AUTHOR: stormlantern1013@yahoo.com

KEYWORDS: MSR

FEEDBACK: Absolutely!

SPOILERS: "Existence", "Nothing Important Happened
Today"

RATING: PG

ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know where so I can visit

SUMMARY: What Mulder's been up to

DEDICATION: To my high-flying beta reader, Char
Chaffin, her intrepid co-pilot Tess, the fabulous
Fadboo, and to Amy, the doughty dungeon-master of the
best XF site on the web, "The Haven For The FBI's Most
Unwanted".

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

Mockingbird Cafe/Campground

Newburgh, Indiana

4:35 P.M.

The trap had been sprung, the prey caught. And the
victor stood contemplating his victim.

One moment Fox Mulder had been talking to a genial
farmer concerned about the deep circles and errant
patterns appearing in his soybean fields overnight.
The next, the farmer's shape had blurred, shifted and
resolved itself into a form and face that had haunted
Mulder's nightmares since his return from the dead.

The Alien Bounty Hunter stood before him. It was late
afternoon, and they stood at the perimeter of a tiny
rural village, in a clearing edged by small woods.
Anyone who watched the tableau would have noted,
perhaps with a pang, that despite his height and
breadth of shoulder, Mulder looked all too slight and
a bit forlorn as he stood before the bulk of the
Hunter.

He flinched only once as he stared at his nemesis. His
hands, held carefully at his sides, clenched into
fists. Otherwise he made no further move, lest he
provoke his adversary into action.

Death would come soon enough.

"I have caught you. Don't bother running," said the
Hunter. "You are mine."

"Yours?" said Mulder. "So it's personal now? What did
I ever do to you?"

He spoke bitterly, but without plea or remonstrance.
He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know. This
seemed to nonplus the Hunter, who answered him
straight.

"If there ever has been a noble quarry, Mulder, you
are it," he replied. "One I actually took some
pleasure in hunting. You gave your life over to a
quest, however futile, instead of focusing on narrow,
selfish interests. Thus, your pursuit ennobled mine,
and for that I thank you."

Mulder's eyes narrowed. "You pursued me. I pursued
those who tried to conceal the truth with lies and
bloodshed. Who hunted whom, then?"

"What matters at the end, my friend, is who is now
cornered, and who will strike the final blow." The
Hunter moved slowly toward Mulder, stalking him, and
felt for the knife strapped to his hip. "And who will
collect a trophy afterward."

"Trophy?" Mulder watched him come. "You know," he went
on conversationally, as he backed away, "that explains
a few things about the cattle mutilations ascribed to
aliens that my partner and I used to investigate. The
genitalia were always taken."

The implied insult was not lost on the Hunter. "You
are all cattle to us," he snarled. "You will hold
still. It would be such a waste to cut you to ribbons,
which any struggle on your part would most certainly
guarantee, and I have plans for that skin of yours."

Mulder stood, tense but unmoving, as the Hunter
reached out and gripped his shoulder. With his other
hand the Hunter raised the knife. Light flashed from
the naked blade, and Mulder fixed his eyes upon it.

"Did it ever occur to you people simply to ask for
help?" he muttered. "Instead of murdering and
abducting?"

The Hunter paused. "Help? From whom?"

"From us. We have scientists, you know."

The Hunter actually chuckled. "And how successful
would they be in helping us?"

"At least as successful as you've been with your
murdering and abducting."

The Hunter shook his head.

"It's a failed experiment, isn't it?" Mulder
challenged. "You're a barren race who've developed an
alternate way to reproduce by implanting humans with a
sentient virus laden with your DNA. After infection,
it grows inside and eats its way out. But the
resultant creature is primitive and violent. It
doesn't survive long outside its host. Plus some
humans are immune to the virus. Me. My son. And if
enough humans like us are born, your invasion can go
no further."

The Hunter fingered the hilt of his blade
thoughtfully. "You've made some good guesses," he said
finally. "And some, not so good."

"Care to enlighten me?"

The Hunter laughed. "You think I will tell you?" he
exclaimed. "Tell you all my story?"

Mulder gazed at the Hunter's mirth in silence. "If
not... " he said softly, "can I ask a favor?"

The Hunter laughed again. "You amuse me, Mulder," he
said. "What favor?"

"Leave some remains?" Mulder asked. "A skull, some
bones?"

The Hunter smirked. "A gruesome request," he said
indulgently.

"So my... partner will know I'm dead," said Mulder.
"So she won't go looking for me, thinking I might be
saved. There's nothing worse... than not knowing."

The Hunter gazed at the human and felt, for the second
time since knowing the man's name, a touch of
compassion. Such a reaction was weak, unprofessional,
and he felt a flicker of anger in response. But as in
an earlier confrontation, when Mulder had met his
brutality with a plea for information about his
missing sister, the Hunter felt challenged by the
courage of his prey; and so he hesitated, and stayed
his hand.

For the moment.

The Hunter glanced to the side. Across the little
clearing lay the village, and on the village's edge
squatted a tiny bar and grill.

The Hunter turned back to Mulder.

"You humans have a tradition, I believe, in the event
of victory," he said. "And you intrigue me as much as
you amuse me. A drink before you die. But if you try
any tricks, I will kill - " he smiled slightly à
"murder, everyone in that building."

The Mockingbird Grill, interior

5:00 P.M.

"So again I must ask you, Mulder... was it worth it?"

Mulder fingered the icy glass of his beer mug. "I
learned some truths," he said quietly. "Saved some
lives."

"Except your own." The Hunter took a pull from his
mug. "At the end."

Mulder shrugged. "All lives end."

"So cavalier about being separated forever from your
mate and offspring? You can be a puzzle, Mulder." The
Hunter signaled for another brew. "But then you've
left them before, of your own volition - "

"Not of my own volition." The mildness was gone from
Mulder's eyes, and his voice was hard and flat. "Never
of my own volition."

The Hunter eyed him thoughtfully as he sipped his
fresh drink. "I admit we found your seeming desertion
startling. It seemed rather out of character. After
your departure some of my colleagues wanted to strike
at once and snatch your mate and offspring, but others
felt that the situation could be a trap. So we waited,
to see what you were up to. Some kept your mate under
constant surveillance. Others tracked you." His mouth
quirked. "Is that how you hoped to protect your
family, Mulder? By dividing our attention?"

Mulder wrapped his hands around the heavy glass mug
carefully, as if it were fragile, and said nothing.

The bar, nearly empty when the two men had entered it,
was now slowly filling up. The Hunter leaned forward
and lowered his voice. "We know you traveled many
places and spoke to many people. I'm guessing you
sought help and found none." He tapped the rim of his
mug idly. "You always did have too much faith in your
fellow creatures, Mulder. You really believed that if
you revealed the truth about alien abductions, others
of your kind would rally to your side. Instead, few
have believed you, and none are here now in your hour
of need. Not even your mate. Have you hidden her,
Mulder?" The Hunter snorted. "We'll find her, you
know."

Mulder remained silent.

The Hunter gestured at his captive's still-full mug.
"You do not drink," he said. "I advise you to do so,
for when will you drink again?"

Mulder lifted the mug and looked at it, then placed it
back on the table.

The Hunter shook his head. "Yet another missed
opportunity. How many have you had, Mulder? How many
mistakes have you made?"

"You've made mistakes, too," Mulder said softly. "You
and your masters."

The Hunter raised his eyebrows.

"The chief one being," Mulder elaborated in a steady
tone, "returning to your home planet, to attempt to
enslave beings with latent psychic abilities similar
to your own."

The Hunter snorted. "No mistake. We returned to make
use of prolific beings whose physiology is readily
adaptable to experimentation. As for those 'latent
psychic abilities', your race is far too primitive to
make effective use of them. You might as well try to
make use of what remains of your tails."

"But we humans have never been limited by our natural
abilities," said Mulder. "We have no wings, yet we
fly. We have no gills, yet we explore the ocean floor.
One thing made those feats possible: a device. With us
humans, find the device and we obtain the ability."

"And what," asked the Hunter lazily, "has that to do
with latent psychic abilities?"

"I've found the device for that."

"What device?"

Mulder unbuttoned his collar, reached into his shirt
and pulled out the thin chain of a necklace. A pendant
dangled from the end of it.

*This.*

The Hunter's eyes widened as Mulder's voice
reverberated, not in his ears, but within his mind.

"Where did you get that?" he growled.

*It's a shard from a fragment of one of your downed
spacecraft.* Mulder toyed with the pendant. It was
gray, and glittered, and had been carved into the
shape of a fox head. *My partner found it in Africa.
When I first encountered it, its radiation activated
my... latent psychic abilities... overwhelmed them, in
fact. I nearly went mad. But a tiny shard like this I
can handle. As you may have noticed, it projects my
thoughts wherever I direct them. Moreover, my son,
young as he is, can levitate this metal. I take it
that's how you fly your spacecraft? Psychically?*

The Hunter stared at the pendant a moment longer. Then
he shrugged and took another pull from his mug.
"Well," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
"You've learned a clever trick. Shall I pat you on the
head and call you a good little human?"

Mulder took a pull from his own mug, his eyes
glittering like his pendant. *You know, this is like
that old ventriloquist's trick, where the
ventriloquist drinks a glass of water while
simultaneously putting words in the mouth of his
dummy.*

"You are fortunate that I am not easily provoked,
Agent Mulder." The Hunter took a last sip from his mug
and set it on the table. "Still, it grows late." He
gave the pendant another penetrating look. "If I leave
any remains, I will not be leaving that." He reached
into a pocket, threw some bills onto the table, and
stood up. Then he reached over and tapped a thick gold
band around Mulder's finger.

"Perhaps," he said, "I shall leave that." He looked
sternly at Mulder. "Come."

The two men exited the bar and made their way across
the clearing towards the small wood. When they reached
the trees, the Hunter ordered Mulder to halt. He did
so, and turned to face his enemy.

Once again the Hunter drew his weapon. Mulder tensed
and shifted his weight.

The Hunter sighed. "Mulder, I admit that I am sorry
that this hunt has come to an end. But I shall be
sorrier still if you struggle. I prefer my kills swift
and clean."

Mulder gazed at him and did not reply. Then the Hunter
heard movement behind him. Quickly he grabbed Mulder
by the shoulders and turned, using his prey as a
shield between himself and -

The bar, which had filled up while they were within
it, was slowly emptying. A small group had formed at
the clearing's edge, a group made up of male and
female, young and old, and of several colors of skin.

They glared at the Hunter with hate and loathing, a
little fear.

He recognized most of them.

Still locked in the Hunter's grip, Mulder turned his
head and glanced back at the bristling crowd. Then his
gaze returned to the Hunter.

"Some of the folks I met on my travels," he remarked,
and added, almost gently, "I never said I had just ONE
shard."

Then the Hunter saw them - more shards, twinkling from
necks, wrists and fingers; shards, glittering like
bitter stars in a vengeful sky.

As he realized what was about to happen, before he
could react, their thoughts hit him like knives.

Images of abduction, torture - bursts of incredible
pain, rage, the agony of helplessness, roiling waves
of crippling fear - exploded within the Hunter's
brain. His thoughts were shattered by fragments of
nightmare, cutting vital connections, crushing
cognizance, crippling any ability to even comprehend
what was happening to him.

Hundreds of screams, hundreds of wounds -

At the first strike, the Hunter's hands loosened their
grip on Mulder's shoulders and fell away. Then a
second psychic avalanche of anguish and hatred crushed
the remainder of his mind and sent him to his knees.
As he slowly crumbled from within, his vision darkened
and his hearing faded. But just enough of each sense
remained for him to see Mulder kneel beside him and
pull a weapon from his own pocket, a weapon with a
thin, bright, cylindrical blade, and to hear him say:

"I'm sorry too."

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

There was, of course, nothing left to autopsy.

Dana Scully tore her gaze away from the tableau
outside the bar's window and carefully replaced her
gun into her duffel bag. She removed the black wig
from her head and shook loose her own russet tresses.
Then, leaving the wig on the table, she rose from her
seat, took up the duffel bag and exited the bar to
tend to the wounded.

Mulder had collected quite a circle of friends during
his forced separation from his partner and child a
year before - and that circle was now suffering from
their first real confrontation with the enemy. Several
were doubled over from migraine; some were vomiting;
one was on the ground - Scully, digging in her bag for
her medical kit, headed for her first.

It was Charlene, nicknamed Char, the young aviatrix
who, like the rest of the group, was a fellow
abductee. She had been snatched out of the sky one
night while testing the wings of her new Piper Cub.
Seven weeks later she had awakened in a field minus
her Cub and wracked with flashbacks of torture and
pain. Her friends and relatives had, of course, not
believed her story of aliens and cruel probings by
twisted metal instruments. Worse than the disbelief,
however, had been the loss of her love of flying, a
love destroyed by fear. She had managed to hold her
sanity together, but was slowly sinking beneath a
crushing load of depression and despair. All was lost,
all seemed hopeless.

Until Mulder.

"He was the only one who believed me," Char had told
Scully upon their meeting. "The only one, that is, who
wasn't a nutjob. I mean, here was this FBI guy showing
me pictures and evidence of other people who'd been
through what I'd been through. And then he gave me the
shard and taught me how to use it. He not only
believed me, he believed IN me. After he left, I went
out and put a down payment on a new Cub, and I've been
flying ever since."

Brave, thought Scully now as she tended to the young
woman, who turned out to be suffering from nothing
worse than a fainting spell. After her patient
regained her feet and assured her that she was all
right, Scully moved on to another needing her aid - a
lady named Amy, being supported by her husband as she
retched into the bushes. Amy's abduction had been so
traumatic that afterward she had sought out the
ultimate hiding place, and found it - a haven in the
form of an abandoned underground missile silo far
beneath the surface of the Nevada desert. At
considerable expense, she had outfitted its concrete
walls and floors with wood paneling and tile, carpet
and porcelain, glass and marble. It was a comfortable
living space, well-ventilated and softened with tubs
of flowers, vegetables, and even trees, all nourished
with sunlamps. Amy and her devoted husband had lived
quietly in their deep-set domain, perhaps not happy,
but certainly secure, until one night Mulder sought
them out and asked for sanctuary - and Amy's story.

When he departed a week later, he left behind a shard
- and a renewed desire to fight. "We have our dignity
back," Amy had told Scully. "We are no longer victims.
We are soldiers, defenders of this planet, and you and
Mulder are our generals."

And medics, Scully thought now as she dispersed
motion-sickness capsules to the former hermits and
then worked her way through the rest of the
"soldiers". The burly biker, the artist, the retired
pastor, the animal trainer from the Ringling
Brothers/Barnum and Bailey circus, and more - all
abductees, all recruited by Mulder, all entrusted with
shards.

"We can't run anymore, Scully," he'd told her the day
of his departure. "And we can't go on fighting this
alone." A final kiss for her and baby William, and he
was gone - with a list of possible recruits, maps,
cash, and a pouch full of shards carved into the
shapes of stars, birds, arrowheads and animals by the
artisans of the Navajo tribe once ruled by their late
friend Albert Hosteen. Many of the tribe also owned
shards.

The shards worked on everyone differently, bringing
out different levels of psychic ability. Some who wore
them could broadcast better than others, some could
receive thoughts more clearly, while still others
could attempt a limited form of psychikenesis. John
Doggett, of all people, had developed a kind of
foresight: he had told Mulder of dreams involving the
Alien Bounty Hunter and described a scenario very like
the one played out this night - of a lure meant for
Mulder, crop circles, and Mulder's death at the hands
of the Hunter. When a case had subsequently been
submitted to the office of the X-Files concerning crop
circles in Indiana, and when the client had asked
specifically for the services of former agent Fox
Mulder, the coincidence had set off warning bells and
Mulder had rallied his "troops" and set up a
counteroffensive for what certainly appeared to be, if
one believed in Doggett's premonition, a trap.

Scully continued to tend to the wounded, deeply
grateful that she had believed. She could see Doggett
now as he stood beside Mulder, looking down at what
was left of the Hunter and shaking his head. His
partner, Monica Reyes, was not on the scene - her
reaction to even the smallest of the shards had been
so violent and devastating that she couldn't come near
them at all, and was presently with the Lone Gunmen
helping to guard William. Thinking of Monica prompted
Scully to reach for her cell phone and punch a button.

"Byers, it's me."

"Scully? Everything okay?"

"More than okay. The Hunter is dead."

A chorus of cheers rattled through the phone's
receiver. Scully smiled and spoke through the racket.
"How's William?"

"He's fine, just fine."

"Good." Scully hesitated, then spoke carefully. "I
hope he's... cleaner... than he was the last time we
left him with you."

Frohike broke in. "Don't worry, Scully, I took
personal care of things." Then he spoke to someone
else. "Got that, Langly? When a baby poops in his
diaper, you have to change him IMMEDIATELY."

"This from a guy who never flushes the toilet," came
the reply.

"Listen, asshole - "

"Frohike," Scully broke in, "put Byers back on."

Byers hastened to reassure her. "Everything's under
control, Scully. You have my word."

Scully smiled again. "Thanks, Byers. We'll see you
soon." She punched in Monica's number. "Monica, it's
Scully. How you holding up?"

"Fine. Boring doing surveillance, though. Wish I could
be part of the action."

Scully smiled sympathetically at Monica's
disgruntlement. "You are, Monica. There's no way I'd
leave Will there without you to help guard."

"So... I take it the operation was successful?"

"Yes. The Hunter's finished. I think he fought back,
but the casualties are light, and morale seems good.
I'll be in touch soon."

"Dana? Be happy. You won."

"Yes," Scully said softly. "We won." She slipped the
cell phone into her pocket, then crossed the clearing
to speak to her fellow "general".

Doggett had wandered away, and Mulder stood alone,
staring down at the man-shaped smear on the grass.
Scully walked up to him, folded her arms across her
chest, and glared.

"That was terrible, Mulder," she said flatly. "Much,
much worse than Modell."

He smiled softly at her and said nothing. After a
moment, she sighed, then stepped closer and wrapped
her arms around him, running her hands up and down his
back and sides, giving herself over fully to her need
for the feel of him. Mulder, for his part, stood
quietly under her ministrations; not surprisingly for
so tactile a man, he loved being stroked.

Scully glanced down at the grass. "What do you think
brought him down?" she asked.

Mulder sighed. "When the fragment made me ill," he
said in a low voice, "it was bad enough... all those
thoughts from others, flooding my mind. But if they'd
been aimed at me, filled with rage and hate... " His
voice shuddered away.

Scully gripped him tighter, and his arms slipped
around her in response. Later he would strip and
stroke her, and she would make a nest of his body,
their skins wrapping around each other in a twist of
ivory and gold.

But first, she needed to get to the bottom of
something.

"And now, Mulder?"

He stirred uneasily beneath her touch.

"What are you planning?" Her voice sharpened.

He looked at her directly, a plea in his hazel eyes.
But he was hers, and he knew it, and she used it.

"What are you planning?"

"There have to be more, Scully," he said immediately.
"The spaceships are surprisingly fragile. Once the
hull is breached, they're done for. They have to be
landed so they can rebuild themselves. If they're too
far gone, they're abandoned. You found one in Africa.
There has to be others. Our atmosphere has harshened
of late and more ships have gone down."

"I take it this isn't mere speculation?" Scully asked
quietly. "You... heard this when - during your
abduction? You heard - them - say this?"

"Yes. I remember. It worried them. So there has to be
more ships, and I mean to find them. To get more
shards. To arm more people. This is what I'm focusing
on. This is my new quest."

Scully pondered this. Mulder waited, hardly daring to
breathe.

"I see," she said at last. "I'm coming with you."

Mulder exhaled. "Yes," he agreed. "And William can
come with us. We can protect him now. And we're no
longer fighting alone."

"Just the same," she warned, piercing him with her
azure gaze, "you're not to take unnecessary risks."

"Risks?" he said weakly.

"Must I remind you?" she asked him with a chilly
smile. But his smile was considerably warmer, and she
knew he understood her tone.

"You're a husband and father," she said.

"And the best alien bait since Reese's Pieces," he
said.

She laughed softly, and lowered her head to his chest.
He took advantage and nuzzled her hair. A raucous mix
of hoots and whistles drifted through the dusky air
from the crowd beyond them. Scully snorted into
Mulder's chest, and felt his body, clasped in her
arms, shake with silent laughter.

She stepped back and looked up at him. "They want to
celebrate," she said. "Maybe you don't feel like it?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. "Maybe," he said at
last.

She nodded and squeezed his forearm. "Don't be long."

She turned away and trudged toward the troops. She
pulled her jacket around her as she walked. Sunset had
begun in earnest, and the air had turned chill.

She looked back once to see Mulder, hands in his
pockets, staring down morosely at the usual lack of
evidence. She sighed.

The trap had been sprung, the prey caught. And the
victor stood contemplating his victim.

~finis~
 
 

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