Absalom VI: The Covenant  - Part VI

By Joyce McKibben 
brenna_mathys@yahoo.com


DATE: September 1998

DISTRIBUTION:  Gossamer.  All others please ask.
RATING: PG-13  (some profanity)
CLASSIFICATION: A,S
SUMMARY:  I would suggest that you read the preceding
          parts of this series before reading this part.  
          Jason and Mulder make a choice.
DISCLAIMER:  Mulder, Skinner, Scully and CSM belong to
       CC and Fox Broadcasting and I am only borrowing
       them for a moment and will return them.  Jason
       belongs to me.  No infringement is intended. Lord
       knows, I'm not making any money off of this and
       have no intentions of making any money from it.  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To a group of ladies who inspire me as
       well as keep me from straying too far into the
       grammatical wastelands.

FEEDBACK: Always welcome at: brenna_mathys@yahoo.com


==================================

Absalom VI: The Covenant

"We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we
at agreement."                               Isaiah 28:15


24 days after the attack
Jason's Office

"Damn idiot," Jason muttered as he snapped the cover
closed on the report.  The Elders must have conducted a
strenuous search to find the most pompous fool they could
to head up their black ops unit.  A bull in a china shop
had more tact and subtlety than the man they placed in
charge of keeping the lid on things.

"Hamilton," Jason called out in a deceptively calm voice.

"Yes sir?" his assistant answered politely before
appearing in the doorway a moment later.  He walked slowly
over to Jason's desk and stood waiting for instructions.

"Remind me to send condolences to Major Dolby's family,"
Jason commented dryly as he handed Hamilton the heavily-
marked report.

"Did the major die in an accident or in the line of duty?"
Hamilton inquired seriously, his dark brown face betraying
nothing more than mild curiosity.  Jason stared icily at
him.  "For the card, sir," Hamilton added blandly.

Jason's eyes remained cool and impersonal, but his lips
twitched in an infinitesimal smile.

"Oh, I think an accident; a promising career cut short and
so on.  Just write something appropriate for the occasion
and send it out ... day after tomorrow should be soon
enough."

"Yes sir.  I'll select something appropriate," Hamilton
assured Jason gravely.

Jason looked at his assistant standing poised and calm
before him and wondered where his loyalties lay.  The
conspiracy was maturing more rapidly than anyone had
counted on and the Syndicate, which was supposed to be in
control, was anything but in control.  The Elders were
drunk on blood and revenge.  

Hamilton had remained loyal to him through the recent
upheaval, but whether from choice or by orders, Jason
could not discern.  Hamilton remained impassively
unconcerned by Jason's intense scrutiny.  Either he was
assured by his loyalty or blindly confident in promises of
protection made by Jason's enemies.

Well, in four days, if his plans went awry, it would not
matter.  The smoker did not make idle threats.  If Mulder
had not been brought into the Project, his soul bought and
paid for, Jason would outlive Mulder's assassination by
the Elders by hours at best.

"That will be all, Hamilton," Jason waved a hand in
dismissal.  If his plans were successful, he would deal
with the inscrutable Hamilton later.  

"Very good, sir."  Hamilton turned to leave, almost
pivoting with the crisp grace of a military drill
instructor.  As he reached the door, he paused.  "I saw
Bryson Tolliver the other day.  He appears to have
developed a most unusual interest in Agent Mulder's
apartment."

Jason froze.  Tolliver was the Elders' favorite assassin.  
Events were accelerating.  For a moment, Jason felt the
bottom drop out from under him and hung motionless in free
fall on the lip of the precipice.  

"He looked most stressed.  I took the liberty of
introducing Lucy to him.  She seemed most pleased by the
gift.  Mr. Tolliver will have a most entertaining vacation
and will return in five days."  Without another word,
Hamilton left the office, carefully closing the door
behind him without a sound.

Jason remembered to breathe and tried very hard not to
laugh out loud.  Poor Tolliver.  The Fat Man, the chief of
the Elders, had almost no sense of humor.  Still, five
days with Lucy might make any punishment worthwhile.  If
she didn't kill him first, of course, from sheer
exhaustion.

Hamilton was proving to be a complex and surprising
assistant.  Taking him on as his aide had been little
enough he could do for the son of a fallen soldier.  
Perhaps Hamilton would be a worthy recruit to the Smoker's
list of allies.  

Time had been bought.  Jason still had his friend's
deadline to meet, but at least now he would not be racing
an over-eager assassin for the prize.  Jason flipped on
the receiver to the listening device in Mulder's
apartment.  He would make his move tonight.  Agent Scully
had a doctor's appointment this afternoon.  No doubt she
would be reluctant to tell her partner the bad news, but
it would not matter.  Jason would be receiving a full copy
of the X-rays and reports by courier before she left the
hospital parking lot.

The board was set.  Mulder's bishop and queen were in
peril and the only way he could avoid checkmate was to
sacrifice one of them.  Jason pondered his unwitting
opponent for a moment and wondered if Mulder's maverick
brain would find a loophole in his carefully crafted
strategy.  Perhaps that was why Jonathan had been willing
to take such risks to protect the boy.  Fox's unorthodox
genius had proved more than once to be a match for some of
the Syndicate's best strategists, provoking a physical
response to thwart Mulder's uncanny ability to penetrate
the lies protecting the truth at the heart of the
Conspiracy.

"Tonight you become an aware player in this game, Fox.  
You will see unfold the consequences of your action or
inaction.  I think I understand Jonathan at last.  We are
gamblers, all of us, risking everything on the unknown,
the incalculable responses you make to imminent threats,"
Jason said softly as he leaned back to listen to the quiet
sounds of a silent man moving about his home.

"Check, Mr. Mulder, and mate, I hope," Jason added in a
whisper that might have been a prayer to the devil that
held his own soul in checkmate.

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

Mulder's apartment later that afternoon


Fox Mulder wandered about aimlessly in his apartment.  He
was restless.  After weeks of being penned up in the
hospital he wanted to be out and moving around, but Scully
had made it very clear that he was still recuperating and
needed to rest.  Hell, he'd been doing nothing but resting
for over three weeks.  He was bored with resting.  Still,
he supposed she had a point.  The speech therapist had
been optimistic that, with care, his voice should return
with only a gravel huskiness to remind him how close he
came to permanent disability retirement.  Jogging was
probably not on the short list of activities he was
allowed to indulge in.

Part of his problem was that the apartment was entirely
too clean.  Scully had apparently decided to take action
against the comfortable clutter he amassed around his
life.  He really couldn't blame her.  For Scully, neatness
was right up there behind loyalty and duty as cardinal
virtues.  Organized chaos was the term he preferred, but
he supposed that was a bit on the optimistic side.  In the
weeks before his attack, he had not even kept up the
pretence of organizing the clutter, except for the stacks
of files and clippings on his desk - those were kept in
rigidly controlled piles ranked according to their
usefulness in his search for a cure for Scully.

If he listened carefully, he could almost imagine he could
hear the death wails of the dust bunnies as they were
ruthlessly exterminated.  Some of those dust balls had
been with him since he first moved in; they were like old
friends.  For that matter, they survived a hell of a lot
longer than most of his fish.  

He felt like a stranger in his own apartment.  It would
probably take him days, if not weeks, to find everything
again.  Contemplating the hassle of trying to outguess
Scully, he tried to work up some irritation, but it fell
flat.  As childish as it was, he wanted to be irritated
with her because then he could forget how worried he was.

"Just a routine follow-up exam," she had said.  "Nothing
to worry about.  I feel fine," the familiar litany
continued, fooling no one, but offering her a comfortable
shield against his blatant concern.  

She did look fine, better than he had seen her look in
months, but that did not reassure the ice-field that
swallowed his heart when she told him the doctor wanted to
see her again.  

Fox Mulder was not a man who believed in miracles, yet one
had been bestowed on Scully seemingly from nowhere.  Now
it appeared that someone decided that the miracle was a
mistake.  For the first time in his adult life, Mulder
wished he could find comfort in prayer.  He maintained a
completely neutral attitude about the existence of God.  
Scully believed.  He tried to find comfort in the
reflection of her faith, but doubted if God really cared.  
If he did, then how could he allow someone as good and
honorable as Scully to suffer so much evil?  

Frustrated and unable to sit still for long, Mulder
continued to wander around his apartment.  Finally he
could take being cooped up no longer.  Better to risk
Scully's wrath than go insane.  At least the weather was
mild and unseasonably warm.  Still, he grabbed his leather
jacket and pulled it on over the light black sweater with
the high neck that concealed the bandages.  This morning,
in the hospital, he had taken off the bandages and stared
at the wound that wrapped around his throat like a snake.  
Despite the surgeon's best efforts, there would be a scar;
a brand scored into his skin to remind him daily of the
unknown assassin who struck him down, then held him
tenderly as he drowned in his own blood.

No doubt the nurse informed Scully of his action.  He knew
Scully liked to enlist his nurses as her eyes and ears
when she had to be away.  She had said nothing when she
arrived to take him home, but he saw her eyes flit for an
instant to the soft skin-tone bandage on his neck when she
thought he wasn't looking.  He hid in the silence and the
moment passed.  What was there to say?  Another scar,
another step closer to the day when death would grow tired
of playing and claim him.  Now they had a visible,
constant reminder of time pressing in on them.  He wished
he knew whether this was a good thing or whether it would
tear them apart.

The late afternoon sun felt warm on his face as he emerged
from his apartment building.  He paused for a moment,
looking down the street towards the path he usually took
when the urge to run took him; the path he had taken a
cold, slushy night just over three weeks ago.  Mulder bit
his lip as the memory of a flashing blade and the warm
sting of blood and air spilled from his throat onto the
icy slush of the street.

Not that way, not yet, not until he could run that memory
into the ground.  Shrugging off the flashback, he turned
to walk towards the small park nearby.  The short four
block walk, even taken slowly, exhausted him.

"Shit," he grumbled in a hoarse raspy whisper as he
collapsed onto a convenient bench.  OK, Scully was right.
I don't have the strength of a two-day-old kitten, Mulder
groused to himself.

With an effort he controlled his breathing to avoid
gasping and straining his healing throat.  Slow and easy,
breathe in deep, exhale slowly, he chanted mentally as he
slowed down his breathing into an even rhythm.  Damn rehab
sessions had a few good tips, he acknowledged grudgingly.

A shadow fell on him and he looked up to see a young man
dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater standing in front of
him looking at him with a strange expression.  The hair on
the back of Mulder's neck prickled and he began to tense.  
He was in no shape for a fight, but the instinctive
response to danger kicked in nonetheless. The young man
noted Mulder's alert response and smiled a wintry smile.

Without a word, the man dropped a bulky manila envelope in
Mulder's lap and walked off.  When he was about ten feet
away, he turned and looked at Mulder sitting there
uneasily holding the package.  Mulder looked up into his
eyes and saw cool appraisal and a distant, amused respect.
With a nod at the package, the man turned and walked away.

Now what?, Mulder wondered as his hands felt the shape of
a video tape and the stiff edges of some sort of heavy
paper.  He held the package gingerly, almost as if it was
about to explode in his hands.  It was very tempting to
toss the package in a nearby trashcan and walk away, but
his curiosity was aroused.  Somebody was going to a great
deal of trouble; somebody who knew him well enough to know
that once his curiosity was tripped, it would be almost
impossible for him not to examine the contents of the
package.  A perfect trap with a messy explosion as the
payoff would seem the logical conclusion, but this didn't
feel like that kind of trap.  Why go to so much trouble,
when a simple gunshot would cause less of a stir and be a
lot quieter?

As he slowly got up for the walk home, Mulder looked
around for any sign that he was being followed.  If he
was, they were very, very good, he admitted.  Then again,
it was a fair guess that he would head home to examine the
package in the safety of his own apartment.  Mulder felt
like the quarry in a very elaborate hunt with a hunter who
knew him too well for comfort.  He did not like the
feeling.  He was tired of being the quarry - just for once
he'd like to be the hunter.

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

In his car across the park, Jason watched Mulder begin his
slow journey home.  His high-powered binoculars caught the
nervous twitch of Mulder's fingers as they played with the
envelope.  So far, so good.  The end-game was proceeding
as planned.  Jason had resisted the temptation to be the
one to deliver the bishop's checkmate in person.  He would
have to content himself with knowing that it was his hand
that lay around Skinner's soul.  Hamilton was the better
choice - an unknown and less likely to provoke a public
scene.

Hamilton had his own orders and Jason had no reason to
doubt that he would carry them out with equal skill and
dispassionate attention to detail.  Misplaced records, the
normal chaotic inefficiency of modern medical bureaucracy
should be sufficient to occupy the agent for several
hours.

"You are alone, Fox.  Until I give the word, you have no
one to turn to, but me.  Alone, you are vulnerable.  
Alone, you are mine," Jason whispered as Mulder turned the
corner onto his own street.

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

Mulder's legs were trembling by the time he slowed from a
fast walk to climb the steps to the entrance to his
apartment building.  An irrational fear had taken hold of
him, driving him to push his tired body to its limits.  
Like a fool, he had left his cell-phone at home.  Consumed
by a need to speak with Scully, to reassure himself that
she was indeed fine, he had defied doctor's orders and
common sense.  The fast walk was a pitiful parody of the
long loping strides of a runner, but it still left him
shaky and gasping for breath.  Despite his efforts to
control his breathing, his lungs were heaving, sucking in
air which burned in his throat.

For once, the interminably slow elevator ride up to the
fourth floor was a relief.  When the doors opened again,
he had his breathing under control and managed a steady,
if slow, walk down the hall.  On the off-chance that
Scully had returned early and was waiting for him, he was
determined to show no outward signs of his exertion.

Once inside his apartment, Mulder tore open the envelope.  
Despite his confidence that the envelope was not a trap,
he could not prevent a slight wince as the paper tore nor
a sigh of relief when nothing happened.  At least Scully
would not come back to find him splattered all over his
nice clean apartment.  

Tilting the envelope, Mulder poured out onto his coffee
table a video tape, a heavy parchment envelope and a small
velvet bag.  The video tape was unlabeled and, after
turning it over several times in his hands, trying to see
any identifying marks, Mulder carefully set it aside.  The
black velvet bag contained an oddly shaped object which
turned out to be a white chess piece.  Mulder stared at
the elaborately carved representation of a robed man
wearing a bishop's miter and wielding a sword, trying to
remember if he had ever seen a chess set containing such a
remarkably crafted piece.  He played chess badly, though
on occasion his erratic and often senseless moves had
stymied a more proficient player.  He knew enough to
recognize this piece as a bishop and understood its moves
and importance to the overall game, but why would someone
send it to him?  

Carefully setting the bishop on the table, he slit open
the parchment envelope.  The letter inside was brief and
succinct, written in a gothic style of penmanship popular
forty years ago.

    Mr. Mulder:

    King's bishop is in danger.  The tape provides
ample evidence.  My knight now threatens the
White Queen.  Think well.  Consider well.
    Your move is coming up.  Be ready.

The letter was unsigned.  Mulder held the letter gingerly
and pondered its meaning.  If he held the bishop in his
hands, that must mean that whoever wrote this note
considered him to be the White King.  If so, then the only
queen he could possibly have would be Scully.

Mulder dove for his cell-phone, frantically hitting the
speed dial.  Six, eight, ten rings - each one tearing out
a chunk of his heart.

After fifteen rings he gave up.  In the ensuing silence he
could hear his heart beat.  There must be a dozen good
reasons why Scully wasn't answering her phone.  She'll
laugh when I tell her how I panicked over something so
silly, he assured his flagging optimism.

"What do you want from me?" he asked the empty air as he
stood up and went over to stare out the window.  Why not
just kill him and get it over with.  Why the elaborate
charade?  "Just fucking come out and tell me for
christsake..."  His fist pounded against the window frame
in slow, angry blows that shook the glass.

Mulder's anger drained out of him as he realized the
futility of both his anger and his demand for answers.  It
wasn't his move.  He was at the mercy of the invisible
player on the other side.  He could only react to his
opponent's moves.  Mulder fumed at his helplessness, but
until more of the strategy was revealed, he had to play a
passive role.

"If you harm her in any way...  I swear, I'll find you.  
I'll kill you in front of the whole fucking world if I
have to.  Do you hear me?"  The cold venom in Mulder's
voice left no doubt he meant every word.  The raspy tone
gave his words a malevolent twist.

Anger boiled up again, not the hot rage that usually drove
him to foolish ill-considered acts, but an icy fury that
purged his soul of mercy.  

A sharp ring startled him.  A second ring shook him out of
his confusion and sent him lunging for his cell-phone.

"Hey, partner."  

Scully's voice.  Her blessed, exasperated, tired,
miraculous voice poured into Mulder's ear like rain on a
thirsty land.  Thank you god, Mulder's heart whispered.

"Scully," Mulder rasped into the phone, relief warring
with his waning fury frustrating his attempt to speak slow
and evenly.

"Afraid I'm going to be late.  There's been an accident
and traffic is at a complete standstill," Scully
explained.

"You OK?" Mulder blurted, his voice breaking annoyingly on
the last word.

"I'm fine.  I'm about six cars behind the accident.  I was
just seeing if anyone needed assistance.  There are no
injuries, but the road is completely blocked.  Looks like
I'm going to be here for awhile," Scully added with a
resigned sigh.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Mulder asked the question
that he most feared.  

"What about the doctor?"

There was a pause, not long, but just long enough for
Mulder's heart to freeze and his soul to wither.

"I'm fine, Mulder.  We'll talk when I get there.  Don't
worry," Scully said reassuringly, but just fast enough to
tell Mulder that everything wasn't fine and she didn't
want to have to tell him something over the phone.

"Sure," he responded trying to sound as if she had
convinced him.  He doubted if he was doing any better job
than she had on him.  Fools, both of them, to think that
they could hide behind words.  "Take out, OK?"

"Sure.  Your pick.  Just remember, no heavy spices.  With
luck, I should be out of this mess soon.  Give me about an
hour," Scully advised, her voice soothing and too normal
sounding for Mulder's jangled nerves.

"No Indonesian, then?"  Mulder tried to sound pouty, but
with the raspiness in his throat, he wasn't sure the trick
would work.  A chuckle rewarded him.

"No Indonesian.  You can try to scorch my mouth some other
time."

"Fine, I'll find something non-inflammatory," Mulder felt
his voice weaken and mentally swore.  He wanted to keep
Scully on the line, to reassure him that she was fine and
wasn't in any danger.

"Hang up, now, Mulder.  Remember, you are not supposed to
overdo it," she ordered firmly.  "I'll be there soon," she
promised as she hung up.

"I'm counting on it," Mulder whispered as he pressed the
power off key.  

Whoever was playing this game with his life was very good.  
He now had an hour to fret about what could have happened
to Scully and what she wasn't telling him about the
doctor's visit.  He might as well be damned for a sheep as
for a lamb.  The video might contain some answers, maybe
even some hint as to who his mysterious adversary was.  
This scenario was too complex, too distant for Cancerman.  
Who else wanted him boxed in?

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

"Sir?"  Hamilton's voice sounded tense, almost irritated,
if Jason was any judge.  If the situation wasn't so
critical, this uncharacteristic emotional display by his
aide would intrigue him.

"Yes," Jason answered with a marked brusqueness.  His
attention was concentrated on the questions Mulder was
asking thin air rather than on whatever was irritating his
most able assistant.

"She left the hospital before I got there.  That fool
doctor gave her the lab results without insisting that
she remain for further tests."  Hamilton's tone left no
doubt of his opinion of the laggardly doctor.  

One part of Jason's mind resolved on a suitable accident
to remove an incompetent link in their organization.  The
doctor enjoyed skiing.  Good enough.  Such a tragedy.  A
remarkable career cut short by a careless accident.  The
only question that now remained was whether Hamilton would
also have to be attended to.

"Then where.... ?"  Jason's mind frantically shifted
gears.  Where was Dr. Scully?  If she were free, then he
would have to rearrange his plans for Mulder.  
Alternatives, hasty contingency plans sprang to mind,
shuffled through for plausibility and workability.

"I'm afraid I will need transportation, sir.  I acted as I
saw fit, sir.  I think I can guarantee that she will be
quite occupied for at least an hour, most likely two."
Hamilton sounded as if he were expecting a reprimand, yet
managed to sound contrite without cringing or whining.

Jason's eyebrow shot up and he straightened up from the
half-slouch he had slid into while concentrating on what
he thought was an impending crisis.  His assistant was
proving to be a veritable magician.

"Explain."

"I ascertained the subject's route and by a certain
judicious disregard for routine traffic regulations, I
managed to overtake her and advance to a position several
cars ahead of hers.  I then took action to immobilize her,
along with several hundred other people.  I do sincerely
regret the necessity, sir, but the Jaguar was driven by a
man most unsuited to handle such a distinguished car."  

A chuckle escaped Hamilton's effort to present a clear,
concise, professional report.  Jason smiled in response.
Someday he must remember to tell Hamilton that it was
perfectly acceptable to laugh at the foibles of those they
chose as instruments in their grand plan.

"I believe I have also received my first death threat,
sir.  A most intriguing experience.  The man was almost
incoherent, but I believe he intends to either eviscerate
me or sue me into penury.  I suspect I bagged a lawyer."  
Hamilton was definitely chuckling now.  Jason allowed
himself another smile and made a note to see that the
tables were turned on this lawyer.  A bit of penury was
good for the soul - other men's souls, of course.

"Oh, by the way, I took the liberty of faxing Dr. Scully's
medical report to you from the doctor's office.  I trust
it is all you hoped it would be, sir."

"Hamilton, you are a marvel.  As soon as you can detach
yourself from the results of your ingenious tactical
maneuver, report to my office.  Well done," Jason added
with warm sincerity.  His plan was intact; warped a
mite, but still operable.  If he was successful, he
would have to do something very nice for Hamilton.  If
he failed...  Well, whoever inherited him would be getting
a rare treasure, Jason thought ruefully.  

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

Fifteen minutes later, Mulder knew it really didn't matter
who was behind this game.  Skinner as a bishop to his king
was not an image he had ever considered, most days he felt
he was the one jumping to Skinner's tune.  Someone,
however, obviously had an over-inflated view of his place
in the grand scheme of things.  If he was so fucking
important, then why was he usually left three steps behind
the truth with no evidence and certainly nothing that
could threaten even the shadow of the conspiracy that
existed within or around his government.

He refused to believe that the events depicted were real,
but they were damning.  The tape purported to be a
surveillance video that caught a shadowy figure entering
some research facility, destroying key data and coolly
executing an MP and two lab technicians before setting off
an explosion.  Just before the tape blurred and went
blank, the camera caught the figure pulling off his mask
to reveal A. D. Skinner.  

Rewinding the tape and watching carefully, Mulder could
pick out familiar movements and mannerisms that would
clearly identify the masked figure as Skinner to anyone
who knew him well.  Without other hard evidence to back it
up, this tape would not be enough to convict Skinner of
any crime, but it would seriously compromise his position.  
Mulder knew that the scenario, minus the executions, was
plausible.  He knew about Skinner's deal with the devil.
His stubborn pursuit of the truth had led him to Skinner
and he literally  stumbled onto the deal.  Skinner didn't
explain why and Mulder never asked.  The obvious reason,
Scully's desperate need for a cure, did not need an
explanation.  He saw it in Skinner's eyes when he lied
about the gun; he was part of the reason Skinner had given
that smoking bastard power over him.  Guilt and an odd
sense of fellowship had led him to compromise the law to
protect his boss from the trap closing in on him.  

What he couldn't figure out was why this tape was given to
him?  If his adversary thought for a moment that he would
use this tape against Skinner, then he was a fool.  That
was unlikely.  The noose constricting around his neck was
not the result of a fool's labor.  

A warning, then?  A threat.  Someone believed that he
cared enough for his superior to take this tape as a
warning.  

His move.  

Mulder thought back over the rules of chess and tried to
come up with a visual image of the situation.  The bishop
and the queen were threatened - which meant that in the
next move either one would be swept from the board.  If
the next move was his, that meant he could prevent or
delay that removal.  That he would act was a given, so why
the elaborate set-up?

The answer came with a suddenness that sent Mulder sagging
back into the couch.  Of course, his move would have to be
to place himself between the threat and Scully and
Skinner.  His adversary wanted him to offer himself up
like some damn sacrificial lamb.  Maybe he got off on the
power or maybe he just wanted to see him squirm - it
didn't matter.  Mulder knew that he was going to have to
play out this game, but not necessarily by the rules.

Looking at his watch, Mulder made a quick call to his
favorite bistro and threw himself on the mercy of the
manager who laughed and promised to deliver a tasty meal
fit for a man whose throat could barely tolerate black
pepper, much less the lava-quality spiciness he usually
enjoyed.

The condemned man would at least eat a hearty meal, he
quipped to himself as he pondered his next move.  
Something unexpected, he thought, something no sane man
would consider.

Mulder grimaced and, with a shrug, he invited chaos into
the game.  He could see no way out except to trust in the
random kindness of pure chance.  Stepping out into the
void and trusting that something was out there to catch
him was not an uncommon feeling.  It was an old familiar
sensation and he loathed the feeling each and every time
he did it.  Now there would be no Scully waiting across
the chasm to catch his out-stretched arms - just blind
chance that somehow, someway he could stop himself before
he hit bottom.

"Damn, I hate gambling."

*********



Mulder waited, impatiently, which was the only way he knew
how to wait.  Too much time to think, at least with his
thoughts as dark as they were right now.  Someone had
profiled him as neatly as he was accustomed to profile
serial killers.  He had to assume his phone was tapped and
that he was under active surveillance.  The idea made his
skin crawl.  

He was tempted to turn on one of his raunchier and noisier
videos - give whoever was watching him a thrill.  He was
certain that whoever set this trap knew him well enough to
expect such a reaction.  Should he give them what they
expected?  He considered this for a moment while idly
recreating some of his clutter.  No, it was time he
started making moves against the pattern set down for him.
Scanning the channels, Mulder let a closely fought soccer
match provide background noise as he rambled around his
apartment.

An hour passed, dinner arrived and was in the oven staying
warm.  Still no Scully.  Mulder battled an urge to call
Scully again.  Instead he paced and tried to profile
himself as his enemies must have done.  It was no secret
that losing Scully would cripple him.  Nor would it take a
genius to predict how far he was willing to go to save
her.  What was interesting, however, was the tape
implicating Skinner.  His unseen opponent apparently had
reason to believe that Skinner was a bargaining chip.

As he considered the patterns laid out before him, Mulder
sensed that the net closing around him did not have the
feel of Cancerman's usual tactics; this was a bold, direct
assault aimed at driving him into a corner.  Mulder was
certain that if Cancerman knew he had conspired with
Skinner to extract him from the frame-up, his soul would
have been in Cancerman's fist weeks ago.

The hell with whoever was listening, Mulder thought.  If
the man didn't already know he was angry, upset and more
than a bit frantic, then he wasn't the opponent Mulder
thought he was.  He treated his eavesdroppers with a rich
banquet of curses directed at the man behind this
strategy.  Scully's little delay, coming hard on the heels
of her visit to the doctor and the mysterious delivery of
the tape damning Skinner, could not be a coincidence.  His
opponent was demonstrating his power to control the
variables in his life.  

And doing a fine job of it, too, he grumbled to himself.  
He needed no reminding that his life was now intertwined
with Scully's so tightly that the ripples spreading out
from events affecting her unsettled his world.

Punching up the games pack on his computer, Mulder
activated the never-before-used chess program and stared
at the pieces, pondering ways and means of extricating
himself from this trap.  

A loud ring, repeated, broke his concentration.  Out of
habit he grabbed his cell-phone, but the ringing
continued.  A hasty search of his desk revealed his phone,
vibrating with each strident ring.  Mulder hesitated,
trying to control his breathing.  He felt the presence of
the hunter coming to check on what his trap had caught.  
Licking his dry lips and forcing his breathing into a
slow, even rhythm, he picked up the receiver just as his
answering machine clicked on.

"Hello.  Leave a message."  His mechanical voice droned in
patient entreaty.

"I know you are there, Fox."

Mulder froze in the act of answering.  His memory flashed
back to a frozen gutter, blood drowning him as he listened
to this voice telling him he was dying.

"Come now, Fox."  Jason sighed audibly.  

"I'm here," Mulder growled.

"Good.  We need to talk, Fox.  You have received my
messages.  I have every confidence in your ability to
deduce the probable moves."  Jason's voice was coolly
polite, but seemed to hold a note of regret.  Mulder
wondered why his tormenter bothered feeling anything; did
the hunter offer sympathy to its prey?

"Actually, I fail to see why you bothered sending me that
tape.  Should I be concerned or is this your way of
telling me that I'll be getting a new boss in a few days?"  
Mulder struggled to make his voice as bland as possible
and cursed as it broke several times.  

Jason chuckled.  "Excellent, Fox, you retain your
legendary wit.  I am relieved to find that your
unfortunate accident has not dented your most annoying
habit of making a joke out of extremely serious topics."
A hint of ice in his tone sent a shiver down Mulder's
spine.

"However, time is not your ally.  The park where you were
given the tape - in fifteen minutes.  Unless you are
forfeiting the game?"

The dial tone hit Mulder before he could muster a
response.  

"Damn!" he swore as he slammed down the phone.  If Scully
arrived while he was out, he might have more to worry
about than a deal with the devil.  "Fuck it," he spat out
the words as he scribbled a quick, slightly vague note and
grabbed his jacket.  Locking the door behind him, he
folded the note and tacked it to his door.  He doubted if
it would salve an angry Scully, but he had promised not to
run off.  At least she'd know he had remembered the
promise, even if he didn't keep it.  Cold comfort.

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

Early evening dusk had swallowed up the park in shadows.
The feeble light from a few street lamps barely penetrated
the darkness.  Appropriate, Mulder thought.  Whoever his
nemesis was seemed to enjoy these melodramatic touches.  
The warm breeze of the afternoon had been replaced by a
cold wind that plucked at his coat, seeking a way into his
soul.

"Punctual.  Good," Jason commented dryly from a nearby
shadow.  He smiled as Mulder started then turned slowly in
his direction.  Hell was in Mulder's eyes and, for a
moment, Jason wondered who was damning whom tonight.

"Your tone indicated a certain urgency," Mulder commented,
trying to maintain a nonchalance he did not feel.  His
throat spasmed and he cursed as his tone wavered uneasily
between baritone and husky bass.

"For you, perhaps."  Jason stepped farther back into the
shadow, inviting Mulder to join him in the dark.  Mulder
hesitated.  Memory, vivid piercing memory flashed back to
another dark night, a flashing blade and darkness rushing
in to claim him.  Anger, fear surged up, choking him,
making his hands twitch with the urge to rip this man's
throat out. He felt the weight of his back-up pistol
laying heavy in his jacket pocket.  It would be so easy,
so satisfying, to kill this son-of-a-bitch who had tried
to kill him three weeks ago with cold casualness.

With an effort, he controlled his urge to explode into
violence, to repay the weeks of agony in a single glorious
moment of revenge.  His heart wanted to kill, but his mind
told him that the situation called for using his brains,
not his emotions.

"If I'm to die, I think I prefer to do it here in the
light," Mulder replied softly, carefully keeping his voice
low and even.  He didn't think the entire purpose of this
charade had been to lure him to his death.  Too obvious a
ploy.  Still, it wouldn't hurt to have his opponent
underestimate him a trifle.

Jason chuckled.  He was beginning to see the attraction
working with Mulder had had for Jonathan.  Fox Mulder
managed to combine brilliance and naivete along with a
dark current of violence in a surprising mix that raised
the art of doing the unexpected to an art form.

"If I had wanted you dead, your partner and Assistant
Director Skinner would be writing your eulogy right now."  
Jason paused and considered his opponent for a moment.  He
gestured to the bench Mulder had occupied earlier.  Half
in shadow, lit by a single street lamp twenty feet away,
it offered a compromise.  He watched Mulder as he glanced
at the bench, then back at his half-hidden form before
turning abruptly and walking over to sit down.

Jason walked over to sit on the opposite end of the bench,
just out of arm's reach.  It occurred to him that he and
Mulder were like two great cats meeting in neutral
territory, each warily waiting for the other to make the
first move.

Mulder sat stiffly, glaring at the man who had tried to
kill him and was now apparently intent on blackmailing him
into some unknown action.  His anger was thick in the air
between them, but he held himself rigidly in check.  His
own life he was perfectly willing to endanger in bravado
escapades, but Scully's life, and even Skinner's, now
depended on his self-control.

"I was wrong," Jason mused aloud as he stared into the
darkness, apparently oblivious of the man beside him.  
"Killing you would have been a mistake and a grievous
waste of potential."

Mulder waited silently.  He wanted to make a smart-ass
quip, something to lessen the tension, but he didn't trust
his voice not to betray him.  Do not show fear.  He
repeated this mantra over and over as his mind feverishly
attempted to build a profile of this strange man.  Might
as well profile the devil, he thought, but knew that even
if Jason were Satan himself, he would still try to profile
him.  It was ultimately what he did best.

"I came to realize this, with a bit of help, of course.  
Now I realize what a very old comrade knew years ago.  You
are simply too valuable to waste, Fox Mulder," Jason
observed as he swiveled around to face his opponent.

"You called me out here to tell me this?  I'm flattered,"
Mulder replied, pleased that he had managed to find that
low baritone range that the speech therapist had
recommended.

"Not entirely, but I felt it was best to clear the air of
our prior meeting.  You are a rare bird, Agent Mulder.  
One of my very few mistakes."  Jason smiled and let the
hint of the knife echo in his tone.  Despite the obvious
control Mulder had on his emotions, Jason enjoyed the
shudder that rippled in his eyes.

"You have viewed the tape," Jason said confidently.  "And
understand the rules of the game you so brashly entered
four years ago.  Now we are in the closing moments of
play.  Your queen and your bishop are in jeopardy.  You
know the options.  Either choose one to take the fall for
you or acknowledge checkmate.  It has been an interesting
game, but we grow bored with it.  Now it is time you moved
on to other, higher games."  Jason sounded languid, almost
bored by the necessity to recite the details of the trap
he had so cunningly crafted.  Only his eyes glittering in
the pallid light betrayed the hunter's excitement in the
kill.

Mulder held his breath.  There had always been a faint
hope that he had misread the clues, that Scully's and
Skinner's future did not depend on him alone.  He was
tired of bearing the weight of others' lives on his
shoulders.  So many deaths lay in his wake, so many
failures.  He couldn't bear the weight of any more,
especially that of these two - the woman he loved yet
would not admit he loved, even in the whispered silences
of his heart, and the man who was the older brother he
never had, who badgered him to behave even while giving
him a rock to put his back up against when he didn't.

He sensed this man was not quite as calm as he wanted
Mulder to believe.  Just the faintest tension around his
eyes and a stare that would freeze hell told Mulder that
his surrender was far more vital than he was being told.
The stakes then would seem to be as high for his opponent
as for himself.  There had to be some advantage to be
gained from this insight.  Perhaps not enough to halt his
headlong slide into hell, but maybe enough to bargain the
terms of his damnation.

"Why go to all this trouble?"  Mulder flung the question
that had tormented him since he stumbled onto the
conspiracy.  Why was he so important?  Why hadn't he ended
up with a bullet in the back of his head years ago?

Jason smiled coldly.  How typically Mulder to ask
questions while standing on the brink of disaster.  Trust
him also to ask a question Jason had no answer for.  Damn
the man, his mind and whatever hidden role he had in
Jonathan's grand scheme.

"The why does not concern you.  Surrender or sacrifice
are your only two options."  Jason remained implacable,
refusing to be pushed into showing his own ignorance.  He
remembered something Jonathan had once said about Mulder.
Give him no room to maneuver and you had a chance of
controlling him; just that, a chance.  Allow him the
smallest room to twist or turn and he'd be off the hook
and away before you could react.

"Why should I just hand myself over to you so easily?  The
tape is not admissible evidence and ... "  Mulder had to
pause and steady his voice before he could go on.  Way to
go, champ, he thought.  Nothing like handing your enemy
the fucking gun and painting a target on yourself.  
"Scully's cancer is in remission."

"What the gods give, they also take away, Mr. Mulder.  
Skinner is our tool, to be used or broken at our will ...
as you well know.  As for Agent Scully.  Let's just say we
take an extremely personal interest in her case.  She has
proven to be a most resilient experiment with results far
beyond anything we had calculated.  Still, all experiments
must come to an end ... unless new data or sufficient
motivation to continue is supplied," Jason purred with a
razor-edge to his voice.  Time to show the claws and the
fangs directly.  Very past time to show Fox Mulder who was
Alpha Male here.

"You might find this interesting reading," Jason said as
he carefully laid down a manila folder on the seat between
them.  He watched as Mulder's eye flickered helplessly to
the proffered report then were pulled back up to stare
rigidly into the darkness.  The man was vibrating like
an over-taut violin string.

"Well, then, let me summarize for you.  Apparently, with
as little reason as the sudden remission, the cancer has
reactivated.  We know so little, after all, after the
mysteries of human biology.  I'm sure Dr. Scully would
be pleased to know how valuable her contributions are in
expanding that knowledge," Jason commented smoothly.

He bristled angrily at the casual dismissal of Scully's
importance.  She was not somebody's lab rat, to be used
and discarded.  She was a brilliant, honorable, caring
woman who fought at his side against monsters, human and
inhuman, without question and without hesitation.  

As his eyes flicked over the deadly threat concealed in an
insignificant manila folder, his soul shuddered with the
premonition of death creeping in to swallow Scully up;
severing his lifeline to humanity.  He dared not think
about the implications of the return of the cancer - not
if he hoped to remain sane and coherent enough to try to
find a way out of this trap.

Without realizing it, Mulder's lips pulled back in a snarl
as he fought his hatred of the men who reduced human
beings to the level of impersonal experiments.  How could
he voluntarily join such men without polluting the
sacrifice of so many lives; without betraying Scully's
struggle against what had been done to her?

"You have no choice, really.  Kill me and the plan goes
forward.  The only difference is that you will die as
well.  Is your petty vengeance worth the lives of two
innocent people?  If so, I am here.  Take your best shot,"
Jason said as he laid his hands flat on his knees, empty
of any weapon.  The storm was rising.  Whether he would
ride it or be consumed by it hung in the balance of one
man's self-restraint.

Damn, Mulder cursed.  He wished he felt a whole lot more
noble about selling his soul, but instead he felt soiled,
filthy, unclean.  There was nothing noble about giving in
to evil, but the alternative did not bear thinking about.  
He had to say the words, betray the man Scully thought him
to be if he was to have any chance of saving her or
himself.  Betrayal was the only option left open to him.  
The only uncertainty remaining was exactly who he would
end up betraying.  Well, at least his enemies would be
getting a soul already badly smudged.  It shouldn't hurt
that much to take the final step into ultimate evil.

Hate burned darkly in his eyes, causing Jason to stiffen
slightly.  Mulder hovered on the cusp, savoring the last
seconds of freedom, wondering if it wouldn't just be
better to kill this man and then himself in a final act of
defiance.  It would be the perfectly chaotic thing to do.  
Break every rule.  Rewrite the game on his own terms.  He
smiled, a cold and deadly smile that peeled back the
layers of his humanity to reveal the raging beast he kept
chained inside.

"You may find I'm not what any of you expected," he
growled, deliberately allowing his voice to roughen and
break into a bass rumble.  For just a moment longer he
would savor the taste of being his own man, capable of
ordering his own destiny.  Maybe if he had surrendered to
the violence within him long ago, he would not now be
sitting here in the dark preparing to hand over his soul
to his enemies.

Jason remained silent, though watchful.  Unconsciously he
cataloged his defenses.  This was the point where all
predictions were useless.  The moment in the hunt where
prey and hunter could switch places in an instant.  His
blood raced and burned and he knew that the savage looked
out of his eyes as he waited.  This was the moment when he
savored life to its fullest.  He rode the storm he had
raised.

Slowly, deliberately, Mulder looked Jason in the eye, then
lowered his eyes and nodded once.  When he looked back
up, it was with a weary, resigned expression that he hoped
masked the faint ember of hope he nursed in the shadows of
his soul.  

"Checkmate," he said quietly.

"Acknowledged," Jason replied brusquely.  He felt his
breathing begin to slow down as he came down from the
adrenaline rush.  The storm had responded to his bidding.  
The game was his ... maybe.  The victory had come too
easily.  Where were the rants, the absurd posturing, the
fury Fox Mulder was capable of?  This defeat smelled like
a diversion; it lacked the rich aroma of despair and final
capitulation.

No matter.  Despair would come soon enough.  Once Mulder
realized that there was no other choice, but the one he
offered, his surrender would be genuine.  Jason actually
preferred this gesture of rebellion.  It made the final
victory that much sweeter and much more certain.

"Scully?"  Mulder blurted out his concern as if knowing
that just her name held all the questions he ever needed
to ask now that his life was no longer his own.

"I believe a new doctor, one you will recommend, will find
that the test results are confused and, upon further
tests, will discover that the cancer has indeed gone into
remission after all."  Jason replied casually.  It would
be a small gesture to seal Mulder to his bargain.  He
found it quite interesting that Mulder did not inquire
after Skinner.  It might be amusing to see how the
dynamics of that relationship evolved.  Once Mulder had
been bound irrevocably to their side, perhaps he should be
given the other end of Skinner's leash.

"We'll talk in more detail later.  Right now, I believe
you have a dinner date with the tardy Agent Scully.  If
you hustle, you will just beat her home," Jason repressed
a chuckle at the flare of fear/anger in Mulder's eyes as
he realized, again, how closely they were being monitored.
Good, let him believe that they could control every moment
of his life and he would be easier to bend to their will.

Mulder stood up, biting back the bitter words he wanted to
hurl at his man who held his soul so casually in his
hands.  Damnation hurt.  He felt shredded.  Only one
thought remained clear - Scully must not know.  She must
never know that his betrayal of their quest and her sprang
from his desperate need to save her life.  

Turning his back on Jason, Mulder almost wished he could
hope for the executioner's bullet.  Death would be a hell
of a lot easier than lying to Scully.  He walked slowly
back home, unable to gather enough energy or will to move
faster.  Even knowing that his slow pace guaranteed that
Scully would beat him to his apartment, he trudged slower
and slower with each step.  He was tempted to provoke an
argument, to drive her away so he wouldn't have to endure
an evening deceiving her that he was still the Mulder she
trusted and respected.  Then he realized that this was
probably just the first of many nights and days of
deception and knew that delaying the inevitable lies
would not make them any easier to bear.

The light in his apartment told him that Scully had indeed
beaten him home.  He imagined for a moment her anger, then
her resignation at his absence.  Now, she would be waiting
to hear whatever fantastic explanation he tried to come up
with before wringing the truth out of him with a glance
and the slight upturned curl of an eyebrow.  

"Not this time, Scully," Mulder whispered as he stood on
the sidewalk looking up at his window.  There, barely
visible except as a shadow of movement, he thought he saw
Scully moving around.  Time to face the music.  Time to
come up with a twofold lie to persuade her that he was
merely truant, not traitor.  Time enough for truth later,
if his last ditch strategy failed and he was so used to
damnation that her anger would not penetrate a heart
turned to ice.  

With a determined shrug of his shoulders, Mulder cloaked
himself in the shadow of the man he had been minutes
before.  The only chance he had, the only chance she had,
lay in his ability to convince her of the lie.  At all
costs she must remain aloof from this game.  He would make
his move, alright - just not the one he agreed to.  
Samantha, if she were here, could have warned his opponent
that her brother was not above cheating if the stakes were
high enough.  

Cheating hell ... now there's a challenge no sane man
would try.  Then again, sanity has never been one of my
strongest suits, he thought as he paused and took a deep
breath outside his door.  Plastering a rueful smile on his
lips, Mulder braced himself for trial by Scully and walked
into his apartment.

*********



As he expected, Scully was waiting for him.  One look at
her expression told him all he needed to know - worry and
irritation blended with weariness - her Mulder-look.  Why
did he always manage to end up hurting the one person he
would die to protect?  As he carefully hung up his jacket,
Mulder pondered anew a question he had asked himself
repeatedly over the past four years; a question which had
no answer.

Scully remained silent.  Her eyes said all that needed to
be said.  After the first exchange of glances, Mulder
studiously avoided making eye contact.  He knew he lied
badly to her and he knew she knew it as well.

"Sorry, Scully, my informant took forever to get to the
point.  You just can't get a good informant these days,"
Mulder quipped lightly as he maneuvered past her to the
kitchen.  Despite his efforts to avoid her eyes, he felt
them sear into his back until he wondered why he wasn't
igniting.  "OK, so witty isn't the way to go," Mulder
muttered to himself under the clatter of silverware.

He assembled dinner on the dining room table Scully had
unearthed during her cleaning binge.  He had more or less
forgotten that it even existed except as a convenient
dumping ground for bills, folders, notebooks and such.

With a small flourish, he brought out the casserole dish
and let the fragrant odor of stroganoff fill the
apartment.  When the fresh salad and homemade dressing
emerged from the refrigerator, Mulder thought he detected
a slight softening of Scully's glare.  

"I threw myself on Stefan's mercy.  I told him you were
coming to dinner," Mulder confessed as he watched Scully
struggle to maintain her veneer of irritation.  He had
taken her to the small Russian bistro a few times.  Scully
had made an impression on Stefan.  He frequently asked
about her.  Mulder suspected that Stefan harbored latent
matchmaker tendencies.  Somehow, no matter how busy the
bistro was, Stefan always managed to attend to them
personally.  Mulder began making a tradition out of taking
Scully to the bistro for special occasions.  Lately,
before the assault, he had begun to find any number of
occasions worthy of being called special.

"Let's eat.  Stefan is going to ask me how you liked
dinner and I'd rather not tell him that we were too busy
arguing to eat it," Mulder said.  Bracing himself, he
managed to look Scully in the eye for almost a full five
seconds before dropping his gaze.  He knew he must look as
guilty as sin.  Scully couldn't miss the signs that he was
keeping something from her.

"Mulder...." Scully began firmly then trailed off as
Mulder offered her a chair.  She wanted to clear the air
between them, but she was hungry and Mulder was looking
half sheepish, half hopeful.  The dinner was a wonderful
gesture.  Maybe he was right.  Maybe after they ate
something and relaxed, they might be able to discuss her
medical report and his blatant disregard for his own
health as two calm rational adults.

"Later, Mulder," she warned him as she accepted the chair
and began dishing out the salad.  She had to smile as
Mulder whipped out a pan of Stefan's special rolls.  If
they had food in heaven, Scully imagined that it would
taste something like these rolls.

She gave Mulder a 'no fair cheating' look and was rewarded
with a shrug and a sly smile.  She might have been
convinced that his disappearance was simply Mulder playing
hooky except that the smile never touched his eyes, when
she could see his eyes, that is.  Something was wrong.  
Something was very wrong.  Her eyes began boring holes in
the top of Mulder's head.

"I promise - after dinner, tea and interrogation, for
two," Mulder quipped as he looked up briefly with a
resigned look on his face.  He felt Scully scrutinizing
him, trying to peel back his defenses and peek inside his
mind.  

Not this time, Mulder vowed silently.  He would tell her
the whole truth only when it was too late for her to stop
him from saving her life.  Then he hoped he would be able,
somehow, to find the strength to watch her walk out of his
life in disgust.

They ate in silence, each locked away in their own minds,
pondering how to tell the other what needed to be said
without saying too much or revealing the pain they were
intent on concealing from the other.  Surreptitiously,
Mulder watched Scully, trying to memorize her, to etch her
as a tattoo in his memory - indelible, eternal.  In a
hundred quick glances, Scully observed Mulder, her eyes
photographing images of him, carving them into her memory
so that they would be the last thing her mind would see if
the reborn cancer took everything else from her.

*********

"So, what did the doctor have to say?" Mulder asked as he
handed her a steaming cup of strong black tea, lightly
sugared.  By the look on her face, he knew he had barely
beat her to the punch.  Delay could only work in his
favor, he hoped.

"Not much," Scully answered, resorting to the literal
truth.  Dr. Morrison had been uncharacteristically
reticent.  After gruffly telling her that the latest X-
rays showed a resurgence of the cancer, he shoved the
report across his desk, almost into her lap and fled the
office pleading an emergency.  She had spent the next hour
reading the report, trying to find a loophole in the
inexorable conclusion that her brief remission was over.

Her curt response was met by silence.  Mulder didn't say
a word; he let his silence speak for him.  Scully could
deflect questions with a skill most criminals would envy,
but she lied badly, at least about the important stuff.  
If he waited long enough, she would either have to answer
the question or else try to change the subject,
acknowledging that she had something to hide.  He watched
as her eyes changed color and narrowed as she realized she
had been backed into a corner.

Those eyes also held a promise that he would pay for this
momentary victory when his turn came.  Right now he didn't
care.  He had to know the truth before he began to betray
her trust - one last truth between them for old times
sake.

"Dr. Morrison did not elaborate, but the reports seem to
indicate that the mass was fractionally larger, indicating
that the cancer was most likely active again," she recited
evenly, fixing her attention on the wall just behind and
to the right of Mulder's left ear.  She waited for his
protest, his invariable denial of medical fact.

"What did he suggest?" Mulder asked slowly, choosing his
words carefully, remembering that invisible ears were
monitoring this conversation.

Scully's eyes narrowed and she stared at Mulder, trying to
decipher where his usual torrent of denial had gone.  
Mulder flatly refused to meet her eyes.  She leaned over
to touch his hand, to connect with him.  Mulder surged up
out of the chair and began pacing before her fingers had
more than brushed against his skin.  

"We haven't discussed a course of treatment, yet.  There
are not a lot of options within traditional methods of
treatment."  Scully kept her voice calm, emotions shoved
deep inside.  Her voice was as remote as if she was
discussing someone else's life-threatening disease, not
her own.  She wouldn't allow herself to break down in
front of Mulder, to allow her fear to show.  He must never
feel she wasn't capable of handling this development; that
she craved the feel of his arms around her as she
dissolved into rage against this disease that was killing
her.

Mulder tasted her fear like smoke in a tinder-dry forest.  
It fed his anger until he wondered why he didn't simply
ignite in a firestorm of fury against the men who did this
to her.  He wanted to gather her into his arms and hold
her tight against his chest, giving her the last ounce of
his life if necessary to save her.

"There are other doctors, other treatments.  If Morrison
can't help you, then we'll find someone else," Mulder
replied stubbornly.  Of course it will be a doctor
controlled by the Shadows, but if I'm a very good boy,
he'll be a very good doctor, Mulder added silently.  
Suddenly the notion of trying to cheat Jason no longer
looked quite so attractive.  Face-to-face with Scully
calmly reciting the details of the death sentence imposed
on her by his enemies, his resolve faltered and his
willingness to gamble with her life faded.  The stakes
were too high.  

"Dr. Morrison is the acknowledged expert in this type of
cancer.  I am not visiting a shaman or drinking some
herbal remedy cooked up by a folk doctor," Scully added
with a glimmer of a smile that was only a little forced.  
Look at me, Mulder.  I'm still the same Scully I've always
been.  Don't turn away.  I'm more than the cancer that's
eating its way to my brain, her eyes pleaded with the
back of his head.  Anger at his refusal to look at her now
blended with concern for him and the swift riptide of her
own fear for the future.  

"I'm just saying that there may be other doctors better
qualified to deal with a non-traditional course of
action," Mulder snapped back a bit more sharply than he
intended to.  Without thinking, his eyes met hers in a
instant of apology.  He felt like a deer staring
helplessly into the headlights of an oncoming truck.  
Panic gave him the willpower to pull his eyes away, but he
knew that Scully's suspicions were aroused.  In her
stubborn concern for his worthless soul, she would hound
him for the truth until she dragged herself into the swamp
with him.  

Scully got up and walked over to where Mulder stood
staring at the floor.  Tenderly she reached out to him,
but stepped back when he flinched away from her touch.

Mulder simply shook his head and pushed past Scully to sit
down on the couch, cradling his head in his hands.  Why
couldn't she simply leave well enough alone?  Why did she
have to be so fucking persistent about prying into his
affairs when any sane person run as far away as possible?

"You believe this is about you, don't you?" Scully asked
incredulously.  Memories of an argument about a desk and a
life of her own surfaced.  Her stumbling attempt to
explain her angry rebellion echoed back to her.  'Not
everything is about you.'  The issues at the heart of her
anger still festered below the scab they had pasted over
the breach.  

"Everything is always about you, isn't it.  You think that
somehow you're responsible for what's happening, don't
you?"  Irritation began replacing the concern of a moment
ago.  Why did Mulder have to make this so difficult?  For
the first time since staring at the X-rays, the anger
boiling deep inside her surged upwards.  His rebuff of
her concern threatened to undermine the cool, detached
manner she chose to deal with the resurgence of her
cancer.

Mulder tried to speak, but realized he had nothing to say,
but the truth which was not what Scully needed or wanted
to hear.

Angry at being shut out, Scully's temper snapped as the
strain of the past few weeks broke her self-imposed
controls.  Anger gave her the insight to know what words
would hurt the most.  Fear spat them out at the man who
lay at the core of all her hopes and fears.

"I can't even die without it being about you," Scully
snapped.  In the twinkling of an eye, her cool exterior
melted in a blazing catharsis of anger.  

She knew that Mulder was not to blame, but he was part of
the crushing load of fear and anger she had been carrying
around for weeks.  Barely learning to deal with her own
impending death, she had been hurled into the maelstrom of
fear that instead of preparing him for her death, she
would have to adjust to his loss.  Because of him, she had
to accept that she was not whole without him.  Because of
him, she needed another person as much as she needed air
to breathe.  Fear became anger and the anger became too
much to bear in silence.  As unreasonable as it was, she
damned him for making her need him.

Mulder stared at her, her words slashing like daggers
across his guilty soul.  She was wrong.  It was about him.  
His enemies were using her, making her suffer because of
who or what he was.  He realized that she saw his answer
as further evidence of his self-centered preoccupation
with his obsession, but she was suffering because she got
mixed up with a loser who was too dependent on her to send
her away before she got hurt.

It was now painfully clear that she did not know how
important she had become to him.  The man who bought his
soul knew her value.  Scully was no pawn, a casual
sacrifice to gain a momentary advantage in a game.  She
was the queen - the most versatile, dangerous piece on the
entire board.  Without her, his quest would be a pointless
series of maneuvers with little hope of ultimate victory.

Now he had it in his power to send her away, to set her
free.  With a single word he could surrender to the
darkness and free her to walk in the light.  The seduction
of surrender felt like a lover's embrace.  He was tired
of fighting against his darker nature.  

Letting go, he unleashed his anger, reveling in the hot
taste of fury and despair.  His eyes closed off the
windows to his soul, cast her out of the intimacy they
shared.  He saw her anger collapse in on itself as he
gouged a chasm between them.  Shaking with the effort to
control his despair and grief, he poured all of his fury
into the single word of truth that would damn him in her
sight.

"Yes."  

Yes, Scully is it all about me, Mulder thought sadly.  You
were destined to fly high until you collided with the
Mulder disaster field.

Mulder watched as Scully's expression turned from anger
into stunned disbelief then back to anger again.  It was
done.  Not as he wanted it done, but it was better this
way.  A quick, clean surgical strike with Scully's anger
to cauterize the gaping wound where his heart and his
honor used to be.  He drowned his pain in anger and with  
ice-cold eyes, shut her out.

"Is that all I am to you?  Just a pawn in your
megalomaniacal universe?"  Scully's voice was rigid with
anger hovering on the brink of detonation.

Mulder detected the hurt seething below her rising anger.  
He felt it like shards of glass in his heart, but could
not relent.  He drew on his own reservoir of anger to dull
the pain.

Was she blind to her true value?  What was so fucking
important about being his equal in the sight of their
enemies?  It only brought him anguish as he watched his
family disintegrate around him - his father dead, his
sister taken and his mother a stranger protecting the lies
more precious than himself.  Was she really so fucked-up
that she wanted to be seen as his equal in this insane
game by men who dined on the souls of any who opposed
them?

It occurred to him that this sudden eruption from a quiet,
intimate dinner into furious recriminations was typical of
their relationship.  They constantly walked the razor's
edge between intimacy and estrangement.  The very things
that made them so strong together, also worked against
them whenever they tried to delve into emotional issues.

For a moment he considered ignoring the listeners and
taking her into his arms and confessing everything - from
how much she meant to him to the barter he made for her
life.  Just once, he wanted to bare his soul to her, to
cut past the evasions, the innuendoes, the camouflage of
humor he used to hide himself from her.  

Then he remembered - it wasn't his soul anymore.  
Chastened by the grim realization that once again he was
too little, too late, he sat in silence as she turned her
back on him and walked away.

Fighting to control her anger, Scully now took up position
by the window, staring blindly out into the night.  The
tattoo on her back burned.  This was not happening her
soul whispered to her angry heart.  Something had gone
terribly awry with the discussion.  Even in the midst of
her fury at Mulder's egotistical guilt trip, she sensed
that the normal rhythms of their arguments were all wrong.  
The feel of this argument was different from all the
others they had had in the past.  

The silence hung painfully between them.  Mulder's temper
began to fray as he tried to brace himself for Scully's
inevitable departure.  It was killing him to watch her
fighting to regain her composure, her balance against the
harshness of his words.  He had shut her out for her own
good, but what if in doing so, he also destroyed part of
who she was?

Enlightenment.  Revelation.  Everything but the fucking
Mormon Tabernacle Choir went off in his head.  

He was a fool.

OK, perhaps not an entirely new thought, but the current
implications of this insight were staggering.  Scully was
right - he was assuming that this entire scenario was
solely about him.  He prattled to himself about how
important Scully was to him, yet cast her out of the
equation when it came down to her own future.

"Shit," he growled hoarsely.  When he invited chaos into
the game, he had in mind some personal grandstanding, a
bit of dramatic one-upmanship, not challenging his own
nature and moving contrary to every instinct he had where
Scully was concerned.

It had been so easy to play the martyr.  Now he had the
uncomfortable feeling that playing that card was taking
the easy way out.  His enemies must have realized how
close to emotional exhaustion he was and offered him a
chance to give up and still feel as if he had won
something.  He felt a certain respect for the man who
profiled him so well.  He suspected it was the man he had
talked to on the park bench.  There was a bond between
them that went deeper than the bond between a killer and
his victim.  The man knew him, knew which way he would
jump, knew the trap to lay and the choice he would make.

Two futures lay open before him.  In neither one did he
see any potential for personal happiness, but in one he
could show Scully just how much she did mean to him and
give her the two most precious gifts he had to offer - his
honesty and his complete trust.  In the other, he could
allow the darkness to swallow him and leave Scully behind
to fight her own darkness alone.

However, resolving to buck the odds and actually getting
his mouth around the words were two different things.  His
mind and heart were willing, but his voice simply couldn't
say the words.

"Fuck this," Mulder said loud enough for Scully to hear.  
Other than a slight twitch of her shoulders, however, she
gave no indication she heard him.  Every inch of her rigid
back and clenched hands screamed out her anger, her fury
at the insult he had allowed her to believe.

Grabbing his cell-phone, he punched in Skinner's pager
number.  As long as he was throwing himself into the arms
of chaos, he might as well go all the way.

At least the savage sound of him abusing innocent cell-
phone buttons got Scully's attention.  Her face was
flushed and her eyes were icy with anger, but she was
looking at him.  

Times like this he really missed a cigarette.  If nothing
else, it would give him something to do with his hands.  
He clutched the cell-phone like a drowning man clinging to
a life preserver.

Taking a deep breath, he embraced chaos and looked her
square in the eyes.  The part of him that wasn't shaking
like a leaf, smiled as confusion challenged anger for
dominance in her expression.  We've thrown away the
script, partner; ad lib time, he whispered to himself.

"You really want to hear the truth?" he asked softly.  
Part of him prayed that she didn't, but he knew she could
not resist knowing even if the truth only brought her more
pain.

"Your truth or the truth, Mulder?" Scully asked warily.

"Simply a truth, as far as I know it.  It's dangerous,
it's dirty, but it's all I have left to give you," Mulder
replied quietly as he stood up to face his partner and his
judge.

*********



"What the hell is he doing?" Jason muttered as he listened
to Mulder preparing to bare his soul, the soul *he* owned,
damn it, to his partner.  Damn the man.  Did he think this
little confession scene would alter the deal one iota?

"Scully, I went out this afternoon to meet someone,
someone who sent me a warning that you were in danger."  

Mulder held up his hand to silence Scully before she could
speak.  Giving her a sad smile he walked over to the pouch
sitting by his computer and handed it to her.  He watched
as her fingers felt the unfamiliar shape of the chess
pieces inside.  In response to her quizzical look, he
nodded his intention for her to open the pouch.

Scully looked even more perplexed as she looked at a white
queen and a white bishop lying in her hand.  The heavy
parchment note sailed to the floor like the last stubborn
leaf of fall.  

"I was offered a deal, by the devil himself if I'm any
judge."  Mulder paused, unable to bear looking into
Scully's worried eyes.  "Not a very original deal.  I gave
up, Scully.  Your life, Skinner's life - the price of not
giving up was too high."

Mulder forced himself to look down into Scully's eyes - to
read his fate in those clear blue eyes that had never been
tarnished by dishonor.

Jason swore bitterly at the offending receiver as he
listened to Mulder's confession.  This ill-timed burst of
honesty served no purpose except to complicate the deal.  
In a very dim way, he supposed he did understand Mulder's
need to lay bare his treason.  He never had anyone who
would have cared enough to mourn his lost soul, but he did
understand the forlorn wish to be mourned.

"Don't mess this deal up, Mulder or you'll be on a morgue
slab and I'll be a cloud of ash drifting over New Jersey."
Jason tried not to contemplate the consequences of
failure.  He had notified his friend that the deal was
done - Mulder was theirs.  Failure now would leave his
friend no choice and him no future.

"Mulder, you can't let them win.  You've lost too much.  
I've lost too much.  Fight them," Scully pleaded with
steel in her voice.  She couldn't believe what she was
hearing.  Either Mulder had gone completely insane or else
the shadows she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge
really were using her as a pawn.

"Is this what you meant when you said this was about you?"
she asked uncertainly.  She would be more than happy to
erase the memory of Mulder dismissing her importance even
if it meant accepting that the conspiracy they fought had
reached into her life to manipulate her cancer.

Mulder nodded.  He didn't trust his voice.  All his
flagging energy had been poured into getting this
confession out.  His throat burned and ached - a living
reminder of his opponent's intrusion into his life.

Clutching the chess pieces in a closed fist, Scully
stooped down and picked up the note and read it.  She
puzzled over the contents, forgetting Mulder who was
standing quietly in the shadow just outside the glare of
the lamp.  Without really thinking about it, Mulder was
already retreating into the darkness he believed he had
given himself to.

"Who....?"

Mulder smiled, transforming his sad eyes into burning
reflections of his heart.

"Well, unless I've taken leave of my senses, I think our
enemies recognize that you are the most important piece in
this game of theirs.  Can't think of anyone else I'd trust
with the job," Mulder ended on an embarrassed note.  He
wasn't used to this much honesty.  It provoked a strong
desire to cut and run and hide somewhere until the urge to
bare his soul had passed.

As he listened, Jason was torn between respect for
Mulder's ability to maneuver some breathing room and
irritation that his carefully prepared plans had not been
sufficient to demoralize him.  Jason realized that he had
no one to blame but himself if he had underestimated
Mulder.  Jonathan had certainly given him plenty of advice
about Mulder's genius for skating on thin ice and
surviving.  

Jason did not waste time in useless recriminations.  The
simple fact of the matter was that he had failed to
recognize and take into account the intensity of the bond
between Mulder and his very dangerous partner.  The one
thing he had not foreseen was that Mulder would go against
his nature and bring Scully into the equation.  In fact,
if the phone message he overheard was correct, Mulder was
acting completely against every profile the Elders had on
him and was bringing his boss into the now chaotic mess
that was Jason's crisp neat plan to subvert Mulder.  Jason
briefly wondered if he could make a deal with all three of
them, to bring all three under the overt umbrella of the
Consortium while making sure their first obligation was to
him and his friend.  

"Mulder, you can't make deals with these people," Scully
protested.  Her eyes were angry, but they softened when
Mulder flinched.  She was furious, but only a small
portion of that anger was for Mulder's obstinate streak of
self-sacrifice.

Mulder shrugged.  "It's done."  He was trembling as he
tried not to take his eyes from Scully's.  He wished she
would just damn him and get it over with.  She wasn't
following the script, damn it.

A loud authoritative knock on his front door saved Mulder
from drowning in the ice-blue ocean of Scully's eyes.  She
persisted in caring for him, fearing for him, even, to his
complete astonishment, loving him.  Mulder didn't know
whether to bolt or fall down on his knees before her and
cling to her for salvation.  

Mulder was becoming convinced that God was using him for
divine comic relief.  Of all the times to realize that
Scully loved him.  Fresh from signing his soul away, he
should not be standing here burning in the heat of her
love.

Startled by the interruption, Scully stepped back.  Trying
to gather her scattered wits, she walked over to the
window.  She suspected their untimely interruption was
Skinner responding to Mulder's call.  She did not intend
to greet Skinner with a flushed face and unshuttered eyes.

Listening in on the rustle of movement in Mulder's
apartment, Jason hoped that Skinner would be a sensible
man and suggest that everyone get some rest and meet to
talk about this situation in the morning.  "Give me four
hours with Mulder and I'll make him forget this awkward
lapse into moral honesty," Jason muttered.

Jason heard Mulder step to the door as the listening
device picked up a cacophony of confusion.  Glass
shattered, hitting the wooden floor with an icy patter
A soft thud was mixed in with the sound of a door opening.  
Heavy feet moved quickly.  Mulder's bellow ended in a
rasping crack as his voice splintered.  

Swearing, Jason pulled the ear piece out and hoped he had
not gone deaf in that ear.  Mulder must have been standing
right under the mike.  

Odd, he thought, even without the ear-piece he could still
hear the sounds of bodies thrashing about.

"Damn," he yelled as the soft pops of a silenced pistol
sounded from just outside his office.  His gun was up and
aimed at the doorway even as he ducked for cover.

A roar of gunfire, quickly followed by another loud shot
temporarily deafened him.  He held his ground, determined
to make the assassins pay very dearly for his life.  
Stupid, he muttered to himself.  He measured the distance
to his bolt hole and calculated the odds of making his
escape before his assassins burst in.  Something had gone
wrong with their plan.  Obviously their plan had been to
disable his alarm system then burst in and execute him
before he had a chance to react.  Now he could only wait
to see whether his unknown helper or the assassins would
walk through the door.

"Sir?"  Hamilton's voice sounded breathless, as close to
ruffled as he ever expected to hear from his dapper
assistant.  Jason remained silent.  He wished he had had
the foresight to put a remote switch on the light.  
Darkness would be really helpful right now.  If he lived
through this night, he would make installing remote
switches a priority.

"Sir, I am coming in.  I'll slide my gun on the floor and
keep my hands in plain sight.  The assassins are quite
dead and making a terrible mess of the carpet."

Jason said nothing, but watched cautiously as a Browning
9mm was pushed through the small crack in the door, butt
first.  From the soft hissing noises Hamilton was making,
the barrel was still very hot.  Slowly the gun was lowered
to the floor and was sent gliding across the polished oak
floor with a tap of a foot.  

After a moment, the door opened the rest of the way and a
bleeding, swaying Hamilton appeared.  His teeth were bared
in a grimace as he held his arms up and out.  Blood
dripped rapidly from his left shoulder and forearm.  

It was possible this was a set up, but Jason's instincts
were telling him that whatever else Hamilton was, he was
not a traitor.

"Put your arms down before you bleed to death," Jason
ordered curtly, waving his assistant over to the chair
beside his desk.  Hamilton lowered his arm and stumbled
forward.  Still holding his pistol, Jason leaned over and
examined the wounds.  

"You'll live.  The bullets passed straight through.  You
are a lucky man or should I say that I am?"  Jason glared
at Hamilton.  "What brought you back here so late?"

"I was told by a reliable source that the Elders were
cleaning house.  I thought that it was possible that you
were one of the people on their list.  Being right hurts,"
Hamilton grunted as Jason shoved a handkerchief into his
right hand and pressed the hand against the hole in his
shoulder.

Damn them, Jason thought with cold fury.  The mysterious
sounds in Mulder's apartment suddenly made sense.  
Apparently Mulder was another one of those loose ends
being tidied up tonight.  Damn those old men to hell.

"Your friend, the smoker?"  At Jason's nod, Hamilton
continued, "He's been shot.  His assassin was a bit
divided in his loyalties so he gave your friend a chance
to bleed to death rather than taking a clean kill."

"How do you know this," Jason asked suspiciously.

"Because my reliable informant is at the moment lying in
my bed with my best pillowcase plugging the hole in his
chest," Hamilton said with a sly smile for Jason's
astonishment.

"Thank you," Jason said quietly, gently resting a hand on
Hamilton's good shoulder.  "The Elders won't be very happy
with you for this night's work."

"I don't work for the Elders.  I work for you, sir,"
Hamilton replied wearily, the adrenaline seeping out of
him.

"I'll take you back to your place.  Lock the doors.  I'll
send Webster over to stitch you both up and get my friend
to a safe house.  Lie low until you hear from me
personally.  If you don't hear from me by noon tomorrow,
I'll most likely be dead.  Take the best offer you can and
play their game until you're strong enough to play your
own."  Jason instructed brusquely.

Loyalty like this was something he had never considered or
counted on and he was at a loss to know how to acknowledge
it.  Thankfully, Hamilton seemed too out of it to realize
how taken-aback his boss was by his words.

Hamilton nodded as Jason helped him up and leaned him
against the wall.  It was going to be a busy night.  Jason
locked his office door behind them as he shifted through
people he trusted enough to clean up the mess in his outer
office.  Hamilton had shot one of the men through the
head.  Blood and brains were splattered all over the
leather upholstery and the walls.

Using a very circuitous route, Jason got Hamilton home.  
He took the luxury of checking on his friend while he was
there.  The wound was bad, but his friend was tenacious
and, even unconscious, appeared as tough as nails.

"They'll pay for this night, my old friend.  They will pay
until their souls bleed."  

*********

Mulder opened the door to see something he rarely saw - a
puzzled Skinner.  His perverse sense of humor goaded him
into smiling at his confused boss.  Skinner gave him a
stern look.  Situation normal, Mulder thought with an odd
feeling of comfort.  Skinner looked positively menacing
in a black fisherman's sweater, leather gloves and a dark
leather jacket.  Where the jacket hung open, Mulder could
see Skinner's pistol.  Apparently he had taken Mulder's
warning that serious shit was flying.  

As quickly as Mulder's smile appeared, it vanished into a
somber, almost grim expression.  It seemed appropriate
that he and Skinner were dressed alike in black; twin
shadows who had mortgaged their souls for the woman
standing behind him.

He nodded a greeting and stepped aside to allow Skinner to
enter.  The silence between the men was broken by the
sound of breaking glass.  Skinner's eyes went wide.  With
three long strides he moved into the room, pulling his gun
and dropping into a near crouch.  Mulder spun around in
time to see Scully crumple into the floor.

"SCULLY!" he yelled, his voice breaking and crackling as
his throat was scoured raw.  He felt as if he had
swallowed the shards of glass scattered around Scully's
body.  

Skinner moved to the wall and sidled over to the window,
trying to peer out without offering a target.  Heedless of
anything but Scully lying on the floor amid blood and
glass, Mulder charged to her side, dropping to his knees
and skidding the last foot or so.  Glass impaled his
knees, but he didn't feel a thing.

Another bullet passed through the air where Mulder's head
had been a second before.

"Damn it, Mulder, be careful," Skinner hissed.  He spared
a glance down at Scully and realized that being careful
was probably the last thing on Mulder's mind.

He didn't want to leave Mulder alone, but he was useless
up here with no target to shoot at and no cover.  Clawing
his cell-phone out of his coat pocket, he called in the
shooting.  

"Officer down."  He hated those two words, too often they
preceded the grim fact that the downed officer was lost,
but they would bring down the might of the law enforcement
world in swift response.  One of their own was in peril.

Skinner made it to the street by the time he heard the
first faint wails of the sirens converging on this place.  
Gauging the trajectory of the bullet, Skinner slipped
through the shadows until he was in position to watch the
rear entrance of the building across from Mulder's.  As
the street outside the main entrance filled with police
cars, Skinner waited patiently for the rat to run for
cover.

A shadow slipped into a darker shadow.  The assassin never
broke from cover, but moved relentlessly towards escape.

"Freeze!  FBI.  Put your weapon down, NOW!" Skinner
shouted as he brought the fleeing gunman into his sights.

The man suddenly dropped and turned and Skinner felt the
hot buzz of a bullet carve a grove across his check.

Returning fire was an automatic response and a deadly one.  
Skinner knew what he would find even as he walked slowly
over to the heap of bloody clothing lying in the alley.  
He felt no pity, just anger at men who killed from ambush.  
There would be no answers; this man would have no
identity.  He sympathized with Mulder.  On more than one
occasion, desperately sought and paid for evidence
vanished without a trace, leaving behind only more
questions.  It never ended.

Skinner waited for the arrival of the police.  The
gunman's rifle was silenced, but the roar of his own gun
must have alerted the police who would be approaching with
caution and suspicion.  Skinner put up his gun and had his
FBI identification ready by the time the beams of the
officers' flashlights lit up the alley.

*********

Mulder tried to call to Scully, to tell her not to leave
him, to plead with her, but his raw throat refused to
utter a sound.  He fought the urge to cough.  There was
enough blood here, he didn't need to add to it.

Scully lay in a heap.  Blood was spreading out around her,
soaking her hair, dying her white sweater.  Mulder scooped
her up until he could cradle her head against his chest
and lay her body in his lap.  He felt the beat of her
heart as it labored under the strain of pumping a
diminishing supply of blood.

The bullet had gone in high on her left shoulder; a small
rather neat hole that belied the gaping wound in her back
busily pouring her life out all over his lap.  Mulder
crammed a discarded napkin into the wound and pressed her
tightly against his chest to hold it in place.  His hands
were slick with blood and fear.  

As he held her, he felt her life soak into him and he
wondered that it did not burn him with scalding
accusations.  He had brought her to this.  He should have
sent her away.  Then it would be him lying here, in the
place he was meant to be.  

Damn it, Scully.  You can't die.  My life for hers.  That
was the deal.  Mulder's thoughts were a jumble of fear,
anger and confusion.  He had paid the price.  His soul was
sealed and delivered.  Why her?  Why now?  Because he told
her the truth?  Mulder pleaded with a God he had avoided
for over twenty years for a miracle.  Not her.  Not
Scully, please.

"Don't leave me," he whispered, his throat aching as he
fought to say the words.  His voice was a husky rasp, but
he hoped Scully understood all the things he couldn't say.

His entire being was focused on Scully, but he sensed a
presence.  If he looked away from her face he knew he
would see the dark angel who had stood over him on a cold,
icy street waiting to take him into death.  Mulder
stubbornly refused to acknowledge the intrusion of death.  
Scully hadn't let him die and he wasn't about to let her
go either.  He would fight Death himself if he had to.

Rocking slowly back and forth, cradling her as he breathed
soundless words into her face, Mulder didn't hear the
medics until one of them reached out to take her from him.
Mulder fought to keep hold of her, clutching her so tight
he felt her ribs bend.  "No, I won't let you have her," he
rasped painfully.  He tasted blood.  Fear suffocated sense
and reason.

"Mister, let go," a medic barked, impatient to begin to
try to save this woman's life.  

"Mulder."

A whisper.  A sound as soft as snow and as loud as a
trumpet call woke Mulder from his panicked resistance.  

Swallowing painfully, Mulder forced her name out of his
torn throat and tried to smile at her.  It was a weak
effort, but he was rewarded by a return smile that didn't
break into an anguished groan for nearly three seconds, an
eternity of hope for him.

Reluctantly, Mulder released her into the care of the
medics, but held onto her hand until the medics lifted her
onto the gurney, forcibly separating them.  He struggled
briefly to stand, unaware that his untamed eyes reflected
only horror and death and unending fear.  He felt strong
arms engulf him and hold him as he vainly attempted to
struggle to her side.  The darkness roared and swept over
him as he collapsed in the arms that would not let him
fall.

Disjointed words.  The sounds of plastic tearing.  Medical
sounds.  Familiar sounds.  Skinner's voice.

"Mulder."

With a start, Mulder came back to full consciousness,
aware of the cold air freezing his bloody sweater to his
body.  Scully was gone.  He could feel the cold of her
absence freezing his soul.  He was afraid.  If she was
really gone, if death had taken her, he would freeze to
death from the inside out until nothing was left but a
frozen husk that walked and talked but felt nothing.

Unable to speak, Mulder looked into Skinner's eyes for
hope.  Skinner nodded though his eyes reflected his own
worry.

Alive, then, but still in danger.

*********



Jason walked slowly down the corridor of the hospital.  
Four weeks ago, he had walked this same corridor to
observe the man he had tried to kill struggle back from
the brink of death.  Up ahead, standing like a tall pillar
of black ice, that man now stood outside a room watching
his partner fight to live as she had watched him fight.

Keeping an eye out for stray Assistant Directors, Jason
slipped into an alcove where he could observe Mulder for
awhile.  He was flying by the seat of his pants now,
improvising on the run.  For the first time in years, he
felt free.  He was in an impossible situation with a death
sentence waiting to be executed, yet there was an
invigorating intoxication in skating along the thin edge
of extinction with only his wits and his cunning keeping
him alive.

Once again, Mulder was the key to the situation.  Jason
wondered if there actually was a minor god called Murphy
and whether Mulder was his acolyte.  Mulder seemed to move
unscathed through disasters and cataclysms, wrecking the
finely tuned plans of men who were themselves little less
than gods in terms of the power they wielded.  Well, if
Mulder was Murphy's Law in action, then it behooved Jason
to use his talents to the utmost.  The only question was
how?

Mulder stood vigil outside Scully's room.  She looked so
small and fragile lying there amid a maze of wires and
tubes.  Unconscious, her face devoid of the lively
intelligence that transformed her, she looked like a child
sleeping in blissful ignorance of the war being waged for
her life.  

The bandages on his knees stretched as he moved.  He had
protested taking the time to have the glass shards
removed, but Skinner had been adamant.  In fact, Skinner
had taken over, getting him out of his blood-soaked
clothes, propelling him into the emergency room for
treatment and forcing a gallon of coffee into him until he
threw the final cup against the wall along with a string
of obscene curses.  In Mulder's fragmented memory, he
remembered Skinner smiling as he left to find some towels
to clean up the mess.  If he lived to be a hundred, Mulder
doubted if he would ever completely understand Skinner.

Vaguely he recalled Skinner telling him that the man who
had done this to her was dead.  Mulder couldn't remember
if he even acknowledged the information.  It didn't
matter.  The assassin was merely the tool, not the heart
and mind behind the killing.  Inside his frozen soul,
Mulder plotted the death of the men who stood in the
shadows behind the assassin.  If Scully died...  Mulder's
heart shuddered at even contemplating such a disaster, but
his angry soul repeated the words, driving home the
despair, to kill the last vestige of mercy.  If Scully
died, he would hunt down the men responsible before he
joined her.

Mulder was struck by the hellish symmetry of his life.  
She had stood here, just four weeks earlier, as he lay
amid a tangle of wires and tubes fighting for his life.  
He would gladly trade places with her; he wanted to trade
places with her.  Anything to silence the ache that was
squeezing his heart into bitter wormwood.  Anything to
silence the guilt that charged him with her death and
demanded expiation in blood.

No, that was taking the easy way out, he thought with the
last remnant of his dalliance with emotional honesty.  
Scully didn't deserve the pain of watching him die.  He
deserved every second of pain knowing she was dying
because of him.  He embraced the pain, made it part of
him, used it to encase his heart in bands of unrelenting
steel.  Vengeance would be his.  Mercy would be buried
with her, along with his heart, his honor and his soul.  
Mulder felt the bloodlust rise and recoiled from the
soulless executioner he saw himself becoming.

He didn't want to exist in a living hell.  The ice that
was freezing his soul frightened him.  Madness had always
lurked deep within his soul.  Fury had unlocked the chains
more than once and murder danced in the fires of his
temper.  Always before he had had a reason to not take the
final step over the line.  Now, his reason lay dying and
the fires beckoned.  He was so cold.

"Scully," he whispered in desperation.  "Please, don't go.  
Don't leave me to face my demons alone."  

Tears boiled up, but he refused to cry until he knew
whether he was crying for his death or hers.  Taking a
deep breath he fought the urge to cough as the air rasped
over his raw throat.  

"I wish I could make outlandish promises that I'll change,
that I will be the man you think you see beneath the mask.  
I can't.  I am who I am, Scully.  Not much to offer, I
guess.  There'll always be some quest, some monster that
calls me out for one more fight.  It's what I do.  You
deserve so much more than I can give you, but I give you
all of what I have."

Mulder leaned against the glass, etching his plea into the
glass barrier between them.

"You can't die now.  Not until we at least try to see if
it can work between us.  If you die now, I don't think I
can find my way home in the dark."  Mulder closed his
eyes, his body folded in prayer even while his soul cried
out that no one other than Scully cared enough to listen
to his plea.  If she could not hear him, who would?

"Agent Mulder," Skinner interrupted his agent's dour
thoughts with a softening of his usual resonant bass
tones.  He waited patiently as Mulder gathered himself
together.  His own mood was bleak as he fought the urge to
revert back to the simple Marine code that blood called
for blood.

"Yes sir," Mulder replied wearily.  He raised his hand
against the window in a silent, final supplication.  With
a ragged sigh he straightened up and turned to face the
inevitable concern he knew would be in Skinner's eyes.

"Get some rest.  You've been standing here for nearly
eight hours.  I'll watch over her," Skinner glared briefly
to forestall the protest he saw building in Mulder's
stormy eyes.  "The moment anything changes, I'll call you.  
I promise."

Mulder shook his head, denying his body's need for rest.  
He was afraid that if he left her, she might forget his
overwhelming need and drift into the peace offered by
death.  He remembered how alluring death could seem,
offering peace and solace for all the pain and hurt
acquired over the years.  

"She will need to see you when she wakes up."  Skinner
tried to put as much confidence in those words as he
could.  Scully had to survive.  If she died, no man on
earth would be able to control Mulder's rage and he wasn't
even sure he would try.  

"Besides, if you go find a quiet place to rest, Agent
Smithers won't have a chance to track you down and get a
statement from you.  He is taking this investigation very
seriously.  I think you would prefer to have all your wits
about you before tackling his questions," Skinner advised
with a note of wary resignation in his voice.

Mulder raised his eyebrow at the change in tone.  
Skinner's expression remained bland, but a slight shrug of
one shoulder and a soft sigh told him that Skinner had
already endured Smithers's bulldog persistence and had had
an interesting time tap-dancing around the truth.

"You know, I am really tempted to tell Smithers the
absolute truth, but I don't think he's ready for it,"
Mulder replied wearily, rubbing his forehead with the
heels of his hands.

"I'd like to think that most of the agents under my
command aren't ready to accept the truth we both know
exists."  Skinner paused, considering whether to pursue
his own curiosity.

"I gave up, sir.  I sold my soul to the devil and it
couldn't even buy Scully her life."  Mulder sagged against
the wall, his tone defeated, his body collapsing in on
itself as his rage turned inward.

Skinner guided Mulder over to some very uncomfortable-
looking vinyl chairs.  He said nothing.  If Mulder wanted
to talk, he would.  The tale sounded terribly familiar.  
His own soul had been bartered for little or no results
that he could see.  It was a humbling experience to find
that your most precious possession was worthless tender to
your enemies.

"You are being set up, sir.  There's a tape in my
collection which has damning evidence against you.  It's
hidden, but if Smithers does a thorough search, he might
stumble on it."

Skinner swallowed hard and his fingers stiffened around
Mulder's shoulders, but he gave no other sign that he felt
the noose tightening around his neck.  He saw a spark of
humor in Mulder's eyes.

"What..."

"'The Gladiator and the Slave Girls of Atlantis' is very
high on my recommended viewing list, sir," Mulder said
with a wry twist to his tone that broadened into a grim
chuckle as Skinner's look of bewilderment turned into
acknowledgement.  

"Agent Mulder, remind me to have a long talk with you, off
the record of course, about your video habits," Skinner
said with mock sternness.  Smithers was a puritan; groping
through Mulder's extensive porn video collection would not
be a task he would relish.

"Yes sir," Mulder said as he sagged back against the wall,
suddenly too weary to continue talking in circles.

"If you won't rest, at least go take a walk and get some
fresh air.  I'll stay here.  I have an agent posted on the
door to the ICU and another one by the stairs.  No one
will get to her," Skinner vowed.  He felt a slight surge
of pride that Mulder gave a nod in response to his
assurance.  Mulder did not extend trust lightly,
especially where Scully's welfare was concerned.  Now for
the hard part.

"I have also assigned Agent Cawlder to guard you," Skinner
made his voice a battering ram that ran over and through
Mulder's abortive attempt at protest.  "You were the main
target, Mulder.  That bullet would have taken you in the
gut.  Somebody out there doesn't like you very much.  I am
not going to watch Scully pull through only to have to
tell her that I was careless enough to allow you to be
killed."  Skinner was firm on this point.  By this time,
whoever had ordered Mulder's death, must know that their
assassin had failed.  It was only logical to assume they
would try again.

Mulder looked rebellious, hunching his body against the
necessity to walk among armed guards.  

"I don't want..."  Mulder started to protest then saw the
implacable resolve in Skinner's eyes and recognized that
on this issue he wasn't going to be moved.  It must be the
lingering influence of brutal emotional honesty, he
decided as he realized that he had lost his usual urge to
fight the intrusion of authority into his private life.

"Yes sir," he conceded.  At least his abrupt surrender was
rewarded by a look of astonishment before Skinner
recovered his composure.  Mulder gave him a resigned shrug
as he shoved upwards to a standing position.  It took a
minute to regain his equilibrium and stop the hallway from
spinning, but he waved off Skinner's assist and turned to
leave.

"I'm going to the garden.  It's private enough there that
I should be safe.  Tell Cawlder not to hover," Mulder
snapped as he walked down the hallway.  In the darkness of
the hospital garden, maybe the man who bought his soul
would emerge and tell him why it had not been enough.

In the shadows, Jason smiled.  He was growing to like
Mulder.  The lad had a flair for improvisation and a
genius for taking chances no sane man would consider.  
Bill Mulder never fathered this wolfling, if he was any
judge of men.  Neither had his smoking friend, who made
caution and circumspection his gods.  A glimmer of an idea
began to rise like the dawning sun.  Jason actually
smiled.  Where better to hide the truth than in a nest of
lies?  

Still smiling, Jason slipped into one of the side rooms
and through an easily unlocked connecting door into an
examining room that opened out onto the main ER corridor.  
From there he moved quickly towards the small enclosed
garden.  The ubiquitous Agent Cawlder paced restlessly by
the entrance to the garden, obviously uneasy at his orders
not to hover.  Through the heavy glass sliding doors,
Jason could see Mulder standing in the courtyard, staring
at the winter-dead garden, waiting for some sign, some
indication that his bargain had meant something.

Thankful that he had memorized the plans to the hospital
four weeks ago, Jason followed a series of winding
hallways until he reached a door that opened into the rear
of the garden.  He stepped into a small area hidden from
the main entrance by large coniferous bushes enclosing a
long semi-circular bench facing the statue of some unknown
saint softly lit by recessed lights.  A peaceful spot
where he and Mulder could have a private discussion
without distressing the earnest Agent Cawlder.

Jason sat quietly, listening to Mulder's restless
footsteps grow closer.  When he could hear the rasp of his
breathing, he spoke up.

"Fox."

Mulder froze in mid-step.  He had hoped for this meeting,
but now faced it with an equal measure of fear and
righteous anger.  He didn't want to die with so many
things left unsaid between him and Scully.  He wanted to
hate this man who had disdained his soul while at the same
time he wanted to go to his knees and beg for some miracle
to save Scully.

Gathering his anger around him like a shield, Mulder
walked towards the soft circle of light.  Jason stood up
as he entered the small plaza.  

"You are not surprised to see me here.  Good.  I like a
man who anticipates events," Jason said calmly.  It was
time Mulder learned the price of playing this game.  Their
lives hung upon what passed between them in the next few
minutes.  Their lives and the lives of his friend, of
Scully, even the life of A. D. Skinner all depended on
whether Mulder would listen or act on the rage that was
consuming him.

"Why," Mulder poured all of his rage into a single hoarse
word.  Mulder faced his tormenter, his eyes a dark
hurricane green.

"Complacent men, afraid of what they cannot control, acted
impulsively," Jason replied cryptically.  "You should
understand that much, at least."

Mulder scowled but said nothing.  His fists clenched at
his sides, he stood silent, a forbidding dark shadow
standing in the light, trembling with an effort to contain
the rage that demanded vengeance.

Jason sighed.  So much anger, yet with enough wisdom or
caution to wait and hear what he had to say.  He might own
this man's soul, but he wondered if anyone had the power
to control him.  Perhaps it was best not to try.  The hawk
served best slipped from its leash and allowed to hunt on
its own.  He would have to trust that, in the end, this
hawk would return to his fist.

"You are not the only one who wonders if they will lose a
friend, someone closer than a friend, this night.  I
learned too late what was planned to warn you.  A friend
lies where your partner lies as a result of their orders.
The Elders will pay.  I offer you a chance to help make
them pay for this night's pain."  Jason watched Mulder
carefully as he recited the litany of the Elders' crimes
against both of them.  

"You said Scully would not be harmed if I accepted your
deal," Mulder retorted in a husky, angry voice.  His hands
flexed as he fought the urge to throttle the truth out of
the man who betrayed him.

"Yet you took it upon yourself to tell her about your
deal.  That was not in the bargain, as I recall," Jason
responded calmly, feeling his way back onto familiar
ground.

"You didn't say I couldn't," Mulder threw back defiantly,
aware that he sounded like a small boy arguing with his
elders.

"Very good, Fox," Jason smiled.  "An old friend said you
have a genius for discovering even the tiniest loophole.  
No, I never said you couldn't tell your partner or Skinner
about our little deal.  That wasn't why she was shot."

Mulder gave up trying to appear calm and began pacing in
fits and starts around the plaza.  If he put a little
distance between him and Jason, he might be able to resist
killing him with his bare hands on the spot.

"You were the target.  Agent Scully was a miscalculation.  
I suspect that the shooter would have paid dearly for that
mistake even if he had been successful in bringing you
down.  The Elders do not tolerate mistakes or individual
initiative," Jason said with a grim humorless smile.  "I
on the other hand, encourage initiative and reward it."

Jason walked over to the bench and sat down, drawing
Mulder's attention to him by the force of his words and
his will.  Death still hung in the air, but Jason sensed
that Mulder was beginning to listen.

"You were just one of several men slated for termination
tonight.  The Elders are now short several assassins and
none of their targets are dead.  No doubt there are some
serious recriminations occurring right now among the
Council."

"They will try again?" Mulder asked with a sudden return
of fear for Scully's safety.  He half turned to go when
Jason reached out and held him still with one hand.  
Mulder froze at the touch, stiff with anger, but also
curious.

"As I said, I intend to make the Elders pay.  You and
Skinner are my hawks.  I can give you much information
that will make the Elders extremely uncomfortable.  You
will act on that information.  Between us we will shake
the complacency of the Project's overlords.  With my
knowledge you have a chance to learn the truth hidden
behind the lies you've been fed all these years."

Jason watched Mulder struggle with the concept that his
bargain was not complete surrender, but simply a new way
to fight the lies.  He did not look totally convinced, but
Jason sensed that the desire to fight back and inflict
real damage was draining away his urge to refuse.

"Fox, the conspiracy you fight has more than one face,
more than one purpose.  If tonight's events had gone as I
had planned, I would have brought you into the Project as
their tool, to serve as your father always intended.  Now
I bring you and Skinner in as my tools.  We will show them
that we are not to be taken lightly," Jason urged, letting
the long-banked fire of his ambition flare up and out to
touch Mulder with its heat.

Mulder threw back his head and stared at the moonless sky
above.  His world had shifted on its axis one too many
times today.  He no longer knew where to place his feet,
who to trust or even whether he should trust at all.  
Scully was his foundation and that foundation had turned
into a quagmire as she fought for her life.

"And if I say no?"

"Then you are a dead man.  A struggle for power is going
on inside the ranks of men accustomed to think of
themselves as gods.  Either you join me or you become a
luxury neither side can afford." Jason laid out the brutal
facts of life and death in the Project.  

Mulder thought about what Jason had said and even more
about the things he had not said.  Jason was offering him
a chance to fight back, to maybe gain some justice for the
victims of the Project, but not ultimate justice.  Was it
worth it?  He didn't know.  He did know that he wanted
someone to pay for what they did to Scully.  If he
refused, he suspected he would be dead in a day or so.  
With him dead, there was no reason to remand Scully's
death and Skinner would be left in thrall without hope or
reason.

It wasn't any easier the second time, but Mulder did not
see any choice.  

"I agree, but if I can take down the Project, I will,"
Mulder warned staring Jason straight in the eyes.

"Fair enough.  However, you might find yourself going down
with it.  Still, you have a right to try and I really
wouldn't expect anything less from you," Jason replied
evenly.  He stood up and, on impulse, stretched out his
hand to Mulder. "By the way, my name is Jason.  I think
we are going to get to know each other very well in the
next few years."  This incandescent young man touched a
part of him he thought had died on a dark bridge four
years ago.

Mulder looked at the hand, glaring defiantly as he shoved
his hands in his jacket pockets.  Just as he was turning
away, he stopped and stared up at the brightly blazing
hospital windows overlooking the garden before reluctantly
raising his right hand to touch Jason's.  He recoiled
before Jason could grip the hand, but Jason nodded his
understanding.

"Oh, by the way, you might want to give Dr. Anthony Walker
a call when Agent Scully recovers from the gunshot wound,
as I'm sure she will.  I hear he is quite an authority on
her type of cancer."  Jason hid his smile at the flash of
hope that changed Mulder's eyes from dull brownish-green
to a light sparkling sea green.

"I am not a harsh taskmaster, Fox.  You will hear from me
from time to time.  In the meantime you are free to pursue
whatever avenues you choose.  Feel free to tell Mr.
Skinner that his duties will be substantially changed in
the future.  I am not going to harness a thoroughbred to a
plow."  Jason smiled at his own analogy.  This unholy
alliance he was forging had enormous potential for raising
all of them as high as their dreams could imagine or
thrusting them into anonymous graves.  Either way, they
had no choice now but to try.

Mulder started to turn and leave. "I haven't finished,"
Jason said.  He saw Mulder's shoulders stiffen as he felt
the leash tighten.  Just one last tug, Fox, Jason promised
silently, and then you're free to hunt on your own until I
need you.

Mulder turned and stood silently, glowering, but
acknowledging Jason's right to call him up short.  He
hated the feel of the bit, but he wasn't stupid enough to
fight unnecessarily, yet.  If his obedience was required
to protect Scully and Skinner then he could be very
obedient, if not completely happy about it.

"If you want the advice of an older man, tell Scully
everything.  If she walks away, I promise, she will always
be under my protection and you will be better off knowing
at the beginning.  However, if she decides to stay, I will
consider that decision to be of her own free will.  Two
souls are quite enough for me.  I have no desire for hers
as well," Jason assured Mulder.  Besides, Jason thought,
if she stays, as I think she will, then your soul is
enough to bind her to my purpose even more securely than
if I had tried to barter for hers.  I think the price for
her soul would be more than I could pay, he conceded with
the respect one soldier showed another.

Mulder growled something under his breath, but not loud
enough for Jason to hear.  Jason's words were