By Brandon D. Ray and shannono
jchance@avalon.net, shannono@iname.com
Written February 18-May 6, 1999

================
Header and Notes
================

SUMMARY: The Date is here ...

CATEGORIES: X-file (mythology variety), Romance, Angst

KEYWORDS: Mytharc. Colonization. MulderAngst. ScullyAngst.
Character death, but secondary. Skinner, the Lone Gunmen, Krycek,
Spender, CSM, Diana ... all those fun people. Oh, and MSR. Duh --
what do you expect from Brandon and Shannon? No smut, tho ...
we're so proud we refrained ... ;)

SPOILER WARNING: Lots of 'em. This story is set at the end of U.S.
Season 6, and contains spoilers for numerous episodes, including
the movie, airing up through that time. And not just the mytharc
episodes, either. Note, however, that the final mytharc of Season
6 HAS NOT HAPPENED. This is OUR version of how those plot elements
might play out.

RATING: Strong PG-13 (for language)

==========

THANKS AND CREDITS:

None of this would have been possible without the tireless
contributions of Team Beta: Susanne Barringer, Vickie Moseley,
Stacey Oziel and Susan West. Special thanks also to our editor,
Lena Quinn, for catching the remaining errors in the next-to-
last draft, and to Sara Scott for helping work out some details.
Chapter revisions by Shannon; spellchecking by Brandon. <g>

Anything cool and wonderful in this story must surely be at least
partially to the credit of our great team of editors and proofers.
Any shortcomings which remain must, of course, be laid at the
doorsteps of the authors.

We also wish to express our deepest thanks to Nonie Rider for
providing a detailed analysis of the history and possible
motivations for Alex Krycek. Russian language help by Martina
Voight. Thanks to Sharon Fetter for her insights into the Air
Traffic Control system. Our informant on Fort Benning wished to
remain anonymous. <g> All other location information came from our
own knowledge and our trusty Rand McNally atlases, along with a
few internet searches here and there. Any incorrect information
should be written off as literary license.

A final note: For the most part, this story was written from two
POVs -- Scully's and Mulder's. Also for the most part, Shannon
wrote Scully and Brandon wrote Mulder. But that's not universal,
so anything you don't like can be blamed on both of us equally. <g>

==========

DISCLAIMER: *sigh* Chris Carter, Rupert Murdoch and a bunch of
other people with more money than they know what to do with own
Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Alex Krycek and various other characters
in this story, as well as their backstories and other plot
elements. But we own Andy Baker! So there! (And, of course, any
other minor characters you don't recognize ...)

Oh ... and any literary and lyrical quotes belong to their
creators. All this stuff is used without permission but with no
expectation for compensation -- other than feedback, of course.

==========

AUTHORS' NOTES:

Brandon says:

So now you know what we've been up to for the past several weeks!
When two highly prolific authors suddenly go into stealth mode
you've gotta suspect that SOMETHING is up ... and here it is.

This story came about as a result of another of those ubiquitous
late-night sessions on AIM. I had emailed Shannon earlier in the
day expressing my fears about how the Colonization thread
introduced in "Two Fathers" and "One Son" might play out.
Basically, I was afraid that everything in the show would change,
and not necessarily for the better. We got to talking about this,
and before we knew it we were outlining what we soon started
calling "Memorial Day", a novel length treatment of the
Colonization threat. And the rest, as they say, is history ...

Shannon says:

Actually, the real reason for this story is to prove that we can
do plot, too. <g> But beyond that ... the story came about during
the discussion Brandon mentions, when I made the mistake of
suggesting we write our own version of the end of Season Six. No,
no, it wasn't REALLY a mistake ... except, of course, that we then
spent WAY too much time working out methods, reasons, motivations,
etc., etc. In the process, though, we hammered out what we think
is a pretty plausible scenario. We hope you think so, too.

Geez, Brandon, we sure are long-winded ... maybe we should shut
up and let the nice people read the story. <g>

==========

A special note about Memorial Day for our "non-American" readers:

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States, a day of
remembrance designed as a tribute to those who have died in service
to the nation. It is observed in nearly every state on the last
Monday in May and is usually marked with ceremonies and cemetery
visits in memory of the honored dead. Over the years, it's also
become a sort of kickoff for the summer, a day for picnics and
other outdoor activities.

==========

We DO write other stuff, too, you know ...

Left Field -- Shannon's fanfic: http://fly.to/LeftField
Brandon's fanfic: http://www.avalon.net/~publius/MyStories.html

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===========
Prologue
===========
"In the stars is written the death of every man."
-- Geoffrey Chaucer
===========

It began not with a bang, but with a whimper. No hovering ships,
no mass abductions, no black plague sweeping across the land; but
a stealth attack, stealing in through the back door in such a way
as to catch us unaware.

It began on a sunny, late spring day in a quiet Southern town
with a military base on its fringes, a town ripe with history and
yet dotted with the pawnshops and adult entertainment that seem
to gravitate toward the prospect of young Army men as customers.

It began in a quintessentially American venue, a minor league
baseball park complete with a raucous mascot, a hot tub in the
stands, and a playground for the kids.

It began on one of the most American of holidays, a day created as
a way to honor the women who gave us life.

And with the beginning, came the specter of the end.

==========

Golden Park, Columbus, Georgia
Sunday, May 9, 1999
7:47 p.m.

"Now pitching for your Columbus RedStixx ... number 42 ...
Scott ... Turnow!"

Scott let the sound of the announcer's overblown voice wash right
past him as he took his last few warmup tosses, nailing the strike
zone each time. As the ball arced back toward him from the
catcher's hand, he ran a quick mental check of the situation --
down by a run, man on second, one out, top of the sixth. Make it
look good, and maybe the boost to his stats would finally get him
that callup to Kinston.

The sting caught him by surprise, inordinately painful for such a
small thing, and he instinctively clapped his free hand against
the side of his neck to crush the thing, just as the ball dropped
into his glove. He brought his pitching hand down to glance at
the black-and-yellow striped bee, then tossed it to the ground
beside the mound and bent to pick up the resin bag, bouncing it on
the back of his hand a couple of times. He dropped the bag and
dusted off his hand on his uniform pants as the announcer called
out the name of the River Dogs' cleanup hitter.

He turned his attention toward the plate, and was hit with a wave
of dizziness. He blinked several times, giving his head a quick
shake, and looked in again. His vision blurred, cleared, and
blurred again, and his knees sagged under him, not wanting to
support his weight.

He heard a commotion building around him as his body slumped
towards the red clay. Concentrating, he managed to look up and saw
a cloud moving through the air, diving and swerving a few feet
above the green of the field. He turned his head and saw teammates,
opponents, fans, scattering, arms waving in a futile attempt to
beat back the invaders.

And then his vision greyed, his head dropped, and he saw no more.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

=========
Chapter 1
=========

Alexandria, VA
Monday, May 10, 1999
4:32 a.m.

Someone was pounding on the door.

Mulder stirred in his sleep and grumbled, pulling his blanket up a
little higher around his shoulders. He didn't want to be disturbed.
It had been past two when exhaustion had finally overtaken him,
and deep in his sleep-fogged brain he knew it couldn't be morning
yet. He just wanted to sleep ...

The pounding returned, and Mulder felt himself gradually returning
to wakefulness. He cursed sleepily, willing whoever it was to go
away and just let him sleep.

Then he heard a key in his lock, followed by the sound of the door
opening and footsteps approaching. His brain groggily registered the
potential threat, but still he couldn't make himself wake up.

And then a hand was on his shoulder, shaking him roughly.

"Mulder? Mulder, wake up."

Scully. Shit.

With a sigh of resignation he allowed his eyes to drift open and
looked up at the shadowy form bending over him.

"Dammit, Mulder, wake up!" She shook his shoulder again, more
sharply than before, and Mulder reached up and grabbed her wrist.

"All right," he growled. "All right, I'm awake." He blinked
owlishly up at her. "What's ... what's up?" As consciousness
returned, it gradually came to him that Scully wouldn't have come
to his apartment in the middle of the night without a good reason.
"Is something wrong?"

She was already moving away from the sofa; in another instant the
lamp came on and Mulder winced automatically at the sudden
intrusion of light into his dark world.

"We've got to get to Atlanta," Scully said, her voice crisp and
professional. "I tried to call you, but I guess you were so sound
asleep you didn't hear the phone."

"Atlanta?" Mulder parroted, but she was already heading down the
short hall towards his bedroom. By the time Mulder struggled to
his feet and caught up with her, she had his pre-packed overnight
bag pulled from the closet. She tossed the bag onto the dresser
and zipped it open as if she'd done it a dozen times before. Which
she had, he realized, as she started poking through the contents.

She pulled open the middle right-hand drawer of the dresser and
grabbed two pairs of dress socks. "Where's your weapon?" she asked
as she stuffed the socks in the bag.

"Top left hand drawer," he answered mechanically, watching as she
retrieved his Sig Sauer, ejected the clip and checked the action
with well-practiced movements. She dropped the pistol into his bag
and zipped it shut again before finally slipping the clip into her
jacket pocket.

Mulder simply stood at the doorway, as if rooted to the spot. He
knew he should be doing something, helping her, but his brain
seemed stuck in neutral, and he couldn't make sense of anything
yet.

Scully turned to see him still standing there, and sighed. "Go
take a shower and get the rest of your things, Mulder, and I'll
fix some coffee." Her tone was patient, but her movements remained
brisk as she brushed by him and headed back up the hall. "Don't
dawdle," she called over her shoulder. "Our flight leaves in less
than two hours."

Mulder finally managed to get himself in motion, and 20 minutes
later, showered, shaved and in clean clothes, he was sitting at
the kitchen table sipping coffee, while his partner reviewed for
him the information she had so far.

"Killer bees, Scully?" he interjected as she stopped for a sip of
coffee. The shower had helped wake him up, and the coffee was
helping even more, but he was still short on sleep and he was
having difficulty focusing on her words.

Scully nodded. "That's right. Remember the case you investigated
in Payson, two years ago?"

Payson, South Carolina. Yeah, Mulder remembered. Bees. Lots of
them. And all those children ...

He nodded as Scully went on. "Well, this is the same scenario, but
on a larger scale. A swarm was released last night at a baseball
game in Columbus, Georgia. About sixty victims confirmed as of
midnight, but that's a preliminary number; the count will almost
certainly go higher. There were several thousand people in the
ballpark."

Mulder was completely awake now. "And the symptoms resemble
smallpox?"

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Apparently, no," she said, an edge of
an emotion Mulder's couldn't quite identify in her voice. "Victims
complained of shortness of breath, weakness in the limbs, pain in
the chest, blurry vision, impaired motor skills ..."

Mulder's eyelids fluttered shut as his memory played back that
exact collection of symptoms being reported in Scully's fading
voice as she collapsed in the hallway outside his apartment.
"They're restocking," he said softly, his eyes still closed as
his mind filled with images of tens of thousands of incubating
hosts, frozen solid in a ship buried under the Antarctic snow.

Scully didn't respond, and when Mulder's eyes reopened, her gaze
was fixed on her hands where they sat folded in front of her on
the table. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before
she spoke.

"I managed to find out through the local police department that
the victims were being routed to two local hospitals," she said.
"But neither would give out any information, and when I called
the police back, no one would talk to me."

Mulder wanted to ask why she hadn't called *him*, but he still
didn't quite feel he had the right, not after the way he'd treated
her three months earlier. He'd ignored her, denied her, done
everything but call her a liar to her face, and their partnership
still hadn't recovered completely.

Besides, she was here now, and that was all that really mattered.

Instead, he asked, "How did you find out about it?"

Scully lifted her head to meet his intent gaze. "After I read the
report on the Payson case, I subscribed to an Internet clipping
service, using 'bees' and certain symptoms as keywords, among
other things," she explained, settling her elbows on the edge of
the table and folding her arms in front of her. "I've added other
information as we've learned more, and late last night, a very
short report came in on the Associated Press wire. I got it when I
checked my e-mail around 11, and it didn't have that much
information, so I made a few phone calls to find out more. Like I
said, I didn't get very far. But I did look up some of the old
newspaper reports online, and Mulder, this looks like Payson all
over again. Only worse."

For a long minute Mulder sat looking at her, his lips pursed as he
processed her statement. He felt a cold knot forming in the pit of
his stomach. He didn't want to face this. It was too soon, and they
hadn't had a chance to assimilate everything they'd done and seen
over the past three months, in both their personal and professional
lives.

But it didn't look like they had a choice.

He expelled his breath in a rush. "Okay," he said reluctantly,
bracing his hand on the chair back as he rose slowly to his feet.
"Let's get going, then."

==========

Interstate 185
Western Georgia
9:57 a.m.

The drive south from Atlanta was monotonous but necessary. All
connecting flights between Atlanta and Columbus had been either
full or canceled, though repeated questioning at various counters
had yielded no acceptable reasons.

Scully's cell phone had been active most of the time since they'd
settled into the car. She'd called the Centers for Disease
Control, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Columbus police
again, and even the state patrol, but it seemed no one was in the
mood to talk.

Her one success was in leaving a message for the reporter, an Andy
Baker, responsible for that single, four-paragraph story. She gave
both their names and cell numbers to the woman who took the call,
adding Skinner's office number as a backup.

A nearly deserted interstate and lack of law enforcement presence
along the route allowed Mulder to adhere to his own internal 80-
mile-an-hour speed limit, cutting a half-hour off the drive time.
The road was flat and straight, and an almost cartoonish view
passed by the windows, with what looked like the same set of trees
and greenery simply repeated every few miles.

"We should be there before eleven," Mulder said as Scully tossed
her phone onto the seat in disgust following yet another stonewall.
He glanced over at her, then returned his attention back to the
highway in front of them. "Getting anything?" he asked.

She sighed. "Nothing. They aren't saying a word. In fact, the more
different people I talk to, the less they all seem to know."

Mulder shrugged, his eyes still on the road. "About what we
expected," he said blandly. "Until they get a plausible cover story
out, the official phrase of the day will be 'deny everything.'"

Scully propped her elbow on the windowsill and lifted her hand to
rub her forehead. She was trying to hide her concern over Mulder's
apparent disinterest in pursuing this case, but she didn't know how
much longer she could. She knew she'd roused him out of a sound
sleep this morning, but sleepiness didn't explain his continuing
lack of enthusiasm. Six months ago, just the mention of the word
"bees" would have had him spouting theories faster than most people
could think.

But he had been unnaturally quiet during their trip, allowing
Scully to handle the phone calls and make most of the suggestions.
If he didn't snap out of it soon, Scully didn't know what she'd do.
Much as the stalwart in her hated to admit it, she needed him with
her every step of the way on this. Too much was at stake for him
to lose his focus now.

She sighed and responded to his comment in an attempt to draw him
out. "I've been trying to figure out what they could cover *with*,"
she said. "Killer bees, I suppose, although they normally migrate
northward, and there have been no reported attacks between extreme
southern Texas and here. That ballpark had something close to 3,000
people inside, so we shouldn't lack for witnesses. They might be
able to cover some of the bee stings, or attribute them to a
disturbed hive nearby, but there's no way to account for the sheer
volume of bees that story reported. A 'cloud' that nearly covered
the stands?"

Mulder chewed at his bottom lip, an old habit Scully knew meant
he was deep in thought. "They might attribute it to some type of
bioterrorism," he said, his voice gradually growing more certain
as he spoke. "In fact, now that I think about it, I remember
hearing a report a few months back about an anthrax scare in this
area. We can find out what happened then; the official report on
this could play to those fears."

He didn't even have to suggest Scully's next call. She already had
her phone back in hand and was punching in yet another set of
numbers, this one more familiar. After a cryptic 15-minute
conversation that started with the words "turn off the tape," she
hung up.

"Byers remembered the report, too," she said without preamble. "He
says it was an anthrax threat, but actually two of them -- one in
Columbus and one in Atlanta. No anthrax was ever found, but several
buildings were evacuated in each city. He's going to e-mail a copy
of the story to my account and we can pick it up when we get to a
landline."

Mulder had started nodding halfway through her story and jumped in
as soon as she stopped talking. "That would make a perfect cover
story," he said. "An air release like that would affect hundreds
in the immediate area, maybe thousands, depending on the wind
direction. Something like that would normally take at least a few
days to uncover, but they could be still on a low-level alert
because of the scare. So they could say they discovered it quickly
and still be believable."

Scully nodded once. "Anthrax does cause symptoms fairly quickly,
so if they announced the diagnosis some time later today, it would
be acceptable," she said.

Mulder shot her a long look. "I'd really like to get a look at
some of those medical records," he said, his eyes focused and
intense.

Scully nearly smiled in relief. He was back, at least for the time
being.

But she simply returned his look, then turned her attention back
to the flat highway before them.

==========

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer offices
Columbus, GA
11:12 a.m.

Mulder and Scully had agreed as they reached town to try the
newspaper office first, since that's where they'd gotten the only
cooperation all day. Inside the building's lobby, they approached
the security desk in tandem, Mulder pulling his badge as they came
to a stop.

"FBI," he said in a bland tone. "We need the newsroom."

The security guard, dark-skinned and sporting a shock of sharply
contrasting grey hair, nodded quickly, his eyes wide. "I'll need
to call Mr. Pryor," he said, reaching for the phone on the desk.
"All visitors have to be escorted."

Mulder's eyes drifted as he waited, his gaze coming to rest on a
nearby display of old front pages. He appeared to be reading the
headlines with interest, but anyone who knew him could tell that
his mind was actually far away.

Scully could tell, but she chose not to interrupt his thoughts.
She had deliberately avoided using the word "colonization";
despite her own beliefs, she knew that was what Mulder believed
the shadowy Syndicate had been working toward. She had her doubts,
of course, but the whole idea was still a sore point with him,
much as any case involving child abductions had always struck his
Samantha nerve. His guilt over so nearly giving up his quest a few
months back was still raw, and the last thing Scully wanted to do
at this point was make things worse.

They waited only a few minutes before the elevator next to the
counter chimed, the doors opening to reveal a young, dark-haired
woman wearing a business suit. She smiled as she stepped toward
them. "Hi, I'm Andrea Baker," she said, holding out her hand.

Scully concealed her surprise as she and Mulder shook hands and
introduced themselves. She'd been expecting a man from the name
"Andy" Baker, but the reporter was instead a woman just a few
inches taller than Scully, with short, curly brown hair and deep
green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Her movements were sharp
and crisp, giving the impression of a military school cadet.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," Andy said. "I think I know what you
want to ask me about, and I don't know how much help I'm going to
be, but I'm certainly willing to try." Her eyes sharpened, her
eyebrows lifting minutely, but she gestured nonchalantly, toward
a pair of doors to her right. "Why don't we go into one of the
conference rooms, where we'll have some privacy?"

She was moving toward the room in question before she finished
speaking, and Scully exchanged a brief glance with Mulder before
falling in behind her. Scully realized it was obvious Andy had
something to tell them, but the open lobby wasn't the place for
it.

None of them spoke again until they were inside the conference
room and seated, with the door closed. As soon as they were, Andy's
ebullient mask fell away completely, her expression transforming in
a second from open and friendly to serious and focused -- and just
a bit wary.

"I don't know what the hell's going on around here," she said, her
voice hard and her eyes piercing. "But whatever it is, it's big.
I've been on the phone for the past two hours, and I can't get a
single person to talk to me. And for the past 45 minutes, I can't
even get a call into Fort Benning. With the number of victims I
saw, I would expect them to bring in the Army medics and
transports to help."

Mulder leaned forward in his seat. "You were at the game last
night?" he asked.

Andy nodded briskly. "I was doing some interviews for a story on
a proposed new sales tax," she said, sounding like nothing so much
as a witness on the stand. "I finished a little after seven and
was headed home when I heard the reports start coming in over the
scanner. When I got back there, things were crazy. There were at
least several hundred people who were stung, and probably a hundred
fifty or so were complaining of the symptoms I listed in the
article. I wanted to stay out there and check it out more
carefully, but I had a deadline to meet, so I got as much
information as I could in about an hour and came back here to get
the story written in time for this morning's editions."

"That was the story that went to the wire service?" Scully asked.

"Right," Andy said, nodding in Scully's direction. "We send edited
versions of most of our stories to the AP bureau in Atlanta, and
they picked that one up and sent it out nationally."

"And you've been trying to get more information," Mulder prompted.

Andy nodded again. "I spent another hour on the phone after
deadline last night, and came in early today to start up again.
I've sent out a half-dozen Freedom of Information Act requests
since nine, but they have three days to respond, so I haven't
really expected anything from that. The only thing I've gotten so
far is that Columbus Medical Center treated about 120 people, so
I was just about to head over there when Fred called up and said
you two were here."

She paused and smiled, a little sheepishly. "I'm afraid your
phone message got a little lost in the shuffle," she said, her
eyes shifting back and forth between Mulder and Scully as she
spoke. "And when I did get it ... well, I called a friend in DC
to check you out first. I haven't been having the best luck with
government agencies today."

Mulder nodded and smiled briefly in acknowledgement as he leaned
in again. "You said you can't get a call in to Fort Benning?"

Andy returned her gaze to him. "No, and that's never happened, not
in the two years I've been here. No matter what was going on."

Mulder turned to look at Scully. "Maybe now is a good time to get
a look at those medical records," he said pointedly.

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==========
Chapter 2
==========

Columbus Medical Center
Columbus, GA
12:02 p.m.

Getting access to the medical records in question turned out to
be easier said than done.

"I'm sorry ma'am." The information clerk's eyes flicked briefly
from Scully to Andy to Mulder and then back to Scully again. "But
I'm afraid I really can't help you."

Scully continued to hold her badge in front of the woman's eyes,
and for at least the thousandth time in their partnership Mulder
couldn't help but admire her calm, steady professionalism. She'd
always impressed him in that regard, but ever since the nightmare
at El Rico Air Force Base her sense of determination and purpose
had seemed to double and redouble.

He supposed it was at least partly in compensation for his own
emotional collapse at the height of that case, but they'd never
really discussed it. The time had never seemed to be right.

Now, he wished they had made time for it.

"Access to medical records by law enforcement officers is a
routine use exception under the Federal Privacy Act," Scully was
saying. "I can provide you with a written statement of need if --"

The clerk was looking nervous, but she was also shaking her head.
"No, ma'am," she interrupted. "You don't understand. It's not
that I *won't* give them to you; I *can't*. You see, they
aren't --"

"Sheila, is there a problem?"

Mulder turned to see an older woman standing behind them. She was
short, shorter than Scully, actually, with streaks of gray in her
hair and a severe expression on her face.

"Mrs. Peters." The relief in the clerk's voice was impossible to
miss. "These three are from the FBI, and they're asking to see
records of the bee sting patients from last night. I was just
trying to explain --"

"That's fine, Sheila," the other woman responded. "I'll take care
of this." She turned to the two agents. "My name is Marilyn
Peters; I'm the Chief of Medical Information. How can I help
you?"

Scully now extended her badge to Mrs. Peters. "I'm Special Agent
Dana Scully; this is Special Agent Fox Mulder. We're from the FBI,
and we're here to investigate last night's incident."

Marilyn Peters studied them for a moment, then glanced at Andy.
"And you are?"

"Andrea Baker, from the Ledger-Enquirer," the reporter said.

The other woman nodded briefly. "You'll find the public relations
office on one west," she said curtly, and turned her attention
back to Mulder and Scully. "Why don't you come with me and we'll
discuss this in private."

Mulder caught Scully throwing an apologetic look at Andy Baker,
and then the two agents were following the Medical Information
Chief out the door and down the hallway to another office, where
they were motioned into two chairs in front of the desk.

"Now," said Mrs. Peters, settling herself behind her desk.
"Suppose you tell me why you're here."

Mulder remained silent, once again allowing Scully to take the
lead, so in a few brief sentences she gave an edited version of
their interest in the case, concluding with a reiteration of
their authority to review the records under the Privacy Act. As
she finished speaking, the other woman steepled her fingers in
front of her and seemed to be lost in thought for a moment.

Finally, she said, "I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to
help you." She held up one hand to forestall any objections. "I
didn't say that we aren't willing; I understand the law, and this
medical center has always cooperated with the authorities to the
fullest extent possible. However, in this instance we *can't* help
you, because the records you want are no longer here."

Scully's eyebrows shot up, and Mulder felt his own eyes widen.
"Not here?" he asked. "How can they not be here?"

Mrs. Peters looked slightly uncomfortable, but replied, "The
patients and their charts were transferred out early this
morning."

"Transferred out?" Scully repeated, her voice on the edge of
incredulous. "You mean you transferred out copies, don't you?
You wouldn't have sent the originals."

The other woman's lips tightened slightly. "In this instance we
sent the originals." She glanced briefly at a paper on her desk,
then back up at the two agents. "There were 127 cases to be
triaged. There was no time to make copies." Again she compressed
her lips, and Mulder realized then that she was not very happy
with the situation. "I -- we have been promised that the records
will be returned in due course," she finished.

"Where were they transferred?" he asked.

Mrs. Peters glanced briefly at him, and then away. "I'm sorry. I'm
not at liberty to say."

Mulder nodded slowly, and realized that down inside he'd been
expecting something like this. He leaned back slightly in his
chair, fighting a wave of hopelessness that threatened to sweep
over him. They'd lost again. Less than 24 hours out from the
event, and already the machinery was in motion ...

"Mulder!" He looked up, and saw that Scully was standing in front
of him shaking his shoulder. "Come on," she said. "This isn't over
yet."

He stared up at her for just a moment, drawing strength from her
gaze. He'd been doing that a lot the last few months, and part of
him hated the sense of dependency it created within him. But he
couldn't seem to help himself; he had nothing else left to cling
to.

And after another moment he rose from his chair and followed his
partner out of the room.

==========

12:21 p.m.

The pair stepped into the hallway, but before Scully could even
voice her next suggestion -- finding Andy and seeing if she had
been any more successful -- the reporter appeared from around a
corner just feet away. She caught Scully's eye and gave a tight
little pull of her head, gesturing for the agents to follow her.
Scully glanced at Mulder, Mulder glanced back ... and they turned
in tandem to follow Andy around the corner.

She whirled on them almost immediately, and nothing could have
concealed the gleam in her eyes. "Fort Benning," she whispered.
"I knew it. They're at Fort Benning."

Scully leaned forward. "The victims? *All* of them?"

"How did you find out?" Mulder put in.

Andy grinned widely. "It always pays to make friends with the
environmental services crew."

===========

Georgia Highway 520
East of Columbus, GA
1:22 p.m.

The smell of greasy hamburgers and French fries filled the car,
steered one-handed by Mulder as he gulped down lunch between
sentences. His speed was hovering right at 55 on advice from Andy,
who said the base MPs loved to stop speeders.

"So if the air field is on the south end of the base, then they'd
probably have triage set up in a hangar," he said. "I'd expect
that they'd be shipping at least some of the victims out. If it's
what we think it is, they'll need to keep them cold."

"Why?" Scully asked, pausing for a quick sip of her tea. "If they
want incubators, why keep them cold? Why not just let them
gestate?

Mulder shrugged. "That would raise too much attention," he said.
"It's obvious they're trying to keep this quiet. The last thing
they need is a bunch of nasties running around."

"Excuse me."

Andy's voice came from the back seat, and the agents glanced back
at her to see her eyes wide and her face pale. Her voice shook as
she continued, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other for a long moment, coming
to a silent agreement. Mulder turned his attention back to the
road as Scully twisted in her seat to face Andy more fully. "This
is going to sound, well, crazy," she started.

==========

1:45 p.m.

By the time Scully finished her story, Mulder had pulled into the
parking lot of a convenience store just beyond the military
reservation. Scully had edited her explanation for caution's sake,
and she was careful to cover her and Mulder's differing views, but
she still included all of the most pertinent information.

Andy sat in stunned silence, still trying to absorb all she'd been
told. "So the bees are carrying this virus, and if someone is
stung, they grow this ... creature thing inside them?" she asked,
her tone skeptical.

Mulder shot Scully a crooked grin. "*That* sounds familiar,
Scully," he said, his voice teasing.

Scully ignored him pointedly and spoke to Andy. "I know it sounds
incredible," she said. "I didn't believe it myself, and I still
don't agree with everything Mulder believes. But I do know there's
something big going on here, and I -- we -- are going to find out
what it is."

Andy sat up straighter. "Count me in," she said firmly.

Mulder turned to look at her. "We should tell you, Andy, that this
will be dangerous," he said, obviously choosing his words
carefully. "Scully and I are trained for this. And armed. I don't
think it's a good idea for you to ..."

"Marine Corps, four years, eight more on active Reserves," Andy
cut in. "My gun and license are at home. Take me by to pick it up
and change clothes, and I'm in."

Scully studied her for a long moment, then nodded once and turned
to Mulder. "Let's do that before we try the base," she said. "Did
you get all the information you needed in the drivethrough?"

Mulder nodded as he restarted the car. "Plenty of crossroads, and
I think that second one will be our best bet," he said. "Andy, you
take a look on the way back through and tell me if anything seems
unusual or out of place. There were a few streets closed off with
concrete barricades, but they looked like they'd been there a
while."

"Okay," Andy said. "There are a couple blocked like that all the
time, but most of the roads are open. Did you notice any MP cars?"

"Plain white with blue lights," Mulder confirmed. "Two of them,
one headed each direction. Normal?"

"About so," came the reply. "And we ..."

A shrill trilling cut her off, and all three reached for cell
phones. "Mine," Andy said, pushing a button and answering with
"Baker." She paused to listen, then said, "Where?"

At the tone of excitement in Andy's voice, Scully turned to look
at the reporter, who was grabbing for a notebook. Andy scribbled
something down, then spoke into the phone again, saying, "I'll be
there."

She ended the call, then lean forward over the seat. "Keep going
straight as fast as you can get away with," she directed. "There's
been a bee attack at Riverwalk."

==========

Riverwalk
Columbus, GA
1:57 p.m.

The drive to the site of the attack took longer than Mulder would
have liked, but unless he wanted to totally disregard Andy's
advice, he had little choice. The few minutes they might have
gained in the brief twenty mile drive would have been more than
offset by a delay caused by an encounter with an anal retentive
MP, and so he kept his speed down to a steady but excruciating 57
miles per hour.

Mulder was intent on not allowing this opportunity to slip between
his fingers. He'd had a temporary funk in Marilyn Peters' office
but Scully's determination and confidence had rejuvenated him, as
always, and now he was finally starting to feel good about the
investigation. Everything seemed to be falling into place.

By the time they arrived on the scene of the attack, emergency
services vehicles were already present in abundance, including two
ambulances and half a dozen squad cars from several jurisdictions.
There was also a small crowd of perhaps two dozen spectators being
held at bay by a pair of uniformed officers.

"Great! Looks like we're the first ones here." That was Andy,
already climbing out of the back seat and whipping out her cell
phone as she headed for the center of activity. Mulder went after
her, Scully trailing along behind, and saw Andy punch one of her
speed dials. After a moment's pause, she said into the phone,
"This is Baker. Tell Eddie I'm on the scene now...."

Mulder tuned the reporter out as he moved along after her, slowing
his pace just enough to allow Scully to catch up. He glanced down
at his partner and allowed his lips to quirk slightly as he nodded
in Andy's direction. "Looks like she's in her element," he
remarked.

Scully shrugged, serious. "She has her job to do, just like we do,
Mulder."

"My name is Andrea Baker, and I'm with the Columbus Ledger-
Enquirer."

Mulder glanced back to the front to see Andy holding an open
wallet up to a big, beefy sheriff's deputy who was blocking her
way. "I don't want to interfere," Andy continued, "but I do need
to cover this story."

The man was already shaking his head before she had even finished
speaking -- and then Scully stepped forward, badge in hand.

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully," she said, "and this is Special
Agent Fox Mulder. We're with the Bureau, and Ms. Baker is with
us."

Mulder saw the deputy's eyebrows shoot up, and he felt his own
eyes widen in surprise, but before he could say or do anything the
other man was shrugging his shoulders and stepping out of the way,
and then the two women were walking briskly forward and Mulder had
to run a few paces to catch up.

"I love it when you're forceful, Scully," he said with a slight
smirk, and was rewarded with an arched eyebrow before he turned
his attention to the scene in front of them -- and suddenly
nothing seemed funny anymore.

There were three -- no, four bodies scattered across the grassy
slope leading down to the river bank. A paramedic and a uniformed
officer worked on each of the victims, while another pair of
officers hurriedly shuttled supplies and equipment from the
waiting ambulances.

Scully was already hurrying forward, Andy in her wake, and once
more Mulder had to run to catch up. One of the officers had
spotted them and was moving to cut them off, but Mulder waved his
badge at the man and again they were allowed to pass.

"I'm a doctor," Scully said, kneeling down next to the first
victim. "What have you got?"

The paramedic working on that case looked up briefly at Mulder's
partner, then back down at the victim -- and Mulder saw that it
was a teenage girl, perhaps fifteen years old, blonde and very
pretty. She was lying face up, her eyes closed, and she was
completely still -- either dead or unconscious. Mulder looked a
little closer and saw her chest rise and fall. Not dead then.
At least, not yet.

The paramedic was shaking her head. "We're not exactly sure,
ma'am. She was reported to have been stung by a bee just before
she collapsed -- apparently there was a small swarm of them,
somebody disturbed a hive or something. And at first it looked
like anaphylaxis -- cyanosis, tachycardia, dyspnea ... absolutely
classic presentation. But look at this."

The paramedic peeled back the girl's right eyelid, and Mulder bent
over Scully's shoulder for a closer look. He was shaken -- but
not surprised -- to see a familiar black oily substance swirling
and coruscating across the surface of the girl's eye. He heard
Andy gasp, and he murmured, "Well, I guess that settles that."

Scully glanced up at him and nodded grimly, then looked back at
the paramedic. "We've seen this before," she said. "We need to get
this girl to a hospital, stat. Put her on two liters of oh-two and
prepare to transport. Radio ahead and alert the ER to be ready to
induce hypothermia."

"Hypothermia?"

"Just do it!" Scully snapped. "If I take the time to explain she
could die." And she rose to her feet and headed for the next
victim, Mulder and Andy on her heels.

The second victim was a man in his mid-30s, his condition to all
appearances identical to that of the teenage girl. Scully
repeated her instructions, got the team assigned to that case
moving, and then strode purposefully towards the third victim, a
middle-aged African American woman lying a few hundred feet away.

"Jesus!"

Mulder spun about at Andy's exclamation, and his eyes widened in
shock at the sight of four olive-drab military trucks bouncing up
over the curb and across the grass, scattering police and
spectators alike and finally pulling to a halt a few feet from the
first victim.

Teams of soldiers dressed in isolation gear and full combat kit
leapt from the back of all four trucks and swept across the
riverbank, brushing aside the civilian crews with ruthless
efficiency as they gathered the four victims and loaded one into
each waiting truck. Then the convoy rolled into motion again, and
in another moment it was gone.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

==========
Chapter 3
==========

2:13 p.m.

The convoy had barely started in motion before Scully was racing
for the car. It took her a few seconds to realize she didn't hear
footsteps behind her; she slowed and glanced briefly over her
shoulder, to see Andy, rather than Mulder, starting to follow her.
Her partner was still standing where he had been when the trucks
first appeared, staring after them in apparent shock.

Scully skidded to a halt by the driver's side door of their rental
and turned and yelled back to her partner. "Mulder! Move your
ass!" She was gratified to see him jerk back to reality, and in
another moment he was running for the car.

She turned her attention to Andy, who was halfway to the car.
"Stay here and see what you can find out; We'll call you in a
minute." Mulder had arrived by then, and she turned back to him.
"Keys!" she demanded, and he wisely didn't argue, tossing her the
set from his pocket as he moved around to the passenger side.

He joined her in the car as she brought the engine to life, and
she started talking as she peeled off in pursuit of the military
convoy.

"Call Andy," she said without preamble. "Her card's in the outside
pocket of my briefcase. Tell her to get as many answers as she can
at the scene." Mulder had dug out the card by then and was
punching in the numbers on his cell phone as Scully continued.
"They'll probably have a cleanup in the works pretty fast, so if
we don't get the information now, we never will," she said.

Andy answered just then, and Mulder relayed Scully's message, then
paused a few seconds and said, "All right." He lifted the phone
from his ear and covered the microphone with his hand. "She wants
to talk to you," he said.

Scully nodded. "Just hold the phone for me; I need both hands to
drive," she said. He lifted the phone to her face, and she said,
"What's going on, Andy?"

"That's what I want to know," Andy responded. "What *is* this
thing?"

"I don't know," Scully said. "That's why we need you to find out
everything you can. Keep your phone free as much as possible, and
we'll call you as soon as we can. Don't call us; we may not be in
a good situation for the phone to ring." She paused, then asked,
"Are you okay to get where you need to go?"

"Yeah," Andy replied. "I know most of the Columbus cops out here,
so I can grab a ride to the office with one of them and get my
car."

"We'll call," Scully repeated, turning her full attention back to
the road and the fast-moving convoy she was following. Mulder took
the cue to shut off the call and tucked the phone back into his
pocket.

But he remained silent, and after a few moments, Scully shot him
a quick glance. Normally, he'd be rattling off theory after theory,
many of them primarily aimed at getting her ire up. But right now,
he seemed somewhere far away, and Scully didn't like it at all.

She started to speak, hesitated, then forged ahead. "Mulder?" she
asked. "Are you all right?"

"Hmmm?" Mulder's reply was as distant as the expression on his
face.

"Mulder!" Scully repeated his name, a little more sharply this
time, and he jumped slightly. "I said, are you all right?"

Mulder's eyes gradually refocused on her. "Yeah," he said, his
speech lethargic. "Yeah, I'm okay."

Scully glanced at him again. "Are you sure, Mulder?" she asked,
still unconvinced. "I'm gonna need you here with me on this one."

He continued looking at her and nodded, slowly. "I'll be fine,
Scully," he said, his voice a little stronger. "Really."

Scully gave him one last sidelong look before turning her eyes
back to the road ahead of them. "Okay," she said. "So tell me what
you're thinking about all this."

Mulder paused so long that Scully was on the verge of pulling over
and checking him for shock. When he finally did begin speaking,
his voice has an eerie, dreamlike quality that did nothing to
settle her fears.

Neither did his words.

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold ... mere anarchy is
loosed upon the world ... the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and
everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned ... the best
lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate
intensity ..."

His voice trailed off, and silence hung in the air for long
moments. Scully's heart clenched in her chest. She was losing him
again, the despair and hopelessness that nearly drowned him three
months earlier threatening to overtake him once again. She was
tempted to abandon the chase, pull the car over and do something --
anything -- to snap him out of it.

But then he shifted in his seat and shook his head, as if clearing
away cobwebs. And he began to speak again, as if nothing had ever
happened.

"This is just what we expected, Scully," he said, his words clear
and precise. "A planned, controlled release of bees to infect the
population with the virus. Victims taken away by the military,
with no official record of their conditions. This secondary attack
was probably unplanned, the result of a few bees that got
separated from the primary swarm.

"The symptoms we've seen before, but not in quite this way. The
people infected with the virus -- *purity* -- whatever it is --
they didn't seem to *have* any symptoms, at least not until ..."
His voice faltered here, but he finished anyway. "Until you were
stung." He paused, then went on. "They seemed normal, until they
were threatened, and then they displayed unusual strength, and
struck out against the threat."

Scully nodded. "But these people *did* show symptoms," she said.
"And I didn't ... when I was stung, you didn't see the ..." She
couldn't quite say it.

"No," Mulder finished, and Scully could feel his eyes intently on
her. "You didn't have that symptom, at least ... not before ..."

Jesus. They *still* couldn't even talk about it.

Scully was disgusted with both of them, even though she knew she
couldn't really blame herself or Mulder. They both had good
reason to want to avoid addressing the subject of her abduction
nearly a year before, but they needed to talk out everything they
knew if they were too have any hope of figuring this out in time
to do any good at all.

"Mulder," she started, having no idea what she was going to say
next but knowing she needed to say *something*. "We have to talk
about it. I don't want to any more than you do, but we need to
hash out everything we know about this virus or whatever it is,
and than means we have to talk about ... what happened to me last
summer." She paused again, then said, firmly, "We have to talk
about how I reacted when I was stung, why I was abducted, how and
where you found me, and what, exactly, that vaccine did."

There. For the first time, it was all out there on the table. Now
all Mulder had to do was jump into the game.

==========

2:28 p.m.

"...what happened to me last summer."

Her words echoed and reechoed in Mulder's mind, and again he felt
his attention drifting away from matters at hand.

Last summer. Last summer had been a fucking disaster, one
catastrophe following another, as seemingly inevitable and
unstoppable as an avalanche or a tidal wave. And the crowning
touch, the thing that had very nearly driven him to the self-
destruction he'd always known was waiting for him, was when Scully
had been taken from him. Again.

Mulder closed his eyes for a moment and tried to drive away the
memories, but they didn't want to go. They never wanted to go,
they never wanted to leave him alone. Even when he was asleep
they hovered around him, dark and menacing, always on the verge
of overwhelming him, and now he felt them closing in again ...

He was brought back to reality by Scully calling his name again,
and he realized that the car was decelerating rapidly. He focused
his attention to the front and saw that they were approaching a
gate in a high chainlink fence, guarded by two men in full combat
gear. A sign on the fence read, "Lawson Army Airfield --
Restricted Access -- Authorized Personnel Only."

Scully pulled the car to a halt in front of the gate, and one of
the soldiers approached her window, while the other stepped off to
the other side, unslinging his rifle as he did so -- and Mulder
suddenly realized that the man was positioning himself so that the
car would be in a crossfire if such became necessary. He turned
to Scully to warn her, but it was too late; her window was already
sliding down.

"This is a restricted area, Ma'am," the soldier said. "I'm afraid
you'll have to leave."

"We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Scully replied.
"I'm going to take out my badge, now. And we're both armed, okay?"

The man's expression didn't change, but Mulder saw his gaze flick
quickly to the other guard, and then back to Scully. He nodded
slightly, and said, "Okay, Ma'am. Slowly."

Out of the corner of his eye Mulder saw Scully nod in return and
start reaching for her I.D., but the bulk of his attention was
focused on the soldier who had not spoken. He knew that if the
guards decided to shoot, he and Scully wouldn't have a prayer,
but he was determined not to go down without trying. Or, more
accurately, he wasn't going to let anything happen to Scully
without making some effort to protect her, no matter how futile.

A moment later Scully was holding her badge out the car window so
the soldier could examine it. He gave it a good long look,
glanced up at Scully's face and then back down at her picture
again, and finally looked back up at her and nodded for her to put
it away. "You're still going to have to leave," he said. "No one
passes this checkpoint without proper authorization. Express
orders from the base commander."

"How long have those orders been in effect?" she asked.

"It wouldn't be appropriate for me to say, Ma'am," he replied.

"We're looking for some trucks," she said. "Four of them: olive-
drab, with military markings. We think they came this way. They
were carrying four people -- patients of mine. I'm a doctor, and
I was in the middle of treating these people when they were ...
they were taken from me. I have to find them. Their lives may
very well be in danger."

The soldier took a couple of steps back from the car and unslung
his rifle. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave, Ma'am."

For just a few seconds longer Scully and the guard stared at each
other; Mulder could practically feel the icy rage in his partner's
stare. Finally she nodded, rolled her window back up and put the
car in reverse. A moment later she had turned the car around and
they were heading back up the highway towards Columbus.

Mulder slumped down in his seat again as the car sped down the
highway back towards the city. He knew his partner well enough to
be able to guess what must be going on inside her head, and he
wasn't at all sure he was ready to deal with it.

She was angry, of course -- angry and frustrated at having been
thwarted by the guards. But that was only on the surface, and it
was the least important part of what he knew she must be feeling.
Deeper down, in the place where Dana Scully really lived, he knew
that she was afraid.

It was not a craven fear, of course. Mulder had never in his life
known anyone as brave and selfless as this woman. But she was
afraid, nonetheless, and he had known it for a long time, and it
all centered on fear of losing control. And now, unless he was
completely off-base, her fear was stronger than it had ever been
in all the years he'd known her -- and it was all because of his
own inability to cope with the things life had been throwing at
him lately. Something had to break. Soon.

He was drawn from his reverie by a change in the car's motion, and
for the third time in less than thirty minutes he dragged himself
back to awareness of his surroundings. This time he saw that
Scully had pulled off the highway into a rest stop. He sat in
silence as she maneuvered past several parked semis, and finally
brought the car to a halt. He waited for a moment longer, still
not saying anything, hoping against hope that maybe this was just
a bathroom break, even though he knew in his heart that it was not.
And finally, his partner turned in her seat to face him.

"Mulder?" she said, very softly. "Are you in there?"

He nodded wearily and reluctantly. "Yeah, Scully. Yeah, I'm here."

A flicker of relief passed across her face, and then was gone so
fast he wasn't even sure it had really been there. "Good. Because
I'm ... I'm really gonna need you, Partner." She reached out and
took one of his hands and squeezed it gently. "I can't do this
alone."

He nodded again. He'd known this moment was coming. She'd been
carrying him for nearly three months now, ever since El Rico, and
he'd known all along that there would be a limit to her endurance.

"I ... I know, Scully. I know you need me." He squeezed her hand
in return, and was surprised at the strength he was able to put
into the gesture. "And I know you've been ... doing a lot for me
recently, and you have no idea how much I appreciate it."

Mulder paused for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts, and
trying to figure out just how much he wanted to tell her. Twice
in the last year he'd opened up to her pretty much completely:
Once in the hall outside his apartment, just before she was taken,
and then as he lay in a hospital bed after she'd pulled him out of
the Bermuda Triangle. She couldn't possibly have missed his
intentions, but she'd chosen not to act on them, and he didn't
want to push himself on her.

But there were still some things he needed to say to her.

"Scully, I ..." He heard his voice trail off, and he shrugged
helplessly. "I don't know what to say. I know you need me, and
I'm just ... I'm overwhelmed that you're able to tell me that; I
know how hard it is for you to open up and admit something like
that."

He gave her hand another squeeze. "And I want to be there for you,
Scully; there's nothing in the world I want more. You're the
most --" He stopped in mid-sentence; that was a bit too close to
the bone. Try again. "You're very important to me, and I ... value
your friendship." He shrugged again. "I'm trying, Scully; I'm
really trying." He shrugged a third time and closed his eyes.

Please, god ... let it be enough, at least for now.

============

3:21 p.m.

After Mulder fell silent, Scully pulled back out of the rest stop
without releasing his hand. She continued to drive one-handed and
soon heard the shift in his breathing as he fell into a light
sleep. His grip on her right hand never faltered, though, and she
didn't try to extract it.

She reran Mulder's little speech in her head several times, still
a little shocked and amazed at how much he said in so few words.
It might not have had the force or desperation of his declaration
in the hallway outside his apartment, but without the imminent
threat of her departure hanging between them ... well, it was
somehow even more meaningful.

She had a feeling there had been more he'd wanted to say, but
something was holding him back. Not surprising; the two of them
had held back so much from each other for so long that it took a
real effort for them to open up. They'd been doing better over
the past few weeks, but old habits were hard to break.

She was inordinately grateful -- and reassured -- that he'd been
able to say as much as he had. If he was still focused enough on
her, and his own feelings, to put them to voice, then he wasn't
gone completely.

But she was still worried. He was too close to the edge for her
comfort, but she wasn't sure what, if anything, she could do about
it. She'd meant it when she said she needed him with her, and not
just on this case.

She needed him with her all the time, even if she couldn't quite
bring herself to come out and say it to him.

Sighing softly, she headed back into the city, her mind focused on
getting rooms in one of the motels she'd seen earlier. She also
needed to give Andy a call to see if she'd found anything new at
the scene.

Plus ... she was getting hungry. That little hamburger and Coke
for lunch just wasn't holding up against her harrowing afternoon.

She spied a Holiday Inn Express on the left and carefully slid
her hand from Mulder's to make the turn, trying not to wake him
quite yet. But the second her fingers cleared his, he jerked in
his seat, his eyes flying open to land on her.

"Scully?" he asked, his voice raspy. "Where are we?"

"A motel, Mulder," she replied, pulling the car to a stop outside
the office and turning in her seat to face him. "You wait here
while I get us checked in, and then we'll see about some dinner.
Okay?"

He nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, closing his eyes and lowering
his head back against the seat.

Scully watched him intently for another few moments, then climbed
from the car and headed inside.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 

===========
Chapter 4
===========

Holiday Inn Express
Columbus, GA
6:34 p.m.

Mulder awoke to the sound of voices.

At first he thought he was back on the sofa in his apartment, and
that the voices were coming from the television, but then the
memories came flooding back. Georgia. They were in Georgia, on a
case, and nothing was going right, and he had just collapsed on
his partner. Again.

Scully.

His eyes popped open and he struggled to a sitting position. He
was in a darkened motel room, lying -- now sitting -- on one of
the beds. The voices were coming from the other side of the room,
and he shifted his gaze in that direction to see someone standing
in the doorway. Two someones, and one of them was Scully. He felt
himself relax, and only then did he realize how tense he'd become
in the few seconds since he'd awakened.

"Scully? Is everything ..." He let his voice trail off as he
finally internalized the fact that there was another person
standing next to his partner.

"Mulder," Scully said, turning and flipping on the light as she
stepped back into the room. "I'm sorry; we didn't mean to wake
you."

Mulder squinted at the sudden illumination and realized that the
other person was Andy Baker, still standing in the doorway.
Automatically, he noted that she'd changed from her business
clothes to jeans, a black t-shirt and a sleeveless black vest
which was rather surprisingly bulky considering how warm the day
was. A medium-sized shopping bag dangled from one of her hands.

Scully continued, "But I guess it's about time you got up; Andy
just got here, and we need to make some plans."

Mulder nodded slowly as he finally regained full consciousness.
There'd been the incident at the Riverwalk ... the futile pursuit
of the trucks ... that damned one-sided conversation at the rest
stop.

Fuck. He'd screwed up again with that little speech of his, hadn't
he?

He shook his head and pushed it all away; Scully needed him, and
she needed him to concentrate on the present, not wallow in his
mistakes of the past.

He glanced around the room and saw Scully's suitcase sitting on
the bureau; a few feet farther along the same wall the connecting
door to the next room stood open. He felt himself flush slightly
as he realized he must have fallen asleep in her room.

He felt a slight touch on his shoulder and turned to see that his
partner was now standing next to him, her gaze locked on his.
"It's okay, Mulder," she said softly. "You needed the rest; I
didn't mind."

For a long moment neither of them moved or spoke, but to Mulder
the silence seemed to speak volumes. She really did seem to
understand. He knew that he had hurt her a few months back, and
hurt her badly, and they were still working through that. But
perhaps this afternoon they had made progress. Perhaps the few
sentences he'd managed to stammer out hadn't been so bad after
all.

"Uh ... guys?"

Mulder tore his eyes away from his partner's and glanced back
across the room to see Andy still standing just inside the doorway,
looking as if she felt awkward and out of place. He tried to think
of something to say to her, but nothing was coming to mind.

"Sorry, Andy," Scully said, her hand still resting on Mulder's
shoulder. "Come on in and sit down." She nodded toward the bag
Andy held. "I take it you were able to get the things I asked you
for?"

Andy smiled as she crossed the room and set the bag on the table.
"Yep," she confirmed. "Even the sunflower seeds."

Scully glanced down at Mulder again, giving him a smile that seemed
to say, "See, Partner? Someone's looking out for you." She squeezed
his shoulder before removing her hand, then reached into the bag
and pulled out the package of seeds and handed them to him. She
then proceeded to remove half a dozen Chinese takeout containers
and set them on the bedside table. As the smells from the
containers started to permeate the room, Mulder's stomach growled.

The three of them tore into the food as if they hadn't eaten in
days. To Mulder's surprise, his partner chose to sit on the bed
next to him rather than dragging over a chair, while Andy rather
diffidently sat on the other bed. And for perhaps 20 minutes they
were all too busy eating to do much talking, beyond the occasional
request or offer to trade containers.

Finally Mulder set down his current container and leaned back
against the headboard with a sigh of contentment. "God, that was
good," he commented. "I really needed that, *and* the sleep." He
glanced down at Scully, who had scooted up against the headboard
next to him and was finishing off the princess chicken. "Thank
you."

She looked back up at him, and in the space of a few seconds he
could see an entire series of thoughts and emotions race across
her features, too quick and complex for him to comprehend. Then
her lips quirked and she nodded slightly, and she leaned forward
and pitched her empty container into the wastebasket on his side
of the bed.

Glancing across at Andy, still sitting on the other bed, she said,
"Well, I guess now it's time to get down to business."

==========

Alabama Highway 165
West of the Chattahoochee River
Near Fort Mitchell, Alabama
11:39 p.m.

The rental car was pulled up under the low-hanging trees, several
yards from the side of the winding, two-lane road, and for once
Scully was glad for the ubiquitous dark blue color of the Taurus.
Made for better camouflage on these late-night raids, anyway.

She and Mulder pulled on their black gloves, his brand-new and
hers borrowed from Andy, since neither had thought to pack for
such an "adventure." Both of them were dressed in black head-to-
toe, Scully's hair tucked under a baseball cap, also borrowed from
Andy.
Luckily for them, the night was relatively cool for mid-May.

Scully rechecked her weapon and tucked it into the holster at her
back, then checked her flashlight; Mulder was doing the same in
the driver's seat. Scully then pulled out the pager she carried,
also borrowed from Andy, and double-checked that it was set for
vibration. It would be used for communication, since Andy would
be staying in the car as a lookout while she and Mulder headed
toward the base.

Finished, she turned halfway around in the seat to face Andy, who
was checking her own weapon, a 9mm Beretta, the same kind she'd
used as her personal sidearm in the Marine Corps. Mulder had taken
a kind of perverse delight when he discovered she carried a "real"
weapon; the bulky vest she wore had turned out to be a method of
concealment.

The group had taken nearly two hours to hash out their plans for
the evening, poring over several maps Andy brought with her and
discussing their options. Their final decision was to approach
the base from the Alabama side of the river, where Andy knew of a
spot with a clear view of the airfield.

"You can thank my one-and-only blind date for that," she'd said,
her tone disgusted, when questioned about the information. "I went
out with him as a favor to a friend a couple years ago, and he'd
just gotten out of the Army. He was stationed at Benning for three
years, and he couldn't resist showing off all his 'inside military'
information." She grinned at Mulder. "He was pretty surprised to
see my weapon, too, but not as shocked as he was when he got too
friendly and I threw him flat on his back with one hand."

Scully held back a grin at the image the story evoked, just as
Andy finished reholstering her weapon and looked up at her. "You
ready?" Andy asked, glancing at Mulder as well.

"Ready as we'll ever be," he replied, slipping his own flashlight
into the front pocket of his black leather jacket. He picked up
the brand-new pair of high-powered field glasses from the seat
and reached for the door handle.

The three clambered from the car and met at the front, where
Scully checked her watch. "Eleven forty-five," she said, glancing
at Andy, who checked her watch as well and nodded. "Ten minutes to
the riverbank; we'll call a half-hour after that to check in."

"Good luck," Andy said, and Scully shot her a quick smile before
turning toward the river, Mulder beside her.

==========

Sure enough, ten minutes later they were ensconced on the bank of
the river, lying on their stomachs, eyes trained on the lights of
the airfield, less than two hundred yards away. The river was at
its narrowest point here, putting them half as far away as they
would have been in any other position.

Mulder had the glasses out and was scanning the field, reporting
everything he saw out loud, but softly. "Looks like five planes
on the runway, pretty good sized ones, though I can't see clearly
enough to tell what kind. Transports, looks like. Lots of people
milling around, a line of trucks along one side."

He scanned further, and froze. His breathing caught; Scully was
close enough to feel it. "What is it?" she whispered insistently.

He stayed motionless for another few moments, then sucked in a
breath. "Carriers," he rasped out. "For ... they're ..." He paused
and shook his head, then forced the words out. "Like the one you
were transported in."

Scully's eyes widened in alarm. Mulder had pulled his head back
from the glasses and was staring off at some uncertain point in
the distance, his hand slack on the glasses. Carefully, she reached
to take them from him and lifted them to her own eyes, training
them on the grouping of planes.

Sure enough, sitting on the runway between the trucks and the
planes were several gurney-like frames topped with cases of some
kind, with clear covers. They were somewhat like the litters used
to remove injured people from dangerous areas, like skiers from
the sides of mountains, she thought, but these were larger.

The shape was reminiscent of a coffin, she registered, her mind
automatically shifting into clinical mode. Tanks were hooked on
the sides of the covers -- for oxygen? -- and as she focused in
more carefully, she could see whiteness on the glass, either fog
or ice.

She looked at Mulder sideways. "Mulder?" she asked gently. "When
did you see the carrier?"

"In the ship," he answered, in a dazed, too-controlled monotone.
"Your clothes were in it. And your cross. I looked for you and
found you near it. I used one of the tanks to break the glass."

Scully reached out a hand, laying it on his forearm, intending to
comfort him. But before she could say a word, she felt a sharp
pain on her lower back and gasped out loud, her hand automatically
flying to clamp down on the spot.

"Scully?" Mulder was suddenly fully alert and focused on her, his
eyes wide. "Scully, what is it?"

"Something ... my back," she said, moving her hand slightly and
feeling something under it. "Something's on my back."

==========

11:58 p.m.

At Scully's words, Mulder went on autopilot, grabbing his
flashlight and sitting up. He reached for her hand and pushed it
gently aside, then pulled the tail of her shirt from the waistband
of her jeans.

There, at the small of her back, sat a tiny, black-and-yellow bee.

And Mulder's heart seemed to stop.

Oh god. Oh god. Not again.

"Mulder? Mulder, what is it?"

Oh god. Please god, make it not be happening. Please --

"Mulder!"

Mulder shook himself, and tried to force himself to focus. Focus.
He needed to do something, he needed to take control. Focus.
Scully. The bee ....

Scully.

Almost as if acting of its own volition, his hand swooped down on
the insect, snatching it from his partner's back and crushing it
savagely between gloved thumb and forefinger. His next impulse was
to throw it away into the darkness, to deny its existence, but a
small corner of rationality reminded him that this was evidence,
their first real evidence, and so with a mighty effort of will he
stuffed it hastily into his pocket. He then grabbed Scully's elbow
and slid down the embankment to the river's edge, pulling her
roughly after him.

"Mulder!" Her voice was a sharp hiss in the darkness. "What the
hell are you doing?"

"We've got to get out of here," he said flatly, starting to move
along the river, still dragging her after him. The riverbank was
about four feet high along this stretch, and so they had to crouch
to avoid detection. They hadn't gone more than three or four steps
before she started to struggle in earnest.

"*Dammit*, Mulder!" Scully gave an especially sharp yank and
managed to pull free of his grip, causing them both to stumble,
but in opposite directions. Mulder maintained his balance by the
barest of margins, and turned back to see his partner glaring at
him as she struggled back to her feet from where she'd fallen.

"Scully, I --"

Her expression changed suddenly, and he stopped in mid-sentence as
he saw her slap her hand against her left hip. No, god. No, this
isn't the reaction starting. Not again, god. Please ...

"Mulder, we've got to get out of here," she whispered, and
suddenly she was moving past him and along the river's edge, and
Mulder had to hurry to catch up. "Andy's pager just went off," she
explained over her shoulder. "Could mean trouble."

Mulder nodded, but she'd already turned away from him again, and
for a few minutes the partners hurried along together in silence.
Mulder tried not to think about the bee; he tried not to imagine
Scully suddenly collapsing, and the black oil roiling across her
eyes. She was showing no symptoms, he reminded himself. She was
fine, and she was going to be fine. They weren't going to take her
from him, not again. He'd die before he allowed that to happen
again.

At length they reached the low point in the bank where they'd
begun this little adventure, and in a matter of seconds both
agents had scrambled up the embankment to level ground. They
paused briefly to orient themselves, then headed in the direction
of the car.

"Get down!"

The urgency of the whispered command denied any possibility of
disobedience, and Mulder was diving for the turf even before he'd
identified the voice as belonging to Andy, burying his face in the
dirt and wrapping his arms around his head. A fraction of a second
later Scully landed next to him, and then the two agents held
perfectly still, barely even breathing, as Mulder tried to listen
for the threat which had prompted Andy's order.

A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. Finally, in the direction of
the river, Mulder heard a very faint rustling noise, no more than
tall grass momentarily disturbed by a light breeze -- but the air
was perfectly still, and a prickle ran down Mulder's spine as he
sensed a presence only a few feet away.

Part of him was screaming to do something -- anything. Crawl away,
turn and attack, even get up and run. But his training at Quantico
stood him in good stead, and he kept repeating to himself one of
the basic rules all agents were taught: In darkness the human eye
detects motion rather than shape or color. A man on the ground in
the dark can remain undetected even if he is only a few yards from
his opponent, so long as he remains perfectly still.

More time passed, but whether it was five minutes, or ten, or even
fifteen, he couldn't say. The rustling was not repeated, but still
there was the sense of someone or something nearby ... until
suddenly it was gone, without any explanation or resolution. And
still Mulder and Scully remained quiet and motionless, as more time
trickled by.

Finally something moved in his peripheral vision, and Mulder's
muscles tensed as he prepared to reach for his weapon, but even as
he was about to act Andy's voice floated to him from the darkness.
"I think we're clear now. Come on." And the shadow turned and
moved away in the direction of the car, and after another moment
Mulder and his partner rose to their feet and followed.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

==========
Chapter 5
==========

Northbound on Alabama Highway 165
Approaching Columbus, GA
May 11, 1999
12:41 a.m.

"There were two squads of troops," Andy was saying, her voice
tense, as she guided the car back towards Columbus. "I think they
were Rangers, but I couldn't tell for sure. They moved like
Rangers." Her grip tightened on the steering wheel, and her tone
turned hard. "And I wish to hell I knew where they came from,
because they were just *there*. I never saw or heard a thing."

"It's okay, Andy," Scully said from the front passenger seat.
Mulder wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up in back, but at the
time the important thing had been to get away, and fast.

"They were obviously professionals," Scully went on, "and you did
the best you could. I'm just glad none of us was hurt or captured."

Andy shook her head. "No, you don't understand," she said
insistently. "I'm supposed to be good at this. This is what I was
trained for. And I thought I still had it, and because I
overreached I almost got the two of you taken prisoner or killed."

Mulder opened his mouth to offer reassurance, but Scully beat him
to it. "No, Andy -- that's not true," she said, leaning toward the
other woman. "You *saved* us. Without your warning we would have
been cut off. It's only because of you that we're still free and
alive and able to continue the investigation."

Mulder glanced at Andy, who was shaking her head vehemently. "I
fucked up," she said. "Don't try to sugarcoat it. I was the
security detachment, and if I'd done my job right we would have
been on the highway and on our way back to Columbus before those
troops even got close."

For a moment there was silence in the car. Mulder wanted to say
something, he wanted to tell Andy that Scully was right, but he
was exhausted, both emotionally and physically, and the words just
wouldn't come.

Finally Scully spoke again, very quietly. "Look, we're all tired,"
she said. "It's been a long, hard day, and what we all need is to
get some sleep. I'm sure after we've had a chance to rest things
will look better." Mulder saw her shoulders shift, and realized
that she must have briefly touched Andy's arm, lending energy to
the other woman just as she had done countless times for him. He
felt a thrill of pride at this knowledge; Scully was so strong, so
very, very strong ...

"I mean it, Andy," she said. "I really mean it. So why don't you
just drop us at the motel, and we'll all get some sleep. And
tomorrow we'll get together again and try to figure out what to do
next."

And after that it was silent in the car.

==========

Room 204
Holiday Inn Express
Columbus, GA
3:33 a.m.

Scully watched the red, glowing numbers of the clock change again,
starting another long minute of this seemingly endless night.

She pulled the thin motel pillow more tightly against her chest,
trying through sheer force of will to close her eyes and find
sleep, but she was no more successful than she had been for the
past two hours.

She could feel the tiny bump on her lower back as if it were the
size of her hand, throbbing in counterpoint to the pounding of her
heart. Even with all the things they'd seen that day, she'd never
once considered that what she'd felt on the riverbank was a sting.

A bee sting.

It took until Andy left Mulder and her at the motel and they were
back in Scully's room for Mulder to finally force the words out
and show her the tiny, crushed insect. And then she understood his
reactions at the river -- his frozen shock, followed by frantic
retreat. She was just thankful he'd kept enough control to hold
onto the bee; he'd confessed he'd nearly tossed it aside.

She had, so far, shown no symptoms, other than the raised mark at
the sting site. But it had taken an hour for her to calm Mulder
enough for him to return to his own room, and even then he
insisted that the connecting door remain open.

After he had gone, Scully had proceeded mechanically through her
regular nighttime activities -- wash face; brush teeth and hair;
change into pajamas; set alarm for morning. But once ensconced
under the covers, she simply could not get her eyes to close.

Suddenly, every muscle twinge was the start of her collapse. Every
hitched breath was the beginning of her end. And every external
sound was an intruder, coming to take her away.

Irrational or not, the fear was real. And it would not let her
sleep.

But neither would it let her move. She was too afraid that she
would try to get up, only for her arms and legs to fail her. Or
that if she strayed more than a foot away from the unholstered gun
on her bedside table, some unknown person would swoop down and she
would be gone.

It wouldn't even let her think. Every time she tried to organize
the events of the past day, put it into some sort of order, work
through the facts and the theories and the possibilities, her mind
would seize up, stuck on the bee and its implications.

So she was left to stare at the clock, watching the night pass in
slow motion.

==========

Room 206
Holiday Inn Express
Columbus, GA
4:10 a.m.

Mulder couldn't sleep, which was nothing new -- but tonight even
the babble of a late movie on AMC or an infomercial on FX wasn't
enough to distract him from his thoughts.

God. What a nightmare. What a fucking nightmare. And he still
couldn't get it out of his thoughts; he still couldn't keep from
replaying the image in his mind: The bee nestled against Scully's
lower back, triggering the terror that had haunted him since the
previous summer, the terror that had finally after all these years
supplanted his feelings of loss and failure over Samantha.

The damned bee.

Scully.

He couldn't stop thinking about her.

He turned restlessly in bed, and tried to avoid looking at the
clock. If he looked at the clock he would just start obsessing on
that, counting the minutes until dawn. Counting the minutes until
he could see Scully again, and know that she was really okay.

His eyes fell on the dark shadow of the connecting door, left
standing open at his insistence. She was almost certainly asleep
by now; he hadn't heard anything from her room in at least an
hour, so she pretty much had to be.

He could probably go stand in the doorway without disturbing her.
He could stand there for just a moment, long enough to pick out
her sleeping form on the bed and reassure himself that she was
still there and still breathing. He didn't need to wake her. He
just needed to look at her.

He slipped quietly out of bed and felt around on the floor until
he found his jeans, pulling them on out of some sense of
propriety. Then he stepped over to the doorway.

It was, of course, even darker in her room than it was in his,
since she didn't have her television turned on. Mulder stood
patiently, waiting for his eyes to adapt, and slowly the objects
in the room started to take on definition: The dark cavern that
marked the bathroom door; the little tea table and two chairs by
the window; and finally, at long last, the nearer of the two beds,
and the rumpled roll of blankets that he knew must be his partner.

God, she was small. She was so tiny, and she looked so vulnerable.
He knew she wasn't, really; he knew she was tough and strong and
courageous. But just at that moment she looked very slight and
diminutive, as if she might be carried away from him on a light
breeze.

Again.

"You can come in if you want to."

Mulder jumped at the sound of her voice. Oh, god ... he'd woken her
up. Somehow, standing there in the doorway he'd managed to make a
sound or something and he'd woken her up.

He tried to say something, to formulate an apology for having
disturbed her sleep, but before he could get the words out she was
speaking again.

"It's okay, Mulder," she said, very softly. Her voice had a
distant, dreamy quality, a tone that sent a tingle down his spine.
"I couldn't sleep anyway. I've been lying here for the last half
hour or so wondering if you were still awake, and wishing you'd
come in to see me."

Mulder felt a sudden lump in his throat. Had she really said that?
Had Dana Scully really said that she'd wanted him to come to her?
He knew she didn't mean it in the way he wished she did, but even
this much was more than she'd ever given him before.

"Come on, Mulder," she said. "Sit with me for awhile?"

He could never refuse her anything she asked for in that tone of
voice, and so a few seconds later he was sitting down gingerly on
the edge of her bed as she slid over to make room for him.

The two kept their silence for several minutes, and Mulder just
concentrated on listening to her breathe. Slow, steady, breaths.
So purposeful and deliberate. So Scully. Everything about her was
so perfectly Scully.

But still there was the fear in the back of his mind, the fear of
the bee, the fear that she would suddenly collapse and be taken
from him again. He knew it was irrational; he knew that if she was
going to display symptoms from her sting they would have long
since manifested themselves. But he couldn't drive it from his
mind; he couldn't make the fear go away.

"Scully?" he whispered, wondering if maybe she'd finally dropped
off to sleep.

"Yeah, Mulder?" Her voice sounded low and rich, and definitely
wide awake, and again he felt a tingle run down his spine.

"Scully, can I see ..." He let his voice trail off; he felt like a
complete idiot for asking this, but it would help reassure him; he
was sure of it. And then maybe, finally, they'd both be able to
get some rest. Try again. "Can I see ... can I see the spot where
you were stung?"

She was silent for a moment, and for just an instant Mulder was
afraid he'd upset her. But then he felt her hand on his shoulder
and she was pulling herself to a sitting position, turning her
back to him and bending slightly at the waist.

For a timeless interval Mulder simply stared at her, and suddenly
he was having a flashback to that first case in Oregon. Only that
time she had been the one who was afraid; she had been the one
seeking reassurance.

He had given her that reassurance with two words: Mosquito bites.
And then she had flung herself into his arms in relief, and they'd
sat up half the night talking and getting to know each other. It
had been the first real turning point in their partnership; hell,
it had *established* their partnership, making it something real,
rather than just words on a piece of paper.

And Mulder had a sudden premonition that tonight, perhaps, would
be another turning point.

"Mulder?"

Her voice brought him back to the present, and he took a deep
breath, then reached out with a slightly shaking hand and gently
pulled up the tail of her pajama top.

For a moment all he could see was her skin, smooth and pale in the
darkness. He couldn't see the sting at all, and then he leaned a
little closer and there it was: A small, red lump, barely
noticeable even when you knew what to look for. He gently touched
it with his forefinger, then drew his hand away. It was so small,
so insignificant. It really was just a bee sting.

He was about to allow her clothing to fall back into place when he
noticed something else, and he leaned a little closer. There was a
scar there; a small scar in the shape of a ring, about three inches in
diameter. It looked fairly fresh, too, as if it had just recently
finished healing.

His brow creased in confusion for a moment ... and then he
realized what it was.

"I had it removed," she said quietly. Mulder glanced up from his
examination of his partner's lower back to see her looking back at
him over her shoulder.

He hastily dropped the shirt tail and straightened up. This was a
bad subject, a very bad subject, and he needed to distance himself
from it, fast. "S-sorry," he said. "None of my business."

Scully adjusted her clothes for a moment, then turned on the bed
until she was sitting crosslegged and facing him. "Actually," she
said, "it *is* your business, and it always has been."

The words hung between them for a long moment, while Mulder
struggled to find something to say. Finally he said, "Scully ...
you don't have to explain yourself --"

She raised her hand and gently pressed her fingertips against his
lips to silence him, sending a not-unwelcome thrill along his
skin. "No, I don't have to explain myself," she said. "But I want
to. I've wanted to ... to explain this to you for awhile now."

Her hand dropped back into her lap, and she seemed to study his
face for a moment. "I told you that not everything is about you,
and that's true enough," she finally said. "But that ... that
*was* about you, at least partly." She shook her head. "I had it
taken off because that was one of the stupider nights of my life,
and I finally decided I didn't want any souvenirs lying around."

"It must have hurt," Mulder said softly. "Having it removed, I
mean."

She nodded. "It did. But not as much as it would have hurt to
leave it in place." She hesitated, then went on, "Mulder, I'm not
bringing up a two-year-old incident just to rub salt in the
wounds -- for either of us. I'm trying to make a point, and the
point is that we both have a tendency to hurt each other. That was
one of the times I hurt you and ... and I'm sorry."

She fell silent for a moment, looking as if she wanted to say
more, and then she sighed and said simply "I'd like for us to make
a fresh start."

Mulder sighed as well, softly. "But I hurt you, too, Scully. If I
recall correctly I was a prize asshole that whole week."

She nodded soberly in agreement. "But that doesn't excuse what I
did," she said. "Returning hurt for hurt ... that's not a very
grownup thing to do."

For a few moments the two sat in silence again, while Mulder tried
to process everything she'd just said. He was more than slightly
stunned by Scully's blunt statements. This wasn't her usual
style -- hell, it wasn't *their* usual style. But for some reason,
tonight she was opening up to him in ways that she never had
before. He had to respond; he had to say something to let her know
how much he appreciated this.

And then in a flash he knew what it was he needed to say.

"Scully ... about El Rico ... and Diana ..." He heard his voice
trail off as he struggled to find the words. He dared to lift his
gaze and look at his partner, and found nothing but caring and
compassion in her eyes, and that gave him the strength to go on.

"Scully, I was wrong," he said, his voice firmer. "I should have
listened to you. I'm not saying I should have believed you without
question, but I should have listened instead of shutting you out.
My only excuse ... hell, I don't have an excuse. I was just
blinded by my need to have someone I could trust and depend on."
He reached out with more confidence than he truly felt and took
one of her hands in both of his. "And I was so blind and stupid
that I never realized she was standing right there next to me the
whole time."

He felt a sudden lump in his throat, and swallowed it down with
difficulty. "God, I'm so sorry, Scully. I'm so sorry I hurt you,
that time and all the other times. The last thing I ever want to
do is hurt you. If we can make a fresh start .... god, that would
be more than I have any right to ask or expect. But I'd like to
try."

Time seemed to stop, and all Mulder could see was his partner's
bright eyes cutting through the gloom, her gaze roaming across his
face. He felt himself being drawn into her eyes, he was losing
himself in them, drowning in them.

He was suddenly short of breath, and his heart was pounding in
his chest, and Scully was leaning slowly forward, her lips
slightly parted, and he found himself responding, moving to help
close the distance ...

And her cell phone rang.

Scully blinked in surprise, and for the second time that night
Mulder felt as if his heart was going to stop. For just a moment
longer they remained where they were, poised ... and then the
phone trilled a second time, and all the energy that had been
building between them seemed to vanish in an instant.

Scully reached out to grab the phone from the nightstand, punching
a button with her thumb.

"Scully." She paused for a moment and listened. "No, Andy, that's
fine; I wasn't asleep. What have you got?" This time the pause was
longer, and partway through he saw her eyes widen. Finally she
said, "Jesus. When --" Again she stopped, and then she was
nodding. "Okay, Andy. Okay. We'll see you then." And she punched
the disconnect.

"What is it, Scully?" Mulder asked urgently. "What's happened?"

She looked at him for a moment, and he felt a chill race through
his system as he recognized the shock and apprehension which had
so quickly and completely taken over her features. This was bad,
he knew. Very bad.

And when she spoke, his worst fears were confirmed.

"There's been another attack," she said, her voice flat and
emotionless. "In Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Last night. At another
ballpark. Seventy victims so far, and the count is still climbing."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "My God, Mulder. My God. Maybe
they're not just restocking. Maybe this is the kickoff for the
main event." She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she opened
them again and spoke the word, making it all real:

"Colonization."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

==========
Chapter 6
==========

Room 204
Holiday Inn Express
Columbus, GA
5:14 a.m.

The partners simply sat and stared at each other for what seemed
like an eternity. Scully felt light-headed, uncertain whether it
was from the lack of sleep, the news they'd just received ... or
the scene the phone call interrupted.

She finally shook herself free of her inertia and reached over to
flick on the bedside light. She saw Mulder squint at the sudden
glare and muttered a quick "sorry" under her breath as she pushed
herself up off the bed.

She turned to face him again. "Andy wants to meet us for breakfast
at six, so I'm going to take a quick shower and get dressed," she
said. A fleeting image of inviting him to join her flashed into
her mind, almost making her jump in alarm, but she chalked it up
to her fatigue and went on. "We need to decide what to do about
this. One of us needs to go up there."

At that, Mulder's head jerked up, and one hand shot out to grab
hers. "I'm not leaving you, Scully," he said fiercely. His eyes
were wild and unfocused, and Scully's heart clenched in her chest.

She brought up her free hand to cover his. "It's okay, Mulder,"
she said soothingly, feeling his grip relax under her touch. "Let's
just get dressed and go talk to Andy, and we can work everything
out. It'll be fine."

After a long moment, Mulder nodded slowly, slipping his hand from
her arm. Scully gave his hand a final squeeze before releasing it,
then took a step back. "Out, G-man," she said lightly. "Go get
dressed. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

He shot her a half-smile as he rose to his feet, and she felt some
of the tension leave her body. He moved to step past her but then
paused and lifted one hand to run his palm down her arm from
shoulder to wrist. He leaned in until his breath brushed her ear,
and Scully had to forcefully suppress a shiver.

"Thanks, Scully," he whispered.

A second later, he was gone, and she let out a shuddering sigh.
Her senses were on overload, and the mix of too little rest and
too much emotion was nearly more than she could bear.

But she had to bear it, not only for her sake but for Mulder's as
well. She knew he was barely holding himself together -- hell,
without her around, he'd probably have lost it completely by
now -- and she could not, and would not, let him fall apart. She
needed him too much, and not just on this investigation. She just
needed him, period.

Maybe it was time she told him that.

Now, however, was not the time for those thoughts. Forcing her
mind to consider what their next move should be, she swung into
her automatic morning preparations, gathering up clothes and
toiletries and heading for the bathroom.

==========

Silver Dollar Diner
Columbus, GA
May 11, 1999
5:49 a.m.

Scully and Mulder settled in across from each other in one of the
many open booths. The diner was nearly deserted, as Andy said it
would likely be until around 6:30. She was to meet them at six,
but they'd left as soon as they were ready and had arrived early.

A middle-aged women with dry, bleached-blonde hair and entirely
too much eye makeup approached their table within seconds of their
arrival. Slipping silverware onto the table, she greeted them with
a friendly, "Mornin', y'all," then reached for the order pad in
the pocket of her apron. "What can I get ya?" she asked.

"Coffee," the partners answered in unison, then smiled at each
other. Scully added, "Make that three; we're meeting someone."
She glanced at Mulder, gauging his mental and physical condition
in a second, as she was so used to doing, and returned her
attention to the waitress. "And two large orange juices, and
I'll have raisin toast with butter, and ... Mulder? Two eggs over
easy, bacon, hashbrowns and toast okay?"

He shot her a mock-evil look, then looked at the waitress. "What
she said," he said, grinning.

The waitress nodded, still scribbling down the order, then glanced
at him. "It's grits, though, not hash browns. That okay?"

Scully could tell Mulder was trying not to wince. "Sure," he said,
giving another grin, this one much more hesitant.

The waitress smiled again and headed for the counter, and Scully
let out the chuckle she'd been trying to hold back. "And when's
the last time you had grits, Mulder?" she asked teasingly.

He shook his head with a wry smile. "Let's see, today's Tuesday,
that would be ... never?" he said.

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're in for a rare treat," she
said. "Just be sure to add plenty of butter and salt."

Mulder fixed her with an inquisitive look. "And when have *you*
had grits, Agent Scully?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Mom's family is from Virginia," she said. "I've had
them off and on all my life. Not my favorites, but they're okay,
as long as you never try to eat them plain."

Mulder leaned back in the booth, stretching one arm out along the
top of the seat. "So enlighten me," he said. "What do they taste
like?"

Scully leaned forward, her elbows on the edge of the table and her
hands folded. "Well, plain, they taste about like they look," she
said. "Like little broken-up bits of Styrofoam."

Mulder chuckled at that, and she went on. "So if you put enough
butter and salt on them, they taste like ... well, butter and
salt, but thicker." She paused, then grinned. "Kind of hard to
describe, actually."

Before Mulder could respond, the bell over the door rang as
someone entered, and the partners looked up to see Andy coming
toward them. Scully scooted over to make a place, and Andy slid
in beside her.

The waitress returned then, coffee and orange juice being served
in a flurry of activity -- Andy had already eaten -- and then they
turned to the matter at hand.

==========

6:04 a.m.

"The body count is up to 83," Andy said without preamble. Mulder
sat quietly in his seat and sipped at his orange juice as he
listened to the briefing. The reporter seemed poised, confident
and organized; the Marines had been fools to let her get away.

"I just got off the phone with a guy I went to school with who
works for one of the TV stations up there," Andy went on. "From
what he told me it sounds like a carbon copy of what happened down
here: mass swarming, dozens of casualties, the whole nine yards.
And now the victims have all disappeared, and no one seems to know
anything about it. It's almost as if it never happened."

"But surely the media reports --" Scully began.

Andy shook her head, cutting Scully off. "There are no media
reports. Seen the morning paper?" Both agents shook their heads.
"Nothing. Nada. I wrote a mid-length followup yesterday afternoon,
based on what we saw at Riverwalk. But my editor spiked it." She
smiled mirthlessly. "In fact, it's not even in the paper's computer
system anymore. Apparently it was accidentally erased. Or
something."

"Or something," Mulder agreed, glancing at his partner. "Scully,
we should have been expecting this, and it's just further evidence
that this could be the real thing. Control of the media in the
early stages would be essential to a successful operation."

"You got that right," Andy said grimly. "When I got home last
night there was a message on my machine ordering me -- not asking,
ordering -- to report to the office for an emergency conference. I
went in at two in the morning expecting to meet with Eddie, my
boss, but it turned out to be the publisher and his executive
assistant. It seems there's been pressure from the CDC to suppress
the story, 'in the public interest'."

Scully shook her head. "And the paper's putting up with that?"

Andy shrugged in apparent unconcern, but her words were bitter.
"This isn't the Washington Post. This is a smalltown newspaper on
a tight budget. The local Wal-Mart says 'shit', we squat and ask
them what color. And when it's the government ..." Her voice
trailed off, and she shrugged again.

For a moment or two there was silence in the booth, and Mulder was
uncomfortably aware that he and Scully were also part of "the
government". But Andy didn't seem to be directing any anger at
them, he reminded himself. Finally, he cleared his throat and
said, "Well, that still leaves us needing to decide on our next
move."

He took a deep breath and caught his partner's eye; he really
didn't want to get into this topic, but they had little choice.
"I think we should both go to Iowa," he said, as firmly and
decisively as he could manage. "There's nothing left here; the
cleanup crews have done too thorough a job. Andy will be here --"

Scully was already shaking her head. "No, Mulder. No way. I know
that I'm the one who usually complains about being left behind,
but this time it has to be done. There's still followup that needs
to be done in Georgia." She nodded at Andy, and continued, "With
the CDC, if nothing else. I know a couple of people there, and I
want to see if I can get any of them to open up."

Mulder tried to interrupt, but she hurried on before he had the
chance. "And one of us has *got* to get to Iowa, as soon as
possible. The trail is already getting cold; by tomorrow morning
there won't be anything left at all, if that operation is as well
organized as the one here has been."

Mulder knew she was right, and he knew in his heart that he was
going to lose this argument, but he had to give it one more try.
"I hear what you're saying, Scully," he said, trying to keep his
voice level and reasonable. "But dividing your forces in the face
of a superior enemy is never a good idea." He glanced at Andy.
"You were in the military; you tell her."

The reporter nodded slowly. "You're right of course; concentration
of force is one of the cardinal rules of planning a successful
engagement. That's one lesson they really drilled into us at OCS."
She paused and glanced at Scully, and then looked back at Mulder.
"But sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Desperate times
call for desperate measures, and all that."

Scully reached across the table and laid a hand on one of Mulder's.
"It'll be okay, Partner," she said. "It's only for a day or two,
and we can be in touch by cell phone as often as ... whenever we
need to be."

Now it was Mulder's turn to nod reluctantly. She was right, of
course, and he'd known it from the start. But that knowledge was
doing nothing to alleviate the ache of foreboding he felt in the
pit of his stomach. More than anything else he wanted to wrap his
arms around her and protect her and keep her safe, but that just
wasn't an option. If they were going to see this through they were
going to have to take some risks, and apparently splitting up at
this point was going to be one of those risks.

Finally he said, in a very low voice, "Okay, Scully. Okay. That's
the way we'll play it."

==========

Interstate 85
North of LaGrange, GA
7:44 a.m.

Mulder had prevailed on one point: Scully and Andy had relinquished
the driving to him, at least until they reached the airport. The
earliest flight he could realistically make was the 8:35 to Cedar
Rapids by way of Minneapolis, and even that was going to be
cutting it close. They'd had to stop back by the hotel to grab his
overnight bag, and they still had a solid half-hour to go to get
there.

His idea had worked, though, and both women were dozing now,
Scully in the seat next to him and Andy in the back. He'd
convinced them it was too early to start making calls, unless they
really *wanted* to tick people off, and he'd suggested they try to
sleep a little along the way.

The plan was for them to see him off at the airport -- not really
necessary, and he was mildly surprised when Scully didn't object
to the suggestion -- and then continue downtown to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention to see what they could find out.
Mulder would look up Andy's contact in Cedar Rapids when he
arrived and see what he could learn there. They'd check in mid-
afternoon via cell phone.

Mulder sighed softly in the silence of the car. He wasn't really
tired, after napping the evening before, and two and a half
cups of coffee had sent plenty of caffeine into his system to keep
him going. But the scenery was just the same as it had beeen the
day before, only in reverse, and he'd already memorized it the
first time. So despite his best intentions, his mind started
wandering into places he hadn't wanted to let it go.

He replayed the moment in Scully's room early that morning when
he'd realized she was going to kiss him -- or let him kiss her,
whichever. Her eyes were soft and glowing through the darkness as
she looked up at him; her lips, soft and inviting.

It was only the second time they'd come so close to resolving
this ... *thing* that had been hanging between them for so long.
Sure, they usually ignored it, sidestepped it, shoved it out of
the way. From time to time, he could almost believe it was gone
altogether, but then it would pop back up, usually at the most
inopportune moments. Like this morning.

Why was it only when they were in dire situations that their
mutual attraction surfaced? Why couldn't it come up when things
were relatively calm, when they might actually have a chance to
follow through without interruption?

Mulder sighed again, a bit more loudly, then froze and held the
next breath as Scully shifted in the passenger seat. He was afraid
he'd wakened her, but she settled back in a moment, and he relaxed
again.

But it was only a few minutes later when she shifted again, and
this time she lifted her head and dragged her eyes open.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

==========
Chapter 7
==========

7:58 a.m.

When she first came aware, she was disoriented for only a moment
before she realized where she was -- in the passenger seat of a
rental car, with Mulder behind the wheel. A warm, comfortable
feeling passed over her at the familiar circumstance, the product
of countless long car trips in his company.

She moved slowly, pushing herself upright, and ran a hand across
her mouth. "What time is it?" she rasped out, then cleared her
throat.

"Almost eight," Mulder replied, shooting her a glance. "Sleep
well?"

She nodded absently as she reached to flip down the sun visor,
checking her appearance in the mirror. She ran her fingers through
her hair to straighten it a bit, then decided that was the best
she was going to do and folded the shade back into place.

She could feel Mulder's eyes still on her, only flicking back to
the road every few seconds, and she turned to regard him. "Mulder,
what is it?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Nothing," he said. "Just ... I didn't wake you, did
I?"

She knew he had more than that on his mind, but she let it slide
for now. "No, I just woke up," she said, glancing out the
windshield at the steady flow of traffic. "Where are we, anyway?"

"About ten miles or so from the airport," Mulder replied, smoothly
changing lanes to pass a clump of slower-moving trucks. "I
shouldn't have any trouble making my flight."

"Good." The word ended on a yawn, and Scully saw Mulder frown.

"Are you going to be okay, Scully?" he asked, his tone cautious.
"You didn't get any sleep last night or much the night before ..."

"I'm fine, Mulder," Scully said automatically, only to see his
frown deepen. Realizing he never quite believed those words from
her mouth, she added, "I'm a little tired, but I'll be okay. If I
get too sleepy, I'll let Andy handle the driving. She's had at
least a little more sleep than either of us."

Mulder nodded, his eyes trained on the road as traffic continued
to increase. "How long do you think you'll be in Atlanta?" he
asked.

Scully shrugged. "The rest of today, at least, and we'll come
back tomorrow if we need to," she said. "I just talked to Cal
about three or four weeks ago and everything seemed to be fine,
so I'm hoping he'll be willing to at least talk to us, even if he
can't give us much information."

She didn't add her own calculations of the odds against her old
acquaintance providing anything useful, but she knew she didn't
have to. Mulder could certainly be pessimistic enough for the both
of them when he put his mind to it.

They fell silent for a few minutes, until Mulder pulled the car
into the exit lane for the airport. The deceleration roused Andy,
who yawned and stretched comically as she straightened in her
seat. "Are we there yet?" she mumbled, and Scully had to fight to
hold back a full-fledged grin.

"We're here," she answered, half-turning in her seat to face the
younger woman. She let the grin escape then, as she added in a
teasing tone, "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, just not long enough," Andy grumbled, still blinking slowly
against the bright sunshine.

Scully glanced at Mulder, who was steering the car into an hourly
parking deck by then, and saw he'd lost the battle against his own
smile. Turning back to Andy, she said, "We only have about thirty
minutes before Mulder's flight, so we'll have to hurry. You ready?"

Andy gave her a blank look. "I was just going to wait in the car,"
she said. "I thought ..." Her voice trailed off, and she glanced
at the back of Mulder's head. She leaned in closer to Scully and
whispered, "I thought you two would want a minute alone."

Scully's eyes widened, and then she felt herself blush. She should
be used to people mistaking Mulder and her for a couple, but now
she wasn't so sure it was a mistake any more. Or at least, she
wasn't sure it would be a mistake for much longer.

She managed to shake her head at Andy and whisper back, "It's not
like that." She saw Mulder turn his head in her direction then,
and she shifted back around in her seat, just as he swung the car
into a parking spot and shut down the engine.

"All right, ladies, we've got to move it," he said lightly, holding
out the keys to Scully. She took them, and the three climbed from
the car, Mulder pausing to grab his bag from the back seat.

They were inside in minutes, stopping only long enough to scan the
arrival/departure displays and determine that his flight was on
time. Security held them up a few moments. Andy had left her
weapon in the car, and Mulder had removed the clip from his and
pocketed it, the weapon slipped into his bag; a quick badge flip
was enough for him. Scully kept her weapon with her, which
necessitated a longer perusal of her ID, but she reassured the
guards that she was only going to the gate, not boarding, and they
finally waved her through.

The trio headed for the gate at a fast pace, down to twenty
minutes before flight time. Luckily, Mulder's gate was on the
first concourse, so they arrived quickly, and the boarding pass
only took a few moments.

As Mulder was finishing up at the counter, Andy tapped Scully on
the arm and said, "I've got to run to the ladies' room; I'll be
right back."

She was gone before Scully could reply, and Scully had a feeling
it wasn't just a call of nature that had prompted Andy's departure.
The reporter had been serious about giving them a minute alone,
and despite Scully's protest in the car, she was glad for it. Her
mind had been offering up a train of thought for the past few
hours that she'd been trying to avoid, but now she let it have
full rein.

She knew Mulder had been functioning at his peak over the past
24 hours or so only when he'd been able to focus on her for one
reason or another. Now he was going halfway across the country,
alone, and she was worried that he'd lose track again, and without
her there to pull him out of it, he'd end up in trouble.

Problem was, she didn't know what she could do about it.

Mulder was walking back toward her by then, dodging a few people
hurrying past to their own gates, and came to a stop in front of
her. "All set," he said, grinning down at her. "Five minutes to
spare."

Scully smiled in return, her mind racing at a mile a minute. An
idea had popped into her head, a way to send Mulder off with a
firm, unambiguous -- if intangible -- piece of her to carry with
him. She wasn't sure if this was the time or place, and she didn't
know how much it would actually help ... but she had to do
something.

Besides, she wanted to do it.

And so she lifted one hand to rest on the side of his face, drew
him down ... and grazed her lips softly, gently across his.

She felt him freeze under her touch, not responding or reacting in
any way for a long moment. She pulled back, suddenly uncertain
that the kiss had been a good idea, only to face the stunned
expression on Mulder's face.

His eyes were locked on hers as his mouth worked wordlessly for a
few seconds, and then he forced out, "Scully ... you kissed me."

Scully smiled, a little shakily, and replied, "Yep."

Another second passed, and then Mulder was a flash of motion,
scooping her up and pulling her tightly against him, one arm
around her waist, the other hand cupping her head. His words were
a whisper against her lips as he said, "I think we can do better
than that."

He kissed her then, still gently but with a greater sense of
urgency, and she fell into his kiss willingly, if briefly, before
drawing away.

His mouth followed her for a moment, but then he stilled, his eyes
opening to meet her gaze again. Her heart was pounding in her
chest, and she smoothed one hand across his hair. "I'm with you,
Mulder," she whispered. "Even when I'm not there."

He lowered her back to her feet, his eyes never leaving hers, and
his hands came up to frame her face gently. He bent to place a
tender kiss in the center of her forehead, then pulled her into
a gentle hug. "Be careful, Scully," he whispered into her hair.

"You, too," she answered.

They pulled apart reluctantly, their hands lingering as long as
possible, and Mulder kept watching her as he walked sideways
toward his gate. Scully's eyes followed him until, at the last
possible moment, he turned and stepped into the walkway to the
plane.

Scully had no idea how long she'd stood there, her eyes trained
on the spot where she'd last seen Mulder, when someone touched her
arm. She jumped and whirled to face Andy, who was looking at her
with an expression of concern. "Are you all right?" Andy asked.

Scully nodded quickly. "I'm fine," she said, although it was an
effort to steady her voice. "Let's ... let's get going."

And they headed back to the car.

==========

Delta Flight 954
Somewhere over Kentucky
8:33 a.m., Central Daylight Time

Mulder snapped his laptop shut in disgust. Despite having spent
the better part of an hour searching the Internet, he'd been
unable to find any useful information on the attack in Cedar
Rapids -- or, in fact, any information at all, beyond the short
synopsis they'd received from Andy early that morning.

He'd finally given up looking and sent e-mail to the Lone Gunmen,
asking them to see what they could dig up, especially concerning
military air traffic arriving at and departing from Columbus and
Cedar Rapids during the preceding 24 hours.

Almost as an afterthought he'd requested they do a background
check on Andy Baker. From everything he'd seen of her she seemed
completely genuine, but Mulder had been burned once too often to
take her totally at face value.

He'd hesitated to raise the issue with Scully, both because of the
obvious friendship that was blossoming between the two women, and
because his own track record on deciding who could and could not
be trusted left something to be desired. But now that he'd left
Scully alone with Andy, he couldn't help but worry a little, and
he hoped the Gunmen would be able to lay those fears to rest.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. Scully. She'd
certainly given him a lot to think about this morning. From the
almost surreal conversation in her motel room in the middle of the
night to that surprising, wonderful kiss at the airport, she'd
delivered one shock to his system after another. They were good
shocks -- definitely good shocks -- but it was still a little
overwhelming, and he knew it was going to take him some time to
digest it all.

He wondered if she realized just how much he'd come to depend on
her -- and just how much she had rocked his world in the last six
hours.

He caught himself sliding the tip of his forefinger along his lower
lip. That kiss ... that kiss had been ... spectacular. Mulder had
been kissed by other women whose intentions were more immediate
and practical, but none of them compared to the intensity of those
few seconds when he'd held Dana Scully in his arms at last. It
had been the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life to let go of
her and turn and walk away ...

But he'd done it, and now he felt filled with vitality and energy,
like a man who had been slowly bleeding to death and then been
given a lifesaving transfusion.

That was it, he thought, nodding slowly to himself. That was
exactly it. Scully had given him a transfusion, a new lease on
life, as corny as that might sound. She hadn't made things all
better, of course; that only happened on television. But for the
first time in at least a year -- for the first time since before
the X-files had been burned -- he found himself actually starting
to think proactively rather than reactively. The process was still
rather sluggish, since those mental muscles hadn't been used much
in the last few months, but he could feel his thoughts starting to
move in that direction.

It was wonderful. And it was all Scully's doing.

Scully. He wondered what she was doing right now. She and Andy
had planned to drive on into Atlanta, and try to pry some
information out of an old friend of his partner's who worked at
the CDC. In all honesty Mulder didn't expect that lead to amount
to much, but he'd agreed with the two women that it made sense to
try.

Mulder opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. Four more hours
and he'd be on the ground in Iowa, and he still didn't have
anything much to go on when he got there.

With a sigh of reluctance, he pushed thoughts of his partner out
of his mind and opened his laptop again. He'd have plenty of time
to think about her later; right now he still had work to do.

==========

Interstate 75/85 (Downtown Connector)
Atlanta, GA
9:55 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time

Neither Scully or Andy said more than two words at a time for a
good twenty minutes after leaving the airport, only speaking to
check directions and traffic. As she drove, Scully could almost
hear the gears turning in the other woman's mind. She knew the
question was coming.

And then it did.

"It's not like that, huh?"

Andy's voice was even and calm, with only a slightly teasing tone
to it. Just the right tone to get the answer she wanted, Scully
thought. She should have been a lawyer instead of a reporter.

Scully sighed. She knew she should answer the question. Heck, for
once, she *wanted* to talk about it. Problem was, anything she
said would sound either trite or misleading, or both.

It's *not* like that.

It's complicated ...

Mulder and I don't ...

In the passenger seat, Andy chuckled softly. "Damned if you do ..."
she said.

Scully had to smile at that. "Pretty much," she said, shooting a
quick glance at the other woman. "I didn't lie to you, Andy. It
isn't ... well, *wasn't* 'like that.'" She paused, then plunged
ahead. "That was the first time we even kissed."

Andy stared at her. "Really?" she asked, her excited tone making
her sound like a teenager.

Scully nodded slowly. "We started to, one other time ... well,
twice, actually ... but we were interrupted both times," she said.
Then she grinned. "So I decided it was time to take matters into
my own hands."

Andy laughed out loud then, and Scully felt her grin widen. It
felt good, she realized, to have a conversation like this. Really
good, and not just because of the subject matter. She couldn't
remember the last time she'd enjoyed talking to someone like she
enjoyed talking to Andy.

And then her smile faded. Andy, whom she'd only met the day before.
Who had a lot of information about whatever was going on. Who now
knew a good portion of what she and Mulder had learned.

Suddenly, Scully wasn't enjoying herself quite so much.

"Dana?" Andy had stopped laughing, and her voice was low and
concerned. "Are you okay?"

Scully shook herself free from her paranoid thoughts. I really
*have* been around Mulder too long, she thought.

Out loud, she said, "I'm fine, Andy. Just drifted for a minute."
She shot the other woman a quick half-grin. "I guess I'm a little
distracted."

Andy laughed softly. "Wonder why? ..." she said, her voice
trailing off suggestively, and Scully had to laugh herself.

Andy sobered quickly, though, and turned slightly toward Scully.
"So who is this guy we're going to see? Someone from medical
school?"

"No, undergrad, actually; we had some classes together," Scully
replied, her mind drawing up an image of Cal Danielson -- short,
stocky, ugly as a hound dog, and one of the funniest and most
outgoing people she'd ever known.

"How long has he been with the CDC?"

Scully shrugged. "About three years, I think," she said. "He
started medical school, hated it, and switched over to
pharmacology, so it took him a couple of extra years to finish
up his doctorate." She chewed on the inside of her lower lip,
thinking for a moment, then said, "I talked to him about a month
ago, just a social call, really. He looked up my e-mail address a
year or so ago and we e-mail back and forth occasionally."

Andy nodded. "And you called him yesterday?"

Scully blinked, and realized yes, it was just yesterday, less
than 24 hours before, when she'd called Cal from the car on the
way to Columbus. A yesterday that now seemed at least several
lifetimes ago.

She sighed. "I called, but he was in the middle of something and
couldn't talk. I told him I'd call him back ..." Her voice trailed
off, and she glanced at Andy. "Which I guess I should do, if I'm
just going to show up there. Could you get my briefcase out of
the back seat? My phone is in the outside pocket, and there should
be a small address book there, too. His number is in there. Oh,
and I should probably call and make a car rental reservation for
Mulder; he'll probably forget all about it until he arrives, and
then God knows what he'll wind up with. He's not good with
paperwork."

Andy unbuckled her seat belt and twisted in the seat to retrieve
the briefcase, then dug out the phone and address book. She'd
barely settled back in when Scully slammed on the brakes, sending
them both hurtling forward until the shoulder harnesses caught.

"What the hell?" Scully exclaimed. Traffic had stopped dead, all
five lanes, and as she looked further ahead, all she could see
was taillights.

"Shit." Andy's voice was sharp, and she reached for the radio
dial. "Atlanta traffic strikes again. Let's see what we're in
for."

Scully sighed and picked up the phone, using the temporary
reprieve from driving to call the CDC. She ended up with Cal's
voice mail and left a quick message, telling him she was stuck
in traffic but would get there as soon as possible.