalona's weapon of choice.  "It's a 9 millimeter SIG."

"Hey, I've got a permit for this."

"I'll just bet you do."  Mulder motioned for Imogene to move 
forward.  "Let's all go inside, shall we?"

"The hell you are." Catalona blocked the door.  "This is 
trespassing on private property.  I've got a right to shoot 
both of you right where you stand."

"It's two against one," replied Mulder, cocking his head.  
"You sure you like the odds?"

"I want to know what the fuck you think you're doing.  Dr. 
Brandt, I can call the cops if you want me to."

"Oh, by all means," Mulder answered.  "I'm sure they're going 
to be very interested in this conversation."

Imogene didn't look so amused anymore.  "Just let us in, Joe.  
And put away the gun."

"Better yet, give him the gun," Mulder said.

"I ain't giving my gun to any of you."

Mulder shrugged.  "The cops it is," he said, digging out 
Skinner's cell phone from the pocket of his jeans.

"I'm not worried about any cops.  You're the ones who showed 
up here waving guns around."

"For God's sake, Joe.  Let us in and we'll see what they 
want."  Imogene took charge and yanked open the screen door, 
while none of the men made any move to stop her.

"You shouldn't have gotten them involved," Catalona muttered 
as she passed him. "I told you the Feds were no good."

They stood around in Catalona's living room, which was 
decorated with large leather furniture and a giant 
projection-screen TV.  Oddly, he had a replica of the Mona 
Lisa hanging on the wall.

"Okay," Imogene said reasonably to Mulder.  "Now we're all 
here and we're inside.  I think you should tell me what this 
is all about, preferably without all the gunplay."

"First he hands it over," Mulder said, waving his gun at 
Catalona.

"Make me."

"Stop it!" Imogene wrenched the gun away from Catalona and 
handed it to Mulder.  "There, are you satisfied?  Now will 
you please tell me what's going on here?"

A curious look passed over Catalona's features and he looked 
at Imogene with some horror.  "You goddamned cow.  You set 
this up, didn't you?"

"What?  I'm here at Agent Mulder's request.  He said he had 
an urgent matter to discuss with me concerning Christopher's 
death."

"I think you should shut up," Catalona said.  "I think 
neither one of us should say another word."

"Nonsense," she said.  "I'll say what I like."

Catalona swore with the ferocity of someone who realized he 
was going to take the fall.  "Shut up, shut up, shut UP!"

"I want to know what you know about Christopher's death," 
Imogene said, staring intently at Mulder.

"I don't know anything for sure, but I can guess Diana Fowley 
killed him.  Scully and I found out she was with him the 
night he died, and if we knew it, your hired gun here surely 
knew it too because he was tracking our every move."

"Last I checked you didn't have any answers at all," Catalona 
said with a growl.

"So that's when you sent pretty boy here to murder her."

"I sent him?  You've got to be joking.  I wanted the killer 
brought to justice, not executed."

Catalona grit his teeth and clenched his hands.  Mulder could 
tell it was killing him to keep quiet.

"This gun will be the murder weapon," he said as he held up 
the weapon she had confiscated from Catalona.  "I've no doubt 
about that.  But what's really going to sink you is that big 
gash on your thigh."

Everyone looked Catalona's legs, which were encased in tight 
black jeans.  "I don't have any goddamned gash."

"Sure you do.  Right about here."  Mulder gestured with the 
gun barrel at his own inner thigh, where his pants were 
ripped.  "It's from the fence at the back of the property, 
and we'll be able to match the blood there to your DNA."

"Joe, is this true?" Imogene asked.  "Did you kill that 
woman?"

"Genie, I'm begging you, for the love of sweet Jesus, just 
shut up."

"Show me the leg," she said, her voice turning cold.

"Fuck off."

"I'd like to see it," Mulder said.

"Me too," Skinner agreed.

Catalona hesitated for a second and then ran for the door.  
Skinner grabbed him by the back of the neck, thumbs digging 
into each carotid artery.  Catalona struggled in the vise 
gripe until Skinner applied more pressure, at which point, 
the big man promptly passed out.

"You want to do the honors?" Skinner asked as Catalona lay on 
the floor.

Mulder handed off one gun to Skinner and stuck the probable 
murder weapon in his jeans.  Then he leaned down and undid 
Catalona's pants, yanking them roughly to the knees.  There 
on his pale, hairy thigh, was a long thin scab in the exact 
location of Mulder's wound.  "You're under arrest you son of 
a bitch," Mulder whispered.

"I didn't know anything about this," Imogene said.  "Whatever 
Joe did, he did on his own."

"Save it for trial," Mulder told her as he straightened.  
"Now that he's caught and no longer collecting a paycheck 
from you, I'll bet he can't wait to tell his story.  You know 
how the caged bird sings."

Imogene looked speculative, not concerned.  "He can sing all 
he wants.  There'll be no proof."

Mulder took a step closer to her, looking down and searching 
her face for any trace of sorrow.  "You farmed out the murder 
and your hands are clean, but you'll never have the 
satisfaction of having pulled the trigger."

"My husband's killer is dead.  That's satisfaction enough to 
last me until old, old age."

"Mulder."  Skinner's voice was gruff from behind him.  "We've 
got to contact Rivera."

He turned and eyed Catalona.  "I can't.  There will be 
questions and charges and paperwork a mile high.  I've got to 
find Scully.  She has to know the truth."

Skinner didn't hesitate.  "Go."

X-X-X-X

The Smoker had said she would commit suicide, though this 
probably wasn't exactly what he had in mind.  She clutched 
the penknife on her lap and kept her foot pressed on the gas. 
She drove towards the sea, as most Scullys did, with salt 
water shining in her eyes.

She had to find Mulder and tell him what she'd remembered, 
that he'd been marked for disappearance, that Diana had 
intervened and perhaps been killed for this, her last 
betrayal.

That she wasn't a murderer.

The bullet had whizzed past her ear, a deadly fly, and she 
could still hear the horrible noise of Diana's orbital plate 
cracking on impact.  Out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen 
the shooter, his face in shadows but his form familiar.  

It wasn't me, she thought, but it could have been.

She had gone there to kill Diana, she was certain of this 
now.  What she didn't know was whether she would have pulled 
the trigger if Catalona hadn't done it first.  The gun was in 
her hands, her finger just pressing down...

This time she hadn't been able to complete the act, but as 
long as the chip lived inside her, she would be the ultimate 
hostage.

She found a dock and parked her car near the edge, taking the 
knife with her as she went out to the water.  The end days of 
her cancer hadn't been too bad.  They gave her drugs to numb 
the pain and kept her warm in the hospital under electric 
blankets as the life faded out of her.  

The worst part had been the looks of anguish on her mother's 
face, on Mulder's face, when they came to watch her die.  It 
was their pain that could drive her back to the chip again, 
and so she wasn't going to give herself the possibility.

Her arm was surprisingly steady as she reached to raise her 
hair off her neck.  It was thick and healthy again thanks to 
a year of good health.  She held it up and away from her skin 
and opened the switchblade with her other hand.

Shutting her eyes tightly, she palpated her neck to find the 
spot and then took the knife to her flesh.  She cut swiftly 
and deeply, more harsh than necessary.  The knife clattered 
onto the weather beaten boards at her feet as she felt around 
in the growing blood for the chip.  It popped out from her 
neck and into her slippery fingers.

She felt dizzy and weak as the world started to spin.  With a 
choked sob, she hurled the chip out into the water.  Never 
again.

The dock seemed to be moving, rocking in the waves, falling 
away from her.  She grabbed for the rail but missed it on her 
way down.  The last thing she saw was the brilliant, 
cloudless sky.

X-X-X-X

He took Skinner's car and drove to her house, charging up the 
stairs two at a time.  At the last moment, he remembered his 
keys were still in police custody, but it turned out not to 
matter because her door came open at his first touch.  
"Scully!" he called as he entered.  "Scully?  It's me."

Her apartment was as quiet and dark as a tomb, all the blinds 
drawn.  He found her bed covers askew but no sign of Scully.  
Running to the window, he drew back the shade and squinted in 
the bright sunlight.  Her car was not on the street.

He searched her bedside table and then her desk, looking for 
any scrap of paper that might tell where she had gone.  He 
opened her address book and turned it upside down.  He 
knocked over her cup of pens and pencils in his haste to 
examine the desk.

Just as he was booting up her computer, Skinner's phone rang.  
"Mulder," he said.  "They've found her."

His heart stopped. "What do you mean they found her?  Where 
is she?"

"Mercy General Hospital, and that's all I know.  No one seems 
to be able to say how she's doing.  I'd go myself but I'm 
with Rivera at the six-four station and there's no way he's 
letting me walk.  But he's the one who told me about Scully, 
so he's probably going to have troops waiting for you at the 
hospital."

"I don't care.  I'm on my way."  He ran out the door and back 
down to the car.  He did not go through all this hell to lose 
Scully now.  It did not work that way.  He'd lived in a 
trailer amid his own filth for days, he'd escaped from jail 
and tracked down a killer.  He was hungry, exhausted, slit 
down the leg and a fugitive from the law.  If the Smoking Man 
had harmed a hair on Scully's head, Mulder had a mind to 
shoot him like a dog in the street.

The cops weren't waiting at the front door to Mercy General.  
Mulder went tearing past a sad-faced old man in a wheelchair 
and headed straight for the Emergency Room.  "I need to see 
Dana Scully," he said to the admitting nurse, who took in his 
grubby appearance with a skeptical gaze.

"What did you say the patient's name was again?"

"Dana Scully.  S-c-u-l-l-y."  Please don't say the morgue, he 
thought.  Please.

He watched for the woman's expression to turn grim as she 
consulted her computer.  His hands gripped the counter and he 
tried to read the screen.

"Room two-oh-four," she said at last.  "You can go on back."

"Thank you."  He released a great breath and resumed his jog 
through the hospital, still muttering to no one in 
particular.  "Thank you, thank you."

Room two-oh-four turned out to be a large room with several 
curtained areas.  He grabbed the first person in scrubs he 
could find.  "Dana Scully?"

"Over there," she said pointing toward the far right corner.

Mulder pushed back the curtain, sagging in weak relief at the 
sight of her.  She was dressed in a hospital gown, under the 
sheets with an IV hooked to her arm, but she was awake and in 
one piece.  "Thank you," he said again, and her brows knit 
together in concern.

"Mulder, are you okay?"

"I think that's supposed to be my line."  He went to the bed 
and took her hand, happiness flickering inside him when she 
gave him a hard squeeze.

"They let you go?" Her voice was rough, cracked, and he 
smoothed the hair off her face.

"Not exactly.  I'll tell you all about it in a minute.  What 
happened to you?"

"I'm not sure.  Some people found me by the water and called 
nine-one-one.  I woke up here."  

Her gaze slid away from his, and he tilted her chin around to 
face him again.  It was then he noticed the thick gauze 
bandage at the base of her neck.  "Oh, Scully," he said, his 
voice hushed.  "What did you do?"

"I took it out," she whispered as she moved to get free of 
his touch.  "I got rid of it.  Mulder, I had to."

"But you didn't do it," he said urgently.  "It was that PI 
Catalona who killed Diana and I can prove it.  Rivera's got 
him in custody right now."

Her eyes were wide in her pale face.  "What?"

"We've got the gun, and his blood will put him at the scene."  
He sat on the bed near her hip and reached for her hand 
again.  Her fingers were cold.

"Mulder," she said, and he saw her trying to swallow.  She 
wouldn't look at him.  "I talked to the Smoker.  He confirmed 
that they sent me there that night.  It wasn't the first 
time.  I'd been there before, looking for files that the 
Smoking Man wanted returned.  Diana had stolen them from 
Brandt."

"What files?"  He rubbed her hand between his, refusing to 
admit what she was saying.  "You shouldn't believe anything 
he says."

Her blue eyes finally settled on him, and the sadness there 
took his breath away.  "I remember.  I remember going to kill 
her."

"No, it wasn't you."

"It doesn't matter!  Don't you see?  I was there and I would 
have killed her."

"You remember this," he said, his tone challenging.  "You 
remember after talking to the Smoker?  And you trust these 
memories?  Come on, Scully."

"I...I don't remember much, but I was there.  God, Mulder, I 
remember her face.  I was there with her gun in my hands, 
pointing it at her.  You're the one who found the prints."

"Prints can be faked."

"I was there."  She broke away from him, looking tired.  "I 
don't need to remember anything else."

He was quiet for a long time.  "You remember the shooting?"

She searched herself and then shook her head slowly.  "I hear 
the shot in my head.  I have a vague recollection of her on 
the floor.  That's it.  I can't be a witness."

"No."  Even if she did remember, explaining why she was there 
would be dangerous in the extreme.  He looked again at her 
bandage.  "How..." He cleared his throat.  "How are you 
feeling?"

"Okay.  I was dehydrated, I guess, so they're fixing that."  
She twisted under the covers and looked embarrassed.  "I have 
to talk to a psychiatrist.  The knife, the blood... they're 
afraid I was attempting suicide."

He remembered her in another hospital bed, her eyes sunken 
and her bones showing through her skin.  Slow suicide.   He 
shook his head in defeat.

"Please understand," she whispered.

He couldn't, not really.  They all had chips inside them in 
one form or another, pieces of metal or memory that left you 
vulnerable to manipulation.  He'd been carrying his since the 
tender age of twelve.

She scooted downward, reaching for him and curling herself 
around his body as she sought his forgiveness.  "I couldn't 
live that way," she said, her head in his lap.  He stroked 
her tangled hair.  "Not anymore."

"It's okay."  He knew the cancer was coming now.  He wondered 
if he could keep it away through will alone.

She sniffled against his knee, hugging his leg.  "You're all 
right?  No charges?"

"Well, that remains to be seen," he said as he rubbed her 
back through the thin gown.  "I did find them the real 
killer, so that should buy some good will, but Skinner and I 
kind of left Rivera handcuffed in Diana's closet."

She straightened up in horror.  "You what?"

"Long story," he said wearily, and at that moment, a 
uniformed officer poked his head around the curtain.

"Agent Mulder?  DC police.  I'm afraid you need to come with 
us."

Mulder gave a half-hearted wave to show he'd heard.  "I'll be 
right there."  He looked down at her. "You'll be okay?"

She answered with a solemn nod.  "I can find my own way home.  
I'll come meet you at the station."

"Bring bail money," he said, and she smiled.

Her smile faded as he leaned down, took her face between his 
hands and looked into her wet eyes.  Emotion welled up inside 
him.  "You know that I would give anything so none of this 
had ever happened."

She reached out and held his bearded face, bringing him down 
so she could kiss his forehead.  He closed his eyes and let 
her words wash over him, the benediction he had waited years 
to receive.  "It's not your fault," she said.  "It never 
was."

X-X-X-X-X

"Scully," he called from the other room.  "Have you seen my 
blue striped tie?"

She rolled her eyes and stepped out from the bathroom with a 
toothbrush in her mouth.  "Why would I have seen your blue 
striped tie?" she said when she'd removed the brush.

He went to stand in front of her, peering down.  "Well, if I 
recall correctly, you were the last one wearing it."

Her cheeks warmed as she remembered the truth of this, along 
with how little else she had been wearing at the time.  "I do 
recall," she allowed, "but I also recall taking it off.  
Where was it the last time you saw it?"

He looked pointedly at her breasts, and she gave him a 
playful shove.  "Check under the bed," she said and returned 
to the business of cleaning her teeth.

"Found it!"  She heard him yell a moment later as she spat 
out the last of the toothpaste.  

She rinsed and wiped her mouth, studying her reflection in 
the mirror.  Her cheeks were pink enough but the circles 
under her eyes had darkened another notch, testament to the 
fact that she had not been getting enough sleep.  She was 
always tired these days.

Mulder poked his head around the corner.  "You want breakfast 
or you want to wait and grab something at the airport?"

"Coffee," she said, "at a minimum."

"One coffee, coming up."  He still hadn't combed his hair.

Maybe it was the fatigue she couldn't seem to shake that had 
her nervous about this trip, the fatigue and what it could 
mean.  She tried not to go there, even in her thoughts, as if 
the latent tumor cells could gain power from her neurons.  
She'd been checked out not three months before and been given 
a clean bill of health, no signs of cancer despite being 
chip-free for over a year and a half. 

Really, there was no need to worry.  She hadn't had a 
nosebleed.  There had been no blinding headaches.  Just a 
lingering tiredness and some vague bouts of nausea.  Perhaps 
it was just a touch of flu, she thought.

But none of this explained the sudden onslaught of vivid 
dreams.  In some, she was running from a dog-man she could 
never see.  All she heard was his panting and snarling as he 
bore down on her.  She woke just at the moment he sank his 
teeth into her skin.

She'd been dreaming of Diana lately too, which was not really 
that uncommon.  She frequently heard the shot, sometimes even 
while awake, and saw Diana's body fall in slow motion to the 
ground.  The worst ones were the times she pulled the 
trigger.  On occasion, Diana seemed to be shouting to her, 
but Scully could never hear what she was saying.

She wasn't sure she wanted to hear.

She brushed her hair with short quick strokes and put it 
firmly out of her mind.  It's just because Imogene Brandt is 
finally on trial, she told herself.  

Joe Catalona had already been sentenced to life in prison in 
exchange for testifying against her.  Mulder didn't think the 
charges would stick.  "All they've got is his word and her 
motive," he said, "and Catalona's a convicted felon.  She's a 
grieving widow.  Once the defense gets done parading 
Christopher Brandt's mistresses through the courtroom, half 
the jury is going to wonder why Imogene didn't kill him 
herself.  They certainly won't believe she wanted revenge for 
his murder."

She finished her makeup and walked to find Mulder in the 
kitchen.  "I made bagels," he said, lifting one from the 
toaster.

"My hero."

He lounged against the counter, striped tie loose around his 
neck, and took a large bite from a bagel smeared in cream 
cheese.  "It's funny to be going back, don't you think?"

"Hmm?"

"Back to Bellefleur. Back to Billy Miles."

She glanced at him over the rim of her coffee mug.  He was 
trying for casual, but he seemed to be uneasy too.  Maybe it 
was just something in the air.  "Well," she said, "they say 
you have to come full circle to find the truth."

A slow smile spread across his face.  "So we're completing 
the circle?"

She shrugged.  "Of sorts."

He looped an arm around her neck and hugged her to his side.  
"The student has become the master."

"I could still teach you a thing or two."

"I have no doubt." He kissed the top of her head.  "I'm going 
to clean up and then we can go."

Mulder, wait.  It seemed so forceful that she froze, but she 
hadn't spoken aloud.  She shook off the strange feeling and 
checked her watch.  They would be late if they didn't get 
going soon.

He'd left his mug half-finished, a black cup with a glow-in-
the dark alien painted on the side.  She emptied it with a 
flick of her wrist and rinsed it out before setting it to dry 
in the rack.

It wouldn't move again for nearly eight months.

"Scully?" he called, his strong voice echoing through the 
apartment.  "You ready to go?"

"Coming," she answered.  She grabbed the suitcase from the 
front all and followed him out the door and all the way back 
to their beginning.

X-X-X-X

/Bait& Switch

Thanks to Amanda for all her help with this story!

Notes: Of all the dropped threads in the X-Files, the one 
that puzzled me the most was the chip in Scully's neck.  I 
don't know whether the writers meant to come back to it and 
didn't, forgot about it, or wrote themselves into such an 
impossible, unlikable situation -- remove the chip and die, 
keep it in and be a slave to CSM (and maybe die) -- that they 
decided just to leave it hanging.  This story is my picking 
up the thread and unraveling it. *g*

As always, if you made it to the end, I'd love to know what 
you thought:  syn_tax6@yahoo.com

Thanks for reading!

09/17/2006