PhaHks Series
by GenieVB





 briefly examined the woman who in all likelihood had 
been once-upon-a-time Samantha Mulder, long missing sister to 
Fox Mulder. She had been shot once in the spine. 

She steered a wide path around the local Coroner currently on 
site and the S.A.I.C. who to all appearances had more on his mind 
than a few extra badges. The cameras were rolling outside the 
home and he was all sunglasses and "That's classified, ma-am's". 

Scully located Mulder in a small bedroom. He was sitting on the
end of the tiny mattress. He was not handcuffed. 

"Scully." was his greeting. 

"You don't seem surprised to see me." 

"I knew they'd send for you. You're the Spook-Buster." 

"You want to tell me what's going on?" 

She received his explanation in a mix of horror, worry and terrible
sadness for the man telling it. 

"They killed her." 

Scully's heart nose-dived. "Who?" She hadn't seen or spoken to 
him in many days. 

""Them"! She's dead and they murdered her." 

"Mulder. I'm going to go and find Agent Beyer. Wait here." 

He nodded. 

It was De-ja-vu. He was on the verge of hysteria. Mulder's 
brand - small tight, words spoken through visions in black of 
Why?-Why?-Why?! He was near breakdown. 

Scully located Beyer in the house's kitchen nook and he told her 
the story. "When Mulder arrived on scene, he started arguing-" 

"-Arguing? Not screaming?" 

"No." He looked sheepish at his previous exaggeration over the 
phone. 

"He argued with the attending detectives and the S.A.I.C.. He 
wasn't suppose to be here." 

Professional jealousy. Envy maybe. The "I'm New and eager to suck 
on my S.A.I.C.'s dick"-edness. Interfering Genius/Spooky legend 
not wanted. 

Scully returned to Mulder and shut the door. He was on his knees 
breathing in and out in great, ragged gulps. 

Scully had him rest his head on the floor, forcing his lungs to 
constrict and reducing the air-intake volume. After a minute, his 
lungs took the hint. 

She imagined he was trying to quell the mind-altering sight of 
Samantha with a six inch hole between her shoulder blades. 

One child was in school and being located. The other was missing. 
Husband - being tracked down by the local PD. 

And Mulder was now a full-fledged, bonafide orphan without a 
soul to call his own. 

Scully didn't care who might have walked into the room or what 
rumors it might ignite, she encircled him in her arms and rocked 
while he sobbed those great tears reserved for such a day and 
revelation. 

He had no family anymore. 

"It's my fault, Scully. It's my fault she's dead." 

"Mulder, no-" 

"Yes. Yes, I contacted her. I wouldn't leave it alone, they killed
her because of me." 

Mulder-" Helpless because she really didn't have anything to 
offer that made any better sense. Two spree murders, each having 
been touched by Fox Mulder just prior. Coincidence again? 

"I understand why you didn't tell me about th-the murder details, Scully.
I don't blame you." 

She sighed. Felt like a traitor. 

He didn't seem angry that she'd tried to protect him. "Did you 
see the Black Oil?" He asked. 

"What?" 

He pulled an evidence bag out of his pants pocket and held it
to her nose. A smear of greasy residue on the inside. 

If that's what it was. "You snuck this off the body?" 

Nodding, "You have to get this tested, Scully, and do the autopsy, 
and get Skinner to get you complete jurisdiction over all these 
cases. I don't get it. Why now? Why kill her now? Why not all 
those years ago?" 

She didn't get it either. But she'd try. "We'll figure this out, okay, 
Mulder? We'll figure this out..." 

*
In the basement, doors and cupboards were being swung 
wide and inspected. A storage closet under the staircase was
opened. The FBI drone in black and orange jacket stepped 
back, choked on his words for a split second only. 

"Hey!" He yelled into his Radio and up the staircase too. "Get
the S.A.I.C. down here now! And the M.E!" 

He closed the gap again, and touched his find very gently.
His radio crackled. "S.A.I.C. SAYS: WHAT-DID-YOU-FIND?" 

"A kid, man. A fucking dead kid."



*** 

Scully, hands clenched into fists all the better to strike them with,
strode into Skinner's secretary's office. 

Even the secretary had an an office! Mulder didn't even have a 
proper desk. 

He'd gotten back into the Bureau but no X-Files. Transcription 
work instead and grinding his teeth at the cubby hole assigned to 
him. He'd been swallowing his pride and muling it. 

It had been too good to last. Not after she'd seen the set in his jaw 
and the gleam in his eyes that first night back from Seattle. He had 
wanted back in and he was in, on auto-pilot and hating it but biding 
his time. Until yesterday. 

He'd wanted the X-Files. She knew how determined he was. She 
knew he would do anything to get them. 

He'd also wanted CancerMan. His sister was dead and Mulder's 
whole countenance said he believed Cancer-Man responsible and 
now he'd do anything to get _him_. 

When Mulder had waved that evidence bag, thrusting it into her
face like a child with a trophy, she'd done the analysis and come 
up with : Heavy-weight diesel oil molecularly altered by exposure 
to radiation. Millions of Rads of radiation and it had come leaking
out of Samantha's corpse. Mulder had begged his Superiors to
let him in on the investigation, citing his belief that the woman
found dead in American Suburbia might be his long lost sister. 

A DNA screen would prove that one way or another. But the 
evidence Scully held in her hand as she sat outside Skinner's office 
only proved the presence of diesel oil found at the crime scene next 
to the body. She was here to convince him otherwise.


* 

Mulder's quest to find his sister was done. It was over. 

Nothing else had stopped him so they killed her. So simple
a solution she wondered why "they" hadn't thought of it 
before. She supposed the reasons for keeping her alive had 
out-weighed the possible risks of Mulder finding her and her 
confessing the whole damn thing (whatever the whole damn 
thing was) and he blowing it up in their faces. 

For years he'd searched. A life-time really. Even those closest 
to him had lied and hindered, making his pain sharper yet setting 
his soul even more unmovable on that goal. 

Even his mother. 

Fox had gone to her, injured, sick, seizing, angry and tired. 
He wanted the truth, for once. Finally. 

Even his mother had proved a liar. Refusing him peace.



<<<Scully watched Mulder drive off in a screech of tires. 

What had happened? 

She padded up the staircase where she'd seen Teena Mulder 
bid a hasty retreat after her fight with her son. 

Tapping on the door from behind which the noises came, it 
swung open. 

The noises were clear. Sobbing. 

"Mrs. Mulder?" Scully walked in slowly, peering around the 
corner. Her entry into the room caused the gray-haired head 
buried in the hand-embroidered cushion to look up. 

"Did he leave?" she gasped it out between shaking of shoulders 
and great intakes of air. 

Scully crouched in front of her. She had no idea what had been 
discussed but it looked like it hadn't gone shit hot. 

"What did Fox ask you?" 

"Questions again. Demanding I tell him everything about his sister, 
about when Samantha was taken. And now questions about me. 
But I couldn't tell him anything." 

Couldn't or wouldn't, Scully wondered. "Did he say where he 
was going?" 

Teena Mulder wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. "I couldn't tell 
him what he wanted to know." Her voice held an edge of 
hysteria. "He said he'd find out, one way or another, about 
Samantha, about his father." 

"What about his father?" Mulder's father was dead and buried. 

"It's all falling apart. All over again." Teena seemed to be 
volunteering information at random, or unburdening an 
old and stinking soul rot that she'd inherited from her marriage 
and then, in turn, had passed on to her baby boy a long time 
ago. 

Scully took Teena's hands in her own and squeezed. Maybe 
if she let the woman talk, she would say something that 
Scully could take to Mulder. Something that would mean 
something to him, even if not to her. Something that would 
save him from himself. A dove of hope to pass over the black 
grief that painted his doorpost. Truth the mother for some 
reason couldn't bring herself to tell her son, but would 
perhaps say to a stranger. 

"I shouldn't have let it happen." Teena stated.


Guilt rears its death-dealing head, Scully thought. "I don't 
know what you mean." 

"I can't tell you anything either, Dana. I can hardly 
remember that night. All I know is I lost my baby girl 
and now I'm losing my son too." 

Scully's chest constricted. "If you want me to help him, 
you have to tell me something. Something I can give to 
him. He needs to know, he needs hope." 

"He's going to find out the truth from someone else." 

One by one from the jawbone, this was. "I don't understand." 

Teena started to cry again and her breath was fast. Too fast.


Scully made her lay on the bed and brought her a glass of water.
Sat there with her. Teena drank the water but continued to make 
little sobbing noises. But at least her breathing had slowed. Her 
cardiac-ing would just about nail the lid on Mulder's mental 
and emotional coffin. If he lived to see it. 

"Teena. Fox is recovering from a head injury, a very serious 
head injury, and he is not himself."


"A head injury?!" She bolted upright, a look of horror on her 
face. 


Scully elaborated only slightly. Wanted to but didn't say; 
"Because of his wonderful childhood experiences, he let a 
doctor drill a hole into his skull and apply electric current 
directly to his brain tissue." She said instead: "A procedure, 
he's suffering seizures from it. He's in danger."


Teena started and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, 
my god. I slapped him." 

Scully drank that in and tried not to react. It wouldn't be 
the first time, she thought. 

"I hit him so HARD." Teena gasped out a sob, dreading 
that she'd added to his injuries when he'd come looking 
for a bit of healing. 

Scully felt terribly tired, looking at this woman and 
seeing a sample of the turmoil with a capital "T" Mulder 
had called home. Scully found it exhausting, being here. 
What had it been like with the whole group together? 
How much worse with Samantha gone and Mulder living 
it on his own? 

She tried to sound more confident than she felt. "I'm sure 
he's all right." *For now. As long as I can find him. Stop 
him.* "Can you tell me something to help him, so he won't
undergo the procedure again. I'm afraid this obsession to
find his sister will kill him." 

Teena shook her head "no", back and forth. Emphatically 
to show she meant it. She was lying. 

Not even to save your son? Scully thought. "May I ask, 
why you hit him?" It was treading very delicate family 
ground, but she needed to keep the woman talking. 

"I don't want to lose my son. If you can help him...get 
through this." she bit her lip and answered the question. 
"I hit him because he said things about his father and 
about me. Do you know anything about our family?" 

More than I'd like to. "Yes. I know that you told Fox that it 
hadn't been your "choice"." 

Teena had calmed considerably and sat up. "Fox has 
been asking the wrong questions." 

Scully looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?" 

"The right question is why not HIM." 

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?" 

Teena's lower lip quivered and her eyes spilled over but 
she remained relatively calm. "I can't tell you anything 
except that Bill HATED Fox. For years. And it was all 
because of me. It was my fault that Fox was left behind. 
Bill made the choice in order to punish me." 

Scully sadly shook her head. The Mulder family album 
was a crossword puzzle with pieces missing. Here are 
the edges. Now fill in the middle. 

"I don't understand any of this." Scully was weary of 
answers that were not answers. No wonder Mulder 
never went home for Christmas. 

Teena took Scully's hands and held them so tight. It was 
a grasping to connect. She stared into the eyes of the 
younger woman. "If Fox finds out the truth about Samantha, 
and I don't mean where she is, I mean why it was her at 
all, it'll kill the last connection I have with him. Just like 
knowing what I did, what it's brought to this family, killed 
me twenty-two years ago." 

Dana raised her voice. "What are saying? Will you please 
say something to me that I can understand?!" God-damn 
the woman! "Are you saying Mulder might die if he finds 
the truth??" Scully thought. Has Teena known that all 
along and still allowed him to search?! Did she really 
find it more important to maintain the lie than save her 
son?? 

"Yes. What's left of him. What's left after -" 

After this all began, Scully silently finished for her. 

"I can't help him, Dana." 

Scully, just for a moment, saw the whole picture undraped. 
Saw things, she felt, the right way around. It was so simple, 
really. And then she remembered Mulder's question, the one 
he'd shouted at his mom through the door where they had 
walked, leaving Scully to be hidden from their eyes but still 
plainly sharing in it. *"WHO IS MY FATHER?!" And the answer:
"Why? So YOU can kill him again?!"* 

Teena Mulder clearly blamed her son for her ex-husbands 
murder. 

""WHO IS MY FATHER?""? 

Scully could now guess what Mulder had, with the help of a 
few holes drilled into this head, at that time remembered. 

But did he completely understand what he'd remembered? 
Scully didn't think so. 

And she thought she knew now where Mulder was going. 

Scully understood more than she wanted to. 

All these terrible lies and whispers of the Mother. The fists 
and belts of the father. Two gods in a war over the fate 
of its progeny. 

It made her sick to her stomach. It made her heart ache. 

"You mean you won't." Scully was surprised by the venom 
in her voice but she'd said it. And now she'd finish it. "You 
son is strong. He is alive and breathing and living. He has 
a career and a long life ahead of him and he has me." 

Scully's pitch and tempo increased. Her words coming faster 
and angrier. "He might seek for the truth the rest of his life 
but it doesn't matter because it is NOT what he is." 

She stood up like she wanted to jump out of her skin. She 
wanted to get the hell out of there. And she no longer felt sorry 
for this woman. 

Teena Mulder was speaking of her own son as if he 
were a walking shell with no human filling. Good God, had 
she ever cared more for what was standing in front of her eyes? 
About him, instead of looking behind? Looking behind had to 
be - must be - so much more painful. No. Mulder had become 
the invisible child. A beast of burden; he was to Carry On. But 
he hadn't, really. 

He'd been sent away and grown up - smart as it turned out. 
And he'd started digging on his own. First with mom and dad, 
then in the face of their silence, with just himself. 

Now nothing else mattered except finding out this great Truth 
putrefying in the family Tomb. Their hiding the stink had just 
made him sniff harder. 

Scully saw that he was living, not a life of his own, but a quest 
that had sprung from the deceit and hatred long borne on the 
backs of his parents. Two adults who, intentionally or unintentionally, 
had made their son a hairshirt. 

He was their walking, talking Living Guilt. 

And so disliked. Hate something and one can dismissed it from 
one's conscience. And something dismissed as unimportant 
is eventually discarded. 

Scully thought of these things and he anger blew up. "Unearthing 
or not unearthing this "truth" about Samantha, about you and 
his father, or about himself will change nothing! Mulder will still be 
who he is and I am so sorry you cannot see that. What are you going 
to do if he does find out all the dirty little secrets? Watch him fall 
apart? What the hell good are secrets or truth!? YOU know all the 
answers and look at _you_!" 

Teena stood up, red in the face. "How dare you?! Get out of my 
house!" 

"Listen to me. Fox is sick, he's hurt. He could die tonight! I am 
sorry that you worry more about your dead husband and, forgive 
me, Mrs. Mulder, about your missing daughter AND about your 
own guilty conscience than you do about your own son, who 
came to you tonight desperate for help." 

Teena bristled and stepped forward. "I can't tell him, it'll kill 
him!" It was a last ditched effort and it fell into the dead air 
of a sad and sick house with no good memories. Within the 
confines of the room between these two women where a 
thousand moral miles were stretched. 

Two women, one in shadows, one in light. One clinging to 
death and hate like a time-honored shield into the past. 
One unencumbered with regrets, satisfied with present and 
what good strong future might be made of it. 

She, Scully, would do whatever she could to keep him alive 
and breathing and hoping. "No it won't kill him. What it 
would do, with help, is allow him to begin healing." Scully 
stopped herself, her fury spent. 

"But how he heals is not so important as that he does. Because
I can help him do that." If it's the last thing I do. 

Time to go. She walked to the door but stopped at its threshold. 
"Even if you know this truth," she said over her shoulder, "it 
doesn't matter. He does. Just him."


"Miss Scully!" 

Scully turned back. 

"You think you know my son!" It was not a question. "You think 
you know me or anything that's happened in this house or 
what's happening now!" 

Scully looked at her sadly but listened. The woman, having 
wasted so much energy and lost opportunities clutching 
regret and grief, deserved at least to defend herself. 

"You think you know all the whys." 

"No, I don't think that. But I know, myself, that they don't 
count as much as Mulder does." 

Scully saw her straighten tired shoulders. That one gesture 
spoke of a life time of mistakes too old to repair. "Yes, 
he counts. Please." She was pleading. Begging. "Go after 
him and stop him before they decide that he doesn't." 

Chills tracked up and down Scully's spine and she had left that 
house.>>> 


Samantha's disappearance had, somewhere inside, cut Mulder 
a wound and for decades he'd bled from it. He'd tried to find 
his healing bandage. Tried to find her. 

Now Samantha's death had widened that gash in his heart and 
he was dying. Inside. That's what frightened her. Samantha 
had been _the_ search, _the_ answer, _the_ goal for so many 
years and now he had another: Revenge. Something to feed the 
hollow. 

That's the thing that scared her most about Mulder being back 
and his sister being murdered. It was a deadlier pursuit and now 
he had some resources to pursue it. 

But this search had to end, she thought. It had to end. It must end. 

Mulder was, however, presently pursuing nothing except resting 
overnight at Mercy General.



"Agent Scully?..." 

The secretary's pleasant voice brought her out of her private 
thoughts. 

"..Director Skinner will see you now." 

"Sir?" 

Skinner motioned her in. "Agent Scully. What's this I hear about 
Mulder?" 

"Agent Mulder has been admitted to Mercy General." 

"Is he..?" 

"He is recovering from extreme exhaustion and stress." I hope. 

"That woman really was his sister?" 

Scully nodded. "Yes. The DNA screen confirmed it. The husband 
cannot be located and the one remaining child has been sent to the 
husband's parents. They are making the memorial arrangements." 

"This is...incredible. And very, very sad, I'm sorry. How is Mulder 
handling it?" 

Scully was anxious to tell him the truth about that but said "As well 
as can be expected considering where he is. I wanted to talk to you 
about this. About the crime." 

Skinner motioned for her to sit down and she did, opening the file
and handing him her analysis. "This is a chemical breakdown of the
substance found adjacent to Samantha Mueller's body. It is chemically
altered Heavy-Weight diesel oil. That in itself is not unusual, heat can
accomplish that, and does, given sufficient time. But this oil has been
altered by exposure to radiation. Extremely high, lethal doses of 
radiation." 

Skinner glanced at the, to him, written-in-Greek formulas and looked 
up at the woman who'd penned them. "Is this suppose to signify 
something?" 

"No. Except that I cannot find an explanation for why it was at the 
crime scene. Neither can the County Coroner." 

"What does Mulder think it is?" 

"Mulder believes it...is extraterrestrial in origin." 

"Mulder believes that about most things." 

Scully heard the exasperation but at least he was listening. 

"He also contends that this substance is the same that he discovered 
at the scene of the multiple murder on Vancouver Island, Canada. The 
case he was investigating there, where his witness was murdered and 
the house and everything in it burned." 

"Did he get a sample of that "oil"?" 

"No. He failed to do that. But Mulder thinks he knows the origin of 
this Black Oil and that there's a connection between it, the children 
and the murders." 

"This oil has only been found at - what - two sites? What kind of 
connection does he think there is?" 

"It's believe he's hunching, but according to him, these murders 
were committed with almost the exact MO The only difference is, 
the husband in this case wasn't home. In fact, he cannot be found. 
In both of these cases, this substance was discovered at the crime 
scene. And, strangely enough, a dead child, the son of Samantha 
Mueller, was also found at the scene. The circumstances around 
the scene of his death were different, but in every other way, his 
death matches exactly the cases I've been working on with Agent 
Beyer, deaths the press has labeled "God's Children", in 
reference to science's inability to find a cause." 

"Where does he think this is leading?" 

"If Mulder's hunch is correct, I can only make guesses at the reasons 
behind all this. One week ago, Mulder received an e-mail from his 
sister stating her reluctance to renew any contact with him. Naturally, 
he was very upset. He tried, two days ago to make contact with her 
in person, but the address supplied to him turned out to be bogus. Now 
his sister's dead. Maybe they thought he wouldn't take no for an answer 
and maybe they thought that if he managed to make contact with her, 
that she'd somehow lead him to "them". I don't know, this _is_ just 
speculation. But the fact is, Mulder gets close to something and 
someone dies. Children are being found dead. In this most recent 
case, both things have occurred. Maybe the next one to die will be 
Mulder." 

Skinner drew in air. Conspiracies, lies, deaths, Black oil, "Them", 
extraterrestrial influences, and right there at the center of it: Mulder. 
"What are you proposing?" 

"Re-open the X-Files. Let's try and find that answer. Let him get some 
kind of answer." 

"So why? So he'll be satisfied? Scully, you know as well as I do that 
won't be enough. This could be nothing more than bizarre coincidences. 
But Mulder is the world's last Davey Crockett. He wants justice, he wants 
everyone to be able to eat apple-pie on Sunday. But the world's not like 
that, Agent Scully. If I didn't know better, I'd guess that Mulder's on some 
kind of personal vengeance quest against the Smoking Man. Tell me if I'm 
wrong." 

Scully placed the sheet back in her folder. 

"Sir, there is something going on. I don't know what but I believe it 
involves the case in Vancouver, _this_ case, - his sister, sir - murdered less 
than a week after he contacts her, her son dead like so many other children, 
the same way, with no evidence to show the manner of death. I believe 
that whatever is going on involves this substance, this Oil. It involves 
Mulder. It may involve his _life_." 

"How?" 

"I don't know. What I do know is we have two cases of murder where 
Mulder was indirectly involved. We have this substance found at each 
murder site..." 

Scully's voice started to rise along with the fear inflating inside. 

Skinner knew. It was fear. Mulder was in the hospital and she was 
scared about that. So believe him. His theories. Believe anything if 
it would get him a clean bill of sanity and have him leave that
hospital room sane. 

Scully was pitching facts his way, one after another. Enough of them, 
and she would convince herself. "We have a child abducted at age 
eight. We have the fact that she has been kept alive with the Smoking 
Man and that knowledge kept from her brother, from Mulder. We have 
Mulder's water poisoned. We have his father murdered - my sister 
murdered! We have my abduction, my cancer. We have a history of 
things that make no sense but, sir, somehow they must make sense! 
And now we have a woman, Mulder's sister, a forty-three year old 
mother of two, Mulder's long lost sister Samantha, with a hole in her 
spine, a dead son and an evidence bag of Black-Oil-Something retrieved 
from her murdered body. And then, sir, we have Mulder, gone for eight 
years. Don't you think this," she thrust the folder at him, "has something 
to do with _that_?" Thrusting her hand out against empty air and the 
shadowy atrocities that had massed up to heaven. "Can't you see?!" 

By the time she finished spouting her frustration and anger at what 
was happening around her, things that she couldn't understand or 
control, Skinner had moved out from behind his desk and taken her 
hand. 

Scully felt herself pulled along the length of his office and out into 
the hall through a side exit, one he rarely used. They stopped in front 
of a waxed, handle-polished wooden door and he inserted a key. 

Scully read the sign. "Sir, this is the executive washroom." 

"Hmph." Skinner grunted, opening the door and pulling her inside. 

"Sir? This is the MEN'S executive washroom." 

"Excellent observation, Agent Scully." 

Skinner locked the door from inside with a turn-bolt and guided
her firmly over to a urinal until her back was against the wall next
to it. 

Skinner depressed the knob and water trickled down to wash around 
the blue deodorant disk sitting in the bottom. 

He placed his arms on either side of her and leaned in close. 
Whispered in tight tones but not angrily, "Pretty tough to bug a urinal." 

"Yes, sir." She said. 

He continued: "Scully, do you think I'm with "them"?" 

The question looped her, "No, sir. Of course not." 

"Then do you think I want to see Mulder dead?" 

"No, no, I-" 

"And do you think, Agent Scully, after fifteen years, that
I don't care what happens to you or Agent Mulder? That I support
what's happened to him and you or what may be happening? 
That I intend to sit back and ignore it?" 

She looked down, ashamed at realizing that, yes, that's what
had gone through her head as she was reciting her anger point by
point regarding the whole pack of murdering, morally bankrupt liars. 

Subdued, "No." 

"Then listen to me. I have doubts about the whys behind these 
things, but it doesn't mean I'm turning a blind eye to them. And it 
doesn't mean that I won't try to help you or Mulder. Do you 
understand that?" 

"Yes." 

"Then pull yourself together. You can't come raging into my
office shouting at the top of your lungs.. If these things are what 
Mulder thinks they are; if it's the Smoking Man or someone like him
behind it, they may be listening. They may be watching you. Or
me." 

"Yes, sir. I am. I'm together now." She said, turning her face away
from his proximity and his cologne mingled male scent. "I'm fine." 

"Scully..." 

Scully felt him embrace her. So comforting. So calming.
She wrapped arms around that waist. Was it wrong to love two 
men? 

She spoke, shaking, into his shirt, into his strength: 

"Th-they took my daughter. They took Emily. Stole her body.
There's no evidence. They killed Mulder's dad and Melissa.
Poisoned Mulder, tried to burn him. There's no evidence. People
infected with Black Oil, being murdered - Mulder was infected with
it. Men with no faces burning people. But there's no evidence. 
Children are being killed. His sister is dead. Never any evidence, 
any proof. No one believes, no one knows or understands..." 

Skinner tilted her face up. "I know. I believe. _I_ understand." 

"They kill everybody." She said, terrified of who that might 
include next. "Mulder..." 

"Not if we can stop them." He said and kissed her very tenderly. 

*** 

The sex had been exceptionally satisfying. Physically. 

She'd multi-orgasmed and the high of their anticipation and release
had sent her emotions on a road trip to Eliseum. 

But her encounter with Skinner's substantial cock had also left its 
aftermath of numb disappointment in her own weakness. 

Because no matter how much she cared for Walter Skinner, she 
loved Fox Mulder. 

Wasn't together with him. Didn't look like she was going to be but 
she loved him with a passion that turned ears from common sense. 

Skinner was stability and strength and kindness and she felt like a 
whore because she'd used him to get what she wanted, some freedom 
from worry. She never thought of herself anymore, not for years it 
seemed, and their noon hour of lovemaking had given her leave to 
do so. He had used her too but she realized his motivations poured from 
a far more noble cup. 

Mulder was an injured soul. Even all those years ago. 

Only now, it was exposed to all the gawking eyes of the believers and 
the non-believers alike. Shown to her but she loved him anyway. 
Despite everything. 

To spite "them" even. 

She hadn't made love to Skinner, she'd fucked him. There was a 
difference. When she'd kissed him, it was a thankyou for saving her 
sanity and life that day and a request that their sexual merge be 
delegated to the deepest recesses of both their minds; that it never
see daylight again. 

Skinner was not unworldly, he knew Scully had offered her body 
as payment and as place to sluice away some of her turmoil. He had 
no illusions that suddenly she was in love with him. Mulder had still 
been there, in every grind from her hips and every moan from her 
mouth. 

After dressing, fixing her make-up and hair, she'd kissed him once 
more. With that last kiss, she'd kept her lips drawn and tight. Mouth 
closed. 

An unmistakable goodbye. 

** 

Scully entered Mulder's hospital room and immediately felt guilty. 
Not because she'd fucked Skinner, but that she'd liked it. She'd 
suddenly found herself tonguing and groping and wanting Skinner, if 
only to stave off the terrible fear that had gripped her when first seeing 
Mulder in that house of Samantha's death, hunched over, still and 
helpless like a piece of ancient sculpture, the features worn blank 
by weather and harmful hands, sinking into the soil made unstable 
by one too many storms. 

That had frightened her to the marrow. Her core that had seen him
conquer so much. So many things that would have felled a lesser man. 

The murder of one woman, though, a stranger to him, really, had 
toppled him from his foundation of well-fired steel. 

Mulder was lost to her. She was invisible to him in his grief. But 
with the evidence of the Black Oil, he hadn't asked her for any 
personal help. He hadn't wanted her company. Not for weeks, she 
realized. Their noon hour lunches had been his attempt at apology 
perhaps, for many things. 

Things had been strained, now it appeared as if the band, stretched 
to a thread between them, had broke. 

Her desperate need not to be alone, even for a while had lead her 
to Skinner and his welcoming, inviting arms. 

Skinner had even understood when she had not wanted to talk 
afterward. She had dressed, thanked him. 

He'd held her hand. Without speaking he'd asked her "when"? 
"Would WE be only this day?" he'd wanted to know. 

Scully'd kissed him, chastely on the lips but hadn't answered. 

She didn't know.



** 

She'd already talked to the doctor who'd done the physical exam 
on Mulder. Not an especially thorough one, their interest lying more 
so in Mulder's mental state. 

Physically they'd come to the extraordinary conclusion that he 
had two working lungs and a heartbeat. Blood sugar down and blood 
pressure up. Too much work, too little sleep and too few calories. 

But mentally: 

"He's suffering extreme emotional and mental exhaustion brought 
on I'd say from severe fatigue and stress. I think it best he remain 
under medical care for now, considering his history." 

Scully had _big time_ concurred with that. Now there was just the 
task of talking Mulder into staying put. 

He looked terrible. She painted on a smile. "Hi." Leaned over the 
raised railing. 

"Hi." 

Hollow sounding and it scared her. 

"Mulder, the doctor's think you should stay here a day or so. You're
going to end up sick if you continue to push yourself." 

"Sick-sick or nuts-sick, doctor Scully?" 

"Mulder-" 

"The last time you told me it was temporary, I was benched for a
year." 

"We're not going to do this, Mulder, we're not going to go back
and pick apart everything that was said and done and why." 

"Did you test the sample?" 

"Yes." 

"And?"


"Heavy-weight diesel oil, molecularly altered by exposure to extreme 
radiation." 

Mulder raised his head as far as he could off, the pillow. He was, she
realized, too weak to sit up on his own. "Samantha was infected. 
She may have been a long time ago, since the beginning..." 

"Mulder-" 

"Listen, Scully, that could be why she refused to talk to me or go 
and see Mom that night. She was being controlled all along. We have 
to arrange to have my mother's body exhumed. I want her tissue's 
tested. I want Sam's body quarantined until we can determine what 
the Oil may have done to her body-" 

"Mulder, her husband's parents have already made arrangements 
for cremation. They are allowing no further examinations." 

He fell back. "You think I'm being paranoid? You've seen these 
murders, Scully, you're one of the agents assigned to the case. Are 
they like anything you've ever seen before?" 

"No, but that doesn't mean the Smoking Man is behind it all, Mulder." 

"The Black Oil, Scully. He knows what it is! And he knows what's 
happening. If we could find him..." 

He broke off, seeing her sad face looking at him. "Never mind, I'll 
find him myself." 

"Mulder, I want you to stay here for a couple of days until you're 
rested and feeling better. Then we'll talk about this some more." 

"I'm not going to stay here! Every day I waste lying around, more 
are going to die!" 

He struggled to sit up, pushing himself with both arms. He immediately 
looked worse. 

Scully pushed him back down. He was so weak he had no choice but 
to fall back. 

"You don't have a choice." 

It broke her heart to see his face, "What do you mean by that?" 

Scully hated this. She hated this case. She hated what it was doing to 
him and what he thought it was doing to others. She hated his sickness 
and prayed it was not what she thought it was, that it was only his
tired body. 

She hated that she'd let him to go to Seattle. 

"I mean that if you stay here voluntarily for observation for a few days, 
and get well, then you'll be released on Friday." 

"Friday? That's _four_ days." 

"Well, you're about that much behind in sleeping and eating." 

"What if I don't voluntarily stay?" 

At her silence, his face went from anger to devastation. "You'll have 
me committed again. That's it, that's what you'll do? Fucking sign on 
the dotted line." 

"I don't think you're in a state of mind to understand how ill you are. 
You're underweight again, Mulder. Your dangerously weak. In 
Baltimore, two agents had to hold you up so we could walk you to 
my car ." 

"I was upset, my sister had just been murdered!" 

"I know that. In the car, on the way back to DC, I couldn't rouse 
you at all. When you finally woke up, you were doubled over in pain 
from your hernia. Your blood pressure is up. The doctor says it's the 
stress and I agree. You need rest. I'm going to make sure you get it." 

"You have no right to do this." 

"I still have power of attorney and I'm not going to let you kill 
yourself." 

"Remind me to talk to my lawyer about changing that A.S.A.P.!" 

Unfazed, Scully went on, but hurting inside. Hurting! "This leave 
of absence is compulsory. By the Bureau's mandate and mine." 

He turned his head away. "I don't believe what I'm hearing. I don't 
believe it." 

"I'm not doing this to hurt you, I love you." Under the circumstances 
she knew it sounded lame as hell, even if it was the truth. The taste 
of Skinner was still in her mouth. 

"I'll remember that when they strap me down for the night." 

That stung. Through her watering eyes, she could see him shrink 
away, as though her presence burned. She could see the pain in his 
eyes that refused to look at her and the expression of face that told 
her they might never do so again. 

"Please don't shut me out, Mulder." This changes nothing between 
us, she wanted to say-promise-vow. But such words would not have been 
welcomed. They would have been received as a lie. Maybe they were 
a lie. 

This case had destroyed him - them - already, and it was just beginning. 

It might be his last investigation. It might be the last of anything for 
him. 

"If you value your job at the Bureau, you'll stay put." 

She known the risks to him when he had decided to so quickly go 
back to work. Once a person suffers a nervous break down, it can 
occur again more easily, because the ability to endure is compromised, 
the ability to shake off stress reduced. But she thought the type of job 
he had chosen would keep him relatively safe. 

Laughing now, without humor, she wondered at her own naiveté. 


Mulder never shook off anything. He never compromised. 

In or out of the hospital, this case was going to undo him. H would 
drive himself until it ended. 

*** 



The next day, Scully learned Mulder had checked himself 
out. In Mulder-eze, that meant he'd gotten hold of clothes, 
probably belonging to some poor buggar down the hall,
and made a get-away. 

He didn't go to work the next day or go home either.
Scully checked with all the usuals. If he'd been with
any of the Lone Gunmen, they didn't own up. 

Felt a vague but fearful disquietude. 

But she didn't have time to dwell on it. Her own
case with Beyer demanded her attention and the
dead kids kept coming. And the parent-corpses with
the holes in the spines and the lack of left-over heart
pieces inside. 

Enroute to yet another spree-killing - the press were having
a field day with the monograms: "Spree-Killers strike again.",
God's Children cases baffles FBI", "Seventeen Families
Nation-Wide Die Horribly.", "Inspired by Manson, Man Claims
to be the Leader of Death-Cult; FBI receives manifesto from
Madman." and the list went on. - Beyer got a call on his cellular
from yet another claimant of the deeds. Scully used her own
to phone for back-up and they proceeded to the location. 

"Where is it?" Scully asked. 

"Station 23, it's an old subway they cut off and shut down when 
the area it's in went to slums. There's just empty buildings over 
there now." 

"Back-up should be there about the same time we are." 

Neither noticed the dark sedan following them a block and a half
back. 



*



They stood together, Beyer and Scully, ground-level,
outside the station. 

Minutes went by and no back-up. 

Beyer's cell' phone trilled. 

"Beyer." 

"Come now, or I'm leaving." 

It's the UnSub, Beyer mouthed silently to Scully. 

"We're on our way." Beyer said, hoping he could stall. 

"You're here already. Do you think I'm stupid? Thirty seconds!" 

Beyer pushed "end". "He's taking off, we can't wait for back-up." 

Scully looked dismayed but decided. 

"Okay." Scully didn't mean to sound like she was lecturing Beyer
but she did want to exit that subway station in one very much alive
piece. "We go in to the bottom of the stairs only. Me first." 

"Why you?" 

"Because I'm the senior agent and I said so." And she didn't want 
any greenhorn bursting in there and scaring this guy off, if this was 
their guy or one of them. 

They entered the cracked, duct-taped double glass doors, passed
by the old ticket vendor booths and paused at the top of
the old wide stairs. 

"This could easily be a trap, Beyer." 

"We could also lose this guy. Even if he's not our guy, we'll
be getting one of the annoying wanna-be's out of hair and off
the Bureau's call-in-line." 

"No heroics. If he doesn't play by our rules off the bat, we're
outta here and we wait for back-up to arrive. Clear?" 

"Yeah. Let's go." 

Scully proceeded down the stairs, Beyer right behind her. 

She turned on the landing, checking to see if Beyer was still 
there. He was. More stairs descending into shadow, but beyond 
the shadow, a feeble light. She was at the bottom of the stairs 
and then stepping out carefully into the tiny overhead light. Old 
florescent still miraculously flickering, but threatening to extinguish 
itself. 

She heard and thump and then a heavier thump. A whump! 

"Beyer?!" 

No answer. 

"Beyer!"


Silence. 

"Come with me." A voice said. 

Wannabe? Sicko? Lunatic? Their UnSub?? 

"Where are you?!" Scully strained to see into the 
dark passage ahead of her. "You are under arrest, 
come out with your hands up!" 

Scully heard the tiny click of metal on metal. 
Scully recognized it as a Safety on a handgun being 
released. Her partner- Beyer? Who the hell-? 

She shouted over her shoulder, "Beyer?!" 

A figure, not Beyer, weapon held between both outstretched 
fists, stepped from the staircase into the light. 


Scully squinted, but could distinguish only a gray 
silhouette. 


"Scully!" 

Shit! "Mulder?!" She saw him slowly advance. He was 
carrying a weapon. Wasn't suppose to be carrying one. 
Wasn't suppose to be there at all. Not in the field. 
Not with her. "Stay there!" 

He didn't. She didn't know how the hell he knew where 
she'd be.


"Mulder, have you been following us?" 

"Yes." 

"Mulder - Goddamnit! - you're not suppose to be in 
on this investigation. If Skinner finds out, you'll 
be disciplined, you could lose your job!" 

"Better that than you." Mulder had ignored the best 
course as usual. Now they were both targets, even so, 
she was glad he was there. Maybe they'd get out alive. 

"You should be in the hospital." 

"You think I was going to snooze and watch you chase 
this murdering bastard with "Mr. Academy" back there?" 

"He's a good agent, Mulder, just inexperienced." 

"Not anymore." 

"What do you mean?" 

"He's dead." 

"What?" 

"Someone cold-cocked him. I couldn't find a pulse." 

"How long have you been here?" 

"You think _I_ did it?!" 

"I didn't day that. But how did the UnSub get by you? Is there
two?" 

"I don't know but I find it funny that the Bureau would assign to a 
wetback like Beyer such a high profile case, don't you?" 

When Mulder saw Scully with her weapon aimed into 
the darkness just beyond the feeble ceiling light, 
he pointed his sights in the same direction. 

"Come out into the light!" He announced to their 
mutual: Subject, Unknown. 

Despite his career being shot to hell with this violation, 
Scully loved hearing his voice. Things had, in a way, 
folded back and they were partners again, chasing down 
a suspect, working in tandem, covering each other's asses, 
finishing the others thoughts... 

"Are you okay, Scully?" 

"Yes." She said, gun still trained into the darkness. "I heard 
him speak. He's over there, can you see him, Mulder?" 

"No." 

Shit. Neither could she and it was a stand-off 
until someone moved. 

"How did you know he was here?" Mulder asked. 

"A tip on Beyer's cell phone from someone claiming to
be the Spree-Kills-Leader. It's a game to him. We called for 
back-up but couldn't wait." She was rambling. 

Tension. 

"What was funny, Mulder, that he was assigned to 
this case, or to me?" 

"Both. You should have waited for back-up, Scully, 
you could be dead!" 

"Beyer _is_." She reminded him, her "new" partner 
of two weeks lying back on the stairs, with a crushed 
skull most likely. 

"I don't like this, Scully, something's wrong." 

Scully nodded. "I'm beginning to think you're 
right. Where the hell is our backup?" 

"I don't think they're coming." 

"What?!" 

"I think this was a set-up. I think this whole thing smells. 
Your call for back-up must have been intercepted, I think 
we're waiting for something else." 

"What? Why?" 

"I don't know, I just get that impression. Call me 
gun-shy." 

Scully had to laugh. "You want to know what I think, 
Mulder?" 

"What?" 

"I think I'm glad you were spying on me. I think 
I'm glad you're here." 

She didn't have to see his face to know he liked 
hearing it. "Maybe your paranoia is rubbing off on 
me, Mulder. If so cut it out." 

Mulder's smile widened but quickly he turned his 
attention back to the serious. Nothing moved in the 
shadows. 

"Come out of there!" 

"Mulder? I don't think he's there anymore." 

"He has to be." 

Dead silence but for their own breaths. 

"Something's very wrong here." Mulder said and it 
sent shivers up her spine. 

That's when her UnSub stepped out of the total darkness 
and into gray shadow. Smooth features. Blank face. 

"Hold it right there!" Scully ordered. 

Mulder didn't see the shape behind _him_. He didn't 
see the movement of the thing that bubbled out of 
the indefinite curtain that divided shadow and light. 
The thing that took shape behind him out of the dark. 

Scully glanced over to see what Mulder was doing. 

She did see....something. "MULDER!!" 

Her glance gave another something time to advance. He
did so, in a movement so lightening fast, Scully thought it 
inhuman. Nothing moved that fast. She'd at first the 
impression of something faceless. 

Now she saw that he was merely wearing a black wool
mask with holes for eyes. 

Scully found her gun whipped from her hand before 
she could blink. 

The UnSub stepped back, far enough that she would 
not be able to tackle him. Holding his own gun on her, 
aimed directly at her forehead, he pointed her own 
weapon in Mulder's direction. It was a preparation
of something worse than if he had put the gun to her 
head and fired. He was going to shoot Mulder. 

**********

Mulder was still standing but Scully couldn't know 
that Mulder's eyes were squeezed shut. His face and 
hands trembling with the effort of some terrible 
internal battle as the man or thing stood before him. 

Mulder let out stifled groan but did not move from 
where he stood. 

"Mulder? Are you okay?!" 

No answer. 

Scully would not look away from him now. He was 
shaking from head to heel. He might fly apart. The 
other form stood next to him. Mulder didn't move. 

She heard a click and faced forward. Her UnSub had
put on the safety on her weapon. 

Heard a cushioned cracking sound, like the snapping 
of a sapling's branch. Turned back. 

"Mulder? Mulder?!" 

"Don't bother." A cold voice from the shadows said. "He's 
not going to get up again." 

Her UnSub stuffed her weapon under his shirt.


Scully hadn't seen him being struck down, but Mulder 
was lying on the concrete, unmoving, in an untidy pile 
just beyond decent illumination. 

She wondered if Mulder was dead. The dark form was 
bending over him. 

She called, "MULDER!" Didn't care of they shot her for it. 

Mulder was a still, gray lump. 

Shock and horror, the sight of him fallen and maybe 
mortally hurt; unprotected and vulnerable, made her heart 
hammer painfully. That life might be bleeding 
out of him and Doctor Scully on the scene but helpless, 
caused an aching in her throat and, in her physicians 
soul, a knife. But she could not be a healer this time. 

Terror over what was transpiring beyond her ability 
to see it clearly, Scully turned to her UnSub. 

"What did he do to him!?" 

Before she had time to speak Mulder's name again 
and before she found out, a suffocating weight slammed 
her against the rough wall and her hands were 
roughly tied. Again, she had hardly seen the movement 
before it occurred. 

"Why don't we just kill them?" The Cold Voice from 
the dark asked. Toneless. Icy. 

"Because that's not what they want. Help me with her. 
Leave him. Is he still alive?" 

"Yeah." 

"Then get over here." 

Was it the red fire behind her eyes or the stinging 
of her arms being yanked behind her back that blurred 
the image, but was that figure in the dark a man? The
outline of him was indistinct, faded at the edges; where
man began and darkness ended. 

It was made moot when a blindfold was tied around her 
head and a gag around her mouth. 

"MUUUULDER!" she yelled as loud as her muffled lips 
would allow. 

They were taking her away. If he was dead, she would 
not breath again. 

Scully made two mental observations as she was dragged 
away, both thoughts birthing a feeling of an uncontrolled 
dive into the unthinkable: 

Somehow she was as involved with this - whatever in God's 
name _THIS_ was - as Mulder was, if he lived. 

And: 

She was about to find out the reason.




*** 

Precious, irreplaceable seconds. 

Too long! 

Mulder didn't even pause to think about it. His every intention 
was to rage into whatever was happening at the bottom of 
those stairs and bulldoze whoever was doing the bad shit. 

And it was not the alleged UnSub. Mulder was positive the 
call had been an invitation from another source. 

But if it were the UnSub and Scully were harmed, Mulder would 
empty his gun, and if the nameless scum's head popped open 
in the process, he'd cheer. He might grind it into the concrete 
himself. 

But that's not what happened. 

What happened was when Mulder came upon the scene in 
the subway, Scully's gun trained into the shadows, his legs 
simply halted him where he stood. 

Things rarely went the way one imagined. 

They exchanged words and puzzled questions, just like old times. 

Then, when he saw Scully's small body blocked by the bulk of a 
larger one for a split second, Mulder tried to fire but couldn't. 

Fingertips began to itch, then burn and then were on fire. He 
wanted to pull the trigger but couldn't. He couldn't even bounce 
the weapon off someone's head because his grip was locked. 

"Get away from her!" He'd squeezed out the words between 
clenched teeth and knew they were lost before they ever 
reached her. 

When Scully gasped in some nameless fright, simultaneously 
a painful blow from somewhere made Mulder reel to one side. 

Something cracked and he was tasting blood and toothchips. 

But no voluntary motion would come from his body. He was 
held back by nothing, no one touched him, yet he was caught. 
He stayed. 

"So help me, if you lay one dirty finger on her, I'll blow you 
to pieces!" but it was only his mind screaming and the threat 
was made impotent. 

Mulder's head snapped around as another blow made contact. 
Stars spun but the pain kept him conscious. He buckled under 
another terrific strike from above, falling to his knees, blood 
spilling through his hair and down his face to stain his white 
T-shirt red. 

He heard nothing more from Scully. 

Unable to do anything but gasp and fall over, it was a hated 
sound. Felt gritty concrete. It smelled of old gum and cigarette 
butts. 

Tried hard, so hard, to stay awake, to get up, to run, to help his 
partner who had screamed and then stopped. Who was being 
taken away. Who might be dying. 

Mulder could do nothing however but pass out.



*** 

"Hey, man." A greasy teen in combat fatigues wiggled a black booted
foot in the prone man's face.


Mulder groaned and sat up, regretting it immediately as his head
swam and his stomach gyrated. 

Held his head, hair sticky with congealed blood. He tenderly touched
the area he figured had been clobbered and felt flattened globs of 
blood on the top left side. It had dried enough to have formed a 
"skin" and probably wouldn't bleed anymore if he moved slowly. 
Ignoring the more curious than concerned youth he staggered, 
feeling top heavy, to his feet, using both extended arms as levers. 

The pain was way worse now that he was vertical. He didn't know
concrete could buckle like that. The subway threw him some pretty 
cool moves as he stumbled over to the stairwell and found his way 
outside. 

His cellular and gun were both gone. Figures. He'd bought both
himself. Not Bureau issue. 

With some luck, a phone booth appeared about a half block away and 
he dialed "0" and gave all the particulars of badge, location, incident,
stressing in particular the need for an APB on Agent Dana Scully and the
"son-of-a-bitch" who had her. 

Oh, yeah. And an ambulance. Mulder slid down the booth's glass
sides, landing on his butt. He was suddenly very sleepy. 

***



Mulder woke to the tick-tick of the high heels and perfume. 

Scully! He opened his eyes. His LEFT eye - the right didn't join in,
and blinked to compress the mucous in it. When he did, Scully vanished. 

He'd thought he was depressed before. 

It was, instead, the mother of Scully. He wished so hard that she'd turn 
into Scully his heart hammered. 

Mrs. Scully was here to blame, he knew. To cry and ask how and why. 
Why Dana, Why my baby girl? Again? Why me? 

He was prepared for the few dozen why-didn't-you's and why-couldn't-
you-have's that she must have stockpiled. 

Mulder wasn't about to close his ears to any of it. Especially not the 
why-couldn't-you-have's. He'd sure as hell like an answer to that one 
himself. He figured he deserved whatever verbal assault was coming. 
It would be a continuation of the conversation he'd been having in his 
own head anyway. 


Except she just stood there looking at him. 

Mulder waited but all was quiet on the front, it seemed. 

Mulder saw two feminine hands resting on the bedcovers, clenching 
and unclenching. Maybe he could offer her a "Squeeze-Ball". They 
were popular with stressed-out exec's. People often gave them as gifts. 

He used to have three.


Or would she be content with clamping them around his throat? Better 
to just keep quiet. 

His head felt like an over-ripe melon, his jaw ached, his right eye was 
swollen to a slit. His body hurt pretty much from the neck down. And 
Margarette Scully being there did not improve his prospects for walking 
out the hospital intact. 

He supposed he should say something , but all he could think of was to 
say sorry. Pathetically inadequate. It might even be received as insulting. 
"Ah, Scully got kidnapped (again). But look on the bright side, at least her 
life's not boring." 

Against common sense, Mulder tried to move his mouth and gasped at 
the shriek of protest from the facial muscles and tendons that cramped 
painfully. 

That was it for the speech test. 

** 

Margarette Scully had hesitated outside the sick room. *I will beat at him 
and scream Dana's name until he is deaf!* She wanted to finally vocalize 
her hatred now that things were at their worst. She wanted him to know 
that she blamed him for being here where he could be warm and safe.
A place where he was being fed and nurtured and cared for. 

Having convinced herself that she hated him thoroughly, she swept 
through the door to the bed. 

But the swollen black and purple bruises and the temple covered by 
gauze padding and tape, caused all the hurting words she'd rehearsed 
to self destruct before she ever got them out. She'd come to toss a 
few verbal grenades but could not pull a single pin.


A terrible depression overtook her instead. The feeling one has when 
faced with utter futility. 

"I read the report you filed, Fox." She taken the pin in her teeth at least. 

Margarette Scully had only really met her daughters partner a few times. 
When Dana used to speak about her work or her partner, those rare times 
she did speak, it was only a few sentences at most, sometimes frustrated 
words, sometimes admiring and kind. But never enough information for 
Margarette to get a clear picture of the man, so her opinion of him had 
swung from the generous side of the pendulum: someone she imagined 
as sound and honorable and a good friend to her Dana, over to the 
critical: a flaky, self-centered son-of-a-bitch. 

Her son Bill had fueled the negative every chance he got. 

But she also remembered a man who had never given up searching for 
her daughter when Dana went missing the first time. 

Margarette had never imagined - ever - that there would come a second. 

Her knowledge of Fox Mulder centered around the effect of his 
partnership with her baby girl, and how often had that association 
brought harm? 

And always Dana had defended him, spoke out for him, protected 
him. 

What kind of man was he to have such influence? At first study, 
they went together about as rightly as ketchup on cheesecake. 

Upon closer inspection, it became clear there was a force at 
work. They seemed to be a balancing act. Two people who had 
been thrown together by no choice, but discovered they filled 
each one a void in the other. A meld had occurred over time. 
Occasionally thrust apart, yes. Eventually a drawing back of one 
to the other again; like a craving each felt, yet neither quite 
understood. 

A pairing that somehow, just worked. 

The way a light socket is a finished product; it has it's defined 
purpose but not much use. But screw in a lightbulb... 

Margarette heard his panting. He was in pain. He was awake and 
looking at her. She saw a slight movement from him and the 
distress it caused. She saw the pain in his eyes like that in her own. 

Behind the black and blue was a handsome man who enjoyed 
relative health when he wasn't decorated with bandages and 
tubes. 

When no one was pounding him. 

Margarette was certain Dana had not told her the half of the cases 
she'd investigated at Fox's side. Nor of the inherent dangers under 
which she had been placed over and over again. 

Yet Dana was a grown woman and Margarette had learned a 
practiced restraint when it came to her youngest. Interference in 
Dana's life and choice of vocation was a NO. Absolutely. 
Non-debatably. 

Dana had never tolerated it. 

She had been a fiercely independent and self reliant young girl. Displays 
of affection had been received and given, reservedly, but displays of 
dependence had been rare. 

Where Melissa had been whimsical and flighty, speaking of freedom 
and love, understanding and harmony, Dana had discussed natural 
order and biology, science and substance. 

University, Medical Doctor, Pathologist, FBI Agent - SPECIAL FBI 
Agent Dana Scully. By the age of twenty-nine, she'd become a 
distinguished and accomplished career woman in a dangerous 
job. 

Now, at forty-three, Dana was in love with this man lying in the 
hospital bed. A man who'd tried to save her daughter. 

Dana would tolerate no interference in that omission either. 

Certainly it was a dangerous occupation these two people were in. 

But why did it have to be Dana who paid this time, too?
Why Dana again? 

Margaret's countenance was one of near perfect control, behind 
all the clenching of hands and teeth.


Her fury at Fox returned. And she felt sorry, but she had to tell him. 
She was Dana's mother. She had the right to be angry. 

"It should have been you, Fox." 

The man on the bed stirred again, his eyes opened, foggy from 
from the cocktail of drugs he'd been given. He stared for just a 
minute. Had he been awake? Had he heard her? 

Her face must have said it all because he nodded. 

Margarette Scully's soul didn't feel any fuller. She felt no 
righteousness at her words of vengeance. 

She hugged herself and wept silently, eyes shut tight against her 
words and his face and all of it. 

Then she pulled up a chair to his bedside, took his hand in 
both her own and held on to him for her dear life. And his too. 

"You'll find her, won't you, Fox? You'll find her for me." 

*** 

Skinner's work had just begun when his office's side door opened
and in walked- 

"What the hell do you want?" 

"Good morning to you as well, Director Skinner." 

Skinner slammed back his chair and stood to face the pale, sagging
flesh of the once upon a time "Smoking Man". 

Now it appeared that "Barely Breathing Man" was more apropos. 

"Why?!" 

CancerMan knew precisely what he meant. "What makes you think 
I had anything to do with Scully's abduction?" 

"Because that's your style." 

"I see. Well, I can assure you that neither I nor my associates have 
harmed Scully in any way." 

"You're lying." 

"How can you be so sure?" 

"Because that's also your style. And I'm sick of your style. I'm sick 
of your lies, I'm sick of your old stink invading my office, and you know 
something? I'm sick of you." 

"We must come to an understanding, Mister Skinner." 

"I'm through having deals with the devil." 

An ironic twist of the mouth. "Ever read your bible, Mister Skinner?" 

Skinner sat, opened a report and started reading it. "Not lately." Not 
caring to hear anything more. 

"Pity. There are lessons one can learn from it. For example, did 
you know that even the Devil himself transforms into an angel of 
light occasionally?" 

Skinner looked up contemptuously, "Is that what you are?" 

"What I am is a man who can help or hinder. But it depends upon 
so many things. I thought you were a smart man. I'm surprised you 
haven't yet figured out who your friends ARE." 

"What's that suppose to mean?" 

"You disappoint me. Perhaps you should show a little more gratitude." 

"For what? You have nothing I need." 

"Let's be clear, Mister Skinner. Your agents depend on you to lead them, 
to assist them to discover the truth." 

"So?" 

"So I depend upon you to assist them, and to continue to guide them 
to the correct sources for that truth." 

"What truth? Yours?" 

"The only truth there is." 

Skinner stood and circled his desk, he'd had his fill and closed the 
distance between them. 

They were almost touching noses. "You must have aced double-talk 
101. I never seen you help anyone but yourself. But I'll tell you what I 
have seen. I've seen Agent Scully almost killed twice over, both times 
I am certain directly or indirectly by your hand. I've seen Agent Mulder 
nearly driven to murder and madness through chemical manipulation 
and to all intents and purposes dead more times than I can count. I've 
seen murder and misery brought into their lives and the lives of others. 
And I've seen you manipulate and use me to further whatever-the-hell
it is you do for whoever-the-hell your "associates" are. In short, I've 
seen nothing but death and grief come from you. And all this because 
why? Because one man wanted to find his baby sister." 

"All things would have been in their acceptable time, if it
were not for what we have discovered." 

"Discovered what? You think you have everyone and everything in 
your pocket? You believe you can control destiny, invent the future?" 

"It's being done as we speak." 

"You're a sickening old man with a twisted ego. You make me sick. 
Get out of my office!" 

"You have a small mind, Skinner. Small minded men usually don't 
survive in the long run." 

"Now you're threatening me?" 

"Merely stating an unfortunate truth." 

The old man, for is what he was now, walked carefully toward
the main door, pulling his oxygen tank behind him. 

"There is a storm coming, Mister Skinner. And there are new
players. I'm sure Scully understands this by now." 

Carefully maneuvering the oxygen tank, precious liquid life, 
out passed it, he shut the door behind him.

*** 

FOLDBACK PART III


Enroute into Parking Level Two: 

His cellular trilled for attention. "Mulder." 

"Fox Mulder?" The voice was familiar. 

"Yes, this is Agent Fox Mulder. Who's this?" 

"Ian Moss. Do you remember me?" 

"Uh, yeah-yes, I remember you. Can I help you with-" 

"You can help me nail the murdering pricks who murdered him." 
The voice on the phone was distraught. 

His breath hitched in his throat. "Who murdered who?" 

"I need to see you, I'll come to DC if you want me to. But 
they're closing the case after a only a week. Some son-
of-whore killed Gary." 

Mulder tried to remember who was who. Gary had been 
the hefty cop and lover to Ian Moss. Ian - his former nurse in 
his former mental home. 

He shuddered. My entourage. 

Mulder parked and got out of his car. "Gary's been murdered? 
What happened?" 

"Can you come to Boston? I'll pay for your flight, hotel, everything, 
but I need someone...someone who gives a damn because those 
homophobic assholes won't even take my calls anymore." 

"Uh, Ian, I've got my own case right now-" 

"Please, Fox - Mister Mulder. I don't have anyone else to call. No 
one will talk to me." 

Tried to keep the reluctance out of his voice. Sighed. Can't you 
spare a day for the guy who pretty much saved your life? Mulder 
cursed his conscience. 

"Listen, I have a couple of meetings but I'll fly out early this 
afternoon and home tomorrow. We'll discuss expenses later." 

Ian let out a breath he'd been holding. "This means a lot to me, 
thanks." 

Mulder closed the connection. 


** 

Skinners Office. 

"Sit down Agent Mulder." Assistant Director Walter Skinner 
motioned to Mulder. 

Skinner noted the bruise on the right jaw. The shiner. The hair 
that had been clipped shorter than the rest across the left side 
of the top, where the stitches were. 

Stiffly, Mulder sat. "I-must-inform-you-that-you're-in-deep-shit", 
Mulder heard in his head. 

"Agent Mulder, you know there is going to be an inquiry into 
the events of Wednesday night." 

Mulder just nodded once. "I have a debriefing in one half hour." 

"I know. And I'm sure you know that the report you filed with 
this office, a copy of which was provided to the local jurisdictional 
authorities has left some unanswered questions." 

""I wasn't suppose to be there. I wasn't suppose to be carrying 
a weapon. My being there may in fact have compromised the 
situation and put in jeopardy the lives of two field agents. My 
presence did not prevent the murder of one agent and the kidnapping
of another"." Mulder summarized. 

It was what the debriefing would be all about. 

Skinner tossed aside said report he'd had under his nose, "Alright. 
I guess I don't need to tell you that as it stands, it doesn't look 
favorable for you. It looks as though your actions may have 
contributed to the circumstances surrounding Beyer's death or
Scully's abduction by the UnSub or both. There is also some 
speculation..." 

"What?" 

"There is speculation not only about Beyer's death, but your arrival 
on the scene just prior to it." 

"They think I killed him, is that it? Do they also believe that I split 
my own scalp, that I nearly broke my own jaw? Sounds pretty 
implausible to me, what else do they believe?" 

"Mulder, if you're not prepared to answer at this Inquiry, it'll 
not only finish your career in the Bureau permanently but you 
could be brought up on charges for the violation to your 
probationary status and who knows what else. Those violations 
in conjunction with the death of a Federal Officer are an extremely 
serious matter. I called you here because I wanted to - off the record - 
ask you to explain to me the circumstances leading up to Scully's 
abduction." 

"It's in the report. It's the same as Thursday. I didn't lie in the hospital 
for a day thinking up something better." 

"I just want you to tell me what you think happened, off the record. 
What happened to YOU." 

Mulder's first answer was a frustrated headshake. "What you want to 
know is why I let Scully get taken when I could have stopped it. Why 
I LET her be beaten and abducted, that's what you really want to 
know. I filed my report and my honesty is questioned. I tell the truth 
and people hear it as lies. If I, right now, sitting here, made up more 
believable sounding bullshit, would you believe it?" Mulder 
answered for Skinner before Skinner could get out a peep. "No, 
because what I reported sounds like an X-File." 

"Is this part of an X-File?" 

"I don't know. But if these assertions of what occurred that night 
were coming from anyone else they might be believed without 
question. But because it's me, they are questioned without belief. 
We both know why, sir. Because I'm not Agent Mulder, I'm 
Spooky. Former psychiatric patient and all around general F-Up." 

"So everyone is out to get you?" 

Mulder's guts heaved. "No." 

"You may not believe me but as implausible as your explanation 
sounds, I'm inclined to back you up and not because I'm your boss. 
But because during the years you were in my department, I believe 
that you never lied to me about something that was crucial; about 
something that I needed to know for the good of another agent. And 
that's more than I can say for myself. I was hoping that there was 
something more, something you'd left out that I could take to the 
Sub-Committee before the Inquiry date." 

"I'm sorry. There's not." 

"Fine. Your report stands as it is. You're on your own with this one, 
Mulder." 

"I'm aware of that, sir." 

"I'll do what I can within the boundaries of this office, but I can't 
take sides." 

"No, sir." 

Skinner closed the thick file on his desk. "What do you intend 
to do?" 

Mulder didn't answer directly. "I'll be out of town this weekend, 
but all my calls will be forwarded to my cellular." 

"You're leaving town, Agent Mulder?" 

Mulder thought he heard the implied in Skinner's words: Scully's 
been kidnapped and you're off on a weekend trip?? 

"It's strictly personal. And I'll deal with my guilt my own way, 
sir, thanks." 

Skinner's color deepened but he kept his cool "Your trip has nothing 
to do with the current investigation?" 

"No." 

Mulder stood, on shaky legs he was surprised to feel. He put his 
hands on his hips and looked at the edge of Skinners desk. Skinner 
waited for the last few sentences he knew were forthcoming from 
Mulder. He had learned to spot these mannerisms, and what they 
meant. 

"I've thought about it every hour since it happened. It's true what 
they say, that if you think about something long enough, examine it, 
question it, pick it apart, pretty soon, it doesn't stand up under the 
scrutiny. I learned that at GreenLawn. Off the record?: My memory is 
unclouded and detailed as to what happened to Scully in that subway, 
and I told the truth about it. I saw and felt what happened to me. I 
remember _what_, but do I know - really know - for certain who or 
what caused it? Why I couldn't stop it? No. No, sir, I really don't. 
But I have my suspicions and I'm going to find out. I'm going to find 
him and I'm going to find her." 

"Vigilante justice will only make your own situation worse." 

"Better than no justice. Which is what will happen with that son-of-
a-bitch. He won't even suffer a rash over what he's done. And I'm 
finally going to get my answers." 

Something boiled up inside Skinner. ""Your" answers? You have 
exclusive claim to the truth? Maybe you should stop thinking about 
your own satisfaction and start thinking about Agent Scully's life!" 

"I haven't slept for being unable to stop thinking about that!" 

There were a lot of things Skinner wanted to say to this younger 
man. This man he saw who, on top of his integrity to ferret out truth 
and justice, also carried around a chip on his shoulder the size of 
the Washington Monument. He wanted to say them but not where 
they were standing. The walls had teeny electronic ears. 

"Agent Mulder," Skinner stood up suddenly, "come with me, please." 
Skinner spoke through his main office door to his secretary: "Kim, 
Hold my calls, I'll return in five minutes." He strode passed Mulder 
and ignored the agent's comment: 

"Only five minutes? I take it this is going to be a short and sweet 
ass-kicking?" 

Skinner lead Mulder through his side door and to the Executive 
Washroom. 

Mulder saw the door Skinner was fitting his key into. "Are you 
promoting me, sir?" 

"No, but if I have to listen to anymore of your crap, I'd like to do 
it in the appropriate setting at least." Voice tight as a piano wire, 
"Step inside." 

He steered Mulder over to the urinals. Mulder raised his eyebrows 
at his boss's odd destination. "Gee," he looked in the bottom of 
one, "We don't get pretty blue disks in our urinals." 

Cocky adolescent! "Shut your mouth, Agent Mulder. I want to 
know what the hell is up with you?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Scully's gone, Agent Mulder. She's been kidnapped by a friendly 
neighborhood psycho. No word, no demands, not a goddamn 
clue despite there being an eyewitness!" 

Mulder colored red at the implication. "I didn't get a good look 
at him! I was busy getting my scalp retreaded!" 

"SHE'S GONE! For the second time! Now doesn't that bother 
you just a little?" 

"What is this - "The View"? Of course it bothers me, am I 
suppose to justify something here? It bothers me! It bothers me 
right through one side of chest and out the other. It bothers me 
that she was partnered with a fresh faced kid on the verge of 
puberty! It bothers me like hell that in order to find out what 
she was being lead into I was forced to do penny-ante spying 
on her!" 

"You sing the tune, Mulder, but I find the lyrics hard to believe, 
because you have an awfully funny way of showing it." 

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" 

Skinner set his jaw with words he'd wanted to say for quite 
some time. "It means, after all Scully did for you, after all she's 
done - your therapy, breaking her own bank, standing up for 
you - when Greenlawn gave you your walking papers, the first 
thing you did was buy a one-way ticket west. Now, is it just me, 
or does that seem like some pretty piss-poor gratitude?" 

Mulder stared back defiantly. "I tried to get a job here, I had to 
find something, get on my feet-" 

"You're lying, Mulder. Out of curiosity just after you left for 
Seattle, I checked with Recruitment. No record of one Fox 
Mulder re-applying to the Bureau last year. You could have 
gotten back on then just as easily as you've done now. Your 
little vacation in sunny Washington State was a goddamn 
escape. You tucked your tail and ran! You lied to Scully, a 
woman you claim to care about. You know, I always thought 
you were a bit selfish, Mulder, but not when it came to her. I'm 
beginning to think that I was mistaken. So, as I said, you have 
a funny way of showing it." 

Mulder, hands on hips, looked away, stared at the gold-painted 
wall, turned back. "Is this off the record, can I - can we consider 
this a strictly personal conversation, man to man?" 

"Anything's possible." 

"In those five years, _Walter_, I came to respect your opinion 
but - FUCK YOU!" 

He spat it out hard in Skinner's face. 

"You think I liked what I did? I had nothing to offer Scully. I still 
don't. Despite that job, I felt like I was going down for the count; 
making a showing. And we both know that my career with the FBI 
right now is nothing more than punching the clock. You think that's 
what I want to bring to Scully? You think that's enough? I have 
nothing to give her and you think I'm happy with that?! Did it occur 
to you that if I _am_ a lost cause, if I'm destined to fail, that I might 
not want to drag her down with me!?" 

Skinner blinked, mentally kicking himself. Mulder was pale and 
sick looking. He hadn't slept in days and had been clearly ripping 
himself apart inside since that night for his failure to save Scully. 

You didn't see him because Scully's all you've been able to think about, 
he told himself. 

He could do no penance for his cutting words other than to hear 
Mulder out. He let the other man speak uninterrupted. 

Whose first words long ago inscribed with gold on a heart somehow still 
beating behind that thin, shaking chest. 

"I _love_ Scully. But I have fuck-all to offer her. No life, no family. 
She'll have no kids now because of her association with me! She 
has a career, a good one." Mulder stopped, panted a little for a 
second and walked away, half turning back to him, his face a tale 
of misery. 

"I owe her my life and she deserves everything. The best. And 
maybe if - when - we find her, that'll turn out to be you and not me." 

Mulder swallowed deeply. Skinner watched him struggle to form 
the next few sentences while, it seemed, resisting the urge to scream 
or slam his head into the wall. "And if it turns out that way...then I 
will walk away and be happy for her. It's not about me, Skinner. It
hasn't been for a long time. I know how other people see me and 
I know how Scully does. I spent five years learning that and another 
two re-learning it." 

Skinner winced. What had it been like - really? - to have gone 
through what Mulder had been through? Just how terrifying? Eight 
years in a prison would be a test of character for most men. It was a
thing that took people to the limits of endurance. Most came out 
scarred in one way or another, and it was usually permanent. Life 
was rarely the same for them after. Not normal. _They_ were
not normal. Not unlike battle fatigue or shell-shock. 

Mulder had come back alive. Now his battle seemed to be with 
himself. 

"Yes, I want answers. I want these cock-suckers to _pay_ for what 
they've done to her and to me. But I will never do anything to 
compromise her safety to get those answers. And I will do anything 
I have to get her back." 

Mulder sagged. Hands at his side. Wrinkled suit. Rumpled heart. 

"So don't think you can look at me and know the deal. Who are you 
to pass judgment? You don't know a goddamn thing!" 

Skinner wondered if Mulder was going to make it through this one. 
He looked ill, he might tumble into a million pieces before him and 
Skinner did not want that. 

Hoping to stop the avalanche, "I apologize, Mulder. I want her 
back safe and unharmed. I should have understood that you 
wanted that just as badly." 

Mulder nodded. He appeared to have emptied of words. Turned 
the inner bolt to free the door and himself. 

"Mulder-" 

The agent stopped, not turning back, just listening. 

"I'll help where I can. But if somehow, if you find the ones 
responsible, if they've...hurt her,if it turns out you're right and 
that they're beyond the law,....you'll take care of it, won't you?" 

Mulder turned now to stare at his boss and the meaning 
underpinning the words. "Yeah. If it comes to that, I'll take care 
of it. At that point, for me, nothing else would matter." 

*** 

Once he was free of Skinner's sparkling bathroom, Mulder
found the nearest visitors and kneeled before the porcelain
basin giving up his paltry dinner from yesterday. He retched
foul soup and his esophagus burned in protest. 

Lots of gastric-acid juices flowing. Only nothing was digesting 
well. More particularly not the words he'd just listened to with
crushing finality. 

Toilets and him had a great deal in common, he thought.
He was always getting shit on too. Only he hoarded it. 

Photographic memory and the rank reminders were piling up. 

He was a selfish, dickless wonder. Scully was gone and he
was leaving on a jet plane. Running for the second time. 

Sure he had disputed Skinner's words. Gotta pretend a
little bit. Fool his own conscience into numbness or he
might never come back again. Not on a plane or even
occupying a broken down body. 

Scully was all and if she was dead, he'd leave all right. 

Having miraculously avoided prolapsing, his stomach finally 
quite it's ballooning and deflated to normal. That is, the feeling
of "beachball" went away and he was able to stand. 

In ten minutes he had a debriefing. What fun. 

*** 

Debriefing over, (all the usuals he and Skinner had hacked 
at), Mulder sought his own tiny corner of the Bureau. The 
cluttered drawers were dominated by pencils, notepads, 
an empty coffee cup, an extra neck tie...
Nothing of any importance. 

His desk. Him.


A loser, Blunht had said. More near the mark with each passing 
year. 

Mulder yanked open the topmost drawer. It jammed halfway 
as usual. He didn't care, just flipped through one useless
piece of paper after another. Grunt work. VCU phone errand
running. Not even profiling. Nothing that could be fouled up.
Risky to hand anything vital over to a rumored psychotic with 
one finger on the self-destruct button. 

Mulder wanted to get some kind of not-like-him order to his
life suddenly and starting with the drawer seemed as good as 
place as any to start. Better than going home to his posh one-room
apartment. Vacancies in decent neighborhoods were scarce. 

It was something he just had to do while inside his father/
his demons/himself said: "Loser, Has-been. Killing time and her 
too. You've fucked up and want to pretend. Really fucked-up this 
time. SERIOUSLY fucked up." 

His fingers sorted and sifted and piled and his mind did it's thing:
it went back over recent events like an iron, trying to smooth
out the wrinkles he'd created. 

Over and over, burning into his brain material. Enough times and
maybe it all won't have happened and Scully would walk in through
those double doors, up to his desk, raise one sardonical eyebrow 
above delicious eyes and judge his housecleaning attempt as 
hopeless. 

He realized he was holding his breath and exhaled. It did nothing
for his nausea. 

Hernia again.


Maybe ulcer now, too. 


Sure. Fine. Whatever. 

He noted it then dismissed it after he'd been released from the 
hospital Thursday noon with yet another zipper of stitches holding 
his scalp in place, and a pocket full of pills to help ease the pain 
nestled throughout most of his bruised appendages. He was stiff 
and achy and his stomach wanted to burst.


On the way home, he'd stopped at a drug store and bought gravol.


He'd taken a couple without water - the nausea was really getting 
bad - and drove the rest of way, thinking fuck-it to the warning label 
about driving under the influence of the doping stuff. 

During that drive, and the way to the Bureau that morning, (because 
staying home made everything worse), he took gravol. His blood 
and brain was tanked on it, yet sleep eluded him like a angry lover. 

He was so sick of feeling sick. 

The pressure and pain of it's writhing was a cancer intertwined with 
his memory and it's power steadily swelled with them. 

The last thing he'd remembered was Scully's scream and his frozen 
hands stretched out stupidly in front of him, NOT firing. 

He remembered Scully being knocked to the ground. 

And he, Mulder, NOT moving. 

And he remembered Scully being struck, and manhandled, 
and he: 

Doing NOTHING. 

And he remembered something standing in front of him on that 
subway platform, blocking him, making him - MAKING HIM - watch 
and hear every scene. Only the something was almost a nothing. 

Man. Thing. Ghost. Imagination? Crazy Mulder illusion? Standing 
there, preventing him from acting like any normal human would have. 

Maybe he was crazy. He felt crazy. 

He could prove nothing of course.


When he'd bit his lip, swallowed the blood and walked into that 
debriefing with the six pairs of eyes and ears all listening, 
questioning, scribbling and evaluating, he'd tried to explain it 
rationally but, of course, it was bullshit-talk. Their faces said so. 

Explanations from Spooky Mulder were Spooky Mulder 
explanations. 

What had happened in that subway ended up not the way he'd 
intended. The way his secret following of Scully had started had 
been under his control. *Things are gonna go like this* he'd thought 
before rushing down those urine stinked stairs minutes behind Scully. 

But too late. 



Mulder went to Scully's office and, after obtaining permission 
via phone from Director Skinner to enter, he had. 

It was nice to be humored at least. 

He rifled through her recent case-reports, In-Box, Out-Box,
files and waste basket. 

Nothing. 

He pulled open cabinet stuffed with files to see what they might
whisper to him, about where she might have been taken and
who might have done the taking. Some slipped to the floor, 
papers and clippings swirling around his feet like leaves. 

Mulder grabbed the back of the cabinet and threw it over onto 
its face. The crash brought the secretary running but then she
quickly vanished again. 

In his outburst, he had bumped Scully's corner work desk - with 
it's neatly docketed notes and alphabetized files - and spilled 
her little flowered cup bursting with pens and colored felts. 

Her little brass ruler. A white hair comb. 

Inner panic gripped and he hastily thrust her belongings 
back in, straightening it and kicking himself for what he 
saw as just one more violation of her. 

He stepped back slightly to examine the results. 

Yes, it looked just as it had. Smart and tidy. Scully. 

But it hadn't restored Scully herself. 

Mulder slammed both palms down on the desk organizer. 


He rested his head and forearms on the sacred place in
the bureau that was hers and breathed hard, hurting and
hurting. 

Scully was gone. 

He was still there and alive. It mocked him. He hated it. 

Being there and breathing while she was elsewhere and
maybe.... 

Oh, how history loved to loop and loop and loop. 

Everything was ending.

****