By  FatCat
fatcat33047@yahoo.com
 

Website:   Please visit the wonderful home Donnilee has
                 created to house my stories at
                 http://donnilee.tripod.com.  Just follow my name
                 to find my stories.  While you are there, take a
                 peek at Donnilee's great stories and those of the
                 other authors that she has at her site.
                 Thank you Donni!
 
Rating:          NC17

Category:        MSR, Post Colonization

Classification:  V, RST

Spoilers:        Spoilers?  We don't need no stinking Spoilers!

Archive:    As you wish, but please keep my name attached and
                 let me know where to visit.

Summary: Post-Colonization Earth and the best laid plans of
                 mice and men go awry.

Disclaimer:      They aren't mine nor anyone's but CC, Fox, 1013,
                 DD and GA own the characterizations.  These works
                 are used without permission-no infringement
                 intended.

                 The quote from the book used is from an actual
                 book sent to me by my friend, Frohike51.  It's a
                 highly amusing book entitled, Bloodsucking Fiends
                 and was written by Christopher Moore.  I have used
                 the opening lines without permission.  Once again,
                 no infringement of copy write intended.

Author's Notes:  This is a story that was inspired by an old black
                 and white movie I have loved since I was a child
                 entitled, The Enchanted Cottage.

                 Feedback always appreciated.

                 Thanks to Donnilee for the beta and putting up
                 with my ... habits!

XXXXX

Walter Skinner stared out the portal as the ground melted away
under the wing of the ship while it floated straight up.  The walls
of the prison camp were quickly left behind as the aircraft
achieved its cruising height and shot southwards.  There was no
feeling of forward movement or weightlessness.  He knew that within
moments, he would be shuttled off the craft and into the presence
of the most powerful human on the face of the earth, thousands of
miles from his point of origin.

The Supreme Commander had summoned him.  Skinner let his lip curl
as he thought about the man known prior to colonization as Cancer
Man, C.G.B. Spender, and his personal favorite, the Black-Lunged
Bastard.  The new, official title was a joke.  The aliens were in
charge.  They had been for over two years.  Spender was just the
head puppet used to rule the remaining few million or so humans
left on earth.

Skinner knew that Spender was aware of the names his underlings
called him behind his back; Fire-Breathing Dragon, Betrayer, Judas.
He never made any overt attempt to stop the derogative name-
calling.  He just made sure that those suspected of or caught being
disrespectful, simply disappeared.

Skinner stood up as soon as the craft touched down.  He didn't wait
to be prodded to his feet by the huge alien being that Mulder had
always called the Bounty Hunter.  He'd had a run-in or two with his
kind during the original resistance and had always come out on the
short end of the stick.  Today, he needed to remain sharp and
focused.  Today might be the day they let him die.

XXXXX

The complex predated the onset of the alien invasion so all the
comforts of the twenty-first century were prevalent.  While the
temperature outside was over one hundred ten degrees, the interior
of the building was a cool sixty-eight degrees at all times.  'By
decree of the Supreme Commander,' Skinner sneered internally.
'He probably has to have it that cool to keep his life support
equipment on line.'

He passively followed his guard through the halls.  He kept his
head down but committed every twist and turn of the path to his
memory in case the information might be useful to the resistance.
His actions were closely observed by those they passed.

Though he had never agreed to work for the alien cause, he had
become known in the hierarchy of the Consortium.  His natural born
leadership abilities had thrust him into a position of unofficial
command while in the containment camp.  Some of the men and women
he passed watched to make sure he was no threat to their position.
Some watched to see if he was a player; a man to be courted for the
future power he might hold.  Power had become the only commodity
that meant anything on earth.

At last they reached a dead end.  Two massive ebony wood doors were
guarded by two more of the huge aliens.  They barred the way until
some silent communication passed among them.  One of the aliens
pushed the two doors open while the other stood his post.  Skinner
followed his guide in and was surprised when the second guard
followed them in as well.  This was a break from the usual pattern.
'Yes, this could be a good thing,' Skinner thought.

Though the ventilation system was a marvel of modern mechanical
engineering, the room stunk with the odor of stale cigarettes smoke
and rotting flesh.  Skinner smiled to himself, secretly glorying in
the satisfaction of knowing that while Spender was the top human on
earth, his masters had not chosen to heal him, only to prolong his
life.

There was movement in the corner of the room and a voice Skinner
knew he would never forget said, "Ah, Walter Skinner.  Have a
seat."

Skinner raised his eyebrow but followed the order that had been
given.  No matter how courteously it was spoken, instant obedience
to the word of the Supreme Commander was demanded by the guards
behind him.  He sat down in one of the leather chairs situated in
front of the massive glass desk as Spenders anti-gravity cart
floated into place and settled down.  He ignored Skinner for many
long minutes, reinforcing his own feelings of superiority before
acknowledging him again.

Skinner sat at attention, face front, eyes slightly lowered.  He
had learned long ago the folly of any other position.  He let his
mind wander for a few moments while Spender gloried in his
supremacy.  He always found it vaguely amusing to note the various
pieces of alien technology employed ever since the arrival of the
invaders.  The coming of the aliens brought space crafts,
anti-gravity devices, and nuclear fusion from the realm of science
fiction and made them common place, accepted.

The alien physiology was even more astounding than their
technology.
Their ability to heal the human body with only a touch was one of
their most amazing physical abilities.  This capability had proven
to
be a mixed blessing.  They had frequently shown that they could
harm
the human physiology as well as heal it.  Death had become the
exception rather than the rule after the original attack.  There
was
no escape for the unfortunate people left on earth.  No escape
unless it was granted by their conquerors.

Skinner knew this from first hand experience.  He had tried to kill
himself on several occasions.  He had woken up each and every time
in the most incredible pain he had ever experienced as he was once
again brought out of stasis to consciousness.  The scars that
marked his body were reminders from his keepers that his life was
no longer his own.  He had almost given up hope of release until
this summons.  He darted a look at Spender but could see no clue as
to his purpose.  He decided silence was the better part of valor at
this point.

Nearly a half an hour passed before Spender cleared his throat and
spoke.  "I'm sure you want to know why I've asked you here,
Walter."

Skinner raised his eyes to acknowledge his attention but remained
silent.

"Not curious, Walter?" Spender hissed as he lit yet another
cigarette.  Spender raised his right hand and the guard on the
right side behind Skinner activated the control for the collar on
Skinner's throat and a jolt of pain shot through his body.

"Once again, Walter, are you curious?" Spender asked
conversationally.

"Yes," Skinner gasped.  "Yes, I'm curious."

"Ah, that's better."  He drew in deeply on his cigarette before
speaking again.  His words were accompanied by a cloud of smoke.
They reminded Skinner of the last glimpse of Washington, D.C. that
he'd had from the cockpit of the rebel fighter plane last year.  A
cloud of smoke had been all that had remained of the once great
capital.

"I've decided that I need someone I can depend on to regulate the
camps established for the young people that are left.  I've thought
about my options and I've decided that you would be the only person
capable of filling the position.  After all, you were an excellent
administrator in your day, weren't you Walter?"

Skinner didn't know if his question was rhetorical or demanded an
answer so he grunted, noncommittally.

Spender raised an eyebrow in amusement.  "You are capable of
learning, I see."  He considered the man in front of him for a
moment before addressing the two guards.  "Leave us."

The guard who had transported him from the containment camp
hesitated but the other one turned and left immediately.  Finally
the first guard stepped forward and placed the controller for
Skinner's collar on the desk in front of Spender and left without a
word.  Spender picked up the controller and placed it beside the
ashtray at his right hand.  He stared at Skinner as if expecting
him to speak.

"Excuse me," Skinner began politely.  He had to grit his teeth to
get the next words out, but knew that they were necessary.  "Excuse
me, Supreme Commander, but wouldn't a social worker, doctor or
psychologist, even an educator be a better choice for this
position?"

"Are you questioning my choice, Mr. Skinner?" Spender hissed as he
reached towards the controller.

"No, Sir," Skinner said immediately.

"Good, good," Spender said as he nodded his head.  He sat and
smoked for a few minutes before he said, "I'm not interested in
bleeding heart liberal bullshit, Walter.  I want these young people
contained, trained, and undamaged.  I need someone who can head an
organization that will complete this goal without pandering to
their own perversity or allowing their underlings access to use
them.  I need these individuals healthy and willing and apolitical.

"This is to be an elite corps of young men and women who will be
the future of humanity on earth.  They will need to know how to
fight as well as how to survive in the world that we will be left
with.  We will have no need for poetry or art or religion.  We will
need trained survivors.  We need men and women who can and will be
able to resettle and repopulate this earth.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Walter.  Our conquerors will
not be here for long.  Even as we speak they are raping the earth
of the elements that they lack on their home world.  When those
elements are gone, they will leave."  He sat back to watch
Skinner's reaction.

The room was quiet.  The only sounds that could be heard were the
breathing of the two men and the faint hissing of the tobacco as it
was consumed by fire.

Skinner sat stunned, unable to believe what he had just been told.
Finally he spoke.  "Do you mean to tell me all this has been done
because they needed supplies?  Over six billion men, women, and
children have been needlessly slaughtered in order for them to rape
our planet?"

"Yes," he said.

Skinner sat there in disbelief.  "We're a fucking Seven-Eleven for
these bastards?" he bellowed.  "You knew this all along and you let
them in?  You and your cronies allowed them to take over our
planet, knowing they were not here to colonize but to plunder?"
His volume increased as he spoke, his anger flooding him with the
desire to kill the man sitting in front of him.

Spender picked up the controller as Skinner leaned forward in his
chair.  "Let's not make this any harder than it has to be, Walter."
He watched as Skinner reined in his emotions enough to sit back
against the seat of the chair.  "I ... we were lied to as well as
you at first.  We were told they wanted to live here, needed our
aid to make a peaceful co-existence a possibility.

"Towards the end, we realized that we had been played for fools.
The burning of all the main conspirators at El Rico Air Force Base
here in the United States as well as other facilities around the
world proved what fools we all were," Spender said sadly.

Skinner watched him, too overcome by despair and hatred to speak.

"This handful of young men and women are our last hope.  They need
to be trained to survive.  When the aliens leave they will take all
their technology with them and this earth will be thrust into a new
dark age without our natural resources."

"Why me?" Skinner said weakly, sickened by Spender's revelations.

"You are a leader.  You know what has to be done to survive the
coming days.  You've seen combat and have killed to survive, yet
you have maintained your humanity.  You are perfect for the job.
You will be given only the best of the best as your staff.  You
will be the hope of the new age of man."

Skinner studied Spender for a while, considering his proposition.

"What do I get out of this?"

Spender spewed forth a laugh of pure evil.  "Why, Walter.  You get
to go down in history as the leader of the new age.  Isn't that
enough?"  He laughed maniacally and wiped the tears of mirth from
his eyes.  "While I will be vilified as the most heinous criminal
known by mankind since Hitler, you will be its savior.  Isn't that
quite enough?"

Once again silence settled over the room as Walter Skinner
contemplated the offer.

"No."

"What?"

"I said, no.  You were always the one who craved fame.  Not me."

Spender slid his hand over to the controller and gave the button
that controlled Skinner's collars a stroke.  Blinding pain shot
through Walter Skinner and left him a quivering mass of humanity.
"You might want to reconsider your answer, Mr. Skinner," he said
blandly.  "There are those who survived that are not as altruistic
as I.  Some who would be delighted to do nothing more than spend
the rest of their days on this earth torturing you."

"So you think that the lack of pain is enough motivation for me to
clean up your mess?" Skinner gasped.

"What else could you possibly want?"

The two men faced off across the huge desk for several minutes.

Walter Skinner sat up straight in his chair.  He stared at the old
man who held the future of the world in his hands and said one
word.  "Scully."

Spender smiled evilly.  "Ah, now we are getting somewhere.  I
thought you were above the needs of the flesh, Walter," he smirked.

Skinner glared at him and said, "Rumors in the camps say that you
have found Dana Scully and that you are torturing her."

"My dear Walter, that is a patently untrue," Spender replied
immediately.

"What is untrue?  That you have her or that you are torturing her?"
Skinner dared to ask.

Spender studied him for a few moments before answering.  "I have
Agent Scully in my custody, but I have not raised a finger against
her.  She's in stasis.  She was found in the basement of one of the
rebel strongholds after a vicious firefight.  She was near death
but the team that found her knew who she was immediately by the
signal from her chip.  She was stabilized and brought here.  She is
... changed, but her injuries were incurred before we found her."

"Why didn't you have her healed?" Skinner asked.

"Dana Scully is of more value to me as she is.  As long as rumors
such as those you heard are circulating, she is an excellent piece
of bait to use to trap Fox Mulder."

"He's alive?" Skinner leaned forward, hope stirring in his heart
for the first time in months.

"He has not been counted amongst the dead.  We both know what a
resourceful man Fox Mulder is, Walter.  Until his body is brought
to me, I will not consider him dead."  Spender sat back and lit
another cigarette.

He contemplated Skinner for a few moments before asking, "Why do
you want her?  Do you think that she will ever love you as she does
Mulder?  Do you dream of her Walter?  Her luscious red lips, her
sparkling blue eyes looking at you with love and desire?  A woman
of Dana Scully's intelligence would make a fine consort for the new
leader of the world."

"My reasons are my own," Skinner said abruptly.

"I think not," Spender hissed.  He hit the button on the controller
again.  Skinner's contortions were so violent this time that he
threw himself out of the chair onto the floor, eventually passing
out.

When he regained consciousness again he realized that he was on an
anti-gravity cart that was being pushed by his guard.  The huge
alien moved the cart with one hand and held the controller to his
collar in the other.  They were following Spender as he floated
down a dark hallway.  Skinner tried to move but found his limbs
unresponsive.  He had been given massive doses of the collar before
and knew that this was a short-term residual effect of the neural
inhibitors.

They stopped in front of a large window.  Skinner knew that the
glass was probably a one-way mirror, set up to spy on the
underlings at work in the room beyond.

Spender beckoned and his guard lowered his cart to the ground.  He
was yanked to his feet and thrust towards the mirror.  Spender
looked at him and said, "Is this what you want, Walter?  Dana
Scully?  You can see for yourself that she is not being harmed in
any manner by me or anyone that works for me."

Walter Skinner glared at the old man, hatred burning in his heart.
Not for the first time since the whole world went to hell, he
wished he had just taken out his service weapon and killed this
bastard right there in his office at the J. Edgar Hoover building,
regardless of the consequences he would have had to face.

He fought it but he couldn't keep his eyes off the tableau behind
the window.  Several lab assistants were working around the stasis
chambers that lined the center of the room.  In the chamber
directly in front of him he could see a splash of red hair but
nothing more.

"How do I know that's Scully?  That could be any woman in there,"
Skinner said with a snarl.

Spender turned to the guard and nodded.  No words were spoken but
two of the lab techs moved toward the stasis chamber and moved it
parallel to the window, turning it so that the top half made out of
clear aluminum was displayed.

Skinner gasped.  He stood frozen as he stared into the chamber.  It
was Dana Scully, but not.  She had obviously been in the thick of
the war for some time before her body was retrieved.  The scars on
her face, the burns on her arms and hands were a testament to the
fight she had put up before her capture.  The last remnants of her
beautiful red hair were scattered across the pillow where her bald
head lay.

Tears flowed down Skinner's face unheeded.  The last time he had
seen Scully was the day she and Mulder had barged into his office
and tried to warn him that the invasion had begun.  He hadn't
believed them.  He'd actually ordered them from his office and had
them escorted from the building.  He had lived with that memory for
almost two years now.

It was just one of many betrayals that he held close to his heart.
His survival had not been fueled by a desire to live but rather by
a desire to repent for his sins of disbelief and betrayal.  If only
he had joined them that day.  What would have happened if he had
listened to their story, believed, and tried to get the Director to
listen to them?  How many billions of lives could have been spared?

Rage flowed through his veins and Skinner launched himself at his
guard, ripping the controller out of his hand.  He tossed it as far
away as he could and turned towards Spender.  "I'm going to kill
you, you bastard, if it's the last thing I do."  He jumped up and
wrapped his hands around Spender's throat, choking the life from
his wasted body even as his guard began to beat him with his huge
fists.  He could feel the pain of each blow but for once the
pleasure of squeezing the life out of Spender made it seem
inconsequential.

He heard the escape klaxon sound, but still held on.  He looked
deeply into Spender's eyes.  Just before his collar was activated
and he once again lost consciousness, he thought he saw gratitude
in the eyes of his nemesis.

XXXXX

Dana Scully groaned as she shifted onto her side.  The pleasant
haze of the good stuff that had kept her pain at bay until now
gradually began to fade.  She lifted her hand to rub against the
pain in her throbbing head and groaned.  The pain shifted to her
hand as the tight skin from half-healed burns pulled and ached upon
contact.

She took a deep breath, trying to hold back the nausea that the
pain invoked.  She swallowed several times before loosing the
battle with her warring stomach.  Hot bile rushed up from her
stomach and spewed forth.

"Ah, Ms. Scully, a little warning next time," said an unfamiliar
voice.

She pried open one eye, unable to force her body to do more.  She
saw the unfocused outline of a man standing by her bedside, wiping
bile from his lab coat.

"Sorry," she mumbled.  "Water."

"Not yet, Ms. Scully.  You need to be able to sit up before I can
give you water.  We don't want you aspirating any liquids, now do
we?"

Scully took a deep breath and forced both her eyes open.  The light
behind the man made it impossible to identify him from this angle.
She rolled to her back and tried to push herself up in the bed
enough to sit up, but the pain in her hands flared and once again
she lost consciousness.

It was dark outside when she woke again.  This time the nausea was
gone, the pain was under control, and the need to use the bathroom
was overwhelming.  There was a call-button wrapped around the
raised railing of her bed.  She struggled to reach it and push the
button without passing out again.  She closed her eyes to wait for
her call to be answered.

When she woke the next time, it was near dawn.  A man entered the
dimly lit interior of her room, Palm Pilot in hand.  He moved
swiftly through the readouts of the machinery connected to her.  He
walked around the side of the bed to check her water pitcher.

"Why didn't you answer my call last night?" Scully croaked.

"Ms. Scully!  You scared me.  Good to see you awake," he said,
ignoring her question.

"I had to use the bathroom last night.  Why didn't you answer my
call?"

"Ms. Scully, you are hooked up to a catheter.  There was no danger
of your having an accident."

"Who are you?" Scully asked as she struggled to place a name with
the vaguely familiar face.

"My name is Kurt Crawford," he said.

"You're a clone," she stated flatly.

"Yes, I am.  Well, I was.  I am the last of the Kurt Crawford
clones so now I like to think of myself as THE Kurt Crawford.
Please call me Kurt."  He smiled engagingly before lowering the
side rail of her bed.  "We need to get you upright so that I can
straighten your sheets and give you a sponge bath."

Scully watched the clone as he puttered around her bed, gathering
supplies.  She wanted to tell him that she could bathe herself, but
with the bandages on her hands, and the weakness she felt, she knew
she was incapable of anything requiring that much effort.

"Couldn't a female nurse give me my bath?" she asked.

"Nurse?  You think I'm a nurse?"  Kurt smiled and shook his head.
"I'm not a nurse, Ms. Scully."

"Are you my doctor?" she asked.  "Aren't I in a hospital?"

"No.  I'm more your," he hesitated.  "I guess you could say I'm
your host, your doctor, and your companion.  Yes, that's it.  I'm
your companion."

Scully looked at him in fear.  "Where are we?  Why am I here?
What's going on?"  Each of the sentences she spoke was slightly
more demanding.  She was aware for the first time just how
vulnerable she was.

"Please, Ms. Scully, calm down.  I'm not here to hurt you.  I'm
here to help."  The inscrutable look on the clone's face made her
shrink from his touch.  "Ah, I see we have to do this the hard
way," he said.  He sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out
a needle with a strange blue fluid in it.

"No!  No, please!"  Scully tried to scoot away from him as he
reached over to her IV port and plunged the fluid into her.  "Don't
drug me, please!"

"Rest now, Ms. Scully.  By the time you wake up, you'll be feeling
much better."

Scully fought the overwhelming feeling of spinning and flying until
she couldn't fight anymore.  She said one word before succumbing to
pull of the narcotic.

"Mulder."

XXXXX

Dana Scully woke to the smell of coffee, real, brewed coffee.  She
stretched as she opened her eyes, smiling at the familiar scent.
She looked around and realized that she didn't know where she was.
The room was like any hospital room she had occupied in the past.
There was the hospital bed of course, a cabinet on the wall for her
clothes, and a chair that looked uncomfortable.

She moved her arms and legs, trying to ascertain the extent of her
injuries.  She had no aches or pains to give her a clue as to the
reason for her current hospitalization.  She glanced around the
room, looking for some clue as to which hospital she was in.  As
her eyes slid past the window she did a double take.

Outside her window was a panoramic view of the ocean.  She had
never been in a hospital on the edge of the ocean before,
especially not the Pacific Ocean, unless her guess was incorrect.

A tall, slender, redheaded man walked through her door, carrying a
breakfast tray with the cup of coffee that she had smelled.  "Ah,
good.  You are awake.  I thought I heard you stirring on the
monitor so I took the liberty of getting a breakfast tray ready for
you."

"You're Kurt Crawford, right?" Scully asked as faint memories began
to stir in her mind.

"Yes, very good, Ms. Scully!" he said as he beamed a smile at her.

He placed the tray on the mobile table near the foot of her bed,
and then pushed it closer to her.  "Here, let me help you," he
said.  He moved to help her sit up further in the bed and then
pushed the controller on the bed to raise her head to a comfortable
level.  "All set?" he asked as he uncovered the dishes on her tray.

Scully nodded.  She was suddenly ravenous.  She reached for the
coffee and noticed that the burns on her hands had not healed
completely and the scars that were forming were becoming more
evident.  She felt awkward as she lifted her coffee to her lips,
but the draw of the familiar liquid was overpowering.  Kurt
Crawford left the room, allowing her the privacy she needed to
enjoy her meal.

She ate slowly, savoring each bite.  She knew she wouldn't be able
to eat very much, so she made sure she enjoyed what she could.  A
large quantity of food like this had been a luxury few could expect
for many months.  She had learned to function on a sparse diet that
hadn't included such a variety or quantity.  The taste and texture
of the scrambled eggs was divine.  The fresh butter melting on the
toast was a rare treat, one she had not experienced since the
beginning of the invasion.  She lifted the last cover off a dish on
her tray and nearly wept.  It was fresh cantaloupe, a rare treat
indeed.

As soon as her hunger was assuaged she sat back clasping her warm
cup of coffee in her two injured hands, unwilling to waste a single
drop.

Kurt Crawford returned and smiled when he saw that she had been
able to eat the majority of the food on her tray.

"Thank you," she said before he could speak.

He merely nodded his head and removed the tray from the room.

She sat sipping her coffee, trying to figure out where she was.
All her memories of the invasion could not be a nightmare.  She had
obviously been severely injured but was still alive.  Food didn't
taste that good or real in dreams.  She tried to remember her last
memories.

She remembered the firefight that caused her burns, the fear of
capture as she and her compatriots ran through the ruins of
Roanoke.  The appearance of the alien ship had cut off the escape
route that she and Mulder had devised.  Mulder had been trapped in
hiding as she and her unit were driven away from the center of the
city.  They had made a final stand in an office complex on the
outskirts of town.

As soon as they entered the underground parking garage, she knew
they were finished.  Most of the buildings they had hidden in prior
to this attack had been connected to the old sewer system of the
city.  It was their bad luck to choose to make a stand in a
building built during the 1990's.  There was no escape route to be
found.  As the alien ship had pounded the building with round after
round of fire, she and the others knew they were going to die or be
captured.

Most took matters into their own hands right away, eating a bullet
from their guns before the aliens could enter their hideout and
force them to surrender.  Everyone knew the fate of those who were
incarcerated by their enemy.  If they were caught alive, there
would be ever lasting life as a slave to their captors.  At the
last minute, Scully prayed that Mulder would not try to follow her
into the afterlife and turned her weapon towards her heart.  That
was her last memory.

She slid her fingers across the fabric of her gown right over the
spot she had targeted and found a raised scar but no fresh wound.
She had been healed.  She tried to imagine how she had wound up
here.  She contemplated this as she savored her coffee.

Kurt Crawford reentered the room with an armful of clothing and
tennis shoes in his hand.  He smiled at her as he placed the
clothes down on the end of her bed.

"There is a bathroom with everything you'll need to clean up right
though that door," he said pointing to a doorway she had previously
ignored.

She opened her mouth to ask the questions that were plaguing her
mind but he beat her to it.

"Once you are showered and dressed, I'll answer any and all of your
questions."

XXXXX

By the time she was through in the bathroom, she was exhausted.
She had been shocked by her appearance.  She was still emaciated,
of course.  There hadn't been an abundance of food available on the
run.  Her scars were numerous.  She had come to grips with those
months ago.  What had really shocked her was her hair, or rather,
lack of it.  She was completely hairless.  She knew it was
necessary to cut the hair of the individuals placed into the stasis
pods, but she didn't realize that the process completely depilated
the entire body.

What did she care, anyway?  Mulder was gone.  In the light of her
current position, her looks should be the farthest thing from her
mind.  She shuffled back into her room and sat down on the bed.
She leaned back, intending to rest for just a moment before she
sought out Kurt.  She woke up hours later, hungry and needing the
bathroom again.

When she exited the bathroom, Kurt was placing a tray of lunch on
the bed table.  "I came back earlier, but you were sound asleep.  I
didn't want to wake you up when you looked so tired."

"Thanks," she said her voice rusty with disuse.  "I wish you had
woken me up.  I need to know what's going on here."

"Lunch, then information," he assured her before turning to leave.

"That's what you said before," she said, losing patience with the
Kurt.  "First you said you would tell me after breakfast, then it
was supposed to be after I showered and changed.  Now you're
telling me we'll talk after lunch.  I think it sounds like you're
stalling," she growled.

"Please, Ms. Scully, my only concern has been your comfort.  I have
nothing to hide.  I'm just the messenger.  I promise you will know
everything right after lunch," he said earnestly.

At her nod, he turned and left, allowing her to eat in private.
Scully appreciated this gesture as she struggled to hold the
silverware with her injured hands.  It was easier this time.  She
sighed.  Perhaps in time, her hands would heal and simple tasks
like eating would almost be normal again.

She groaned a contented sigh as she finished her favorite dessert,
a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream.  As she pushed the tray
table away, Kurt entered the room.  It would be spooky how he did
that if she didn't know there was probably a camera on her at all
times.

"What do you have out there, a television camera to watch me?" she
teased, knowing he did, but wanting to see how truthful he would
be.

He nodded, pointing to the corner above the bathroom door.  "It's
standard equipment in the clinic rooms, Ms. Scully."

"You even watched me in the bathroom?" she clarified.

"Oh no, not in the bathroom," he assured her quickly.  "It's only
set up in this room and I used it strictly for medical surveillance
while you were unconscious," he added earnestly.

"Oh, okay then," she muttered

"Are you ready for some answers now?" he asked.

She nodded, suddenly afraid of what she was going to find out.

Kurt picked up her tray and left the room without another word.  He
returned in a short while pushing a wheelchair.  "You need to go
into the day room to use the DVD player," he said.

She looked at him quizzically, but slid off the bed and sat down in
the wheelchair.

"Don't worry, Ms. Scully.  I'm going to take you to get your
answers now."

She had not been out of her room since regaining consciousness and
was becoming curious about her surroundings.  It seemed to be a
combination of a minimum security facility with high-tech
equipment.
The quiet was deep with only the occasional sound of a bird
punctuating the background noise of the ocean's roar.  There was no
indication that there was anyone else in the building but Kurt
Crawford and her.

They rolled down a short hallway and into an area that looked more
like a family room than a day room in a hospital or jail.  Kurt
pushed her up to sit in front of a television and turned it on.

As they rolled along, she began to ask the questions that flooded
her mind.  "Where are we?  Is this a hospital or a residence?  Is
anyone else here?  Why don't you just answer my questions?"

"I'm sorry that there isn't any real television to watch.  We do
have a supply of DVD's and old VHS tapes.  Obviously, there will
not be anything new made for a very long time, if ever," he said.

"I don't give a damn about TV entertainment, Kurt.  I want answers.
What am I doing here?"

He picked up a remote control and handed it to her.  "Just press
play when you are ready."  He gave her one more enigmatic look and
left the room.

Scully swallowed hard and gathered her courage.  She pressed play.

The visage on the screen was a surprise.  Walter Skinner appeared,
dressed in a uniform with insignias she did not recognize.

"Agent Scully," he said.  "If you are watching this it means that
my plans have succeeded.  Welcome back to life."

Scully grimaced.  'What the hell is going on?' she thought.

"I know you have many questions.  The Kurt Crawford clone that is
your host does not have the answers you seek about the past.  I am
here to explain that.

Skinner looked down at his notes and frowned.  He laid them aside
and said, "First, I would like to apologize to you and to Mulder,
if he has survived this invasion.  If I had believed you that day
you came to me, much of the past two years could have been avoided.
Not all.  The aliens who have attacked us are a thousand times more
advanced than we are physically and mentally, not to mention their
weaponry.  Plans for containment could have been made.  The lives
of millions of people could have been saved by going into hiding in
the many facilities that the military had secreted underground
across the country.

"But that is a moot point now.  Please accept my apology.  I do not
ask you to forgive me.  I cannot expect that.  I ... I can't
forgive myself."  His eyes filled with tears but he shook them off.
He straightened his spine and reached for his notes again.

"You, Scully, are on an island off the western coast of what was
the United States.  The island is actually a portion of California
that broke off from the mainland during the assault and pirating of
our natural resources by our alien friends.  The mining in the
Rockies sent off shock waves that caused earthquakes on the fault
lines all along the coast.

"I have learned that there is to be no permanent colonization.  We
have been destroyed.  Our entire civilization has been decimated so
that these beings could rape our planet of its natural resources at
their leisure.

"Thankfully, they are both efficient and speedy in the removal of
the elements they need.  They will be gone completely from our
world within the next few years.  When they leave, there will be
little left of our way of life.  Less than two million human beings
will have survived their attack.  I have been advised that there
will be no industrial complexes left standing.  There will be
power, the nuclear fusion plants that they have established here to
facilitate their operations will remain.  They are an unlimited
source of power and will last indefinitely as they now stand.

Very few of our modern facilities will remain, and none of our
electrical equipment will work.  The alien weapons have damaged
every single circuit of every piece of machinery left in the world.
We are to be left with a world of contradictions.  We will still
have the antigravity equipment they will leave, but our planes,
trains and automobiles will no longer work.  We will have all the
electricity we will need for the rest of our lives, but there will
be no microwaves or televisions or lights that will work.  We will
be thrown back into the dark ages in many ways, but we will never
be sick again in our lifetime due to their culling of our species
and the equipment they will leave behind.

"There are so many details that I would like to consult with you
on, Agen ... Scully.  You have proven to be invaluable in the past
in organizing and identifying the pertinent information needed to
solve a case.  However, that is never to be."  Once again Skinner
hesitated, almost overcome with emotion.

Dana Scully pressed pause on the DVD controller and considered his
words so far.  She could not see how any of this information
explained her presence on this island.  She pressed play again.

"Now comes the hard part," Skinner said.  He removed his glasses
and pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture that was so
familiar it made tears fill her eyes.  "I have once again, traded
my soul to the devil for a friend.  As you know, the man ...
individual we knew as C.G.B. Spender is now Supreme Commander.  He
recently called me to his headquarters and offered me a position, a
position of wealth and power, that I turned down.  I won't share
the threats that he made when I declined, but I will tell you what
he dangled in front of me that changed my mind.

"You, Scully.  Your freedom was my thirty pieces of silver.  I am
to be the leader of the new generation of human beings left alive
after the aliens depart.  Spender seemed to feel that my
organizational skills would come in handy.  I suppose that I should
be proud that he felt me above the petty machinations of the rest
of his toadies, but I'm not.

"In payment for my cooperation, I am to receive assurances that you
will be revived from the stasis chamber that you were incarcerated
in and placed on an island off the coast of North America.  This
island will be populated by a large number of the hybrids and
clones that still exist.  They have been offered this chance to
live out their existence in exchange for providing you with
everything you need for the rest of your life."  Once again he set
his papers aside.

"Sad, isn't it, Agent Scully?  That I should presume to know what
you need to be happy?"  He cleared his throat and once again began
to speak with authority.

"You are not a prisoner.  This is to be your home.  You will not,
however, be able to leave this island.  There will be no means of
transportation available after the aliens leave.  Please feel free
to ask for anything you need to make your existence comfortable.
All the resources found on the island are to be at your command.

"The only chance that you will have to leave is if you are
contacted by some faction using a sail boat for transportation.  I
cannot stress strongly enough the need for you to remain on this
island.  Here you will be safe.  You will have a nice home, food,
clothing, medical assistance, when necessary.  The balance of the
world is a wasteland with pockets of humanity struggling to
survive.  The young people I am to train are the hope for the
future of the earth.  We will have discipline and order, but that
is not the case outside our facilities."

Skinner stared into the camera, a look of pleading on his face as
he said, "Scully, do not try to leave.  I have given my word to
work towards a better future for mankind.  Please, don't make my
sacrifice pointless.

"As long as the aliens are here, there will be occasional shipments
of supplies made to your island.  If you have any requests, please
feel free to make them to Kurt Crawford.  He will be in contact
with others here on the mainland.  I have been forbidden to have
any further contact with you.

"God speed, Dana Scully.  You have fought a long and honorable
battle.  Please accept this existence and know that it will allow
me the only small bit of happiness and a peace of mind I will know
on this earth."

The screen went fuzzy for a few seconds and then turned to a deep
blue signaling the end of the DVD.

Scully sat there staring at the blue screen through tears that
seemed to fall unbidden from her eyes.  She pushed the power button
and the unit turned off.  She sat there for a long time, unaware of
the tracks of the sun as it made it's way across the sky.  At some
point she must have fallen asleep.

"Ms. Scully?" the voice of Kurt Crawford brought her back to
awareness.  "Ms. Scully, it's dinner time," he said.  "Are you
ready to go back to your room, or would you like to eat in here?"

"I want to go to my room.  Thank you, Kurt.  Please don't bother
with dinner.  I'm not hungry," she said as he moved forward to push
her chair back down the hall.

"Nonsense, you must eat.  I certainly don't want to have to hook up
the I.V. again just to keep you from wasting away," he scolded.

She nodded, deciding that she would try to eat.  She had a lot of
thinking to do and needed to be as strong as she could be to help
keep her thoughts clear.

By the time she had eaten, though, she was exhausted.  Thinking
would have to wait for another day.

XXXXX

'It's been over a year since I woke up on this island,' she thought
as she walked down the beach that evening.  She wandered along,
thinking of everything that had happened in the past year.  She
glanced up at the moon, still shocked to see the decimated outline
of the once spherical orb.  There were two moons now, circling
earth.  Apparently there had been metals at the core of the moon
the aliens wanted and they had thought nothing of destroying it to
get to them.

'An entire year and what have I accomplished?' she thought.  She
huffed what had come to be a laugh for her.  'Accomplishments were
for the old order.  Survival is the only objective today.'

She continued back up the beach towards her cottage.  The irony of
her thoughts once again almost made her smile.  She was living in a
home that once would have been considered a mansion.  It was a four
story Victorian monstrosity that had been built in a small town in
the hills of Sierra Nevada Mountains, now just a village on the
coast of an unnamed island in the Pacific.

She had wanted to move to a smaller place, insisting that her needs
were simple and the ostentatious mansion should go to a number of
others rather than to her.

Kurt Crawford had been adamant, though.  Citing her position and
the necessity to house her servants and the individuals deemed
necessary to support her in the style that Walter Skinner had
intended, he had finally worn her down.

In truth, it hadn't mattered where she lived.  She was only
existing in this new life, moving through one day to the next.  She
had no friends.  She had no loved ones.  She had no work to keep
her going.  The fact that she was once again healthy meant nothing.
Her good health was just another indicator as to how long her
personal hell would continue.

Walter Skinner had been true to his word.  Supplies had continued
to be delivered to the island, preparing them for the day that they
would be cut off completely from the rest of the world.  The aliens
had not withdrawn completely yet but departure was imminent.

She was late but knew Kurt would not be worried about her.  He had
grown accustomed to her long rambles on the beach.  It was the only
place that she found solace other than her gardens.  She quickly
freshened up and walked down to the dining room.

She was surprised to find Clarice, one of the Cassandra clones
serving her dinner.  She was frustrated that she couldn't ask where
Kurt was.  Many of the earlier clones from the Cassandra series,
such as Clarice, were mute.  She had to be careful not to let her
displeasure show on her face.  All the clones and hybrids that
worked in the house were extremely intuitive and picked up on her
moods easily.  They had been extremely helpful during her recovery
and she hated to upset any of them with her curiosity.

She thanked Clarice when dinner was over and her gentle blush made
Dana glad that she had curbed her upset over Kurt's absence.  He
had not missed a meal in the entire time she had been living in the
main house.  He had become a friend and she valued and looked
forward to their conversations over dinner.  She prepared for bed
and read until she was tired.  She would ask him what was going on
tomorrow.

XXXXX

The next morning, Kurt was still not back.  Dana set out to find
someone that could tell her where he was.  She had become fond of
him and was worried that something was wrong.  He could need her
help.

She finally found Thomas.  He was one of the newest models of the
worker hybrids.  He told her that Kurt had been called back to the
clinic for an emergency.

Dana was surprised.  The clinic where she had first been housed was
rarely used.  She was the only one who would have use for most of
the equipment kept there.  She was, after all, the only human on
the island.  She sometimes wondered about that but if she dwelled
on
it, it would slowly drive her mad.

Skinner had traded her life for his once again.  This time, he had
indentured himself to C.G.B. Spender to lead the young men and
women that had survived colonization.  Did he really know what kind
of hell he had thrust her into?  She would have gladly chosen death
had she had been given a choice.  However, she hadn't and she tried
to make the most of each day.  The last shreds of her youthful
religious training held her to this existence.

She had railed against her lot when she first saw his message.  She
had tried to force Kurt Crawford to contact Skinner and make him
take her back to face her fate with the rest of the dying
civilization.  They had no contact with the outside world unless a
ship landed.  She had sent a long, pleading letter to Skinner
asking for him to let her die in order to release him from his
contract with Spender.

She waited for over three months for his two-word reply.

Too late.

S

XXXXX

It was two weeks before she saw Kurt again.  When he brought her
breakfast in on the first day, she was so concerned about his
condition that she made him sit down and eat with her.  She ran
back down to the kitchen and ordered him a serving of everything
they had prepared for her breakfast.

When she got back to the dining room, Kurt was asleep with his head
on the table.  Dana almost decided to let him sleep but the
gauntness in his face attested to the fact that he had not been
eating regularly.  She gently woke him when the food was delivered
and talked to him while he ate.  She decided that she would get two
of the large worker drones to carry him to his quarters after he
finished.

She watched her friend eat with gusto.  He was tired but his hunger
overwhelmed the need for sleep.

As she sat there with him, she was amazed at the feeling of
satisfaction she had over caring for him.  She knew that her
personality was one that needed to have a purpose in life.  Perhaps
she had been drifting for too long.  Her gardens and nature walks
were all fine and good but she needed to work.  It was time for a
change.  It felt good to take care of someone again.

"What were you doing that left you no time to eat, Kurt?  You
shouldn't let yourself get this run down," she scolded.

He looked genuinely chagrined as she admonished him about taking
care of himself.

"Where were you?" she asked.

Kurt continued eating as he told her the story of his adventure.

"I woke up walking towards the clinic.  I started to turn around
but found that I couldn't.  That's when I realized that I was being
called by one of the Enforcers.  I was so scared, Dana.  I thought
at first I was to be eliminated, that I had done something wrong,
you know?"

She didn't know, but remembered and understood how the feeling of
being out of control of one's own actions felt.  She still
remembered waking up on the bridge in Pennsylvania.  She nodded and
he continued.

"When I got to the clinic, there was an Enforcer there.  I could
see the outline of his ship behind the building.  He led me to the
room where you were kept when you got here.  There was another
stasis pod there with the body of a man inside.  He told me I was
to bring him out of the stasis and let him live with us here."

"Who is he?" she asked automatically.

"I was not given that information.  I was just told to bring him
back from stasis," Kurt said between bites.

"Did he live?" Dana asked.  She knew that the incidence of death in
reanimation was high under the best of circumstances.  Here on the
island with only Kurt as a technician, the chances of another live
retrieval were slim.

"Yes," Kurt said sadly.  "He came out of the stasis, but when I
checked him, I realized that he had been badly damaged."

"Damaged?" Dana repeated.

"Yes," he said with a nod.  "He had been injured before being
placed in stasis but none of the wounds were healed.  He had a
severe head injury, and when I checked, I realized that he was
blind."

"Oh, no," Dana said.  "Did he talk to you?  Did he tell you who he
was?"

"No, I didn't think he could speak, he refused to make any sounds
at all while I was working on him.  I asked him his name and he
merely turned his head away from me."

"What does he look like?" Dana asked, wondering if it were one of
the rebels she had fought with just a year ago.

"It's hard to say," Kurt replied.  "Of course he is hairless, like
everyone who comes out of stasis.  The hair in the pod was all
white.  He suffered a great deal of damage to his face and chest.
He's tall but thin, bordering on starvation.  There were no papers
or I.D. tags in the pod with him."

"What color were his eyes?" Dana asked as she unconsciously ran her
hand through her hair.  She had been shocked when she awoke bald as
a billiard ball.  Now, a year later, her hair was still short, a
ginger brown color streaked with grey and straight as a stick.

"Dana, his eyes," Kurt began.  "I don't know what color his eyes
are.  They are so badly damaged that it was impossible to tell."

"Damn!  It sounds like he was badly tortured," she said.

"No, I don't think so.  It looks to me like all the damage done to
him was from weapons of war, not torture," Kurt assured her.

"But you said he's going to live?"

"Yes, he'll live.  I don't know for how long."  At her curious
glance he continued, "His only words to me were, 'Let me die'."

"What did you say?"

"I told him it was not within my power to let him die.  He'd have
to make it happen on his own after I healed him."

"What's going on now?  How come you're back?  Did he kill himself?"
Dana asked.

"No!  Of course not!" Kurt said, obviously hurt by her question.
"I put him back in the stasis pod and set it to heal him.  I don't
know how much good it will do.  When the pod is set on rejuvenate,
the power usage is tremendous.  I'm not sure how much I can do for
him."

"You're going to heal him?" Dana asked, amazed at the incentive
taken by the clone.

"Yes," he said.  "I know I'm not supposed to do more than revive
him, but I was thinking that it would be nice for you to have
another human on the island with you.  I thought that maybe you
wouldn't be so sad, Dana."

Tears rose to her eyes for the first time since she woke from
stasis.  The thoughtfulness of his actions was so far beyond the
scope of the clone mentality that she was shocked.

"Kurt!  They won't ... kill you for going beyond your orders, will
they?"

Kurt did not answer right away.  When he did, he had a gleam of
conviction in his eyes, "I don't care.  It was wrong to bring him
here without healing him first.  There is no reason an individual
should suffer as he would have for the rest of his life."

"Kurt, thank you," Dana said.  She put her hand on his, voluntarily
touching him for the first time since they met.

"Besides," he said with a twinkle in his eye.  "I think that his
delivery was one of the last things the Enforcer had to do before
he left for home."

"What?"

"I have felt for many days that the alien presence is lessening.  I
think they're going home."

XXXXX

The first time he woke, he was only aware of the pain.

Every square inch of his body hurt, inside and out.  He tried to
moan but his voice box hurt.  He finally gave in and let the
darkness take him over again.

The next time he woke, he was feeling moderately better.  Now he
only hurt on the outside.  The pains around his heart and stomach
were gone.  His joints ached but it was tolerable.  He tried to
turn his head to see where he was and realized that his entire head
was swathed in bandages.  This was bad, very, very bad.

He struggled to sit up, but the pain in his hands and chest
blossomed into an uncontrollable beast and the darkness took him
again.

The third time he woke, he was pain free.  He was still in the
dark, but he quickly realized that the bandages over his eyes were
the reason.  He could hear someone walking around in the room.
From the purposeful sounds of their steps, they weren't just
wasting time.

He cocked his head, as if in doing so he could hear better.  His
movement obviously caught the attention of his attendant.

"Ah, you are awake."  The voice was male, friendly, but
unrecognizable.

He turned his head towards the voice but did not reply.

The man began talking to him about incidentals of his care.  He was
in bad shape, he said, due to a large number of burns and debris
that had festered in his wounds.  His chest and face had taken the
brunt of the injury.  He had one broken leg.  Both hands were badly
damaged, and oh yes, he was blind as well.

He struggled to speak.  His caretaker brought a straw to his lips
and he sucked greedily on the cool liquid.

"Are you in pain?" the voice asked.

He shook his head.

"Can I do anything for you?"

He struggled to verbalize his only desire.  "Let me die," he
whispered.

"I can't do that," his nemesis said in a shocked voice.  "If you
want to die, you're going to have to wait until you're healthy
enough to do it yourself."

He heard purposeful movements and then a sting of cold liquid as
the additive to his I.V. hit his system.  Everything turned black
again.

When he woke again, he was sitting up in a wheelchair.  He realized
that all the equipment that had been hooked up to him before was
gone.  It was a testament to the professionalism of his caretaker
that only their absence marked their previous use.

His head was still swathed in bandages, as was his right hand.  He
could feel the sun on his skin and the sound of the ocean was a
welcomed background.

"You're awake," the voice of his caretaker said as he walked
towards him from his left.  "Good.  You can drink this instead of
having a feeding line installed."

A cold glass was put in his left hand.  Warm fingers curled over
his, helping him grasp it and bring it to his mouth.  A straw
struck his lip through the slit in the bandages that still swathed
his entire head and he nibbled around trying to get it in place.

"That's good," came the warm praise.  "I think you will like this.
I've been told it tastes like a chocolate milkshake with caramel
added.  If this isn't to your taste, I have several other mixes
that might work."

He drank slowly, the cold of the drink giving him a pain in his
head when he tried to drink too fast.  He was still hungry when the
drink was gone.  He lifted the glass out to ask for more.

"No, sorry.  That's all you can have right now.  I will send you
more in a couple hours.  Are you tired now?  Do you want to go back
to bed?"

He shook his head, wanting to stay awake for a little longer.  The
huge yawn that he let out minutes later gave him away.  Strong arms
slid under his knees and around his shoulders, lifting him as if he
weighed nothing.  He jerked when first touched and the voice came
from across the room.

"Sorry, next time I'll remember to give you a warning when Jason is
going to touch you."

The strong arms placed him gently on the bed and retracted from
him.  When he thought to listen, he could hear heavy steps
retreating from the room as the door shut.  His caretaker walked
around the room, straightening his sheets and putting things in
order.  His caretaker kept up a steady patter of one-sided
conversation that he ignored as he slid into sleep.

He woke again, thirsty and desperately needing to use the bathroom.
He heard the steps of what sounded like a child run to the door.
Moments later his caretaker returned.

"Well, Suzi tells me that you are in need of the bathroom and want
a drink," he said.

He turned his head, trying to convey his question as his feet were
lowered to the floor.

"Ah, Suzie is a telepath.  If you were one too, you could converse
with her.  However, you aren't so she cannot read your thoughts,
only your general needs.  She is here until you decide you want to
talk to me.  I have no way of knowing what you need otherwise."

He was helped into the wheelchair again and rolled into the
bathroom, helped onto the toilet and left alone.  The humiliation
of having to use the facility like a woman washed over him for a
moment before his practicality took over.  Better this than to wet
himself like a baby or keep the catheter.

He managed to finish and stood to wash his hands.  There was a
sharp knock on the door and it was opened.  He felt a strong hand
on his arm as he was guided back to the chair.  When they got back
to his bed, he stood up on his own and climbed back into bed.

"Ah, I see you're getting stronger, perhaps tomorrow we can
dispense with the wheelchair."

He reached out and tapped his caretaker on the arm, making sure he
had his attention, then lifted his hands to his eyes.  He made a
gesture as if tearing off the bandages that completely swathed his
head but was quickly stopped by firm hands.

"Your eyes are healing.  You were blind when you came here, but I
... I reset the stasis pod and used it to regenerate your optic
nerves.  You might still be blind, but I had to try.  You must
leave the bandages on until I remove them.  I know it's
uncomfortable, having your entire head bandaged like that.
Hopefully, the stasis procedure will not only heal your eyes, but
some of the burns on your face as well if we keep them covered.  I
wasn't able to leave you in stasis long enough to complete the
regeneration, but the process had advanced far enough along to
possibly complete itself with time and absolute darkness.  Do you
understand?"

He nodded and lowered his hands.

"You know, you could make this a lot easier on all of us if you
would start talking again," he said hopefully.

He shook his head and turned away from the voice.

XXXXX

Two more months went by and the slow process of his recuperation
was finally almost over.  His eyes were healing, slowly, according
to his keeper, but his strength had returned as he gained weight
from the balanced diet he was fed.  The long walks along the beach
with Suzi had helped him regain his strength, as had the physical
therapy he received each day.

He had moved to a small cottage down near the beach.  The medicinal
smells of the clinic were replaced by the clean, fresh smell and
sounds of the sea.  Suzi went with him.  She apparently was in
contact with his caretaker, telepathically, at all times.

He had become used to the silent presence of his little Suzi.  She
was small, only about the size of a ten year old, and very
unobtrusive, but his every want and need was attended to either by
her or by one of the other clones that were assigned to him at her
behest.

He knew he had been getting better for weeks now.  A feeling of
restlessness was overtaking him.  For a while the move to the
cottage satisfied his need for action.  He had been off all
medications for over a month.  He was still taking a sleeping pill
at night, though, because his nightmares had frightened Suzi into a
near catatonic state.  Kurt had insisted that he use the sleep
aids, assuring him that they were non-narcotic.  He promised that
they would end when he no longer needed Suzi's assistance.

The child slept on a cot right out side his door, and was connected
to him mentally at all times.  The first time he had woken with a
morning erection, Suzi had nearly giggled herself silly.  Only the
intervention of a stern-voiced Kurt Crawford had sobered her.  He
was glad that Kurt had told her to be respectful and withdraw her
attentions when she felt his mind wander in this direction.

He promised himself to never get a hard-on again in front of the
child.  It was easier said than done as his health improved, but
the need for propriety around the child had kept him sane.  He got
used to asking her to go get his breakfast from the main kitchen
while he showered, giving himself a small window of privacy each
day.

His caretaker had finally introduced himself as the final Kurt
Crawford clone.  It made sense to him that the young man would be
the one to take care of him.  The Kurts had been some of the most
advanced clones produced prior to the war.  As far as he knew, this
Kurt did not know his identity.  He had decided that it would
remain that way.  The man he had been was better off dead.  His
only reason for living had been taken from him months before he had
been captured.

"I have a surprise for you today," Kurt said.  "There is someone
here that wants to meet you."

He sat up straighter and shook his head.  He felt Suzi's hand on
his arm and a warm feeling of comfort flooded his mind.  He pulled
away and picked up his cane.  He felt his way back indoors and shut
the door, indicating his desire to be left alone.

He stood inside the room, close to the door, listening for a clue
as to who had been standing with Kurt on the porch.  He heard their
low conversation as they stood outside.

"I am so sorry, that was incredibly rude of him," Kurt said.

"That's all right, we should have known and ask his permission for
me to visit," a low, female voice responded.

"Even so, he has no right," Kurt began.

She cut him off by saying, "I would have felt the same way, Kurt,
had it been me in his position.  Let's wait for a few weeks and
maybe he'll be more agreeable to some company later."

A woman.  Kurt had brought a female to visit him.  What did the
clone think he was, desperate?  He decided to have nothing to do
with her right then and there.  He didn't need a hybrid or clone to
give him a pity fuck.

XXXXX

Several weeks went by and Kurt's prediction that the aliens, or
Enforcers as he called them, were leaving had proved to be right.
One night there was a brilliant flash on the horizon and when they
got up the next day, none of the appliances that used electricity
would work.  Only the equipment that had been supplied by the
aliens continued to function.

They were gone.

The settlers had been preparing for this day since they had been
relocated to the island.  A number of new inventions had made by
several of the more ingenious members of the community that utilized
the alien power source.  Their industry had made sure that they had
hot water, a means to cook food, sanitary facilities as well as
refrigeration to store foods that were not dried or canned.  The
island location left the settlement with only a rudimentary need
for heat.

They were prepared, but Dana Scully wondered how the rest of the
world was surviving.  Often her thoughts skittered to Walter
Skinner and his troops of young people.  How many would die due to
starvation or exposure?  How well had they been prepared?  Unless a
message was delivered from the mainland, they would never know.

Kurt had informed Dana that their visitor was doing well, and would
have his bandages off his eyes in three weeks, one way or another.
He had become increasingly impatient, but seemed willing to wait
the final few weeks to insure the best results.

He had continued to refuse to meet her.  For some reason he had
taken an aversion to her sight unseen and refused to have anything
to do with her.  She had decided that she would wait until he was
ready for company.  Kurt was the only one who appeared to be
curious as to the aversion of his male human patient to his female
human friend.  He thought that they would find solace in the
company of one another.  At her insistence, he dropped the subject.

She watched the newcomer often.  She was surprised how much she
desired his company.  He walked with a limp and his shoulders were
often slumped in defeat.  He had started to grow in some hair but
it was pure white.  She thought he looked to be about sixty years
old, but revised that estimate downward when his health improved
and his physical abilities increased.  He no longer looked as old,
just very sad.

One day she was walking on the beach and practically stumbled upon
him sitting on her favorite outcropping of rock.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know anyone was going to be here," she said.

"Who is it?" he asked, his voice rusty with disuse.

She turned, surprised that he had spoken to her.  She knew that he
had not spoken to Kurt, and felt that his obstinate behavior should
not be rewarded.  She felt no need to enlighten the stubborn man as
she decided to withhold her identity.  "I am the Eve of this
island paradice, as you are the Adam," she said.

"Ah, Kurt's told you I won't talk to him, I take it," he said with
a chuckle.

"Yes," she answered shortly.

"Well, Eve, it's nice to meet you finally.  You've watched me long
enough."

At first she was infuriated at his attitude, but soon calmed
herself down.  'How would I feel if I were blind, maybe
permanently?' she asked herself pragmatically.  She stood silently
next to him.

"Am I taking your place?" he asked.

"Yes, I usually sit here and read in the afternoons," she said.
She narrowed her gaze at him and continued, "But you know that
don't you?"

"Yes," he admitted with a shrug of his shoulder.  "I may not be
able to see, but my other senses have taken over for me.  I've
heard your footsteps on the path near my porch and smelled your
scent as you walked by almost every day.  Don't let me stop you,"
he said, scooting over an inch or two.

"Never mind," she sniffed.  "I'll come back another time."

"Wait, please," he called.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to be rude.
I'll go.  I'm just bored out of my mind now that there is no
electronic entertainment.  It's difficult to entertain myself
without the use of my eyes."

She stopped and turned back to him.  "Boredom is no reason to be
rude, Adam."  Her voice was low, barely a loud whisper over the
sounds of the ocean.  It had been damaged by the gas used during
one of the attacks of the aliens.  She normally didn't even think
about it, but was now somewhat embarrassed by it.  In a previous
world, her husky voice would have been considered sexy, alluring.
Now it was just another reminder of the ravages of war.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

She stood there studying him, this stranger that had been thrust
into her isolation.  "It's a book on horticulture," she said.

"Oh, I thought it might be a novel that you could share," he said
wistfully.

She grinned to herself.  "Well, I did bring another book along,
just in case the gardening book was too boring," she admitted.
"Would you like me to read to you?"

"It's not one of those girly bodice-rippers is it?" he teased in a
scolding voice.

"No!  It's ..." she stopped, realizing that he was teasing her.
"It's a book I found in the library that looked funny.  It's called
Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore."

"Vampires, Eve?" he chuckled.

She laughed along with him and then said, "Well, it does have a
subtitle, 'A Love Story'.  Why?  Not interested in the paranormal?"

"Let's just say my interest in the unusual has waned since the
invasion," he said sadly.

"I think it's that way for all of us," she responded.  "Are you
game?"

"Please," he responded as he scooted over to give her room to sit
down next to him in the shade.

She settled herself and began to read, "Sundown painted purple
across the great Pyramid while the Emperor enjoyed a steaming whiz
against a dumpster in the alley below," she began.

Thus began their friendship.

XXXXX

Dana walked briskly up the path to the clinic.  Today was the day
Kurt was going to remove the bandages from Adam's eyes and face.
She slowed, thinking that perhaps she should have changed her
clothes before she left, but shook her head.  She was not trying
to impress this man.  She had no need to impress any man since
losing Mulder.  He was a friend and she was going to lend him
moral support.  That was all.

She met up with Kurt at the door of the clinic.  He had been
overseeing the planting of the new crops that they had discussed
recently.  Even though they had an abundance of canned and dried
foods, fresh vegetables and fruits would be a welcome addition to
their meals now that their supply from the mainland had ended.

"Hello, D... Eve," he called out when he saw her.  He didn't fully
understand her need to hide her real name from Adam, but he went
along with it.  Perhaps it was his stubborn refusal to identify
himself that caused her pique.  It didn't matter.  She was, after
all, the reason he currently existed and he was more than willing
to do whatever she asked.

"Hello, Kurt.  Today is the big day, huh?"

He smiled and nodded.  Suzi had mentally alerted him to the fact
that Adam was waiting impatiently in the clinic already.  "Yes, I
think Adam is very happy that today is finally here."

"Do you think the procedure worked?" she asked.

"I don't know.  I believe he will have some vision restored.  The
previous exams have been promising," Kurt responded truthfully.

"Hey, you two, are you going to stand out there jawing all day or
are we going to do this?" Adam yelled from inside the clinic.

Dana smirked at Kurt and turned to walk in the door.  "In a hurry,
Adam?"

"Yes," he growled.  "Wouldn't you be?"

"Yes," she admitted.

Kurt led Adam to a chair in one of the interior rooms.  He adjusted
the lighting to a dim glow and moved to remove the bandages.  "It
may take a few minutes before your eyes adjust to the light, Adam.
Don't be upset if you can't see clearly right away.  Keep your eyes
closed until I tell you to open them after I put these drops in
them."

Tense moments passed as he removed the multiple layers of bandages
and then the black patches that had insured no light would reach
the nerves before they were completely re-grown.

As the last bandage fell away, Dana gasped.

"Do I have a lot of scaring around my eyes?" Adam asked.  He had
kept his eyes closed as requested, half in fear of failure and half
in pleasure of the faint pink glow he could see through his closed
eyelids.  "Eve?  What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she croaked out.

"All right, Adam, you may open your eyes when you're ready," Kurt
said after he finished with the drops.

Adam felt his lids flutter but did not allow them to open.  The
drops were at first a stinging intrusion, then a welcome addition
as they worked on lubricating his eyeballs.  He let his eyes slit
open and the first thing he saw was the smiling face of Kurt
Crawford.  Adam smiled and said, "You still have your red hair."

Kurt's eyebrow rose in surprise.  "You knew I had red hair?"

"Yes," Adam said.  "I met one of your brothers years ago.  I think
you've succeeded, Kurt, even more than you expected.  I used to be
red/green colorblind.  But I can see your red hair," he said with a
delighted laugh.  He looked around and asked, "Where's Eve?"

The men looked around for her, but both of them were surprised that
she was no longer in the room.  Adam wanted to go get her, but Kurt
had a number of tests and procedures he had to complete in order to
make sure that Adams sight was fully restored.

The next big shock for Adam was Suzi.  "My God!" he gasped.  "Suzi
is a Samantha clone."  Tears flooded his eyes as the little girl
came closer to him and patted his arm.  He held out his hands to
her and she grinned up at him as she climbed up on his lap.  Adam
sobbed as he held her and rocked her.

"She says that she looks like someone you loved a long time ago,"
Kurt said.

"Yes," Adam replied.  "She does."  He kissed the little girl and
sent her on her way back to the main house.  "Thank you, Suzi, for
all your help.  I'd really like to be alone for a while tonight, if
you don't mind."

Kurt glanced at him in surprise, but nodded at the child and she
skipped out the door.  Kurt resumed the testing.

It was almost dark outside when they were done.  Kurt was finally
assured that the procedure had worked and was completed.  He gave
Adam a few precautions to follow and they both left to go to the
main house for supper.

Eve was conspicuously absent from the dinner table when they got
there.  Adam wanted to go to her room to get her, but Kurt asked
him to wait until he spoke with her.  He had been receiving a
feeling of unrest from the clones in the house since her return.
She was upset and they had picked it up from her, broadcasting it
to Kurt several hundred yards away.

XXXXX

Dana Scully was in shock.  Adam was Mulder.  Her mind reeled with
this information.  He was alive.  She had mourned this man so many
times in her life, only to have him come back from the dead.  She
was shocked more by her own surprise than by the fact that he was
alive.

What if it wasn't really Mulder?  She should have known that the
man behind the bandages was Mulder.  If this was a clone or an
alien sent here to destroy her, what was she going to do?  She had
heard countless stories of Enforcers posing as Mulder to gain
access to pockets of the Rebels, only to kill all of them, down to
the last man, woman and child.  Could she harm a being that looked
like Mulder?  Not for the first time, she wished she had a gun at
her disposal here.  She immediately dismissed this as a minor
concern.  Spender knew where she was all along and had not chosen
to destroy her before now.
 
Her mind circled back to her original thoughts.  She should have
known.  Why did she not feel him?  How could she have missed all
the clues?  Now that she looked back, she realized that they were
there.  The long lanky body, the artist's hands, hadn't changed.
Oh, they were scared, they were damaged, but they were the same.
She should have known.  Her heart soared with happiness even as
doubt began to cloud her mind.  She was again gripped with an
unreasonable fear.

She sank down in the hot water of her tub in an effort to drive the
icy cold fear from her body.  What if he didn't remember his own
name?  What if he didn't remember her?  What if he wanted to forget
everything that had happened since the coming of the Enforcers?
She couldn't blame him if he had blocked his past from his mind.
Hadn't she begged God for forgetfulness many times in the past
herself?  She needed this time to process the shock of seeing him
again.

She began to shake, recognizing the signs of shock.  She drained
some of the water from the tub and turned on the hot water again.
She needed to warm up.  She felt that she would never be warm
again.

Who had brought him here?  Was it Walter Skinner?  Did he find
Mulder and have him brought to this island prison too?  Or was it
Spender?  Did he do it to torture her?  Why hadn't Mulder known
that it was her?

The two big questions in her mind remained.  Did he have true
amnesia from a head wound or was he psychologically damaged by the
horrors of war?  The really big one was, however, would he remember
who she was and what they had been to each other?

She climbed out of the tub and dried off quickly.  She was still
cold so she pulled on her flannel pajamas and a heavier fleece robe
that Kurt had given her last winter.  She pulled on a pair of heavy
wool socks before she walked across the room to made herself a cup
of tea at the little gas cook top in the kitchenette.  To call this
her bedroom was a true understatement.  It was a master suite with
a small kitchenette and a sitting area by the fireplace.

She turned off all the lights and sat in front of the fire she had
started for warmth.  She pulled her afghan down from the settee and
tried to get warm.

XXXXX

There was a soft knock on her door and she thought about ignoring
it for a moment.  When it sounded again, she got up and unlocked it,
pulling it open to find Kurt there.

"Dana, may I come in?" he asked.

"Are you alone?" she said automatically.

"Yes, Adam is downstairs waiting for me to find out if you are all
right."

"Adam."

"Dana, what's wrong?  Is it Adam?"  His concern was escalating with
each of her terse responses.

"That's not his name," she said.

"Do you know who he is, Dana?"

"Yes," she said with a sigh.  "I know who he's supposed to be, at
least."

Kurt looked at her closely and for the first time saw the outward
signs of distress that she tried to hide.  "Dana, let's sit down."

They went back to the fireplace and sat down.  Kurt was very
careful to wrap the afghan around her for maximum warmth.  "Tell
me," he coaxed.

"Did he tell you his name?" she asked right away.

"No, but he was concerned about his friend, Eve.  He wanted to know
why you ran away."

"Kurt, do you know why I'm here?" she asked, suddenly unsure of
anything and everyone.

"Yes, you were placed here for your safety's sake by Walter
Skinner, the leader of the New Order."  He gave her a puzzled look
and said, "What does that have to do with Adam?"

"I don't know, well, at least I didn't until today.  Kurt, the man
that we've called Adam for lack of a better name looks exactly like
my ... my former FBI partner, Fox Mulder.  I don't have to tell you
about the abilities of the beings you call the Enforcers.  I have
personally seen one of them impersonate my partner and then morph
back into his true self right in front of my eyes."

"What does that have to do with Adam?"

"Kurt, that man looks like Mulder, but what if he really isn't him?
Why was he brought here in the first place?  What if he's here to
kill me?"

Kurt opened his mouth to deny her fears, but thought better of it
and snapped it shut.  "I'll be right back," he said suddenly.
"Lock your door behind me and don't let anyone in except me."

"If he is an Enforcer, he could morph into you, too," Dana said
almost hysterically.

"Then don't let anyone in unless they use a password.  What do you
want to use?"

"Queequeg," she said automatically.

Kurt nodded and smiled.  "Queequeg, it is."  He slipped out of her
door and she threw the lock, then thought better of it and pushed a
chair under the handle for reinforcement.

Nearly a half an hour passed before there came another knock on her
door.  She startled from her place by the fire and went to answer
it.  "Who is it?"

"It's Kurt, Dana."

She backed away from the door, looking for something to use as a
weapon.

"Queequeg, Dana, the password is Queequeg," he whispered.

She decided to take her chances and opened the door.  Kurt was
standing there and she could see Mulder standing at the end of the
hall.  She moved back to let Kurt enter.

"Dana, it's him.  I told him that Eve recognized him from before
and thought that he was dead.  She was afraid that an Enforcer had
faked his way in here.  He admitted that he was Mulder right away,
but said that Adam was as good a name as any, since the only person
he wanted to call him 'Mulder' had been dead for almost two years."

Dana shook her head in denial.  She wasn't exactly clear, even in
her own mind what she was denying.

"Dana, you have to let him know you're here," Kurt urged.

"No," she whispered.  "I can't."

"Why?"

"It can't be him.  He's ... I gave up all hope of ever seeing him
again and I don't think I could bear it if it's not really him."

"Dana," Kurt scolded.  "Why would he lie?  Why would he go through
the months of blindness to see again if he were a fake?  After I
thought about it, I realized that he would have to be a genius to
change the settings on the stasis pod to register as human if he's
not.  Talk to him, let him tell his story."

Dana Scully was torn.  She wanted this to be Mulder so badly, but
she was terrified that it was just another set up, a way to torture
her.  However, the desire to see Mulder again, to touch him and
kiss him, was overwhelming.

"All right, I'll talk to him," she agreed.  "But not directly.  I
want you to take him back down to the library and get him to tell
you his story.  I'll be in the servant's entrance behind the
curtains listening.  I'll know if it's really Mulder."

Kurt argued with her for a few minutes but could not change her
mind.  He finally agreed to her plan.  She had convinced him to ask
Adam/Mulder a few questions she had supplied.  These questions
could only be answered by the true Mulder.

"Give me a few minutes after you get settled to get in place," she
instructed him.  "I need a few minutes to clean up before I join
you."  She blushed as Kurt smirked at her.  "Get out of here."

XXXXX

"Why won't she come down and talk to me?" Mulder asked.  He was
concerned by Eve's reaction to him.  She was one of the few friends
he had here, not to mention the only other non-genetically enhanced
or generated being.  'How politically correct does one have to be
post apocalypse?' he thought with an inner grin.  "What is her real
name?" he asked.

Kurt waited until they were seated before responding to his
questions.  "She was one of the final freedom fighters captured.
She had heard that you were dead and that there was an Enforcer
using your identity to ferret out all the rest of the surviving
humans not in the interment camps."

"That's a valid fear except for the fact that I was in the stasis
pod and you surely should know that I'm human.  I mean, doesn't
that contraption give you all the readouts that would prove that
I'm human?"

"Yes, yes, you're right, but she's had a hard time adjusting to
life here and your appearance has thrown her for a loop.  When she
saw your face, she thought that you were just another way to
torture her.  You didn't help anything, you know, by not giving us
your real name."

"Well, I told you, I had my reasons," Mulder said.

"Yes, you did.  Now, exactly how did you get here?  Who sent you?"

"I don't really know.  One minute I was in the middle of a
firefight and heard an explosion.  The next, I woke up here in the
clinic," he said with a shrug.  "I should be dead.  I was in one of
the final groups engaged.  All the others we had heard about were
executed on the spot, too many injuries, too hard-headed to be
useful in the new regime."

"Nothing?  You don't remember anything else?" Kurt pried.  He was
trying to think of a way to ask him the questions Dana had supplied
without giving away her true identity.  She should have thought
that her questions would sound strange coming from him.  How could
he know to ask them unless he was prompted by Dana Scully, herself?
His attention was drawn back to the man in front of him as he began
to answer his last question.

"Yeah, pain.  Lots and lots of pain," he said quietly.

"I could tell by your wounds and old scars that you'd been through
the mill," Kurt agreed.  "How did you keep going?"

Mulder looked at him for a long moment then away to stare in the
fire.  The moments expanded and Kurt thought he wasn't going to
answer.

"I ... I didn't really mind the physical pain.  It kept my mind off
... other things," he mused.

"Other things?  What?"

"Things like the end of civilization as I knew it, the waste of our
environment and the mass slaughter of my species.  Why I wasn't
able to prevent all the deaths.  All ... the ... people, the
innocent people," his broken words fell away.

"You fought valiantly, Mr. Mulder, from all accounts.  You were the
most revered leader of the resistance."

"It's easy to be valiant when everything has been taken away from
you.  I fought like I did because I wanted to die at the end.  I
fought as I did because ... I had nothing left to lose.  Every
single person I've ever loved has died because they were close to
me.  When Scully died, I had nothing to live for.  I just wanted to
do as much damage to the bastards as I could before I fell."

Kurt considered his words for several long minutes before asking,
"What does that have to do with not telling us your name?"

Mulder turned to stare at the younger man.  "Don't you see?  We
lost, even though they left, humanity has lost everything.  I've
lost everything."  He turned back to the fire before continuing.
"I don't want to be Mulder if there's no Scully in my life.  The
name Adam is as good as the next.  It's a hell of a lot easier to
put up with than Fox."

"You miss your Scully?"

"I do.  The funny thing is, I always thought I would feel it when
she died.  I didn't, though.  I never have.  I just feel empty like
I used to feel when she was away from me, visiting her family or
off on a consult with another department."  He snorted and gave
Kurt a wry grimace.  "Sometimes I lie in my cottage and listen to
the ocean.  I pretend that she's just off visiting her family and
I'm at the Vineyard.  She's going to come to me in just a few days
... a few thousand minutes, and she'll be back in my arms."

The only sound in the room was the gentle snap of the fire as it
blazed away.

He sniffed and stretched.  "I need to get back to my cottage," he
said as he made to stand up.

"No!  Why don't you stay here tonight?  I'm sure Eve will be
willing to meet with you by morning.  You could have breakfast with
us," Kurt offered.  At the contemplative glance Mulder gave him, he
said, "I'll have someone make up a room for you right away.  That
way Suzi won't have to be out in the night air."

"No, don't bother with the room.  I'm sure she's already curled up
somewhere, waiting for me.  I'll stay, but I'll just sleep here by
the fire.  I've gotten used to sleeping in a lot worse places since
the war began."

"Good," Kurt said, standing to leave.  "When you see Eve, try to
understand her fears.  She's had a hard time of it, too."

"You never did tell me her story," Mulder said.

"That's right, I didn't," Kurt said firmly.  "It's her tale to
tell."

"Yeah, I guess it is.  See you in the morning."

Fox Mulder sighed and looked back at the fire.  Everyone had their
own story.  He was sure Eve's was much more interesting than his.
He stood, stretching slowly, working out the pain in his muscles
and joints.  'I'm too damn young to feel this old,' he thought.

He walked over to the couch and pulled a couple pillows and the
afghan off the back.  He put a couple more logs on the fire and lay
down on the lush, Oriental rug in front of the hearth.  He covered
himself with the afghan and lay there staring at the fire until
sleep overtook him.

XXXXX

Dana Scully held both hands over her mouth to keep the sound of her
sobs from interrupting the conversation in the library.  Mulder's
pain was just as hers had been when she awoke here with out him.
She had wondered at the feelings she'd had, too.  She had never
been able to feel a difference in their connection.  She had
convinced herself that she was only kidding herself.  They had
never had any kind of cosmic connection in the first place.  It was
one of the things she did to keep herself sane.

She tried to stop crying several times, wanting to step out and
tell him that their pain of separation was over, but the
overwhelming joy she felt at regaining him was creating as many
tears as his loss had previously.

She tiptoed back into the kitchen and ran to the bathroom near the
servant's quarters.  Her legs gave out and she crumbled into a heap
there on the floor.  She sobbed until she became nauseous.  She
actually had the dry heaves before she brought her tears under
control.  She finally stood up and staggered to the sink.  She
splashed cold water on her face for a long time, letting the cold
water wash away the heat of her skin and the tracks of her tears.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and had to laugh.
'Damn!  I never could cry pretty,' she thought.

She dried her face and stood there examining her reflection in the
mirror.  She began to wonder how Mulder would react to seeing her
again.  She had changed.  Her hair was still short from the stasis
chamber.  What little had grown in was a ginger brown and grizzled
with white.  It had grown in straight as a stick.  'After all those
years of blow-drying it straight, I should be glad,' she thought.
Now, it just looked ugly to her.  At least her eyebrows and lashes
had grown back.  She was scarred -- everywhere.  It would probably
be a while before she could feel comfortable sharing her body with
Mulder again.

As soon as she acknowledged that thought, she knew she was wrong.
She would strip down to her skin in front of every inhabitant on
the island just to feel his body next to hers for one moment.  She
knew that their relationship was not based on physical attraction.
They had been friends and intellectual mates long before physical
love had been part of their relationship.  They'd been in denial
for years.  When the invasion began, they realized how short life
could be, and had given in to the desire they had repressed for
years, and become a couple.

With these thoughts giving her strength, she left to go to him.
They both had been alone long enough.  She needed him and was sure
that he would want her as soon as he knew who she really was.

XXXXX

Mulder turned over from his side onto his back.  He reached behind
his head and arranged the pillows to a more comfortable position.
He smacked his chops and licked his lips unconsciously.  A small
gasp made him open his eyes.

There was a woman kneeling by his feet.  He opened his eyes a
little more and smiled.  He stretched out his hand and said, "I
knew you would come to me tonight, Scully.  I always dream about
you after I think about you a lot."

Dana Scully gasped again and shook her head.  "I'm not a dream,
Mulder.  I'm really here."

"Sure, fine, whatever," he teased.  "Just don't leave until we make
love, okay?"

She laughed and nodded her head.  She reached down and pulled off
her shirt, sliding forward on her knees to shove her pants and
underwear off.  As she stood up, she stepped out of them and kicked
them away.  She stretched out her hand and let her fingertips touch
his.

"Does this feel like I'm a dream?" she asked with a smile on her
face.

"No," he said as his hand grasped hers.  "It never does, though,
until I wake up.  Don't let me wake up, Scully.  I don't want to
live without you any longer."

"How about we both wake up and live together?" she husked.

"I might as well ask for the moon to be whole again, Baby.  I'll
take what I can get," he said as he pulled her down next to him.

"Mulder, lose the clothes," she whispered.

"You do it.  I want to feel your hands on me," he begged.

"These?" she said as she lifted her scared, damaged hands level
with his eyes.

He rubbed his fingers over her hands and turned them over looking
at all the damage done to them by the war before bringing them to
his lips and kissing each one of them.  "I don't care what they
look like, Scully.  I just need to feel you.  I love you, please
love me."

So, she did.

She tugged at his shirt and quickly had it off him.  Her fingers
fumbled with the button and zipper on his jeans, but they laughed
and worked on it together.  As she drew his boxers and jeans down
his legs, she let her eyes take in his body.  She noted the new
scars, but ignored them, instead focusing on the fact that she
could count all his ribs.

"You are way too thin, Mulder.  We have to fatten you up."

"I haven't had much of an appetite without you, Scully.  Stick
around and I'll get fat and sassy," he teased.

"Oh, I intend to," she said as she lowered her lips to kiss his
chest.  "I won't ever leave again."

Their lovemaking was slow and sweet, both taking their time,
lingering over each other, letting their kisses and their touches
express the depth of their love.

She gently pushed him down on the plush rug and let her hands slide
down his body.  She had missed touching him every day since she
last saw him.  She cupped his balls with her damaged hands, making
sure that her touch was gentle.  She let her thumbs side up and
down the sides of his erection.  Thank God he had never been
damaged here.

She lowered her lips to kiss him from his silky hair, all the way
up to the tip of his erection.  God, how she had missed this man,
missed this.  His cock still felt like silk over steel, so good.
So damn good.  She licked around the head and down, circling to
kiss and lick up the other side.  She glanced up into his eyes and
smiled as she kissed the very tip, then let her tongue begin to lap at the
liquid he was producing.

"God, Scully," he groaned.  "I've missed you so damn much!  My
dreams have never been this good before."

Her hum of agreement vibrated along the length of him, making his
hips lift and his breathing speed up.

He reached down and tried to push her away.  "Baby, don't wanna
come like this.  Need to be in you, but I'm so close.  I won't be
able to stop if you don't quit now."

"You'll be in me, Mulder, but first, I need this.  I've dreamed of
this every night for a year.  Please, let me love you, Mulder.  Let
me."

He groaned but pulled his hand back, stroking through her short
hair.  "Oh, God, Scully," he bellowed as she let the entire length
of him slide down her throat in one smooth stroke.  "Fuck, fuck,
fuck!  Gonna come."

She clasped his cock at the base, putting just enough pressure on
at the right places to make his ejaculation back off, but not
enough to lessen the pleasure he was feeling as she sucked and
kissed and licked the entire length of him for several moments.

He began groaning, thrashing his head back and forth on the pillow.
His hips began to stroke up into her as she began to suck harder.

She released her grasp on his cock, sliding her hands around to cup
the cheeks of his ass.  He thrust upwards into her mouth and with
one mighty bellow of "Scully!" he came.  His ejaculate streamed
from him as thrust after thrust sent him into her throat.  His
breathing was shallow and his voice was high and thready.  "God, I
love you, Scully.  Love you to suck me off.  Love to fuck you.
Love to eat you."  This last said, he pulled her up level with his
face and kissed her.

He could taste his come on her lips.  It was one of the most
exciting things that he'd ever tasted in his life.  Almost, he
decided, as exciting as tasting her sweet nectar as he ate her.

He flipped them over, settling in the vee of her legs as if he had
never left.  They kissed for several minutes, letting their lips
speak for them as their emotions overpowered them and words became
impossible.

Finally he had his fill of her luscious lips.  He began to kiss her
face all over, moving to nibble her ears and suck on the pulse
point of her neck, leaving his mark on her.  "Wanted you for so
long," he mouthed as he moved down her body to worship her breasts.
Tears formed as he encountered the long scar that stretched across
her chest and the raised round wound that looked eerily like a
bullet wound right over her heart.  'I will ask about them later,'
he thought as his lips found and began to torture her nipples.  He
suckled and bit gently, licking and tonguing and worshiping one
then the other.

Her breathing had increased and he knew from past experience that
the little mewling sounds she was making meant that she was almost
crazy with desire.  He slid down further, nipping the soft valley
of her belly and the sweet, milky flesh that he adored just above the
line of hair that protected her sex.

He blew on the curls that had grown in, noticing the change of
texture and color as he did.  It made him sad to think about what
she had experienced in the stasis pod, but at the same time,
grateful that it had been there to give her another chance at life.

He began to nibble the hood of her clit, letting the pressure and
slight sucking of his lips excite her.  Her clit slid out and began
to throb as he started to lick and nip the flesh on and around it.
Scully's hips initiated an undulating movement that gave her
maximum pleasure as he stiffened his tongue and began to stroke
against her briskly.  He slid his hand down and let his finger
begin to stroke her around the lips of her vulva.  He could feel
the strong muscles of her vagina clench and release, clench and
release as she fought to hold back her orgasm.

"Mulder, in me," she gasped.

He lifted his head so that he could be sure that she could see his
face as he spoke to her.  "Not yet, Scully, I need to feel you come
in my mouth first.  When I fuck you, you're going to need all the
lubrication you can get, 'cause I'm going to fuck you long and
hard."

As he spoke he slid his first two fingers into her, letting them
swirl around first the outer lips and then on into the depths of
her, finally coming to rest against her G-spot.  He wiggled his
fingers in a 'come here' gesture and she practically shot off the
floor.  Her back arched and the only points touching were her
shoulders and the heels of her feet.  He laughed as he lowered his
face back down between her legs and ate her voraciously.  His
greedy tongue and questing fingers soon had her at the edge,
begging for release.

He grunted and latched on to her clit, biting it between his teeth
gently as his tongue whipped back and forth over it.

She screamed his name at the top of her lungs, her damaged voice
turning the two syllables of his name into a symphony.  "Mul ...
der!"

Her quaking lasted forever.  He couldn't tell if she had one huge
long orgasm or several strong ones in a row, but he refused to quit
his loving torture until she was weeping for mercy.

He moved back onto his knees and stared at her as she tried to
bring her panting breaths back down to somewhere near normal.  His
feral stare wasn't helping.  Instinctively he grasped his cock in
his right hand and began to slowly stroke it as he watched her
regain her composure.  She opened her eyes to glare at him, the
blue almost electric in the light of the fire.

She smiled and stretched, cat-like, letting the points of her
breasts beckon and tease him again.  "God, I needed that," she
growled.

She moved up on her knees facing him.  The golden glow of the fire
washed over her body and reminded him of how she had looked that
first weekend they had made love.  It had been at his cabin at
Quonochontaug in front of the fire there, the same golden glow, the
same blue flames in her eyes, and the same love in his heart for
this woman.  It had been the first place they fled to when the
invasion came.  There they had made plans to join to the
resistance.  He hadn't thought anything could match that moment,
but this dream made even that magic moment pale.

He cupped her face in his hands and leaned forward, half way to
meet her in a long, wet, tender kiss.  They had always loved
kissing one another.  It was all they had to keep them going for a
long time.  There was rarely privacy or time for sex when you were
on the run for your life from an invading force that out gunned
you.

She placed her hands on his upper arms, sliding forward to straddle
his thighs.  Her need to be as close to him as possible transmitted
itself to him, and he let his hands slide down her body to cup her
derriere, lifting her to his lap.  Her arms twined around his neck
automatically.

She wiggled closer, trapping his turgid cock between them as she
pressed her breasts against his chest.  "I've missed you, Mulder.
I missed everything about you, not just the sex."  She kissed his
face, eyes, nose, cheeks, chin.

"I missed you too, Scully.  I can't believe that when I wake up,
this will all be gone," he said sadly.

"I've told you I will always be here.  Why can't you believe me?"
she groaned as his finger found their way to her clit, pinching and
stroking her into a frenzy again.

"It's always the same.  No matter how much I dream, what I dream
about, you always promise to stay and I always wake up alone," he
admitted.

"Well, we'll just have to see in the morning, won't we," she
teased.  She moved back and grasped his cock as she rose up on her
knees, locking them in place to allow for their maximum pleasure.
She slid it back and forth over her labia, letting the dusky juices
of her earlier orgasm lubricate it.

"Yeah," he grunted as she unlocked her knees and let him thrust up
into her, sinking all the way down to bottom out against his balls.
"Fuck!" he spat, the pleasure of her tight walls threatening to
bring him off already.

He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers.  The challenge he
saw there was unmistakable.  He smirked and placed his hands on her
hips, lifting her slightly and changing the angle of his penetration
and letting her drop.

"Jesus, Mulder," she wailed as she wrapped her legs around him,
pulling up as close to him as humanly possible.  They began to move
back and forth, up and down, rocking slowly but surely toward
completion.

He never took his eyes off hers, all the while whispering soft
words of love, profanities and protestations of desire.  His words
enflamed her, and she growled, accepting the challenge.

They moved together, as one until they couldn't hold back their
release another second.

Mulder threw back his head and howled, the ancient, guttural sounds
not unlike those of the wolf as he covered his mate.  Scully buried
her lips against his shoulder and as her orgasm overtook her, she
bared her teeth and marked this man as her mate for all time.

They both lost consciousness for a few minutes, falling over on
their sides.  They automatically stretched out and cuddled
together, even when unconscious.  Scully woke for a moment,
consciousness lasting only long enough for her to reach over for
the pillows and the afghan to cover them.  Mulder grunted and
roughly pulled her back down into his arms, wrapping her tightly
against him, not wanting to lose one precious moment of his dream.

She knew that he didn't really believe that she was there, that he
thought this all was a dream.  She didn't care.  She didn't want to
take the time to stop and explain it all to him right now.  There
would be time enough to talk tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

XXXXX

Mulder woke up smiling.  He reached over to pull Scully into his
arms and met only the cold stone of the hearth under his
fingertips.  He lifted his head and looked around before letting it
fall in defeat back to the covers.

It was a dream.  He once again asked himself how many times he
could live through this disappointment.  How many more dreams had
to happen before he decided that his pathetic life wasn't worth
living with out her?

He lay on his back, trying to fight the tears that threatened to
fall.  Their burning heat finally spilling over and racing
downwards to slip into his hair.

"You're finally awake."

He knew he was crazy now.  He was even hearing her when he was
awake.  Perhaps he'd died in the night and hadn't realized it yet.

"Mulder, look at me," her husky voice urged.

He shook his head.  "No, if I don't look, then I don't have to
accept that you're not really here," he said stubbornly.

"If you do open your eyes, you'll see that I am really here and
will be here for you forever," she whispered.  Her voice sounded as
if she were close, mere feet away from him.

"No, it's happened too many times in the past.  I don't ... I can't
deal with it now.  I'm just going to go back to sleep and pray I
can handle it when I wake up."

"You, praying Mulder?  Don't tell me you believe in God now," she
laughed.

"If you're really here, there has to be a God," he said as he let
his eyes slit open enough to see her sitting in the chair at his
head.  "Holy Shit!  Where are the Jews for Jesus when you need
them?" he bellowed as he jumped to his feet and threw himself at
her.
 
Her laughter was mingled with tears as they hugged each other as
tightly as possible.

"Scully?  Is it really you?" he gasped.  "I can't believe it!"

"Yes," she cried.  "It's really me, Mulder."

"Don't lie to me.  Don't fucking kid with me.  If you're a shape
shifter, I'll kill you with my bare hands," he growled, squeezing
her tightly.

"Mulder, I can't breathe!" she laughed.  "It's me," she said as she
pulled his head to her breast.  "Listen, that's my heart."

He loosened his grasp enough to be comfortable as he let her steady
heartbeat calm him.  "It's you!  You were Eve?" he asked.  As he
listened to her heart and her simple words, he realized that their
hearts were beating in sync.

"Yes," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me who you were before?" he demanded.  He
pulled back to glare at her.  "All this time we've wasted."

"You were the one that refused to talk, if I remember correctly.
Why should I give a cantankerous old man my real name?" she shot
back.  She let her hand drift to the white of his hair.  "I didn't
know it was you, Mulder.  Until I could see your face and your
eyes, I didn't know it was you."

He studied her blue eyes for a moment and the truth sunk in.  He
had changed, physically, and so had she.  They had expected to
never see each other again, and in their grief, they had missed the
clues that would have given them joy.

He stood up and ripped her shirt off her, sliding her sweatpants
down her legs before she could protest.  He tore at his clothes and
quickly stood naked before her.  The morning sun was bright through
the huge French doors of the library.  There was no firelight to
mute the scars or soften the edges of their bodies.

He let his hands slide from scar to scar on her arms and hands,
bring them to his lips to kiss each one.  He let his damaged
fingers trace over the curve of her cheek, stroking gently the long
vicious scar that marred her perfect white skin.  When his hands
stopped he just stood there gazing at her for many long moments
while she touched him.

When she was done and their eyes once again met he murmured, "You
have freckles."

"Freckles," she sobbed.  All the changes her body had gone through
and all he noticed were her freckles.  She nodded and said, "I've
been out in the sun in the gardens and along the beach every day."

"You're beautiful, Scully.  Just as beautiful to me as the day you
walked into my office that first day over a decade ago."

"You are too, Mulder, but you're much too skinny, just like you
were then.  Let's go get some breakfast then we need to talk."

"No, no more talking," he said adamantly.

"But," she protested.
 
"I'll eat breakfast with you, but then we're going back to my
cottage where we can have the privacy we need.  I don't want to
share you with anyone."

"All right," she said, surprising him.

"Just like that?  You agree with me?" he said with a smile.  "I
could get used to this, Scully."

"Don't count on it happening forever, Mulder," she teased back.  "I
just don't want to let you go until I've had my fill of you,
either."  Her voice had lowered and she blushed as she watched his
eyes dilate.

"I'm sure I have something at the cottage for breakfast," he said
as he stepped closer to her.

She looked down at his erection and then up to smile into his eyes.
"I'm sure you do but I promised that we'd join Kurt this morning.
He needs to know that we're okay, Mulder.  He's been a good friend
to both of us."

He frowned but nodded his agreement.  "Breakfast, then I'm stealing
you away for at least a week."

"I should pack a bag before we go," she said as she began pulling
her clothes back on.  She noted the rip in her shirt that his haste
had caused.  She added, "By the way, I don't know how long we're
going to be able to scavenge usable clothing, Mulder.  We have to
take care of what we have."

"Who says you're going to be wearing clothes?" he deadpanned.

XXXXX

They were surprised when they walked into the dining room.  Almost
every house worker was present, waiting for them to arrive.
Outside the doors to the patio, the balance of the clones and
hybrids that made up the population of the island waited.  Mulder
and Scully were at a loss as to what they were to do.  Kurt quickly
filled them in.

"Everyone is here because they want to make sure that you are
happy," he said.  "Just smile and wave and wish them a good day.
They know I'll tell them everything later."

Scully and Mulder walked out and stood on the top step of the
patio.  They smiled and said hello to everyone as Kurt suggested,
but they seemed to be waiting for something.  Mulder finally
realized what they wanted.

"Scully," he said.  She turned to look up at him as he wrapped his
arms around her and gave her a passionate kiss.  She tried to push
him away at first, but the heat and desire of his kiss overtook her
and soon she had wrapped herself around him, climbing his body,
trying to get closer to his lips.

Mulder broke the kiss and grinned down at her.  "I think that's
what they wanted," he said.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder as bright
pink flushed her cheeks.  "Oh, my God, Mulder, how could you do
that to me in front of all of them?"

He pulled her away from him enough for her to peek out at the
crowd.  Instead of over a hundred spectators, they were alone.
"Once we began kissing, they all turned and walked away," he said
with a smile.  "They must have just wanted to know that we were
okay together."

They walked back into the breakfast room and found that everyone
but Kurt was gone from there, too.

"You gave them what they needed," he said.  "They only want you to
be happy, Dana.  It was ingrained into their consciousness before
they were brought here to be their main directive."

"I don't think I've been this happy for years, Kurt," she said as
she smiled through her tears.  She hugged him fiercely.  "Thank you
for saving him and for giving him back his sight," she said.  "You
could have just followed your orders and let him stay as he was,
but you didn't.  I don't know why, I don't even want to have you
try to explain it to me.  I just want to thank you."

They ate their breakfast and told Kurt of their plans to go back to
Mulder's cottage for an undetermined length of time.  Kurt assured
them that all the supplies they needed would be delivered as
unobtrusively as possible.

"By the way, Mr. Mulder," Kurt said as they were preparing to
leave.  "Did you know that there's a legend about your cottage?"

"It's haunted?" Mulder asked with a laugh.

Scully rolled her eyes and waited for Kurt to continue.

"No, not haunted, exactly," he explained.  "It called The Enchanted
Cottage.  It's said that all the individuals who stay there find
their soul mates and bring them back to visit there.  It's just an
old legend, but if you look, you'll be able to see all the names of
the couples who have found happiness etched into the glass of the
window in the living room.  It's the one with the window seat."

"How would they do that?" Scully asked.

"My guess is with one of these," Kurt said.  He walked over to the
buffet by the wall and opened a drawer.  He reached in and pulled
out a handful of items and brought them back to dump on the linen
table cloth.

Scully gasped as the items tumbled from his hand.  They were
diamonds.  Loose diamonds and ones mounted in every kind of
setting, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings.

"I took them out of the safe when I needed a place to put some of
my research for safe keeping."

"Damn!  In the old days they would have been worth a king's ransom
and now they're just a bunch of shiny rocks," Mulder said.

"Oh, they're not worthless," Kurt assured him.  "We've used quite a
few of them in the machinery we've invented.  They are a great
conducer for the power source the Enforcers left."

Mulder picked up a ring and looked at speculatively.  "What do you
say, Scully?  Will you marry me?"

"Mulder," she scolded.  "We've been married in spirit since the
invasion, if not for years before that.  I don't need a wedding
ring to make a statement.  You own me, heart and soul.  Don't you
know that?"

"Yeah," he grunted.  "I do, but I still want this.  Now that I can
see, I can't wait to look at that window and check out the entire
place for any clues to the legend.  This baby will be just what we
need to etch our names in the window glass.  That way we can be
part of the legend forever."

"We already are, Mulder.  We already are."

XXXXX

EPILOGUE

Kurt Crawford woke up at the clinic again.  He was terrified.  The
only way that he could have gotten there was if he were called by
one of the Enforcers.

He looked up and saw the outline of the ship landing.  It was not
one of the huge transports, or one of the cargo ships that had been
used before the aliens left the planet.  It looked like it was only
big enough to transport one or two people.  At least he thought
they had left.  He stood paralyzed as the ship settled and the door
opened.

Instead of the hulking form of an Enforcer, a petite young woman
strode down the stairs, weapon drawn.

"You are our contact, Kurt Crawford?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"You are in charge here?" she asked.

"I am the leader of the workers.  Dana Scully is the leader here."
Kurt refused to volunteer information about Mulder unless directly
ordered to do so.

As if reading his mind, she frowned and said, "What about Fox
Mulder?  Did he not survive the stasis pod?"

"Yes, he is here too, but Ms. Scully was the individual named as my
leader."

"Very good," she said with a pert smile.  She holstered her weapon
and raised her wrist to release him from the control of the ship.

Kurt slumped but remained on his feet, still fearful of her
mission.

"I have a message here for Scully and Mulder," she said as she
reached into her side pocket and pulled out a jewel box with a DVD
in it.  "Where should I take it?"

"I'm sorry, but Scully and Mulder are not to be disturbed after
dark," he said.  "I can have it delivered to them in the morning."

"My orders are to give this to them immediately upon arrival.  I am
not to let this out of my possession at any time until then."

"Then you will have to wait until morning," he said.  "Those are MY
orders.  No one is to approach the cottage during the night hours."

"That's ridiculous!  I need to deliver this, get a reply, and get
back to the Supreme Commander immediately!" she said, somewhat
agitated.  "Why don't they want to be disturbed?"

Kurt looked at her incredulously.  "They wish not to be interrupted
during their private hours together," he said meaningfully.

The young woman's brow furled as she tried to understand his words.
Suddenly her widened and she blurted, "Aren't they a little old to
be ... um ... needing privacy every night?"

Kurt laughed at her for a moment before shaking his head and
turning around to leave.  "You can stay here in your ship, at the
clinic, or follow me back to the main house, as you wish.  Your
message will be delivered in good time in the morning."  He knew he
took a chance at turning his back on her.  She was young and he