by Lisdean Warner
xangst@marina-pt.com
 

Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996

Okay, this is the new and improved Lost Friends--you might remember it from
the first incarnation of XA. A few changes in the first part, mostly to
satisfy my revisionist tendencies (ie, the things we found out this week on
XF), so, consequently, a Season Three Warning is in effect for this one.
The rest as been pretty much rewritten, though the basic storyline remains
the same--sort of <cheek>!

Again, Lincoln in the Snow and The Dream would be helpful, since Bri and
Sal both get into the act. Still, they're not exactly required texts for
this, but the characters will make more sense.

Disclaimer as stated in Xangst Anonymous Charter.

Rated PG-13.

Season Three Warning--Post Avatar!

**********
Lost Friends
by Dean Warner

Part one

*People just die.* It was a mantra for him, the only way he had survived
his thirteenth birthday--and all the birthdays after that. He looked down
at the gravestones before him and repeated it to himself. *People just
die.*
   Today, he didn't want to believe it. Today, it sounded like a hollow
placation--something to make him feel better. But he didn't want to feel
better.
   He wanted them not to be dead.
   A short, dark-haired woman--wisps of grey only starting to grace her
temples--stepped up to him and laid a hand on his arm.
   "Hello, Brian," she said quietly. "It was good of you to come."
   Brian Callahan wrapped the older woman in his arms. "I'm so sorry, Mrs.
Scully..." He looked around. "Are the boys here?"
   Margaret Scully smiled up at him gently, the foot-or-more distance
making her crane her neck to look into his eyes. "They've gone back to the
house to... to make sure everything is ready." She tightened her grip on
his arm. "Will you come with me?"
   He looked back at the gravestones, that hollow platitude ringing in his
mind. "Of course. Just give me a second."
   He watched the spare woman walk away before crouching in front of the
grey marble stones. His hand trailed tenderly accross the name of the left
one. "Dana," he breathed quietly. "I'm still sorry I didn't sweep you off
your feet when I had the chance." He glanced at the right one. The one on
the outside of the Scully plot. His mother had died a few months ago, and
Margaret, knowing his relationship with his family, had asked that he be
buried with her children. The third son she'd always loved. He lay there
now, with Dana and her sister. There was a marker for her father, though he
rested at sea now, where he had always been most at home. His wife would
join him there one day, and a demure little marker would take its place
below her husband's. They'd be together. Like Spooky and Dana.
   The thought made him smile. "Spooky," he whispered to his friend, "you
deserved her." He rose with a quiet sigh. "Be happy, you two. You have your
chance now."

Margaret Scully stood quietly by his car, her hands clasped before her. She
looked up at him and smiled.
   "Don't tell me your sons just left you here?"
   She smiled wider. "I told them to. I knew you'd give me a ride home."

He drove in silence for a while, before stealing a look at her. She was
pale, but calmer than he would have given her credit for. Calmer than he
was. He wondered if she had just had too much loss in the last couple of
years to be able to muster some sort of wild display. He wondered when
she'd shed her tears.
   "Are you okay?" he asked quietly.
   She shrugged, tired and sad. "I... I knew she was getting into a
dangerous business when she joined... I just never thought... I had hoped
things would be different..."

The wake was a small affair, only her family and a few friends.
   The Assistant Director sat quietly to one side, his wife, still looking
slightly frail, sitting beside him. He seemed--at least, to Brian--to be
trying to convince himself that none of it was affecting him. It didn't
seem to be working. Brian was well aware of the affection their reserved
superior haboured for his two troublesome agents, and losing them to what
must have seemed such a mundane case was obviously taking its toll.
   "Hello, sir," Brian addressed Skinner quietly. He still felt guilty,
though he knew there was little he could have done to stop this tradgedy.
   Skinner nodded his greeting silently.
   "How is Carl?" Sharon Skinner asked, concern colouring her rich voice.
   At that, Brian smiled sadly. "He's doing better, thanks, Mrs. Skinner."
His smile turned wry. "He won't be running any marathons any time soon, but
he should be out of the hospital next week."
   They spoke quietly for a few moments, mostly to be social--though none
of them were feeling it. Brian bowed out as quickly as he could, unable to
stand before his superior and make small talk. Not when he felt so
responsible for what had happened. He retreated to the front porch, hoping
to get a few moments to compose himself.
   He wasn't going to get it.
   Sal Menschner sat on the swing, a glass of straight vodka in her hand,
staring morbidly out at the beautiful Maryland landscape.
   "Hey, Sal," he greeted her quietly, leaning carefully over the banister
nearby. She turned to him then, and he could see she'd been crying.
   "Hi, Brian," she returned in a tiny voice. "How you doing?"
   He shrugged, turning toward her, the railing digging painfully into his
back. At this point, he'd take any distraction from the pain in his heart.
"Are you okay?"
   She shook her head truthfully, willing herself not to cry again. "You
know... A year ago, Dana was planning his funeral... Then he just..."
   "Showed up like a dream," Brian finished quietly, remembering Dana's
anguish, her anger. She'd been brutal with a number of her friends--himself
included, during those few, painful days before Mulder had shown himself
after that fiasco in New Mexico. He'd give a lot right now for her to be
here to freeze him out.

***

He mulled over the wake as he drove back into the Virginia countryside.
Everyone had seemed almost to expect this. He supposed her mother had dealt
with her daughter's death two years ago, when Dana had gone missing for
those three painful months. He supposed as well, given the tears he shed as
he drove, that he hadn't.
   While he hadn't been injured in the incident, he had been given a few
days to rest and deal with the aftermath. Two agents dead, his partner
seriously wounded... Tallor and Skinner had both thought he needed the
time. He tried to take it easy, tried not to think about it too much, but
as he drove up the estate's driveway, his mind ran the incident over and
over.

***

Six days earlier
Washington D.C.

"This is the place." Scully's voice held that same supressed excitement
that it always did when she knew they were close to the truth. She turned
around in her seat to address the two men in the back. "We'll go in first.
You guys keep an eye on things from out here."
   Brian slid out of the car, replacing Mulder in the driver's seat. He
rolled down his window as Carl slipped into the seat Scully had just
vacated. "You guys be careful, Spook," he warned. "Remember, these aren't
your little grey men we're talking about. Being a traitor makes a guy
willing to take risks."
   Mulder had smiled at his friend's sarcasm, slamming the clip home in his
Glock and priming it. "Reardon and Fallon aren't what I'd call hardened
criminals, Bri," he reassured him. "More just scared turncoats."
   "It's the frightened ones who shoot first and think later, Mulder," Carl
had warned.

He'd been right. Mulder and Scully had barely entered the old warehouse
when the men in the car heard shots ring out. Carl was five steps ahead of
him as Brian ran toward the scene. He was shooting before Carl even fell.

There had been a meeting--suitably morose--in Skinner's office the morning
after the incident. The Assistant Director had been stony, seemingly
unfeeling, but the anger coming off of him had silently accused the lone,
unscathed agent.
   "Would you like to give me some explanation of what happened last night,
Agent Callahan?" Skinner had asked impassively, zeroing in on Brian,
ignoring the four, faceless officials that flanked his seat at the
conference table.
   "Sir," Brian had begun slowly, his head never coming up to meet his
superior's eyes. "Mulder recieved some... information... about possible
whereabouts for the missing CIA agents. He wanted to check it out as
quickly as possible."
   He chanced a glance at Skinner, and mentally damned himself for his
words. It sounded like he was trying to foist all the blame on Mulder--like
it was his own fault. Before Skinner could open his mouth, Brian broke in
again. "He seemed to think they'd be leaving the warehouse fairily quickly,
and he didn't want to lose them. Agent Mossey and I happened to be in his
office at the time, sir, and--"
   "And you thought you'd go off and apprehend them yourselves?" Skinner
finished for him. His voice immediately softened, though it was still
slightly accusatory. "Did anyone think to call for backup?"
   Brian hung his head, whispering quietly. "Carl and I *were* the backup, sir."

***

Callahan Residence
10:30 pm

Lynn assured him once again that Carl was mending, sleeping peacefully. He
would be out of the hospital next week, as planned, and ready to go back to
work a couple of weeks after that. Brian hung up the phone tiredly, trying
not to think. He didn't need that right now. What he needed was to forget.
But his mind just wouldn't let him.
   Each time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Dana turning to him in the
car, her face a little flushed with excitement. She had been sure that they
would catch them, that it would all be all right.
   He sighed and finished off his fourth tumbler of whiskey, barely feeling
the buzz. He wanted to feel nothing, to know nothing. But as he drifted
slowly towards sleep, his mind would not let the matter rest.

***

Six days earlier
Washington D.C.

"Look Spook," Brian said quietly. "If you're right, and there is a bigger
conspiracy here than just a couple of CIA thugs who've decided to turn
traitor, then why doesn't the Secret Service get into this? Or the CIA
themselves? I mean, why leave it to a handful of FBI agents to solve the
case?"
   Mulder had looked at him with all-too-candid eyes. "Maybe the government
doesn't want the case solved."
   Carl had leaned forward from his perch on the desk, his voice, as
always, high and reedy. "What do you mean, Mulder?"
   Mulder shrugged. "Think about it. These guys are selling biological
weapons information... Maybe it's information people in our government
*want* to get out."
   Brian shook his head. "You're crazy, Mulder."
   "Maybe," Mulder conceded, as he reached for his ringing phone. "Maybe.
Mulder." He looked up at Brian, eyebrows raised. "You're sure? ... All
right... Yes, I can get there... Okay... Okay, thanks. Bye."
   "What?" Brian asked.
   "I think I've got a lead on where Reardon and Fallon are." He jotted
down an address and grabbed the phone again. "Scully? It's me. I've got a
line on them. Okay, I'll meet you in the garage. Bye."
   He rose, tension sliding quickly along in his stride. "You guys want to
come?" he asked, turning toward them as he grabbed his trench coat. "We'll
probably need backup."
   Brian and Carl had exchanged a look, and nodded, following Mulder to the
underground parking garage.

Scully met them there, always a slightly impish smile for her former
lover--a smile that never failed to make Brian blush. She turned to her
partner, the smile warming slightly even as it faded. "What do you have?"
she asked, suddenly all business.
   "An old warehouse," Mulder replied, handing her the piece of paper he'd
used to write down the address. They slipped into the car, buckling their
seat belts as Mulder started it up. "The information I got says they might
be there. If we can catch them soon, we just might be heroes." His
sarcastic grin assured them they'd be anything but.
   "Who do you get your information from, Mulder?" Carl asked from the back
seat.
   Mulder smiled. "I'll tell you that when your partner coughs up *his*
informants."
   "Not likely, Spook," Brian replied with a smile. "Not likely at all."

<He approached the door, reaching it just as Carl stepped into the
warehouse's shadows, caught sight of a figure in the dark, his eyes shying
away from the two prone agents before him, and started firing. He saw Carl
fall before him as he brought the second traitor down.>

***

Brian jolted awake, the image of three downed agents burned into his
alcohol-fuzzed mind. They should have called for backup. Should have been
more careful. His friends should never have died.
   The harsh ringing of his phone jarred him from his morbid thoughts, and
he glanced at the clock, knowing it was much too late for anyone to be
calling him. He picked it up, tried not to let the whiskey slur his words.
An attractive female voice was on the line.
   "Good evening, Agent Callahan. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
   "Who is this?"
   "A friend," she allowed evasively. "I wanted to convey my condolences on
the loss of your friends. I hear your partner is doing much better, though.
That's good to hear."
   Brian held the reciever tightly. "Look, I don't know who you are, but--"
   "Your friend Mulder got some bad information, I guess," she continued
flawlessly. "Maybe his informants aren't so clever after all." She paused a
moment, her tone darkening. "Maybe he was looking for something *they*
don't want him to find..."
   Brian stared at the phone quizzically as she hung up.
 

**********
Lost Friends
by Dean Warner

part two

FBI Headquarters
The Next Day

Brian tried the door of his friends' office, unsurprised when it opened
easily. The crew would be coming in soon to clear it out--lock the files
away where *they* had always wanted them to be, box up what little remained
of one man's life's work.
   The big agent sighed as he walked around the desk, searching for
anything Mulder might have left behind him. Something that would connect
with the lovely female voice from last night.
   He'd thought hard about what she had intimated, had stayed up all night
trying to figure it out. *Them.* The Syndicate. Somehow, the woman seemed
to think *they* were behind it all.
   Which meant that Spooky had been right.
   Someone in the government had not wanted the truth to be known about
what Reardon and Fallon were really up to. Someone who had killed two of
his friends to keep the information from coming to light.
   Someone Brian wanted to meet--and hurt--very badly.
   There was little to find in Spooky's belongings--no names, no
information. He supposed it had been a long shot anyway. Mulder wasn't
likely to keep any information he might have just lying around. Brian
sighed and headed back to his own office. He wished now that Dana and
Spooky had told him more about their "adventures," as he called them. They
kept silent, they'd said, to keep him safe. Still, more information would
have made his search easier.
   He was surprised, when he reached his office, to find a white envelope
sitting quietly on his desk. No name, no address. Just there.

Brian waited until he got home that night to examine the envelope's
contents. When he was done, he was only slightly less in the dark then when
he'd begun.
   Half of the papers enclosed were long lists--of what, he didn't
know--while the other half were a motley collection of half-blacked-out
internal memos. They discussed projects with names like Thought Binder and
Purity Control. He had absolutely no idea what to make of any of it, until
he came to a memo, cryptic in it's censorship, which started his mind
whirling.

XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
Re: Thought Binder/Purity Control

Merchandise will be reacquired per XXXXXX and subjected to full XXXXXX.
Given subject's unfortunate response to XXXXXX, subject will be moved into
group 445 for XXXX XXXXXX. Subject's partner is to be terminated, pending
approval of XXXXXXXX.

   He sat thinking for a moment. He had always been astounded by Mulder and
Scully's abilities to put two and two together. Generally, Spook came up
with eight--occassionally even ten. But sometimes he was right. More often,
however, Dana's logical, scientific four was a lot more plausible. But as
his mind churned away, his eyes glancing back at the memo from time to
time, Brian began to realise that, maybe just this once, straight math
wasn't what was called for.
   Was this all a trap for Mulder and Scully, he wondered. Had Reardon and
Fallon been a screen? The case had been assigned to the X-Files team
immediately, the reasoning being that Mulder was one of the finest
profilers they had, and Scully their best pathologist. They were often
asked to consult on... "non-abnormal" cases. It wasn't that unusual.
   Bri and Carl had been asked in after the fact, as had a few other
agents, but from the beginning, it had been Mulder and Scully's case. Maybe
Spook had been right. Maybe this was a case where the CIA didn't police
their own because they didn't *want* to.
   Which meant something had gone wrong with the operation. If the memo
meant what Brian thought it did, then one of them was meant to be captured,
not killed.
   He shook his head. It had to be Scully, right? She had been abducted by
person or persons unknown, and while the duo had refused to tell him
anything about their findings, he knew Scully and Mulder both thought that
the government had been involved.
   So the plan had been to kill Mulder, and take Scully back. But someone
had screwed up, and now they were both dead. And someone else was trying to
help him discover the people responsible.
   He was still puzzling it through when the phone rang. It was just midnight.
   "Callahan."
   That silky voice again. "Did you find the information... interesting,
Agent Callahan?"
   "Who did it?" he asked angrily. "Who was behind it all?"
   She avoided the questions. "Go to 332 East Milwaukee. The packages
entrance in back. Someone will meet you there. Forty-five minutes." She
hung up quietly.

As he drove, Brian tried to figure out what the point to all of this was.
Why did this woman--whoever the hell she was--want him to pursue this? What
was her cut in the bargain? He didn't like it at all, and yet... And yet,
if it let him bring down the people behind his friends' deaths...

He pulled up behind the warehouse and got out, gun ready at his side.
   A tall man blended with the shadows, his voice imposing. "Good evening,
Agent Callahan," he said quietly. "You've come looking for information."
   Brian smiled cynically. "I came because a sexy-sounding woman told me
to. Who am I to refuse?"
   "You'll be a fitting replacement for Agent Mulder," the dark man said
dispassionately.
   "Just what I've always wanted," Brian quipped coldly. "Who killed them?"
   "It's much bigger than just your friends, Mr. Callahan," the man
replied, sticking another white envelope out of the darkness toward him.
"This conspiracy goes beyond anything Mulder ever dreamed."
   Brian smiled again, this one hard and painful. "I can see why Mulder got
along with you. You're as paranoid as he was."
   "Agent Mulder is no longer a player, Mr. Callahan. *He* didn't have the
guts to follow it through." The man stepped slightly out of the shadows, a
hint of his strong, dark features coming into view. "Do you?"
   "Follow *what* through?" Brian asked, angry now. "Look, I just want to
know who killed them. And I want to know why."
   The man seemed to ignore him, fading back into the shadows. "You'll be
contacted again." And he was gone. Interview over.

Brian opened the second envelope, dreading what he'd find. This one was
slimmer, and it held only four sheets of paper, stapled together in pairs.
Each was again highly censored, via a thick black marker, but they looked
to be medical charts, and the names at the top were frighteningly readable:
   Fox Mulder and Dana Scully...

*****

Menschner Residence
2:30 am

Sal was ready to tear the head off of whoever stood beyond her front door.
Two-thirty in the morning, and someone had decided to pay her a visit. God,
she'd only just got to the point, after what had happened last week, where
she could do more than sit and stare at the walls all night. A late night
visitor was all she needed.
   Brian Callahan stood before her as she threw open the door in anger. He
smiled lightly at her. "You look like that lady on Little House on the
Prairie," he quipped.
   She grabbed the thick braid of her hair, and threw it back over her
shoulder, glaring at him. "Now, you'd better have an even better reason to
be here than I wanted when  you woke me up," she hissed, gesturing him into
the apartment.
   "Oh, it's good," he assured her glumly, handing off the medical sheets
he'd been given earlier that night.
   Sal took them catiously, flipping from one chart to the other more
quickly, as she realised what she was looking at.
   "Where did you get these, Brian?" she asked quietly, sitting down on the
couch in her darkened living room. "For all that they're short, these
records are amazingly complete. And they have a lot of information that
wouldn't be in a normal medical sheet." She pointed out a long paragraph
that had been completely blacked out. "What about this area here on Dana's
records?"
   Brian shrugged, pointing to the incidents listed above and below it. "It
looks to me like it must be from when she was missing."
   Sal's bright eyes darkened in remembered anger. "Where did you get
these, Brian?" she asked again.
   He blew out his breath in frustration. "Someone contacted me, handed off
those sheets and this big bundle." He handed her the first sheaf of papers.
"She said that Spook and Dana had been looking for something that wasn't
meant to be found. I guess this information is supposed to help me find out
what that something was."
   Sal had been looking through the large stack of papers that he'd given
her, as he spoke. She looked up from them. "I don't know what the memos are
for, but these charts look like gene-mappings."
   Brian perked up. "Gene-mappings for what?"
   She frowned, shook her head. "I don't know. I can find out, though...
maybe." She thought for a moment. "There's a man at Georgetown..."
   Brian stood up, restless energy making him pace. He seemed to be on the
verge of a discovery. A discovery that he had an idea he'd have a hard time
believing. "Did Dana tell you anything about what happened when Spook spent
that month in the hospital in Alaska?"
   She shrugged. "A little. She said that he'd been exposed to some sort of
retrovirus."
   He shook his head. "No, I mean about his sister. Remember? She showed up
at their parents' house, and a few days later, they fished her out of the
river?" He hadn't got his information from the pair of adventurers. His
contacts ran pretty deep, and he'd been curious as to what had happened to
his friend to lead him all the way to near death in Alaska. "Only something
happened to her. Dana seemed to think it was the same retrovirus that Spook
got in the north..."
   Sal was hooked now. "And what did Fox think?"
   "He said something about things not being what they seemed." Bri shook
his head. "He wouldn't tell me any more, but he also said that that woman
wasn't his sister."
   Sal stared back at the gene-maps. "I'm going to let my friend at
Georgetown look at these, okay? I don't really know enough about this stuff
to even venture a guess."
   Bri turned a warm smile on her. "Thanks for helping, Sal."
   "If you're right, we might be able to find out exactly why they died,"
Sal returned evenly. "That's something I want to know."

*****

Callahan Residence

Brian mulled it all over in his head, coming up with the most fantastic
theories. He dwelt particularly on the incident with Mulder's sister last
year. He didn't know what his mind was cooking up, but, whatever it was, it
was sure to be hard to swallow. His mind was taking leaps and bounds that
it had never dreamed of before.
   He chuckled coldly as he downed another tumbler of scotch. "Maybe Spooky
has possessed me," he joked feebly.
   The phone chose that moment to ring. "Callahan."
   "How goes the investigation, Agent Callahan," his sweet-voiced informant
asked.
   "It doesn't," he replied irritably. "Just cut through the crap and tell
me what's going on here."
   Her voice became chiding. "Perhaps I picked the wrong man for this job,"
she said disparagingly. "I've given you enough for you to solve this little
mystery."
   "This isn't a little mystery," Brian exclaimed angrily. "This is about
the deaths of two of my friends! I want to know what you know about it. No
riddles, no 'clues,' just information!"
   She was silent for a moment. "Look closely at the information you've
already been given, Agent Callahan. The truth is there. And things are not
what they seem in this case..." Her voice grew quiet. "They seldom are."
   Brian was left with a dial tone and a racing mind.

The Pentagon

Palladin hung up the phone, considering. Callahan was perhaps not the best
choice for this job. Still, Barrons would have gone to Skinner almost
immediately, and when it came to his two favourite agents, subtlety wasn't
one of Walter's strong points. He'd bust right in and threaten the
syndicate, and that would destroy any hopes she had of winning this round.
   At least Callahan seemed well-motivated. She remembered what her old
assistant had said, when she'd worried about Mulder and his propensity to
fly off in five directions at once when the truth was close.
   "With Mulder, you'll always know that the truth is more important than
his life," he'd said philosophically, in that melodic voice of his. "It
makes for a very devoted hunter."
   Hopefully, Callahan was as devoted. Her own connections would be of no
use to her in this. They were too exposed. She knew all about this handsome
agent--all about the many contacts he had. The search would take more time,
but it would undoubtedly be safer for all involved...

********

Lost Friends
by Lisdean Warner

Part 3

Margaret Scully dreamed, as she had dreamed each night since her daughter
died. She dreamed of the Cape on a clear, cool day in April. Dana and her
father were out in his new skiff, a skiff that Maggie felt was just a bit
too small for the waves that sometimes washed over the little bay.
   Still, she yielded to her husband's judgment. He'd lived on the sea for
years, and he would never do anything the might get Dana hurt. He claimed
he never played favourites, but the look in his eyes when Dana smiled told
the true story.
   So Maggie sat on the beach, watching her husband and her ten-year-old
daughter as they practiced tacking around the bay.
   Dana grunted with the effort to pull the sail around as they headed back
toward shore. Maggie smiled as Bill showed the little girl how to lean away
from it gradually, letting her weight do the work. She could see her
daughter's smile clearly as the small girl accomplished the manouver.
   The day was lazy, increasingly warm, and Maggie found herself dozing.
She woke just as a gust of wind blew the sail back, knocking her little
girl into the sea.
   Maggie was on her feet in a second, calming as she saw Dana break the
surface, heard her husband's barrel laugh boom across the tired bay.
   He gestured for Dana to climb back into the boat, but with a stubborness
she'd inherited from him, the little redhead shook her head furiously and
turned toward the shore, swimming with strokes more sure and powerful than
a girl her age ought to have.
   She'd almost reached her mother when a phone call shattered Maggie's
dream world.

Still half asleep, Margaret Scully reached for the phone. "Dana?"
   There was silence on the other end, then a deep male voice replied,
perplexed. "Mom?"
   "Oh, hi, Bill." Margaret sat up, looking at the clock and wishing her
son would think about the time difference between the coasts. "It's 11:30,
Honey."
   His voice turned sheepish. "Man, I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't think...
Listen, I know we talked just briefly about it at Dana's funeral, but
Janet's still wondering whether you want to come up for a while. We'd
really love to have you."
   The love and concern in her son's voice would normally have been enough
to convince her to go, but she'd realised finally what those dreams really
meant.
   She had to be here when her daughter got back.
   "Maybe at the end of the month, Bill," she replied apologetically.
   There was silence for a moment. When he spoke, her son's voice was
tentative. "Mom... How are you doing? I mean *really*? I know Dana's... I
know it hurt you a lot to lose her... You just... You answered the phone
like you expected it to be her."
   Maggie smiled in the darkness, her heart beating strong for the first
time since her daughter's funeral. "I... had a dream, Bill. I wasn't quite
awake when I answered the phone. I'm fine."
   "You're sure?"
   "Yes, Honey. I'm sure." Her voice took on an amused, chiding tone. "If
you didn't call in the middle of the night, you wouldn't have to worry."
   Bill wasn't convinced, but his mother--like his little sister--was not
one to talk about her feelings. "Okay, Mom," he said gently. "Listen, if
you need anything, or you change your mind about coming up, give me a call,
all right? I love you."
   "I love you, too, Honey," his mother replied warmly. "Good night."
   "Good night, Mom."

Margaret Scully hung up the phone, lying in the darkness and thinking.
Missy had been the one who believed in the power of dreams. How strange
then that Dana--who had felt her mother's dream "feelings" were a
joke--should be the one who was so often the object of them. Those
terrifying dreams she'd had while Dana was missing had been proof enough of
their validity. But now she had proof of a different kind.
   Proof that her baby girl was alive, and that she was on her way home.

Reflecting Pool
11:43 pm

Sal worked her way through a pack of cigarettes, waiting for Brian to show
up. Looking out at the calm, dark water, she smiled slightly.
   Dana had once told her that she and Fox liked to meet here. It suited
him. He seemed drawn to the shadows, yet he saw reflections of the truth in
everything. Maybe, she thought, a wave of sadness rippling around her,
maybe they had met at this very bench, coming together in the dark to try
to bring the truth to light.
   Which was just what she hoped she and Brian could do.
   But, given what her friend at Georgetown had told her, she didn't think
they were going to like the answers.
   Brian slipped toward her in the darkness, and sat next to her, quiet for
a moment, watching her final cigarette go out.
   "So what did you find?" he asked in a whisper, turning from her to face
the pool before them.
   She handed over a sheaf of papers--the maps he had given her, along with
some files from her friend. "I had a hard time getting Scott to talk about
it, but it looks like I went to just the right person. He said they're from
a cloning project in the eighties. It was called Gemini. Military. Very
classified. That was all he'd tell me, so I dug up what I could on my own."
   She sighed quietly, wishing for another cigarette. "The tests were
apparently a tremendous failure. All the civilian doctors were taken off
the project in '89, but there were rumours that the milis never gave up on
it, and that they've succeeded in recent months." She took a deep breath.
"Small successes, but..."
   "But maybe success enough to produce a couple of convincing corpses," he
finished for her.
   Sal shook her head. "You mean you think they're still alive?" she asked
incredulously.
   Brian shrugged. "I... I don't know what to think, right now. But given
what you've just told me... and given the medical charts..."
   She sat still for a few moments, thinking it through. "They know Walter
would never let it go if he thought they'd just disappeared--and he's
proven very hard to get rid of lately," she added, smiling grimly at the
hell the syndicate had put her godfather through in the past year. "If they
were just killed in the line of duty... There'd be nothing he could do. You
don't go searching for people when you've seen them buried."
   The idea continued to roll through her mind, gathering more and more
credence as it went along. But the bodies... A number of separate clues
suddenly coalesced in her mind, and she turned to Brian angrily. "Maybe
they didn't need convincing corpses."
   "What do you mean?" He was a bit surprised that she had simply swallowed
his vague notion whole. Maybe she knew more than he did.
   "The pathologist who did the autopsies--Dr. Barker... He's military."
   Brian stood up, started pacing. The extra bit of information only added
to the overall picture. "He could have faked anything he wanted.
Fingerprints, dental records..."
   Sal nodded bleakly. "Once a respected, trusted pathologist was done with
them..."
   "No one would have asked any questions," Brian finished dismally.
"But... But I was at the crime scene. I *saw* them--"
   Things were coming together a little too perfectly for Sal. "Didn't you
think it strange that Reardon and Fallon aimed for their faces, Bri? Three
bullets apiece." She dropped her eyes. "Simple plastic surgery could have
made anyone pass that kind of examination."
   Brian turned back from his pacing. "We have to get those bodies exhumed.
Prove they weren't Dana and Mulder."
  .Sal shook her head. "It's too risky, Bri. The minute they know we're on
to something, Fox and Dana really will be dead... I think that's probably
why your mysterious little informant came to you. She obviously has
contacts of her own, to get you the information she has, but maybe she's
too high profile to go after this herself." She stood to face him. "We
can't let anyone know we've got *anything* on this."
   Brian dropped his head, defeated. "So what do we do?"
   "Find out all we can about whether Gemini is still in force. Where it
might be located." She stood up. "But we have to be careful," she repeated.
"If anyone finds out we know..."
   Brian nodded. "I know of some unofficial channels we might go through."
He turned as she started to leave. "What are you going to do?"
   "I want to try to tap some of my own sources on this one," she replied,
a vixen's smile gracing her lips for a moment. "I've got a few that even
Mulder wouldn't dream of using."

***

Menschner Residence
8:42 pm

Sal sat back, thinking. She'd used her "feminine wiles" to convince a
friend at the pentagon to dig up some dirt for her--unofficially, of
course.
   What he'd come up with--even the small bit she'd already read--had blown
her mind, and more than made up for having to spend two hours at dinner
listening to him drone on about what a great catch he'd make. She smiled at
that. He reminded her a lot of Brian--except that Callahan wasn't quite as
blatant about it. And for him, it seemed to be a game, anyway. He didn't
actually *think* he was God's gift to women--he just thought that was the
way he was supposed to act.
   Taking a sip of tea, she poured over the files before her, trying to
find anything that might tell her where Fox and Dana had been taken--and
whether they could get them back.
   She was shortly both infuriated and sick to her stomach.

****

Callahan Residence
9:14 pm

"Hello?"
   Brian smiled at the synthesised voice. These guys were as paranoid as
Mulder. "I'm looking for the offices of the Lone Gunmen. A man named
Byers?"
   "You must have the wrong number."
   "My name is Brian Callahan. I was a friend of Fox Mulder's."
   "My condolences."
   "They may not be needed," Brian replied curtly, suddenly a little sick
of the game. "Is Mr. Byers there?"
   'I'm sorry, sir. There's no one here by that name."
   "It's just that I really need to speak with him," Brian stated
seriously. "I was hoping to meet him in the park. Around 1:00?"
   "I'd be sure to tell him, if I knew who he was," the slightly metallic
voice replied before hanging up.

Offices of the Lone Gunmen
9:16 pm

Langly stood, staring at the phone for a moment.
   "Hey, Frohicke," he called, gaining the annoyed attention of a small,
dirty-looking man across the room. "What can you dig up on an FBI agent
named Brian Callahan--quickly?"

Jefferson Memorial
1:23 am

Brian paced, watching the shadows. It had taken him quite a few
favours--some favours he'd never wanted to agree to--to come up with the
Lone Gunmen's location. He knew Mulder had used them--though Mulder was
tight enough with his informants that Brian hoped he wasn't turning to the
wrong people for help--and they seemed the paranoid type who knew
something. Something they shouldn't. He just hoped they knew what *he*
needed to know.
   He doubted that these guys could resist this kind of riddle, but after
twenty minutes, he was seriously beginning to wonder. He watched catiously
as a homeless man wandered aimlessly among the memorials, looking for a
place to bed down for the night. Short and balding, the man wore what
looked like rejects from the DAV. His glasses were crooked and his gloves
had enough holes for an army of fingers.
   After watching the bum setlle in, Brian waited ten more minutes before
heading out, passing that same bum as he made for his car. He was surprised
to hear the man address him. "Leaving so soon, Agent Callahan?"
   Brian stopped, made a pretense of checking his pockets for keys. "Mr. Byers?"
   The scamp gave a shake of his head and a strange smile. "What's this
about, Agent Callahan? We don't normally mix with the federal government."
   "Unless it's to hack into their computers, I'll bet." Brian was tying
his shoe now. "I have some information I'm trying to confirm about a
federal employee you *did* mix with--fairly frequently. Fox Mulder. We
think he's still alive," he said, looking directly at the bum for the first
time, watching the man's eyes widen. "Him and Scully both. But we need help
finding them, and I know he trusts you." He stood carefully from his
shoe-tying, turning away from the bum as if trying to remember where he'd
parked. "What do you know about a project named Gemini?"
   The man was evasive, and obviously still trying to get over the shock of
this new information. "It was originally a Soviet project. Military got
whiff of it about fifteen years ago and took it over. Violently, as I
recall."
   Brian nodded. "What about Thought Binder, or Purity Control?"
   The bum was silent for a long time, seeming to be listening to voices in
his head. "This isn't the place to talk about this, Agent Callahan." He
took his time getting comfortable. "There's a van behind the Memorial. Get
in it." And with that, he appeared to fall instantly asleep.

The van said it was a Muncipal Electric vehicle, but the surveillance
equipment in the back was definitely not standard issue. Neither were the
rock star and the professor.
   The professor stuck out his hand as Brian closed the door behind him.
"Hello, Agent Callahan."
   Brian took the proffered hand gingerly. "So you're the Lone Gunmen?
Mulder told me a lot about you."
   "Not likely," replied the rock star.
   "Mulder knew how to keep secrets," the professor finished.
   Brian nodded agreement, as, without a word, the rock star slid up into
the driver's seat and started them moving.
   "What makes you think Mulder's still alive?" the professor asked. "And
why should we trust you?" He produced a large sheaf of papers. "You seem to
be a very well-connected man, Agent Callahan. Senator for an uncle...
Numerous..." he smiled meanly, "*friends*, married to some of the most
powerful men in Washington." He ignored the big agent's furious blush. "Why
do you need to come to us?"
   "Because," Brian replied, mastering his embarassment with difficulty.
"The information I'm going to need could be deadly if I got it through
my... normal channels."
   The professor nodded, "What information would that be?"
   "I need to know where a project called Gemini is located."
   "Gemini's been closed down for years," the rock star supplied from his
spot in the driver's seat.
   Brian glanced dismissively at him via the rearview mirror. "Tell that to
Mulder and Scully. Whoever's running Gemini was the one who took them."
   The professor exchanged a startled look with the rock star. "Whoever
gave you that information is a lot better connected than we are, Agent
Callahan," he stated coolly. "Gemini's obviously been buried so deeply that
we might not be able to dig it up again."
   "I thought," Brian observed carefully, "that you guys were able to come
up with any information." He speared the professor with a damning glare.
"And I'd think, given your friendship with Mulder, that you'd do whatever
it took to get him back."
   The professor looked at him angrily. "If what you say is true, we may
not be *able* to get them back."
   "Why not?" Brian asked, fear taking over for the first time that night.
   "Gemini wasn't a very stable project," the rock star volunteered
seriously from the front. "It generally kills it's subjects in the attempt
to clone them."
   Brian sat and digested that for a moment. He couldn't give up now,
though. "Can you find out where the project is located?"
   The professor shook his head, exchanging a look with the rock star via
the rear view mirror. "It'll be hard to find out. That project must be
buried so deep in the government computers that we may not be able to find
it at all, much less discover the headquarters of it." He opened the back
door as the van came to a stop--directly behind Brian's parked sedan.
   "We'll be in touch, Agent Callahan," he said dismissively.

**********

Lost Friends
by Dean Warner

Part Four

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
9:21 am

Walter Skinner plowed through yet another regular, boring case report. He
decided suddenly that he would give almost anything to have one of Mulder's
bizarre, blood-stained reports right now. He'd give a lot for the agent to
show up right now--alive--just so he could have the pleasure of berating
him. He took his glasses off, rubbing at the aching bridge of his nose.
   Things had been awfully quiet the last week or so, he thought, standing
and turning to the window behind him, staring sightlessly at the traffic
below. No health insurance waivers to be signed, no calls from some random
police captain in some backwater town, complaining about a certain FBI
agent making endless problems for the locals.
   And... no visits from a certain cigarette-smoking bastard. His office
smelled like a regular, smoke-free office for the first time in nearly four
years. He snorted sadly to himself, turning back to his work. He'd almost
take the second-hand smoke, if he could figure out how to get Mulder and
Scully back again--trouble and all.

Quantico Medical Facility
11:35 am

Brian Callahan walked into Sal's neat little office, coming face to face
with the most angry woman he'd ever seen. "Sal?" he asked worriedly.
   "Close the door, Bri," she hissed. "I don't want to blow out anyone's
eardrums."
   "Except mine," he observed as he swung the door shut.
   "Do you know what Gemini does, Brian?" she demanded suddenly, ignoring
the wry comment.
   "No... But they clone people, right?"
   Sal snorted, firing up a smokeless ashtray and lighting a cigarette.
This particular cancer stick was a new one for Brian, with an almost
woodsmoke smell that matched Sal's fire perfectly. "They clone *something,*
alright!" She stood up and started pacing. "Basically, what they do is
inject the... the *victim*--with a series of cloned bacteria... Bacteria
that are supposed to *prepare* the patient for cloning!"
   "And..." Brian asked, drowning in even this shallow explanation.
   "And?" she asked furiously. "*And* that very injection process begins to
break down the person's own DNA in the space of about eight weeks." She
leaned over to him suddenly, angry smoke escaping from her lips as she
whispered, "Brian, don't you get it? They're not trying to clone
people--they're trying to *grow* a new species!"
   "You can't be serious."
   She took another long drag of her strange-smelling cigarette. "Can't I?
There was apparently another program, very similar to Gemini," she said,
her voice a kind of deadly quiet now. "They managed to keep that one pretty
much secret--mostly by killing anyone who found out about it. Now, I
couldn't get much about either project, but they both used... unusual
samples of DNA to mutate their 'subjects'."
   Brian sat forward. "What kind of DNA?"
   Sal stubbed out her cigarette, and stared at him frustratedly. "I
couldn't find that out! Apparently, though, this other project was a lot
more successful than Gemini. They've been trying to reproduce the results
for a couple of years now."
   "Why did they close down the first project, if it was working?"
   "Someone found out about it. I couldn't find out more than that, but
these gene maps... Scott must have kept his mouth shut because he was
afraid they'd find out he'd been talking."
   "Sal," Brian said carefully. "How do you know this information is
legitimate?" He held up under her vicious glare. "Maybe they're trying to
throw us off the track."
   "I trust the informant, Bri."
   Brian sighed angrily. "Spooky trusted his informants too, Sal."

J. Edgar Hoover Building
2:21 pm

Brian's head was reeling as he headed back to his office. Sal had seemed so
adamant about it all--but to try to create another... another species? That
was years and years away, surely. No one could actually mutate a human
being! It was science-fiction!
   Still, even if she was wrong about her suspicions, the danger this
amorphous Gemini project posed to his missing friends wasn't to be denied.
No matter what was being done to them, he needed to find them soon.
    If they were *really* still alive.
   God, he hated himself for thinking it, but he couldn't shake that streak
of logic in him that declared solidly that he had seen their bodies, had
run his hand down Dana's cold face--the coldly logical part of him that
demanded that he give them up for dead and move on.
   He'd listened to that part of himself all his life--he'd *had* to--but
now, it just didn't seem that logical. The insanity of the situation made
his most commonsense thoughts null and void.
   He sighed as he entered his office, noting absently, once again, that
Carl should have been at his desk--*would* have been, if not for whatever
strange plot had manouevered them all into that warehouse that night.
   The ringing phone caught him off-guard. "Callahan."
   "Take a walk, Agent Callahan," the slightly metallic voice said. "It's
warm if you go north."
   Brian stared at the silent phone for a moment, before rushing to the door.

2:58 pm

Brian was tired of walking. He was tired of waiting. He wanted answers, and
he was damn well going to get them. He almost pounced on the bum as he
entered the park.
   "What the Hell's going on?"
   "We think we found them," the bum said quietly, gesturing subtly to a
van at the corner. "Get in. Byers and Langly will tell you what we found."

The professor and the rock star were again sitting among electronics. The
professor didn't waste time. "They're still alive, as far as we know."
   "Where?"
   "An old sanitarium in upstate New York. They're going to be hard to get
to, but we think we can manage it." His statement didn't include Brian.
   The blond giant shook his head. "No way. I'm getting them."
   "You're going to get them killed if you do," the professor said simply.
"An FBI task force is going to attract a lot of attention in the wilds of
New York state."
   "No task force," Brian said quietly, mind going a mile a minute as he
formulated a plan. "I've got two people I can trust. With you three, that
makes six. More than enough."
   "*Too* many," the rock star argued.
   "Look," the professor said, "I'll agree you could be some help, but this
place is just too hard to get into to use a posse for the retrieval."
   "Look," Brian stated angrily. "Why don't you just tell me where they
are, and my friends and I will go get them."
   The professor shook his head. "We don't need a fanfare for this, Agent
Callahan. The three of us can--"
   "--Do nothing!" Brian broke in angrily. "Look, I'll admit that you're
good at hunting up information, but you don't know the first thing about
retrieval operations, do you?" He almost snorted his derision as they
remained silent, and tried to keep his anger under control as he slid the
map the professor had been looking at over to him. "Now, where the hell are
they?"
   The two Gunmen exchanged glances, and the rock star shrugged warily. The
professor leaned over the map, running his index finger along an old
country road. "This," he said, resting his finger on a tired little dot on
the page, "is the town of Cromby. The sanitarium is on the outskirts of
town. Just north of the last motel there--The Land's End."
   Brian nodded, committing the fastest route to memory. He headed to the
back door of the van. "I'll call you when we have them," he declared a
little condescendingly.
   "You've got to get to them as soon as possible," the professor said,
ignoring the agent's tone. "They won't have much time left."
   "Why not?" Brian asked, fear rising in him again.
   "Because Gemini plans on trying to clone them as soon as possible. The
preparation stage should be finished by now," the rock star explained.
   Brian nodded grimly and exited the vehicle. If Sal was right, and they
were actually changing their DNA, they had very little time left indeed. He
didn't even know if they could be saved once he got them back--but he was
damn well going to at least get them back.
   He headed back to the office, his cellphone to his ear as he walked
along the thoroughfare.

*******

J.Edgar Hoover Building
4:03 pm

Skinner paced angrily, pausing from time to time to stab at Brian Callahan
with his flashing eyes. "Why wasn't I informed of this, Agent Callahan?"
   Brian ducked his huge head, looking thoroughly ridiculous as he stood
before his superior--easily four inches smaller than he--acting like a
recalcitrant ten-year-old. "Sir, we felt we needed to keep our
investigations secret--"
   "*Our* investigations, Agent Callahan?" Skinner jumped in angrily. "Who
is *we*?"
   Brian almost couldn't get the name out. "Sal?"
   Skinner just stared at him for a full minute, making the giant squirm.
The Assistant Director shook his head, moving around his desk to the phone.
"Kim," he said quietly, with no hint of the anger he held so tightly in
check. "Could you call Salome Menschner at Quantico. I'd like to see her
immediately."
   "All right, Callahan," he said, turning to the agent again. "Tell me
*everything*."

***********
Lost Friends
by Dean Warner

Part Five

Cromby, NY
8:41 pm

Skinner crouched silently behind a screen of oaks, watching the old
sanitarium. He was still fuming--but it wasn't as if it would do him any
good. May and Callahan had done what they thought was right--and at least
they'd had the good sense to bring him in before it was too late.
   Callahan's idea of a small, unsupported, retrieval team would never have
worked. How Callahan had expected three people to get two--very likely
incapacitated--agents out of what was, for all intents and purposes, a
military establishment, was beyond the older man.
   Not that Skinner had ever contemplated bringing in a full SWAT
contingent. That would have been tantamount to murdering his missing
agents. With the number of informants that the syndicate had in the Bureau,
Mulder and Scully would have been dead before he'd even left D.C. And at
this point, after everything the syndicate had been doing lately to get rid
of the X-Files, Mulder and Sculy, *and* him, he wasn't sure he could make a
deal with them. They'd as soon kill the two agents as soon as they found
out he knew.
   So he was hiding in the woods surrounding the crumbling old building,
waiting for dark, while a small, hand-picked group of marine troops were
busy conducting "military exercises" just off shore, not ten minutes away.

Brian and Sal, for their part, sat farther back in the woods, feeling, more
than vaguely, like a couple of kids who'd broken a window, and now had to
face the wrath of their father. They both watched the woods around them
carefully, trying to guage when it would be dark enough to make their move.
   Just when they were beginning to feel that they couldn't wait any
longer, Skinner moved silently toward them, gun in hand. "Okay," he
whispered. "It looks like they've switched shifts. This is going to be the
best time we'll get."
   The agents nodded, pulling into crouches and priming their guns. They'd
decided that a quick, hard strike was the best chance they had. Skinner's
military "escort" would come in from the coast, hopefully quickly enough to
scoop them all up and take them to safety.
   Brian found it almost amusing that they were going to end up using the
military against itself. The three marine helicopters just offshore were
part of a strike team that had been put together recently--just in case
things in Lebannon got out of hand. Those marines were under the command of
a young, justice-minded captain--who was, in turn, under the command of a
skeleton of a man, named Johnson, who had been through hell with Skinner in
Vietnam.
   <And I thought *I* had contacts!> Brian laughed to himself, letting his
adrenelin flow as they reached the edge of the building. He took a deep
breath, watched as Skinner slid carefully around to the rear entrance, and
rushed in to cover him.

They'd been lucky. The sanitarium was relatviely deserted this late in the
evening. Even if it hadn't been, the small group was moving too fast for
anyone to see more than a glimpse of them before one of the three took him
or her out. Sal almost scared Brian with her ferocity. Adrenelin making him
a little giddy, he reminded himself jokingly never to get on her bad side.
   The labs had been hidden away in a sub-basement, and the trio slowed
down considerably at this point, trying to keep hidden while they hunted
the poorly-lit halls.
   They been at it for nearly ten minutes, when Sal slipped silently into a
large, dark room.
   One wall was taken up by huge tanks--they looked like fish tanks. All of
them were empty, however, and, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the
wall, she moved on. She heard a hushed conversation going on ahead of her,
and crouched down behind a bank of medical equipment to listen.
   "He's not responding, sir," a young woman was saying. Sal tried to
glance around her screen, but she couldn't see who "he" was without
exposing herself. The young woman out in the darkness continued. "His
reaction is similiar to the Purity Control group's response to the second
step of *that* process."
   She heard a deep, husky, old voice respond. "He's been exposed to the
factor twice before," the old man mused, unconcernedly. "Perhaps that's
what's causing the reaction."
   "I'd say that's very likely, sir," the woman agreed. Sal realised with a
shock that they sounded as if they were headed straight for her. She knelt
down lower, trying to make herself invisible, as they came nearer, catching
a whiff of spent nicotine as they headed toward the door.
   "Get what you can for the study," the husky old man responded, as Sal
heard the door open. "Then kill him."
   She took a few deep breaths, tainted with the smell of fresh cigarettes,
and waited for the door to close before standing up.
   The one occupied exam table in the room was at the far end, but it was
bathed in light. The man who lay on it was as pale as death, but he was
still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Ears straining to keep a
listen out for the young doctor's return, Sal approached him carefully.
   "Fox?" she called quietly, as she reached him. She'd never even *seen*
half of the machines he was hooked up to, but those she recognised didn't
give her a lot of hope. His heart rate was distressingly low, his EEG all
but flat.
   Sal stood over him, indecisive, trying to figure out just what she would
do to him if she unhooked the machines. The half of her brain that was
still listening for the door alerted her to a sound, and she sprinted for
another bank of machines behind the gurney, quietly drawing her gun.

Brian held his cargo with all the care due a fine vase. Her hair stringy
and dull, her face white, Dana Scully was at least semi-conscious, but
could do nothing but hang on as Brian slipped carefully into yet another
room. He'd lost track of both Skinner and Sal during the search, and had
had to stick to the shadows to avoid the small number of doctors and nurses
roaming around at this late hour.
   The room he'd entered was vast, with what looked like giant fish tanks
lined up along one wall. It wasn't the fish tanks that caught his interest,
however. It was the well-lighted gurney at the other end of the room.
   Bothered by the idea of putting down his first find, Brian looked
anxiously at the pale man lying on the table. He had no idea how he was
going to carry both of them--even less clue how to disengage the many tubes
and wires that were attached to the form before him.
   Just as he was about to give up and try to find one of the others, Sal
stepped out from behind the machines she'd used as a screen, very nearly
scaring him to death.
   "Jesus, Sal!" he breathed quietly. "What the hell are you trying to do?"
   Sal ignored him, returning to her examination of Mulder and the tubes
and wires that encased him. Muttering a rarely-spoken prayer, she began to
disengage him from his cage.
   Watching her carefully, Brian laid Scully out on another of the many
gurneys that littered that area of the room, drawing his gun, ready for
some sort of alarm to sound as Sal worked.
   What happened was more luck than Brian would have given himself credit
for having, as he watched Skinner slip silently into the room.
   "Sir?" he called quietly. "We've got them both."
   Skinner was across the room in a moment, looking down at the table, as
Sal removed the last of the IVs from Mulder's arm. Ignoring his
goddaugther's startled gasp, Skinner threw Mulder over his shoulder in a
fireman's carry, and gestured silently for Brian to take Scully. He led the
way out of the room at a run.

The trip back to the ground floor took longer than it should have, and
Skinner and Brian were both sweating over the weight of their loads. Sal
kept watch behind them, but, surprisingly, there was no alarm. No one came
after them.
   That piece of luck was beginning to make Skinner's teeth hurt.
   He could clearly hear the sound of helicopter propellers as they neared
the back door of the sanitarium, and he poured on extra speed, turning as
he reached the door so that his back took the brunt of the connection,
throwing the door open violently.
   He saw now why there had been no pursuit inside. Anyone capable of
coming after them was too busy with the *eight* assault choppers that had
suddenly appeared in the New York sky. Skinner reminded himself to buy Hal
Johnson the biggest beer that old Marine had ever seen--provided, of
course, that Skinner could get himself and the others to one of the two
choppers not currently engaged with the sanitarium's security force.

Brian took a deep breath and ran for all he was worth. He hadn't thought
that chopper was quite so far away, but the sound of rifles in the
not-so-distant vicinity made the fifty yards seem like as many miles.
   With a tremendous outrush of breath, he was in the chopper. Skinner was
beside him, equally exhausted, equally redfaced, and though Brian hadn't
seen her get ahead of him, Sal was already feverishly working on Mulder.
   Brian laid Scully out carefully on the bench along the back of the
cabin, calling to her anxiously for a moment before she opened her eyes for
a few brief seconds. He smoothed down her hair, and whispered into her ear.
"It's okay, Dana... It's all right."
   "There'll be hell to pay for this one, Walt!" A bluff, impossibly thin
man, roughly Skinner's age, appeared from the cockpit as the chopper took
off, trailing away from the firefight below it.
   Skinner nodded to his friend, a murderous look in his eyes. "Hell for
someone, Hal. That's for sure."

***********
Lost Friends
by Dean Warner

part six

Northeast Georgetown Medical
Washington, D.C.

6:43 am
Eight days later

Margaret Scully was lying on the beach again, gazing out into the bay as
her husband and her baby girl sailed.
   <That skiff is really *so* small,> she thought critically. <He'd better
not take her out much later in the season, or she'll turn over in the
waves.>
   As if thought produced action, Margaret caught sight of a thunderhead
gaining force in the south. Bill must have seen it, but he went blithely
on, showing Dana the best way to pull the sail around.
   Maggie watched, more nervous at every moment, as the storm gathered
strength. Bill seemed to know it was there, but he was so unconcerned. She
hestitated briefly, about to stand and call them back to shore. Bill knew
the sea. He'd never endanger their daughter.
   But still the storm grew, gliding ever closer. It was on top of them
before Maggie could scramble to her feet.
   "Bill!" She felt herself screaming for all she was worth, but heard
nothing, save the howling of the wind.
   Bill stood, unmoving, in the bow of the ship, while Dana fought the
sail, desperately trying to tack toward the shore, trying to regain some
control, as the skiff tossed on the waves of this sudden storm.
   Maggie held her breath, silently begging her husband to help the little
girl, pleading for him to protect their daughter. But Bill stood firm,
emotionless, as the wind caught the sail, throwing Dana violently into the
rising waves.
   "Dana!"

Margaret Scully woke with a start, her eyes immediately darting to her
daughter's face.
   Dana had grown paler as the days went on. It seemed that each time
Margaret looked at her, there was less and less of her daughter in the bed
before her.
   Running a loving hand through her daughter's dull hair, Margaret
couldn't bring herself to hope for another miracle. God had brought her
baby back once...
   Maybe that had been all He was willing to do.

Menschner Residence
9:50 am

"Just sit down for a few, Bri," Sal called back to him as she rushed
through her front door. "I'll be ten minutes."
   Brian nodded, bone-weary, and took a seat on the couch.
   "Do you want something to eat?" Sal asked, hanging her head out of the
bathroom door. "There's... Hell, I don't have any cereal or anything.
There's juice, though."
   "No, thanks."
   Brian wasn't up to eating--this last week, he hadn't been up to much.
Certainly not up to working. Tallor had sent him home yesterday, with a
stern command to either take a few personal days--and precious few of those
he had left--or come into the office ready to get something accomplished.
   Oh, well. He hadn't really planned on using those personal days for
anything special.
   He stretched himself out on the couch, his head hanging off of one end,
his enormous feet off of the other.
   He listened as Sal ran the shower, and closed his eyes. Spooky was being
taken off the machines today. No one was arguing with the doctors--he'd
fallen below the criteria in his living will two days ago, and the only
prognosis now was a long, drawn-out death.
   Dana was still breathing on her own--though they'd have to put her on a
respirator soon. She'd been semi-conscious, off and on, for those first
couple of days, but she'd been completely comatose since, and the doctors
were at a loss.
   As had happened a year and a half ago, they had no idea what was causing
her steady decline--less idea about Mulder's more rapid one. They just
seemed to be dying, and no amount of medication, no amount of therapy could
help them.
   Only a miracle...
   Brian sighed mightily. The miracle that had brought Dana back that first
time seemed unwilling to make a second appearance. She was getting weaker
by the hour, and soon, like Mulder, she'd just slip away forever.
   As he heard the shower shut off, heard the hairdryer firing up, Brian
wondered what he'd done to deserve such a Hell. He'd gone through  losing
them once--he wasn't sure he could do it again.

Sal launched herself out of the bathroom, braiding her long hair as she
went. "Okay, let's go."
   Brian looked at her critically. Aside from the occassional trip home for
a shower, or a breif meal caught in the hospital cafeteria, Sal had spent
the last week and more shuttling between Mulder and Scully, and the wear
showed in her bruised eyes and pale face. He thought, sometimes, that she
wanted to be there for each of them when they died, and she was afraid
she'd miss it.
   "Sal," he said carefully. "Why don't you stay here for a couple of
hours, and get some sleep? I'll be back at 1:00, and we can go back."
   Her eyes grew suddenly cold. "I'll be fine, Brian. Let's just go, okay?"
   "But, Sal--"
   She held up a weary hand, and barked "Don't! ...Just... just don't,
okay, Bri? Let's go."

FBI Headquarters
10:13 am

Assistant Director Skinner dialed the number slowly. It had taken more of
his outstanding favours than he supposed he could comfortably afford, to
get that number. He knew they'd only let him use it once, and he was damned
well going to make it count.
   "Hello?"
   Walter asked for him, fought for a moment with the solicitous-sounding
young man on the other end, and was finally handed off to one of the few
people he thought might be able to save his agents.
   "Hello?" The proper, cultured English voice, pleasant even in its
annoyance, made Skinner that much angrier.
   "I have a deal to propose," he gritted. "And you don't have time to
discuss it in committee."

Northeast Georgetown
6:15 pm

Brian handed a cup of coffee to Scully's mother, who took it with an
exhausted smile. "Thank you, Brian," she said softly. "For everything."
   Brian hung his head. It only hurt more to think that Margaret actually
felt that he had done something to be thankful for. By his own reckoning,
all he'd done is raised her hope about her daughter, only to have it dashed
again as she died. Mrs. Scully had buried this daughter once. Now, she'd
have to face it a second time.
   Another of the many nurses came in as they sat in silence, quietly
injecting a clear liquid into the IV that hung by the bed, before leaving
just as quietly.

Sal sat in the silence of Mulder's hospital room, just waiting. It was
going to be soon. She marveled at the absence of the sounds given off by
the machines they had so recently removed. Those pings and beeps and whirs
had imparted a kind of life to the room. Without them, there was only
Mulder, whose lungs still worked feebly, and the vague scratching of the
EEG, as it described his almost non-existent brain waves.
   He wasn't going to fight this, she told herself again. He was done now.
He'd gotten no answers, he'd recieved no great revelations... But he wasn't
fighting anymore. He was leaving...
   She drifted into a worried sleep, oblivious of the nameless, faceless
nurse, who walked in, injecting a clear liquid into Mulder's IV, and walked
out.

3:45 pm
the next day

"Hey, Sal," Brian called quietly.
   Sal waited a moment before tearing her eyes away from Mulder's chest,
which she had been watching, waiting for it to cease its feeble movement.
"Hey."
   Brian handed her yet another cup of coffee. "Did you want to go out and
have a cigarette?" he asked. He'd given up trying to get her to sleep.
She'd eat if he brought her food. Mostly, though, she was just waiting.
   "No, thanks," she replied, though part of her mind and body screamed for
the nicotine. "I'll stay here."
   "I'll call you if--"
   Her frozen eyes stopped him. "I'll stay."
   Brian nodded, and got up to leave. Sal stopped him with a hand on his arm.
   "Brian, I'm sorry. Will you sit with me for a while? Please?"
   He nodded, resumed his seat. "How's he doing?"
   "It'll be soon, I think," Sal said, her eyes making the rounds of the
few monitors they'd bothered to leave. "His breathing is slowing, and..."
She broke off in amazement.
   "What?" Brian asked, a slight edge of almost-panic to his voice.
   Sal didn't answer, but instead pressed the nurse's button beside the
bed, walking around to the EEG monitor. "He's got some activity here."
   "What do you mean?"
   She smiled a little tentatively. "Don't ask me how--his brainwaves have
been nearly flat for a few days now--but he's got something going on in
that brain of his. Not much, but something."
   "You think he's coming out of it?" Brian asked incredulously, as a pair
of nurses came in, checking vitals. One left almost immediately to summon a
doctor.
   Sal shook her head, but her smile brightened. "Not even close, but I
think he might eventually."
   As they stepped back to make room for the arriving doctor, Brian and Sal
watched as Mulder's vitals creeped ever-so-slowly toward something less
dire. After ten minutes, the doctor turned to them. "What happened,
exactly?"
   Sal shook her head again. "I don't know. We were just sitting here,
waiting, and I noticed some low-level activity on the EEG. I've been here
for hours, and I hadn't noticed anything before."
   The doctor nodded strangely. "Well, whatever's happened, he's climbing
back. Don't get your hopes up, but..."
   Brian finally allowed himself a smile. One miracle, just in time.

7:58 pm

Margaret sat, talking quietly to her daughter. "Fox is getting better,
honey," she told her in a whisper. "They don't know how much better,
but..." She stopped suddenly, unable to hold in the tears she felt.
   "Oh, Dana," she breathed, sitting back in her chair, exhausted.
   After hours of waiting, Margaret couldn't hold off sleep any more. And
as she slept, she dreamed.
   And so did Dana.

She was on the skiff, tacking around the bay with Ahab. It was a sunny day,
and the breeze was just right. The sails were a little heavy for her, but
Ahab had shown her the right way to pull them around, and she'd been
practicing all day.
   Her mom was sitting on the shore, sunning herself. Charles sat nearby,
working on yet another of his massive sandcastles. It was a perfect day.
Then, she looked up, and saw the thunderhead.
   It was huge, and dark, and angry. And it was heading right for her. She
looked to Ahab, but he seemed to be almost enjoying the coming storm,
standing there in the bow, facing the gathering clouds.
   But a fear gripped Dana, so fierce and powerful that she almost couldn't
pull the sail around fast enough. She felt the wind catch it at the last
second, but didn't feel the blow that knocked her into the rising waves.

Again, Magaret felt herself screaming for all she was worth, but heard
nothing, save the howling of the wind.

But Dana could hear her clearly. She heard her mother calling to her, and,
glancing to the shore, struck out with powerful strokes, heading toward
safety.

Margaret saw her daughter surface, saw her strike out toward the shore. But
she didn't seem to make any headway. She swam hard, but she never came
nearer to the shore--

She'd never reach the shore. She knew that now. The water was suddenly so
cold and so thick, that she'd drown before she made it. Maybe if she headed
back toward the boat...
   But the boat was gone. Her father, their skiff. There was nothing left,
just waves and the coming rain. She called to him, desperate. "Daddy!"
   She got nothing in return.

"Baby!" her mother cried, hearing her daughter's plea. As hard as she
tried, Margaret couldn't enter the water. She stood frozen, watching her
daughter flounder.

"Daddy!" Dana called again, tears mixing with the salt spray on her cheeks.
She got no answer, no help... And the water was calling her down...
   It almost became peaceful after she sank for the final time. The water
was warmer down here, thinner. She drifted almost comfortably...
 

Brian walked in to Scully's room, bearing two cups of coffee. He almost
dropped them as the alarms began to sound.
   The rush of the doctors, the sound of the crash cart, seemed unable to
wake Margaret Scully. Likewise, they seemed incapable of saving her
daughter.

As Dana remained submerged, Margaret began to cry. Her husband was nowhere
in sight, but still, she cried out to him. "Bill! Bill, please!" she
begged, pleading tearfully for him to do something. And still, her daughter
would not surface.

Dana floated in that peaceful water, drifting farther and farther below the
surface. But suddenly, gently, hands seemed to bear her up. Strong hands,
that smelled like the sea and felt comfortable and safe.
   "Ahab."

Margaret was ready to give up when, miraculously, she saw her daughter
coming toward shore, gliding along as if the water were calm, instead of
the churning Hell Margaret saw before her. She cried her relief, the tears
pentrating the deep sleep of a mourning woman in a hospital room.
   Once again, her daughter was coming home.

4:31 pm
Five days later

Dana Scully flinched at the hand in her hair, her eyes blinking open in
surprise.
   "It's okay, Dana," a deep, gentle voice assured her. "It's just me."
   Her eyes found the speaker. Brian Callahan, a rough day's growth of
beard on his chin, and joy in his eyes, stood over her, a smile splitting
his face. "Hi."
   She looked at him for a long moment, groggy, too disoriented to speak.
When she finally found her voice, it was scratchy, old. "What happened?"
   "It's a long story," he told her gently. "It can wait. How are you feeling?"
   "Tired."
   Brian smiled wider at that. Now that she was awake, a deep chuckle
escaped him. "After two weeks' sleep? Gee, Dana. I'm surprised at you."
   What he said didn't register on her, and she just looked vaguely around
the hospital room. "Where am I?"
   "Northeast Georgetown," he replied. "You know, all the nurses around
here still remember you. You made quite an impression last time you were
here."
   <The last time she was here.> Snatches of the night of the shooting, so
long ago, with so little memory in between, came back to her suddenly. She
started feebly. "Where's Mulder?"
   "Three doors down." Sal Menschner's amused alto broke the silence, as
she walked in from the door, where she'd been standing quietly.
   "Is he okay?" Scully asked anxiously. She remembered being hit by a...
dart? Something. And she remembered Mulder falling beside her.
   Sal shrugged, but the light in her face reassured her friend. "Worse off
than you, but he's making progress."
   Margaret Scully returned to the  room, coffee in hand, and Sal and Brian
left quickly, leaving the mother and daughter to talk.

"How do you think this happened?" Sal asked, blowing out smoke as she sat
with Brian on one of the many decks that the medical center sported.
   It had been the topic of conversation ever since Mulder and Scully had
begun to improve. As usual, Brian had no answer. "Maybe it was a miracle,"
he said, hardly believing it.
   "No miracle did this, Bri," she replied confidently. "The only way they
had any chance to get better would be if someone who knew about this
'illness' intervened."
   "But why would they?" Brian wanted to know. "Why not just let them die.
Let the secrets die with them?"
   Sal blew her smoke out thoughtfully. "Maybe they didn't have a choice."

Near Central Park
New York City, NY

The old Englishman turned off the portable phone decisively. After that
first surprising negative reaction to the injection, Scully had begun to
improve steadily, and had apparently awoken today. Mulder was also
improving. Which got the syndicate out of a fair amount of trouble.
   He didn't like this deal. But it was either save the two agents, or risk
exposure. The Assistant Director might have been bluffing when he said he'd
have copies of all the MJ files in the hands of fifteen sympathetic
congressmen by sundown, but it didn't matter. Skinner had been hard with
him, forcing a hand that he knew was untenable, making a bet that he knew
the syndicate couldn't risk calling.
   And once again, their associate in Washington had jeopardised the entire
project. Something would have to be done about him, and soon. He couldn't
be allowed to continue this campaign of personal revenge. There was too
much at stake.
   The old man glanced casually at the nearby ashtray, where butts from his
associate still sat, though the man had returned to Washington hours ago.
   Something would have to be done...

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

END

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and Myth Patrol                             the *only* one I trust."
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xangst@marina-pt.com--------Die-Hard Skinner Chick---------Dean Warner

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