Divinities
(PhaHks Series)
by GenieVB




A new case appeared bright and early Monday morning,
while the Task Force still had not tied up the loose ends
to the previous one. 

"How many children died at the school?" Mulder inquired.
He was speaking into his desk phone, person to person interviews
considered too taxing after just being released from the hospital. 
Scully wouldn't hear of him running around the halls of the Bureau, 
Skinner wouldn't hear of it and he personally didn't feel up to it 
anyway. 

Mulder nodded into the receiver. No others? What about the teacher's 
name?" He scribbled., thanked the caller and hung up. 

Scully looked at him from across the two desks shoved together 
edge to edge. "They send in a whole assault team to kill one teacher?" 

"Yes. the child was autistic but incredibly gifted in music and art.
He was dead at the scene. He - Jeremy - had one tutor who spent
the entire classroom time with him only. Rich parents - who are 
dead by the way - and in the usual way." 

Scully read on the latest incident fro the file in front of her,
"Well, this new one occurred last night in Mexico, a town called
Elduorno, the Dallas field office is taking care of it. We'll get a full
investigative and autopsy report just as soon as they can. But, they
aren't certain this case is related." She handed him a copy of the 
police report. "All the usual circumstances, those closest to the child
were found shot in the same manner except in this case , it was a 
street child who was found dead at the scene. No obvious signs
of struggle or trauma; nothing to indicate how he died." 

"A street child, but one who might have been gifted if we are to
believe your source. Has he contacted you lately, about the school
shooting?" 

Scully shook her head. "No. I doubt he will. He indicated that it
might be dangerous for us. Personally, I just think he was scared.
He has a daughter and this "Group" he used to belong to know
about her. I'd be scared too." 

Mulder called up some information on his computer and swivelled
the screen so she could read it also. "Well, no one seems to know
anything about this group. If they exist or the FBI or CIA know about 
them, they're keeping it under their hats." 

"And we are no further ahead to understanding why these kids are
dying or why their closest friends or family are being murdered
other than the presence of the Black Oil. Without knowing where
the next hit could be.." 

"We still have almost three weeks. We'll keep the teams at the
schools, except now we have to put a man on each students home 
as well." 

"That's a lot of manpower." 

"Skinner's already committed three hundred agents to it. Because 
we were right about the school, if the FBI doesn't act to save the 
children of the voters, Ms. President's popularity will go right down 
the John. Re-elections next year." 

Scully nodded. "Mulder, what do you think about these gifted kids?" 

"Do you mean why do I think they're being killed?" 

"Or their parents." 

He shook his head. "I think the kids may be hybrids. I think the Black 
Oil was introduced into the parents, guardians, friends - those who 
took care of the child, who watched over them - to control the child's 
environment maybe. The Black Oil tells us just about all we need to 
know." 

"Except why the one child itself dies during the murders, the one who
is present but not shot or even touched." 

"Yeah, but I think we'll find that out eventually. These are aliens, Scully,
they might have ways of killing their own that we haven't discovered 
and I think if these kids are hybrids, they were bred so perfectly that 
nothing shows on the DNA, no mutation. If there are mutations, those 
could be simply in the way their brains work. It was a theorized years 
ago that those truly gifted were not of earth but were aliens among us. 
Plato, Shakespeare, Mozart, Einstein..." 

"That's just one of many self indulgent fantasies many people use to 
make themselves feel better; those who are not above average or gifted 
in any way. It's a way to say to oneself: "See no one is really gifted, so 
no one is better than me." Sometimes it's a comfort to imagine that
all people are the same as us and mediocre in our talents but that's not 
the way it is." 

Mulder nodded but she knew her words were all but dismissed. "What 
do you think these kids are?" 

"I don't know. I don't think they're aliens but if they are alien/human 
hybrids, why are they being killed or being allowed to die? Why go to
all this trouble only to see them dead?" 

"Maybe the kids are a global experiment and the experiment is done.
Maybe in some cases the parents knew they were in danger of being 
found out to be alien infected and killed the children themselves?"


At her skeptical face, "It is _one_ possibility, Scully." 

"As a former mother, I find it nearly impossible to believe that a mother
who has cared for and nurtured her child would allow it to be 
experimented on and then disposed of." 

"Not all children were with their natural parents." 

"So? Adopted children are often even more cherished than natural ones.
What about the children's guardians, then? And this killing force that 
seems to think murdering whole families is the way to God?" 

"Well, I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm pretty damn sure
we'll find out. I can tell you one thing I had time to think about when I
was in the hospital. When that attacker was standing over me, the one
I think was Krycek-" 

"You said, you weren't sure." 

"I'm not, but it reminded me of something I'd seen before and that 
cemented something in my mind that's been bothering me." 

"What?" 

"At Weikamp Air Force Base, when I was in that truck, you remember 
what I described to you?" 

"Yes, you said when you climbed in the back you saw a faceless man, 
and you saw that big guy, the "Bounty Hunter" you called him, and you
saw a bright, white light. Then something floating in through the back
of the truck, a figure that may have been a man..." 

"Yes. It brought to mind the subway station and your former partner, 
Beyer. When you were being attacked, something was standing in front 
of me, you didn't see it at first, you said, but later you remember seeing 
movement, distortions. And you reported that the man who took you had 
incredible strength - super human strength is how you put it. I think what 
I saw in the truck and in the subway were, if not the same creature, then 
the same type of creature." 

She nodded but not convinced. "Don't get me wrong, Mulder, I'm trying to 
keep an open mind on all of this but what is our theory so far? That a 
new religiously motivated murderous world-wide terrorist faction, acting 
in conspiracy under God, is killing what they believe to be evil people, 
mothers, father, siblings, friends, guardians, (people who are in fact 
infected agents of the devil) but who are, according to you, not devils 
but the real families and friends infected by the Black Oil which was
introduced to them by Cancer-Man and his group in order to guard what 
_they_ believe to be human-alien hybrids who are the first seeds in a plot 
to repopulate the earth with alien babies? 

"So the aliens themselves are working with Cancer-Man but against this 
new group. However, this new group, they don't think these kids are 
aliens, they think the kids, the ones who are found dead without 
apparent cause are "Holy" children. Have I got it?" 

"Actually, you make it sound more reasonable than I thought it would, 
but yeah. Or in a nutshell, two factions fighting over who they think are 
their future saviors or destroyers, depending who you talk to." 

Scully shook her head as if to straighten out her tangled thoughts. "If 
any of this is what we think it is, then we've bitten off a huge chunk 
here, Mulder, and I don't know if I'm up to the chew." 

Suddenly he smiled impishly at her. "You know how sexy you look 
when you're drawing a metaphor?" 

She ignored his change the topic tactic, "Mulder. How are we or 
anyone supposed to protect these kids when we don't even know 
how to find them while they're still alive?" 

"We do know. We were right about the school." 

"That may have been blind luck. And we went down in a second, I 
didn't have time to even think about drawing and firing my gun. 
Whoever these people are, they have the use of some power or 
weapon that can render an enemy immobile in a fraction of a 
second. Until we can find some way to beat them to the punch, I 
don't think this is one we're going to come out on, not until a whole 
lot more people die." 


"There's Sam's child." 

"That's just a theory Mulder based on nothing but unscientific theory 
and supposition." 

"Thanks. But if I'm right and we locate him or her, we have our living 
child and the opportunity to discover what we didn't have time to discover 
about Gibson or Emily. I'm only building on your source's information 
Scully." 

"I'm not sure I believe all that man has told me. You should have seen 
him, he looked crazy." 

"So did Einstein. Look, it's a place to start. Right now we're wandering 
around in a dark room looking for the light switch. Give it a chance at 
least. If we're wrong, we're wrong, but at least it's a place to start." 

Scully stood. Paced. "All right. But no running down aliens suspects for 
you,...I'm not going to carry a medical kit everywhere." Scully teased 
but of course, she _would_ carry one. From now on. Without fail. His life 
might depend on it. 

"I don't know what to believe about this case. I don't know where we 
can start." Scully ran fingers through her hair. "Children dead without
any medical reason. Sleeping peacefully in their beds while their 
family's are murdered meters away...it's almost as if-" A thought 
occurred to her. It was a surprising thought since so few of them
ever pointed that way anymore. 

"As if what, Scully." 

"As if they were....choosing to go." 

"Choosing??" Mulder frowned, trying to sort out what she meant. 

Scully muttered something under her breath, trying out something in her 
head. Mulder only caught part of it. 

""And shall we be changed in the blink of an eye..." She said and looked 
back at him, not sure whether to even voice her idea, especially not to 
Mulder. "I'm saying, maybe they aren't aliens." Scully ventured. Why did 
he always have to look back with that "I understand more than you about 
most things." face? It had raised her ire from day one. 

"What?" 

She had joked about the religious aspect of the dead children and 
now she would have to repair the damage. She went on and to hell 
with his reaction. "Maybe these children aren't hybrids." 

"Then what?" Mulder sounded puzzled but curious. 

"We know this Cult Force is killing the parents because of being 
infected by the Black Oil, so the theory is that this Cult believes the 
parents are somehow under alien influence - that they are in their 
eyes devils - but why then are they not killing the children, these 
sole children who die on their own without being touched, that have
been under the influence of these alien hybrids." 

"They may not be hybrids, just infected humans being controlled by this
alien life force, the Black Oil, that's what it is." Mulder said. 

"That's your theory." 

"So, what do you now think? That it's not alien related? That it's 
just...what?" 

"I don't know. All I know is, those dead kids were not touched in any 
physical way. I've performed almost one autopsy per day since this 
started and I could find nothing amiss in any of them. Perfectly normal 
children lacking life. In fact, they were more than perfect. They were 
perfect in every respect except for being dead. No poisons of any kind 
were found, even when the DNA was tested to the multi-billionth 
fraction." 

"I've seen aliens, Scully, and I've seen this Black Oil in action - I don't 
see what else this could be." 

"My question isn't about the Black Oil, right now it's about the children 
themselves. Maybe these children are not aliens but more than human." 

"I'm not following you, Scully." 

Knowing his personal views on the matter, she gulped and said it 
anyway, "Maybe these kids are angels, as crazy as you may think that 
sounds, it has some presedents-" 

"Presedent refers to established fact or judgement, Scully, something
decided upon based upon evidence in a court of law." 

"I was speaking of religious presedent. There are other laws besides
man's and other judge-seats as well." 

He sat back, twiddling a pencil. Scully recognized it as classic Mulder 
in doubt mode. "-Angels? That's your theory?" 

"It's _one_ theory. I think you should consider, Mulder, that there is as 
much evidence or as much lack of evidence to support good and evil 
engaging in some earth-bound battle as there is to support the theory 
that aliens are visiting earth in great ships of light, preparing a planet-
wide conquest and breeding program." 

"Even after all we've seen?" 

"What have we seen, Mulder? Visions of greys. Creatures that seem 
to have supernatural powers. Beings who are not from earth, beings 
who communicate by mental telepathy, powerful entities who are 
fighting other powerful entities. To me that sounds as much like heavenly 
hosts and Satan's subjects as it does aliens and alien rebels all gathering 
together to wage one final battle." 

"So despite my experience, abducted for eight years by aliens - those 
were not angels, Scully, who took me, tortured me, mind-raped me, kept 
me alive and returned me minus sanity - don't you think that after 
all that time spent among them, those god awful eight years, I'd have 
a little bit more insight on this than anyone else? And now you don't 
believe me? What do you think, then, that I made it all up? I cut myself 
too, is that what you think? That I scarred up my own chest? Or that 
angels did?" 

"No. I believe you were abducted, I believe you were tortured, there is 
too much physical evidence to believe otherwise but I also believe that 
what you think you saw and experienced to be true may not have been 
what you believe actually happened. And what you believe, Mulder, is 
based upon memories of evidence - not evidence but memories of it. 
Some of which had to be drudged up through hypnosis. But what if 
those memories are just you kept strapped and drugged? Abused and 
then dumped off after they were finished? What if what you remember 

is an eight year long nightmare played out inside the sensory deprivation 
of a coma?" 

She could see that it had not crossed his mind but as soon as the possibilities 
of her idea flashed across his face they just as quickly dismissed. "No." 

"Mulder..." 

"How long have you thought about this? Right from the beginning? Have 
I just been a joke, indulged for the last two years?" He moved around and 
stepped away from her, then spun back. "How can you stand there, after 
everything and question the things we've seen?! After Antarctic and the 
implants and Gibson, Cassandra Spender, Scully? _And_ your experience 
on the bridge - your memories! After my abduction, after they took eight 
years of my life away and you and everything that was important to me?! 
How can you possibly doubt _now_?!" 

He was getting a bit riled and Scully felt and heard the warning signals
in her head and heart that told her he needed to calm down immediately. 

Shit. 

"Hey." She stepped close to repair the damage before it got out of hand.
"Mulder. Calm down." 

He looked at her, puzzled. He hadn't had a good battle in a while, hadn't 
been allowed to so as much as an over vigorous belly laugh in the way 
of espressing emotions. She knew they all must be so bottled up inside, 
that he was just spoiling to let them rip. Letting them out would raise
blood resuure and body temperature. But keeping them inside must be
nearly as bad. 

"No." He protested. "I want to talk about this." 

But she advanced on him, that sick and sinking feeling in her gut telling 
her she had to diffuse him, right there, right then or the consequences
could be so much worse than a difference of opinion and bruised egos. 

"Calm down. " She said trying to make it sound not like an order or
a plea but just a simple request with a please thrown in. "Mulder,
calm down, please." Placed her arms around him and pulled him in.
Touched him for the first time in days and how good it felt and how 
horrible she felt. "Please. Please." 

He did. When he felt her touch, he calmed and hugged back, letting
his arms fall across her shoulders and around to her shoulder
blades, overlapping. "I'm sorry." Mulder said. 

"I'm sorry." Scully answered and then added: "I believe what you 
experienced Mulder, the things you remember, I believe you are 
telling the truth but I, as a scientist, have to concede that what you 
remember may not be the actual events but memories created under 
extreme distress and in a situation that I, as a scientist, did not 
observe. I have to allow for other possibilities." 

"Even religious ones?" he wanted to snap back but didn't. "I know." 
He nodded and she felt his chin bob up and down on her hair. "But 
there are none, not in my case. I was abducted by aliens." 

"I feel,...so...caught." She said, wanting to acknowledge his convictions 
and at the same time bolster her own. "I want to believe you, I want to
say I know what you remember to be the absolute truth but I can't and 
yet while I want to argue my case, state an opinion, I'm afraid. If I say 
something, whatever it is, and it upsets you and you end up in the hospital
because of me, then I'll be responsible for..." 

"Hey. Stop that. Right now. You are not responsible for anything that 
I consciously do. I am capable of controlling my temper, you know." 

"We have to be careful, Mulder." 

He hugged her close, pressed right against her. If he clutched tightly
enough, maybe it would be all right. Maybe she wouldn't worry so much, 
maybe he wouldn't be as afraid of what was down the road for him as he
felt. He pretended that everything but the case and Scully were unreal. 

The illness was unreal and to be reminded of it at every turn of his
head just caused him to push it farther back into his mind until it was 
nothing but a pinprick at his conscience - nothing to worry about;
just a small problem that would eventually work itself out and things
could go back to normal. 

Scully would call his state of mind classic denial. A text book reaction
to such devastating news. 

But he'd experienced so much devastation, it had become a way of life, 
what was happening to him now was no more surprising than anything
before it. It was expected almost. There was a kind of comfort in that. 

"The persistence of the inevitable" popped into his head. He could not
recall where he had heard it, but it was true of most things, well, all 
things. If something was bound to happen, if things were written to fold 
back on themselves over and over, they would. How often had history 
repeated itself despite all efforts toward change? 

Murphy's Law. 

*****

Some coffee for her and some green tea for him had settled both
their nerves and it was back to business. 

"What else from the last case - the school? What about the Black Oil? 
Was its presence confirmed?" Mulder asked. 

Scully handed him one folder, one still in her hand. "It's all in there. 
No other infections present." 

She fiddled with the edges of the second folder. "But, I also wanted to 
get this to you. I've already read it. It's the Mueller case - the one 
where you-" 

"-I remember." He took it and opened it carefully. "Sam's case and 
her kids. Did the Boston P.D. ever locate her husband or any trace of 
him?" 

Scully shook her head, watching Mulder's fingers move over the 
pages. Soft touches, little strokes. Samantha's case file, the stone
cold facts of his murdered sister and her dead children. 

"I included in there everything I could find out about Samantha,..uh,..
her marriage, work, life, the births of her children. There isn't much
in the way of personal information other than medical." She reached
over and flipped a few pages. "Here is the birth records. It seems
both pregnancies were difficult-" 

"Just like mom." He commented. 

Scully nodded,.."Um, one unusual thing in regards to the birth of
her son." She pointed to a place on the page. 

Mulder read: "Diamnionic-dichorionic fetal demise." He looked up
at her with an expression of : I'm supposed to understand this 
gobbledy-gook? 

A smile twitched at her lip, and she perched one cheek on the edge 
of his desk. "It mean Samantha delivered two placentas, the second
having no fetus. Usually it means there was a twin, but the embryo 
was reabsorbed very early on during the pregnancy." He was listening 
very intently. She knew the way his mind worked: file this, catagorize
that, remember verbatim each sentence and the inflection there-in, the
particular pinch of her lips, a raise of an eyebrow,...all neatly docketed 
and stored away to be retrieved at any time in the future and with almost 
no effort what-so-ever. Mulder must have pissed of teachers and students 
alike. 

"Reabsorbed? So what's delivered then?" He asked, himself still seemingly
absorbed by what she was saying. 

"A second, macerated placenta usually." 

"And with Sam?" 

"She delivered a normal, healthy six pound, three ounce boy and a second 
fully developed normal placenta but where the embryo had been reabsorbed." 

"The placenta was normal? In other words, it could have contained
a baby?" 

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Could have yes, but it didn't. Twin gestation 
is more common than generally known, one twin often being lost so early 
that it isn't even noticed. There are numerous conditions where twins are 
gestated but only one survives. In monoamnionic twins, a single anmionic 
sac is shared, sometimes even blood systems are shared, one fetus receiving 
the greater supply, the result being that one dies of lack of blood supply, or 
sometimes the other from congestive heart failure. Sometimes both die. In 
Sam's case, one survived." 

"So Sam had twins but only one was born? But you said she had two fully 
developed placentas only one of which contained a baby." 

"Yes. I don't think that is as uncommon as generally known either. Women
are undergoing fertility treatments in greater numbers than ever with multiple
gestating embryo's, it's not surprising that some don't survive full term." 

Mulder sat back. He looked up at her. "Have you ever heard of the Vanishing
Twin Phenomenon?" 

"If you are referring to fetal demise, yes. As I said, the "Vanishing Twin" is a 
feature of early pregnancy. When a diagnosis of twins is made prior to ten 
weeks, the rate of disappearance can be between 65 and 75%. When diagnosis 
is made between ten and fifteen weeks, the disappearance rate is 55 to 60%. 
When twins are first diagnosed after fifteen weeks, none had "disappeared".
It's a phenomenon not accepted by all in the medical profession but in my
opinion it's the best explanation for the presence of two umbilical cords or 
a second macerated placenta-" 

"Some people think there's another explanation." 

Scully raised her eyebrows. "What?" 

"It''s been theorized that some children are abducted while still in the womb.
And before you get that "look" in your eye, grant me the same curteousy and
hear me out." 

She nodded once but the eyebrow stayed up. 

"One explanation for the Vanishing Twin is the concept you mentioned 
"resorption" or "reabsorption", which means the "vanished" fetus was 
absorbed either by the surviving twin or its mother. The problem with that 
theory is research has shown that is simply not feasible after about twelve 
weeks gestation -- the fetus has by that time grown too large to be "absorbed" 
by anything. I have read of instances where twins "vanished" at various 
times late in the gestation process, including one in which two heartbeats 
were detectable less than two hours before birth, yet only one child being 
born!" 

"So you think Samantha's second baby may have been abducted from 
her womb by aliens, and that's why she delivered a second empty placenta?" 

"I'm not saying that is what happened, Scully, but how else do you explain 
the fact that the placenta was normal in every way, including size only there 
being no baby inside?" 

"The simplest explanation, Mulder, is usually the true one. The fetus may
have been reabsorbed but the placenta was still functional, still getting 
blood flow until it separated from the uterus wall and was delivered normally, 
along with the other placenta that contained the healthy body of her son. 
There is no indication of any complications what-so-ever during Samantha's 
pregnancy." 

"Considering there was a second placenta, don't you think that's a little odd?" 

"No. I don't." 

"Did she ever have an ultra-sound?" 

"Not that it shows here but many women decide not to have them. Also not 
all obstetricians think them necessary unless a problem is suspected which 
in this case there wasn't." 

"Was she given Demerol or any drug during delivery?' 

Scully took up the file and flipped a page or two. "Yes. Demerol for pain. A 
general injection." 

"So she might have been out of it during delivery." 

"It can make a person sleepy and disoriented, yes." 

"I can't help but wonder that if there was a second child, a twin, if the 
baby was taken from her during delivery and she was never told about 
it." 

"Firstly, we have no reason to suspect this happened, and secondly,
you mean Cancer Man or this new Group?" Scully sighed. It couldn't
be ruled out and she hated to admit it. "It's possible." 

"Maybe Sam's second baby was one of these kids, these "gifted" children
your informant spoke about. If the Syndicate took the baby and we could 
locate him or her..." 

"Those are big maybe's and if's, Mulder. Where on earth do we start?" 

"Hospital records, adoption agency records..." 

"Well, I have a feeling we'll be relying on Langly and the others to do 
that kind of sleuthing." Her tone softened, "As sorry as I am about what's 
happened to Samantha and her family, this has no real connection to our 
current case so I doubt we could get Skinner's approval." 

"I can live with that." 

Scully sighed. It was growing more and more difficult to refuse him anything
as every hour and day that went was just one day less he would be alive. 
In the mornings when the sun shone through the curtains of her bedroom, it 
did not welcome her to life as it used to. Now it was just some horrible clock 
that relentlessly reminded her that he would die a little bit more that day, and 
the next too. Case or no case, he needed closure. Answers. _An_ answer. One. 

"Okay." She said. 

*** 



TITLE: "DIVINITIES" (Sequel to "PhaHks/FOCUS/
FOLDBACK") 

AUTHOR: "GVB".(Author's notes appear at end.)




************************ 

DIVINITIES, Chapter II Continued... 

** 

Her phone trilled and she pulled it out of her coat pocket. "Scully." 

Mulder watched her eyes narrow as she listened and then looked 
straight at him, a silent request for his attention. "Wait...." Scully 
said into the phone. "I can hardly hear you." 

Mulder stood and put his ear to the phone also, Scully holding it up 
to accommodate them both. 

"..Don't ask me how I know, I still have some contacts, others who've 
been disillusioned like me, but if you want to know more, if you want 
one of these kids alive, then you should speak to Doctor Jerry Parrish. 
He's the same doctor 
who delivered my own daughter and in my experience that's enough 
to suspect him. He's retired now but you can find him at the following
address. Write this down because this may be absolutely our last contact. 
I may have to leave the country...." 

"Why?" Scully asked into the phone. Her informant, her white haired Crazy 
Man, sounded scared. 

"Never mind. I don't matter, don't you understand yet? It's the kids, only
the kids. The address is Apartment 601, 1313, Dallport Street, Virginia." 

Mulder scribbled it down on the back of his hand while Scully continued 
to talk. "Wait Are you okay? Maybe you should come in, we can provide-" 

"Don't flatter yourself, Agent Scully. The Bureau, the C.I.A., name your
favorite, have nothing on these people. This is world wide, do you 
understand? World wide. Maybe millions of members now, who knows 
and impossible to tell, they don't keep numbers, just names. Like mine. 
That's why I have to leave, someone's been following me and has been 
for some time." 

"But you'd be a harder target if you came here. If you testified, tell what 
you know-" 

"Testify? My dear, they're just biding their time right now. They could have 
killed me but they didn't because of, I think, you and your partner and the 
work you've done opposing those they view as evil." 

"That makes no sense." Mulder said. 

"Fox Mulder. You of all people should understand what they're capable of.
They may have had a hand in your abduction." 

"You're wrong." 

"Wrong or right, I know the effects,..what happens to people whom they've
touched." 

Scully knew Crazy Man was referring to Mulder's disease and anger
flooded through her. "That could have been caused by a number of things, we-" 

"We don't have time to debate it, Agent Scully. Your partner's life has been
stolen by these people, so I would think that what I have about them to say 
would be important to you." 

"What are you saying?" 

"They're looking for a living child as well. I don't know why. Maybe to re-
enforce in their minds by finding a child that what they're doing is the work 
of God. In any case, my grace is up. I'm just running because I'm hoping 
they'll get soft and let me, but I doubt it." 

"We could protect you." Scully tried again. 

"You still don't get it, do you? After the first time we spoke, with _that_ first 
meeting, Agent Scully, I was already a dead man." 

He hung up. 

** 

FIVE WEEKS POST ENMS DIAGNOSIS:



Four people lounged around her living room was about as crowded as her 
apartment had ever been. Also strewn hither and thither were documents, 
most of them pirated through hacks by her visitors, Langly, Byers and Frohike. 

Scully was seated on the couch between Byers and Langly while Frohike 
had settled into her reclining chair by the fire. 

Mulder was sleeping in his room. 

Scully had brought coffee out for all of them and between the paper monster, 
dirty coffee cups and empty fast food take out containers, she wondered if 
she'd ever get the place back in one piece again. 

"That's all we could get." Frohike commented finally from his restful position. 
As old and frail as he looked now, his general health was in far better condition 
than his F.B.I. friend who slept down the hall under the doping effects of several 
drugs. 

"I really appreciate all your work, guys." Scully managed to say. 

A terrible depression had hit that morning. Mulder had awoken and just the effort 
of getting to the breakfast table had not only exhausted him but raised his blood 
pressure. 

Two hours later, just as the Lone Gunmen were arriving with all their printed 
goodies, Scully had fed Mulder his meds' and ushered him off to bed again. 
Sleep was one of the easiest and most effective methods of lowering his 
pressure and taking the strain off his calcifying circulatory system. 

"How's Mulder?" Frohike asked. 

"Sleeping. His temp and pressure went up again last night." 

"What caused it?" Byers asked, always inquisitive as to the why's of everything. 

"Nothing." She answered. "Nothing. It just spiked. We should start expecting 
that, the more time that goes by, the more often it will occur. This time, we 
got it back down." 

This statement was followed by silence in the room. Byers, Frohike, Langly, 
all knew Mulder's condition. Scully had hld nothing back at all. All had the 
same information as she did and all were desperately searching for a cure,
treatment, anything that would prolong his life. So far, they'd been 
unsuccessful. 

Scully looked over at Frohike slumped in her easy chair. He was thinner,
and since she'd delivered the news about Mulder's diagnosis, older than 
he'd ever appeared. Of all three friends, he seemed to be taking it the 
hardest. "He's a good friend..." He said into the depressed atmosphere.
and even quieter, "...my best friend. This is wrong, what they've done to 
him. He doesn't deserve this. It isn't right." 

Scully bit her lip and had to hold her breath. His simple words, so quietly 
said, came as a fist to her gut. It took enormous control not to break down
right then and there. 

"Have you found out anything about it?" She asked them. "What about 
Cancer-Man? Any luck on locating him? What about Krycek? Mulder 
said he was sure he'd seen him at the school." 

"We've put out the word to everyone we know, nothing so far." Langly
said. 

"Cancer Man's known to change his location every few weeks. He has
no fixed address, there is no way to contact him. No one's really seen him 
for years. The only time he shows up is when he has something to say." 

"Like his visit to Skinner a while back." Byers reminded them. 

Scully nodded. Skinner had told her about that incident. Cancer man had
spoken in riddles, mentioning a "storm". Their case, the murders, Mulder's
illness...all of it bearing down on them like a storm, yes, in a sense - a 
human and tragic Fury - if ever there was one. 

She herself had gone to see him, but now the old cabin in the hills of 
Augusta had been abandoned. Smokey was gone, maybe dead by now if 
Skinner's description of him was accurate, Krycek was out murdering kids, 
the Syndicate wasn't making a peep...the only one who seemed to know
anything was her possible former FBI mystery man informant who hadn't 
contacted her since their last visit and probably would not. 

Scully cleared her throat. "I should tell you, that in another three or four
weeks, Mulder's condition will have worsened beyond help or hope. Once
the bleeding starts, probably in his stomach first because of the concentration
of blood vessels there and because of the trouble he's already experienced 
with it this last year, the decline will accelerate fairly quickly after that. Um,...
he will rapidly slip into coma once the toxicity reaches saturation in his liver
and once the bleeding out begins in earnest. And after that,...a few hours." 

Into the funeral like setting of their minds, "What about reducing his blood 
volume regularly-?" Byers began. 

"-He's already undergone two blood letting procedures.". Scully had concurred
with doctor Watts about the seemingly barbaric procedure, but it was a logical 
addition to the blood thinners in reducing his blood pressure which was critical if 
he was to maintain any activity at all. However smart their field plan in this
particular battle, it was not a winnable war. 

"They do provide some relief from the pressure spikes," Scully continued, "but 
they won't prevent the disease from advancing and they won't prevent the 
foreign tissue from releasing it's dead cells into his body, which has already 
started. He'll have to go in for liver and kidney toxicity tests and dialysis and
from then on we'll have to monitor him very closely." 

"So how long does he have, really, from right now?" Langly asked. 

Scully wanted to tell them months but in reality, she doubted it would be 
that long. "It's been five weeks and he's already showing some serious effects, 
the blood pressure spikes, fatigue, increasing stomach disorders, pain, in his 
extremities in particular...so six or perhaps eight weeks. Maybe longer if 
we keep him in the hospital." 

"I don't want to see Mulder lying on his back in some damn, unfeeling 
hospital room." Frohike stated. 

Neither did any of them. Scully looked fondly upon Frohike. They had a 
friendship based upon long, hard earned trust, despite his unending flirting
with her over the years, and she was so glad, so relieved, to have his 
company and the company of the other two. 

Mulder had good friends. 

She, like Frohike, also wanted to see Mulder up and fighting for that answer. 
Fighting for his life until the last second. That's what she told herself for bravery 
purposes. In the heart of her, what she really wanted was Mulder in her bed 
where she could touch him and hold him until the last breath left his body. 

But he wanted to go down fighting. He wanted his death to have some 
meaning. Therefor, she would help him find it if she could. 

"Okay. There's one other thing I want you guys to look for. Now this
is probably a wild goose chase, but I want you to find out everything
you can for me on Samantha Mueller: her children, their birth records,
hospital records, I don't care how you have to get them. Specifically I
want you to check for the possibility that she may have given birth
to twins, only one of which we know about. Here's the file we do have 
on her. It isn't much." 

Byers took it from her. "Does Mulder think this child may still be alive?" 

Scully nodded. "Yes. But I don't want you telling him about this, you're
search. He knows about it, but I'm pretty certain you aren't going to find 
anything anyway and I don't want him to have any...false hopes at this 
stage." 

Byers nodded, slipping the file in his briefcase. He was dressed neatly but
had taken off his jacket. 

Time seemed to have left Langly alone, other than his head sporting a 
buzz cut, he was still a T-Shirt freak and was wearing one that said: I'LL
GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT. "We'll take care of it. Shouldn't take more 
than two or three days." 

"Thanks guys. In the meantime, Mulder and I have a lead we're going to 
follow tomorrow, if he's up to it." Scully began gathering up coffee cups 
and cardboard food packages.




***



"Here it is." Mulder, in the passenger seat, said and read the sign on 
the building. "Dallport Mews. 1313, Dallport Street. Hope he's home." 

He was as stable as twelve hours sleep and all his little pills could 
make him. No way was Scully going to be getting in on this on her 
own. Not without him. Not when he was this close to exposing a lie 
or, at the very least, finding out a truth or two. 

They'd tried calling Parrish by phone without any luck. 

Scully lead the way, which rather annoyed Mulder, but he said 
nothing. She was in protective overdrive and he didn't want to ruffle 
her feathers any and end up being shipped back to the hospital because 
of a blood pressure altering argument. 

They took the elevator and Mulder felt himself subconsciously holding on 
for dear life when the thing began its vertical assent. The last time he'd 
been in one that had gone more than a floor or two, he'd ended up on 
his ass and then in X-Ray learning all kinds of lovely new things about 
his monster-invaded skull. 

But this was an older building and the lift was pleasantly slow. 

Apartment 601 was a door like any other and Scully knocked. Waited. 

She knocked again. "Doctor Parrish? We're F.B.I. Agents. Please don't be 
alarmed, we're just here to talk to you about a former patient. We under-
stood you might be expecting us." It was a half-truth. 

No sound of walking feet could be heard. Scully was about to try the 
doorknob but her hand paused in midair above it, not touching. 

"Mulder." 

He heard the warning of her tone and looked down. The wood around 
the doorknob was gouged and scratched, as if someone had tried to 
pry open the handle lock with a metal object. The scratches were fresh. 

Mulder stepped aside of the door and Scully drew her weapon. He put a
hand out to indicate she wait, then pointed to his foot to show he'd deal
with the door, and she could do the rush. Mulder positioned himself about 
three feet from the door, turned his head to her and silently mouthed "On 
three". Then he held up three fingers, dropping them one by one. 

Until the last finger dropped. Raising his leg, he gave a powerful kick 
and the door flew open, swinging wide and crashing against the inner 
wall and bouncing back but not before Scully had rushed in with gun 
trained, checking each and every corner of the interior with her sights. 
The short front hall and living room were both empty. 

As was the small kitchenette off the living room. Scully opened the bath-
room door and Mulder went to the one bedroom. 

"Nothing here." She called out. 

"Something here, Scully!" 

Scully found Mulder kneeling beside she could only assume was Doctor 
Parrish. His chest was bloody. She handed her gun to Mulder and knelt 
down, checking for a pulse at his throat. "He's still alive but only just." 

Mulder called for an ambulance on his cell while Scully checked the doctor's
injuries. Three bullet holes in his chest with blood still escaping. Pulling the 
bedspread down, she used a gathered corner of it to try and stop the bleeding, 
applying pressure. 

Her ministrations caused Parrish's eyes to open. He looked up at her, then over
at Mulder, only his eyes moving. His stare stayed on Mulder. "My god." 

It was the barest whisper. "My god. They said you came back. I didn't believe 
them...but here you are." 

Scully and Mulder exchanged looks, questioning and mesmerized at the same 
time by his odd words. 

"We were told you had information about the children." Mulder asked straight-
forwardly. 

"Of course. I will tell you. You _must_ be told." Parrish whispered, his eyes
bright with the light of fanaticism. "I have knowledge of several. Holy, divine 
children. God's little angels on earth." 

"Who shot you?" Scully asked. 

"The evil ones. Those who try to stop us the devil and his servants - our holy 
work." 

"We need a name. Who do you work for?" She said. 

"We need to know where one of these children are." Mulder said. 

Parrish's eyes flicked back and forth between them. He decided to answer 
Mulder's question first. "You were sent to expose the evil. Find the good
and holy child. Samantha Mueller. One of my last patients." 

"Her child you mean? The other twin! What happened to it?" Mulder 
asked, firing the questions faster as Parrish's eyes were opening and then
closing again for longer intervals each moment that elapsed. 

Scully looked sharply at Mulder. "This man needs to reserve his strength, 
Mulder..." 

"No,.." Parrish whispered, it was getting harder for him to speak, and his 
breath gurgled in his throat. "No, he's correct. There were two. But I only 
delivered one. The other,...taken..miraculous!" 

Mulder gave Scully an "I told you so" expression. "Where is it?" 

"Don't you know? But I thought,..I mean, aren't you the one? You're supposed 
to know these things. That's what they say." 

""They" who?" Scully asked, still staring at Mulder. 

"We need to know the location of the second twin - Samantha's child!" Mulder
urged. Parrish was slowly turning whiter and his breathing shallow. 

"Mulder. Enough! He needs to rest." Scully pressed harder on Parrish's wounds
in a hopeless attempt to keep him alive. "He can't tell you anything if he's dead." 

Ignoring her, "Parrish! The second twin? Where?" 

Parrish looked up at the ceiling, then at Mulder. His face broke into a beautific 
smile, as if he were looking at Michael himself. "For God has said concerning 
them. "They will without fail die in the wilderness, and so there came to be 
not a man left among them except...except...."." Parrish's eyes fluttered shut 
and Mulder grabbed him unthinkingly, shaking him by his collar. 

"Enough of the holy rolling mumbo jumbo! Parrish! Where?!" 

Parrish did not open his eyes again. 

Scully reached out and removed, non too gently, Mulder's hands from Parrish's
shirt collar, then checked the doctor's pulse and found it gone. "No points for your
bedside manner, Mulder." 

Mulder sighed and sat back on his butt, his legs crossed. "He wanted to tell
us, Scully, it was important, he knew it was." 

"Well, he won't be telling anyone anything now." 

Mulder stood up and walked into the other room. Sirens could be heard.
The ambulance, not really necessary now, would be there in a moment. 

He hadn't meant to shake the man like he had, he'd just acted without
thinking. Scully was right to be angry with him. But just the thought
that Samantha might have a child living and breathing somewhere
out there and they had no idea..... 

Scully briefly checked over the bedroom, opening drawers, then 
followed him into the living room after a moment. Mulder was
looking at the books lining the shelves along one wall. Medical 
books, mostly, but there were a few classics and some mystery. 
Nothing unusual. 

Scully came to his side. "Well, you got what you came for." 

Mulder didn't understand. "What?" 

"We have a direction now at least." 

"What are you talking about, Scully, he gave us nothing but fire and 
brimstone. He was just another crazy fanatic, probably no different
that your mystery informant. We have nothing but crap and religious
double talk. I was stupid to believe it to begin with." 

"Oh, I see. So now you _don't_ believe it. Arrogance is unattractive, Mulder." 

"What is that supposed to mean?" 

"It means that whenever YOU decide something is or isn't true, the rest of
us are just supposed to line up and shake your hand." 

"I'm not deciding the truth, Scully, I'm just facing it, accepting reality as it 
is, the simplest explanation, just like you always counsel me to." 

"Mulder. We have Samantha's medical record. That isn't double talk,
it's empirical, scientific data. I was slow to accept the idea at first but I 
think my informant, crazy or not, is right about the children being special 
in some way. And I think you're right about a second child. And now 
from what Parrish has told us, I'm even more certain you both are." 

"What did Parrish tell us?" 

"He quoted scripture, Mulder." Scully held an old, tattered book
in her hand. "This was in his bedside table. Devotee's keep their
resources closest to them." She explained to her surprised partner. He
wouldn't know it, of course, but it was where she kept hers. 

Scully turned pages until she found what she was looking for. "Here. 
Numbers 26, verse 65. "And God hath said concerning them that they 
shall without fail die in the wilderness so that there came to be none 
among them but one man, Caleb." ." Closing it Scully turned to him. 
"A prophecy concerning God's people, the chosen ones. That they would 
die in a hostile place, all of them but one, because of the disobedience 
of the for-fathers, but that one would be granted great prosperity." 

"You're saying you think this is what these kids are? A chosen few, holy
ones fated to die among all us unworthy?" 

"No. I'm saying this is what Parrish thought. And it's probably what
his group thinks, this group that seeks to protect them yet they die 
despite their efforts. I don't understand what's going on, Mulder, though 
I'm beginning to get a glimmer of what Parrish and his group _think_ is 
going on. We still have a case. We have a little boy to find and that little 
boy has a name now,....Caleb."

*******

Skinner read her report. Not an official report, simply a rundown
of what she and her partner were accomplishing, which was
very little she had to admit. Oh, they had gathered a great many
leads and had formulated several theories, some of which she
had outlined for Walter Skinner, sitting directly across from her
desk and flipping through the pages, shaking his head. 

He's come to the basement during Mulder's daily afternoon rest
and plopped down in Mulder's chair where he now leaned
back, about as relaxed as Scully ever saw him when he was
on the job. 

Rubbing his eyes. "Do you believe any of this vanishing twin,
second child stuff?" 

"Mulder does. I'm not sure what to make of anything yet, we're not
far enough along, we do have, however, Samantha's medical
record in regard to the birth of her children, which did occur under 
unusual circumstances." 

"But this search for Samantha's child seems to have less to do with
the God's Children case than with Mulder's personal quest." 

"I know. But he's-" 

"I realize his time is short, Dana." Skinner interrupted. 

The use of her first name from his lips was a rare event but with
Skinner, it suited. She preferred it over 'Scully' from him. Only
Mulder called her Scully. Only ever Mulder. Between them, last 
names had become the familiar address. Lovers names. 

Skinner rocked in Mulder's squeaking swivel chair, fiddling with 
Mulder's stapler. "Is part of this disease dementia, do you think?" 

"Emily showed no sign of it." 

Skinner nodded and stood. "I can authorize only so much expense
for this newest quest of his." 

"There won't be much, sir. Time is short." 

"How short?" He watched her go pale and swallow. 

"A few weeks at most. Probably less." 

Resisting the temptation to kiss her, he merely lay one large hand
on her thin shoulder. The stress of what was happening had taken
it's toll. She was boney and frailer. 

"I wish there was something I could do, Scully." 

She appreciated his concern, his kindness, his caring about Mulder
when so many did not. She took his hand in hers and kissed the back of it,
remembering another time when hey had exchanged far deeper intimacies. 

"Thank you for that." 

** 

The call on her cellular came through in the middle of the night.
Scully had taken to keeping her phone on her bedside table. 

"Ms. Scully?" 

"Yes?" She recognized the voice of her informant, the Crazy Man
as she'd come to call him privately. 

"Your search for the child will fail." 

Scully went cold. "How do you know? Do you know where-?" 

"-I used to be with these people, remember? I suspected as
much for a time prior to my leaving them." 

"What, baby murders, snatchings from the womb? What else do you
know that you haven't bother telling us? How do you expect me to trust
you when you hide truths?" 

"I expect nothing. I tell you what I think you need to know and can
handle at the time. You do with it as you please. I have no personal
agenda." 

"I find that hard to believe, sir. By the way, thanks for the information 
on Parrish, except we got there too late. He's dead." 

"I know. You'll just have to trust me." 

"Why are you contacting me now? I thought you were on the run,
I thought they were after you?" She was angry at his hide-and-seek 
approach to the revelation of facts. 

"We don't have time for this Agent Scully. Do you want to hear what I
have to say or not?" 

She swallowed her anger and her turmoil. She did not know _if_ she
should trust this man, but she couldn't afford to take any chances. 
"Yes." 

"You won't locate Caleb through HITS or any law enforcement data 
base because he's being kept where no technology is allowed to exist." 

"Where is he being kept?" 

"He's with his father although you won't be able to track Caleb through 
him. They're in Pennsylvania. I can tell you the specific area, but you'll
have to do the fine combing yourself." 

"Where?" She repeated. 

"A community that keeps itself isolated from civilization and all our
wonderful amenities. It's where Caleb's father came from when he was
very young. Just track the name: Mueller." 

"And the community is what? How about a name?" 

"Amish. No technology means no phones, no televisions, no radios,
no way for any stranger to enter without being very noticeable or even if
disguised, without strange behavior being noticed. They're like a separate
nation, Agent Scully. Traditional beliefs, old world practices. Removed 
from civilization, isolated from crime and the even the laws made to fight 
it. A perfect hiding spot right here in America. Don't send uniforms or 
even undercover. You do that and Mueller'll disappear with Caleb and 
you'll never see either of them again." 

"Why does he have him? How did Mueller know his wife Samantha had 
had a second baby? Nobody knew that, not even the hospital." 

"My former acquaintances did. I don't know how they knew but Charles 
Mueller was a long time member and got a hold of his wife's medical 
records. He probable wondered if, as we all did, if his wife would
deliver a special child. Most likely, he didn't expect those suspicions
to come true. It was just, I don't know, ego, like it was with most. But
once he knew, I think he suspected the Group right away of baby snatching. 
He knew of the Groups obsession with Vanishing Twin Syndrome and that 
in their eyes, it meant a blessed child. Something divine." 

"My partner thinks otherwise." 

"I'm aware of what Agent Mulder thinks. Aliens? Angels? I hold no 
views one way or another." 

"Were all these children so-called "Vanished twins"? Scully asked, 
steering the conversation back to potential fact gathering and not
pseudo-religious speculating. 

"The God's Children? Your case? I doubt it, but there are so many strange
things, Agent Scully. I have no way to verify anything beyond my own
reasoning. It is always possible. But the belief in blessed children and
miracle children was always been an aspect of the Groups belief system." 

"Samantha's medical records indicate she did not give birth to a second
baby but simply an empty placenta." 

"Then I don't know how to explain how Mueller got wind of his second
son but the fact is he has him, according to my source." 

"I don't suppose you'll divulge that source to me?" 

"No chance in hell. Pennsylvania, Agent Scully. Amish communities. 
Better get started, there's a lot of them. And don't take your weapons 
or you won't be welcomed." 

"I hope your source isn't pulling your leg or mine. Will you contact me 
again? 

"Probably not. Depends where I find myself." He hung up. 

Scully tossed aside her covers and padded down the hall to
Mulder's room. He'd never forgive her if she didn't wake him and
tell him now. 

She hated to rouse him, seeing how soundly he was sleeping.
It was good for him, it slowed circulation, it lowered blood pressure
and other functions. It slowed the progress of his illness and prolonged 
his life. 

She shook him gently until he opened sleepy eyes and looked
at her. "We have a lead on Caleb, Mulder." 

** 

FIVE & 1/2 WEEKS POST ENMS DIAGNOSIS:



They set the LoneGunMen (who set the extended membership) 
and every non law enforcement contact they had on a hunt of
every Amish community in Pennsylvania. It took almost two weeks
of polite inquiries before they isolated a few particular farms.
Those farms locations were faxed to Scully's home computer. 

In those two weeks, Mulder's condition deteriorated alarmingly 
quickly. But he insisted on making the trip with her. "I have to see 
Caleb, Scully. He's all there is left of Sam." 

*** 

Going in any kind of disguise would only prove themselves
to be untrustworthy should their facade be penetrated so, attired
in working clothes, Scully and Mulder, Mulder with a portable 
oxygen pack, nose tube and walking with measured steps, 
approached the door to the second farm house of the three left
they were to visit that evening. It was unseasonably warm and
the sky had that orange electric glow that foretold stormy weather. 

A petite plain faced woman in a button less brown dress answered 
the front door to the large white house. Beyond the door to the 
kitchen could be seen a middle aged man resting in a chair at the 
table, drinking coffee. 

The woman peeked through the screen. "Yes?" 

"I'm Agent Scully." She introduced herself. "And this is Agent Mulder.
We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We're looking for
a man named Charles Mueller. We have information that he may
be here or staying on a farm nearby." 

The woman stared for a moment. "I don't believe I've never heard of 
a Charles Mueller, I'm sorry." 

Mulder stepped closer and looked directly at her through the 
screen. "Ma'am, may I ask you your name?" 

"Esther." 

"Esther. Esther Mueller?" 

She nodded. 

"Esther, your father's" nodding toward the figure in the kitchen, "or 
your husband's last name is also Mueller, isn't that right?" 

"He's my father." She corrected him. 

"Father, then. Now if I understand the Amish way, they may have 
very extended families but they keep in pretty close touch. So
it seems unlikely that you or your father wouldn't have heard of 
a man named Charles who's last name happens to be the same 
as yours and who has been reported as living in this area and 
maybe right here on this farm. So, if you and your father want 
to avoid a car trip to the closest police precinct and a whole lot of 
time spent in a tiny room being asked questions by people a lot
less patient than we are, maybe you could jog your memory a
little? Or maybe your father could." 

She glanced back over her shoulder and then stepped through 
the screen door into the late evening dusk. "My father isn't well,
and I don't know anyone named Charles Mueller." 

The sound of a door being closed was heard, just a very soft click. 

Mulder pushed passed her and looked through to the kitchen. The
chair was now empty. He turned back, "Scully." and pulled the
screen door open to admit them both. Scully, able to move the
quickest, reached the kitchen first. It was spartan and functional.
One huge black iron stove took up one wall. There was an old 
fashioned ice box on another and shelves of preserves. 

A quick check through the premises and a look in the back yard 
turned up no souls. 

"Where'd he go?" Mulder asked the woman who stood in the center
of her kitchen, saying nothing. 

In front of the stove lay a large carpet woven from scrap material,
twelve square feet at least. 

Mulder had a thought. "The rug, Scully." 

She looked down and it dawned on her what he meant, kicking it
aside with one foot. 

A wooden door lay beneath with one small finger hole for opening
purposes. 

Scully lifted it up and let it drop over, cautiously keeping herself
away from the opening. Mulder pulled a small flashlight from
his coat pocket and handed it to her. She shone it down into the 
darkness to reveal a narrow wooden staircase that ended twenty
feet below with a dirt floor. 

"Where does this go?" Mulder asked Esther who showed all the 
earmarks of fear but also determination. She kept her peace. 

"I'll go, Mulder." 

"We'll both go, Scully." 

Scully put away her gun and the flashlight, placing her foot down onto
the first step. "Mulder, this is too strenuous. It's bad enough you've come 
at all." 

"Samantha was my sister, Scully. If Caleb is here, I have an obligation
to try and find him." 

Esther started. "You?! She was your sister?" 

Mulder, puzzled by her odd expression, "Yes. Is her son alive? Is Caleb 
here?" 

She, still staring at him as if seeing an apparition, "Yes. This tunnel
leads to an open field at the edge of the trees, about one half mile, down
at the end of the east pasture." 

Mulder, carrying no FBI issued weapon due to the restrictions on his jacket, 
had managed forethought enough to bring his tiny ankle gun. He pulled it out and
tucked it in at the back of his belt. 

Esther put her hands over her mouth. "You brought an instrument of death
here? A gun for the murdering of life? That's God's business!" 

Mulder looked at her. "I prefer to think of it as an instrument used in the 
preservation of the innocent, and that's _my_ business since God's interest 
in it seems to be in mighty short supply these days." 

Esther didn't know what to make of the man before her. "I've heard
about you, Fox Mulder. Despite the blasphemy, may God go with you
today." 

"Thanks. Which direction?" 

"Go out the back door, through there" she pointed, "and through the gate
down by the end of the field. Go all the way to the edge of the willows." 

"Why was Caleb brought here? Who is he with?" 

Esther stared, she seemed puzzled. "That, of course, is also God's business." 

Scully descended the stairs. "I'll meet you there, Mulder. Be careful." 

Mulder left Esther after calling out to Scully, "Okay and I will." 

*** 

Scully followed the tunnel, it went in a pretty straight line with very few
kinks until she found herself at the bottom of another ladder that 
ascended to what looked like just a hole in the ground. The opening
was somewhat camouflaged by long grasses that bent and bowed over
it, so, from the air or a casual stroller, it would be nearly impossible
to spot without an deliberate search. 

She climbed and found herself on the edge of a Poplar wood, which she 
realized was just a stretch of trees between farmlands. 

She couldn't see anyone at all. 

In the distance, however, she saw Mulder half walking, half jogging across
the field towards her. "Do you see them?!" He called. 

"No. And slow down." He was working his body far too hard and if he kept it
up, he'd be back in the hospital by nightfall. 

Mulder reached her. "I'm fine, Scully." 

They looked around, night had fallen and stars could be seen, a huge band
across the sky. "They could have gone into the woods, Mulder, and that
could mean they've headed to the next farm over or it could be just
that they're hiding and we'll never find them in this darkness." 

In the glow of the half moon, Mulder looked white and shaky. "You have to 
rest. You haven't taken your pills and you're overdue." She said. 

He shrugged off her words when he saw movement he thought at the edge
of the trees and called out. "Charles Mueller! We just want to talk to you!" 

A deafening sound cut off further attempts at communication as wind screaming
all the decibels of a speeding freight train assaulted their ears, almost knocking
them to the ground. As suddenly, they were bathed in blinding light from over-
head. It was white, or electric blue but to open their eyes for even a second
to either confirm or dispute speculation brought pain searing straight to their 
retinas. 

"Mulder!" Scully yelled, losing her orientation. She could not feel him when 
she stretched out her hands and, even if he did hear her and was answering, 
she was deafened by the hurricane like force surrounding her. 

Then, as suddenly as it started, it ended. 

Scully was standing in a peaceful night field. The stars shone. 

Mulder was sitting down on the ground not ten feet from her, breathing hard
and as white as the moon overhead. 

"Mulder. Hey." She knelt down beside him, took his pulse. "Can you stand?" 

He seemed confused for a moment, then looked at her, shaking his head no. 

Scully pulled out her cellular and called for an ambulance, giving them
directions to the farm and field. "Just try and relax, Mulder. Okay?" 

He seemed dazed and said nothing. Only nodded. 

Scully did not know what had happened but they would puzzle it out later. 

By midnight, Mulder was back in the emergency ward. 

**



Scully watched Mulder and he looked peaceful. He was sleeping 
well and deeply. 

But even to a medically untrained eye, that he was anything 
but well was clear. 

He was very pale, because of the blood letting. It still twisted her 
gut that in a day of such rapidly advancing and often miraculous
technology, the only thing that was helping him was a practice so 
old, it was considered inhuman. 

Mulder was thin and would become thinner. 

He was sticking to his diet but the fact was food, even liquified 
which is what he was now reduced to, burned his insides. 

Eating hurt. 

His stomach, already a mass of ulcers and hernia developed over 
the last and most physically taxing decade of his life, could tolerate 
almost nothing. 

Watts had provided yet another salt-free ant-acid prescription for 
the indigestion and ulcerated crevasses that had appeared on his 
stomach wall, and still another to assist with the digestion process itself. 

The paradox was not lost on medically trained Doctor Scully. One medicine 
to reduce the gastric acid that continually ate at his bleeding stomach wall 
and another medicine to digest the food that would otherwise putrefy and 
rot inside it. 

Slowly Mulder was losing ground in weight and muscle tone. Already he 
was weakening. Already he was done in for the day by noon. 

She no longer had to coax him to sit down and rest at work. He
would do his paper work, take his pills, drink his soup lunch
and rest for many hours after. 

They'd had no more local God's Children murders to see and since 
Mulder could no longer visit distant ones, they did much of their 
work via phone, computer and fax machine. 

Scully watched Mulder day by day as his deterioration accelerated
with heartbreaking regularity. 

Soon, half days were the norm and by noon he would find his way 
to an employee lounge, make himself as comfortable as possible on
one of the long leather couches and sleep until it was time to go home. 

Now at the end of his sixth week since diagnoses, perpetual fatigue 
was quickly overtaking him. No amount of sleep seemed to take the
edge off his weariness. 

Daily Scully watched while images played across her mind and more 
and more they returned to those of Emily and her final suffering hours. 
Often, in that hospital room, Scully had considered ending Emily's life 
herself. 

Already, watching Mulder whom she'd lost before (too many times before),
she found herself contemplating such thoughts. Would she take that step
this time? Would Mulder ask her and if he did could she do it? 

Already his death loomed before her like the figurative Black Angel, 
his skeleton fingers curled around his crooked staff, and she couldn't 
help the hatred she felt inside for it and for all those people and
circumstances that had brought them both to this point. Neither could she
help but be selfish in thinking only of herself because she was afraid. 
Scared that she was not equal to this. Not after her father and her sister. 
Not after Emily. 

Mulder was dying and she couldn't bear to lose him. Scully was afraid
she would not survive it. 

Within a day, the fear began speaking louder in her ear. 

After two more days, it was screaming. 

** 

"Can't you give him something?!" Scully was standing before Watts
in the emergency ward, and yelling in his face. Demanding they
do something. Act! Perform! 

Right now! 

"Stop his pain!" 

In her mind, she also saw herself from across the room; a crazy 
woman yelling at the doctor who was only there to, of course, ease 
Mulder's suffering anyway he could. And, a third perspective, she
saw herself with her arms around Mulder as he lay writhing on
the emergency ward bed, pressing her lips to his face and head, and 
his pain disappearing as if by a magicians touch. 

"Of course, we are, but we must know what exactly is causing _this_ 
pain, Doctor Scully. You know that yourself." 

She did. 

She did but never in all the years of seeing Mulder injured or ill
and her tending of him had she ever witnessed him actually
thrashing and crying out in agony, as he was doing now. If it
wasn't stopped, she was certain she would go mad. 

"Okay!" She nodded, running fingers through her hair, turning
back to Mulder's side, wanting to touch him except that would
only add to his pain. 

But she couldn't touch him. She wasn't allowed, and that restriction 
was becoming almost unbearable. 

God could not exist if he allowed these things to occur. For her, 
the tests of her faith, though always personal, had become too 
great. In light of what _he_ had lost, she wondered how Job had 
managed it. 

In this trial she would fail. She had too much hate now, stored up
in a stinking pile, contaminating her faith, consuming her soul
and mind and infecting everything about her life up to and including
that very moment in the Emergency Ward. 

This agony was the beginning of his very short future. What
she saw now here in the emergency ward, were the shades of things 
coming, uncontrollably, towards them. The foreshadow of his life
cut short and hers continuing on without him. 

A future she could not fathom and a vision for which she was
being given no time to prepare. Here today. Gone tomorrow.
Today pain, tomorrow death. 

Scully looked down at Mulder. At that moment, as his cries of pain
and gasping for air filled her vision and hearing, God's death was
made complete. 

"Scully." He said between gulps of air. 

Already his lungs were being affected and his bronchial passages
no longer had the same elasticity as before. With each breath he took
she knew what was occurring inside his chest cavity, the straining of 
the air passages as they tried to obey the autonomic commands and 
expand as they should, the tiny air sacs getting a fraction less
air each hour, his red blood cells getting a fraction less oxygen,
all his tissues, body and brain, in turn getting that much less feeding 
of oxygen and all of those many fleshly parts that made up his body
slowly starving to death because of it. 

The pressure, too, in his chest, as the struggle to breath became
greater hour upon hour. And the pain from all of it clear for all
to see and listen to. 

Scully could see it all, right there in her head. 

"Yes?" She said to him in the kindest voice she could find. 

"I want,..I need,..to..." 

"Shhhhh. Rest, Mulder. I can get it for you, whatever you want. A 
Video? Ice-cream? Popcorn?" She could not bear to refuse him 
anything at all now and what did it matter if he ate a little salty
popcorn and watched a fun movie, enjoyed the cool sweetness
of ice-cream on his tongue? Maybe laugh a bit? 

What the fuck did it matter now if his blood pressure spiked?
It didn't, not at all. 

His last days were not going to be spent obeying a multitude 
of rules designed to help him live just a few minutes more if
it meant those minutes would be lacking joy. Fuck the goddamn 
rules! Fuck Cancer-Man and the Bureau. Fuck the hospital and
the doctors who were powerless children incapable of real
healing. Fuck herself for having known that, upon his return
to her two years ago, he had been examined and found to be
not physically normal. Fuck her for not starting to right then look
for a reason why. 

Mulder wheezed and shook his head back and forth to force
words out through the worst agony he had ever experienced.
Waves of it - tides - oceans of pain that washed from head to feet 
and back. Pain that made even thinking a step by step task. 

"No. No,...I want, I need,...to go,...go..." 

"No. Mulder. No going anywhere right now. Not anymore. No more 
chasing Cancer-Man or running after aliens. No more thinking all the 
time about everything and everyone else,.. and trying to fix it all." 

She took a chance a touched his forehead with her fingers,
gently stroking the fevered skin, the damp hair. Smooth away
the wrinkles that stayed and said the agony was not eased by it. 

Except maybe her agony. It felt good to touch him. 

//Where's that goddamn doctor and the goddamn pain killers?!// 

"Just you, now, Mulder. That's all. No one else. It's your turn
Sweetheart. It's you who needs the attention now. We need
to fix _you_ now." Knowing it was a lie Scully said it anyway.
She herself needed to hear it. Needed the hope or else end 
up insane. "I promise you, we'll find a way to beat this." //With
or without God.// "Shhhh, now, Baby, I know. I can see how 
much you're hurting. Any minute now, and it'll be gone. Okay?
Any second"... 

Just when she was ready to start tearing the place apart to find
Watts, he appeared and administered something through
Mulder's I.V. line. Mulder slipped into unconsciousness almost
immediately. Watts turned to her. 

"We checked his blood and the X-Rays. We had to be sure what
to give him. We can't afford to administer anything that would raise
his blood pressure or put him under so deep that he'd never come
out of it. You remember what happened after the school?" He
reminded her, defending what had seemed like tardiness or neglect 
on his part. 

Scully nodded, wiped her eyes. "I know." She took him aside. "I
want to know what else I'll need for Mulder. I'm not leaving him
here to stare at white ceilings and walls, waiting for this thing
to kill him. I want him in a better environment." 

"What did you have in mind?" 

"There's a place. A real home. Just make a list of the extra equipment
I'll need and who you might recommend as a day nurse. I have to
make a call." 

Watts nodded and Scully left the room, grateful that Mulder was
sleeping and that Watts was considerate enough to run the little
errands for her. He seemed to comprehend her anguish enough
to make concessions in her case. He knew she was a doctor. He knew
Mulder was her partner, friend, lover. Watts did what he could. 

Using her cell, Scully sought out a small, empty corner of the ward
where there was amazingly no people scurrying back and forth
and waited for the other party to answer. 

"HELLO?" 

"Mom? It's me." 

"DANA. HOW ARE YOU? HOW'S FOX?" 

"Um,..he's not well. Worse. In fact, I wanted to- I need to ask you
a favor. It's a pretty big one." 

"GO AHEAD." 

"Mom,...I want..." 

Instead of speaking, Scully found she needed to slide down the wall. 
Cellular still in hand she stayed that way, head bowed, lips curled
and pressed up against the mouth piece, shaking from head to toe. 

Such a simple question she needed to ask and, surprising her, it was 
so far proving the hardest thing she'd had to say through all of it. She 
supposed she understood the reason, but that didn't make the words 
easier to speak. 

They were words she hated and wanted to fight against with everything 
she was. But words couldn't be fought except with more words. And she 
found herself muted, silenced within grief. Defenseless. 

Yet, once again, other words were whispered in her ear from the 
demon that had taken Emily and they said it was now time for her to 
admit defeat and take Mulder somewhere to die. 

"M-mom,...I need to,..to,...can I...bring him home?" 

Scully waited for her mother's answer while crying into her cellular. 
One or two people, waiting on news of their own loved one's and 
whatever tragedies had befallen them did not approach her, 
empathizing that sometimes, the grieving needed to grieve 
alone without interruption or awkward attempts at consolation. 

Her mother answered the way Scully knew she, of course, would: 

"I'll get a room ready. We'll take care of him, Dana." 

Scully closed the connection without saying goodbye, her mind
beyond speech though not yet incapable of producing the strangled 
sounds of heartbreak. 

She stayed that way a long time, resting on her haunches, crying
with the little noises she had never expected to make again. She
cried with all the strength she used to reserve for holding tears 
back. 

Sobbed until she felt drained and dry. 

Eventually, Watts sought for and located her, handing over his 
little prepared lists of the things she would need to take with 
her or arrange to have delivered. 

A little slip of paper covered with scrawls, a Doctor's script. 
She read the words with senses dulled and eyes naked. 

Mulder's death certificate. 

Ink scratches all about medicines prescribed to ease his many types 
of pain now and to come and machines designed to keep him 

comfortable until the monster inside him awoke for good. 

Awoke to realize it's goal. 

Awoke to reach out it's hands and take his life.

******

SIX WEEKS POST ENMS DIAGNOSIS:

Scully helped Mulder up the steps to her mothers house
and Margaret met them at the door. "Hello Fox." 

Mulder was subdued, not only due to the stupifying effects
of the many drugs in his system, but that Scully had insisted 
on bringing him here, calling it "convalecense". Even now,
she told him lies about his own condition, tried to hide
the truth from him. 

Her let her, knowing it was herself she was hiding from and that
she wasn't yet handling what was happening to him as he was.
She needed more time. 

But spending his last days or weeks coped up in Margaret Scully's
house, even if she was one of the most decent people he'd ever
had the pleasure of coming across during his life, grated on him.
Already his nerves were on a fine edge though the drugs were 
taking the sting off at least for now. 

"Hello, Mrs. Scully." He replied in a normal, if slurred voice, then
soto voce for her ears only, "I'm sorry about all this." He felt he was
intruding and that Scully had insisted on the arangement. 

Margaret Scully smiled, took his arm and the bag Dana held out 
to her and spoke back to him just as privately, "There's nothing
to be sorry for. I would have insisted, Fox. I'd appreciate it if you'd 
remember that." 

He felt chastized and grateful all at the same time. Of the few dealings
he'd had with the Scully family, he'd come to learn that all the Scully 
women were masters at the tongue. Such masters in fact that all the men
in their lives were whipped right out of the gate, and that was that. 

Including him. "Yes, ma'am." He murmurred. 

As they entered the house, he looked up the one flight of steps with 
trepidation. Ten mile jog oper day for fifteen years and now... 

Who would have thought eleven normal steps would be a frightening
prospect? He had suddenly developed a deep empathy for the athritic. 

He knew he had a few weeks left at best. Coming here to Maragret Scully's
house, as grateful as he was for her generosity (he was reluctant to believe
it could be motherly affection for him, or if it was, then it was for Scully), he
felt like he had entered his funeral chamber. This was the last mile on
a dead end road and each step up the stairs, with Scully on his arm for
assistance, made him less and less like the man he had been, depressing 
him further. 

With the last step he ceased feeling like a man with mind and soul intact
and more like a walking corpse, unable to comprehend that the time
had come to fall over and stop kicking. 

** 

"This is only temporary Scully." 

Scully wasn't sure if it was a statement, a question or an appology.
"I know." She smiled a bit, trying to put him at ease. "At least I get
you all to myself for a while." 

"Are you sure your mother is okay with this. I can easily go to a-" 

"No. This is more for me, Mulder. I want to be with you. And 
sleeping in hospital chairs is bad for my posture. You wouldn't want
me slouching." He was wheezng slightly, she noticed. "That car
trip was hard on you. Here." She placed the already set up and
waiting oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and switched it
on, adjusting the dial. "This should help." 

"I can't sleep with this on." He complained. 

"You have to have it right now. Just for a few hours." 

"Is that on the schedule?" He nodded to the bedside table upon
which lay a clip board and his out-patient treatment line-up. 

"Yes." She said. "So we're going to follow it." 

He'd been given one of the larger bedrooms on the second floor 
with a large bathroom just one door away. In it Margaret had had 
"special" amenities installed she had told him earlier, ignoring his 
pink blush of embarrassment at having his almost mother-in-law 
talking about the raised toilet seat and "grip-bars" designed especially 
for him. She then had left Scully to help him get comfortable, muttering 
something about "seeing to lunch" and made herself scarse. 

Eventually Scully left him settled in bed. 

Mulder lay there, listening to the conversations coming through the 
grate from the kitchen below him. He could only catch a word here 
and there but he recognised whose voice belonged to who and 
drifted off to sleep listening to Scully and her mother, he was certain, 
discussing him. 

** 

"It's almost Christmas." Margaret Scully said as she fixed instant
coffee for her daughter and green tea for herself. Her doctor had 
warned her about too much caffine and her touchy gall bladder. 

"It's five weeks away." Dana said. 

Maragret kept her back turned, stirring, getting sugar down
from the cupboard, the little silver over crystal sugar dish and 
matching creamer her husband had bought her for their twentieth
wedding anniversary. "When you were little, you'd start talking
about presents and lights and Santa as soon as halloween was over.
Melissa, she enjoyed the holidays too but for her it was the music
and the dancing. For you, it was everything, it was something magical." 

"I was just a little girl, Mom." 

Marageret turned to face her. "At least you talked to me then. Now
you don't. I ask you about things and I get a comforting lie that tells 
me absolutely nothing about how you are." 

Dana looked at her mother's stricken face and felt remourse for
her lack of honesty. Things over the last few years had been so 
topsy-turvy and she'd had to cope with so many emotional issues,
she'd had nothing left of herself to share with anyone. "I'm sorry, Mom. 
My mind hasn't been on myself much." 

Margaret brough the cups to the table on a tray with the cream,
sugar and spoons. "Then maybe you can tell me what's going on
with your life, if not you. What's wrong with Fox? Why is he so 
sick? You said it was the same thing with Emily. What causes
this, Dana? He's what, a forty seven? What could cause a man 
that young to sudden;y become so sick that he needs a raised 
toilet seat." 

"That's for his blood pressure, we can't afford him the luxury of sitting
down normally now, it could cause a rupture in an artery wall. As for
the rest, you know what happened to Emily, mom. The doctors, the 
specialists, don't know. We can keep him comfortable, ease his pain
for a while, but there is nothing else that can be done now." 

"And who did it to him? The same people who took Emily?" 

Her mother'c voice held that edge to it from long experience that
said she'd had enough of being put off with half truths or bald
faced lies. 

"These "men" you keep alluding to and have done for fifteen years
and will tell me nothing about? These murderers who stole my
granddaughter from me, my daughter Mellissa, and who almost took you
twice? Is that who we're talking about? Are they the ones
killing Fox now? Or are you going to tell me it's classified
or that it would put me in danger to know?" 

"Mom-" 

"No." Shaking her head, "Don't you tell me anything anymore
unless it's the truth. Fox is here in my house, dying because
of these men. Don't you know what it does to me to see that?
Don't you think I know what's it's doing to you? Your my daughter.
You love him, and that makes him part of my family. This is my family,
too, Dana, that these men are hurting, not just yours. I have a right
to know!" 

"Yes, it was "Them", we think. But we don't know - not really. Does it 
matter? This isn't going to be cured with any computer chip or Rosary 
beads. Mulder's dying. Is that waht you want to know, Mom?" She knew 
she sounded bitter but that's how she felt. They'd used Mulder up (and 
her), and then spit him out. He was dying and she felt cheated. 

At her mother's sad face, "I'm sorry, Mom. Thank you for welcoming 
him, for helping me with this. He had no where else to go." 

Margaret took her hand. "He was always welcome, Dana." She underlined
the 'always'. "You should have brought him home more often. Then maybe 
I could have...helped somehow, maybe gotten to know him a little better." 
She chuckled, "Fox and his "Ma'am"'s. I could have helped you both. It 
took you two so long to start seeing each other, really knowing the other..." 

"And now it's too late, is that what you mean?" 

"Absolutely not. Don't you let one second go to waste. Don't you let one 
hour be thrown away on regrets. Be with him now, Dana. He needs it and 
so do you." 

** 

Four days later, other Scully's began arriving and Dana was dreading
the company. As much as she loved her family, it was a complication
she did not want right then. Mulder took all her thoughts and attention
and that is the way she wanted it to remain. 

"It's just for a few days, Dana. This is the compromise for Christmas. I
want only you, Fox and I at this Christmas." 

"Mom, you didn't have to do that. I keep telling you-" 

"Yes, I know, you keep telling me that Fox may not make it that far
but why don't we wait and see? Give life a chance, sometimes it
can surprise you." 

Scully did not argue the point. She'd long ago given up on life
being generous or even fair. Not where Mulder was concerned.
Or herself. It was hard enough trying to accept his illness and 
approaching deterioration without watering false hope. 

Scully kept a stiff upper lip when Bill's car pulled up carrying
himself and his wife. "Aren't the kids coming too?" 

"No. He didn't want them to be around-" Margaret bit her lip. 

"Mulder? He didn't want them to be around Mulder? That's pretty shitty
of him." 

"Dana! He didn't want them to have to be around illness. He _is_ their
father. And they're teenagers, you know how teenagers are. Visiting
grandma isn't cool. They're staying with friends for Thanksgiving." 

Scully sighed. Already she was tense and exhausted and the weekend
had not even begun. 

** 

"So what's wrong with him?" Bill scully asked. 

Scully washed dishes, stacking them and keeping her eyes on her task. 

Earlier she'd taken the pureed vegetable mash up to Mulder, who'd taken
one look at it, turned green and thrown up his breakfast. 

Surrounded by his appologies, Scully had helped cleaned up him and
the bed and then decended the stairs with a worried frown, intercepting
her mother accending with another bowl. "I heard him. I'll get some food 
in him, Dana. Go visit with Bill." 

Instead she went into the kitchen and began washing up the lunch dishes. 
Her mother had a dishwasher but there were only a few and she needed 
something to do besides. 

Talking to Bill wasn't it. 

So when Bill entered the kitchen to help dry dishes, she stiffened, preparring
to defend herself, Mulder or whatever because Bill never dried dishes. She 
knew he had come in to speak to her. The topic would most likely be "this 
Mulder guy". Scully'd heard Bill refer to her partner that way on more than 
one occassion and if he said it tonight, so help her, she'd- 

"Dana? I asked, what's wrong with him?" 

Scully decided to keep it short and to the point. "Mulder's dying of the 
same disease that killed Emily." 

"I'm sorry." 

Scully let out a breath. Well, at least he was attempting civilty. 

Bill waited for her to continue but she didn't. He bundled the
dish towel and tossed it on the counter, crossed his arms and
leaned against it beside her so he could look at her face. 

Lowering his voice so it would not carry to the livingroom where
his mother and his wife now sat talking, "Why did you bring him here?" 

That was something else altogether and none of his business. Scully 
turned to stare straight at him, defying him to argue more. "Because 
he had no where else to go and because mom invited him." 

"Take it easy, I'm just asking." He didn't want an argument. 

It was an old discussion. He and his little sister had argued before over
this Mulder. It was always Mulder, it seemed. Dana couldn't make the
graduation because "She and Mulder, yaddadda-yaddadda"..., or Dana 
was in the hospital again because "She and Mulder this, that n' the 
other thing"... 

Asshole. That had been his opinion of the guy ever since day one. 

Which didn't he mean he wanted the guy to die. He knew how Dana 
felt. At the same time he couldn't help but wish the guy had done just 
that a long while back. If you're going to die, do it quickly and save 
those you love some heartache. It was a simple philosophy and he 
preferred it over lingering on. 

When Mulder had been gone those eight years, it had reduced Dana
to seeking out therapy. Losing him had shrunken her somehow but, 
after a while, she'd seemed to recover and slowly got on with her
life. 

Then what happens but Mulder shows up again. He'd ground his teeth down
to nubs that day when his mother had called to tell him. "Fuck!" had been
his reaction, right through the phone and into his mothers ear. 

"Look, Dana. I know you love the guy. I can't understand why 
considering what's happened to the family and to you since you 
met him, but I don't want to see him die. But I also don't like
seeing you always being the one to make the sacrafice." 

"That's my choice isn't it?" 

"Yeah. I guess it is, except have you noticed how the choices you've
made so far have affected the people you love? Melissa's dead." 

"Are you blaming me?!" She felt a huge lump forming in her throat. 

"Of course not. But your job has something to do with it and and don't
try to deny that your partner does too. He's been obsessing after
this, to use his words, "Thing" for so long, he doesn't seem to give a
damn who he hurts along the way." 

Scully kept her voice low but tight - taut like a power line -"That is 
_not_ true. You've been very lucky with your life, Bill, but Mulder 
has had a terrible time these last years, so forgive me but as a man
who has been blessed, you are in no position to pass judgment." 

"I tell it like I see it, Dana. He's brought nothing but pain to this family.
Why do you think I kept the kids away, huh? I don't want them
to see this or him. Or you this way." 

"What way?!" She stared definatly but he declined further elaboration.
"You never thought that maybe I would have liked to have seen
my nephews and neices?" She asked bitterly. 

"Not with him here. You had no right asking mom to take care
of this guy. She's not young anymore." 

"We're having a nurse come in eventually. I would never expect
mom to nurse him on her own. _I_ couldn't even do that." 

Maragaret appeared in the doorway and said in an angry whisper. 
"Fox is trying to sleep, keep your voices down." 

Bill backed off on his volume that had been rising with each sentence 
but he was not about to give up the stand he had taken. "I love
you, Dana. You're my sister. But if he's dying because of what he's
been looking for, because of the things he's gotten involved in,
then in my opinion, he deserves it." 

Scully didn't know what possessed her right hand to haul back
and slap her brothers face until it had actually happened. 

Margaret was shocked but not surprised. "You derserved that, Bill." 

Stinging cheek, Bill looked at his mother. "Maybe." And at Scully, 
"But we don't deserve what's happened to us. Why does everyone 
defend this guy? He's brought it on himself!" 

"This is _my_ house and if I say Fox can stay here then he can
stay here. I'd do the same for you or Tara or anyone in this family."
Maragaret reminded him, standing between her two eldest 
children. 

"He's not part of this family, he's-" 

"He's MY family." Scully spit at him. "You _have_ yours. Tara, kids,
a house, a dog. Barbecues on the holidays! Congradulations! If I choose 
Mulder, even if the time we have left together is short, then that's still 
my business. I'll make whatever sacrafices I see fit to make. It has nothing 
at all to do with you!" 

"There is such a thing as too much sacrafice, Dana. First your career,
then your family, now as far as I can see your common sense. I'm
just thinking of your best interests." 

"Like hell and even if that were true, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm
all grown up, Bill. I'm free to choose and make my own decisions." 

"And make ours for us, too, it looks like. I'm sick of what this guy
has brought to our family. I'm sick of seeing what it is doing to you!" 

"Then look the other way!" Scully shot and left the room. She didn't 
return to the living room or even go up the stairs. She gathered her 
coat and wallet and left through the back door. 

Margaret said: 

"She's just going for a walk to cool off." 

Bill addressed his mother: 

"You know I'm right, mom. This is killing her." 

'Yes. I know. But she's right about what she said. She's free to decide.
And besides, you've never made any effort to get to know Fox. He's
a decent man, a good man and Dana loves him. That's enough for me.
It has to be." 

"No it isn't. Decent men don't bring constant pain to the people they care
about."

***** 

Mulder listened to the far away, tinny sounding words rising up 
through the heating vent. 

He removed the oxygen mask and pushed himself up off the 
bed. Dressed only in briefs and a T-shirt, he as slowly and as 
silently as possible made his way to the bathroom next door,
being extra careful in not causing the floor boards to squeak. 

Suffering a pang of guilt for snooping, he quietly opened the cabnet 
above the sink and fumbled through the rows of bottles sitting 
there: iodine, muscles rubs, mouthwash, aspirins, little scissors. He 
paused on those but decided against them and moved on. 

That would be too messy. He didn't want there to be any more 
messes to clean up. 

His eyes came to rest on a large bottle of dimenhydrinate tablets. 

Generic Gravol. Those would probably do. 

He popped the cap and counted out twenty, wondering if that 
would be enough. Finally, he just popped the cap back on the bottle, 
tucked it in the band of his briefs, rearranged the bottles on the tiny 
shelf so nothing looked like it was missing, moving them so the gap 
was filled in, and then crept quietly back to his room. 

The bathroom would be a bad location. He'd been to enough crime
scenes to know people often died in bathrooms, on the toilet with
the content of their bowels oozing out and making a godawful smell,
or in a tub full of bloody water and in this case, he did not want there 
to be that much trouble or morbidity. It was very tough to move a body 
found in such a position or location when rigamortis had already set in. 
He'd seen plenty of pretzeled corpses having to be maneuvered around 
doorways or their bones broken and legs bent this way and that just so 
they could be moved at all. 

No, Mrs. Scully's bathroom was out of the question. There had to be 
absolutely no mess and no fuss. A bedroom on the first floor would be 
ideal because then the EMT's wouldn't have a body to haul down a 
narrow staircase. But he was stuck in a second floor bedroom. 

Anyway, there would no mess and minimal diffculties and that was the 
main thing. 

That was paramount. 

The seond floor bedroom would have to do and the sooner the better. 

Tonight actually. 

***