EMXC 1st Year fanfic- October 1, 1994 thru October 1, 1995
Archived: 10/01/95
==============================================================

(Bad Company part 2)
(By. Cody Nelson aka CodyN@aol.com)
(© 02/01/95)


     "We didn't see any damned UFO."

     "You saw a UFO?" Mulder asked.

     "Sure we did. In Mexico, remember?"

     "We didn't see any damned UFO!"

     "Hey, it was an object, it was flying, and we couldn't identify it.
What else would you call it?"

     "Well, we didn't see any damned flying saucer or little green men or
anything like that. It was just a...a meteor or some kind of spy plane
or...."

     "Swamp gas? A weather balloon?" Camerer suggested cheerfully.

     "What did you see?" Mulder directed the question toward Camerer.

     She put her hands on her hips and drawled, "Well, it looked like a big
old pie plate on a string...."

     "Don't you mean a hub cap?" Mulder asked, smiling.

     "Oh, yeah, right. A hub cap. And there was this tall skinny woman in
black...."

     "And a big bald wrestler?"

     "What the hell are you two talking about?" Gutierrez exploded.

     "'Plan Nine from Outer Space,' of course. Jeez, Mickey don't you have
any culture?" Camerer said.

     Gutierrez glared at her. Then he glared at Mulder. And threw in a
glare for Scully, who looked as if she had been hoping to stay completely
out of this exchange. "You're all nuts."

     Mulder and Camerer exchanged a conspiratorial smile. "Seriously, what
did you see?" Mulder asked again.

     "Mostly, it was a big flash of orange light, sort of vaguely
bullet-shaped. It was close enough that we could feel the rush of wind as
it passed. And it was making a high-pitched metallic buzz. Sort of like an
Apache helicopter rotor whine."

     "No," Gutierrez disagreed. "More like a Blackhawk."

     Camerer cocked her head, considering. "The Blackhawk frequency but the
Apache buzz."

     Gutierrez gave it some thought, nodded.

     "And this was in Mexico?" Finally, some information, Mulder thought.
It's not about the case, but...

     "Southern region, up in the hills. We were driving down from a meet
with some guerrillas out in the middle of nowhere. We heard it before we
saw anything. Thought it might be a chopper or something. I pulled the jeep
over under some trees and we sat there and waited. Then, whoosh! Before you
could say 'What the hell was that?' it was gone."

     "When did this happen?"

     "Year and a half ago, wasn't it? Late March. I could check my files
for the exact date."

     "One more question." Mulder smiled. "How much tequila had you been
drinking?"

     Camerer laughed. "There were no substances consumed."

     "Mickey, is that how you remember it?"

     Gutierrez frowned. "It wasn't any damned UFO. Now, can we get back to
the subject at hand?"

     Mulder nodded. "I need more information about Caen. Anything you can
tell me."

     "We'll see what we can find out," Camerer offered. Mulder wondered
that she seemed so much more cooperative than Gutierrez. After all, he was
the one who thought someone was out to kill him. But he nodded his approval
of Camerer's offer.

     "Cam can find things out. That's what she's good at."

     "All right, then, I guess that's all we can do for tonight..."

     But Scully had one more question. "Do you think someone in the CIA
asked for Mulder to be assigned to this case?"

     "Maybe. Hell, why not? We got guys talking to the KGB, they might as
well be talking to the FBI too," Gutierrez answered her.

     Camerer nodded. "If they're really taking this voodoo stuff seriously,
they might think Mulder'd be the one to handle it."

     "Then why don't they want you talking to Mulder?"

     "Oh, they're just protecting their secrets." Camerer didn't seem to
think that any of this was unusual.

     Scully shook her head. "But how do they expect Mulder to solve the
case if they won't let anyone talk to him?"
 
     Camerer just shrugged. "Solving the case is secondary."

     Then Gutierrez suddenly jumped in. "What's the difference anyway?
Whoever did it, there's bound to be fuck-all we can do about it. Nobody's
going to be arresting any voodoo hitmen. The only reason there's an
investigation at all is that Caen wound up in Miami. If he'd have washed up
dead in Port-au-Prince instead, they'd have just black-bordered his file
and given his notes to the next guy, and that would be that."

     Scully opened her mouth and closed it several times. There was a long
silence. Finally, Mulder said, "Mickey, you never really told me why you
thought someone was trying to kill you."

     "They did Caen." That was all he would say.

     "Has anything happened since you came back from Haiti?"

     Gutierrez shrugged. "I'm alive."

     "Well, stay that way," Mulder ordered.

     That elicited half a smile from the grim CIA agent. "Yeah, right."

     "If anything happens, or you think of something you want to tell me,
you know my number."

     "Right, Mulder. Scully, nice to meet you. We'll be in touch."
Gutierrez gestured to Camerer and turned to walk away. Scully hesitated a
moment, then hurried to catch up with him. Gutierrez and Scully stopped
about twenty feet away and began talking earnestly.

     "Must be love," Camerer said, grinning.

     "What about you?" Mulder asked. "Are you and Gutierrez...?"

     "Doing the horizontal bop? No. Well, every once in a while. When no
one else will have us," she said, with a casual wave of her hand.

     That wasn't exactly what Mulder had been intending to ask. He took a
deep breath and started again. "Would you like to go and get some coffee or
something?"

     "Sure...But not tonight. If somebody really is trying to whack Mickey
-- 'course, if they are using voodoo, I don't know what I'm going to do
about it -- but I kind of feel like I ought to stick close to him."

     Mulder nodded. "I understand."

     "Unless he's making a date with Scully over there."

     Mulder laughed. He couldn't hear what the other two were saying, but
it was clear that the conversation was not friendly. Gutierrez' back was
stiff; Scully's face was stubborn and serious. Mulder recognized that look.
It meant I am not happy with the way you are behaving. "Does he really
think someone's trying to kill him?"

     "Well...he's sure freaked all to hell about something."

     "Do you know what it is?"

     She shrugged. "If you want to know what's going on with Mickey, you'll
have to ask him."

     "I have. You know how he is."

     A flash of a smile. "The key to this thing is finding out what
happened to Caen. I'll see what I can dig up on him."

     It seemed he was going to have to be satisfied with that. And, if he
couldn't get any help from the Agency through normal channels, her
information might well be all he had.

     Gutierrez broke away from Scully and strode away. With a quick nod to
Mulder, Camerer took off after him. Scully took a deep breath, smiled
ruefully across the grass to Mulder, and began to walk towards him.

     "That...man," Scully sputtered, as soon as she reached Mulder. Then
she smiled sheepishly. "I apologize, Mulder. I'll never compare you to
Mickey Gutierrez again."

     "I'm glad to know there is someone out there who is more infuriating
than I am."

     "He takes infuriating to new heights. I've never heard so much
double-talk in my life."

     "So, not planning to defect to the Company?"

     She laughed. "No, thanks." They began to walk together towards the
Constitution Garden lake.

     "What were you talking to him about?" Mulder asked.

     Scully colored slightly. "You're probably not going to like this,
but...I just told him I wouldn't be happy if it turned out he was jerking
you around."

     Mulder looked amused. "Well, I did say I was bringing you along for
protection."

     She seemed relieved by his reaction. Still, she was quick to change
the subject. "So, did you get a date?"

     Now it was Mulder's turn to redden. "That's what we were wondering
about you."

     "Oh, please."

     "She's pretty worried about him. She said she was going to stick close
to him."

     "Do you think we can believe anything they tell us?"

     "They haven't really told us anything, yet." Mulder stopped, yawning.
"I'm tired. I'll call you tomorrow." He turned to go.

     "Mulder...?" He turned back, waited. She watched him silently for a
moment. Then, "Take care of yourself, Mulder. Good night."

     He smiled sleepily. "Good night."


     He slept badly. Dead Company agents and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
None of this had anything to do with his beloved X-Files. But if he ever
wanted the X-Files to be reopened, he had to solve this case. He had to
prove himself to be the agent who could solve the unsolvable, who could
find the answers when no one else could. He'd never had any doubts about
his ability to get to the bottom of a case before. But this was different.
This was no X-File. This was the damned CIA.


     The next day, Mulder was hard at work again. He ran Lily Camerer's
name through the databases, just to see what sort of person he was dealing
with. She, too, was listed as a CIA operative, assignment classified. But
personal information was available. Lily Mae Camerer was indeed born in
Bull's Gap, Tennessee, the fifth of six children, all the others boys. The
fourth boy, James, was listed as MIA in Vietnam. Mulder breathed a sigh of
relief when he read that. He'd been afraid that she had just made up that
story, knowing about his sister Samantha, to gain his sympathy. But, as far
as he could determine, everything she'd told him about herself was the
truth. That was encouraging. Of course, she wouldn't be foolish enough to
lie about anything that was so easily verified.

     Next he consulted his files on UFO sightings. There had been a
sighting -- a glowing orange craft -- reported over Mexico, Guatemala, and
El Salvador on March 21, 1993. So that was true, as well. Mulder smiled at
the thought of Mickey Gutierrez seeing a UFO.

     And all this was very interesting, but got him no further in his
investigation into the death of Max Caen. He pored over his files on
Haitian voodoo, hoping that something would give him an idea.

     At 12:30 his phone rang. As soon as he lifted the receiver, he heard a
woman's voice. "I think I've got something for you. Meet me in half an
hour, at the usual place." Then she hung up.

     Camerer, it had to be. He checked his watch. Half an hour to get to
the Vietnam Memorial in lunch-hour traffic. He sighed. She'd better really
have something. He grabbed his suit coat and headed out the door.

     And ran right into Scully.

     "Scully. What's up?"

     She stood in the hall outside his office, biting her lip. "I was in
the neighborhood, I thought you might want to have lunch. I see you're on
your way somewhere."

     "I have to meet Lily Camerer."

     "So you did get a date."

     He grinned. "She says she has some information for me. I sure hope so,
I'm running up against a brick wall here. Why don't you come with me?"

     She smiled and shook her head. "I don't think so."

     They stood and looked at each other for a few moments. Scully sighed.
"We don't seem to be having much luck at getting together lately."

     "No." Mulder shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, it's just
that this case..."

     "Mulder, you don't have to explain it to me. I understand. I just..."
She offered a tentative smile.

     "I know," he replied softly. "We'll get together soon, I promise."

     She nodded, and turned to go back up the stairs. Mulder swore to
himself. This was what happened every time he tried to have a non-working
relationship with a woman. Eventually they got tired of taking a poor
second to his work and drifted away. He'd promised himself it wouldn't
happen with Scully. But now that they each had their own caseload, it was
getting harder and harder to find time to spend with her. Damn it, he
wanted her back as his partner! If only he could get the X-Files
reopened...


     Midday, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was quite crowded. And he felt
he'd seen enough of it over the past few days. He suggested lunch; Camerer
agreed. She tuned his car radio to a country music station while he drove
them to a favorite Italian restaurant.

     There was a slight skirmish over possession of the chair facing the
door. Mulder attempted to lure her into the opposite chair by holding it
for her; she grinned and slipped past him, leaving him to sit with his back
to the door. Obviously, politeness was not the tactic to use with Company
men. They exchanged small talk while they ordered. Mulder watched curiously
as Camerer shook salt into the palm of her hand and licked it. "That can't
be good for you."

     She shrugged and smiled. "I like salt."

     "Shouldn't there be a shot of tequila along with that?"

     "Would that make it better for me?"

     "No, but it would make it less weird."

     "Well, that's the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?" She
poured more salt into her hand.

     "Okay, eating salt out of the shaker is not weird."

     "Oh, it's weird, all right." She grinned at him. "Nothing wrong with
being weird."

     Mulder settled back in his chair and returned her smile. Well, one
good thing about the Company -- the spooks were as spooky as he was.


     Neither of them mentioned Max Caen until after they'd finished eating.
Then, without preamble, Camerer launched into her story. "I got hold of
Caen's records. Before he went to Haiti, he was working in El Salvador. He
was there last year when Mickey and I were in Mexico. He was about 300
miles southwest of us. More or less the direction that UFO was heading."

     Mulder nodded. Interesting, maybe, but hardly worth missing lunch with
Scully. Camerer continued, "I managed to find the man who was Caen's
controller while he was in El Salvador. Caen was on a twenty-four hour
call-in schedule. The night the UFO went over, Caen missed his call-in. And
for three more nights after that. Caen's control said he was just about to
black-border Caen, when he suddenly called in again. At first, Caen denied
that he'd missed his call-in for four days. Then he said he'd had trouble
with his radio. Control said he never did get a satisfactory explanation
for what Caen had been doing during the time he was out of contact."

     Suddenly, Mulder's mind was racing. Could it be possible? Not voodoo
at all, but a UFO abduction? "Do you think Caen was abducted?"

     She shrugged. "That's your department. As Mickey says, you're the
heebee-jeebee expert. But," she leaned forward, "I don't believe in
coincidences."

     "Did Mickey say anything about any UFO sightings in Haiti?"

     "No. But then he wouldn't, would he?"

     "If there was a UFO, someone would have seen it."

     "Maybe. But the way things are in Haiti right now, you could land a
UFO right in the middle of downtown Port-au-Prince and nobody'd look
twice."

     "I need to talk to Mickey again. Can you get him to meet me tonight?
Alone this time. No offense, but I think it might be easier to get him to
talk to me if we're alone."

     "I think he'll be safe with you," she said, grinning wickedly. "The
usual place?"

     "What is it with you two and that place? Can't you meet anywhere
else?"

     "Where would you like? The Holocaust Museum?"

     "How about the west end of the Reflecting Pool? Eight o'clock? He can
go visit the Vietnam Memorial afterwards, if he wants."

     She laughed. "Fine by me. If Mickey has any objections, I'm sure he'll
let you know."
     "I'm sure he will."


     Mulder telephoned Scully from a phone booth outside the restaurant.
"Does Max Caen's body have any unusual surgical scars or dental work? Any
strange markings, anything at all unusual?"

     "Mulder, are you asking what I think you're asking?"

     "I think Caen might have been abducted."

     A pause. "Is that what your lunch meeting was about?"

     "I'm told that Caen was in El Salvador in March of last year. He was
out of touch with his controllers for four days coinciding with a UFO
sighting in that area."

     "And you think this is connected to his death?"

     "I don't know. Maybe. Scully, I'm grasping at straws. I don't have
anything else to go on. Just tell me about Caen's body."

     "He'd had one kidney removed. He was missing three molars. He had an
assortment of scars, most of them looked more like wounds than surgeries.
There were three small pieces of shrapnel in his forehead, abdomen, and
right leg..."

     "Shrapnel? What kind of shrapnel? Why didn't you tell me this before?"

     "It was all in the autopsy report, Mulder," Scully explained
patiently. "If you'd been listening at the time, you'd know this already."

     Mulder remembered his self-indulgent mood on the day of the autopsy,
and felt his face grow hot. "Well, I'm listening now. Tell me about the
shrapnel."

     "It was just some small pieces of metal. Nothing unusual. He was in
Grenada, remember. A lot of veterans have shrapnel in their bodies."

     "Did you have them analyzed?"

     "It didn't seem necessary at the time. I'll send them to forensics
now."

     "Good. Thanks, Scully. I'll tell you all about it later."

     "How about tonight?"

     Damn, he was going to have to turn her down again. "Sorry, I can't
tonight. I'm meeting our friend from last night. As soon as I can, I
promise..."

     "That's all right, Mulder." She sounded mildly amused. "I'll talk to
you later."


     One good thing about clandestine meetings with Company agents, Mulder
thought, is that you don't have to sit around and wait for them. Gutierrez
was already at the Reflecting Pool, circling one of the benches as though
he were coming in for a landing.

     "Mulder. You don't believe all this UFO crap, do you?"

     "Hi, Mickey. Nice to see you too."

     "Yeah, yeah. You're looking beautiful tonight. What's all this junk
that Cam has been feeding you about Caen?"

     "Mickey...Mickey, will you light somewhere? You're making me dizzy."

     Gutierrez scowled, then plopped down on the end of the bench, arms
crossed. "This whole thing is getting entirely out of hand, Mulder. I mean,
voodoo was bad enough. Now it's UFOs. What next? You going to start saying
Elvis did it?"

     "You're the one who said it was voodoo." Mulder sat down beside
Gutierrez. "But you've never really told me why you thought so."

     "I can't talk about it. Hell, I don't know why I ever came to you in
the first place. There's nothing you can do. Caen's dead. And, whoever they
are, if they want me dead, too, I'll be dead."

     "Mickey, you asked me to help you. I still want to, if I can. But I
can't do anything if you don't tell me what happened."

     Gutierrez looked away, then stared out across the twilit pool. "I
don't know what I can tell you." He looked Mulder in the eye. "You have
your own agenda. What are you going to do with this?"

     "I'm going to try to help you. You came to me in the middle of the
night and asked me to save your life. Why did you do that if you didn't
trust me?"

     Gutierrez glared at Mulder. "I don't trust anybody."

     "Then how am I supposed to help you?"

     "Look, you do what you want. Help me or not, I don't care." Gutierrez
got up, and started to walk away.
     Mulder had realized that trust was likely to be a sensitive subject to
a Company field operative, but he hadn't quite expected Gutierrez to bolt.
He went after him, and took him by the arm. "Michael...."

     Gutierrez pulled his arm free, bit back a retort, then muttered, "It's
Miguel."

     "What?"

     "Miguel. Not Michael."

     Mulder shook his head. "I've seen your file. Michael Joseph
Gutierrez."

     "That's just what I tell the suits." A pause, as he gave Mulder an
appraising look. "But if you're trying to be my mother, it's Miguel Jose de
la Cruz Domingo Gutierrez."

     Mulder smiled. "Why did you anglicize it?" He understood that
Gutierrez was trying to change the subject. He also understood that, in
offering Mulder his real name, Gutierrez was telling Mulder that he trusted
him, in his own oblique way.

     "You think I want to hear that any station chiefs reeling off that
mouthful?"

     "So, you infuriate your station chiefs, too."

     Gutierrez shrugged. Mulder gestured toward the bench and resumed his
seat; after a few moments, Gutierrez sat, too.

     "All right, Miguel Jose de la Cruz..."

     "Yeah, Fox," Gutierrez interrupted.

     Mulder grinned. "All right, Mickey, truce." He paused a moment before
continuing. "I realize that 'trust' is not a word in the spook-speak
dictionary, so let me put it another way. If you want my help, there's a
price. That price is the truth."

     Gutierrez sat and stared out over the water for long minutes. Finally,
he spoke, in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "Caen came to me in
Port-au-Prince and told me we were going to a meeting with some FRAPH
people on a yacht offshore. It was a forty-foot Chriscraft, really nice.
There were six of us altogether, four Haitians and Caen and me. We left in
the middle of the afternoon, cruised until night. Caen said we were going
to spend the night on the boat, and we'd go back to Port-au-Prince in the
morning."

     He paused, ran his hands over his short-cropped hair. He hadn't looked
at Mulder since he'd started telling his story. "Caen and I shared a cabin
below. I don't know what time it was when I woke up. Caen wasn't there. I
heard a sound, I thought it was a helicopter."

     "Halfway between an Apache and a Blackhawk?" Mulder asked softly.

     Gutierrez laughed a short, humorless laugh. "Maybe. I thought I should
go up on deck, see what was going on, but somehow...I couldn't. Then..." He
clenched and unclenched his fists as he spoke. "I could see a bright light
through the porthole. There was a low, vibrating sound, and an intense
pressure. It got stronger, and I couldn't move at all, and it was hard to
breathe, and my ears hurt.... I didn't know what the hell was going to
happen. I thought I was going to die. Then, nothing."

     "What do you mean, nothing?"

     "I don't know, I must have passed out or something. I don't remember
anything else until morning. We were back in Port-au-Prince. Two of the
FRAPH men came to get me and took me off the boat. They were acting
nervous, scared. Caen still wasn't there. When I asked them about him, they
said he'd already gotten off. I never saw him after that."

     "Anything else?"

     Gutierrez touched his left ear. "My ear was bleeding. It bled for
three days. It's okay now. But...I couldn't stay in Haiti after that. As
soon as I could, I got out."

     "And you thought it was voodoo?"

     He shrugged. "I don't know. What the hell was I supposed to think? I
hear a weird noise, I don't automatically assume it's aliens."

     "Caen was probably abducted last year in El Salvador. Sometimes they
come back and take the same people again. He had several small pieces of
metal in his body. It's thought that these are used as tracking devices."

     Gutierrez ventured a tentative glance at Mulder. "Am I in danger?"

     "No. It was Caen they were after. They didn't take you then, they
won't come back for you later." Mulder wasn't absolutely sure of that, but
he didn't see any reason to frighten Gutierrez further. He gripped
Gutierrez' shoulder briefly. "So quit worrying."

     Gutierrez managed to smile. "Did they kill him?"

     "I don't know. Maybe not intentionally. They do experiments on some of
the abductees. Some of them don't survive."

     "So they dumped him in Miami harbor."

     "They couldn't take him back where they found him. The boat was gone.
Maybe they thought...they were taking him home."

     Gutierrez shook his head. "I can't believe I'm sitting here talking to
you about this like it was real or something. I'm as crazy as you are."

     "You were willing to believe it was voodoo."

     "Yeah, but, at least that's human. It makes a certain limited sort of
sense.  -- I don't really believe in that either."

     Mulder sighed. The man was worse that Scully. She demanded hard
evidence for everything; Mickey looked evidence in the face and still
refused to believe it. Mulder asked the question he'd asked Scully so many
times. "Why is it so hard for you to believe?"

     "Mulder, I've got a hard enough time dealing with all the shit I do
believe in. I don't need any damned outer space aliens to complicate
things."

     "Your partner doesn't seem to have any trouble believing in extreme
possibilities."

     "Yeah, well, Cam has her way of dealing with things, and I have mine."
Suddenly, he offered a friendly, even shy, smile that made his plain face
almost attractive. "You know, you remind me of her."

     "I don't eat salt out of the shaker."

     Gutierrez chuckled. "If salt-eating is only the strangest thing you've
found out about her so far, you haven't even scratched the surface."

     "She's been worried about you."

     "Yeah, well...she can stop worrying now, I guess. So what are you
going to do? You can't use anything I've told you."

     "There'll be other evidence. At least now I know what to look for."

     Gutierrez stood. "Well. Thanks, Mulder. Guess I'll get out of your
hair now."

     "Okay, Mickey. Take care of yourself."

     "Yeah, you too. Watch out for those little green men."


     Mulder went straight to Asst. Director Skinner's office first thing in
the morning. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he was eager to get
moving on the case.

     "I need to go to Haiti," he announced, as soon as he'd burst in to
stand towering over Skinner at his desk.

     "Agent Mulder, sit down," Skinner said calmly.

     Mulder levered himself into the chair impatiently, then repeated, "I
need to go to Haiti. I've confirmed that Caen was there just before he
died, but I can't get any other information on him. The Agency is
stonewalling me. I have to go to the scene if I'm going to get anywhere on
this case."

     "Agent Mulder, this case is closed."

     "I know I haven't got any solid information yet, but I've got several
leads I'd like to follow up on in Haiti..."

     "Agent Mulder, you don't understand. This case is closed. Word just
came down. The investigation is over."

     Mulder blinked. "Closed? How can they close the case? Who closed it?"

     "I'm told it's a matter of national security." Skinner's expression
remained calm, but there was a slight undercurrent of sarcasm in the man's
voice. "Write up what you've got, then take the rest of the day off. You'll
get your new assignment in the morning."

     Mulder struggled for words; found none. He stood, sat down again,
started to speak; then closed his mouth firmly and nodded. Without another
word, he left.


     Mulder returned to his office and began to write up his notes on the
case. There wasn't really much to report, especially after leaving out the
conversations with Gutierrez and Camerer. Abruptly, he threw the papers
across the room. They'd shut him down again! First the X-Files, and now
they wouldn't even let him finish an ordinary homicide investigation! He
slammed out of his office and was halfway up the stairs when he stopped,
took a deep breath, and forced himself to go back. Carefully, he began to
pick up his scattered notes. No more tantrums in Skinner's office. That
wouldn't help the situation. He hadn't wanted the damned case in the first
place. CIA agents and Mickey Gutierrez' double talk and a Tennessee
sweet-talker's tall tales about UFOs.... He should be glad to be out of it.

     He finished writing up his report and dropped it off at Skinner's
office, then took the offered afternoon off and headed straight for the
gym. Maybe a couple of hours of pounding the sweet, cold metal would calm
him down.


     He heaved the barbell, ten pounds heavier than he usually used, into
the air with a furious groan, then let it crash a little more forcefully
than he should to the floor.

     "Hey, what'd that barbell ever do to you?" a syrupy southern voice
taunted.

     He whirled to find Lily Camerer, dressed in workout clothes and shiny
with sweat, grinning at him.

     "It's not a barbell. It's the CIA."

     "Ouch! Do I need a bodyguard?"

     "Depends. Did you have anything to do with getting my case pulled out
from under me?"

     She frowned sympathetically. "I heard about that. That's why I came to
see you. You got a rough deal, I can't really do anything about it, but I
thought I'd tell you what I know. But first -- " she grinned again -- "can
you give me a spot over here?"

     He was happy enough to put thinking about the case aside and watch the
bar while she performed a set of bench presses. "Not bad for a girl," he
teased, when she was finished.

     "Yeah, right. And what do you bench?"

     "Oh, about five hundred," he replied airily.

     She laughed. "Is that pounds or kilos?"

     "Yes."
     "Come on, then, let me see it." She started to pull a 50-kilo plate
off the rack.

     "Uh, I already did my bench presses today. How about some rows?"


     They finished their workout together, talking only about weights and
reps and exercises. Then, when they'd showered and dressed, they met again
in front of the gym and walked up the street to a coffeeshop. Without the
weights to hold his attention, Mulder found his fury at having the case so
cavalierly dumped in his lap and then snatched away again returning full
force.

     "I don't understand any of this," he complained, as he stirred his
coffee. "I didn't have anything. Why did they close the case?"

     "You had everything you were going to get. And it was more than you
were supposed to. That's my fault, I guess. You'd never have known about
the UFO if I hadn't put you onto it." Cam didn't, as Mulder had suspected
she might, put salt in her coffee. Just large amounts of cream.

     "But I couldn't prove anything! It was all just rumors and
coincidence."

     "You weren't supposed to be able to prove anything. They just wanted
an investigation on record so they could close the books and forget about
it."

     "But look, if they knew it was UFOs all along, and they didn't want
anyone to find out about it, why put me of all people on the case in the
first place?"

     "They thought you'd go for the voodoo angle. But if anyone did make
the UFO connection, they wanted it to be you."

     "But why...?" He stopped, light dawning, incredulity giving way to
doubled fury. "They knew no one would believe me. There's no evidence."

     "Of course," she replied matter-of-factly. "If anyone else had said,
'Wait a minute, this could be a UFO abduction,' people might have thought
there was something to it. But if 'Spooky' Mulder says it's UFOs..."

     "They just chalk it up to my crazy obsession," Mulder finished
bitterly. "I'm finished. I'll never get the X-Files back now."

     "Take it easy. It's not that bad."

     "No? You don't know how badly some of my own people want me to fail."

     "Mulder, you didn't fail. You're an FBI agent who got screwed over by
the CIA. And the agencies always close ranks around one of their own.
There's no love lost between Company and Bureau. I don't think you're going
to come off too badly from this."

     He sighed. "I hope you're right. How do you know all this, anyway?"

     She shrugged, swirling the coffee in her cup. "I hear things. I poke
around. I put two and two together and get eight. I like to know what's
going on with the people in charge."

     "You investigate your own superiors?"

     "Mulder, ever since 'plausible deniability' became the Company's
watchword, those of us in the field all know that any time things get iffy,
we get hung out to dry. It behooves us to know as much as we can about
what's going on upstairs."

     Mulder shook his head. "How can you stand it, Cam? How can you live in
a world where you can't trust anyone?"

     She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "I trust Mickey."

     "Just one person. Is that enough?"

     She sat back and folded her arms. "Mulder, most people go through
their whole lives thinking they can trust people, but they don't really
know. It's never put to the test. I know I can trust Mickey. I'm here
today, alive and more or less sane, because of Mickey." She leaned forward
on her elbow. "You can say what you want about him, there've been days when
he's the only reason I'd get up in the morning. You have somebody like that
in your life, you don't need anything else."

     Mulder nodded slowly.


     It was still early when Mulder arrived home. He threw his suit coat
and tie down on a chair and went into the kitchen for a beer. Well, things
could have turned out worse. As it was, the past few days had only been a
complete waste of time. He felt like pulling a blanket over himself on the
couch and staying there for a week.

     But first, he had something important to do. Cam's parting words
continued to play themselves over in his head.... When you've got somebody
like that in your life, you don't need anything else...

     He punched out the number on his speed dial, waited impatiently for
the answer.

     "Scully. Want to have dinner with me tonight?"


End.