By Neoxphile
neoxphile@aol.com
 

Date: 30 Dec 2003
Status: NEW - Standalone
Size: 184k
Rating: PG-13
Archive at Gossamer: Yes to Gossamer/Ephemeral
Category: Adventure , Humor, Angst
Pairings: Langly/Byers/Frohike Friendship
Spoilers: Season 9

Summary: After the events of "Jump the shark" the gunmen discover
that they still have work to do.this time from heaven.
 
Part 1
Please see part 0 (template) for warnings and summary.

Title: But The Kite-String Broke

Author: Neoxphile

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Anything from The Pilot to The Truth is fair game, but
particularly JTS to The Truth

Category: snark-angst

Feedback: Feedback me and I'll love you forever neoxphile@aol.com

Website: If you're looking for more of my fics(and there are lots), go
to http://www.geocities.com/mulderscreek

Disclaimer: Everyone with an IQ above room temperature realizes that I
do not own the characters, who are the creation of Chris Carter and
1013 productions. I'm merely borrowing them for my own twisted use.

Summary: After "Jump The Shark" the Lone Gunmen find out that they
have some business to finish in heaven.

Author's notes at end

***
***

First there was a pink fog, and it hurt. Not terribly, not like it
would be to be ripped limb from limb or skewed with hot pokers, but
rather the pain of suffocation, the half sweet pressure of pneumonia -
pain with a vein of perverse pleasure.  It was so hard to think in the
fog, hard to remember where they'd last seen pink. John Gillnitz. The
dead terrorist. The pink liquid, glowing.  The fire doors.

Fire doors? The pink faded to white, and they looked for the doors
that had trapped them in with the dead man whose body harbored a
world-killing virus. John was gone. So were the doors. For a moment a
wild hope sprung up within their chests. The doors were gone! They
were free! By some miracle they'd escaped the suffocating gloom of the
virus filled room, and now they could tell  people. Yves, Jimmy,
Scully, Doggett and Reyes...

But everything else was gone too. The walls, the morose, yet dim
friend, the entire building... There was nothing but a white fog that
rubbed up against their shins like sycophantic kittens. The three
friends looked at each other, no answers were read in any of their
eyes.

Langly spoke first.  " I guess we're not in Kansas any more."

" We've never been to Kansas." Frohike groused.

" I don't mean to kill your argument in its infancy, but do either of
you have any idea where we really are?" Byers politely interrupted.

Langly shrugged. " I don't see a yellow brick road."

Frohike glared at him, but Byers saw something. " Does there seem to
be a faint  light in that direction?" He asked, pointing at something
along the horizon.

" Looks like." Frohike admitted.

" Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go." Langly said, leading the
way towards the distant light. The others scrambled to keep up.

***

The fog continued to swirl, and there seemed to be no landmarks to
look to whatsoever. Even peering down they couldn't see the surface
they walked on. There was nothing but the dim light they trod towards.
It wasn't hot or cold, and they realized that they no longer hurt in
any way, so they shrugged off the  strangeness and counted their
blessings.

" So what happened back there?" Langly's voice seemed even more nasal
with his nervousness, and he kept pushing his glasses back up the
bridge of his nose.

" We saved the world." Frohike deadpanned, doing his best Mulder
impression.

" I'm asking a serious question!"

" Well, with the help of that jerk Fletcher, we finally tracked down
Yves, who was looking for this man she planned to kill. Turns out that
the man was a bio-terrorist." Byers explained. " She wanted to kill
him to keep him from releasing a virus that would be fatal to pretty
much everyone. We chased him down a corridor, and since time was
running out, we did the only thing we could...we pulled the fire alarm
which sealed off the doors... But what I don't  understand is, why
aren't we dead?"

" How do you know we're not?" Frohike asked.

" What, are you suggesting this is heaven?" Langly asked, looking
around at the  nothingness.

" Maybe it's purgatory." Byers suggested.

" Nah, only Catholics go there, and I'm not one. Maybe...maybe it's
hell." Frohike said with a shiver, even though it wasn't cold.

" Maybe it's none of the above, and we're all in intensive care,
dreaming away our comas." Langly said, firmly rejecting the notion of
hell.

" Where every we are, maybe that will give us a clue." Byers stared
hard through the gloom. There was something in the light. Something
that blocked part of it. Whatever it was, it was big.

***

None of them spoke for a long while. Although they were filled to the
brim with  questions, they were afraid that if they articulated even
one they'd never stop. As if they'd release the floodgates and drown
themselves in fear and doubts.

Once they reached the sole landmark, however, there was no point in
keeping their mouths shut. They were dwarfed by it. Opalescent pillars
rose up for to incalculable heights, and its crossbars were as thick
as telephone poles. They looked at it with awe.

" It's...it's a gate." Frohike said, breaking the silence.

" A very big gate." Byers affirmed. " A big white gate."

" Pearly." Langly corrected him.

" What?"

" We're obviously standing at the pearly gates." The others gave him
blank looks. He sighed deeply. " Didn't you guys watch cartoons
growing up? This is just like that."

Byers shook his head, his expression one of disbelief. " These are not
'the pearly gates'." He said firmly.

" Actually, your friend in the glasses is correct." A mild voice said
off to their right.

***

All three heads swung towards what they thought was the source of the
voice, but saw no one. Instead they were met by a strange sight. As if
by magic a podium that seemed to be made of clouds and light rose up
from the ground. A large white book drifted down from above and came
to rest, open, on the podium.

" Oh, that's better." The same mild, and hidden, voice said. A small,
previously unnoticed door in the gate swung open, allowing someone to
come through. A man with salt and pepper hair smiled at them. He wore
a long flowing  robe that, by some paradox, managed to be a pristine
white with faded colors swirling underneath.

Langly started at him, then blurted out " Micah Hoffman is God??"

The man's laughter was musical. " Goodness no, I'm just an angel,
Saint Peter."

" Micah Hoffman is Saint Peter?" Frohike gasped. " How does a 60's
counter-culture icon achieve sainthood?"

" Dear me... I seem to have some explaining to do. I'm not this
Hoffman, although I do look like him to you. You see, God, in his
infinite wisdom, decided that I ought to appear to the newly departed
in the form of someone who  would bring them comfort. Someone they
respected, admired. Unfortunately, reactions vary, and I wonder if I
just ought to post a sign, although it would have to be quite large to
accommodate all the human languages..." He shakes his  head gently as
his voice trails off. " Since you three are quite calm,
relatively speaking, I wonder if you could solve a mystery that I'm
too busy to  solve. Tell me, who is Gerry Garcia? Many people see me
as this man, but are too overwhelmed to explain."

" Um..." He was a musician in a band called The Grateful Dead."
Frohike explained.

" Really. That's both disappointing and appropriate." The angel
remarked.

" Are we... are we dead?" Byers stammered, his eyes still agog.

Saint Peter gave them a sad and gentle look. " I've never liked this
part...I'm  sorry, the answer is yes. You died heroes deaths."

" Are we here because we're going to heaven?" Langly asked eagerly.

" The angel gave them another beautiful smile." That's something we
need to talk about."

Despite the smile, the gunmen felt nervous.

***

" You mean we're not here because we're going to heaven?" Byers asked
in a shaky voice, giving Saint Peter a crestfallen look. Of the three
of them he'd worked the hardest to live a vitreous life, so the
thought of that coming to naught was devastating.

Saint Peter looked uncomfortable. " Maybe we'd be more comfortable
discussing this in my office-" With a wave of his hand the foggy gloom
and the gate disappeared. Instead they were all in a brightly lit
room, sitting in comfortable, white, armchairs. While they liked the
soft overstuffed seats, they were less than thrilled that their
clothes were gone, inexplicably replaced by white robes.

" That's better." Saint Peter exclaimed brightly.  He was sitting
across from three nervous gunmen, who gave him their full attention. "
Now, as I said you died heroes deaths, but- "

" All that porn isn't mine. I'm just keeping it for a friend while
he's gone." Frohike blurted out, looked horrified by what he said,
then clasped a hand over  his mouth.

The Saint only nodded. " Well...anyway, your brave sacrifice of life
for the lives of others does entitle you to enter the kingdom of
heaven. However, there  is also another option I think we should
discuss."

***

" What's the other option? Do you mean you could make us live again?"
Langly asked eagerly.

Saint Peter held up a hand to stem off questions. " Let me lay it all
out for you, and you can ask questions after I explain each option."

Three heads nodded. Saint Peter delicately cleared his throat. " As I
said, you  could go to heaven. If you chose that option you would go
through those gates we met by earlier, and begin your heavenly
existence.

" Once in heaven, all your Earthly cares would fall away. You would no
longer need to worry about food, clothing, shelter, a job,
money...those you left behind."

Byers couldn't contain his question, so he hoped that it wouldn't
offend. " We wouldn't have to worry about our loved ones, you mean,
right?"

The angel shook his head. " You wouldn't worry about them. Since one
of the gifts of heaven is peace, you would completely forget about
them until they to ascended to heaven. Until you saw them again they
wouldn't enter your thoughts."

" I don't know if I like the sound of that." Frohike admitted. His
thought had been on those very people they would be forgetting.

" Many people are attracted to the thought of a worry-free existence.
Those people do not think that the price is too high to pay
considering what they receive in exchange."

" What if we're not those sort of people?" Langly asked.

Saint Peter chuckled to himself. " I thought that, given your cause of
death, the conversation might go this way. There are actually  three
types of beings that live in heaven. The first type are angels, like
myself, who have always been God's chosen. The second type are those
we just talked about, the peaceful  souls. The third type are God's
agents on Earth, and that is the second option I want to present to
you."

" Are they...alive?" Frohike asked.

" No. They are as dead as the peaceful souls, but different in many
ways."

" How so?" Langly asked.

" Before we discuss that, I think that we should take a little
fieldtrip so you  can see what you would be giving up if you choose
not to become peaceful souls."

" You don't have to go to the trouble." Byers objected.

" Perhaps not, but I insist. " He stood up suddenly. " Come on, lets
go."

***

Another door mysteriously appeared, leading Byers to wonder at the
possible significance. The statement " All doors will open to you,"
Bounced around in his head but before he could decide if it was from
the bible, a movie quote, or  even a dream, they'd already passed
through it.

" Here's where we see all the shiny happy people." Langly whispered
before starting to hum the REM song, which he continued to do until he
noticed Frohike's glare.

The people, peaceful souls, did look happy, but only slightly shiny.
Although there was a swirl of fog hugging the ground, the place they
were going bore little other resemblance to the emptiness the gunmen
had awoken in. Instead of grayness there was light. The sky a bright
blue, cloudless.

" Or the clouds are at our feet." Frohike mumbled to himself. No one
seemed to hear him.

Beautiful buildings lined both sides of the street. Most were
identical, that they supposed from the size were dwellings. The rest
seemed to be community buildings, some churches, some that looked like
arenas or playhouses. One large  one had a billboard out front that
proclaimed "Bingo games starting hourly."

Byers gave a small grin. " I guess my grandma was right."

" About what?" Langly asked him.

" She always said that there'd be bingo in heaven." Byers explained.

Frohike's attention was on the people who steadily entered and exited
the buildings. They all did look extraordinarily happy. No one looked
worried, bothered, or scared; they all had an air of serenity about
them.

***

" Do they look happy to you?" Saint Peter asked suddenly as they all
watched the hustle and bustle.

" Well yeah." Frohike replied. " They look pretty happy to be here."

" Don't you envy that? You could be this happy." There was a new edge
to the saint's voice. " You could be this carefree. You could choose
this right now."

" But at what price? I think I speak for all of us when I say that I
couldn't choose this without knowing what the alternative is." Byers
said, and the others nodded in agreement.

" Very well."

Five minutes later they were reseated in the office. Saint Peter gave
them a calculating look, trying to gauge their understanding of the
situation. " What do you know about guardian angels?" He asked.

" There are a lot of them in cartoons." Langly replied immediately. "
Oh, and there was that movie, ' It's a wonderful life.'"

That was enough to try even the patience of a saint. He sighed. " I
think this is going to be a long conversation."

***

" Guardian angels look out for mortals who are in trouble, right?"
Byers asked,  hoping it would be the thing to erase the despair from
the saint's face.

" Yes, that's right." Saint Peter said, perking up a bit.

" And they go to Earth and talk to their charges, advising them to
make the right choices." Frohike added.

" No." The saint corrected. " That's movie stuff."

" So guardian angels don't offer advice, gotcha." Langly said. " That
throws out the entire plots to Highway to Heaven and Touched By An
Angel, though."

" I wouldn't mind being touched by- ow!" Frohike rubbed his ribs and
glared at Byers. Byers just shrugged.

" Angels don't talk to mortals at all." Saint Peter told them,
pretending not to have any idea what the tiff had been about.

" So they just like push them out of the way of cars and stuff? That
sort of rescuing has got to be hard to accept without an explanation."
Langly commented.

" Not as hard as you would think, since guardian angels don't rescue
mortals from danger either."

" If they don't talk to people, or save people, what do they do?"
Byers asked, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice.

" A guardian angel's primary role is to observe."

" What good does that do?" Frohike asked.

***

" When a guardian angel feels that the mortal in his care is in
danger, he or she conferences with his or her supervising angel. This
is an angel who has been a guardian before, so they're experienced. If
their angelic supervisor feels that intervention is necessary, he or
she will act on the guardian's behalf." Saint Peter explained.

" They have a meeting?? Disasters happen fast. Don't people die while
these little chats waste time?" Langly complained.

" Actually, these meetings take no time. Literally. One of the perks
of being a  powerful celestial being is that our angel supervisors are
able to conduct meetings outside of time.  If action is necessary they
can reach the mortal before even so much as an additional second has
passed."

" But what if the supervisor doesn't think anything needs to be done?"
Byers asked.

" Then the event unfolds without divine intervention." Saint Peter
told him.

" Just like that? It sounds like a gamble."

" Our supervising angels are very well trained, and make few poor
decisions. " He hastened to assure them all.

" I've heard enough." Frohike declared. " Sign me up."

***

" Are you sure?" Saint Peter asked.

" Definitely." Frohike said with enthusiasm.

" I won't have you sign a contract, nor do I expect answers from Byers
and Langly just yet, though."

" I won't change my mind." Frohike asserted.

" That's fine."

" I really mean it."

" Ok."

Byers got the feeling that the inane conversation had the potential of
droning on and on, so he interrupted. " Are the people that the
guardian angels watch over assigned at random?"

" No, no." The saint said. " While that sounds lovely in theory, it'd
hardly be  fair. Most good souls who choose to be guardians do so
because they are worried  about the people that they leave behind.
Naturally, personal interest in the fates of those being watched over
is a great motivater."

Langly leaned forward in interest. " So you mean we'd be assigned to
people we know? If we choose to do this, I mean."  He made a grab for
his glasses, which were sliding off his face due to gravity. Saint
Peter smiled to himself. Neither Langly nor Frohike actually needed
their glasses any more, but most long-time wearers took such comfort
in their familiarity that he didn't have the heart to tell them.

" That's exactly right." He told Langly.

"Who would we be assigned to?" Byers asked eagerly.

" I'm afraid I can't tell you until when and if you decide to do
this."

***

" Really?"

" Yes, sorry, it's in the angelic bylaws."

" Oh." Byers looked disappointed.

Saint Peter gave them a lovely smile. " It's getting late, and I'm
sure you gentleman are tired. It's been a long day."

" Has it?" Frohike asked, suddenly realizing that he had no idea how
long it had been since they'd woke up in the fog.

" Indeed. I think it's time that the three of you get settled into
your new home."

" Wait a minute." Frohike said. " If I'm going to be a guardian
angel, shouldn't I live on Earth to be near whomever it is I'm
watching over?"

" While you will be spending a lot of time with your assignment, no
one is in crisis all the time. Every guardian angel has a home in
heaven where they can stay when they're not busy."

" If you spend the night up here, how would you know if there's a
sudden problem down there?" Langly asked.

" There are alarms." Saint Peter replied.

" An angelic ADT system??" Byers exclaimed.

" Something like that. Each guardian sets up his or her own alert
method. "

" Ok."

" Let's go, then." They followed Saint Peter out into heaven again,
and stopped  before what somewhat resembled a building. Unlike the
others on the street, this one seemed amorphous. Much as if jello was
primarily composed of light. Saint Peter turned and looked at them. "
Here it is."

" It looks a little...strange." Frohike said.

" That's because it's not done yet. Now, let's talk about this house.
On Earth you three were roommates, right?"

" Right."

" Would you like to continue being roommates, or would you each prefer
to have your own apartment?"

" You could do either?" Byers asked, surprised.

" Of course."

The lone gunmen looked at each other. " We'd rather be roommates."
They chorused.

***

Saint Peter nodded, then raised one hand. He waved it in the direction
of the shimmery building. They watched in awe as the building slide
and solidified. Within a minute it became a very nice looking
two-story building.

Frohike gave Saint Peter an apprehensive look.  " I just thought of
something. What if I'm a guardian angel, and they decide not to be.
Does that mean that we  won't be able to be roommates...or friends?"

" Oh no. If they decide against it, they'll just live here full-time.
They won't be able to relate to what you're telling them regarding
your assignment, but they'll still remember you. You wouldn't count as
'living' to them, so there's no problem there."

" Good." Frohike looked relieved.

" Let's go in, shall we?" Saint Peter walked up the steps, and opened
the door.  " Technically there's no near for doors, since there's no
such thing as crime, pests, or adverse weather here in heaven, but
it's what people are used to, so after the first few peaceful souls
requested them, we began including them on all the buildings."

The house opened into a large living room. The far wall cut away to
reveal a kitchen, and several doors flanked the other walls. " Through
those doors are your rooms. I hope they're to your liking.  I'll be
back in the morning."

" Thanks." They replied as he left. They were eager to explore their
new home.

***

The house was perfect for them. Lacking only piles of fragrant
laundry, it had all the comforts of their earthly home, and then
some.

Langly swung open the door to the nearest bedroom. " Look at these
computers." He drooled. " We could never have afforded anything like
this when we were alive. Especially after Yves when missing."

" Never mind the computers, look at this! It's a plasma tv and DVD
player, with  a big stack of dvds." Frohike said in the living room.

" Dvds like what?" Byers asked, poking his head out of a bedroom.

" Let's see...Angel Eyes, Angel Season one, Charlie's Angels, Pennies
from Heaven,  My Blue Heaven, Spirited Away, It's a Wonderful Life -
huh, I thought Saint Peter didn't like that one - All Dogs Go to
Heaven, Angels in the Outfield, The Prophecy... I'm sensing a pattern
here." Frohike said with a grin.

They loved the rest of the house, especially the cloud-soft beds in
the rooms they barely fought over. Ironically, the best night's sleep
of their lives followed their deaths. They were bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed when Saint Peter arrived in the morning.

Oddly, the saint brought donuts. " You won't get anything this good at
Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme." He said by way of a greeting.

" Thanks!"

" So, have you two made up your minds?" He asked Langly and Byers as
he helped himself to a chocolate honey-dipped donut.

" I'll do it."
" Count me in."

" Great!" He exclaimed, brushing bits of honey-dip off his fingers.
Even in heaven nothing was mess-free.

" I suppose you'll want your assignments now?"

" Yes!" They replied quite loudly.

" Well, let's go back to my office and discuss it."

***

Back in the office, the gunmen bounced excitedly in their chairs.

Saint Peter chuckled. " I can see you're all excited to learn who your
charges will be."

" Gee, what gave you that idea?" Frohike quipped.

" Which one of us gets Yves and Jimmy?" Byers asked.

" Actually, none of you do."

" Do they already have guardian angels?"

" No. You see, not everyone needs a guardian angel. Many people, like
your Jimmy and Yves, don't seem to need divine intervention. They'll
be ok without you." Saint Peter explained.

" So they're reserved for screw-ups?" Frohike asked.

" Well, not exactly. It has more to do with the amount of danger they
face, self-imposed or not."

" So who do we get then?" Langly asked, wishing to get on with the
conversation.

The saint gave them a pleased look. " Frohike, your charges will be
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Langly, yours will be John Doggett and
Monica Reyes. And Byers, yours will be William Mulder." He said,
giving them a smile.

Frohike and Langly looked very pleased, but Byers wore a puzzled
expression. " I love Will to death, but why would he need a different
guardian angel than his parents?"

Saint Peter's expression became grave. " Even in heaven those below
God do not have a perfect ability to predict what will happen in a
mortal's life. My own ability to see the future is dim, so call it a
hunch."

This didn't make Byers look any happier.

" Hey, I just thought of something. Did we have guardian angels?"
Frohike asked.

" Um..."

***

" What does 'um' mean?" Langly asked, giving him a suspicious look.

Saint Peter sighed. " As I said, not everyone has guardian angels. We
thought you boys would be ok on your own, but your sudden heroic turn
took us by surprise."

" So you thought we'd back down??" Frohike exclaimed, standing up.

The saint shrugged helplessly. " What you did was lovely, but it was
also out of character."

Byers was getting anxious. " Should we...check in on people now?"

" Not yet. Before you can assume your angelic duties, you need to meet
your supervisors and be trained."

" So we'll be doing that soon?" Byers pressed.

" Actually, there's one more thing we need to do first..." Saint Peter
stood up  and waved his hand about.

The gunmen realize right away that they're outside, but, unlike the
outside in heaven, there are clouds in the sky. In the distance they
can see a long row of  white things protruding from the ground. As
they walk closer to the objects, they hear a ringing voice that seems
to be emanating from a distant man wearing  black.

" Dearly beloved we have gathered to lay to rest..."

***

Byers looks at Langly and Frohike. " Do those look like caskets to
you?" He asks, pointing. The others nod, and all three trail after
Saint Peter like ducklings. Once they're within sight of the caskets
it becomes obvious that the  dim objects they'd noticed earlier were a
row of crosses.

Vaguely aware of the mourners, the gunmen focus instead on the caskets
that the  minister is speaking over. Closed though they are, each man
is able to feel a tug in the direction of their own bodies, so they
know which is which.

Saint Peter speaks gently. " Your friends have gathered to say
good-bye to you,  and I thought you might want to say good-bye as
well."

" Why? We'll be seeing them all again when we're their guardian
angels." Frohike says, staring at his own casket.

" I didn't mean say good-bye to the people you know, Frohike. I meant
bid farewell to your earthy forms." He nodded in the direction of
where their bodies lay in satin lined boxes.

" Oh."

It made sense to them in a way that the saint would give them the
chance to say  good-bye to their own forms. There was no way to
reassume the lives they'd once  lead, so they too mourned their own
passing. The thought of never again going back to their own lives
brought unashamed tears to their eyes.

The preacher eventually finished speaking, and some of the mourners
said a few words, that the gunmen appreciated in theory, but barely
heard. At last the crowd began to drift away.

Kimmy the geek lingered for a moment, before touching each casket and
saying "Vaya con dios, amigos."  He looked upset as he walked away.

" I guess he really cared after all." Byers said wistfully as they
watched his departure.

Doggett was speaking to Skinner as someone who worked for the church
began to fold up the chairs. "Arlington.  You must've pulled some big
strings to get those guys in here."

"Yeah, don't you usually have to be a solider to be buried here?"
Frohike asked. " Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

" It's the least I could do." Skinner said in reply to Doggett's
question.

Reyes, looking very sad, asked Doggett if he was ready to go, he was
so they left. Skinner wanders over to join Scully, who is standing
with Yves and Jimmy.  Skinner tried to offer some comfort to her, but
she told him she'd catch up. There was stuff she still needed to say
to the others.

" Do you think this will be the last time we see Jimmy and Yves?"
Langly whispered, not quite remembering that they can't be heard by
the living.

" I hope not." Frohike replied.

***

They realized that Scully was speaking. " They meant so much to me.
I'm not sure if they ever really knew."

" I did!" Byers said loudly, disappointed that she failed to notice.

" Nobody knew ... what heroes they were. " Jimmy told Scully.

" Don't be fooled, Jimmy." Frohike advised their young friend. " You
would have  done the same thing in our place. I know you would."

" It's not right.  It's not." Yves declared.

" Oh come on, we couldn't have let all of humanity be infected, now
could we?" Byers rebuked her gently. She didn't reply.

" No, it's not." Morris replied, joining the- living- trio from
behind. "Langly  said to me the ones who never give up, they never
die." He paused for a moment,  looking thoughtful. "I still don't know
what that means."

"That means that like everyone buried here, the world is a better
place for them having been in it.  It means that they're gone, but
they live on through us all." Scully told him. Jimmy put a comforting
arm around Yves. Scully gave Fletcher a look to keep him from trying
the same.

" At least they have each other, right?" Byers asked his friends.

" Right." They declared, still looking at Jimmy and Yves, just in case
it was the last glimpse of them they'd have.

***

They were slightly dazed when they reappeared without warning in Saint
Peter's office. " Hopefully you won't be seeing much more of my
office." The saint said  pretending to be stern.

" Yah, it'd be like being called to the principal's office all over
again." Langly joked.

" Think of me as one of many vice-principals." Saint Peter said,
extending the metaphor. " God, of course, would be the principal here.
And you don't want to go to his office, believe me."

They exchanged a look. " It doesn't sound like being called to the
carpet by God is any fun." Frohike said.

" But God is all loving and forgiving." Byers protested.

" Tell that to Lucifer." Saint Peter said, rather sardonically.  He
reached over and pushed a button on his desk. " Arlene? Please send
them in now."

" Send who in?" Langly asked.

" Your supervisors. Normally new guardian angels each have their own
supervisors, but since Frohike and Byers' charges are related, we
thought two would do."

The office door opened, and two people entered. A man who had a dark
complexion  and who was wearing a scowl, and a thin dark-haired woman.
 " I think you might  know your supervisors." Saint Peter added.

The Gunmen stared at them wide-eyed. " I thought you were evil!"
Langly blurted  out, addressing the woman.

Diana Fowley smirked at him.  " And I thought you were ball-less
cowards. Guess  we both learned something new about each other."

" Seriously, did risking your life for Mulder earn you a get out of
hell free card or something?" Frohike couldn't resist asking.

Byers, who was raised not to say anything if you can't say anything
nice, confined himself to incredulous looks.

" Who gets Shaft?" Langly asked, sticking the other foot in his mouth.
X did not look amused.

" You do." X's voice came out near a growl.

" What? Wait! Fowley can't be our supervisor, she hated Dana!" Frohike
wailed. Fowley's smirk deepened.

" Yes, well, being an angel supervisor means being big enough to put
the differences one had in life aside." Saint Peter said. No one
looked convinced.

***

After the gunmen had a good pout, Langly's spirits brightened. " Hey I
just thought of something." He said, trying to rouse the others from
their blacken moods.

" What?" Byers asked listlessly.

" Frohike is assigned to Scully And Mulder. So that must mean that
Mulder is alive and kicking, despite what those cultists tried to lead
her to believe. Maybe once we know where he is we can tell her
and...oh yeah. I forgot."

" It is nice to know that Mulder is alive." Frohike said, trying to
cheer him up now.

" It was a dumb idea, though. We can't talk to people. Duh."

" And I bet we're not allowed to talk to each other about our
charges." Byers said, looking to Saint Peter for confirmation of this
additional unpleasantry.

" You can confer with your fellow angels on anything you like. It's
not as though there are security issues in heaven. We never
accidentally let in agents  from the other side." The saint said with
a smile.
 
 

Part 2
 

Langly burst out laughing, while everyone, including Fowley and X,
who'd hung around to listen to them mope, gave him concerned looks.

" What's so funny?" Frohike finally asked.

" We're agents! God's agents. All that time in our life hanging out
with FBI agents, and now we're a sort of agent. Don't you think that's
funny?"

" Sure, especially considering we'll have less troubles with security
clearance  than any of our friends ever did." Byers grinned.

Things were suddenly looking up.

***

They started guardian angel school the next day. The class space was
reminiscent of 20th century classrooms everywhere.  Designed to remind
new guardians of their own earthly school days, it usually put the
"students" in a studious frame of mine. Usually.

Langly, Byers and Frohike took seats together. Byers wanted to take
seats in the front, but he was out-voted, and they ended up in the
back of the room. Sitting there made Byers faintly nervous, because he
remembered all too well that the last row was where the troublemakers
typically camped out. Apple polishers, like he'd been, usually sat up
front. He wondered if there would be any snap judgments against them
on account of where they were sitting. Other guardian angel trainees
filed in and took seats.

When their instructor came in the room, the gunmen were no the only
ones who couldn't help but staring at him. The man swung his hips as
he walked, and curled his lip back as he surveyed the room. He had
dark hair, and sideburns, and while he wore white, he wasn't exactly
wearing a robe.

Frohike gave Byers a wide-eyed look. " Is that...?"

Byers didn't answer because the instructor began addressing the class.
"Hello. I'd like to welcome ya'll to the first class of guardian angel
training.  First  I'm going to pose some questions, and get your
answers, to see what we need to work on in depth."

" Great!" Someone in the front row simpered.

Frohike rolled his eyes and whispered " brown-noser."

" First hypothetical question. Suppose your charge is going to be
attacked by her ex-husband. What do you do?"

" Beat him up." Frohike said impulsively.

" No."

" Hirer someone bigger to beat him up." Langly shouted.

" No!"

To the dismay of their instructor, every class continued much in the
same manner for the next two weeks of guardian angel training.

***     Eventually guardian angel training drew to a close. Since
there were no  grades, which Frohike and Langly should have been
rather grateful for, but weren't, the entire class was going to be
honored with a brief ceremony, and a celebratory banquet. Given that
it was a feast in heaven, the food was promised  to be both delicious
and fat-free.

However, before the ceremony, there would be one final session, one
meant to clear up last minute questions, of which there were many
since the instructor was seldom given to pausing his lecturing in
order to answer any.  Though it was not really Byer's nature to think
ill of anyone who wasn't a criminal, even  he couldn't help but think
that their instructor had been something of an attention hog.

As the question and answer session began, everyone paid close
attention, even the gunmen. Though they might have given an air of
inattention while in class, they'd really been following along. They
were more concerned about what they hadn't yet learned, though.

The instructor curled his lip, they thought perhaps it was a smile,
and addressed them after everyone took their seats. " I think we ought
to begin now." He said with a nod. " Who has a question?"

One of the people in the front raised a hand, " How long will it be
before we start our assignments?"

" That depends on your charge. If they're out of danger, it might be
quite a while before you are needed. On the other hand, you might be
required to visit them immediately following tonight's banquet. "

The gunmen exchanged looks. While they were eager to see their old
friends again, they were hoping not to be thrown into adverting peril
straight away.

Another person had a question. " When we first visit our charges, will
our supervisors be there, or will we go alone?"

" You'll go alone, although your supervisor will check in on you to
see how you're doing."

Many of the angels looked anxious, but the gunmen were relieved. There
was no way they wished to start out with X and Diana Fowley in tow.

The questions and answers continued for a while, and each answer added
to either their relief or anxiety. There were few answers that
resulted in neutral  feelings. Before they wrapped up the session,
Byers spoke up. " If our charges aren't requiring our attention, is it
permissible to assist a fellow angel? I mean, we three all know each
other's charges, so perhaps we could lend perspective."

" That's something we allow guardian angels to work out themselves.
Some prefer  no interference, and others welcome additional view
points. Of course you'll have to clear it with your supervisors, but
that should be no problem."

The gunmen frowned. They might have more trouble than their instructor
could  anticipate.

***

To their relief, none of their charges seemed in dire danger, because
they spent a leisurely week watching their way through DVDs and
programming their new computers. Langly, however, anxiously checked on
the detection systems they'd put in place, and made himself quite a
nuance to X with repeated questions about its efficiency. X finally
snapped that it was working, and he should stop asking stupid
questions. The problem, it finally became apparent, was that while
they were able to set up detection systems, they didn't really
understand what the alert would be. They'd made the assumption that
their would  be alarm. They were wrong to think so.

The first test to the system came in the form of a ringing doorbell.
Though all  three of them heard it, only Langly was compelled to see
who was at the door. Rolling his eyes over the laziness of the other
two, he swung the door open. The visitor necessitated his looking
downwards in order to detect.

Standing there was someone rather short. Not abnormally so, since this
person was supposed to be. Langly frowned slightly, he didn't like the
idea of there being children who were peaceful souls, since it stuck
him as going against the  proper design of the universe. The small
blond boy was giving him a hopeful smile, which made him wonder if
there were school fund-raisers in heaven too.

" Yes?" Langly prompted, wishing to know who their small visitor was.

" Are you Langly?"  The child asked in a sweet, clear, voice.

" Yup, that's me." Langly declared nasally.

" Oh good. My daddy needs you." The boy said in a serious voice.
Langly just looked at him in shock.

***

A few minutes later Luke was sitting in their living room with them.
Byers and Frohike were looking at him with interest, but Langly looked
slightly afraid.

" So tell us how the alarms work. You are here as part of the alarm
system, aren't you?" Frohike asked.

" No, he's obviously a peaceful soul." Byers objected. " You can tell
by the way he's dressed."

" I'm both." The boy said simply. " The system you set up sends
someone that's connected to your charges to you when there's a
problem."

" Wow, that's much harder to ignore than an alarm." Langly said,
summoning up the smallest of smiles.

Luke nodded. " That's the idea."

" So..." Langly began nervously. " What's wrong with your dad?"

Before he told them, Luke curled himself up in the chair, making him
look even younger than he was. They could sense that this was painful
for him, even all these years since he'd seen his parents. " Daddy
found a body," He began, wrinkling his little nose in distaste. He
apparently wasn't the sort of little boy who reveled in things
grotesque and violent. " and one of the doctor-lady's  students told
her that the man who killed the lady killed other people
too."

" A lot of people?" Langly asked, imagining observing Doggett
examining a score  of bodies. He looked slightly green.

" No. Just some. The student, whose name is Rudolph- like Santa's
reindeer!- told Daddy and the other agents who he thought the murder
was. Someone named Ray... Reg... Regali." Luke spit out with effort. "
'course when Daddy and Reyes asked him, the bad guy said he didn't do
it."

" But he did." Byers guessed.

" Sure he did. You don't 'spect a bad guy to tell you he's a bad guy,
do you?" Luke asked, giving Byers a look that suggested that he was
worried about Byer's  intelligence. Byers blushed.

" This bad guy, Regali, is he planning to hurt your dad?" Langly
asked anxiously.

" No, but I'm afraid Daddy might hurt him." Luke replied.

" Why is that a problem?" Frohike asked in surprise.

***

Luke gave Frohike a surprised look. " It'd be wrong. If Daddy hurt
him, he'd be  doing a very bad thing. It's not ok to punish whoever
you feel like, even if they're bad men. While they're alive, that's
what jails n' courts are for. And when they die..." He trailed off
meaningfully, making them all think that there  were many people who
didn't find Saint Peter such a nice guy to talk to.

" Why do you think that your dad would hurt him?" Langly asked,
feeling as though he was definitely missing something.

" Rudolph told him that the bad man was the same one that...hurt me."
He finished in a small voice.

" Uh oh." Langly said.

Luke nodded rapidly. " Uh oh is right. You need to make sure that
Daddy doesn't  hurt him, or else my daddy might be a bad guy too. He
can't be a bad guy, or I might never see him again." The child
concluded morosely.

Since Langly couldn't bear to see the sadness on the small face, he
found himself rashly declaring. " Don't worry Luke, I'll make sure he
does the right thing."

Luke beamed at him, but Langly wondered how he was going to carry out
his promise.

***

A moment later, X opened the door without knocking. The scowl on his
face kept any of the gunmen from protesting that he should have better
manners. X fixed his look on Langly. " I told you the system is
working fine." Langly gave him an apologetic smile. " I assume that
young Doggett here told you the situation?"

They gave him startled looks, then it sunk in. Although they were used
to calling John "Doggett" he wasn't the only one. Luke's last name was
Doggett too. " Um, yeah." Langly gulped.

X continued to glower. " I assume that these two will be coming with
us?"

" If it's not a problem." Byers said meekly.

X sighed. " No, I suppose not. I'm only going to show you how to do
this just once, mind you. I don't have time to play nursemaid all
day."

Frohike thought to mention the outside of time thing, but decided that
it probably wouldn't be a good idea. Instead he thought of something
else. " Hey, I thought you didn't have to come with us on our
assignments." He said, remembering something from the question and
answer session.

" I'm not going with Langly on his assignment. As soon as I drop you
off, I'm leaving. Much to my displeasure I'm obligated to demonstrate
how getting to Earth works... Come over here so we can leave." X
snapped.

They walked over, but Luke stayed in his chair. " What about you?"
Langly asked. " Aren't you coming?"

Luke shook his blond little head. "Can't. It's 'gainst the rules."

" Well, I guess we'll see you later, then." Langly told him. A moment
later they vanished. Luke sighed and walked through the front door.
The swung close behind him on it's own accord.

***

There was a moment of pink fog, which cleared immediately. As soon as
it cleared two things became immediately apparent: one, they were in a
bar, and two, X was no longer with them.

" Great!" Frohike grumbled. " He calls that showing us what to do?
We're never gonna get back. I'm sure he planned it this way-"

" Shut up, Frohike!" Langly exclaimed. Before Frohike could get upset
he saw Doggett coming through the front door.

Pretending nonchalance, Doggett approaches a man they assume must be
Regali. Regali tips his drink sardonically, acknowledging his
presence. "Well, well.  It's the FBI agent."

Doggett sat down next to the parolee. " I'm not here as an FBI agent.
I'm here  as a father."

Langly and the others crept closer, so they could better hear the
conversation.

Regali assumed an expression of surprise. "Whoa.  What could that
mean?"

"I want to know what happened to my son." Doggett said, his eyes
burning.

"I don't know who killed your son.  But I like you, FBI.  I really do.
 I'll tell you how it could have happened, hypothetically."

" This could get ugly." Langly whispered. Though why he does he wasn't
sure, because none of the living could hear them.

Regali continued. " Say there was this guy - a businessman.  And say
this  businessman -- in the course of doing business -- has to
associate with any number of thugs, sickos, perverts.  Like Bob
Harvey, for example.  And say this  Bob Harvey likes little boys.
Yeah.  Disgusting.  Say one day, Bob Harvey sees  a little boy riding
a bike, and he can't stand it.  He grabs the boy.  So, Harvey takes
the boy back to his place only he doesn't tell the businessman
what he's doing.  So, the businessman walks in on him.  You see what
I'm saying, FBI?  The boy sees the businessman's face.  The
businessman who never did nothing to this little boy.  That's a
problem.  Well ... every problem has got a solution, right?" He
finished with a sly, what-can-you-do? smile. It was obvious that he
expected Doggett to understand. Before Doggett gathered his
wits to reply, Regali was already on his way out of the bar.

" What do we do to get in touch with our supervisor?" Frohike
whispered frantically as Doggett also slid off the bar stool, gun
drawn.

" Um, Elvis said that we're supposed to, um-" Byers stammered.

" I think it will be ok, guys." Langly told them.

" What makes you think that? He looks furious!" Frohike protested.

Langly gave them a smile, and led them outside, two steps behind
Doggett. " Just watch." He instructed them.

When Doggett got outside, Regali was already dead, a bullet piercing
his eye. A  woman noticed that there was someone new there, and began
to scream. "Oh, my God.  He shot him.  He just took out his gun and
shot him."

Looking as startled as Doggett himself, Byers and Frohike spun around
and looked at what Langly obviously already saw. Brad Folmer stood
against the wall, splattered with blood.

***

Frohike and Byers gawked when arrived back in their house. " How did
we get back here?"

" Dunno, guess we just sort of get where we need to without putting in
an effort." Langly said with a shrug.

Byers eyes were still wide. " What I want to know is how you knew that
he wasn't going to be the one to kill Regali. How did you know?!"

" Well, when we were in training, we were told that some guardian
angels would just know what their charges were going to do. I looked
at Doggett, and...just knew."

" But he had his gun out." Frohike objected.

" He wasn't going to use it. Threaten him, maybe, but Doggett wasn't
going to shoot anyone."

" I hope that wasn't just a lucky guess." Byers said grimly.

***

A couple of days later, the door bell rang again.  Langly got it, and
somehow wasn't surprised to see little Luke standing on the steps. "
Is your dad in trouble again already?" He asked, sounding
exasperated.

The small blond head shook violently. " Nope. We're gonna go see him,
though."

" What do you mean?" Byers asked from behind Langly's shoulder.

X approached just then. " Are they ready, Luke?" He asked the boy.

" I think so. They're a little confused, though." He confided.

" I think that's a natural state for them." X remarked, showing the
smallest glimmer of humor.

**

They're on the beach, a few yards away from where Doggett stands with
his ex-wife. " Mommy!" Luke exclaimed happily, closing the distance.
He tried to take her hand, but of course, couldn't. He didn't look all
that disappointed, though, as he stood with his parents. Doggett has
his arm around Barbara as they stare at the crashing waves.

Langly noticed then that Doggett was holding a polished wooden box.
The inscription on it said simply, "Luke Doggett.  January 9, 1986 -
August 13, 1993". Doggett turned to Barbara, and looked her in the
eyes. Then he slid the top off the box, and let the wind scatter their
son's ashes. While he watched them land in the water and be borne away
by the waves, he cried without shame. Luke gave his father an
encouraging look, as if wishing that he would be ok now.

After the last of the ashes leave on the waves, Barbara touched
Doggett's arm, then walked away. Doggett stood alone for a moment,
then turned and walked away  as well. Luke watched after him for a
second, then began to come back over to where the gunmen and X still
stood, transfixed.

While they watched, Doggett finally reached Reyes, who had kept a
respectable distance. Doggett reached for her, and she submitted to
him wrapping his arms around her. Doggett buried his face in her hair,
still crying. Reyes held on to  him, sharing his grief.

Langly looked down and noticed the tears in Luke's blue eyes. " Are
you ok, Buddy?" he asked in a concerned voice. Of course Luke wasn't,
but what else could he say.

Luke sniffed. " Yeah... I think my dad's gonna be ok, now, don't
you?"

Langly ruffled the boy's hair. " I think you're right."

" Do you know Reyes?"

" Yeah, sure."

" I think...I think she'll be good for my dad." Luke confides
solemnly.

" So do I, so do I." Langly told him, still watching the two lonely
figures.

***

Things were quite for a couple of weeks. On the advice of their
supervisors, they practiced dropping in on their charges during
moments of calm. Frohike was  able to tell them where Mulder was, and
they wished that they could tell the living.

During this quiet period, they'd invited Saint Peter over for a movie
and cheese-steak night, but the angel had to regretfully decline,
saying something about a plane accident. So they decided to just do it
without him. They never even considered inviting X or Fowley.

Their cheese-steaks were only half eaten when the doorbell rang.
Langly glanced  at the door, but it didn't seem "for" him the way that
it did when it was Luke calling. He watched with interest as both
Byers and Frohike got up instead.   Langly didn't know who the bald
man who entered the house was. " Who are you?" He asked, looking up
from the sandwich. " That's admiral Scully." Frohike answered before
the man got a chance to say anything. The others gave him
surprised looks. " What? Scully has pictures. I can't help it if
you're unobservant."

" Yes, that's right." The bald man finally spoke. " I think my
daughter is about to make a terrible mistake."

" What sort of mistake?" Byers asked.

" There's a man, all scarred, who claims to have been sent by Fox
Mulder. The other agents Dana work with think that he is Mulder."

" But Mulder's not scarred. I just saw him yesterday." Frohike
objected.

" Yeah, but they have no way of knowing that. They haven't seen or
heard from him in months, remember?" Langly replied.

" What sort of mistake is she going to make?" Byers repeated, hoping
to keep everyone focused.

" I don't know." The admiral admitted.

***

" You don't know?" Frohike said, giving him a disbelieving look.

Admiral Scully shrugged. " I know that she's struggling with
something. I know she wishes that she could turn to me for advice. But
I don't read minds, I just  pick up on strong feelings. I wish I could
tell you more." He gave them an apologetic look.

" You and agent Reyes would have had a lot in common." Langly said.

" What?" The admiral looked confused.

" Never mind."  He looked over at Frohike and Byers. " Am I coming
with you?"

" I don't see why not." Frohike said.

" Thank you for looking after my little girl." Admiral Scully said
while they prepared to leave.

" We're just doing our job." Byers replied. Then they vanished.

As soon as Admiral Scully went outside, he saw a boy waiting for him.
" Do you think they'll do a good job?" He asked him.

The boy shrugged. " They're new, but I think they know what they're
doing."

" Let's hope so." The admiral said, giving Luke a hopeful smile.

***

When they appeared in Scully's apartment, they found that they've
wandered into  the middle of a conversation. " I wish the admiral had
given us more to go on."  Langly sighed. The others hissed at him to
be quiet. He shrugged and shut up, it was their case after all, he was
only sight-seeing.

Scully, who was sitting on the couch with Reyes, protested something
they'd come in too late to hear. "Nobody's ever going to believe that
that's Mulder."

The gunmen look around. " Mulder's definitely not here." Frohike
whispered. Langly and Byers nodded, even without having seen him as
recently as Frohike had, they could feel that the other man was not
there. Their friend had had a certain air around him, and it was
absent in the small apartment.

"Somebody did this to him.  Whoever that is is going to know it's him.
 I mean,  that's what he's afraid of." Reyes pointed out.

" Did something to him...they must be talking about the scarred guy
the admiral  mentioned. But how could anyone mistake him for Mulder?"
Byers asked. " And what was done to him?"

"If he's so afraid, then why did he run?" Scully countered.

Doggett was standing, almost pacing. "You still don't believe it's
him."

" You know a person in so many ways.  Ways that a test can't even
begin to know." Scully said firmly.

" Look, I'll be happy to run his DNA again for you but I don't have to
tell you  what a long shot it is.   I mean, it came up a perfect
match." Doggett grumbled. His expression suggested that he thought
Scully was being stubborn and ridiculous. He hadn't often worn that
expression after he and Scully had become friends.

Reyes looked at Scully. " You asked why he'd run.  Stop and think how
hard this  is for him.  I mean, the way he looks."

"If that was Mulder, I wouldn't care." Scully said.

Frohike walked closer to her, and leaned close to her ear. " Dana,
that's not Mulder. Really. I don't know who this guy you're talking
about is, but it's not  him."

" Uh...you know she can't hear you, Man." Langly pointed out.

Frohike sighed. " I know. But I thought it was worth a shot."

Byers eyes widened, though not because of anything that was said. " We
need to go check on William. Now."

***

The three of them make their way to the nursery. William was laying on
his back, looking up at his mobile. They crowd around the crib.

" There's no one here." Langly said, giving Byers a look. " Looks like
you were  worried for nothing."

" Oh, there you are!" Frohike crowed " I bet you miss us, do you miss
the silly  men?" He continued, not paying attention to the others
rolling their eyes. For a split second he thought the baby made
eye-contact. It made he wonder if the old wives' tale about babies
being able to see ghosts was true. Before he could  mention it to the
others, light from the hallway broke in as the door opened.

A man with thick scars covering exposed surface of his body, that were
visible even in the dim light, slipped into the room. " Hey mister,
you don't belong in  here." Byers said warningly, momentarily
forgetting that he couldn't be heard.

" That's not-Mulder." Langly guessed.

" Well, obviously. You don't think there are any other scarred guys
running around Scully's place do you?" Frohike griped.

The man approached the crib and took out a small cloth pouch
containing a hypodermic needle.

" I don't like the looks of that." Frohike growled.

" Maybe he's diabetic and forgot his shot." Byers said, sounding
hopeful.

The man filled the syringe with an unknown substance then took out
another small container with stuff in it. After he opened it, he poked
his little finger in it, covering it with a pasty substance. He
reached down and removed William's pacifier. William didn't seem to
mind when the man rubbed the stuff on his gums, but he grimaced at the
taste.

" I think that we-" Frohike said, but stopped when the man took the
syringe and  leaned down into the crib.

***

Langly and Frohike blinked and stared at Byers. They were no longer
in William's bedroom. Instead they were in what appeared to be a
waiting room. A bored woman behind a desk gave them a disapproving
look. " Ms. Fowley will see you now." She intoned nasally.

The three of them went through the door that the woman pointed to.
Fowley gave them an unfriendly look. " What do you want?"

" There's a man at Dana Scully's house right now, and his about to
inject something into her son." Byers said in a breathless rush.

" So?" Fowley asked.

" What do you mean, so? I'm supposed to keep my charge safe, and
someone injecting stuff into him isn't safe." Byers said hotly.

Fowley rolled her eyes. " It's harmless."

" How do you know that?" Frohike demanded.

She waved her hand dismissively.  " Angelic powers. You go back there,
and you'll see that I'm right. The doctor with be telling Scully the
same thing."

" Wait, I thought time wasn't supposed to move when we met with our
supervisors!" Langly protested.

" Only if the supervisor thinks that the situation is an actual
emergency. Which this isn't." Fowley said smugly. " Shut the door
behind you please."

They angrily trooped out.

***

Fowley was apparently right, because the gunmen found Scully at the
hospital. "I hope the witch is right, and there's nothing wrong with
William." Byers said  fiercely.

" Wow, you're about the angriest I've ever heard you." Langly
remarked.

" That baby is important to me." Byers explained. " To all of us, I
think." Frohike and Langly nodded.

Scully and Reyes leave their seats in the waiting room as the doctors
approach.  Scully immediately started to ask questions. "How is he?
Is he all right?"

The doctor, whose name tag said 'Whitney Edwards,' gave Scully a
reassuring look. "He's good.  He's doing fine."

Scully finally smiled. " Oh God."

" Yeah, what she said." Langly added.

The doctor explained that he was being observed for a little while,
but she thought he could go home soon, which made Scully look
relieved. " What did you find?" She asked.

"Nothing." Doctor Edwards replied simply.

Scully didn't say anything, but the look on her face suggested that
she was thinking hard.

Reyes gave Doctor Edwards an incredulous look. "How could you find
nothing?  There would have to be something."

" Maybe he didn't really inject him?" Frohike wondered.

" Then why would they have brought him to the hospital?" Byers
objected.

" To get him one of those inflated gloves with a face?" Langly
suggested, then blushed when the other two glared at him.

Doctor Edwards talked more to Reyes than to Scully, who still hadn't
spoken. "There's some slight bruising on the head where something
clearly broke the skin," She admitted. " but... he's fine."

Perhaps her own recent brush with inept medical care was on her mind,
because Reyes was not satisfied with that answer. "What about a tox
screen?" She persisted.

" There's an elevated amount of iron in his blood but other than that,
your son  is completely normal." Doctor Edwards added, giving Scully a
direct look.

A look of comprehension filtered across Scully's face, but Reyes was
still in the dark.  " That doesn't make sense."

" No ... I think it does.  It makes perfect sense now." Scully told
her.

" I think she knows something we don't." Byers said.

" Obviously." Langly said, rolling his eyes.

" I think we should keep an eye on Scully. She doesn't seem like
herself." Fohike said, sounding anxious.

***

They followed the agents to work the next morning. Langly claimed that
they needed to keep an eye on Doggett's temper towards the scarred
mystery man, but they all knew that they were burning with curiosity
about what would happen next.

When they arrived, they saw the scarred man sat alone in an
interrogation room.  Langly looked the man over. " Looks awfully smug,
doesn't he?"

" Yeah, not scared at all. Pretty brave for someone who is probably
going to be  arrested at any moment." Frohike said, glaring at the
man. Byers didn't say anything, but instead gave the man hateful
looks.

The scarred man seemed to smirk when Scully entered the room.
Scully's eyes were filled with contained fury. "I have seen my share
of the hideous of the disgusting and the repellent, but you, sir, are
the most perfect expression I will ever see of all that is vile and
hateful in life."

" Wow, he tops Donnie Pfaster? She must really hate him." Frohike
said, thinking about Mulder's confidence in him about the dead man and
his two run ins with Scully.

The scarred man seemed to tease Scully. "That may well be, but for a
moment, you believed it -- that I was him."

Scully denied it. "I never believed it."

"You wanted to believe." The man insisted.

" She did not!" Langly objected hotly.

"You are as false as your face." Scully said angrily.

Instead of answering her, he stood up and walked over towards the
two-way mirror.

" Hey, how would a person know that was a two-way mirror? Unless..."
Frohike stopped suddenly when he saw that Scully was about to speak
again.

" I bet you wish night and day that that bullet that was meant to kill
you had succeeded."

" No way!" Langly exclaimed staring at him in amazement.

" The way Mulder talked about him, it doesn't seem like the little
weasel to try to pull this off." Frohike said, his voice a mix between
astonishment and begrudging admiration.

" Well, maybe it's not him. There are a lot of people who have been
shot." Byers objected.

The man's next words only serve to solidify their suspicions. "You're
wrong about that.  When I look in the mirror I see something much
different than the world sees.  He could destroy my face and my
dignity when he shot me in that office...but he couldn't destroy the
one thing I love most -- my hatred of him."

Scully didn't give him a look that offered any pity. "Your
cigarette-smoking, son of a bitch of a father."

" Looks like Mulder was right about Spender being CSM's kid." Langly
said.

"And Mulder's." Spender added. Scully was not surprised by this, but
the gunmen  were.

" Holy crap!" Frohike shouted, then looked embarrassed about the
outburst.

" Who knew?" Byers asked, looking equally shocked.

" I just hope that Mulder and CSM don't ever reenact a scene from
Starwars, is all I'm saying." Langly told them, shaking his head. "
Mulder....shoooo.....I am your father...shoooo."

" Knock it off, Blondie." Frohike growled. Langly held up his hands
in surrender.

***

"You counted on the DNA ... that we'd buy it without question and not
look any further.  DNA's what Mulder shared with Jeffrey Spender."
Spender told her.

" I'm no scientist, but wouldn't there have to been a lab error?  I
mean, half-siblings only share so much DNA." Byers commented.

" This is the Quantico lab we're talking about, what are you
expecting, accuracy?" Frohike asked. Byers shrugged.

"Half brothers raised apart -- that's about all that Mulder and I ever
shared."  Spender didn't sound angry or sad about this.

Scully didn't look sad either. Angry on the other hand... "You haven't
seen Mulder, have you?  You haven't even talked to him.  So, getting
caught at the FBI ... winning our trust was all towards one thing.  It
was only to get to William."

Spender didn't flinch. "Sitting here, you'd wish me dead.  Shortly,
I'll do you  the favor. "

" He's not really going to kill himself, is it?" Byers asked.

" What's a matter, Byers, you worried about his soul?" Langly asked
mockingly.

Byers shrugged helplessly. " Well, a little. He's a jerk, but no worse
than Fowley..."

" Oh, like she's such a great role model." Frohike said with a roll of
his eyes.

***

They shut up when Scully pulled out the bottle that had been found
with the syringe. "I had this checked.  It's an unknown metal that you
injected into my son."

"It's a form of magnetite." He told her with a deep sigh. "A gift."

Scully gave him a disbelieving look. " A 'gift'?"

" Gee, and I thought that babies liked stuffed animals. Who knew that
injections of strange metals were more appropriate gifts for one's
infant nephew?" Frohike asked sarcastically.

"Having failed as a conspirator to control alien colonization, my
father wanted  nothing more than to see the world fail, too."

" Well, that clears things right up." Byers said in disgust. " He's a
nutter like his father."

" So, what, you've prevented it now?  You've ... prevented alien
colonization by injecting this metal into my son?" Scully asked,
clearly not the only one who was confused.

"Your son is the one thing the aliens need.  I took revenge on my
father by taking William away from them."

" Isn't that sort of contradictory? He screws his father by allowing
him to realize the syndicate's original goal? Am I the only one who
thinks that's odd?" Langly asked.
 
 

" Like anything that has to do with CSM is ever sane." Frohike
grumbled.

"So, he's all right now?  I mean, just like that?" Spender nodded in
response to her question. "So, it's over.  They'll let him be."

Spender gave her a sad look. " It'll never be over.  They'll always
know what he was.   They'll never accept what he is."

" I take it back. It's the aliens that aren't sane. Can you imagine
being upset  with a baby?" Frohike said with an angry shake of his
head.

" Well, I can protect him." Scully said with bravo.

" And if you can't?" Spender pressed. "  Look at me ... what they did.
 Is this  what you want for your son?"

Scully's eyes filled with tears. The gunmen gave each other worried
looks.

" I don't like the sound of this..." Byers told them.

***

Scully paced her apartment, stopping frequently to look at William and
to swipe  at her eyes with a tissue.

" What is she doing?" Frohike whispered.

" I think she's trying to decide something." Byers whispered back.
Frohike nodded.

At last Scully stopped, in front of the phone. She reached out an
unsteady hand  and picked it up, hitting a button on auto-dial.

The phone rang a couple of times, and a familiar voice on the other
end asked who it was. It took a couple of heartbeats for Scully to say
anything. " Mom...I need to tell you something."

" Oh, good, Mrs. Scully will know how to make her feel better." Byers
said with  relief.

They missed what Mrs. Scully said, but they thought it must have been
a demand to know what was wrong. Slowly, painfully, Scully related
what had been happening, and all that Spender had told her. There was
silence on the other end for a while, then they could hear a reply. "
What are you going to do, Dana?"

" I don't know, Mom. I don't know. Maybe, maybe I could just take
William and go into hiding. Change our names, hope that if Mulder is
still alive he'll find  us..."

" If William is with you, they'll always be able to find him. They've
taken you  once, and you know Fox has said over and over again that
they return to the same victims repeatedly. They must be able to
track people, maybe through DNA. Surely someone has tried changing
their names before..."

Scully's tears spilled down her cheeks. " You're probably right. I
just don't want you to be, because I want to be with him.
Maybe...maybe you could take him. They don't know who you are. He'd be
safe with you...." Her voice wobbled.

" Maybe that would be best." Byers sighed. " At least until Mulder got
back, anyway. I'm sure he'll figure out how to keep them from being
found after that."

" No, Dana."

Scully looked like she was in complete shock. She'd clearly expected
her mother  to agree to take William. " Why?"

" I'm old-"

" You're not!" Scully protested.

" I'm too old to go into hiding with a baby. If there's the off chance
that they found us, I couldn't protect him. You need someone younger
to take care of  him. Someone who doesn't have any ties to you."

Byers looked aghast. " She can't mean that she wants Scully to give
him up!"

Frohike looked stubborn. " She won't. Someone will talk her out of it.
They have to."

Scully hung up abruptly, and brought William to his room. A few
minutes later she went to bed. The gunmen decided that it was safe to
leave her overnight, but they vowed to return in the morning.

***

Scully sat in William's room, watching him as he reached for his star
and moon mobile. Reyes appeared in the doorway, and the lone gunmen
followed her into the room.

Reyes must have been helping her put the room that Spender had
pretended to sleep in to rights, because she said tentatively, " Dana
... the room's all fresh for you.  I threw out all the old bedding and
bought some brand-new stuff, okay?"

Scully sounded tired. " Thank you."

Reyes still seemed nervous. "I know it's impossible to stop thinking
about what  he said about William ... but it's all lies, Dana and you
were the one who proved it."

" See? I knew someone would talk her out of this foolishness." Byers
exclaimed excitedly. Frohike looked more doubtful, but he kept his
comments to himself.

"And how should I prove it now?  By insisting that I can protect him
... only to learn too late that I can't?" Scully asked.

Reyes gave here a sharp look. "You say it as if you have a choice."

" Reyes will talk her out of it, won't she?" Langly asked Byers. Byers
didn't say anything, the look of excitement off his face, replaced by
one of despair.

"He didn't have a choice to come into this life.  I don't have a
choice about what he is or was ... but I do have a choice about the
life my son will have ..." Scully said in a trembling voice. She
turned away from Reyes, and looked down at the baby. "... And
shouldn't I choose that he never have to be afraid of anyone or
anything?  And can I ever really even promise him that?"

Reyes' brown eyes filled with sorrow. "But who can?"

Scully reached over and tapped a star on the mobile, then burst into
sobs. The gunmen looked at her, not knowing what to do, and wishing
more than anything that they could really be there to comfort her.

***

Langly insisted that Reyes would still make Scully come around, which
is why they followed her back to her apartment. Doggett arrived not
long afterwards.

Reyes had spent the entire drive home frantically thinking, so she
knew what she was going to tell Doggett. As soon as he got there, she
greeted him with a hug and a kiss.

" Would you look at that? It might be possible to be an FBI agent and
not have your relationship move at glacial speed." Frohike quipped.

" Well, yeah," Langly drawled. " Even Dawson and Joey had their first
kiss sooner than Mulder and Scully."

" You watch that? You are such a girl." Frohike told him.

" What's the matter?" Doggett asked Reyes, because he'd noticed how
puffy her eyes were.

Fresh tears sparkled in her eyes. " Oh John, it's terrible. That
*sshole Spender has Scully convinced that the only way she can protect
William is to give him up."

Doggett wrapped his arm around her. " So Maggie will take him for a
few months until Mulder comes back and-"

Reyes shook her head. " She's going to give him up for adoption."

" She can't!" The gunmen wailed involuntarily.

Doggett tried to sound soothing. " It might be the best thing-"

" It's not!" Reyes said fiercely. " You don't know what it's like. You
grew up with your natural parents. You never wondered who you were,
and why someone gave you away. I love my adopted parents, but it's not
enough. Once you know you're adopted, there's an emptiness in you that
nothing can fill."

" Poor Reyes." Byers sighed.

" I'm sorry." Doggett said simply, at a loss for meaningful words.

" I don't want that for William, John. He's a miracle baby. If he's
not with his mother, he'll never know how hard it was for her to bring
him into this world, all that it cost her. He won't know who he is."
Reyes told Doggett.

Doggett's face assumed a pained expression. " But there's nothing we
can do about that. If we can't talk her out of giving him away, it'll
be out of our hands."

Something gleamed in her eyes. " It doesn't have to be."

***

" What does she mean?" Byers wondered aloud.

" Dunno." Langly confessed.

Doggett had the same question as Byers. " I don't know what you
mean."

" We could take him, John." Reyes said with a note of pleading in her
voice. " Neither of us has ever been taken by...them. They couldn't
track us. We're not strangers, so it wouldn't be as traumatic for him
to be with us. We could give him back when it's safe. It could work!"
she insisted.

Doggett gave her a sad look. " Don't you think they know about us? One
of them hit me with a car. You were with Dana when you got him back
from the cultists. They have to know who we are. He wouldn't be safer
with us than with her."

" But who says he's in danger? The only evidence we have that they'd
even bother looking for him is the speculation of that idiot's. We
don't know he's in danger if he stays with someone who loves him."
Reyes said desperately.

Sighing, Doggett gathered her into his arms.  " His mother is the only
one who has the right to make that decision, and we need to stand by
whatever she does.  That's what friends do when there's something at
stake in a no-win situation."

Reyes didn't answer, but sobbed instead.

***

The receptionist was doing her nails this time. " I suppose you want
to see Ms.  Fowley?" She asked archly.

" Yes please." Byers mumbled.

They sat around for what seemed like an hour before they were admitted
into Fowley's office. Fowley gave them a scathing look when they
entered. " You. Again. What is it this time?"

Frohike gave her a flat look. " Dana Scully is about to do something
she'll regret for the rest of her life, and we want you to stop her.
"

Fowley tented her hands and gave them a level look. " I know you think
I don't care because Scully and I have past disagreements, but not
influencing her course of action is the kindest thing."

" How can you say that?" Byers protested. " She loves William more
than anything, so how can being separated from him be 'kind'?"

" She can live with being apart from him. With knowing he's safe. If
anything happened to him in her care, it would destroy her. You know
it's true." Fowley said in a softer tone than they'd ever heard from
her, even compared to when she and Mulder were young.

" But the only reason she thinks that she can't protect him is because
she doesn't know Mulder is alive, and worries that she can't do it
alone." Frohike replied.

" At this point she is alone. She and Mulder might never be reunited.
As nice as it is to think about long-term affects, the living have to
be concerned with  the here and now. Have you already forgotten that?"
Fowley asked.

The gunmen hung their heads. " No..." They mumbled.

Fowley gave a wry smile that they didn't catch. " Byers...You'll keep
an eye on  William. Someone who cares for him will always be there,
watching over him."

" It's not the same as him being with his parents." Byers said
miserably.

Fowley shrugged. " It's the best anyone can do."

***

Byers looked at the flag hanging from the side of the house, and his
lip curled  in disdain.  " Did I ever tell you how much I dislike
buffalo?"

" No, I don't think it's ever come up." Langly said, without a trace
of sarcasm. He realized that Byers was upset, and was trying to be
kind.

" Well, I do." Byers said firmly.

A car pulled into the yard and a couple come outside to greet the
driver. Next to Mulder and Scully, who were glamorous for more reasons
than the faint air of  danger and excitement that clung to them like
faded perfume, the man and woman looked utterly ordinary. They were
the type of people that the gunmen passed everyday they were alive
without a glance.

The social worker exchanges pleasantries with the man and woman, and
tells them  that there's a final paper to be signed. They agree to
sign it without really having heard a word she's said since she got
out of the car.

The man looks eager, but there's hesitation on the woman's face. "
Maybe she won't want him." Frohike said, looking as though he were
trying to will her to reject the baby.

Byers sighed. " He'd just go to someone else then."

The woman finally gave voice to her concern. "I keep asking myself a
question.   I know there's been a medical exam ... but are you sure
he's okay? "

Her husband tried to quiet her. " Now Honey-"

But the woman persisted. " Why would the mother give him up?"

The social worker looked sad. "You should understand ... this was a
life choice  by a single mother and a terribly difficult decision for
her.  But I can say it  was only for the good of the child."

" It had better be." Byers hissed. " If anything happens to him, so
help me..."

" We're angels, we can't haunt them." Langly said, trying to get a
smile. It didn't work.

" I'd find a way to make them sorry." Byers insisted. Frohike shrugged
at Langly, it was all bluster because Byers was too soft-hearted for
his own good,  but it wouldn't be fair to point that out.

The social worker went to the car, and reappeared a couple of minutes
later carrying William. The couple looked very happy as she placed him
in the woman's  arms. Byers gave an angrily resigned shake of his
head, and the three of them disappeared.

***

Once they got to heaven they had to face the music. As much as they
didn't want  to, they had to talk to the admiral. They walked back to
their house as slowly as they could. Frohike stopped suddenly. " I was
thinking about Luke." He told Byers and Langly.

" What about him?" Langly asked in his nasal voice.

" Well, him and the admiral too. They're peaceful souls, right?"

" We know that." Byers reminded him.

" So why do they know what's going on with their loved ones?" Frohike
asked. He  jumped when a very small hand reached for his arm.

Luke smiled up at him. " It's because we're part of the alarm system,
of course."

" But that was only put into place a short time ago. You and the
admiral seem to know a lot more than what's gone on recently." Frohike
protested.

" We feel them. Because they remember us we know what they know. "
Luke said, sounding very unlike the seven-year-old boy he had been. "
We're part memory, you know, so we're connected to their other
memories too, even the ones we missed."

" You sound really grown up and scary right now." Byers told him
nervously.

" Thank you." Luke replied.

" I, uh...I didn't really mean that as a compliment." Byers said
sheepishly. He'd thought the scary part made it obvious.

Luke shook his head. " No. Thank you for looking after our loved ones.
If not for you we'd never know what's happening to them."

The gunmen didn't know what to say. Then they saw the admiral waiting
for them in front of their house.

***

It didn't make them feel any better that the admiral greeted them with
a gentle  and understanding smile. " Thank you for helping Dana."

Frohike looked miserable. " We didn't. There was nothing we could do
to keep her from giving her son up. We tried, but our supervisor said
we couldn't interfere."

" I'm sorry." Byers looked even more miserable than Frohike.

Instead of trying to make them feel guilty, the admiral beamed at
them. " Don't  you realize that you did what you were supposed to?"

They were confused. " I don't think I understand." Frohike confessed.

" Dana did the right thing. Keeping William would have been the wrong
choice."

" How could keeping her son have been the wrong choice?" Byers asked,
sounding upset again.

" It would have been the wrong choice because it would have been the
selfish one." The admiral said sternly. " The baby would have been
with her, but he would have been in more danger."

" You don't know that! Mulder is going to come back-" Byers protested
hotly.

The admiral only nodded. " He probably will at that. But the fact
remains that he's not there now."

" That's what Fowley said too. What if it was only a week or two
before he returned? There's no way of knowing if he's going to be back
soon. And yet you both think that this is the right choice. Separating
a boy from his parents forever just because things are hard right
now." Byers eyes blazed.

Admiral Scully stayed calm under the verbal assault. " How do you know
it's forever?"

That stumped Byers.

Frohike, however, had a question of his own.

***

Frohike looked at the admiral and gave voice to what he'd been
thinking about while Byers ranted. " How did we help anything?"

" What do you mean?" Admiral Scully asked, looking puzzled. " The
proper out-come is proof-"

" No. How did WE help? Nothing we did affected anyone's actions in the
least. Sure we tried to convince Fowley that she needed to intervene,
and if you're right, had we gotten her to, we would have been pushing
for a bad outcome. So at best it looks like all we did positive was to
fail to change Fowley's mind. Even she doesn't seem to have done much
to help, she just let nature take its course." Frohike told him.

The admiral looked surprised. " She made the choice she did because of
you, you  know. Because of how you died."

" What?!" Langly yelped. Frohike and Byers looked equally startled.

" She thought about what the three of you did, and how you died. It
convinced her that it was possible to put aside self interest for the
greater good. If the three of you could give up your very lives for
others, it seemed a small thing to give up her own happiness for her
son's sake." He explained to them.

" Even if that's true, that's still not anything we did. At least not
recently.  It shouldn't have mattered if we'd gone to look in on her
or not, since that doesn't change her knowing about how we died."
Frohike said, sounding frustrated that he still didn't understand.

The admiral shook his head. " I think you still don't understand."

" Obviously." Langly said, rolling his eyes.

" I'm sure Saint Peter explained to you that you can't communicate
with the living, but did he tell you how you help?"

" He said that we're there to watch, and to report back to our
supervisors if we think there's something that should be intervened
about, so the supervisor can change things." Frohike said.

"Ah. That's only half of the equation, you know." The admiral told
them, looking contemplative.

***

" This isn't going to involve a lot of math, is it?" Byers asked. He'd
never gotten over his childhood hatred of the subject.

" The other half of the equation is the answer to why. Why can't you
communicate with the living? The reason is that you already do."

" I know that's not true. I tried to talk to Scully and Spender, and
neither of  them heard me." Frohike protested.

" That's not what I mean. When you become a guardian angel, part of
the result is that you become a more tangible presence to the living.
Now, I don't mean they can see or hear you, because you know they
can't. What I do mean is as soon as you agree to become their
guardian, a little voice seeps into their unconsciousness, and to a
lesser degree their consciousness too."

" And what does that voice say?" Byers asked, a note of condescension
in his voice.

" In Dana's case, the voice asks what you would do in her shoes." The
admiral said, looking at Frohike.

" But I wouldn't have given William away." Frohike corrects him.

" Perhaps not, but it's her perception of what you would do,
regardless of what  you really would do."

" It's not really comforting to know that we're a voice in someone's
head." Langly said with a wry look.

" She doesn't think of it that way. None of your charges do. They
don't know why their thoughts turn to you. Or at least agent Mulder
and my daughter don't.  The others didn't know you well enough to
consciously contemplate what you would have picked in various
situations." He explained.

" Ok, say this is true. Why do we need to visit them at all?" Byers
asked.

" Because, like Frohike said, what they think you might have done
might not match what you'd really do in their place."

" This is all very circular logic." Frohike complained.

The admiral shrugged. " A lot of human behavior and thought can be
attributed to circular logic. Why should this be any different?"

" No, I like it." Byers said. " It's a system of checks and balances,
fail safes and back up plans. At least two of the three possibilities-
what they think we would want them to do, what we really do think they
should do, and what the supervisor thinks they should do- have to
match up before something is  allowed to occur. It's reasonable."

" You would think so, what with your love of laws and orderliness."
Langly teased him. Byers and Frohike both seemed calmer, so he took it
upon himself to  invite the admiral in for a drink. They could all use
one. Maybe they'd have several. They already knew it wouldn't cause
hangovers. Fortunately there never  has been a prohibition in heaven.

***

Scully, Doggett and Reyes managed to keep out of trouble for a while,
investigating a house that seemed to be haunted by the ghosts of
sitcom characters. The gunmen didn't understand what that was all
about, but it seemed  to be presenting no danger to the trio they
looked after, so they didn't worry about it.

William, too, was doing well. Byers seemed half accusing when he
reported back how well the baby was adjusting, as if he saw the little
boy's efforts to cope as a betrayal. Langly and Frohike tried not to
make too much of it, because they knew how upset Byers still was over
not having been allowed to influence Scully to keep them.

However, not all was well, they soon learned, when a dark-haired
teenage girl showed up at their house one day, asking for Frohike.

***

Frohike's first thought was the girl would have grown up to be a very
lovely woman, had she lived to adulthood. Her hazel eyes were a lot
like her brother's, but her face was far more delicate, decidedly
feminine. Her hair think and long, and she would have been tall,
already was for her age. She was much prettier than the faux Samanthas
that had been sent to torment Mulder.

" I always wanted to meet you." Frohike said wistfully. " Just to see
who was worthy in Mulder's eyes for a lifetime of searching. Your
brother loved you a lot. Still does, I suspect."

" I know." She said gravely, looking down. " He's never really
understood what happened to me, and only half accepted it."

" Is he looking for you again? Is that why you're here?" Frohike
guessed, wondering if perhaps Mulder had found some other sort of
evidence that lead him  to doubt his final meeting with his starlit
sister, something he only talked about once after a couple pitchers of
beer.

She shook her head. " No, but I think he's planning to do something
dangerous. Soon."

***

Langly and Byers hung back shyly, until the girl went to sit with them
in the living room. " Fox has always been impulsive," She said,
startling them by using the man's first name.

" Fox. Sometimes it's easy to forget that that's his name. He doesn't
let anyone else call him that." Langly told her.

Samantha smiled wanely. " He didn't want me to call him that either,
and tried to get me to call him Mulder, just like he demanded of our
parents. Of course, being the bratty little sister I was, I didn't
listen."

" He probably didn't mind. Not really." Byers tried to reassure her.

" Anyway," She attempted to gently steer the conversation back to the
reason she'd come. " He's gotten some sort of crazy idea that he can
defeat the people  who make the world an unsafe place for William and
everyone else. And we have to keep him from acting on it.

" I wish I could see him again, to explain things in a way that would
make him understand what happened to me so he can move on, but I don't
want him to die in order to be able to have that conversation with
him."

***   Frohike wished that Samantha had more information to give him,
but he got  the feeling that she simply didn't understand what her
brother's plans were. Despite having been a big focus of the X-Files,
no one had ever explained it to  her; and Mulder's chaotic feelings
about all the x-files encompassed was a poor  map, and their own
attempt at explanations only left her more confused. A few
stillborn attempts to question her about the specifics Mulder's plan
got them nothing but frustration.  Frohike admitted defeat and thanked
her for the warning. She still looked worried but smiled as the gunmen
made their disappearance.

The Sahara has a quiet beauty to it, but this desert was ugly.
Frequent sandstorms had taken their toll on the area, all of which had
left it with a chewed, ragged look to it rather than the smooth dunes.
It was also nearly sterile with no cute sand rodents, coyotes, or even
slithering snakes; the only  signs of life were twisted sage and
stunted cacti.

All of which served to make Mulder's sudden appearance the more
startling to Byers and Langly who hadn't seen him in nearly a year. He
was where Frohike had  left him, so he at least was unsurprised when
the ground trembled and erupted as the trapdoor within it was suddenly
flung open.

***

Mulder climbed the ladder and clambered out with Gibson right behind
him. He shaded his eyes with one hand, and as he always did upon
crawling out, took several deep breaths. Before fleeing, he thought
his only phobia was fire, but he'd since learned differently. He was
afraid of the sand. Despite Gibson's reassurances that he'd made such
a hiding place before, and that the wood Mulder had insisted on using
to shore up the walls made it even more stable, he  still feared a
cave-in.

Their shelter collapsing and burying them both warred with
super-soldiers killing William and Scully as his most frequent
nightmare. He wasn't quite sure, but he suspected that the new fear
stemmed almost entirely from his own recent premature burial.

The gunmen were surprised at how thoroughly they were able to perceive
his emotions. They'd been taught that they'd gain clarity with
experience, but it was still more than they ever expected.
Unfortunately, Gibson Praise was still an enigma to them because they
were not his angels. So they were forced to put aside their awe in
order to pay attention to what the boy was saying.

" Mulder, all you're going to end up doing is getting yourself
killed." Gibson protested in a tone that suggested they'd walked in on
the middle of an argument. One oft repeated.

Frohike exchanged looks with the others. Samantha might not understand
the X-files and all it entailed, but Gibson certainly Did. So if he
was worried...

Their looks were bleak.

***   " Gibson, this could be my chance to find out if it's true.
Don't you realize how important that is?"

" Mulder - "

" Dammit, Gibson! I know you're still a child chronologically, but
you're bright enough and mature enough to understand this. If it's not
true, and I've been here for no reason, I can go home to Scully and
William."

Frohike shivered.   longing for his family emanated from him like
tidal waves.

" But..." Gibson hesitated. " How can you take care of them if you die
looking for the truth?"

Mulder shook his head stubbornly. " I'm not doing them any good
here."

Byers covered his eyes with his hands. " He doesn't know about the
baby." He moaned. " He doesn't know Scully gave him up." Scully's
fears that Mulder hadn't gotten any of her messages after their
encounter with the shadow-man were apparently true they now realized.
Mulder had thought it too risky to attempt any further efforts to find
news from home, and ignorance was bliss. Langly patted Byers on the
shoulder, knowing how badly the other man felt, because he did too.

" If you're not doing either of them any good, why are you here?"
Gibson challenged. " Why have you been out here, with me, instead of
with Scully and your son?"

"And that's the million dollar question." Frohike muttered, tasting
Mulder's confused thoughts on the answer.

***

" You know why." Mulder answered sharply.

" What do you say, pal, will you be so kind as to reiterate for the
viewing audience?" Langly asked hopefully.

" I bet Scully would love to be here to listen. " Byers added
bitterly.

Fortunately for them, Gibson didn't accept that answer. " Explain it
to me again. So it makes sense."

Mulder sighed deeply. " I'm looking for confirmation that what I was
told is true." He insisted stubbornly.

" How is it easier here than in Washington DC?" Gibson asked, goading
him.

" It's easier because...because he said that if I came here, and
proved willing  to make sacrifices, to sacrifice my happiness to be
with my...family, it would show him that I was worthy of the
knowledge."

" He who?" Frohike wondered aloud.

Gibson gave Mulder a sad look. " For your sake I hope that he's
actually got the information you're looking for, because you've given
up a lot for it."

I hope so too." Mulder said, sounding hollow.

***

They weren't sure where Mulder had gotten what could be considered a
car only in the loosest sense of the word, but they were sure that he
was ripped off no matter what he'd paid for it. At one point and time
it might have been a white boniville, circa 20 years ago, but now it
was mostly rust-colored. And the fact  that the antenna had been a
wire coat-hanger in its last life time promised that the trip would be
less than entertaining.

Frohike made a move to slip onto the back seat when Byers grabbed his
arm. " I'm not sure we ought to. This car doesn't look safe."

" Dude, we're dead." Langly pointed out. " You only die once,
remember?"

Byers looked sheepish, and got into the car without another word.

Gibson didn't look like he thought much of the car either. " Drive
carefully, Mulder. And do anything stupid."

" Would I do something stupid?" Mulder asked, pretending innocence.

" Does the pope sh*t in the woods?" Frohike asked.

Gibson just smirked and watched Mulder get in and start his "car."
Fortunately,  Mulder didn't have long to pilot his rat-trap car,
because he pulled to a stop in front of a silvery 60s style dinner.

" Are we there, or did we break down?" Langly wondered aloud.

***

Mulder got out of the car, so they quickly followed him. The fact that
they didn't need to open the doors first helped.

When they caught up to Mulder, he was peering around the diner's
shabby interior with a wary expression. " Who are we looking for?"
Byers whispered. Frohike shrugged. Mulder seemed to catch sight of
someone, and began to walk towards the counter.

The man was dressed much like a lumberjack, which was odd considering
they were  not very far from the desert.

" Who is that?" Langly asked when the man turned to look at Mulder.
Few people still wear handle bar mustaches, so his surprise wasn't
unwarranted.

" Mr. Hale?" The man rasped. His voice was roughened from years of
smoking, which made the gunmen a little nervous. Even Mulder looked a
little taken aback.

" Not everyone who smokes is evil." Byers insisted.

" Name five smokers you know who aren't." Frohike demanded. Byers
shrugged helplessly.

" Oh hell, name two." Langly said giving him a disgusted look. Byers
turned back to the conversation that Mulder and the stranger were
having, pointedly avoiding the questions, since Reyes was the only one
he could think of and she'd quit a while ago.

" Right, George Hale." Mulder said, sliding onto the stool beside the
man.

" From the condition of your skin, I'd guess you'd been out in the
desert for a  while." The man said, but though it sounded like it he
was not making small talk.

" A year." Mulder agreed.

" Sounds like you're a man who is serious about what he does Mr.
Hale." The man  said with the faintest of smiles. He reached into his
pocket and slide something across the counter to Mulder. Mulder palmed
it and stowed in a pocket  before any of them got a look at it. To
Frohike's frustration, Mulder wasn't thinking about the object.

" I like to think that I'm a driven man." Mulder agreed.

" Sounds like a reasonable assessment." The man nodded. He then gave
Mulder a hand drawn map. ""When you get there, follow this path to
find the information you need."

" Thank you." Mulder told him with a pleased smile.

" Good luck." The man replied. " Why don't you have a piece of sweet
potato pie  before you leave? My treat."

Mulder, unable to resist pie, took him up on the offer. The gunmen
exchanged uneasy looks, they didn't know what the meeting they'd just
witnessed was all about, but they knew that it probably wasn't going
to lead Mulder down a safe and easy path. That's just not the way
Mulder worked.

***

Mulder let his guard down that night, and told Gibson where he was
planning to go, though he continued to block the what portion of the
plan out of his mind. Rather than take another trip in his "car" the
gunmen went to the location on their own and waited for him there.
They stood around waiting for a while, wondering what was so special
about the area. A sudden racket told them that they weren't going to
be alone much longer.

The gunmen looked up as a white helicopter marked with the number 45
flew over their heads, above the mountaintop readying to land. There
were at a military-secure facility in the mountainside guarded by a
lot of armed military  personnel. The men looked grim and serious.

" Uh...this doesn't look good." Langly said nervously.

The helicopter landed within 100 feet of the gunmen. The blades made
them nervous, even though they were in no danger of being injured. A
military man opened the helicopter door and several people got out.
First two men, a woman,  two more men ... and Mulder.  He walked out,
surveying the place.

" Mulder! What are you doing?" Frohike shouted, but he still hasn't
found a way  to be noticed yet.

" It looks like they're headed for that bus...Should we go too?" Byers
asked.

" I haven't been on a bus in ages." Frohike grumbled. " At least this
one probably won't have any smelly winos on it."

Following after Mulder and the others, they all got into a square
green transport bus.  Military men closed the door. Langly looked
around the bus nervously, not liking the blank looks that everyone,
including Mulder, wore. " Kinda like pod people..." He muttered.  The
bus drove into a long, dark tunnel inside the mountain nearby.

The busy stooped abruptly, and the gunmen looked around expectantly.
The building wasn't as fancy as they were expecting for a secret
government facility. It was just rather plain and bunker-like.   Three
men approached the bus, moving with a sense of purpose. The others
began to stand up and make ready to get off the bus, so the gunmen
followed them as they unloaded from the  bus. The other men and the
woman went immediately to the three men who met the bus, but Mulder
did not, and the gunmen stayed with him.  He exited the bus and
walked away in the opposite direction.  He glanced behind him to see
if anyone saw him. No one but the gunmen have.  He's in the clear.  He
then took off, running down a different tunnel than the one the three
men are leading the rest  of his busmates down.

" This can't be good." Langly gasped as they ran to keep up with him.

(Continued in part 4)
 

" This is why we never had guardian angels." Frohike said as they
continued to run. " We wouldn't ever do anything this damn stupid.
Never."

" Not unless it was for a noble cause." Byers added.

Frohike frown over his shoulder. " Speak for yourself."

" You just try to hide-" Byers started, but they were at a door
suddenly. A blue door, and it was opening.

***

Mulder walked through it, then along the passageway it opened into.
Eventually  they find themselves at top of metal stairs that leads
into an open tunnel.  Frohike looked down and tried to reason with
Mulder again when he looked down to see that there are dozens of
government workers and military personnel below. " Stop. You're going
to get caught. Don't you realize that?" Either not hearing him, or
merely ignoring him, Mulder makes his way down the stairs.
Sighing with frustration, they continue to trail after him, expecting
the very worst.

Mulder walked quickly along the catwalk.  At first, he seemed to be
trying to look casual and as if, but he soon settled for just getting
to his destination jogged.

" So, uh...giving up the 'I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be' pose
and running...that's not good right?" Langly asked as he shoved his
glasses back up  his nose. They were falling from all the running.

" I think not." Byers sighed.

There's an object in Mulder's hand all of the sudden. He used the key
card to disengage the electronic lock.  The lock was noisy, but the
door opened without  a sound.  They followed as Mulder made his way
through another tunnel. His lack  of hesitation made the gunmen sure
that he knew where he was going. A large blue door opened abruptly.
Mulder shut it quietly and made a beeline for the main computer
terminal in the room. Mulder sat in a chair in front of it, and
the gunmen crowded around him, not that he noticed. The computer had
his full attention as he looked up at the screen in front of him.
Encrypted nonsense filled the screen from top to bottom- characters
that make no effort to be words.  With a series of keystrokes typed by
Mulder, the screen cleared. " Hey,  when did Mulder become a hacker?
He should have let us know, we could have asked him for favors now and
then too, instead of mostly the other way around."  Langly
complained.

" He helped us a couple of times." Byers protested.

" Yeah, a Couple, but-"

" Shut up!" Frohike growled. " Something's happening."

Words were suddenly appearing on the screen:
END GAME
ACCESS CODE

"  'End game'? That's ominous." Langly shuttered.

Mulder quickly supplied the required code. Gibberish filled the screen
again, but it was rapidly replaced by words that were arguably
intelligible.

CONFIDENTIAL
DECEMBER 22, 2012
"THE DATE SET FOR MOBILIZATION OF ALIEN FORCES CULMINATES IN THE
COMPLETE ...  .. OF CIVILIAN AND MILITARY ...
.. WAS FIRST RECORDED BY ...
.. DANIEL M. MILLER UPON ...
.. -IGENCE IN ROSWELL, N.M., I- ...
.. -ONTACT WITH ALIEN FORCES ...

.. MILITARY OFFICIALS ARE INSTRUCTED
.. FOLLOW EMERGENCY PROTOC- ...
.. -RUCTIONS.  IT IS ANTICIPATED...
.. -MENT WILL BE DESTROYED ...
.. RESULTING IN THE TRANS- ...
.. THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY ...

The gunmen weren't sure what it was about, but from the intense
concentration Mulder was paying to the screen as he read the words, it
was quite clear that he understood exactly what the cryptic message
was trying to convey.

The sound of the lock mechanism disengaging interrupted Mulder's
reading of the  code, so he quickly abandoned the terminal. Mulder hid
behind another door, ready to spring at the person who interrupted his
session. The door opened and   Knowle Rohrer  walked in. The gunmen
exchanged shocked looks. " Ain't he the guy that died after Shannon
McMannon protected Agent Doggett from him?" Frohike  hissed. The
others have no answer, since that's what they'd been lead to
believe as well. Rohrer examined the  abandoned terminal that Mulder
was recently seated at - the de-coded message still on screen.

***

Rohrer looked around suspiciously, obviously aware that someone had
recently been there. The gunmen gave each other worried looks, because
Mulder's hiding place left much to be desired. Their fears were not
alleviated when Mulder approached Rohrer from behind. Mulder hit him
over the head with something heavy, but not heavy enough.  Rohrer
shrugged off the blow, and grabbed Mulder by the neck, picking him up
as if he's a toddler, and throwing him through the glass computer
screen. Mulder fell to the floor with a crash, but apparently is
mostly unharmed by the glass. He picked himself up off the floor and
rushed for the partially open door.

" Run Mulder!" Frohike yelled in vain as Rohrer lumbered out of the
room after Mulder. Mulder ran as fast as he dared to, but Rohrer is
quick as well as powerful.

Mulder ran down the tunnel toward the door that would take him back
into the main tunnel, if he could make it there before Rohrer caught
him.  He stops running when he sees a man blocking the doorway. Mulder
paused abruptly when he  caught sight of a man standing in the
shadows. Mulder started to head away from  the mystery man, until
looked back at Rohrer, who is closing in on him, and decides to go
towards the man standing in the doorway instead.  The man looked
slightly familiar, even wrapped in shadows. He suddenly moved forward
into the light.

The man was Alex Krycek.

" This is not happening." Byers moaned. " How could scum like him find
a way to  manifest when we haven't been able to?"

" Maybe Mulder can't see him." Langly suggested hopefully.

Distracted by Rohrer, Mulder ran past Krycek without a glance, intent
on closing the door before the super-soldier got there. He got the
door closed, but felt no safer as Rohrer angrily battered the door
with his shoulder. Not knowing how long the door could stand up to the
assault, Mulder tried to decide  where to go to get away from the
crazed being.   Eventually, Mulder paused, finally catching sight of
Krycek. The sounds of Rohrer trying to get in were momentarily
forgotten. " No!  You're dead." Mulder shouted at Krycek, who
didn't seem phased by the accusation.

" So much for that theory." Frohike complained, giving Krycek at
hateful look.

Krycek looked at Mulder instead of at the gunmen. " Go." He told the
living man.

Mulder didn't move, so Krycek stared at the door, from which thumping
noises were still issuing regularly. " There's others." He added.
The Klaxon alarm blared to life screaming like the damned.  Mulder
turned around to see armed military men running on the catwalks
heading toward him. When he looked back, Krycek was gone.

He had disappeared because Frohike had tackled him, and was
interrogating him. " How come he can see you?" He demanded to know.

Krycek shrugged. " I'm no angel."  He smiled nastily. " Ghosts can
manifest to whomever they want to. We're not bound by any rules like
you chumps are. Makes me glad that I don't have your job."

" As if you'd even been offered it." Byers spit out. " You're probably
a ghost to avoid being in hell, coward that you are."

Krycek shrugged. " Believe it if it makes you feel better about
yourself."

" Let's go." Frohike demanded. " He's not going to be able to help us
figure out how to be seen."

" Not that I would even if I could." Krycek commented. " There's
nothing to be gained from charity."

" Not that you would know." Byers shot back.

The Lone gunmen tore off down the hallway that Mulder had run through
a moment before. Their delay cost them. Despite being slow at first
because he was confused by the apparition, Mulder has already brought
trouble crashing down on himself by the time the gunmen caught up to
him. Military personnel had already  swarmed in on him, and he ran
along the catwalk away from them, only be to stopped by Knowle Rohrer,
who'd found a way around the sealed door to double back. Ignoring him,
Mulder climbed the stairs. Rohrer followed hot on his heals.   ***

Mulder crossed the catwalk and headed toward the stairs for the next
level. But before he did Rohrer reached Mulder and pulled him down
from behind and pinned him to the catwalk railing.  Rohrer had
Mulder's neck in a vice-like grip while  pushing him downward over the
railing.  Mulder flailed ineffectually, and Frohike attempted to hit
Rohrer, but the super-soldier didn't notice. The building personnel
gathered on the ground below to watch the commotion, seeming
to be as captivated by the goings on as they would be at a boxing
match.

" Look at those bastards." Frohike said, then turned to address the
crowd. " Enjoy the show, Ladies!"

Byers and Langly were paying more attention to Mulder. " Come on, you
can break free." They chanted desperately, feeling completely
useless.

" Frohike, should we see Fowley?" Byers called loudly over Frohike's
insults at  the crowd.

Frohike shrugged. " She wouldn't do anything, and you know it."

Meanwhile, Mulder fought to maintain his balance and continued his
feeble efforts to fight off Rohrer. Struggling to find a way to keep
himself from being thrown over the railing, his foot finds and braces
against a canister bolted to the catwalk floor.  Using the leverage
the canister afforded him, Mulder flips both himself and a surprised
Rohrer over the catwalk railing.  Rohrer, unprepared, falls into the
electrical wires running across the tunnel. Mulder remained above
hanging from the catwalk railing.

Looking down at Rohrer, as his body sizzled and jumped on the wires,
Langly shuddered and looked green. " I can never eat a hamburger
again." He said mournfully.

No longer merely watching, people swarm below in futile attempts to
aide Rohrer, who is obviously beyond hope. Others catch Mulder as he
scrambled to get all the way back onto the catwalk. He too looked
hopeless.

***

Mulder was soon being handcuffed. The gunmen expected him to yell
about his rights being violated, and explain that Rohrer wasn't really
dead, he was a super soldier and Doggett's theory about them not being
able to die was true, but he just docilely let them lead him away. He
looked resigned. Defeated.

" We should have asked Fowley to intervene." Byers fretted.

Langly snorted. " Are you kidding? She's completely unreasonable. She
never would have lifted a finger."

" But we should have asked anyway." Byers insisted.

" Why, so it'd look good in the paper-work? A gold star for effort?"
Langly retorted.

Frohike, looking severely depressed, didn't add anything to the
conversation. He just stared after the men who lead Mulder away.

***

The next several hours passed in agony. Not able to do anything else,
the Gunmen sat on the floor of Mulder's cell in the brig with him, and
willed him to start cooperating with the soldiers who kept coming in
once a hour to question him.

The door opened again, and two guards entered

" What are you thinking?" The guard barked.

" Where am I?" Mulder suggested.

" Wrong answer!" The guard barked, violently hitting the wall above
Mulder, presumably to intimate him.

" What are you thinking?"

" I'm thinking about getting the hell out of here." Mulder replied
sarcastically.

" Wrong... answer!" The guard shouted, hitting Mulder in the belly.
Mulder groaned in pain.

" Just tell him what he wants to hear, Mulder." Byers whimpered.
Langly nodded in agreement.

Bored of brutalizing Mulder, the guard walked out.  At the door he
paused, turning around with a final directive. Mulder No sleeping! The
door closed leaving Mulder in darkness.

An hour later the metal door opened and the same guard walked in.  He
stopped in front of  Mulder, staring down with an angry expression.
Mulder doesn't respond with any change of expression.

" What are you thinking?"

" About my son ... about his mother."

" Wrong answer!" The guard barked, swinging his stick very close to
Mulder 's face. Mulder ducked away, which is the only reason the blow
did not connect.     " Now, what are you thinking?"

" What do you want from me?!" Mulder asked plaintively, close to
breaking.

" Wrong... answer!" The guard growled again, attempting to hit Mulder
in the head. Mulder grabbed at the stick to keep from being injured,
but the guard is stronger and pressed the baton against his neck,
making him gasp and struggle. " I want answers, you hear me?  I want
answers!"

The two were in that locked position for longer than the gunmen could
bear.  Mulder continued to gasp.  Finally the guard let go.  He stood
and walked out.   The metal door clanged shut, leaving Mulder in
darkness once more. A few minutes later another guard entered the cell
and took Mulder 's clothes from him, ignoring his pleas to be told
what they expect from him.

***

An hour later the door opened again, and the first guard walked in.
Mulder, lying naked on the cold floor, tried to cover his eyes from
the sudden bright light.

" No sleeping!"

The guard knocked Mulder's hands away from his eyes with his booted
foot.

" Did you hear me?" He demanded.

" Yes."

" Even the dead heard you." Frohike said wearily.

" What are you thinking?"

" What should I be thinking?" Mulder asked, attempting a new tact.
Anything to prevent further injury.

" You're a guilty man.  You entered a government facility illegally in
search of non-existent information!  You failed in every respect!" The
guard stated.

" Yes."

" Say it!" The guard pulled his hand back as if to beat Mulder. But he
waited for Mulder's response.

" I'm a guilty man.  I failed in every respect.  I deserve the
harshest punishment for my crime." Mulder said in a dead voice,
expecting a blow to follow his admission.

Instead the guard walked out and the door closed. Mulder and the
gunmen breathed a sigh of relief. When the next hour passed, it didn't
bring another visit from the guard.

Mulder started when the door to his cell buzzed. The unfriendly guard
hadn't bothered him for quite a while, but he was always afraid that
the man would come back to hit him some more. He knew he couldn't
defend himself, so the thought of a beating filled him with dread.

Langly, bored of sitting, stands at the door and watches the guards
who sit talking next to  a metal gate that separates Mulder's Cell
from the rest of whatever the building is. To his utter surprise
Scully and Skinner walk though the door, showing their Ids to the
guard, who opens the gate for them.

" You won't believe who's here!" Langly whispers excitedly.   Scully
talked to Skinner as they made their way down the hallway. Langly only
caught the tail-end of their conversation. "I don't know.  I just know
that Mulder's being held here indefinitely." Skinner said.

"What for?" Scully asked, looking worried.

" For the murder of a military man." He answered grimly.

The guard inside Mulder holding cell opened the door to let Scully and
Skinner in. The guard remained in the cell. Mulder stood by the
window.   He was dressed in prison orange and was quiet.  Mulder
didn't turn around to acknowledge their presence.  He only turned when
Scully called him.

" Dana." He said, using her name like an endearment.
 
Scully rushed to him, hugging him. " Oh, my God." She said softly.

" Mushy stuff." Langly commented, wrinkling his nose as the agents
embraced.  Concern, not for himself, filled Mulder's eyes. " You okay?" He asked
Scully.

She's taken aback." Am I okay?  Mulder, I haven't seen you in such a
long time." She said, touching his face. " I was so worried." She says
gently.

" Well, it's okay, I'm all right.  They're treating me really well in
here."
" I'd hate to know what he would consider 'poorly'." Frohike
grumbled.

" Maybe in comparison to the aliens..." Byers offered with a shrug.

Scully doesn't believe him either. " What's happened to you?" It's not
clear if  she meant recently, or the entire time he'd been away.

" Nothing.  I'm squared away." He told her, turning to look at Skinner
" Oh, hey, Walter.  It's good to see you, man." His voice didn't sound
right.

***

Skinner masked his concern with his characteristic gruffness. " Have
they told you what the charges are, Mulder? What you're doing here? "

" Oh, yeah, yeah.  We're clear on that."

" You're clear on what?" Scully asked.

" My crimes."

Scully didn't reply, wondering why he was talking that way, and hoping
it was an act.  " Mulder-"

Mulder interrupted. " I murdered a man, Dana. I went looking for
something  that didn't exist, and I ... I made a terrible mistake.  I
should be punished  severely."

" Mulder, snap out of it. You know that wasn't a man." Frohike
scolded, worried  that the abuse damaged his mind.

" Whatever you were doing you have the right to a lawyer ... to an
inquiry and  process of law." Skinner insisted. " I don't think you
heard me." Mulder said, casting a furtive glance at the guard.

" All right - time's up." The guard stated.

Scully's eyes searched Mulder's face." We're going to get you out of
here."

" And why is that?  I'm a guilty man." Mulder told her.

" Time's up. Let's go." The guard was becoming impatient.

" Uh ... excuse me." Mulder walked away from them, going to the far
wall. He didn't look back to see Scully's hurt look, didn't notice her
staring at his back.  As she and Skinner leave, she looked at him once
more, and saw that he hadn't moved.

Skinner and Scully leave with the guard, obviously more despondent
than when they arrived. Neither of them spoke as they walked away. The
guard stared hard at Mulder, but he wasn't doing anything to arouse
suspicion. Just standing at the window, playing with his lower lip.

The guard didn't notice that Mulder has a new guest, but the gunmen
do, and they were not happy about it. Krycek made a face at them when
Mulder blinked.

Mulder whispered quietly enough so the guard doesn't hear. " I don't
understand.  Why are you helping me? "

" Because you can't do this alone." The ghost told him.

Starting him, the guard spoke to Mulder. " Let's go." Then he grabbed
his shoulder. By the time Mulder looked back, Krycek was gone. The
guard led Mulder away from his cell.

The gunmen lingered. " Do you think we're that spooky when we return
to heaven?" Byers asked, looking at the spot Krycek had occupied a
moment before.

" Who would notice?" Frohike asked, thinking once again that he'd give
anything  to be noticed by the living.

" Where are they taking him?" Byers asked.

Frohike shrugged. " We'll have to follow to see."

***

The gunmen didn't like Mulder new cell any better than the one before,
but Mulder seemed to like the window, even if it's darker than the one
before. Mulder stands in front of that window stretching upward and
facing the light.  He has his back to the door. He didn't notice when
the guard opened the door, remaining outside it.  "  Mulder."

Mulder turned around slowly.  He moved away from the light and a
little closer to Scully and Skinner.  He has a strange look on his
face.

" Mulder!" Scully said.

Mulder sniffed the air around him.  He fixed his stare only at Scully
and says   " I smelled you coming, Clarice."

Scully and Skinner looked a little stunned.  Scully threw an uncertain
glance to Skinner.  Mulder released a chuckle and a smile.  Scully
took a deep breath at being once again exposed to Mulder's exquisite
sense of humor.

" Oh, my ..." Scully didn't seem too amused nor has she moved closer
to Mulder.  " Damn it, Mulder.  It's not funny to see you putting on
that act."

" No, that is funny. " Mulder said fixing Scully with a look and
walking toward  her." What's not funny is what they do to you in here
if you don't put on that act."

Mulder reached for Scully, cupping the back of her head with both
hands, and drawing her to him. Mulder kissed Scully slowly, his thumbs
gently caressing her cheek. Scully reaches up and touches Mulder.
This is the reunion they both need.  Mulder wrapped his arms around
Scully, drawing her nearer to him without breaking the kiss. Skinner
and the gunmen look slightly uncomfortable to be witnessing what
should be a private moment.

" Get a room." Langly joked.

Mulder and Scully pulled away from each other.  Mulder humorously
turned to Skinner. " Come here, you big, bald, beautiful man."

" The only thing you're going to be kissing, Mulder, is your sweet ass
good-bye, with the trouble your in." Skinner replied unamused.

" Uh oh." Frohike said. " Looks like the fun is over." The others
sighed.

" Uh-huh, I kind of gathered that right around the 50th brainwashing
session." Mulder said, then kissed Scully's hand.

" Mulder, why are they doing this to you?" Scully asked plaintively.

" They think that they're preparing me for my trial.  For my
testimony." He replied.

" Your testimony's not going to matter.  Not with the case they're
building." Skinner said.

" Not building. Rigging." Mulder corrected.

" Yeah, I don't think you understand the seriousness of the charges.
This isn't some routine wrist slapping.  You're on trial for your
life." Skinner told him.

" My trial's a forgone conclusion. What they really want is for me to
admit my guilt and help them out.  What's really on trial here is the
truth." Mulder said.

" Mulder, they're saying you killed a man." Scully admonished him.

" Have they produced a body?" Mulder asked. Neither Scully nor
Skinner answered.  Scully looked over at Skinner.

" That's a good point." Frohike said, nodding his head.

" You can't produce a body because you can't kill a man who won't
die." Mulder said sardonically.

" Well, body or not, they've got 30 witnesses from that government
facility ready to testify against you." Skinner pointed out.

" Mulder, we'll get you the best lawyer." Scully said.

Mulder laughed." Would you defend a man who believes in aliens against
the FBI and the military?  It's never going to happen.  Skinner can
defend me."

" I can't represent you."

" Sure you can." Byers encouraged.

" You know all the facts, the details the whole government
conspiracy."   Mulder looking at Skinner. " More than that, I trust
you."

" Mulder..." Scully said warningly.

" They can't try me without exposing themselves. I know what I'm
doing." Mulder  insisted.

***

No one said anything for a moment, but then the door opened so the
guard could let Doggett and Reyes into the cell as well. Mulder looked
up as they entered, seeming surprised that they'd come to see him as
well.

" Whooo, now it's a party." Mulder said, not unkindly.

Doggett stepped into the cell and glanced at Mulder.  The two men look
at each other for a moment. " Agent Mulder." He said, sounding grim.

" What's the matter?" Scully asked

Reyes explained for him. " We've been working off what little we have
but the military just got back to us."