By Ellie
windblownellie@yahoo.com
 

Rating:  PG-13, for language and graphic images
Category: X, M/S UST, AU (veers off mid-S4)
Summary:  Mulder and Scully meet a woman who may provide
answers about the origins of Scully's cancer.
Author's Notes: This is a WIP.  Currently, the plan is to post
one update per week until finished; I'm several chapters up
now, so this will work for now.
Major beta thanks to XScribe for comments, advice, and
smoothing over the rough edges.

****
 

First Flight: those in the hunt field who follow most directly the
hounds and hunt staff in pursuit of their quarry, at speed and
over obstacles
 

****
Chapter 1
****

"And this woman got in touch with you how, exactly, Mulder?"
Scully rifled through the sparse file for the tenth time as Route
50 led them out of Washington's bustle and towards the
manicured fields of Virginia.  The information in the folder
consisted of little more than directions and a few pages of
Mulder's messy scrawl, written as he spoke with Beatrice
Stevens.

"By phone."  A glance at Scully told him that response was
neither satisfactory nor amusing.  "Actually, I'm not sure how
she found my name.  But she has an interesting history of half-
ties to the government, and I suspect some of her family has
worked for the same men as our cigarette-smoking friend.  But
she seems legitimate enough, and experienced some interesting
phenomena regarding her animals.  I told her we would be happy
to come meet with her."

"Interesting phenomena regarding her..." she paused and
scanned the folder.  "Corgis and horses?"  The weariness of so
many wild goose chases seeped through in her voice.

Mulder shifted in his seat, searching for something to spark her
interest.  "Her husband, now deceased, worked for the State
Department, but she was never sure in what capacity.  Her father
worked at the British Embassy and other members of her family
are still involved in the British government."

"Wouldn't all that make her less likely as a target of 'interesting
phenomena'?  Surely people would have taken her seriously if
she'd brought accusations of wrongdoing to light."

"You'd think, but I'm wondering if they were counting on both
upper class reluctance to talk of things out of the ordinary and an
active travel itinerary leading to her not wanting to talk or failing
too notice anything to talk about."

"Which leads to the question of why she's talking now."

"Apparently the only things you don't mess with are her animals.
When microchips were found in two of them, she had them
removed.   Within a year, both of those she had chips taken out
of developed cancer."

"Oh."  Scully fell silent as they passed a wooden sign welcoming
them to historic Aldie.

Mulder was troubled by her silence, but accepted it as he made a
left onto a smaller road.  "Where am I going after this?"  He
reached for the directions lying on the dash.

She grabbed them first, speaking safely as navigator.   "Go two
miles on this road.  Her farm is on the left, with two grey stone
pillars marking the drive.  Avalon?"

He shrugged it off.  "She was an English teacher.  Maybe it's a
literary choice."

"Right."

Both fell silent as they turned into the drive.  Maples lined the
drive, forming an archway of bright new leaves over the car.
Newly green fields rolled away to either side, bright in the spring
morning.  Dark wood boards enclosed them, three planks to the
left, where a few horses could be seen grazing; chicken wire with
a single plank surrounded the right field.  It existed in urbanized
northern Virginia like an anachronism from a fifties film or and
old novel.

The house that appeared when they reached the end of the drive
fit perfectly into the setting.  A two story redbrick colonial, it was
possessed of the easy grace of age and money.  Ivy twined up
columns that may have been white, while forsythias blossomed in
bright contrast to the brick.  Two steps led from the portico to the
circular drive where Mulder stopped the car.

They remained silent as they stepped up to the portico, their
shoes confidently announcing their arrival in a muffled staccato.
With less confidence, Mulder raised a hand to the brass knocker,
rapping on the fixture.  A lingering finger traced over the
engraved "s" as he released it.  He stepped back as the door
swung open.

Had either of them been asked to describe the imagined
inhabitant of the house, the woman appearing before them would
have certainly fit the description.  Graying blonde hair was swept
back from her face, revealing pearl earrings the size of gumballs.
Bright blue eyes were made more striking by a silk scarf around
her neck, yet there was something practical in her white linen
shirt and jeans.  Beyond her, in the foyer, stood a silent pack of
corgis, foxy faces taking in the visitors.

"Hello, welcome to Avalon. You can't be anyone but Agents
Mulder and Scully."  She extended a hand to each of them in
turn, before sweeping it aside to invite them in.  "Come in, come
in, don't mind the dogs.  Unless you're allergic, of course.  Are
either of you?"

"No, the dogs are fine."  Mulder noted the smile creeping over
Scully's face as Beatrice Stevens spoke, and he couldn't help but
grace their interviewee with one as well.

"Wonderful.  You can never be too careful now, though, with
people allergic to everything left and right.  Can I take your
coats?  Miriam!"  Her voice rang with authority across the
granite and plaster hallway.

A maid appeared, footsteps barely registering on the slate floor.
"Yes, Mrs. Stevens?"

"Please take their coats, then bring tea into the office for us."

Mulder and Scully had no choice but to follow her as she opened
a door to their right, ushering both them and the dogs through.
Once inside, they didn't make it two steps before they were both
struck by the urge to look around the room.  Its central feature
was a large, dormant fireplace, overhung with a painting of a
huntsman.  The walls were lined with books of all varieties, on
shelving perfectly matched to the mahogany furniture.  Mulder
barely registered the dog hairs on the cream upholstery, but he
did notice Dante's "Divine Comedy" shelved next to Goethe's
"Faust," and a shelf of Shakespeare's plays before drawing his
attention back to their hostess' voice.

"...was my father," she was saying to Scully as she gestured to
the painting over the fireplace.  "He was the Chief of Staff at the
British Embassy in Washington from the time I was twelve, and
owned this property for years.  Fox hunted all his life, and spent
his retirement as a field master.  He hunted the day before he
died, actually. "

An open doorway led them from the library into an office space,
done in an inversion of the burgundy and cream of the previous
room.  Brightly colored ribbons formed a border around the top
of the room, and Mulder squinted to read them.  Some were
marked with horses and emblazoned with names he vaguely
recognized as towns in the vicinity, Upperville and Culpeper and
Middleburg, while others had dogs and names of kennel clubs he
failed to recognize, excepting Harrisburg and Westminster.
Scully brushed past him, stepping closer to a sideboard that drew
his attention primarily because it piqued Scully's interest.

An array of sparkling silver frames filled a long table.  At the
front were pictures of the Stevens family--a young boy waving in
front of Big Ben, a pair of little girls in tutus--while deeper layers
showed yellowing shots of a younger Mrs. Stevens with a corgi
with a Best in Breed ribbon from Westminster Kennel Club, a
different pair of little girls on a sled, the same little girls again
on ponies, a young boy with a tennis racquet.  Most striking in the
silver were black and white pictures, and one of two women on
horseback with hounds was particularly stunning.

"Is that you with--?"

Mrs. Stevens cut Scully off with a nod, and came over to the
table, bustling with pride and joy at someone's interest in her
photos.  "Yes, it is.  Everyone who sees it asks.  Mrs. Kennedy.
My husband and his father both worked at the State Department,
and my father at the Embassy.  Somehow they volunteered one
of my horses for her use hunting with us one weekend. I always
had at least two, one to show and one to hunt, though the show
horse hunted and the hunt horse occasionally showed.  My
husband and father-in-law had a fit when I told them she was
welcome to hunt my hunter, not my show horse."

She reached past Scully and picked up the simple four by six
frame.  "We had an awful row about it, but I stood by what I
said, because as fancy as Karenina was, she had only been
hunting once with me and had a nasty buck.  So Mrs. Kennedy
rode Heathcliff, who'd been hunting for years and didn't have a
mean bone in his body.  She had a wonderful day, and ended up
hunting him twice more over the season.  I ended up with a
broken wrist after being bucked off, not an hour after this picture
was taken."

Beatrice chuckled and replaced the picture with a measure of
reverence.  "Have a seat, please."  Another frame was snatched
from the table as she moved to sit behind her desk.

A knock sounded and the maid entered, carrying a silver tea
service.  There was a long, awkward silence as the young woman
poured cups of steaming tea.

As she closed the door, Mulder cleared his throat.  "Mrs.
Stevens, thank you for inviting us out to your lovely home to
speak with us."

"If I'd known you were such a handsome young man, I would
have called you sooner.  And please, call me Beatrice.  Only the
help and my old students call me Mrs. Stevens."

"Of course, Beatrice."  Mulder smiled and turned on the charm,
though he sensed it probably wasn't necessary with this shining
example of upper-crust southern hospitaility.

"Beatrice," Scully cut straight to the heart of the matter, "when
you spoke with Agent Mulder on the phone, you discussed some
interesting phenomena with several of your dogs and horses."

"Yes, I did, Agent Scully."  She stared for a moment at the
picture frame she'd placed on her desk before setting the
photograph of her at Westminster up to face them.  "This was
Champion Avalon's Noble Sir Galahad.  He won best in breed at
Westminster twice, and was group winner once.  Galahad was
the best show dog I've had in fifty years of breeding and
showing.  He was whelped in 1978, and was at his peak as a
show dog when he disappeared for almost a month in 1981.
Paul--Mr. Stevens--was out of the country on business, as he
often was, and I had been away at a horse show for the weekend.
When I came home Sunday evening, he was gone from the
kennels.  Everything was still locked, nothing out of place, none
of the other dogs were missing.  I called the police, my friends at
the local shelters, no sign of him.

"Then in late August, I was out hacking one of my young horses,
and he came trotting out of the brush.  He was filthy, and had a
few cuts, but was otherwise fine.  In fact, after that, he was
unnaturally healthy.  He never developed arthritis, and remained
spry into his teens.  Then my son, Thomas, came home drunk
from a party one evening, and bumped into a table, knocking over
one of the dog's trophies.  It fell on Galahad, and tore up his
shoulder.  I was worried about breakage, as he was lame on it,
and had x-rays done."  She paused, almost dramatically.  "His
shoulder was fine, but there was a piece of metal in his neck."

Reaching into the top drawer of the desk, she withdrew a set of
keys and unlocked another drawer on the upper left of the desk.
Delicately, she removed a porcelain pillbox and sat it at the center
of the desk, before giving it a slight nudge in the direction of her
guests.

Scully reached over and took the box, opening it to reveal a small
metallic dot in the white box.  She tilted it towards Mulder as
Beatrice continued.

"I have no idea what that was, or how it could have gotten into his
neck.  I assumed it had happened somehow while he was
missing all those years before.  This was before it was possible
to put identification chips into one's pets.  Paul said it was just
trash, and told me to throw it away, but I've held on to it these six
years.  Six months after I had the vet take it out, I noticed
Galahad's stomach looking swollen, though he'd been eating less,
and took him back in.  He had a tumor the size of a baseball,
which we removed, though not soon enough.  Cancer had spread
to his blood and he was dead within a year.  At the time, he was
in his early teens, and such things aren't unusual for dogs of that
age, sad though they may be."

Scully's brow furrowed, and she took advantage of Beatrice's
pause.  "Was Galahad examined by the veterinarian when this
piece of metal was removed?  Did your veterinarian notice note
the developing tumor at that time?"

"Oh, well of course.  I had a complete workup when we found
the chip, just to make sure there weren't any other bits of metal
that we'd missed.  There were no signs of anything wrong with
him.  As many x-rays as were done, I would think the vets would
have noticed a tumor of that size developing."

"Would you object to our contacting your vet's office, to see if
they still have the x-rays?"  Mulder sat to the edge of his seat,
preparing to fetch the x-rays that instant.

"No."  Beatrice shook her head, and Mulder deflated.   "Well,
you can call Dr. Carruther's office, but he doesn't have the files
on Galahad.  I took them after we had him put down.  They're in
my files somewhere, just give me a moment."

She rose and turned to shuffle through the filing cabinets behind
her.  Mulder shifted eagerly in his seat, barely noticing as a corgi
puppy sidled up to Scully's chair.  He glanced over at her as she
stretched down to pet its head.  For a split second he envied the
puppy, then dismissed his foolishness.

Beatrice turned back from the filing cabinets, an immense manila
file in hand.  "Here we are.  Oh, who's managed to beg some
attention from you, Agent Scully?"  She peered over the desk as
she laid down the file.  "Tristram.  He's such a spoiled little runt.
Galahad's great grandson, but not half the dog Galahad was.
Still, he'll make a nice companion for someone."

She flipped through the folder until she reached an envelope,
which she pulled out and passed across the desk to Scully.
"These are all of them."

Scully took the envelope, removing her attention from the puppy
at her side to open it and flip through the neatly labelled films.
Mulder watched her skim over them until she found one of the
shoulders, neck, and forelegs.  He could see the trepidation as
she held it up to the bright spring light streaming through the
windows.  The microchip was clearly visible, a bright spot
between the skin's ghostly outline and the solid forms of the
scapula.

"May we take these with us, Beatrice?"  She dropped it back into
the pile on her lap.

"Oh, certainly, certainly."

Mulder broke in.  "Would we be able to take the chip with us,
too, for our experts look at?"

"Quite all right with me."

"Has anything similar occurred with any of your other dogs?"

"Not with the dogs, Agent Scully.  After that happened with
Galahad, I had all of my dogs checked.  I traveled so frequently,
a dog could have been gone for several weeks at some point and
I would never have known.  Nothing was found in any of mine,
but I rather wonder about all the dogs I'd sold on to other homes.
But I have recently realized that several of my horses may have
experienced something similar."

"What made you suspicious about them?" Scully asked.

"Marks on their withers, though I first noticed them years ago."

This was met with puzzled looks from both Mulder and Scully.
After a pause, Scully managed, "Do you mean scarring, as if
surgery had been performed?  And where exactly?"

The older woman nodded.  "I noticed that two of my mares had
white hair growing on their withers--where the neck joins the
shoulders.  That's normally a sign of a saddle rubbing them, but
their saddles never did. I had the saddler check them when I
noticed, as they were both being shown at the time, but we
couldn't find a cause. Paul convinced me that it was probably just
a random pasture injury, which seemed plausible enough.
Ophelia I had worked over before she was sent off to be bred last
spring, and the veterinarians found a similar piece of metal to the
one I had removed from Galahad.  Like with Galahad, I had the
chip removed, though the vets disposed of this one.  The
breeding never took, and she's developed several melanomas
since the summer, which aren't terribly common in black horses."

"You said there were two horses?"  Scully jotted quick notes on a
small tablet.

"Yes, the other was Tinkerbelle, who had been my daughters'
show pony.  She's in her thirties now, and has been a pasture
puff since the girls outgrew her.  But I couldn't bear to part with
her.  I noticed her markings around the same time as Ophelia's,
but I've never had anything done about them.  Like Galahad
before the removal of his chip, Belle's still very spry and feisty,
carrying on like a ten-year-old."

"And these horses never disappeared as your dog did?"

"I can't say for certain, Agent Mulder.  Definitely not that
weekend, and never to my knowledge, but that doesn't mean they
couldn't have vanished at some point without my noticing.  After
the children were old enough, I often acted as both an instructor
and chaperone for the Foxcroft interim trips abroad, and would
be gone for a month.  Especially once Julia and Charlotte were
old enough to be enrolled and accompany me, they could have
been gone.  I went every year then.  But Paul made it a point to
stay here during those times, to keep an eye on Thomas.  He
would have noticed if they went missing."

"You don't have any reason to suspect your husband would have
not told you if they'd disappeared and were returned while you
were gone?"  Mulder hoped he'd been tactful.

For a long moment, Beatrice sat, her brow furrowed.  "While he
was alive it never occurred to me that he would try to hide
anything like that from me, even if he thought it would upset me.
But after he passed last winter, and I began thinking about things
like this, it did become more suspect.  He never wanted me
delving into things, and was dismissive of my concerns about
them."

"Was he that way in general?"  Scully asked.

"Oh, no.  Normally he panicked anytime something went wrong
with the animals.  He was fine with them when they were healthy,
but useless when they weren't."

"Both of these horses are still in your possession?"

"They all have a home for life with me.  Would you like to meet
them?"

Mulder's nod set Beatrice back into motion, though he noticed a
slight hesitation on Scully's part.  How could she not be
intrigued by this, and eager to see living proof, he wondered.

****

Feedback makes my day: windblownellie@yahoo.com
www.geocities.com/windblownellie/firstflight.htm

****
Chapter 2
****

Beatrice left them standing by the fence as
she went into the ten stall barn to
retrieve halters for her horses.  Mulder
turned to face Scully, the spring sun
warming his back, his tall form casting a
shadow over her face.

"What do you think?"  There was an edge of
cautious enthusiasm in his voice.

She turned her face out of his shadow,
gazing over the pasture where the horses
had raised their heads to examine the
intruders to their world.  "She's certainly
noticed some interesting coincidences with
both her dog and her horses, and while she
seems solidly eccentric in the way only the
wealthy can be, she also appears to be
honest.  However, what she perceives as the
truth may be a far cry from what the truth
actually is.  I'd like to speak with the
veterinarians about the animals' health in
general."

He could do little more than nod in
response as he saw Beatrice emerge from the
stable, leather halters slung over each
shoulder.  Both agents jumped slightly as a
high, clear whistle escaped her lips.
Before she'd crossed the half dozen steps
to their side, the dull thunder of
hoofbeats over grass was growing louder
behind them.  Beatrice didn't hesitate,
walking straight for the green gate.  Eight
horses met her there in short order, and
she dropped one halter and rope into the
grass before opening the gate and stepping
into the herd.

Mulder could barely follow her head through
the tangle of horses, until she returned to
the gate with a black mare.  When she
opened the gate, the mare plodded out after
her, raising no fuss when she paused to
relatch the gate.

"Meet Ophelia," she said as she tied the
mare to a fencepost in an elaborate knot
that Mulder vaguely remembered from
childhood.  "Come closer, she won't bite.
You can see the first white mark I noticed
here."  She touched the mare's withers and
a patch of white hair marring them.

Mulder eyed the horse warily, crinkling his
brow as he looked at what seemed to be a
blindfold on her face.  Scully took a step
closer to Beatrice, tentatively patting the
animal's shoulder.  Before Mulder could ask
about the mask on the horse, Beatrice
reached up and pulled it off with a rip of
Velcro.

"Poor darling started developing carcinomas
in the summer.  They're relatively common
in gray horses, but rare in darker colored
animals.  I've had a few grays that have
developed them, but they've never grown and
spread this rapidly.  Then last month, I
noticed something amiss with her eye.  She
has a carcinoma there.  Again, those aren't
uncommon in horses, but are most often seen
in Appaloosas or Paints with white around
the eye--not in Thoroughbreds.  I've been
keeping a fly mask on her to keep it
somewhat protected, but I don't know that
it makes much difference."

Scully was silent as she ran her hands over
the mare's dull black coat, dropping them
as the horse pulled away from the fingers
tracing the outline of her eye.  "What has
your vet had to say about this?  Do you use
the same vet for your dogs and horses?"

Beatrice shook her head, reaching up to
scratch the mare between her ears as she
did so.  "No, I have an equine practitioner
for the horses and a separate small animal
vet for the dogs.  Both have clinics up the
road in Middleburg.  I've had Ophelia up to
be examined by Virginia Tech's equine
center in Leesburg as well.  Everyone's
been puzzled by the aggressiveness and
rapid progress of the cancer, which is
normally fairly benign.  We had surgery
scheduled for two weeks ago-just a few
weeks after we found it, mind you-and by
that point, it was already too far gone to
operate.  She's lost approximately eighty
percent of her vision in that eye.  It
looks as if the tumor is eating through the
eye itself.  Their best advice at the
checkup last week was to put her down, and
I can't disagree.  She's being put down on
Monday."  Her voice remained matter of
fact, even in announcing the death sentence
pronounced for the horse her hand rested
on.

Mulder was startled at the casualness in
her tone.  "You don't sound very broken up
about that."  His gaze locked on Scully as
he spoke, watching as she once again traced
her hand down the mare's neck.  Mulder
stepped closer to her, ostensibly peering
at the mare's clouded eye, but taking the
opportunity to drop his hand onto the small
of Scully's back.

"Every story ends in death, Agent Mulder.
I've been raising horses and dogs all my
life, and have been hunting since I could
ride.  You come to gain a sense of respect
for the cycle of life and death that way.
These animals give us their hearts; it's
our duty to see that they find a fitting
end."  There was steel in her voice, and
she met his eyes as she continued, "It
doesn't mean I love her any less.  She
raced as a youngster, produced two lovely
foals, had ten years as a show horse, and
hunted.  She's had a good life, and my only
regret is that her cancer and the
euthanasia will prevent me from giving her
the end that truly befits a good hunter."

Scully's gaze turned from the mare's neck
to the pasture, where the other horses were
now grazing by the fence.  A moment of
tense silence hung before she continued,
"Most live out their lives in the pasture,
then, after retiring?"

Beatrice sighed and looked from Scully to
Mulder and back.  "Most do, yes," she
began, speaking carefully.  "But that's not
what I meant in this case.  It's considered
a proper end after the death of a good
field hunter for its body to be butchered
and fed to the foxhounds.  It sounds a bit
shocking to you, I'm sure, but it's a sign
of great respect for the horse, for its
body to end in the cycle of hound, fox, and
horse."

"Like a sailor to the sea."  Scully's voice
was far away.

"Exactly."  Beatrice nodded solemnly to
Scully.  She reached up and began to
replace the fly mask on the mare.  "She
should have an end such as that."

Without another word, she untied the horse
and led her back to the gate, releasing her
and reaching down for the other halter in
the grass.

This time she emerged from the tangle of
horses with a brown and white paint pony,
who she tied just as she had done with the
mare.  Mulder stepped closer, less
intimidated by the smaller creature.  As he
did so, the pony tried to turn and look at
them, placing its hoof squarely on Mulder's
toes.

"Belle!"  Beatrice's voice was very nearly
a growl, and she gave the pony a firm swat
on the shoulder with her palm.  It
immediately stepped off Mulder's foot.

Scully turned to him as Beatrice dealt with
the unruly pony.  One eyebrow arched
slightly in concern as she watched him hop
a few steps backward.

"Ah.  I'm—uh--I'm fine. Really."  Mulder
wiggled his toes inside his shoe before
retreating behind Scully, out of the pony's
range.

"I should have warned you, I apologize.
Tinkerbelle is smaller than Ophelia, but is
a much bigger brat.  Ponies."  She shrugged
and turned to glare at the pony, who stood
innocently, an ear swiveled back to catch
her voice.  "If they think they can get
away with something, they'll try it.  By
her age, though, it's rather unusual.  She
taught both my daughters to ride and is now
in her mid-thirties.  I've known several
who lived as long, but none that stayed so
healthy.  She's shown no signs of
arthritis, of joint problems, of vision
problems, nothing.  Because of her
coloring, Tink's a much more likely
candidate for carcinomas than Ophelia, but
has never had a problem.  I don't think
this pony's taken an off step in at least
fifteen years."

Scully eyed the pony, then ran her hand
lightly over its shiny coat, just as she
had with the mare, stopping at the withers.
"This is the same mark the larger mare had.
But you can hardly notice it, with all the
white on her.  You're sure she has the same
type of subcutaneous chip the other animals
had?"

"I had all of them x-rayed after the chip
was found in Ophelia.  This is the only
other mare I have, and the only other horse
with a chip.  But I didn't have this one
removed."

"Why did you decide to leave hers, after
removing the other two?"  Scully continued
the line of questioning.

"By that time, I was already noticing the
tumors on Ophelia, and was wondering if
they might be related.  There was no reason
to remove it, either, as it didn't seem to
be harming her, however long it has been
there."

"Those x-rays are all with your vet?"

"All of the horses', yes.  Let me put her
back, and I'll get you their number from
the tack room."  Beatrice untied the pony,
who immediately tried to take a bite of the
leadrope.  After replacing the pony in the
field, she once more disappeared into the
wooden barn, carrying the halters.

Scully sighed and looked down at Mulder's
feet.  "Is your foot all right?"

"Yeah, it's fine, really.  Better me than
you in those fancy shoes, anyway.  But that
little thing was surprisingly heavy."  He
bounced back and forth, offering proof of
his well-being.

"It's not the size, it's the way that you
use it."  She quirked an eyebrow up at him.

"And just what do you mean by that, Agent
Scully?"

"I'm telling you that you shouldn't make
assumptions based on size, Agent Mulder."
A smile teased at the corners of her lips.

Mulder chuckled softly, sobering when
Beatrice approached again.

"This is the number for the Middleburg
Equine Clinic.  It's about fifteen minutes
down the road.  Just continue on fifty
west, through Middleburg, then make a right
at the fourth crossroads.  Ask for Dr. June
Miller.  I'll call her and ask her to make
a copy of Ophelia and Tinkerbelle's records
for you."

Scully took the business card from
Beatrice, glancing briefly at the number
before tucking it into the manila case
folder.  "Thank you, Beatrice.  I look
forward to taking a look at those records.
Is your dogs' veterinarian based out of the
same offices?"

"No, the clinic is strictly equine
practitioners.  Dr. Carruthers is at the
Animal Hospital, just past the town sign as
you enter Middleburg.  I'll call ahead to
him, too, if you like."

"That would be wonderful."

"Is there anything else you need?"

"No, you've been very helpful.  Thank you
for your time, and the tea."  Mulder smiled
and reached out to shake Beatrice's hand.

She took the hand, and then offered hers to
Scully.  "You're very welcome, and are
welcome here any time if ever you have more
questions."

"We will, thank you."  Scully's hand on
Mulder's forearm was the impetus needed to
set both of them moving uphill, towards
their car.

****

Two new folders had joined the initial one
on the table at Mosby's.  Each was nearly
two inches thick, the paperwork proof of
two impeccably cared for animals.  Both
were spread open in front of Scully, who
was making the best of waiting for her tuna
salad on toast.

"I have to admit that I don't feel
qualified to comment on any of this yet.
Not until I can dig out some veterinary and
equine anatomy texts and brush up my
knowledge.  I'm afraid I haven't had to
know anything about horses since my
undergraduate days."  She shook her head
and shuffled through several more of the
pages in Ophelia's folder.  "But from these
records, I can't see anything that appears
particularly unusual, until the appearance
of this rapidly metastasizing cancer this
past summer."

Mulder took a sip of his iced tea and
looked at the upside down pages of the
folder.  "But that's definitely something."

"Not necessarily.  I don't know enough
about equine melanomas to make a judgment
on that.  And as Beatrice mentioned, the
problems that occurred with both animals
were not uncommon for their age, just
rapidly developing."

"And the foot stomper?"

"Your friend the pony is thirty-seven years
old, current on all her shots, and has her
teeth cleaned every May.  She's in
remarkable shape for her age.  There are no
records of any illness or unsoundness after
1983, when she was treated for a puncture
wound to the foot which apparently healed
quite rapidly."

"Healthy as a horse, then."

That earned a smile.  "Healthy as a horse."
She closed the folders and dropped them
into her bag as their lunch arrived.

They ate in silence for several minutes,
enjoying the moment of normalcy.  Over
Mulder's shoulder, she watched as the
twentysomething who had seated them struck
up a game of darts with a group of regulars
at the bar.  An elderly couple in tweed
waved to the darts players as they entered
and seated themselves at a nearby table.
The other booths near them were empty, she
noted, taking a small bite of her sandwich.
Scully was reluctant to break the silence
to debate Mulder, but she wanted to hear
his take on this.

"Okay, spill it," she said, sitting her
water glass down on the varnished maple
tabletop.

"Spill what?"  Mulder tilted his glass,
threatening to pour it on the untouched
half of her sandwich.

The action was greeted with a stern look.

He sat the glass back down on the table and
took a bite of his burger.  Grease dripped
down, landing on his fries, and Scully
crinkled her nose in disgust.  For a moment
he chewed thoughtfully, then continued.
"These animals were perfect test candidates
for the microchips.  From what those
records and Beatrice tell us, these chips
were implanted in the late seventies or
early eighties.  They belonged to someone
who worked for the State Department, in a
capacity unknown even to his wife.
Beatrice was often gone on weekends, or
even for weeks.  The opportunity was there
for the animals to be taken, implanted, and
returned with no one the wiser but Paul
Stevens, who was most likely in on the
project."

"To what end?"

"There are a couple possibilities, but I
think the most likely explanation is that
these animals were used as a test run.
Aren't new medical procedures tested on
animals first?"

She nodded, surprised at how nearly
plausible this was sounding, if she ignored
the presumption that these chips were
implanted by a shadowy pseudogovernmental
conspiracy.

He continued, "So these animals were used
as the test runs.  I haven't seen any
indication of chips in abductees prior to
the late eighties, so chronologically, it
would make sense."

"You think they were simply making sure the
chips were undetectable and worked to their
purpose in independently functioning
organisms?"

"It sounds so sexy when you say it like
that."  She glared at him, and he hastily
continued.  "It makes perfect sense,
though, that they would want to make sure
the chips functioned out of their direct
supervision and weren't noticeable by the
public at large.  We just don't know what
the chips are meant to do."

"I'll admit that does make some sense.  But
we also haven't seen any chips in males
prior to this dog."

Mulder shook his head.  "That one's got me,
too.  But I really wonder if he wasn't
simply part of a larger implantation group
of dogs.  He was pretty old and a good
decade had passed before Mrs. Stevens
noticed the chip in him.  I'm sure most of
the other dogs who'd been in her kennel at
the time of his disappearance had been sold
or died."

"He only stood out as the one who got lost
on his way home?"

"Possibly.  And in having chosen a bad
place to sleep later on."

Scully sighed and abandoned her sandwich,
less than half-eaten.  "But none of that
answers the question of what the chips
actually do.  If the goal was simply to see
if a piece of metal in the neck would go
undetected, it seems an unusual coincidence
that they would develop medical problems
only after its removal."

Mulder shrugged and popped the last bite of
burger into his mouth.  She saw him glance
at her own plate with concern, but he said,
"That I don't have the answer to.  It
sounds as if the chips keep the animals
inordinately healthy, but I'm clueless as
to what purpose that would serve."

****

With a sigh, Scully closed the heavy text
and removed her glasses.  After making a
few additional notes, she tore the top
sheet off the legal pad in front of her and
placed it in the folder of Ophelia's
records.  As she was reaching over the
folder for another of the veterinary texts
she'd fished out of the bowels of the FBI,
the phone rang.

"Scully."

"I've been trying to call you for an hour.
What have you been doing?"

"Hi, Mulder."  She was tired and wasn't up
to question and answer games with him.

"Hi.  What are you doing?"

She sighed and gave in.  "I've been on the
phone with various animal people about this
case."

"Animal people?  This sounds promising.
Continue."

"Mulder."  There was warning in her tone.
"Breeders, registries, what have you.
According to the American Kennel Club,
there were twenty-four offspring of
Champion Avalon's Noble Sir Galahad whelped
in Mrs. Stevens' kennel the summer he
disappeared, so I would assume all of them
could have been targeted as well.  Only two
of those dogs were subsequently registered
as Mrs. Stevens' animals.  The others were
all sold--some as far away as Colorado.
She also had eight other dogs registered in
her name in 1981, so presumably they were
in the same kennel as well."

"Did you get names and addresses on all of
the puppies' buyers?"

"They'll be faxing us what they have
tomorrow.  Most of the information will be
outdated, of course, and the odds are good
that all of those dogs are now deceased.
The average life span of a dog is something
like 14 years; these dogs were born almost
twenty years ago.  None of the other dogs
Mrs. Stevens owned at the time are still
alive."

"But if one of them was still alive and
healthy, that in and of itself would be
important."

Scully closed her eyes and pinched the
bridge of her nose, trying to avoid the
headache threatening.  "I also contacted
the Jockey Club and the American Horse
Shows Association about the horses."

"The Jockey Club?  I didn't know you were
considering a career change."

"They register Thoroughbred racehorses.
Ophelia was foaled in Virginia in 1975 and
registered to race under the name Southern
Charm.  She raced eight times with two
wins, was retired at the end of her three-
year-old year, and had one foal before she
was purchased by Mrs. Stevens in 1979.  She
had another foal in the spring of 1980,
also registered with the Jockey Club, but
never raced.  From what I can tell from the
Horse Show Association, both Ophelia and
her second foal were shown by Mrs. Stevens,
rather successfully, for many years.  Per
the veterinary records, she was bred twice
more, resulting in one foal in 1986 who was
not registered anywhere.  While the mare
was shipped all over the east coast, from
Florida from New York, it appears she was
very well managed, so I would assume it
would have been noticed if she went
missing.  It just doesn't fit with the
information on her."

Mulder made a noncommital noise.  "What
about the pony?"

"She was...." Scully trailed off as she
pulled out the third folder.  "Registered
with the Horse Show Association for three-
year-old pony breeding classes in 1964, as
Farnley Lustrous.  The woman I talked to on
the phone sounded rather excited about her;
apparently her brother was quite famous.
She had two owners before being purchased
by the Stevenses in 1972.  Both girls
showed her, with her last recorded show in
November 1982, ridden by Julia Stevens."

"Okay."

"What else do you want to know?  Their
complete race and show records are being
faxed over tomorrow, too."

"So we can account for all the animals'
whereabouts nearly all their lives."

"Either showing, at home with the
Stevenses, or being shipped between those
two points."

Static crackled over the line and they were
both silent.  "Someone could have tampered
with them while being shipped.  It's a long
way from Virginia to Florida."

She didn't even try to argue.  "What did
you find out about the family?"  She could
tell he was chomping at the bit to share
even more theories.

"Her father, James Llwellyn was the chief
of staff at the British Embassy in
Washington from 1945 until 1985.  He then
retired, but remained in the country and
died in 1989.  The grandfather was in
Parliament, and Beatrice Llwellyn lived
with her grandparents during breaks while
she attended boarding school and later
Cambridge University.  She received her
degree in Literature, then came to the
United States.  At some point while she was
here, she met Paul Stevens.  He had just
started at the State Department, following
in his father's footsteps.  There isn't
much information on him or his job, just
that he was an employee of State.  They
married in 1955, and somehow she still has
dual citizenship with the US and UK."

"How is that possible?  I don't know of
anyone over eighteen who's been allowed to
maintain that."

"No clue, but she has it."  He sounded
puzzled, but continued eagerly.  "She
became an English teacher at Foxcroft
School in 1963.  They had three children.
Julia--who you mentioned--was the youngest,
born in 1968.  She has British citizenship
and lives just outside London.  Thomas, the
middle child, was born in 1964, and works
at Goldman Sachs in New York.  Most
intriguing is the eldest daughter,
Charlotte.  She was born in 1960 and now
works as a consultant to the government.
No Department listed, or mention of where--
just a consultant.  Very fishy."

"You know very well that means nothing.
There are any number of vital positions she
could hold that would necessitate her being
nearly nonexistant."

"We're meeting her for lunch tomorrow."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know me so well."  She
couldn't tell whether it was a joke or a
compliment.

****
Chapter 3
****

The restaurant wasn't overly crowded at
11:30.  It was still early for the
bureaucrat crowd to be out to lunch, though
a few suspiciously governmental patrons
looked as if they had more than a passing
acquaintance with the bar.  Mulder sipped
his diet Coke and watched as Scully chased
a lime wedge through her club soda with a
swizzle stick.

There had been an uneasy silence between
them all morning.  He couldn't put his
finger on why, precisely.  Though lately
there had been more uneasy silences than in
times past.  It seemed as if they were
always oscillating between they-either-
hate-each-other-or-are-sleeping-together
banter or completely failing to
communicate.  More often than not, the
decision rested solely on the mood Scully
was in.  He wanted to ask what was wrong,
and went so far as to draw a breath with
which to ask when he noticed Scully's gaze
shift to the doorway.

A woman in a tailored black suit was making
her way towards them, deftly weaving
through the empty tables.  The only
resemblances to her aging Hitchcock heroine
mother were in her 50's starlet figure and
balletic grace.  Her brunette hair and
medium complexion would have let her blend
in anywhere from Malibu to Moscow with a
simple wardrobe change.  She was studiously
unremarkable.

"Agents Mulder and Scully?"  She paused at
the edge of their table, extending a neatly
manicured hand.

Both agents rose to greet her.  "I'm Agent
Mulder.  This is my partner, Agent Scully.
Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on
such short notice."

"Charlotte Stevens.  Good to meet both of
you."  She dropped down into the remaining
chair, waving a hand towards the waiter.
"What can I help you with?"

"We spoke with your mother yesterday about
the health complications of several of her
animals," said Scully, pausing as the
waiter arrived.  "We'd like to ask you a
few questions about them as well."

"Jameson's Gold on the rocks and a Niçoise
salad, please."  Charlotte reached into a
handbag that Mulder guessed was made of
some sort of reptile, extracting a silver
lighter and a pack of Morleys.  "Do you
mind?"  She waved the pack at them.

Mulder glanced quickly at Scully and waved
a hand at Charlotte.  Was secondhand smoke
really a concern now?

With a practiced flick of the wrist, she
lit a cigarette and exhaled a thin plume of
smoke.  "I'm more than willing to answer
your questions about Mom's animals.  But up
front I will tell you that just because my
mother occasionally trained with Barney and
Paul when she was in Florida does not mean
that she's involved in anything untoward
with her animals.  I assumed those concerns
were in the past now."

"I'm sorry?"  Scully's brow furrowed.

"Agent Mulder mentioned the health problems
with Mother's animals.  I assumed if the
FBI was involved in such matters, it was
connected in some way with the wire fraud
charges that came down over the insurance
killings the other year."  She sat back in
her chair with the air of a judge who'd
just made his ruling.

Scully adapted to this shift in information
while Mulder sat staring at the
presumptiveness of this woman.  "Was your
mother questioned about this during the
proceedings?"

"Briefly, as her horse was stabled next to
one of those killed.  Mom's well-meaning,
but rather oblivious to some of the seedier
things that go on around her."

"What sort of 'seedier things' are you
talking about, Ms. Stevens?"  Mulder tried
to remain neutral as he posed the question.

His efforts were apparently in vain;  her
brown eyes hardened into a look similar to
those Scully gave him when she was in no
mood to joke.  "Certainly, Agent Mulder, if
you have even a passing familiarity with
the recent fraud charges, you have no need
to ask me that question."

An icy silence fell over the table as the
waiter appeared with her whiskey and their
lunches.  Charlotte raised the golden
liquor to her lips as Scully redirected the
questioning in what Mulder would have
reluctantly admitted was a much more
productive manner.

"Did you ever notice anything usual about
the animals on your family's property?"

Glass and ice clinked as the whiskey was
replaced on the table.  Charlotte stalled
further by taking a long drag on her
cigarette.  "It depends what you mean by
unusual."

"Unusual illnesses or behavior," Scully
clarified.

"The animals were always healthy,"
Charlotte replied.  "We took good care of
them, but animals get sick or hurt
themselves, even under the best conditions.
I don't ever recall them being seriously
ill.  I think the last problem Mom had with
the horses before now was with Ophelia,
too.  She miscarried half term in her last
pregnancy.  With the dogs...." She trailed
off, taking another drag of her cigarette.
"One of them was hit by a car while chasing
a rabbit last fall."  A shrug silently
added "shit happens" to the end of her
statement.

"As for behavior," she continued, "well,
you tell me what normal is and then maybe I
can give you a better idea.  We always
ended up with the ones with big
personalities."

"Fair enough."  Mulder nodded.  "What about
you or your siblings?"

The brown eyes hardened again.  "Nothing
remarkable.  We broke wrists and sprained
ankles.  No chronic problems.  As for
unusual behavior, well, who calls their
siblings normal?  Thom was always doing
something.  He was never idle--very driven.
Julie marched to her own drummer, and it
drove my parents mad.  And I was my
father's daughter."

There was a beat of silence as they all
busied themselves with the food in front of
them.  Mulder watched Scully push a cherry
tomato through her garden salad while she
formulated a question.

"Did you travel much as a family?"

"Yes, we did, Agent Scully.  Every summer
we went to visit our grandparents for at
least a month.  Dad couldn't always stay,
but was always traveling for work.  Julie
and I always did interim abroad with school
once we were old enough, and sometimes Mom
went along.  And of course there were horse
and dog shows nearly every weekend."

Scully nodded and looked ready to dismiss
her.  Mulder could tell Scully had arrived
at a perfectly plausible rationalization
for everything based on what Charlotte
Stevens had said.  He was less sure, but
couldn't put a finger on what else he
needed to ask.  "What do you think of the
cancer that Galahad had, and that Ophelia
currently has?" he blurted.

"It's sad, but it happens," she stated.
"Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened
to one of the animals before the last
couple of years.  It's been hard on Mom,
though, after not having to deal with many
drawn out, painful deaths.  Her animals are
like children to her.  When I was a
teenager, I was sure she cared more about
the damn dogs that she did about us.  For
her it's like watching her children die."

Mulder nearly missed the look that flitted
across Scully's face--anyone else would
have.  He couldn't identify it, but there
was something sympathetic and sad in it
that was quickly overtaken by her
professional veneer.

"I think that's all we needed to ask you
about, Miss Stevens.  Thank you very much
for taking the time to speak with us."

Charlotte neatly tipped back the last of
the whiskey before rising.  "Glad to be of
help.  I'm not sure how you got my number,
Agent Mulder, but you know where to reach
me if you have any more questions."

With the same casual grace as she entered,
Charlotte Stevens slipped away from the
table and out the door.  As she passed the
window, she'd already blended in with the
black and gray crowd of politicos moving
past.

Turning back to face Scully, Mulder noted
her crossed arms and raised eyebrow.
Taking her off guard, he asked, "So what do
you make of Ms. Stevens, Agent Scully?"  It
was easy for him to mimic Charlotte
Stevens' crisp, faintly British diction.

"I think her last statement was very
telling."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that sometimes death is just
death, and cancer is just cancer.  People
and animals become ill and die for reasons
we're not meant to understand everyday.
That does not make their deaths X-files."

"And sometimes it's not 'just' anything.
Sometimes it merits further investigation,
because it's not just a random twist of
fate."

Everything left half said crackled between
them.  They remained quiet for a moment,
searching for a way back to solid, less
sensitive ground.

The waiter exchanged Charlotte's place
setting for their bill, and Mulder
automatically reached for it.  "So you
think we should just stop looking into
this?" he asked as he rummaged his pockets
for the FBI-issue charge card he knew was
lurking somewhere.

"I think Charlotte Stevens' immediate
assumption about wire fraud is worth
looking into, because it seemed too pat a
denial.  She's either very worried about
something there, or it's a total red
herring.  But it is far more plausible that
these animals died for their owner's greed
than that they were used as guinea pigs to
test run microchips the purpose of which we
don't even understand."

"Fine," he said, finally finding the credit
card in his left pocket.  "Why don't we
spend this afternoon looking into that
fraud possibility?  But I also want to call
Mrs. Stevens and arrange for you to autopsy
her horse after she's euthanized on Monday.

"Necropsy.  And I can't."

"What?"

"Autopsies are performed on humans;
necropsies are performed on animals."  She
managed to look at him without meeting his
gaze.

"That's not what I meant."

Scully sighed softly and studied her half-
full plate.  "I can't necropsy the horse on
Monday."  After a beat, she continued, as
if unsure that she should share with him.
"I have to go into the hospital in the
mornings next week.  I'll be in the office
in the afternoons, but I don't think I can
go do the necropsy."

It took him a moment to fully comprehend
what she'd told him.  Had she just
disclosed something about her health and
admitted weakness in the same breath?  He
wasn't sure how to respond to that.  "Oh.
Well, uh, I can call the vet hospital and
have them do it, right?  And they can send
you the results?"

"If you call Mrs. Stevens and get consent,
I'll take care of calling the equine center
in Leesburg.  There are a few tests I want
run, and a few things I'd like to have them
look for."

"Sounds like a deal."  He signed the
receipt with a flourish then stood,
extending his hand to her as she rose.  For
the two seconds it took her to stand, she
took it, then lead them to the door.

****

Scully heaved a sigh and glanced down at
her watch as she hung up the phone.  Four
forty-five.  She slipped her glasses off
and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of
her nose as she did so.

"Scully?  Are you all right?"

Her eyes flew open and she spun in her
chair to face Mulder.  "I'm fine.  Just a
bit unsure that the veterinarian I spoke to
really understood what I want.  They'll be
faxing the complete report over Tuesday
afternoon."

He made a non-committal noise as he
shuffled through several sheets of paper.
"What did you come up with on the fraud
possibility?"

She could hear the challenge in his voice
and was slightly reluctant to respond.
"After comparing the facts involved in
that, I don't know how plausible it is for
Mrs. Stevens to be doing something similar
here.  It just doesn't fit with the MO from
that case.  There the horse was
electrocuted with the intention of making
it look like an accidental death.
Electrocution isn't a kind way to go, but
it is quick.  In this case, the mare has
been subjected to a slow wasting illness.
I also don't know of any way to
intentionally and reliably give any
organism cancer outside of a laboratory
environment.  It's just not feasible."

"That fits with what I got from the
insurance company.  Both animals were
insured, but it seems like Mrs. Stevens
went out of her way to verify with multiple
vets that the illnesses were as claimed.
The insurance company never had any reason
to doubt her claim on the dog, and is in
the process of working on the details on
the horse.  The dog that she did collect on
wasn't insured for much, either.  Certainly
it's unlikely that anyone would go through
so much trouble for five thousand dollars."

"Five thousand dollars?  For a dog?"
Scully was incredulous.

"Yeah.  Apparently show animals are worth
big bucks.  Don't even ask how much that
horse is worth.  Just think more than you
make in a year for mutant-chasing."

"I don't think I want to know.  But while
that's a lot of money for an animal, it
doesn't seem like an amount someone like
Beatrice Stevens would resort to fraud to
come up with.  The earrings she had on when
we met her were probably worth the payout
on the dog."

Mulder nodded.  "Exactly."

She sighed again, not wanting to concede
the argument, but realizing it was lost.
"Which eliminates fraud as a possibility
here."

He nodded again, then looked away from her,
to his watch.  "Let's get out of here.
It's five, and there's nothing more we can
do with this today."

Wordlessly, she swiveled back to her desk
and began gathering the notes she wanted to
take home and review.  They were still
missing some key piece, she thought, but
she couldn't put her finger on exactly what
it was.

She paused at the door and turned back to
Mulder, who was still jotting notes on one
of the papers littering his desk.  "I
should be in around one on Monday.  If I
won't be, I'll call by noon."

He looked across the room at her, freezing
her in place.  "Don't worry about it.  Why
don't you just take Monday off until you
know how you're going to be feeling?  You
won't have the paperwork you want until
Tuesday anyway."  She was surprised at the
tender note in his voice.

"I'll be--" she stopped herself, willing to
admit by omission that she may not be just
fine Monday afternoon.  "That might be a
good idea.  I'll see you Tuesday then.  If
anything comes up before that, call me."

"I'll stop by Monday evening with dinner
and fill you in on how things are going."
Even across the room, she could see the
furrow of concern on his brow.

Her breath caught for half a second as she
processed that.  She was still torn on how
to treat Mulder's attempts at chivalry.
She appreciated that he wanted to help her,
but still resented that he felt the need.
"Thanks."  She left without another word,
not trusting herself to say anything
further.

****

When his soft knocks on her door went
unanswered, Mulder felt justified in using
his key to enter the apartment.  He nearly
dropped the bags of take-out and files in
his rush to enter and make certain she was
all right, but froze just inside the door
when he spotted her sleeping form on the
couch.

He so rarely saw her this way--no make up,
unstyled hair, wearing faded gray
sweatpants and a navy tee shirt from which
the white "FBI" logo was starting to wear
away.  Her feet were flat on the couch, and
a book rested open against her thighs.

Reassured, he stepped into her kitchen,
depositing dinner on the counter and the
files on the table.  She hadn't moved when
he returned to the living room.  Trying to
be as quiet as possible, he crouched beside
her and slid the book from her loose grasp.
For a moment, he stared at the sepia-toned
cover of Isak Dineson's "Out of Africa"
before sliding in the bookmark on the
coffee table and picking up the remote.
With a flick, the muted CNN broadcast faded
to black.

Scully finally stirred when he pulled the
afghan off the back of the couch to cover
her.  "Mulder?"  She looked up at him with
bleary, tired eyes.  "What time is it?"

"Just past six.  I brought dinner and some
paperwork from today, but I can just leave
it and let you sleep...."

"Where did you get dinner?"

"Cosi.  I brought you one of the turkey
sandwiches you like--the one with that
godawful mustard.  And vegetable soup," he
added as a healthy afterthought.

She shook her head and sat up slowly.  "No,
no.  For that I can wake up, and you can
stay.  But," she frowned and caught his
eye, "that mustard is not godawful.  It's
delicious."

"Whatever you say, Scully."  He turned back
towards the kitchen, until he heard her
shift, moving off the couch.  "No, no.
Just sit.  I'll bring dinner in here."

He turned to see her appraising him with
narrowed eyes, but then her face suddenly
softened, and she nodded in assent.  He
heard the television flick back, CNN's
headlines shouting across the apartment to
assail him.

When he returned balancing trays with
plates, bowls, and glasses, he found Scully
had settled back onto the couch.  The
volume on the news was lower, and the book
was back in her lap.

"Good read?" he asked as he sat the trays
carefully on her coffee table.  The soup
sloshed, but only trickled down the side of
his bowl.

She shrugged before answering.  "I haven't
read much of it yet.  I started while I was
waiting this morning.  It's somewhere I've
always wanted to go," she finished softly,
averting her eyes and reaching for the
water glass on the tray in front of her.

Mulder nearly choked on his spoonful of
soup at her revelation and tried to fit
this new information in with what he knew
of Scully.  "You want to go to Africa?"

She blushed and put down her glass.  "Yes."
She said nothing else, and simply picked up
the soup bowl.

They ate in silence for a moment, spoons
clinking softly against porcelain.
Finally, he sat the bowl down and broke the
silence.  "Is that something you've been
thinking about lately?"

At this she finally met his gaze.  There,
she hesitated before asking, "About
visiting Africa?  Or about things I've
always wanted to do?"

"Yes."

She seemed to shrink in front of him,
turning away as she reached one arm out to
pick up her sandwich.  For a moment she
simply nibbled on the corner of the turkey
and brie.  Eventually, her head bobbed in a
slow nod as she replaced the barely-eaten
sandwich on the plate.  "I have been.
Today, especially."

He wasn't sure how he should respond.  Part
of him badly wanted to crack a joke and
lighten the tension that had filled the
room.  But the psychologist in him kicked
that part square in the ass, and he
considered how rarely they really talked.
She probably needed that now more than
ever, he realized.  "What else have you
always wanted to do?"

The thin, pressed line of her lips broke
into a soft smile, and he knew he'd spoken
the right words.  "Well, visiting Africa,
obviously--I'd like to go out on tour and
see the wildlife there."

She picked up the sandwich again and took a
real bite this time, chewing as she
thought.  He smiled, picked up his own club
sandwich, and nodded in encouragement.

"I'd like to have a dog again.  I really
did like Queequeg, and those dogs at Mrs.
Stevens' last week were adorable.  We moved
around a lot when I was a young, and we
didn't have much room, so Mom and Dad never
let us have a dog, no matter how much Bill
and I used to beg for one."

She took another bite, and Mulder did the
same, waiting and enjoying her small
revelations.  "I'd like to go to Europe,
too.  I've never been out of North America.
There's so much I'd like to see there--
museums and churches and historical sites."

"Hey, if you ever want a personally guided
tour of England, just name the date."

The small smile on her face grew into a
wide grin.  "I'm sure you could tell me
where every crop circle in the country has
ever occurred."

"Well, yes," he admitted sheepishly.  "But
I also know all about the ghosts at the
Tower of London.  And I know my way around
the British Museum--some of the artifacts
are cursed, you know."

"I'll bear that in mind if I ever go."

Silence fell again for several moments as
they made quick work of their sandwiches.

"So is that all, Scully?"

"Well, I always wanted to try skiing...."

****
Chapter 4
****

Scully slowly made her way down the basement corridor
to the office.  She hadn't been sure she would make it
in, not after the way she'd felt yesterday.  The first
day of radiation had left her exhausted and dizzy.  If
Mulder hadn't shown up at her apartment, she probably
would have slept on through until the next morning.
But, she reflected, she enjoyed their dinner
conversation, even if it had a slightly morbid tinge
to it.  It had also reassured her that he would be
able to treat her with a solicitous respect as she
worked through her illness.

That thought didn't quite prepare her for finding
Mulder looking rather green and staring down at an
open folder on his desk.  She could see the relief
wash over him as he watched her enter the room.

"What have you got there, Mulder?"

"The, ah, courier arrived ten minutes ago with the
report for you."  He slammed the folder shut and held
it out to her before she was halfway across the room.

She took it, wondering why he looked so put out by
this information.  He'd certainly looked over gruesome
human autopsy reports without looking so affected.
But as she read the description of the mare's tumor
pressing through the ocular space and into the brain,
she understood his queasy face.  She had to take a
deep breath before she could continue reading.

Several moments passed in silence as she sat and read
the preliminary findings on the mare.  Most of the
tests she had requested were noted in the file, with a
Post It thoughtfully scribbled and stuck in to let her
know the results would be forwarded to her as they
were completed.

When she had skimmed the report twice, she looked up
to find Mulder very busy doing nothing at his desk.
With little effort, she could see him as a child,
asking if they were there yet.

"There's nothing here that catches my eye as
particularly unusual, Mulder."  He started at the
sound of her voice and turned to give her his full
attention.  "The melanomas on her body and tumor in
her eye were very aggressive and rapidly
metastasizing, but there's nothing to indicate there
was anything unnatural about them beyond that.  The
only thing to show up on the preliminary blood test
was a standard pain killer prescribed by the
veterinarian, and of course the drugs used in the
euthanization."

He was silent a long moment as she faced him over the
opened folder.  "So you think this is nothing?"

"I don't think it's nothing.  But I don't necessarily
think it's something, either."  She sighed.  "But at
this point, it seems more like a remarkable series of
coincidences than anything else."

"But--"

She cut him off, continuing her train of thought.
"We've got no proof that anything was actually done to
these animals.  We can account for their whereabouts--
excepting the dog Galahad over several weeks--for
their entire lives.  It would have been difficult at
best to have abducted, implanted, and returned them
with no one the wiser.  That they all have chips that
may or may not be like the ones we've seen previously.
Have you found anything else about that?"

A shake of the head combined with a shrug granted her
the point.  "Nothing much.  It looks similar,
structurally, to the one removed from your neck, but
slightly larger.  There aren't any markings to
indicate a manufacturer."

"I didn't expect there would be."  She closed the
folder and sat it on top of the mounting heap from
this case.

"So you think we should stop pursuing this?"  She
could hear the panic of a dog being asked to give up
its favorite bone in his voice.

"Keep the file open, at least until I get all the test
results back.  Those will be another week coming, at
least.  But we're lacking any evidence to link your
leaps of logic together."

"Yeah."  He ran a hand through his hair, further
tousling it.  "But if I could prove those links, I
would have put those bastards away a long time ago."
His gaze met hers and held until she glanced away,
back to the towering paperwork.

****

Mulder looked up from his paperwork as Scully shuffled
into the office.  A glance at his watch told him she
was twenty minutes later than she'd been yesterday.
From the way she moved across the office, he guessed
it was related to how she felt rather than how
congested lunch hour traffic was.  But he knew better
than to comment.

It was a full minute after she sat down before he
heard her pull open the bag he'd left for her.  Her
chair squeaked as she spun to look at him.

"Turkey club, extra tomatoes."

"Oh."  She swiveled back to face the bag, pulling out
the foil-wrapped sandwich.  "Thanks."  Her voice was
barely audible over the crinkling of foil.

Several long moments passed with only the shuffling of
papers and crunching of sandwich.  A thousand
questions flickered through Mulder's mind, but he sat
silent.

Finally, it was Scully's voice that broke the silence.
"When did this package arrive?"

"It was delivered while I was out getting lunch--
sometime between eleven thirty and noon."

"Mm."  There was a rip as she opened the packaging,
half-eaten sandwich forgotten.

Mulder abandoned any pretense of working as he watched
her slowly flick through the small file.  As he
waited, he tried to determine whether the paleness of
her face was due to the terrible fluorescent lighting
or to her treatments.  He didn't think she'd looked
quite so pale a week ago.

He was broken out of this train of thought when she
rose and reached for a thick reference tome on the
shelf above the desk.  "What'd you find?"

"I'm not sure yet."  She sat and flicked through the
text, pausing and rereading the information in the
file.  "Hmm."

"Scully."

She looked up at him, seemingly started by his
interruption.  "Oh.  Nitrofurazone."  She turned back
to the book.

What the hell was she talking about?  He tried to put
the pieces together, wondering where this one fit.
"The lab found nitrofurazone in the tests you
ordered?"

She nodded and turned back to him.  "Yes.  It's not
that finding it is so terribly unusual--it's commonly
used as an antibacterial ointment in large animals,"
she explained.  "But the levels that they found in
this mare don't correspond to what one would
reasonably expect to find in her system from topical
use.  Recent studies have shown that while it is an
effective ointment for wounds, it is also a
carcinogen.  Many veterinary hospitals are moving away
from using it when possible and towards compounds with
fewer potential side-effects."

"But it was used on the mare in larger than average
quantities?"

Scully hesitated and glanced back to the lab results.
"Not excessively so, but definitely in larger
quantities than are usual."  She frowned at the file.

"Was it present in quantities sufficient to cause the
tumors found in her?"

"I don't know.  It's not a controlled substance, so
anyone would have access to it.  I'd really like to
speak with Mrs. Stevens and her regular vet about it.
There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation."

"Of course there could be," he muttered, reaching for
the main case folder to find the number for Beatrice
Stevens.

"What was that, Mulder?"  One eyebrow raised on her
pale face, but he wasn't sure if it was safe to play
today.

"I'll just get those numbers for you."

"Sure."  She turned back to stare at her sandwich as
he flicked open the folder and reached for the phone.

Before his hand touched the receiver, it rang, causing
both of them to jump slightly.

"Mulder," he barked into the receiver.  His eyes grew
wide and weary as he listened.  "No.  No, we have the
copies you sent us right here."

Scully turned to stare at him, an inquisitive look on
her face.  He shook his head and gestured for the
paperwork she'd just received.

"Yeah, we've got it here, and we really appreciate
it...." He paused, listening to the panicked voice on
the other end of the line before continuing, "No, I
don't know why it would have been removed, and I'm not
happy about it.  But I appreciate you letting us
know."

The receiver fell back into the cradle with a dull
thud.  "Fuck.  That was the Virginia Tech labs where
your tests were being run.  They wanted to make sure
we still had the paperwork they sent us, because the
originals are gone," he answered her unasked question.

"Gone."

"Everything--all the samples, all the original
paperwork.  There this morning, gone after lunch."

"What about the samples that were still being tested?
There were a couple things I don't have back yet."

"All gone.  No signs of forced entry, and nothing else
is missing.  It's just like this never existed."  He
shook his head in disgust.  "Not that I can say I'm
surprised."

She sighed and looked down at the duplicate files now
sitting on his desk.  "We have almost everything,
though.  Why would someone steal the originals after
copies have been sent to us?"

"To destroy the ability to verify what we have."

They were both quiet, staring and the three inches of
paper piled between them.

"You said you wanted to talk to Beatrice Stevens
again.  I think that would be an excellent idea.  Are
you up for a drive out there tomorrow afternoon?"

There was a half-beat before she nodded where he held
his breath.  Slowly, her head dipped in assent.  "It's
not far, there's no reason why we can't."

"If I pick you up on the way, we can get out of here
earlier.  What time will you be done with treatment?"

The pause before she answered this time was even
longer.  He couldn't be sure if she was calculating,
or trying to avoid answering.

"It would be fastest if you could pick me up right
from the hospital.  There's no reason I can't get
ready there.  Noon?"

He nodded, and they turned back to their paperwork.

****

She wasn't quite sure why she'd agreed to leave
straight from treatment.  It had seemed like a good
decision at the time, but in retrospect, she'd really
needed that trip back to her apartment to change and
collect herself before facing work.  Scully felt
entirely too vulnerable as Mulder followed the
twisting road towards Avalon.   She tried to convince
herself that it was Mulder's driving that left her
feeling mildly nauseous.  Looking out the window at
the bright new leaves, she tried to push the queasy
feelings away and appreciate the sunny spring weather.
At least she wasn't in the basement.

Watching out the passenger window as they rolled down
the drive, she noticed the horse and rider before
Mulder did.  "Out in the field," she said with a
gesture towards the window.

The car stopped as they both watched the bright bay
horse and elegant rider fly over a fence erected in
the field a hundred yards away.  The rider's black
velvet cap cast a shadow over her face and hid her
hair, but from the neat green sweater and tailored
breeches and boots, Scully knew it had to be Beatrice
Stevens.  The rider nodded slightly in their direction
before turning the horse to the right and cantering
over a low, painted wall.

Mulder edged the car forward down the drive, coming to
a stop by the gate to the field.  Both sat for a
moment, unmoving, until the horse and rider approached
the gate and slowed.  Only then did Scully unbuckle
her seatbelt and slide from the car.

"Good afternoon, Beatrice."

"Agents Scully and Mulder, welcome back."  She patted
the sweating horse's neck with a gloved hand as she
nodded in welcome to them.  "I'm sorry, I must have
lost track of time while working with Prospero."

"He's beautiful."  Scully reached over the fence to
pat Prospero's velvety nose, watching as his nostrils
flared with each hard breath.

"His first show is this weekend, so we've been working
hard to get ready.  Eight months off the race track,
can you believe?"  There was pride in Beatrice's voice
as she patted the horse again heartily, walking him
away from the fence in a large, lazy circle.  "If you
don't mind, I can talk while we cool out for a few
moments."

Once the horse moved away, Mulder had moved up to
stand at her side at the fence.  "No problem at all.
It looks like he had quite a workout."

"He needs all the schooling he can get.  Too smart,
this one.  Prospero gets into trouble when he's not in
work."  She turned him to walk back towards the
agents.  "What can I help you with today?  You
mentioned that Agent Scully was interested in
Ophelia's care?"

"Yes," Scully replied.  "I had several tests run on
her, and one of them turned up nitrofurazone in her
system.  Did you ever use it on her?"

"Oh, yes."  Her matter of fact tone startled Scully,
instantly vanquishing any suspicions that the
substance was of more than mundane origins.  Feeling
Mulder deflate slightly beside her, could tell she was
not the only one.  Beatrice continued, "Last month she
had a swollen fetlock, for no reason I could find.  I
sweated it with furazone and DMSO.  Cleared right up."

"You didn't call the vet?"

"I've been at this a long time, Agent Scully, and have
seen a lot of injuries.  Short of matters requiring
stitches or tranquilizers, I can take care of most
things myself."  Her tone was sterner than any than
she'd previously used.

For a few minutes, Scully and Mulder simply watched as
the horse's long strides carried him around in an easy
circle.  Scully began to wonder what they'd driven
back for, when Beatrice's voice interrupted, once
again gentle.

"Would you mind getting the gate for me, Agent
Mulder?"

"Certainly."  He stepped behind Scully, pulling the
green pipe gate wide open.

Beatrice and Prospero passed through, heading across
the drive towards the stable.  Her voice rung back to
them, echoing off the brick of the house and drowning
out the hooves in soft gravel.  "You know, he'll be
the last horse I make.  He's shaping up to be a fancy
one.  I think he'll outlast me.

Mulder and Scully followed behind her and slightly off
to one side.  Scully could see one of the horse's ears
cocked back, listening to their footsteps behind him.
He might be able to hear her voice, but Beatrice could
not.  "Mulder, I think we're wasting our time here.
We really didn't have to come out all this way--"

"No," he whispered back, "we did.  I want to see if
there's anything different about her particular
furazone.  And I want to get a few more records from
her."

She could only sigh in response as he raised his voice
to catch Beatrice's attention, as she was now
chattering on about the possibility of being ready to
show at Upperville.

"Beatrice!"

She quieted and slowed the horse's step without
appearing to do anything.

When Mulder caught up to the horse's shoulder, he
continued.  "I was wondering, though, if we could
possibly get a bit of the ointment you used?  Just to
check in case it was a bad batch or something."

"It was an older container, from last year.  It's
nearly gone now.  You can have the rest of it, if you
really want it."  They reached the front of the stable
and she swung off the horse with a spryness that
belied her years.  "Is that all you came for?"

"I was also hoping you might have some records from
the shipping company you used when transporting your
animals to events."

"Oh."  She furrowed her brow under the hunt cap's brim
as she led the horse into the barn, Mulder and Scully
following.  "I do most of the hauling myself, unless
it's to Florida or indoors.  I do keep records of
that, though, for the insurance."

"Those would be just what I want."

Securing the horse, Beatrice stepped into an open
doorway, reemerging with a bucket of brushes and a
small blue jar.  "Your furazone, Agent Scully.  Agent
Mulder, if you give me a few moments, the records are
all up in my office, and you're welcome to them.  Are
you any closer to finding the answer to what happened
to Galahad and Ophelia?"

Scully looked down at the dusty, slightly battered jar
before answering.  "We're not sure.  But we're still
looking."  She saw Mulder give her a look she couldn't
interpret in the stable's dim light, but he remained
quiet.

"Good to hear."  Beatrice nodded with conviction as
she smoothed a brush along the horse's back.

****
Chapter 5
****

Beatrice shuffled through several files, seeming to
pull sheets out at random.  "Did you just want the
shipping paperwork on Ophelia, or on all the horses?"

"If you have them for Tinkerbelle, that would be
wonderful as well."  Mulder watched as she continued
to pull on papers, gathering a large sheaf in her left
hand.

Scully stood to the side, near the table of
photographs that had caught her eye on their first
visit.  Mulder stepped beside her, trying to see what
caught her eye.  Was there a specific picture?  Or
were these like the book she'd been reading the other
night--reminders of things she'd like but never have?

Apparently at least one of them had drawn her
attention. As Beatrice approached them with the
paperwork, Scully gestured to a beveled silver frame
at the far end of the table.  "Was that Ophelia?"

Beatrice squinted slightly at the photo.  "Yes, it
was.  That's Charlotte riding her in Florida."

"She was a gorgeous horse.  I'm sure she will be
missed."

"Very much.  But we had a lovely time together, and
all--Agent Scully, are you quite all right?"  Panic
cut through her previously casual tone.

Mulder looked quickly up from the photograph to see a
thin trail of blood streaking down from Scully's right
nostril.  Discreetly, he tapped his own.  She saw his
gesture immediately, dropping her face and covering
her nose with a hand.

"Do you have a washroom she could use?"

"Oh, yes, yes of course.  Right down the hallway.  The
doorway to the left of the staircase."

Mulder's fingers grazed the small of Scully's back as
she spun and marched out of the room.

"Is she all right?  Agent Mulder?"  Beatrice's gentle
voice broke into the worry scurrying through his
brain.

"She'll be fine."  He hoped--he prayed to a God he
barely believed in.  If he had any control in the
matter, she would indeed be fine at some point in the
future.  If he believed enough, it wasn't a lie.  She
would be fine again, eventually.  Somehow.

Silence fell in the room as Beatrice handed the
shipping papers over to him.  He barely registered the
paperwork charting movements between Virginia and
Florida as they waited without a word until Scully
returned, looking as if nothing had happened.

****

She'd collapsed, exhausted, onto her bed upon
returning home.  It had taken all her concentration to
remove her shoes and jacket before she'd been dead to
the world.  The piercing ring of her phone broke into
her dreamless slumber, forcing her into a groggy
stupor.

"Sc-Scully."  She cast about, trying to locate her
alarm clock's luminous digits.  11:17.  She'd been
asleep five hours and felt as if she'd not gotten a
wink of sleep.

"I'm sorry."  Even if she hadn't recognized the voice
instantly, she would have known who it was.  "I didn't
think about waking you up.  You need to sleep..."

"No, I'm already awake.  What's so important?"

"You're sure it's okay?  You're feeling all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine now.  I was just asleep."

"If you're sure..."

"Oh, for God's sake, Mulder!"  She was feeling every
bit of her exhaustion now.  "Just tell me why you
called."

He didn't say anything for a moment, and she was
afraid he was going to make further inquiries into her
health.  "The smoking man was waiting for me when I
got back tonight," he finally blurted.

"Oh."  She wasn't quite sure what to make of that.
"What did he want?"

"He came to discourage me from continuing to pursue
this case.  His exact words were that 'There is
absolutely nothing amiss with the animals owned by the
Stevens family, save an owner who has made one too
many flights across the Atlantic.'"

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

"My guess is that like everything else he's
discouraged us from investigating, the more we look,
the less we'll find."

"That doesn't make any sense.  Why not just make it
disappear without telling you?  Then it really would
just seem like the case didn't merit further
investigation."

She could hear him draw a deep breath through the
crackling phone line, and knew there was more to the
confrontation than he was telling her.  "What else did
he say?"

"He offered...he said that if we dropped the
investigation into the chips in these animals, he
would provide us with access to another chip for you."

It was her turn to draw a deep breath, before
responding firmly, "And what would I need another one
of those for?"

"He said that without it, your cancer will progress
just as it did in the animals we're investigating."

Mentally she ticked off several implications of that
statement for later discussion.  "And why should I
believe him?  When has he ever told us the truth
before?"

His heavy sigh hung between them for a long time.
"But it's a chance to save you, Scully.  What's the
value of a few animals against your life?  I can't let
that opportunity slide by."

"You don't have to.  It's not your decision to make."

"But Scully--"

"No.  It's ultimately my life and my decision.  I need
some time to weigh that trade for myself, and I can't
do that right now.  Give me some time to think about
it."

"He said he would be in touch tomorrow."

"Then we'll talk about it when I get into the office
tomorrow afternoon."
 
 

When she walked into the office the following
afternoon, she could tell Mulder had been anxiously
waiting for her.  She could feel his eyes on her as
she removed her coat and sat at her desk, expecting an
answer from her.

She tried her best to ignore him for a few moments,
busying herself with the day's mail and checking her
email messages.  When she ran out of ways to credibly
avoid discussion of the matter, she slowly swiveled
her desk chair to face him.

Before she could begin to speak, he began, "Scully, I
really think you should consider this offer.  I know
that the smoking man isn't the most reliable of
sources, but he's never done anything to
intentionally--"

"Just stop, Mulder.  Stop."   She heaved a sigh and
held up a hand to ward off his nervous rambling.  "I
need you just to listen to me, okay?"

He seemed startled, and hastily closed the jaw that
had opened to continue.   Subtly, he bobbed his head
in assent, relaxing back into his seat and ceding the
floor to her.

"You have nothing but the best of intentions in all
this, and I know that.  I understand that you only
want to make this compromise out of a desire to see me
healthy.  I appreciate that, I really do."  She was
wary, trying to tread carefully and make her point
while remaining respectful of the fact that he felt at
least partially responsible for the situation.

"But I also know that even if this would work--and
there's no guarantee that it would--I can't live my
life in debt to that man.  And if I accepted this
trade, that's what would happen."

Mulder was quiet for a moment, until it was clear that
she had finished.  "But you're not the one making the
trade.  He didn't offer it to you.  He offered to give
me the chip in exchange for stopping the
investigation.  You wouldn't be indebted to him at
all."

"It's our investigation and my body that the chip
would be effecting.  It most certainly would be my
debt, whatever you want to believe about it.  It's not
a trade, it's making a deal with the devil.  I'm not
going to do it, and I won't let you do it, either."

"What if I want to?"

"I have no doubt that you want to."  Her eyes sparked
with her inner turmoil.  "God knows that I would love
to know that something so simple could cure me.  But
nothing is that simple, and the consequences far
outweigh the potential benefits.  I can't throw
professional ethics out the window and trade a case
for my own personal welfare.  And we don't even know
that this chip would really help me!"

"All the evidence in this case seems to suggest that
it would."

"Three examples in animals, with incomplete evidence,
I can't take as proof, or even as good faith in what
the smoking man told you."

"You'd rather die?"

It was the first time either of them had ever voiced
the understood potentiality.  The air in the office
seemed to chill a few degrees and silence hung
ominously.

"I'd rather respect myself for the time I have left
than live a compromised life."  She met his eyes,
refusing to be the first to look away.

Mulder blinked first, looking down to stare at his
hands, which had begun to clench against the edge of
his desk.  "Is it that poor of a trade to you?"  There
was a sadness in his voice that was tempered with a
barely restrained frustration.

"I can't believe you even have to ask me that."  She
met his tone with steel, refusing to yield on this.

He met her eyes again, and she could see that he
didn't have to ask.  He was just weighing the
consequences of running off and making the trade
himself, letting her hate him and live.

"Look, Mulder, it's not about the case.  This case is
too tenuous to concern me.  Did you fail to notice the
two men on the horses in the photo behind Beatrice and
Jackie Kennedy the first time we visited?"

He furrowed his brows and looked perplexed, something
she was not used to seeing.  She clarified,  "The
smoking man was one of the men.  Much younger, but it
was him.  She had to know him."

"You're sure?"

"I wasn't certain it was, until I got a look at it
again yesterday.  I'm sure it was him; I figured you
would notice, but apparently I shouldn't take things
for granted with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he growled.

"You're the one who wants to make a deal with him.   I
don't want to live the rest of my life with the
knowledge that either one of us is indebted to that
man for my continued well being.  Because it won't
stop with this case if that trade is made."

He nodded and glanced around the office.  She could
see tears sparkling in the edges of his eyes, but they
cleared as he spoke again, softly.  "I just...I want
to see you healthy, Scully.  I don't want to leave a
possibility by the wayside just because it seems a
little dangerous."

"A little dangerous?" she exploded.  "Having radiation
directed at my brain every morning is dangerous.
Making a deal with that man, while it might seem like
the right choice now, would be fatal in the long run."

"Better that you chose your own end?  Sailors to the
sea, horses to the hounds?"  His voice was soft.  Had
he replied harshly, she would have stormed out.  This
compassion she wasn't quite sure how to take.

She simply nodded.  "Yes."

"I'd rather you didn't have to make a choice at all.
That it was decades down the road before you had to
give thought to any of this."

"So do I, but while I can't control the circumstances,
at least I can have some choice in the outcome."

"I don't like the choice, but I'll respect it."

"Thank you."

Silence fell over the office again, but it had a much
different feel.  They turned back to their respective
desks and burrowed into their work.  None of the
tension remained that had surrounded her arrival.
Rather, the silence held a palpable comfort and
agreement between them, uneasy and unpleasant though
it was.

****

Beatrice Stevens carried the big green bucket in one
hand, scooping feed out of it with the other.  The
sweet smelling grain drew the horses to the fronts of
their stalls.  At one end of the aisleway, she heard
Belle bang a hoof against the oak door, impatient for
her dinner.

Prospero was much more of a gentleman about it,
standing patiently in front of the feed bin as she
poured grain through the opening in the front of his
stall.  His soft nose brushed her hand as he plunged
his head into the feed, rattling grain and a salt
block around in the plastic tub.

The only sounds as she moved down the aisleway were
the hearty tread of her sturdy barn boots and the
shuffling of the horses in their stalls.  When she
heard the scrape of footsteps on the concrete aisle
while pouring feed into the next stall, she froze,
then sniffed the air.

"How many times over the years have I told you not to
smoke in the barn?"

****
Chapter 6
****

"How many times over the years have I told
you not to smoke in the barn?"

He took a long drag on the cigarette before
dropping it to the concrete and putting it
out with a twist of his black, shiny shoe.
"Too many times, Bea.  Too many times."

"Then you ought to know better by now.
I'll thank you to keep your filthy habit
out of here." She dumped the last of the
feed into Belle's stall before walking up
the aisle to face him.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure of your
company?  It's been a long time."

"Two years, I believe."  He shoved his
hands in the pockets of his grey trench
coat, as if unsure what to do without a
cigarette to occupy himself.

"It's been a good two years."  Her voice
was brittle.

"Recent events would convince me
otherwise."

"Oh?"  She turned away, dropping the feed
bucket back into the tack room, in its
place beside the grain bin.

"I believe you've taken concerns about some
of your menagerie to the FBI."

"And when have you ever concerned yourself
with my animals, except when they've served
your political interests?"

"You assume it doesn't serve them now?"

"I shouldn't be surprised to hear it.  But
I still wonder what business it is of
yours."

He slowly withdrew what looked like a
penlight from his pocket.  "I would ask you
what business you think it is of the
FBI's."

"Something has been done to them, Charles.
They haven't become ill simply because of
age or genetic predisposition.  It's
unnatural, the way their cancers have--"

Before she could finish, he clicked the
object he was holding.  That was the last
thing she saw before the world faded to
black.

****

Mulder was pulling off his running shoes
when he heard his cell phone chirping from
somewhere in the depths of his apartment.
He pulled the nearly-removed shoe off and
dropped it to the floor, before limping
half-shod into his living room.  He'd left
his phone somewhere in the room, he knew.

After following the sound and shuffling
several of the magazines and papers
littering his coffee table, he picked up
the phone.  Peering at the caller ID, he
tried to figure out who 703-555-0407 might
be.  No one he knew, he was sure.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder?"

"Yes, may I ask who's calling?"

"This is Phil Beckett with the Loudoun
County Sheriff's Department.  I'm calling
from Beatrice Stevens' estate.  Your
business card was on her desk, and you're
in her planner twice this month."

"Yes."  He was suddenly wary.

"Can I ask what the nature of your meetings
were?  Was she under investigation?"

"Not her, exactly."  He exhaled.  "It's
complicated."

"I have a feeling it may have just gotten
more complicated for you, then.  This
morning, her farrier showed up for an
appointment and found her dead in her
barn."

Mulder glanced at his watch before
responding, "How long ago was this?"

"Just an hour ago.  I thought I ought to be
in touch with you, in case the FBI had some
interest in her."

"I do.  I'll be there in an hour."

"We'll be waiting for you."

Mulder ended the call, then hit the button
to call Scully.  As he waited for her to
answer, he gave himself a sniff and moved
towards the bedroom, pulling out weekend
work attire.  He could get there much
faster if Scully would hurry up and answer
her phone, and if he could skip a shower.

****

Scully watched the pastureland roll by as
they drove to Beatrice Stevens' property
for the third time in two weeks.  She had
still been asleep when Mulder called her,
and she was astonished by the late morning
hour as much as the information he'd
relayed to her.

The graceful circular drive was crowded
with police vehicles when they arrived, the
lights on a few still flashing off the
brick facade of the house.  A gangly young
man was leaning against one of the cars and
he made his way to them as they exited
their vehicle.

"Agent Mulder?"  He looked back and forth
between the two of them.

"I'm Agent Mulder, and this is my partner,
Agent Scully."

The young officer glanced down at her, and
she suddenly wished she'd spent a few extra
seconds digging a pair of higher heels out
of her closet.  Her voice was cold as she
spoke.  "We were called about Beatrice
Stevens, Officer --?"

"Lee.  Just follow me, ma'am."  He bobbed
his spiky blond head and started down the
hill towards the stable.

Mulder had the grace to look apologetically
at her as they followed Lee down the hill.
A red pickup truck was backed up to the
barn's entry, the sides of the cab open to
reveal vast racks of nails and horseshoes.
It seemed forgotten, simply trapped by the
flock of police cars blocking its exit.

Emerging from behind the truck, a portly,
middle-aged man strode past Officer Lee and
stopped in front of Mulder.  "You must be
Agent Mulder.  Glad you got here so
quickly.  Not that I'm positive that this
is a crime scene, mind you, but I thought
you'd want a look."

"I'm very glad you did.  I'll let Agent
Scully have a look--she'll be able to tell
us if it is."  He extended a hand, ushering
her forward.

She edged around the farrier's truck and
halted just inside the doorway, looking
down on the collapsed form of Beatrice
Stevens.  It appeared that she'd simply
lost consciousness and fallen, landing
heavily on her left side with arms and legs
akimbo.

Scully took a deep breath before crouching
for a closer look at the body.  First she
noticed that the body's fluids had settled
on the left side and the lack of any
bruising.   She took note of posthumous
nibbling of rodents on the fingers and
wrists.  Otherwise, there was very little
amiss with the body.  Nothing about it
suggested foul play.

When she heard Mulder's steps on the
aisleway, she turned to tell him that what
they were most likely seeing was the result
of a stroke or heart attack.  The words
died on her lips when she saw him staring
down at a lone cigarette butt ground into
the concrete.

"Mulder, you don't really think--that has
to be a coincidence."

"On another case, I might give you that
point.  But given what we've already seen
on this case--did you forget that
photograph already?--I don't think it is."

"It's a lone cigarette.  It could be the
farrier's.  It could have been Beatrice's."

"There's no lipstick on it, and she's
wearing some."  He looked warily down at
the body.  "I'll go talk to the farrier."

Scully watched him give the cigarette
another glance before turning to the
doorway.  A series of shrill whinnies broke
the quiet, punctuated by the thudding of a
hoof against the wooden stalls.  "While
you're talking, ask if someone's fed them.
She's been dead for at least twelve hours.
They're probably hungry."

"Sure."  He disappeared into the bright
spring light as she turned back to the body
and pulled on a pair of gloves.

****

Mulder tried to keep one eye on Scully,
still working over Beatrice's body, as the
farrier led him down the barn aisle.  The
spry older man carried a full bucket of
grain, dumping seemingly arbitrary amounts
in to the hungry horses.

"What time did you arrive here, Mr.
Willard?"

"Oh, 'round 8:30.  I was supposed to be
here at eight, but I got a call last night
and had to stop and reshoe a horse that's
'chasing this afternoon.  I was supposed to
be at the 'chase now, but I guess that's
not happening."

"No, that's not looking likely."  Mulder
had no idea what the horse was going to be
chasing, but this whole case left him
wishing he had more knowledge of horse
sports.  "Did you contact Mrs. Stevens to
tell her that you would be late this
morning?"

"Naw, she knows I always show up.  I've
done--er, did, I guess--last minute things
for her over the years enough.  Didn't
figure that a quick shoe this morning would
make me too late, anyway."  Robert Willard
paused outside Belle's stall, ignoring her
pounding on the door, and dumped grain into
her bucket after a quick glance at the
notecard affixed to the front of the stall.

"Do you smoke?"

"Used to.  But then, oh, seven, eight years
ago Lily--that's my wife--got lung cancer.
We'd both been smokers.  At our age, there
aren't many people who weren't at one time.
No one told us when we were young that it
was bad, like they do now.  We both quit
then.  Lily had a lung out, and we try to
stay away from it now.  Why d'you ask?"

"A cigarette butt was found a few yards
away from Mrs. Stevens.  I was wondering if
might have been yours, or if she might have
been smoking it."

"I never saw Bea with a cigarette in thirty
years of doing her horses.  Maybe she did
at parties or something, but never when I
was around.  She'd've known better than to
smoke in a stable, even if she did."  He
inclined his head towards a bale of hay
sitting beside the wood wall.

Mulder realized instantly just how easily
the whole structure could be burned with a
single errant ash.  "Most people who spent
much time around horses would know better,
then?"

Robert shrugged and trudged up the aisle
towards the tack room, swinging the now-
empty feed bucket.  "Well, they know
better, yeah.  But that doesn't mean that
they don't.  I know a few older huntsmen
that smoke while out riding.  But that
wasn't her style."

"No, it doesn't seem like it."  Mulder
looked around the tack room as Robert sat
the bucket back on top of one of the tin
trashcans filled with grain.  A desk sat in
one corner, and strapgoods he couldn't
identify were neatly hung on the walls.
Three saddles sat on racks along one wall,
which was hung with yet more ribbons and
photographs.  The small room smelled of
dust and leather and very faintly of the
sweet grain that had just been provided to
the horses.

"Was anyone here when you arrived?  You
didn't see anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nope, no cars at all.  I pulled down here
without seeing the horses out--she always
had 'em in and ready for me.  Barn door was
open, so I figured she was ready and
waiting.  Then I came in and saw her lying
there..."  he trailed off with a small
sniffle.  "A lotta people around here are
going to miss her.  She was a very good
lady."

"I'm sure she will be."  Mulder hesitantly
put a hand on the man's shoulder.  "Thank
you for taking the time this morning to
help us out with this."  He removed his
hand and pulled out a business card.
"We'll be in touch with you if we need
anything more than the statement you gave
the Loudoun County officers this morning."

Robert nodded.  "Right.  Glad to have
helped someone, though I'd have been
happier not to."  He turned and strode out,
bandy-legged, and made a beeline for his
truck.

Mulder watched him go, from the safety of
the tack room doorway.  Scully didn't spare
him a second look from where she was deep
in conversation with one of the Loudoun
County Sheriffs and her cell phone.  From
the fractions of conversation that filtered
through to him, Mulder heard her making
arrangements for an autopsy bay for the
following afternoon at Quantico.

He knew that her first reaction was to
assume that this death had been caused by
heart attack or stroke.  Apparently her
subsequent investigation had left her
thinking otherwise.

****
Chapter 7
****

For the first time in several years, Mulder
settled himself into an orange plastic
chair in the autopsy bay, watching Scully
as she began the autopsy on Beatrice
Stevens.  He'd been eager to sit in, and
she had no particular objection.  In
autopsies past, he had usually been more of
a hindrance than a help, but today she was
inexplicably grateful for the silent
company.  If he'd asked her, of course, she
would have simply said she was in an
indulgent mood.  She had to admit, too,
that he did occasionally ask questions that
led her in a useful direction with her
examination.

She worked slowly, taking her time and
double-checking everything.  As she
progressed, she took samples, carefully
tagging them for laboratory testing.  Along
with the mounting stack of samples for
testing were an increasing number of
questions.  While she hoped the lab work
would provide answers, she doubted that
would be the case.  Mulder had allowed her
to work without interruption, though she
could feel him watching her every move.

Two hours into the autopsy, she paused to
stretch, her shoulders and back popping as
she did so.  Before returning to the body,
she caught Mulder's gaze, inviting his
inquiry.

"Find anything, Scully?"

She sighed.  "Unless something shows up on
the tox screen, the cause of death was
cardiac arrest."

"Heart attack?"

"Well, technically.  But I'm at a loss to
explain the cause of that--she was in
excellent shape for her age.  There's
minimal atherosclerosis.  It's looking more
like her body just...stopped, instantly."
She paused and looked down at the body open
in front of her.  "I'm running enzyme
tests, but because she died so rapidly, I
doubt that they'll tell us much."

Mulder just nodded and settled back into
the chair, surprising her.  She'd expected
him to press for more information or
theories.

She returned to work, cautiously tipping
the body onto its side, then peering at the
scar on the back of Beatrice's neck.  It
was small, faint, and would probably have
been missed by someone not knowing what to
look for.  But then, she told herself, it
could just be a coincidence.  Yet given the
number of coincidences on this case, she
felt it unlikely.

With a gloved finger, she carefully probed
the skin before making a shallow incision
with her scalpel.  In seconds, she saw what
she feared she would find.

"Mulder."

Her voice caused him to snap to attention,
bouncing toward the edge of his seat.
"What did you find?"

"Come here."

She exchanged her scalpel for a delicate
pair of tweezers, and extracted a small
microchip.  As Mulder reached her side, she
held it out for him.

When she dropped it into a Petri dish, both
stared at it silently for a long moment.

****

Mulder looked up into the camera as he
waited for the Gunmen to buzz him into
their lair.  One hand remained in his coat
pocket, lightly grasping the Petri dish
there.  The other hand toyed with the door
handle, giving it a swift tug when he was
finally granted entrance.  The long hallway
back to their offices was dark, and he had
to walk carefully to avoid the piles of
paperwork and unidentified mechanical
parts.

"Mulder, my man."  Frohike's voice rang
across the electronics-filled room as
Mulder entered.  "What have you brought for
us today?"

He removed the chip from his pocket,
setting the Petri dish on the cluttered
countertop next to one of the computers.
"Scully found this today."

Langly looked away from one of the monitors
long enough to take in the chip.  "Whoa.
Another one?"

"Yes."  Mulder felt no need to elaborate.
Langly's startled question was enough to
draw Byers and Frohike in for a closer
look.

"Is this related to Agent Scully's current
health situation?"  Byers' inquiry was
tentative, and he spoke from behind Langly.

"Not directly.  It's related to a case
we're currently investigating.  But the
case does seem to have some parallels."

Frohike pushed Mulder aside and removed the
chip, placing it on a microscope.  Langly
clicked a few buttons on the computer, and
the chip appeared, ten times larger, on
screen.

Mulder looked around at the faces of the
Gunmen, all staring carefully at the
magnified image.  "Well?"

"Well, it looks an awful lot like the one
you and Scully brought us."  Langly clicked
away as he spoke, pulling up an image of
the chip that had been removed from
Scully's neck.

Side by side, the images were nearly
identical.

Frohike reached for the microscope,
carefully shifting the chip a few degrees
to the left.  Langly zoomed in once more,
bringing the details of the chip into the
foreground.

"I looks like the processors are a bit less
advanced than the one removed from Agent
Scully," commented Frohike, tracing a few
of the electronic components and addressing
Langley.

"Yeah.  I'd definitely say it's an older
model."  Langley clicked away once more,
bringing a similar but streamlined image
onto the screen.  "Look at that.  Totally
version 2.0."

"You boys all agree we're looking at the
same thing here?  But a slightly different
model?"  Mulder squinted at the monitor,
trying to spot the differences between the
chips.

"There are some minimal differences in the
exact components used, but they're
essentially the same thing."  Byers sounded
certain.  He reached out a finger, tracing
a group of tiny wires on Scully's chip.
"See this circuit?  Not wired exactly how I
would expect it to be, but in and of itself
nothing unusual."  He traced a similar set
on the chip from Beatrice.  "But it's
exactly the same way here, just with
slightly different wires."

Mulder continued to stare at the monitor,
looking between the two almost-identical
images.

"Does this make those parallels a whole lot
closer?" Frohike queried, toying with the
microscope set up, bringing the chip into
sharper relief.

"A whole lot closer," Mulder echoed.

****

Wind rustled through the tender spring
leaves and pushed puffy clouds across the
slender moon.  Charlotte watched the
ghostly clouds race overhead as she rocked
back in the worn, wooden chair.  The wicker
seat creaked as she shifted, nearly
drowning out the sound of approaching
footsteps on the gravel walkway.

The figure was a silhouette in the dark as
it emerged around the corner of the house.
Only when the figure halted at the bottom
of the steps did Charlotte deign to look
down, noting the thin wisp of smoke
floating away into the darkness.

"You've got a lot of nerve showing up here
tonight, Charles."

"And you've got a lot of nerve to speak to
me that way, young lady."  He stepped out
of the shrubbery's shadows and dropped the
cigarette into the gravel.

"Young lady, am I?" she drawled.  "Compared
to you, I suppose I am.  But I think it's
more than justified, given the
circumstances."  She didn't move from the
rocker, simply gazed coolly down at him.

"You had to know what the outcome of this
would be.  Especially after your little
luncheon.  You're lucky you haven't met a
similar fate."

"I told Agent Mulder nothing of use."

"Your mother would have been wise to do the
same."  He stepped closer to the porch,
once again standing in the shadows.

Charlotte sat up straighter, poised on the
edge of the chair.  "You took great care to
make sure she didn't reveal more than you
wished.  It never did sit well with you
when someone actually knew what game they
were playing with you."

"But you're well aware of the dangerous
game you're playing now, my dear."

"I am."  She leveled a hard look at him,
focusing on the faint sparkle of his eyes
in the darkness.

His eyes traced over her sitting form
before he answered.  "You always were a
gambler like your father.  Are you sure the
odds aren't too high for you this time?
The stakes are very high."

"That's what makes the payoff worthwhile."
She finally looked away, out towards the
pastures where the dark shadows of horses
could be seen grazing.  "And occasionally
there are chances you have to take, because
not taking them isn't an option."

"You would risk everything we've worked
for--your father worked for--over this?"

"Are you barking mad?"  She whipped around
to look at him incredulously.  "A few
harmless chips, brief disappearances, the
deaths of a few animals--that was all
justifiable.  Unpleasant, but justifiable.
But to dispose so casually with the
daughter, widow and mother of those who
have been involved since the beginning is
the most reprehensible thing you've ever
done.  And you've done a lot of
reprehensible things."

"You don't have much room to criticize my
behavior, Charlotte.  You're no angel."  He
withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his coat
pocket, taking his time in lighting one
before offering the pack to her.

"No thank you," she said.  "I'm well aware
of what I've done."

"Then you should think very carefully about
what your next move should be.  You know
there's only one out in this--you've known
that since the beginning."

"I never said I wanted out.  But that
doesn't mean I don't want retribution."
She settled back into the chair, crossing
her arms against her chest.

"There's no having it both ways.  And I
don't think you'll find the others any more
amenable to retribution or restitution than
I am."  He took a long drag on the
cigarette, the end flaring red in the dark.
"We'll expect you at the meeting, to settle
this matter once and for all.  I suggest
you weigh your words there carefully."

"I wonder whether I haven't already been
weighed and measured.  I doubt my words
will make a bit of difference."  She pushed
off with one foot, slowly rocking the
chair.  "Just give me time to grieve this."

"A few days may give you a much better
perspective on all this, in the grand
scheme of things."

"Indeed."  She refused to be baited further
by him.

For several minutes, they both rested in
uneasy silence on the porch.  When a shrill
whinny broke the night, he turned away from
her.

"Good night, Charlotte."

She didn't respond as he disappeared back
down the walkway into the still Virginia
night.

****
Chapter 8
****

Scully shuffled into the office and Mulder
instantly regretted the ruin of her
weekend.  He'd known she needed rest, but
he'd also needed her on the case with him.
His guilt increased when she sat down,
motionless at her desk, without turning on
her computer.

"Did the preliminary test results come in
yet?" she finally asked.

"Yeah, they did."  He rose and carried the
bulky envelope to her desk, resting it
gently on the corner.  He took one step
back, resting against a filing cabinet as
she tore into the package.

There was silence as she flipped through
the pages, occasionally nodding her head or
frowning.

"Well, what do you think?"

"There's absolutely nothing in any of these
tests to indicate cause of death.  No
elevated enzyme levels, no foreign
substances.  Nothing," she said.  "For no
apparent reason, her body systems just shut
down."

"Which is something, though, right?"

"Oh," she said with a sigh, "I don't have
the energy to play 'is this something?'
with you on this case again.  Any other
time, I'd say it wasn't, and that plenty of
people drop dead from nothing more than old
age every day.  But like the cancer in her
animals, there are too many coincidences
here for them to be just coincidences."

He nodded and took in the exhausted
resignation in her voice.  "So where do you
suggest we go from here?"

For a moment she stared down at the test
results, then said, "Well, I don't know
that there's much of a case now.  There's
no medical evidence that Beatrice Stevens'
death was from anything but natural causes.
The animals are, for all legal intents and
purposes, property, whatever emotional
attachments we chose to place on them.
Without a property owner interested in
pursuing the matter..."

"There is no investigation," he finished
for her.

Both were quiet for a moment, and he
studied her pale face.  He would almost be
happy to give up this case, to stay in the
office doing inane paperwork for several
months.  But this case had offered a
possible solution, tantalizing clues that
seemed to point to answers to his questions
and her health problems.  Could he just
walk away from that?

"I know you don't want to leave it, Mulder,
but unless one of her children is
interested in pursuing it, I fail to see
how we can."

"There were just so many pieces of the
puzzle here, floating just under the
surface.  If I just had the right lens, I
could have seen them all, put them all
together-"

"Don't do this to yourself, not over this,"
she said.  "I know you would have liked to
untangle this mess, to find answers.
Personally, I-I think I would have liked
some answers about all of this, too."  She
stared down at her hands, denying him the
opportunity to study her face as she spoke.

"That's the biggest reason I wanted this
case."  He spoke honestly, emotions close
to the surface.  He needed her to know he
felt this almost as deeply as she did--that
he wanted this for her.  "This could have
saved you."

"You don't know that.  It might have," she
paused and met his gaze before correcting
herself, "looked likely to provide some of
the answers we've been hunting for.  But
I'm not willing to make deals with the
devil or operate outside the boundaries of
the law to find them.  Especially when we
don't know whether they'll really be of
help to us.  To me."

"You don't think the evidence we've seen on
this case was genuine?  After being warned
off it by that chain-smoking bastard and
seeing the woman who presented it to us die
under questionable circumstances?"

She shook her head.  "I think Beatrice was
truthful about what she knew had happened.
But you of all people know that truth can
be subjective.  The information we've seen
on this case, though, especially given the
smoking man's involvement, I can't quite
bring myself to trust.  It may be as much
of a red herring as Charlotte's denials of
insurance fraud--it looks and sounds
plausible, but is it really?"

"But what if it's not?  What if pursuing
this would have revealed a cure for you,
and answers about the tests that were
inflicted on innumerable women across the
country?"  He knew he sounded as
righteously angry as he felt.

"Then it means I won't have a cure and we
won't have answers."  How did she manage to
sound so pragmatic?  "We're no worse off
than before we took this case."

He raked his gaze over her, noticing a
thousand tiny ways in which she seemed much
worse off than when they'd taken this case.
"Can you honestly tell me you're not any
worse?"

That seemed to spark something in her.
"While I can't tell you that I'm better, I
also can't say that I'm worse.  But I'm
undergoing treatment that has been
scientifically proven to help.  That's
worth far more in my book than the
speculation and presumptions we've worked
under on this case."

"Fair enough."

Mulder settled back down behind his desk,
and Scully turned back to hers.  She
finally started up the computer and was
checking her messages when he rose, loudly
jangling change in his pocket.  "I'm going
to grab a soda.  You want anything?"

"No, thank you."  She didn't glance away
from the monitor as he passed.

When he returned from the vending machines,
she was still scrolling through the
messages.  He paused in the doorway,
watching and wondering if she was even
reading the messages, or merely putting in
the appearance of doing something.  Closer
to the latter, he decided, as she stared
for a long moment at what he knew to be a
reminder about the carpet cleaning due to
take place over the coming weekend.

Without a word, he walked back to his desk,
pausing only to place a small, yellow
package on the corner of hers.  As he sat,
he heard the crinkle as she picked it up,
then the split second of silence before she
ripped it open.

"Thanks," she said, her voice slightly
garbled by the peanut M&M she crunched down
on as she spoke.

They continued playing at normality at
their desks for the rest of the afternoon.

****

The pungent scent of permanent marker ink
filled her nostrils as she finished
addressing the manila envelope.  The
padding inside crackled as she firmly
pressed the seal closed.  It was all a bit
more than was necessary, of course--the
tiny metal cylinder now enclosed within
certainly would withstand anything that the
US Post Office could throw at it.  Just to
be safe, though, she reached into the top
desk drawer and withdrew a stamp.  Pressing
it to the front of the envelope, she
emblazoned FRAGILE in vivid scarlet.

The cylinder was small, barely making a
bulge in the mailer.  For a moment, she
worried about sending it through so public
a source as the US Mail.  But she returned
to her original rationalization that hiding
in plain view was often the most secure
camouflage of all.&nbs