====o=====================================================o===== "Passages in Memory" (revised) by Mary Ruth Keller E-mail: mrkeller@eclipse.net =====o=====================================================o===== Part III - Journey (Disclaimed in Prologue) -----o---------------------------------------o----- But this exceeding posting day and night Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it: But since you have made the days and nights as one, To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs, Be bold you do so grow in my requital As nothing can unroot you. All's Well That Ends Well -----o---------------------------------------o------ Office of the Lone Gunmen Alexandria, Virginia Saturday, February 1, 1997 3:14 am Mulder and Scully stood just inside the doorway. "Well, it is too small for anything." Mulder knew if he held his arms out straight, he could touch the walls on either side with his fingertips. A tiny table was jammed in the far corner, with old issues of the Gunman piled on it. Along the long axis of the room, bookshelves ran to the ceiling; on them, Scully noticed volumes with titles like 'The Jesus Conspiracy' or 'Alien Sightings around the World.' She felt Mulder's elbow brush her back as he returned from one of the bedrooms with a second chair. As she walked to take a seat, she noted it was oak with elaborately turned legs and scrollwork arm rests. Scully's forehead wrinkled. "I don't know how much good this will do, Mulder." He pulled the metal folding chair at the table out until it faced hers. She remained on her feet, staring through the one dirty window opposite the door, at the glow from the street light as it was scattered by bare tree branches. He gazed up at her, worried by the sharp angles in her cheeks, and closed his eyes. "It's hard to say unless we try, Scully. Usually a therapist specializes in childhood traumas or," he explained as his his eyes flickered at her, "abductions, so they shape and direct the questions to their field of expertise. I have no prior knowledge of what happened to you, outside of the things you've said in your sleep, nor do I have any specific direction I want to push the session towards, anymore. We both have come to agree that you were in the hands of the Shadows' doctors for most of those three months." As the silence lengthened, she turned and stared at him, aware that a year ago, that admission would have been impossible for her partner to make. "Mulder?" He had stopped and covered his face with his hands as he sat. When he looked up at her, his eyes were glistening. "Sorry. We've both been so rational about this, I was a little overwhelmed just now by what I've asked you to do." When she took a seat in her chair, he tried to smile, but failed. She moved it a little closer. "It's okay. I know what you're thinking, Mulder, and I'm not resisting because I'm afraid of what I'll find out about myself; I've had two years to work through that. I want to know what was done to me, for so many reasons, but I just don't have the same faith in hypnosis you do." He crossed his arms. "But Scully, it *is* an established technique in psychological analysis, even if it's sometimes misused." She rubbed her eyes. "I know. But it was pointless the last time I tried, and that was with a professional analyst. You've never hypnotized anyone before, have you?" Shaking his head, he regarded her sadly, so she placed her hand on his arm. "But," she continued, softening her tone, "I trust you, and I've seen enough working with you, that I think we should follow your instincts on this one." She leaned back, pressing against the upright spindles. "If you think anything we might learn would be too close to what happened to Sam for you, then we don't have to try." Bowing his head, he dropped his arms to his knees. "Yeah, that's part of it. Losing you the way I lost her, and now this." He chewed his lip. "No. We have to try. The only eyewitness for both you and her is locked inside your head, Scully." He took a deep breath and sat up straight, resolved. "How did Pomerantz put you under?" She frowned. "He talked about holotropic breath work, but it was like no breath-work technique I've read about. He rambled on and on, as if that would put me at ease. He kept reminding me about a safe and comfortable place I could return to if the memories were too bad." A small grin tugged at one side of her partner's mouth. "Well, that's out. I'll never put you under by talking at you, since that's usually how we keep each other awake when sleeping is too rough." While she remained pointed at the door, he scooted his chair forward until his knees were beside her hips before he extended his arm. "We'll try this. Let me have your hand, the one without the bites." "Mulder!" She regarded him quizzically, but placed hers in his. He grasped it gently, mindful of what was under the gauze above her wrist. Resting the palm flat on his own supine hand, he began stroking the back with his other. Mulder was attempting to achieve a monotonous rhythm as he repeatedly ran his fingers from the wrist down to the fingertips, over and over. He thought he had been successful when her eyelids drooped and closed, then her head fell forward. But she shuddered and jumped. "Sorry, that's putting me to sleep." He hunched over to catch her eyes. "That's what I want. Let yourself drift off." She sighed and settled back again, relaxing at the repetitive motion. Initially, her arm was rigidly held out, but as she faded, more of the weight transferred to his hand, until it was so heavy it was nearly resting on his knee. As their hands descended, her shoulders slumped again, and her head rolled forward. Mulder finally felt she was prepared for questions. "Scully?" "Hum?" Her voice had a dream-like quality. "Where did you like to be most when you were a kid?" Her answering smile softly dimpled her cheeks. Mulder realized, with delight, that the reduced version she favored him with as she tried not to respond to his jokes was much similar. "At my Grandfather O'Shea's house. He had a big back porch with tall wicker furniture. There were these deep red cushions in every chair or two-seater that were so comfortable for reading, and I loved it. He wasn't much of a housekeeper after Grandma died, so it was dusty, and the white paint kept flaking off, but it was cozy and sunny. Mom would let me read for hours out there." "Good. Remember how it smelled." She took a deep breath. "Like books and rattan. And old horsehide glue. Since his hobby was bookbinding, there were fat spools of red thread and parchment for end-papers all around." He slid his hand out from under hers, feeling the warmth he had transferred to it through his jeans. "Think about the scents. Concentrate on those." He continued to stroke, over and over, trying to beat down the envy he felt that she had such pleasant memories to fall back on, while he had only long nights filled with loneliness and loss. "Mum-hum." "We need to go forward, Scully, to a very uncomfortable time, but always remember the books, rattan, and glue. You'll be safe as long as you smell those, all right?" "Okay." "We need to go forward to when Duane Barry..." She frowned. "I don't want to be locked in. Let me out! I want out! She pushed the air with one shoulder. "I can't get out." He gritted his teeth for a moment. "Remember, books and rattan. Horsehide glue." She breathed deeply. "I'm in a helicopter. I hear the rotors beating the air. I'm still all tied up and I don't know why. What have I done? What did I do wrong?" He shuddered. "Where are you now?" "I can't tell." "Is it dark in this place?" "No." "Are you afraid?" "Yes." She was whispering now. "I can't trust anyone here." "*Who* is there, Scully?" "I can't tell." "Are you blindfolded?" "No." "Are your eyes covered?" "No, I can see everything." She shivered. "Are you cold?" "Yes. I'm not wearing any clothes. It's only a sheet. They only gave me a sheet, and it's so cold." "Who only gave you a sheet?" "I can't tell." "Why? Can't you see them?" "I can see them." He frowned. "Okay. Can you describe where you are?" "I'm in a white room. There are bright lights everywhere. But..." "But what, Scully?" She twitched as he spoke her name, so, stroking a little more rapidly, he crooned softly to her, "Smell the books and rattan." She inhaled. "I'm safe here." The tiny smile of joy again. "You were in a white room with bright lights. Can you tell me anything else about it?" "There is equipment all around me." "What kind of equipment? Medical equipment?" Her head began to sway from side to side, in a repetitive, anxious movement. "Yes. I'm being monitored." "Can you recognize any of it?" Now she froze. "I can't tell." "Are you in pain?" She pinched her eyes shut tightly. "Yes." "Why, what are they doing to you?" "I can't tell. I keep saying that. Why won't you listen? I can't tell anyone anything. Stop asking me questions!" He hummed to her. "It's okay if you can't tell. Did they ask you not to tell?" "They made me promise." "How did they make you? Would they hurt you if you told?" "No-o." The soft voice was full of fear. "Would they hurt someone close to you?" "Ye-es." "Just one person, or more?" "Just one. Mo... Moh..." She shuddered again, and he leaned forward. "They would hurt your Mother?" "No, not Mom, they need her." He was horrified. "Have they taken your Mother to the white room?" The rolling head motion again. "I can't say. But they won't hurt her. They need her to be undamaged, perfect. For control." It was all he could do to continue in a level tone of voice. "Then who was it?" He would normally have used her name, but it had startled her before, so he refrained. "Meh..." Mulder licked his lips. "Melissa? They would hurt Melissa?" She shivered so he crooned again. "You're all right, you're safe, remember, horsehide glue, smell your Grandfather's porch." Her deep breath was broken, jagged, as the past and present wrestled in her mind. "Not Mel. They can't hurt Mel anymore." She reddened. "They can't hurt Mel anymore." "Then who was it?" She clutched his thigh, digging deeply into his muscles with her fingertips. "Mulder!" He gasped. "They would hurt my partner. They've already taken so much from him. I can't let them hurt him anymore. I won't tell, and they won't hurt him anymore. They promised. I can't tell!" She pulled the hand back and hugged herself, rocking on the seat. "I can't let them hurt my partner." He began to reach for her, but stopped. He had to know. "What would they do to your partner? Can you say that?" Her eyes still closed, she nodded. "They would take his memories of his sister. If they take those, his life has no meaning; he lives to find her. He *has* to find her; he *needs* to find Sam. I have to promise. I can't tell!" Both of his fists were clenched, so he knew he was as emotionally drained by this as she. "It's all right. You're safe again, Scully." As she heard her name, her eyes flew open, and she began to leave the difficult trance state. "Mulder. He has to be all right. I didn't say anything." Since she was blinking and gasping, he lifted her to her feet to focus her, wrapping one arm around her waist tightly to conceal his own shakes. "I'm all right, Scully. They haven't hurt me, and I'm looking for Sam, every day." She tried to read his eyes. "What do you mean, Mulder? What did I say?" He sobered. "You don't remember?" When she stiffened as she shifted her weight off her partner, he released her, supporting her under her arm until she was steady. "No." Scully settled on the oaken seat again. Mulder knelt in front of her, desperate to communicate the information from her session. "I was right about the mental block, and you were right about the brainwashing." "What did I say?" He held her by both shoulders. "That they made you promise not to tell anyone anything important by threatening someone close to you." "Was it Mel, Mulder? Did they kill her because I pursued MJ with you?" Dropping his hands to his knees, he shook his head. "Then, who, Mulder? How did they make me promise?" The green-blue irises contracted as she thought. "Mom?" His hoarse whisper startled her. "No, Scully... me." She stared into his deeply troubled eyes. "They've tried to turn us against each other before, Mulder. What would they have done to you? Did I say? Would they have killed you?" He wrapped his arms around her calves and pressed his face against her knees. Scully saw his shoulders were shaking, so she stroked his hair. "What? Would they have hurt Sam? Tell me, please?" He whispered without lifting his face to hers as she bent over him. "They would have taken my memories of her, so I never could have found her and brought her home, Scully. It would have been a slow death of who I am, and to never see Sam again would torment my Mom." She wanted to console him, but his arms were locked tightly around her legs. All she could do was form her own into a circle below the curve in his spine and rest her head on his ribs. "This is beyond horror, or even comprehension. I'm so sorry." They continued to comfort each other, until Mulder could breathe without shaking and he released his tight grip on her. He rocked back on his heels, unable to meet her eyes, clasping his hands in his lap. "They take you as a warning to me, and threaten me as a warning to you." Each was deep in thought, Mulder staring at the dull blue carpet on the floor. She chewed her lip. He shrugged. "You also said something about your Mother being used as control." She nodded. "Of course, a control group." He sat back in the chair. "What?" He needed to focus, to take his mind off Sam and his partner's sacrifice. "When one conducts medical experiments, Mulder, usually the subjects are split into two groups, a test group, whose members are given the drug or undergo the treatment, and the control group." He rubbed the back of his neck. "That's left alone for the duration of the study, to see how the disease or a normal life progresses. Right. I should have guessed." She grasped his arm. "This is enough, Mulder. Let's go downstairs." He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah. I won't be able to sleep for the rest of the night." He opened the door and stepped back, waiting for her to walk by. She stood still and looked into his face. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" She could read the pain there, despite his denial. He blinked. "I have to be. If I think about how easy it would be to surrender in despair, I'll never find her. At least I know my memories of Sam are some threat to them still." Mulder grasped her shoulder. "Thank you." "Why?" "For, for..." He stared out the window, looking down into her concerned face when the turbulence within his mind ceased. "For staying with me, Scully." He held his arm out and forced some levity into his tone. "After you, fair lady." She narrowed her eyes, but nodded. Since he would deal with this in his own way, later, either through insomnia or grief, she would watch him through time. He was, after all, her partner and closest friend, and part of their relationship was wrapped up in keeping him from plunging too deeply off the edge. Scully patted his side before she turned and walked into the hall. --o-0-o-- Scully Home Norfolk, Virginia Saturday, 9:07 am As he swung the cast and his good limb through the front door, Charles Scully was almost toppled by his toddler, who had wrapped his short arms around his Father's one working leg. The officer chuckled at the repeated cries of 'Daddy!'. "Hey, how's my little man?" Margaret steadied her son while Val tugged on John's shoulder. "Let Daddy be, John-John. When he's settled in bed, you can climb all over him, little monkey." The small group progressed slowly up the stairs to the boy's room, where Margaret eased her son into the bed her daughter had so recently vacated. She and Val had worked out, given her gravid state, and his cast, that it would be less traumatic to keep Charlie in John's room, and John could sleep with his mother until his little brother was born. Once Charles was comfortable, and Val took John downstairs to 'help' fix lunch, Margaret felt duty-bound to keep the pledge she had given her daughter. She pulled the chair beside her son's bed. "Charlie?" The red head rotated. "Yes, Mom?" "Dana wanted me to warn you about this meeting you were planning on attending next week." He sighed. "Oh, Mom, don't you start that again." Throwing her voice into that 'Mother knows best' tone, she took his hand. "Charles, Dana and Fox have both told me some of the groups sponsoring that meeting have been linked by the FBI to Oklahoma City." As he pushed himself upright, Margaret adjusted the pillows. He sighed. "I'm not surprised to hear that. The FBI has been 'investigating' many things, but not the right ones. The groups I've seen have been only concerned with making this a better country, and if that means changing the way it runs, well, fine, that's what we'll do." "Charlie! Do you know what you're saying?" He nodded. "I do. Look, we gave the Republicans a shot; they had twelve years in the White House, six in the Senate, and two more with total control of Congress, but they didn't really change anything. Now the Democrats are back in charge of both the White House and Capitol Hill. Do you think it will be any different from the previous fifty years?" He fiddled with the sheets. "No, those groups the FBI is investigating are the only ones with the country's best interest at heart. I'd like to take John with me to the next meeting." Margaret stood. "But he's only a little boy! He won't remember anything fifteen minutes after you come home!" Charlie shook his head. "Mom, he's my son, if you don't mind. I'll raise him as I see fit. It's time he played with boys his own age, rather than being cooped up in the house with you and Val all day long." Grinning, he took her hand. "Besides, he's a little corker, isn't he? You and Val must need a break." As an image of his antics with the Pomeranian came into her mind, she smiled back. "Yes, he's as bad as certain little boys I remember chasing their older sisters around the dining room table." He laughed. "Well, Mom, maybe the next one will be a little girl, just for you. We could name her after her grandmother and her Aunt Melissa, if that would help." Margaret knotted her hands. "Charles, worry about this baby now, before you have any others. You're not in any contest with your father or your brother, you know." Mother and Son regarded each other, the beginnings of an old argument stirring. Charles Scully, sensing Margaret's fear, backed down first. "That was only because Dana kept teasing me, Mom. 'Catch me, Charlie!' and off she would go." He frowned. "She used to drive me nuts. Where is she?" "She and Fox left for DC last evening." "Did she find something in the basement?" Margaret nodded. "Oh. It must have been important then." When his Mother shook her head, understanding dawned. "In my own house? They've tapped my home?" He grew grim. "There's something really wrong with the government, if they come in and tap a man's house when he's just following orders." She shrugged. As she left the room, she reached for the light switch, toggling it to save electricity. --o-0-o-- Office of the Lone Gunmen Saturday 9:19 am Langly flicked the lever on the automatic coffeemaker in the kitchen, and stepped quietly behind Mulder, who seemed transfixed by the CNN newscast. Whatever they had learned from Scully's hypnosis session both elated and frightened the tall agent, but he had refused to discuss it with Byers, or the Gunman to whom he had always been the closest, Frohike. However, Scully seemed oddly relieved, and was sleeping peacefully on the sofa along the front wall. "Agent Mulder?" He turned, surprised that the blond Gunman would address him so formally. "Do you feel like talking?" Mulder glanced over at Scully, then nodded. Outside of her, these three were the closest friends he had, but they wouldn't understand, not about this. The Gunmen were vital for backup when dealing with the overwhelming technology available to their shadowy enemies. They were indispensable for covering their backs when they were operating outside the support of the FBI, but he was stunned by what he had learned upstairs. Mulder stood to walk around the couch, replying in a whisper, "Can you set up a secure phone line for me?" Puzzled, Langly nodded. The two men padded down the hall, then threaded their way through the racks of equipment, piles of technical manuals, and computer parts in the large room that was the 'office' section of the house. When they reached a long lab bench, the blond Gunman began hooking cables from one blinking box to another, stopping only when he had created a different, intricate web that baffled Mulder. "Well, G- man, that should do it." He tapped the monitor on the Alpha. "We've written a tele-networking program that will reroute your communications every two minutes, or at whatever time interval we specify. You'll hear two clicks during the conversation, but that's just the old connection dropping and the new one picking up. The clicks will follow rapidly, since we've developed a pulse that will send an immediate disconnect command. After the phone call is initiated, the software calculates a new, more complex route for the line to travel, so it can evade successive attempts to follow your signal to source or destination. That way you can talk as long as you want." Mulder nodded, not exhibiting his usual impatience with the technical details. "Let me give you the number." He trotted out of the room, returning with his black address book. The agent dropped the small binder on the bench, flipped it open to the pages tagged L, and pointed. Langly grinned. "This will be a workout. Do you have any idea how many routes there are between here and the Mediterranean?" Curious, Mulder stared at the windows open on the screen, until Langly noticed his interest and began to explain the display to him. "Actually, it was the Doc who gave me the idea in the first place. We were speculating about the similarities between the way the brain stores information, and the way telephone signals are routed." Mulder grinned, then recited her words from memory. "A thought is a discrete path traveled by electrochemical signals through the neurons in the brain; likewise, memories are stored along a chain, rather than in a fixed location. By having a near infinite number of combinations of neurons and path lengths, the brain can hold vastly more data than any set of computer chips or hard drives of similar sizes." "She's been talking at you, I take it?" He nodded. "Stakeouts, Langly. When she can't handle my theories about alien involvement in the JFK assassination to slow the push into space anymore, I get 'eddecated', whether I need it or not." Chuckling, Langly waved at the world map that filled the bottom half of the screen. "Anyway, this map shows the general route the signal is following. You might want to keep an eye on that just for your own amusement." The Gunman pointed at a counter in the upper right hand corner of the screen. "That monitors length of time of the call in seconds, down to the nearest ten thousandth. It's more precision than the phone company uses when calculating length of call for billing purposes, and *way* more than the routing controls are accurate to." Mulder tapped the blank window in the upper left corner of the screen. "What's that for?" Langly shrugged. "Location and transfer codes. It also tells us if anyone is trying to eavesdrop on the call." After he tapped in the number, they watched the phone beside the computer until it buzzed once. As Mulder lifted the receiver to his ear, Langly patted his shoulder and headed out of the room. The extremely sorrowful look on the tall man's face haunted him as he closed the door to give his friend some privacy. --o-0-o-- Lowenberg Residence/Office of the Lone Gunmen Santorini, Greece /Alexandria, Virginia, USA Saturday 3:27 pm /Saturday 9:27 am Caroline Lowenberg answered the phone on the second ring, pleased and startled by the quiet voice greeting her. "Fox? Are you all right?" "I'm fine, Mom." Caroline sank into the white lounge chair by the phone stand. "Is Dana all right?" Fear and loss darkened his features momentarily. "Yeah." He sighed. "Um, is Max there?" "Certainly. Let me call him in for you. Hold on, dear." Waiting, Mulder watched the counter on the screen tick off the seconds. When 119.9999 rolled back over to 0.0000, he heard the click, click of the changing call, then faint sounds of waves as his mother and stepfather reentered from the outside. "Mulder?" Now the agent found his sleepless night had driven all sensible words from his head. "Max?" The older man recognized the urgent need for approval and acceptance in his stepson's inflection, and settled into the same chair his wife had used. "I'm here, Mulder." "Uh, don't tell Mom yet, but I think I've found out something about Sam." Max found he wanted to use 'Son' rather than 'Mulder' in his thoughts, but sternly reminded himself that the title had to be earned. "It's good to hear that. Can you tell me anything over the phone?" He had played this role with Isaac an age ago at the camp, and now, his wife needed all the gentle voice, supportive touches, and welcoming ear he could offer. "It's not definite yet, but Scully..." A strangled sound escaped him. "Scully..." "Take your time, Mulder." Max pointed at the workman, who was waiting at the back door, his grey wool cap in hand, so Caroline walked out to finish supervising the delivery of six new Cedar trees. "Your Mother had to step outside. Is Dana really all right?" "Yeah." Mulder bit down on his lip. "We've just found out that when she was abducted..." Click. Click. Alarmed, Max stood. "Mulder! What was that?" The sound focused the Agent. "Oh, that's just Langly's rerouting program. Every two minutes it restarts the call so we won't be traced." The white-haired man resumed his seat. "All right. Go on." "Sorry, Max. I should have warned you." Mulder sighed. "When Scully was taken, before they returned her, they blocked her memories by threatening to take mine of Sam if she told anyone too much." Max gasped. For a moment, he was an emaciated, half-naked victim, but pushed the image firmly away. The older man deepened his voice, infusing it with all the conviction of a successful older hunter. "They're monsters, Mulder. They learned well from their masters, and they've used their skills on you and your partner." "Oh." "They've worked out the one thing that would devastate both of you utterly, and turned it into a burr, working its way deep into both of your psyches. Fight back, Mulder. Don't let them beat you, not now." "Yeah." As Mulder deciphered both messages his stepfather was transmitting, a glimmer of hope broke into the younger man's voice and thoughts. "Max?" Click. Click. "Yes, Mulder?" "Tell Mom, all right?" "Sure. Call anytime you need to talk and can do it in safety, Mulder, none of us are abandoning you, not anymore. Even truth- seekers wear down sometimes, but you and Scully need each other to be able to survive. She already trusts and respects you utterly, and so do I. You can depend on her, and she needs to know she can count on the same from you." "Oh." "That's enough, though. You two together will make it. All right?" A long silence punctuated the conversation. "Yes. Thanks. Thanks for believing." "Sometimes that's all one can do, Mulder, Good Luck." Now the clicks were true disconnects on both ends. Caroline stood over her husband. "What did he say?" Max took her hand. "He's chasing some information on Sam, but mostly he needed some reassurance and support. I have the impression that neither of them has fully recovered from the past two months." Standing, he draped an arm over her shoulders. "Besides, I know how a quest can burn inside you until there's nothing left. It almost happened to me when I was retrieving the antiquities from Bolivia, and he can't let that happen to either of them. The stakes are far higher than they ever were for you or me, Caroline." She nestled happily under his chin. "You didn't have a chance to tell him what we've discovered?" "No. He's in the middle of something important. There will be time enough later, dearest." He kissed the top of her head. "How much did Nikolas try to overcharge you by?" "Max!" They smiled at each other as they walked off, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm. Her new husband, ex-corporate lawyer, was quite the dealmaker, or so Caroline had learned in these past few months. "Well, let's go see these trees that are as mighty as King Solomon's." Max slid the glass door open for his wife and stepped aside for her. --o-0-o-- Office of the Lone Gunmen Alexandria, VA Saturday 9:31 am Mulder twisted the door knob, so Langly could enter, terminate the program, and begin unweaving the Gordian knot of cables. The blond Gunman grunted at several number sequences on the screen. "They were trying. See this?" He pointed to what appeared to Mulder to be a random string of characters that repeated periodically. "Your report must be as hot as Three Mile Island, man." The agent ran a hand through his hair. "Then the routes on the map are still in use, or else they wouldn't be after us like this. I need some air." Langly straightened. "The Doc should finish catching her Z's, but she'll castrate us all if we let you out of here alone, Mulder." His eyes brightening, the dark-haired man regarded him contemplatively. "Yeah. I can guess her choice of surgical tools, too." Stepping into the passageway, the two men debated a choice of destination quietly while lifting their coats off a rack of Shaker pegs on the wall. Despite their efforts at stealth, Scully's red hair popped up above the armrest as her partner stood, unlocking the door. "Mulder?" He crossed the short distance between them, crouching to bring his eyes level with hers. "It's okay, Scully." He forced a tiny grin and grasped the arm that was tucked over the blanket. "Langly and I were heading up to the local Giant for a minute. If we don't, it's two percent only for the low-fat Doctor Scully." "All right. Let me pull on my shoes." As he bent closer, she pushed the blanket away. Langly caught the tremble in his friend's long hands as he rested them on his partner's shoulders. Mulder disguised his fear with a jest. "We'll be fine, Mom. No one takes on a 23rd level wizard in broad daylight." Grinning, Langly took his cue. "Right, Doc, and don't forget all the eighth level rhyming spells." Scully read her partner's face. "I'll hold down the fort here. But be careful." Langly noticed the look of profound despair as Mulder hovered over his partner, adjusting the blanket to cover her exposed white foot, so the Gunman stepped outside. Mulder's voice dropped to a whisper. "You too, okay?" Scully reached out to touch his shoulder. Mulder closed the distance faster, wrapping his arms around her and rocking her to banish the myriad fears, both old and new, that flooded his soul. Scully forced herself to relax as he held her, hooking one arm over his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. She hoped their closeness would drive away his demons. But, despite her intentions, the warmth of his body and her fatigue allowed sleep to steal in and reclaim her. Her heavy lids drooped shut just as they had in the tiny room upstairs. Mulder lowered Scully to the cushions, pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, and walked out the entrance. After Langly locked the door, the Gunman waited to speak again until they were clear of the red brick two-story house that was their residence and publishing center. "May I ask what you learned upstairs?" As he walked along, Mulder scanned the sidewalk. Patches of dirty ice, still unmelted from the previous weekend, covered parts of the concrete, so the two men were forced to pick a safe path as they progressed. Langly was about to nudge his friend, but Mulder spoke without meeting his eyes. "I always thought that at some point I would have to let Scully go." A gust of wind made them both shiver, and long blond hair flew in Langly's face, so he flipped his head to move it aside. "You mean when you find Sam?" Mulder bit down on his lip. "No, Scully and I are too close to split over that. When I bring Sam back, it will be like I'm whole again, and then... " He stopped in mid-stride, forcing Langly to spin on his heel. "What?" The tall man was staring off in the distance. "I don't know what happens then. So much of my energy is focused on finding her and bringing her home to Mom. What becomes of my life after that, I really can't say." They resumed walking. "So how does what you learned last night affect you and Scully?" The agent narrowed his eyes at his friend. "There is no Mulder and Scully, Langly." "No, I know that, G-man. It's the one thing that keeps Frohike going, that he still has a shot at the Doc." The Gunman paused, licking his lips. "You mentioned letting Scully go." Mulder's face softened. "Right. I'm not on a fast track for promotion in the Bureau, and I don't know if I ever was, especially after I left Behavioral Sciences. She's so career- oriented I thought she would move on one day, past me, beyond the X-Files, and I knew to keep whatever connection we have open, I would have to let her go." The prospect dropped a mask of deep sorrow over his features. "It was easier that way, to know that she would be free of me and all this, safe behind some autopsy table, lecturing to a gaggle of bright-eyed students." "But?" "They put her under and emplaced an inhibition against speaking out about what happened to her. They reinforced it by threatening the one thing they thought would effect her most, which wasn't her life or her job." Langly hopped, struggling to keep up with the long-legged agent. "I'm not surprised she didn't react to a threat to herself. She's too focused, like you are, man. It wasn't her Mom or her Sister?" Mulder shook his head. "You?" "Yup. And it wasn't my life, either. It was my memories of Sam they used as blackmail." Now the Gunman froze, making Mulder spun around. "A real head trip." The dark-haired man took a deep breath, then coughed as the cold, dry air hit his throat. "Oh, yeah. That she knew me that well, that my finding my sister mattered so much to her, even then." He shivered inside his black barn jacket. "It hit me, up in that room, we're not going to be separated, ever. We're too much a part of each other." They were just a few blocks from the grocery store now, so they picked up the pace as they felt the chill in the air deepen. "But, I should have known from our first case, Langly." He cast the other man a quick sideways glance. "Don't tell Frohike this, or I'll kill you." Langly held up both mittened hands. "No sweat." "In Oregon, there were these marks on the backs of the victims, and Scully was afraid she had them, so she walked into my hotel room, and ... asked me to look at them, but they were only mosquito bites. She'd just taken a shower, so she was in a robe." He hesitated, feeling awkward. "She trusted me, right off, and she let me know she did when she stood there, waiting for me to look. I should have known, even then." "For real, Mulder. Don't worry, if I tell Frohike, he'll kill *you*, man, for letting an opportunity like that go by. What you two are to each other, it's so... unique, way past any category I know." "Langly..." "No, I don't mean what you think, G-man. If you two had wanted to diddle with each other, all the Bureau regs they could write wouldn't stop you. It would have happened when you first met, or when she came back, or this last winter, when you stopped tearing each other up." The Gunman stood in front of Mulder, forcing the tall man to focus on him. "If you were both dudes, it would be like, um, those Sumerian guys whose stories were on the clay... things." Mulder closed his eyes. "Tablets, and you mean Gilgamesh and Enkidu." Langly waved his arms. "Or in Iliad, Achilles and Patroclus." Mulder chuckled, a wry grin brightening his face. "When did you ever read Homer, Langly?" "My old man read it to me when I was a kid, Mulder. Since I was into the armor, swords, and chariots, the battles and stuff stuck. What?" Mulder was frowning, deeply troubled. "Or like David and Jonathan." Langly shrugged, so Mulder elaborated. "In Torah. The two friends whose souls were knit together." He looked down. "But one of them always dies, Langly." The Gunman was twitching in his earnestness. "Only when they were apart, man, it only happened when one of them went off to fight without the other. But when they stood together, they were invincible." "Oh." The two finished the walk in silence. --o-0-o-- Giant Grocery Store Alexandria, Virginia Saturday, 10:03 am Langly and Mulder stood in the express check-out line, holding a strange assortment of items. The agent had a carton of non-fat creamer, two packages of sunflower seeds, and a pint of chocolate chocolate-chip Haagen-Das balanced in one arm. Langly was restocking a few of the kitchen items the three were running low on. He had rested the red basket on the end of the belt as he unloaded toilet paper, coffee beans and filters, and napkins. Frowning at the cheerful design, Mulder poked the flat package. "You guys are savages, you know. Hearts and flowers don't matter a bit to Scully." Langly shrugged. "I had orders from Frohike. Bring it home or die." He leaned close to Mulder. "Did you see our tail back there?" The agent suddenly became fascinated with the TV Guide cover, which showed a tall, dark-haired man with his arms around a red- haired woman in a backless dress. "Um-hum. He caught us outside in the parking lot, before we entered. Plastic." He was responding to the check-out clerk's rote question. After they paid and left, Langly pointed to his right. "I think I know a back way home, so we can lose him." A quick dip of Mulder's head, and they stepped out, checking over their shoulders as they slipped into the alley between the grocery and the pharmacy. --o-0-o-- Office of the Lone Gunmen Alexandria, VA Saturday 9:46 am "Agent Scully?" She twisted on her side, puzzled that the face above her was bearded, not stubbly. "Is Mulder back?" "No, not yet..." Instantly alert, she swung her feet to the floor, shoved them into her black shoes, and, wincing, began adjusting the laces. "What's the most likely route they would have used?" She stopped when she saw the beard wagging from side to side. "They're all right, they only left fifteen minutes ago. I just wanted to ask you if you could tell me why Mulder is so upset about what you two learned last night?" He watched her slump against the sofa back. "He won't talk to any of us, but he asked Langly to set him up so he could call his Mom." The couch she was using leaned against a north wall, so she could feel the heat leaving her as she sat. Byers settled beside her, waiting. Pulling her feet up until she was cross-legged, she spread the blanket over herself. "He found out upstairs that his memories of Sam were threatened so I would be silent after I was returned. You can guess how that affected him." He nodded. "He needs time to deal with that, and with how close you two are again." "Yes. He spends most of his off hours at my place, as if he's trying to make up for all those years alone, so on one level, he's been starved for companionship. He's eagerly awaiting the arrival of our new agents, and he's been developing strategies to keep us together if things go against us on the Hill." "Then why is he upset?" She raised an eyebrow. "You know he's always been a loner, deep down. I understand that, because, if you want to know, so am I, and I suspect he always will be, at least until he finds Sam. We may see a whole new man then, I don't know." She pursed her lips. "He's also always thought our working partnership was temporary, that, like everyone else has in his life, I would leave him, to try to grab the brass ring of management and promotion." "You mean you're not?" She shook her head. "Not anymore. Oh, perhaps when we first started working together, but since I was returned, I've realized that what I want for myself is to do the best job I can in the X- Files, trying to work through our cases. There will always be another Director of the FBI, and after Sessions was appointed, I knew it was all about politics, *who* you knew, rather than *what* you knew. I'm thrilled that I've been able to help discover five new drugs from herb samples I collected down in Chiapas." Byers chuckled. "Mulder's pretty pleased about that himself. He keeps reminding us that an X-Files case brought practical knowledge to the rest of the world." Scully lifted one corner of her mouth. "I thought so. So what if I don't have an office with my name on the door? I'll keep working with Mulder, taking his flights of fancy, and either tying them to reality, or proving them wrong. We learn something either way, and the occasional recognition will satisfy me for the rest of my career." She stood, padded to the kitchen, and checked the coffeepot. She filled a chipped Microcenter mug before returning to the couch. Byers waited to query her until she had settled in again. "But he doesn't understand that yet, you say?" She shrugged. "I think he does after last night, and he's scared, Byers." She rested the mug on her knee. "In his own tortured mind, he still thinks he can set me on a shelf in Quantico and keep me safe, but it's too late for that. The Shadows put me on notice when they ransacked my apartment that I'm as much a part of this as he is, and that I'm not leaving, unless I die or am kidnapped again. So now he has to work through his emotions about it, and not just develop plans for the expanded Section." "Um-hum. Mulder can pretzel his head faster than anyone I know." Scully smiled at the image of her long-limbed partner wrapped around himself. "Yes, he can." She sipped the rough black brew and grimaced. "So when did you know?" "Know what?" "When did you first know you were in this together for life?" "Oh, when he was missing in New Mexico. I had a dream where he said he had come back from the dead to - " She frowned as she reconstructed the phrase in her mind. " - continue with me, I knew then that he hadn't been killed, and that we were a part of each other. It took finding the D'Amato papers to show it to him, though." She finished the coffee in five deep gulps, then set the mug on the floor. "Now, if I thought like Mulder, I would say he actually visited me on some psychic hotline we have." They chuckled together. "But you don't think that's so?" "I consider dreams as all about what's happening in my own mind, Byers, which is what I've how I've viewed that subject over the past, um, almost two years now." She frowned. "I realized deep down I knew we were connected, but I didn't know how to tell him. What is odd, is that when he burst in on Skinner and me when we were holding guns on each other, he started talking about coming back from the dead, just as he had in my dream." She shrugged. "But, I'm sure it's just coincidence, nothing more." Byers shifted over to the other sofa to face her. "But now he has to accept that you two must stick together to stay alive, for years, not just for the immediate crisis." "Um-hum. I've tried, Max and his Mom have attempted to tell him, but Mulder is Mulder. He needs to have proof that is meaningful to him, then he'll believe. Between whatever we experienced at the Solstice, our dreams in Arkansas, and what we learned upstairs last night, he has what he considers irrefutable evidence, but he needs to work through it in his own way." "He never took that time after New Mexico, did he?" She sobered. "No. I didn't either, and it almost killed us both. But he's learned to wait, for me and for himself, as have I, so we should be all right, as long as we're together, that is." "At least Mulder will be, anyway. You've been a great calming influence on him, Agent Scully. He used to drop out of sight for weeks on end, especially if work was bothering him." Byers smiled. "I'll never forget when he returned from Oregon, after your first case together. He was so excited that he had convinced you to work *with* him, rather than just report on him, he didn't sleep for a week." He sobered. "But this life must be hard on you, always being on your guard." She shrugged. "Not really. Men and women are different, Byers." She pointed at his wedding ring. "I shouldn't have to tell you that. I'm used to the rough and tumble of brothers and their emotions, so I know what to expect. I also know I can count on his help when I'm hurt or worn through. Mulder is far more considerate than my brothers ever were, almost doting. I never would have recovered as completely as I did last year without him to take care of me." He fiddled with the plain gold band. "Vicky and I, well, we could split over this." He waved his hand vaguely around the room. "But neither of us is ready to make that final break yet. With all her travel for the State Department, she's away almost ten months of the year, and I'd be lost without Langly and Frohike." He moved over beside her again. "But you have no life, Agent Scully. Don't you miss it?" "I have my Mom and Mister Fuzz, and Max and Caroline are really good people, Byers. They'll help Mulder, you'll see." She crossed her arms. "My life is the way I want it, right now. Besides, how would it look if I handed you my resume: Dr. Dana Scully, licensed pathologist and paranormal investigator? Do you think I could find a job in, say, Kansas with that?" He smirked briefly. "Unique qualifications indeed." "Besides, my work *is* my life. Mulder is one of those few men I've met who is supportive of my career, who doesn't judge me inferior simply because I'm not absolutely perfect in everything." Byers nodded. "Vicky runs into that all the time, especially when dealing with other diplomats. She's always worried that one slight mistake on her part will mean no more women in these highly sensitive positions she holds." Scully was astonished that she knew so little about him, and nodded before continuing, "Exactly. I know if I wear down around Mulder, he'll wait. Which isn't to say he won't run off if some new UFO sightings spark his curiosity, but that's just how he is, and it took me a while to accept that." "But you should still have a chance to meet someone, not just work all the time." Her green-blue eyes clouded. "No. Whoever is attached to me is automatically threatened, just as my association with Mulder endangered me early on." She sighed. "Look, there's this Tech in Physical Evidence, Pendrell, who has a huge schoolboy's crush on me. I hate to go down there anymore because he follows me around like a puppy dog. He's a great guy, the sort of kid my Mom would love to pieces, all red hair and big green eyes." "So Frohike should worry?" She cocked her head. "Not at all. As I said, he's a sweet lunk, who should have a cute little wife and 2.5 adorable kids. He'll have none of that if he latches onto me. So I try to be nice, but not encourage him. I hope he'll lose interest of his own accord, or find someone better for him." Byers stared at her for a long moment. "Mulder?" She sighed. "My Mom's prime candidate." "Hunh?" Scully's rubbed her face and yawned. "No joke. Mom was grilling me in Miami, and I think she put Mulder on the spot over this too down there, only neither will tell me anything." She pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. "But with all my partner has been through, and all the baggage he carries with him, any relationship with him would start off for all the wrong reasons and turn toxic very quickly. Neither of us can afford for that to happen, and we both know it, so we don't push the limits." "But have you two talked about it?" She shrugged. "A little, but there's not much to say. If we're on the same wavelength about anything mentally, it's about this. The best we can hope for, at least until the world changes, is what we have right now." They jumped. Frohike had entered the room, beaming. "Agent Scully, you've just given me a reason to live." Scully growled under her breath, "Good morning, Frohike." But the little man was undaunted. "Ah, the dulcet descant of my delightful Dana." "*Frohike*, not now." "I take that as your promise for the future." He bowed. While his head was down, Scully and Byers rolled their eyes. All three turned, however, when they heard the bushes in the back yard rustle. Scully dove for her gun, which was hidden in the bag by the sofa, then snapped the clip in place as she followed the two men to the rear of the house. Frohike pulled the deck door open when he saw Mulder and Langly emerge. "It didn't help, I could see from my room that they're watching down the street." Frowning, Scully stood immediately behind him, easing the clip out of her weapon. Walking had cleared Mulder's mind of fear and focused his thinking, as exercise always did, so he crossed to stand beside his partner. "We're fine, Scully." The grin that accompanied his statement reached to his eyebrows. She beamed her broad smile of relief in response and patted his arm. "Yes, we will be, Mulder." The partners returned to the living room to sink onto the couch facing the television. Langly dropped the bags in the kitchen. "Sorry about the coffee, Doc, the G-man picked out something you'd like better while we were out. Maxwell House is like Jolt around here, but it isn't what we usually use for company. I'll start a fresh pot." Reaching across Mulder, Scully checked the plastic bag her partner had dropped at his side. "Only seeds, no Penthouse?" He had been grinning while watching her gently tease him, so now released an exaggerated sigh. "New issue's not out yet, Scully, sorry." He tore one bag open and waved it under her face, reveling in her grimace. "I think Frohike can dig something up for you if the Turks have crossed the Golden Horn already." They cocked eyebrows at each other before Mulder pointed the remote at the set. Scully returned to the other sofa for the blanket, wiggling her feet back out of her shoes. Her partner thumbed up the volume. "Check this out." The five watched the newscast in silence. Scully turned to the dark-haired man. "We were right, the Shadows *have* leaked a fake document to CNN. That's all this declassified government earthquake evacuation plan is." The map that had triggered Scully's memories was enlarged and displayed on the screen. Mulder rubbed his face. "Now what? I'm fresh out of ideas. Should I just walk out there, turn the report over and say I'm sorry?" Scully shook her head. "We can't let them win that easily, Mulder. You've been up all night, but I think we should take the report, have the Gunmen purge all but one copy of the pages, and go." As the other men focused on her, Frohike grinned. "It's getting so I can't tell the two of you apart anymore." She sobered. "Actually, my motives are purely selfish. There's three months of my life somewhere along those roads, and I want that time back. We can send Skinner an E-mail so he knows where we are, then take off. What do you say?" She poked her partner in the shoulder, directing the last question at him. He was thinking through options himself, coming to the same conclusions as she. "Sam's life is on that route too, Scully. As for Skinner, he only wanted a general itinerary. Since we know we'll have to turn the document over regardless, we might as well make the best use of our time to give them a run for it." Scully took a deep breath. "The coffee smells great, Langly, what is it?" --o-0-o-- Dark Apartment Washington, D.C. Saturday, 10:47 am 'Charlie' took a whiff of the stale air as he entered the bare apartment his old superior had vacated. After all this time, the odor of tobacco still hung in the air. Lindhauer followed close behind. "Jeez, this is weird. It's like he just left or something." They froze when they heard a sound from the bedroom. "Perhaps he just did." "You! How did you get in?" X stepped out of the hallway. "You aren't the only ones he gave a key to. We were all working for him in one way or another. There's nothing here." Lindhauer stepped up to him to glare down his long, beaklike nose at the African-American. "We don't think he's dead." 'Charlie' nodded. "The evidence surrounding his murder is too perfect; it looks like it has been faked." X fixed a stare on the portly unworthy he had to address as his superior now, taking secret delight in the stout man's discomfort. "It took you this long to figure that out?" X crossed his arms. "You disappoint me. I suspect that in one way or another, the FBI is already aware he's alive." Lindhauer grunted. "If you knew, why didn't you say?" X growled. "I don't know, but I suspect. I learned long ago, never volunteer answers to questions I haven't been asked. As I said, there's nothing here. This was where he ate and slept, nothing more. His life was in that office, so if you want clues, I suggest you look there." Lindhauer and 'Charlie' shrugged, leaving the apartment under the African-American's watchful eye. Once their footsteps died away, he exited slowly himself, locking the door behind him. X patted his jacket pocket and chuckled. --o-0-o-- Pine Woods Housing Development Allentown, PA Sunday, February 2, 1997 11:27 am Mulder dug in the pocket of his black jacket for the city map, opened it, then laid the printout on top of the heavy fan-folded sheet. "Scully, ah, I think we want the next left." Amused, she glanced at her frowning partner. "Not terribly clear, is it?" He rolled his eyes. "I'm thinking of calling a medium for a remote viewing of the overlay." She growled, then lifted one corner of her mouth at his smirk. "That's why I wanted *you* to look at it." With one hand, he held the sheet to his forehead and acted as if he were in a trance, curling the other around his ribs to ward off the expected playful jab from his partner. Glancing at the white band of gauze, she sighed, then pulled the BMW into the parking lot. The location they believed was indicated by the map lay before them, but it was not the flat dark warehouse they expected. Instead, the field they were scanning was a green-sward with swings, slides, jungle gyms, and parallel bars. Climbing out of their automobile, the agents stretched after the long drive from Alexandria. Scully knelt beside the thick turf, and, on a whim, pulled off her glove to pluck a few of the blades. She tried holding the grass between her thumbs and blowing through the narrow opening, but, just as when she and Charlie were young, failed to produce a whistle. Noticing that her partner was checking the parking lot, searching for anything out of place, she spoke his name quietly. He focused on the laughing, running children, who were hopping over refrozen patches of dirty snow in the yard. Thinking of their lost siblings, a sober mood settled upon the partners. Mulder walked over to Scully and touched her on the back, but instead of moving forward, she checked his face, finding he was pensive, not sorrowful. He sent her a small grin. "Should we check for wayward time machines, Romana?" She cocked her head. "After you, Doctor." They stepped onto the deep sod, each remembering their younger, less careworn selves. "Sam loved swings, Scully." He flopped onto the red canvas strap, beginning to pump himself back and forth unconsciously by one booted foot. "She would ask me to push her higher, higher, until Mom would run over, worried she would be hurt, and stop us." She leaned against one silver support for the overhead bar, and, as she watched him rock, offered her own memories of her sister. "Grandfather O'Shea had an old wooden swing, rigged up in a maple tree, and Mel would go moon over her latest boyfriend whenever we had to visit there. I could hear the creak, creak of the rope sliding over the bark as I read on the back porch, and the sound would lull me to sleep." As he stood, banishing his somber mood, she lifted a small black box out of her deep jacket pocket. Mulder watched over her shoulder while Scully activated the unit and the red meter needle wiggled and jumped. "Is that the universal counter Frohike designed?" he asked. "Um-hum. We have this theory, Mulder. Now, I never had the chance to give the first chip to the Gunmen to test, but they discovered that the second one, the one that corroded and had stopped working, was radioactive. If the doctors were working on several different women at once, they must have stashed the chips together. So, even if the building had been leveled, there should be relict radiation in the soil somewhere." She began working the playground, sweeping the sensor from side to side. Mulder walked beside her, watching the parking lot and considering the possibilities. "If they used radioactive chips, that would help explain the cancers, wouldn't it?" She nodded, stopping after she had swept the field. "I don't pick up anything much over background, Mulder." She shrugged. "It was a shot in the dark, anyway." As they walked to the car, he touched her shoulder. "It would have been great to find something right off, but we couldn't be that lucky." Scully pocketed the device. "We shouldn't have expected too much, the nearest railroad tracks are three miles away." "Yeah, right." They reentered the BMW that she had insisted upon renting, both as distraction and for insurance in case of pursuit, and drove off. --o-0-o-- Scully Home Norfolk, Virginia Sunday, 11:48 am Margaret turned the Volvo station wagon into the driveway. She had enjoyed her stay with the Lowenbergs, Fox, and Dana, but she had been a cossetted guest, not a needed party. Her daughter still puzzled her. But they seemed to have accepted each other as they were, a tolerance that oftentimes took married couples decades to achieve, not the five tumultuous years these two had survived. Gathering the grocery bags, she juggled her keys as she approached the front door, and paused. Listening to the loud voices from within, she was afraid the conversation she would interrupt between her son and daughter-in-law was not for a nosy mother-in- law to hear. "Chuck, this is ridiculous. John-John *will* *not* go with you to that rally next Saturday. Yes, it's important for him to grow up and take an interest in the world around him, but he's too small to understand the complexities we do." She heard the thump, thump of her son's cast as he stomped around the living room. To compound the unpleasant situation, the Pomeranian was barking furiously, and John had reverted to the mode that had always worked when he was younger. He was crying as loudly as his little lungs could bawl. Her son's reply was an unexpectedly harsh, "Val, it's important to me. These people hold the country's future in their hands, and the sooner John meets up with them the better. There are special activities for kids his age, so he won't be bored, and there will be someone looking after him all the time." "I've been to a few myself, Chuck, and I don't like all the messages these people project. We Catholics and the other Minorities aren't responsible for America's problems." "Val, that's the Klan, and these groups have specifically disavowed them. This is different. This is about basic Democracy, working on the grass-roots level, just like it did during the Colonial era, with town meetings and all-volunteer militias. I can't see anything wrong with that, can you?" Margaret could tell from Val's slightly hysterical tone that she was playing her last card. "But Margaret said Dana warned her about this meeting." Charles' voice raised a notch. "That's because she's been spending too much time with that wacked-out partner of hers! Who can tell what garbage he's fed her, with all his Oxford education and Massachusetts Liberal ideas!" "Chuck! How can you think that?" He dropped into a conspiratorial whisper, "He's a Jew, isn't he?" Her daughter-in-law's response was strained through gritted teeth, "Charles, I don't want to hear any more of this! Is that what you men say to each other in your little meetings? That's evil! Whoever told you that is filling your head with horrible lies!" Her son continued as if he were chanting from memory, "It's well known all Jews in America protect the existing order. It's good for their... " Margaret chose that moment to rattle her keys loudly outside. She was hoping for an ally, and the little canine cooperated by padding to the entrance and scratching at the door. As she pushed it open, little John stopped wailing, since something new was happening, and he wanted to see it. --o-0-o-- X-Files Offices Second Floor J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, D.C. Sunday, 12:01 pm Cynthia squinted at Mulder's handwriting on the latest draft of the Fordyce Case Report. He had wanted her to finish up the final version for Director Skinner on Monday, but had only dropped these changes off just before he left around quarter of eight Friday night, deeply worried about Agent Scully and her family. Cynthia was concerned too, which was why she was here on a Sunday afternoon, keying in the last revisions. Agent Mulder had already signed off on the cover sheet, and had made a passable attempt at forging his partner's signature as well. His parting instructions brought a smile to her face, since she knew he expected her to take him literally. Her new boss might be an odd man, but at least he was reasonable to work for. "Hello!" She swiveled to face the front door. "Hi." It was Amanda Edwards, the brunette tech from the sixth floor, Mulder's acquaintance from his Quantico training, standing in the doorway. "I dropped by to install some new networking software on Agent Mulder's computer? Agent Scully stopped by and asked me if I could help." When they had left the basement, Scully had insisted they put themselves on a local area net, with her Linux box as the server, but they had found no software that worked as Scully required for Mulder's Macintosh. Cynthia knew Amanda was supposed to be a genius with computers and electronics; if Scully wasn't around to troubleshoot, Mulder often called on her to fix his machine. Nodding, Cynthia stepped away from her desk, flipping through the keys on her ring until she found the one for Mulder's office. "I'll be out here working a little longer, so just slam the door shut if I leave before you, all right?" Amanda waved as Cynthia returned to her files. Waiting until she heard clicking from the keyboard, 'Ace' powered the Apple system up. While she didn't expect Mulder to keep anything in the office, she and 'Charlie' had decided it never hurt to check. She clicked and scrolled, barely aware of Cynthia calling a farewell at some later time as she left. --o-0-o-- Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC Thursday, February 6, 1997 9:53 pm Behind the tinted windows of a black sedan, the driver checked the faces leaving the Hoover building. He was waiting to cast the Golden Apple of Discord among the four young successors to his superiors in the Manhattan high-rise. Out of long habit, he clasped a white cylinder between his lips and lit the end. Checking the far side of Ninth Street, he spotted his rotund one-time assistant, whose knees used to knock whenever he entered his dark office. He leaned over the steering wheel, craning his neck until he glimpsed a familiar head of brunette curls, and her absent-minded expression. He waited until she was waving and hurrying across the street to turn the engine over. --o-0-o-- 'Ace' strode along the wide sidewalk, considering whether the parallel processing algorithm she was testing would calculate a triple nested encryption faster if she set up a six-Alpha parallel system under Linux. The response of Scully's DX4-120 had impressed her when she had been downloading files to disk and inserting a few random characters into the reports. She had just wanted to enhance the paranoia she knew they would feel when they realized their computer network had been compromised. Cynthia, she felt certain, would say nothing, since 'Ace' was a frequent visitor to the second floor. She started across Ninth Street, her mind weighing the trade-offs with the 64-bit machines, her feet automatically pointed toward the Metro escalator for the short ride to Union Station. There, she and 'Charlie' would take a very late supper, and, she hoped, he would agree to the purchase of the machines she wished to acquire. She barely heard the voice calling her from the other side of the street, and blinked before looking up. "Drew!" 'Ace' beamed, stepping out to greet the man, not heeding the flashing red hand. She barely heard the black sedan as it whipped around the corner. She had been flung back onto the concrete to collapse in a heap by the blue Washington Post box before the pain registered in her mind. "Amanda!" She attempted to focus through the haze. His round, red face appeared over her. "Can you hear me? It's me, Drew, remember?" As she watched in quiet dissociation, he autodialed 911, then covered her with his coat, sinking down beside her to hold her hand as they waited. "Drew? Who would do this? I thought we had eliminated all the loyalists that remained?" He squinted at her, clutching her hand a bit tighter when they heard the sirens in the distance. "I don't know." His squeaky voice failed, so he waited for a moment, hoping that her twitching leg meant she would stand and walk one day, not that she would be a cripple for the rest of her life. "But when I find them, they will pay, don't worry." He glanced behind him as he heard the doors on the ambulance open. --o-0-o-- The Vista Inn Bluefield, West Virginia Thursday, 10:21 pm Scully slammed the driver's side door after she reentered their BMW. Worn from the endless hours following the map route, they were both eager to cease travelling tonight. She had been standing by Mulder at the check-in desk, chewing the inside of her cheek to keep silent as her partner dickered with the proprietor over lodging fees. After one glare too many, she returned to the car so he could haggle without her impatient fidgeting at his elbow. She knew his concern was for their personal bank accounts, because, as usual, they were operating outside of the purview of the FBI. But, following another twelve hour drive, she ceased to see the importance of reducing the room price by five dollars per night for a single night, at most. Rubbing her legs for a few seconds, she focused on the front desk, visible through tall, uncluttered windows, where her partner was gesturing furiously. She could tell the clerk was close to giving in, just to relieve the annoyance the tall man was causing him. Finally, the grizzled retiree behind the counter passed over the room keys. Mulder turned to head out to their car, holding his trench coat closed at the neck when he reentered the vehicle. "We'll need to drive around to the back, Scully." After he buckled the lap belt, his shoulders drooped. "127 and 129." He scrubbed his face with both hands. "Well, that was a wash too. If the map hadn't triggered your memories, at this point, I'd be willing to call this off altogether." She waited until they were parked before replying, "I know. You're the psychologist, Mulder, but isn't it possible I *wanted* to learn something about those missing three months, and the map was nothing but a convenient excuse?" He shook his head. "What I meant was that they've been here and sanitized the areas we've stopped at far more thoroughly than the report was. It's suspicious that nearly every location on that map is *not* on railroads, and is now a golf course, a landfill, or a playground." He passed her the key to 127. "Well, maybe tomorrow we'll know more from the RF&P warehouse. That, at least, is on a working rail line." She nodded. "I suppose we need to find someplace for dinner, but at this point, I'd settle for a good night's rest." He smirked. "Yah. Even though this place has three adult channels, I'll probably not need the Wild Student Nurses' help to sleep tonight." As she took her blue duffle bag from him, he leaned over her shoulder. "Of course, Scully, I could *always* be kept awake..." Staring up, she realized she was too tired to parry jests. Instead, she contented herself with leaning her shoulder into his side, using the gesture to thank him for the concern behind his quip. As he fell silent, leaning into her in return, she took her leave. "Don't wait up, partner. We've been too many hours on the road." She pushed the door open, letting it swing shut after she entered. --o-0-o-- Dark Apartment Fairfax, Virginia Thursday, 11:03 pm X closed the folder he had lifted from his smoking superior's apartment. He had always been curious as to how far the Organization had advanced in the Experiment, but now he knew. That knowledge brought him back to the unruly charge he protected, since now, more than ever, it was important for Mulder not to discover anything significant. Picking up his desk phone, X punched in a long-distance number and spoke three words: "Dreyfus, XYZ, Chamberlain." Click. His nameless superior had established certain safeguards and procedures, so he activated the least lethal of the options available to him. Between the policies he would shortly encourage the Gang of Four to pursue, and these, the FBI agents would be kept busy, and away from any active operations. He tapped out seven digits. "Mister McConnell, we need to talk. I shall meet you..." Standing before the call was completed, X swiveled when he heard the computer beep, and was startled as the unit fell to the floor. --o-0-o-- Vista Inn Room 129 Friday, February 7, 1997 3:34 am The loud crash shook Mulder awake, so he grabbed his gun off the nightstand, crossing the room to the adjoining door with Room 127. But Scully had pulled it open before him. She was standing, rumpled but alert, as the illumination from her bedside lamp highlighted the anxiety in his face. Mulder bent over her. "You heard that?" She nodded. "Anything outside?" He waited to part the curtains until after she had killed the light and stood directly in front of him, then they peered into the darkness, one drawn face above the other. But they were far in the country, where, unlike most urban areas, there was no glow from surrounding street lamps or developments. Mulder and Scully waited, hoping their eyes would adjust, or that they would spot moving shapes in the dark. She spun under him, heading for the back window, but there was nothing beyond. Mulder returned to his nightstand, punching in 8 for the front desk. "Let's find out if we're just imagining things, Scully." She had padded into the room behind him, closing and locking the adjoining door. The phone rang, ten, then fifteen times, before it was answered. Scully watched her partner speak with the clerk. He handed her the briefcase with the report in it before he hung up the phone. "He says it's just an explosion down at the Arsenal, but I'm not sure. It was a different voice." Nodding once, Scully padded back to her room, dressing in a heavy black sweater, jeans, and hiking boots before Mulder rapped three times and entered. She saw he had changed. From the bulges in his duffle bag and the way it was slung high on his shoulder, she knew he had packed quickly. Scully had long since learned to keep her clothes in her luggage on fishing expeditions like this, so she followed him out the door and into the car. Mulder took the wheel, and they left. --o-0-o-- Behind them, a black sedan tailed the BMW, keeping a discrete distance. Inside, a tiny flame was lit, then extinguished, and a orange light flared, then faded to a barely detectable red glow. He sped up, and the import responded with several turns. The cigarette finished, he tossed the butt out the window, then lit a new one almost immediately. --o-0-o-- Mulder checked the rear-view mirror. "I think we've lost him, Scully." She continued scanning the road behind them in her side-view mirror. "You're sure it was only one?" He shrugged. "There was only a single set of lights, so here's hoping." Now her hours behind the wheel caught up with her, and she turned, angry. "Mulder, we can't just hope!" Taken aback, the small grin faded, and he snarled a response, "Well, what do you suggest we do, Doctor Scully?" She dropped her head in her hands, too drained to expend more emotional energy. "I'm sorry, Mulder, I don't know what to do other than hope. That was one of the soundest sleeps I've had in weeks that was shocked out of me." Nodding, he rested one hand on her shoulder. "We'll trade off driving, Scully. We're too tired to do anything more than fight, if we're not careful. Check out. It will take at least five hours to reach the warehouse site." Scully reclined the seat, silently dropping off almost as quickly as she had been roused. Mulder checked her over. --o-0-o-- Georgetown Hospital Washington, DC Friday, 2:47 am "'Charlie'!" He quickly shoved his glasses back on his nose, blinking and staring at the still figure in the bed. Since Amanda had not awakened after the surgery, he had pitched fits, offered bribes, and called in political favors to stay here until his 'Ace' revived from her coma. But the hand that shook him belonged not to a nurse, but Lindhauer, who was standing over him, staring dourly. "We need to talk." 'Charlie' stood. "So talk." McConnell's red curls shifted as he jerked his head towards the hall, so the three filed out together. They huddled as an orderly pushed a laundry cart down the narrow, cluttered corridor. After a quick glance down his long, thin nose at McConnell, Lindhauer demanded, "This thing you have for 'Ace' has to stop." 'Charlie', his eyes appearing to bulge as he focused through his thick lenses, stared at his fellow conspirator. "What do you mean? Her parents are both dead, so someone should be here for her when she wakes up." He stuck his head back in the room. McConnell patted his shoulder. "Then let it be one of us, not you. We still have much to do, and you're needed on the job, so let us take shifts with her." 'Charlie' shook his head. "It's my fault, don't you see. She was crossing the street to speak with me when she was hit. I'm responsible for her being here in the first place." Lindhauer frowned. "No, 'Charlie', we all know her. She was probably building the next super-computer in her head and didn't even hear the car that struck her. What have the doctors said?" 'Charlie' turned to him. "She has a broken collarbone, and three cracked ribs. The head trauma was not severe, so she should be fine when she does awaken. But she's been working hard on a new encryption algorithm, so this may be a needed rest for Amanda." The other two glared, but he ignored them. "I'm staying. There's nothing I can do until morning anyway." McConnell stood in front of him, surprised to realize his black frames were as cracked as 'Charlie''s. "This could split us up, *'Charlie'*." He emphasized the code name. "Remember the documents we found in your old boss' office. It's too soon to let petty personal desires come between us. X has been in contact, and the FBI is too close to active operations for comfort." 'Charlie' crossed his arms. "No, I'll stay. You guys go through Black Lung's stuff. Just tell Luther to have Mulder and Scully roughed up, so they'll be out of our hair for a while." As 'Charlie' disappeared into 'Ace's' room, closing the door behind him, Lindhauer and McConnell looked to each other and shrugged. --o-0-o-- Georgetown Hospital Friday 7:43 am When he heard its occupant sigh, 'Charlie' stopped pacing to stand at the foot of the bed. He had been thinking hard about something he needed to say, and he wanted to practice while she was sleeping, so he wouldn't lose his nerve once he awoke. Full of trepidation, he approached her side to take her hand. "Amanda, there's something you need to know about me. I've always admired your abilities, the way you see computer software and electronic circuits in your head. You've always made time for me, even when Black Lung had you under some terrible deadline, and you've never made fun of my weight. You even think it's cute." He smiled. "You call me Drew, after the actor on TV, and I love it." He laid one large hand on the crown of her head, moving the hair around with his thumb. "I love it, and I love you, too." He carefully placed a kiss on her forehead. The woman's eyes rolled back and forth under her lids, leaving him, for a moment, afraid she was suffering a fit induced by the head injury. "I love you too, Daddy." Even though she was still unconscious, she smiled at her visitor. 'Charlie's' heart stopped. Sighing, he straightened, thinking he could step away and leave her to rest. She gripped his hand back, then her eyes flew open. "Daddy? Don't leave me again." Blinking, she focused on the face in front of her. "Drew? Is that you?" She glanced around the room. "Are we still on the sidewalk? I'm so warm here!" "You're in the hospital, Amanda. You were hit by a car as you crossed the street to meet me. I'm sorry." He managed a weak smile for her. She winced as she tried to sit up, then stopped. "That's all right. I was debating how many of those new one gigahertz Alphas to ask you guys for when I stepped off, so I probably didn't hear the car." He leaned over her. "We think it was one of the loyalists, but we're checking. It's not fair, Amanda, it should have been me, not you." She smiled up at his remorseful, anguished expression. "Don't say that. If something were to happen to me, there are six other guys perfectly capable of taking my place. But you three are the politically connected ones. Without 'Finn' and 'Andrew', we would lose access to the Congressmen we control, and you, Drew, know more about Black Lung's operations than anyone else." He stared down at her hand. "But, I'd miss you, doesn't that count?" "Oh." She considered for a moment. "I didn't think anyone would know or care. Thank you. Drew?" His brown eyes met her green ones. "I thought my Daddy was here, but I must have been hallucinating. I thought he told me he loved me." Drew gasped. "I said that, Amanda. I love you." She smiled, but he could read worry in her eyes, so he leaned forward and kissed her forehead again. "I mean that, really." She looked over at the small window beside the bed. "I suppose I sort of guessed you did. But, I never was sure." She focused on him again. "Does that mean I have to call you Edgar now?" He grinned. "No, Drew is wonderful. Edgar was my Mother's Father's first name, and he was such a mean old guy, I never wanted to be associated with him. I like Drew much better, so you use that." "Okay. Call me Lisa then." He chuckled. "After the computer?" She laughed out loud. "No, although I hadn't made that connection before now, it's my middle name, and Amanda is so formal. I hate any abbreviations of it, like Manny or Andie or something. Lisa is so much nicer." "Sure." She squeezed his hand. "Now, go save the world, I'd like to sleep." While 'Charlie' felt like he was floating as he left the room, 'Ace' was deep in thought as she turned to the window. She knew his revelation would occupy her mind for most of the rest of her stay in the hospital. 'Charlie' checked 'Ace' one final time before he left to shower and change, wondering what was so fascinating about the warehouse across the street. --o-0-o-- RF&P Warehouse Outside Bluefield, West Virginia Friday, 7:04 am Mulder and Scully surveyed the low structure before them. Unlike the ziggurat of the Strughold Mine, this facility did not wear the appearance of long neglect, but rather, recent dishabitation. None of the windows were broken, and the foliage in front of the door had blown there during the last storm, not grown up and died from the autumn frost. Mulder flicked his hand at the far wall, and the partners separated, each moving stealthily around the building's perimeter. Mulder kept his finger on the autodial button of his cell phone, knowing that Scully was using the same precaution as he. If either was jumped, each knew to dial the other, one ring sufficient to summon assistance. It had taken many late-night discussions for Scully to teach her partner that such simple precautions would greatly allay her fear that he would run off and be injured or killed. Catching motion inside an open door as he approached it, he spun into the entrance, gun leveled and aimed. A grey furry rodent scurried between Mulder's legs. Hopping back, he grimaced, pausing to shake his feet, since he thought he had seen its long pink tail drag over the leather of his hiking boots. Resuming his progress, the agent flattened himself against the wall before checking around the corner. "Ah!" As he was grabbed, he fumbled in his jacket, the sequence of beeps he heard reassuring him that help was on the way. He was pushed to the ground, where he kicked out at his captors, trying to draw his gun and flip over onto his back. Scully fired over the struggling men's heads. "Freeze! Federal Agent!" Confused, they scattered as her bullets ricocheted off the concrete blocks. Mulder rolled onto his knees, nodding at her 'Are you okay?' before the agents sprinted towards the front of the building and their BMW. "Do you still have it, Scully?" She waved her hand over her jacket, grunting when he reached back to press them both against the wall. Mulder checked around the corner, turned to look down at her, and shook his head before pointing into the woods. "We'll have to try to lose them in there, or else we'll be caught." "Right." Scully could hear the shouting behind them. The words were indistinct in the distance, swallowed by dry branches that crackled and snapped as she and her partner forced a way through. --o-0-o-- The skies were grey and overcast once the sun rose. A spotty, cold mist settled on the mountain, growing into a heavy downpour as they moved away from the warehouse, occasionally slowed by snowdrifts. After jogging forward for about an hour, resting only to gauge the lack of pursuit behind them, Scully's Doctor Mode took over. "We'll have to find shelter soon, Mulder. We can't succumb to the cold while on our feet. Even though the temperatures are in the forties so we won't have to contend with a new pile of snow, we need to get out of the rain." Nodding, Mulder stopped by a three story pine tree to shake the thick evergreen foliage, which would provide natural insulation from the elements. "Let's try this, Scully." The lower branches hung off the trunk at waist-height, drooping at the ends to brush the needle-covered ground, so they crawled underneath. For once, Scully found she had the advantage of her tall partner. She could stretch her back and neck against the trunk without bumping tree limbs, while he was forced to curl into a ball, and prop his head up on one arm. She peered at him through the semi-darkness. "Will you be all right?" "Hum?" As he shifted his weight to a more comfortable position, he heard the brown spikes beneath him rubbing against each other. "Oh, I should say so. Phoebe would have considered this more than ample room for a little exercise." She rolled her eyes. "I've never understood what you were attracted to in her." Mulder smirked. "Brains, good looks, and a wicked sense of humor helped." He could sense that Scully had heard his quickened breathing beside her when she shrank away from him. In the faint light filtering through the branches, he saw her lips purse at his cocked eyebrow. "Considering the temperatures, Doctor, move over here. Small bodies lose heat faster than larger ones." Scully wiggled over until she was tucked up between Mulder and the rough trunk. He tried to curl around his partner, while keeping them both as close to the dry center as he could. "This wouldn't be a situation where a Lady should fear for her honor, Agent Mulder?" He chuckled. "Let's see, Agent Scully. You march into our office every day to argue with my excellent hypotheses which explain all our cases before we even leave the building. Ow!" Her fingers had gently pinched his arm, so he shifted to look over at her. "But, you, Brother Abelard, *demand* proof and evidence, so we are *forced* to fly off to corners of America that would only exist in a Clive Barker novel to find it. Ooh!" She had pinched just a little harder. "So you're saying I take advantage of you? *Mulder*, that's ridiculous! If I didn't make you come up with that proof and evidence, you would have been booted out of the FBI years ago!" His hazel eyes met her green-blue ones. Shivering in her soaked sheepskin-lined canvas jacket, she twisted around to prop her back against his thighs. "We had better keep awake." Her voice was lazy and distant. But he failed to notice the change, lost as he was in joking with her. "Hum, partner, singing is out, talking is out, and something 'dishonorable' would only put us to sleep afterward, so what do you suggest?" He glanced down at her. "Scully?" He saw her eyes had closed, felt that she was leaning hard against him, so he shook her by jiggling his leg. "Scully? Wake up." Now hypothermia was his chief concern for her, so he set her back up on her own, holding her shoulders and calling her name. "Scully? Are you hurt? Sick?" She jumped. "I'm all right." She blinked and focused. "If anything, you've finally put me out by being overheated from running, Mulder." Relieved, he grinned, but they both ducked as a bullet cut through the evergreen, just over their heads. Pulling their weapons free, the agents flattened themselves on the thick pad of needles to shift into position. He faced towards the direction the shot was fired; she pointed 180 degrees opposite in case they were facing an ambush. Checking his partner under his arm, Mulder muttered darkly as another projectile sliced spiky sprigs from the lowest branches to fall on their backs and into their hair. Each peered through the thick green cover at the sound of approaching men. Their pursuers made no attempt at stealth, but gave the agents ample cues to aim their guns. The partners waited until the shouting was near to ready them. The footfalls grew louder and closer, then ceased. "I think I've hit something!" --o-0-o-- END - PASSAGES IN MEMORY - JOURNEY