ARCHIVE: Okay for forwarding to atxfc, Ephemeral, and Gossamer.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a post-ep for Jump the Shark that offers a
resolution that differs from the implications of the conclusion
for the episode.   If you have not seen or do not care to see
this episode or do not wish to read fanfic that deals with this
episode, please delete this note.
 

Disclaimer: The characters contained in this story are the
creative property of 1013 Productions and FOX Broadcasting and
are being used without their permission.

Spoilers:  Jump the Shark (US XF 9X15), The Lone Gunmen (S1)
Rating:    PG-13
Keywords:  Lone Gunmen
Classif:   S, post-ep
Summary:   Extraordinary men meet in ordinary time.

~~~
 

It was too damn confusing.  Running from a certain death should
not have gone this smoothly - not with everything else that had
gone wrong for them until a few hours ago.  Meeting a deadline
for their newspaper had more obstacles, Byers wistfully
thought.  The paper.  Their life's work until this last year,
when little equipment and even lesser funds made them abandon
their mission and almost everything had to be sold just to pay
the rent.  At least they were alive, which was more than he
could say for John Gilnitz or whatever his real name turned out
to be.

Yves had known that there was a chance - a small chance - that
the virus could mutate into a benign state as the casing
disintegrated, killing its carrier but becoming harmless when
airborne.  She had waited for that validation without passing
that on to the Gunmen but had steeled herself for the worst.
For getting them out of that room and covering their escape,
Yves was promised payment of the vaulted databanks of all of
their research to keep safe.  She would probably also take some
of their personal items as mementos.  If they asked nicely,
Byers thought, they might be able to get them back someday.

She also promised to provide for Jimmy, for her father and his
organization would not stop in their plans to further develop
the toxic virus.  When they learned of the failure - and
particularly of her involvement in that failure - the lives of
Jimmy and the Gunmen would be in danger.

They had had a Doomsday Plan in effect for years.  One phone
call, at any time of the day or night, to a Baltimore number
would set it in motion.  New identifications and enough money
to get them out of town would be available within an hour of
the call.  All they had to do was get there.  Panicked,
terrified, short on time and long on journey, they had each
made their way to a corner coffeehouse in Baltimore by 5:30 the
next morning.

Until today, they never imagined that they would ever have a
need to take such a drastic action.  It seemed as good a time
as any - they had nothing to go back to and waiting for some
henchmen to catch them unaware was not how they wanted to
continue through life.

In a booth near the back, next to the emergency exit, they
argued about last-minute changes to their arrangements.  The
harsh yellow light of sunrise streamed in through the glass
wall that gave them an unobstructed view of the intersection
outside.

"Two years," Langly was mumbling, the soda straw still in his
mouth.

Frohike overruled him.  "That's way too soon for what we just
went through.  I don't think Yves' father will give up that
easily.  You shouldn't be that anxious to see my pretty face
again."

"How about ten, then?"  Byers looked over to Langly, who shook
his head and glanced back over his shoulder to check the
traffic pattern outside.  Byers turned to Frohike for
confirmation, but he only found a stare from the pair of tired
eyes across the table.  It seemed as if the elder Gunman was
unwilling to acknowledge the chance that he might not be alive
ten years from now.

They agreed to five years.  Splitting up had not been an easy
decision to reach, but people would be looking for the three of
them together.  Separately, they would draw little attention.
Survival was the key issue.

When the time came to finally leave the coffeehouse, they found
themselves standing on the pavement of that intersection corner
several feet apart from the other, with the morning pedestrians
making their way in-between and around them.  No one wanted to
be the first to turn away, and good-byes at this point would
not be heard over the traffic.

Frohike waved Langly on to a transit bus that had pulled up
while they stood there frozen.  Langly fumbled in his jeans'
pockets for change while ascending the steps, looking back over
his shoulders at the other two.  He made his way down the
aisle, ducking his head to keep the guys in sight through the
windows as he made his way to an empty seat on that side of the
bus.  He had just enough time to sit down and place his palm
against the window as a good-bye gesture before the bus took
off, sputtering exhaust smoke down the street.  To Byers, it
was a harsh flashback to how they must have looked to Jimmy
just a few hours before.  It so unnerved him that he forgot to
return the wave.

Frohike waited until the bus disappeared into the morning
traffic before turning back to his remaining colleague.
Bringing his right hand up to his forehead to give Byers a
salute, he quickly pivoted and rounded the corner, heading down
another street.

Byers, now left alone, jogged up to the corner to see if he
could make out Frohike's form amongst the crowd but, after a
moment's time, he still could not find him.  Taking a deep
breath and fighting back a few tears, he made a 180-degree turn
and stepped toward the curb, waited for the light to turn
green, and began the final walk away from his old life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Somewhere in Ohio

He stared at his image reflected in the gas station bathroom
mirror and wondered what he might have looked like had he not
purposefully changed his appearance after That Day.  Turning
slowly to see one profile and then the other, his eyes never
left the reflection as he tried to remember the longer hair and
the dark-framed glasses of his youth.

He snickered at the thought.  `His youth.'  That many years had
not passed and he had been far from young even then.  But it
had seemed almost a lifetime, he sighed, since that time
before.

He searched the background of the reflection and tried to
picture the other faces, the ones who were always beside him in
the past.  How much had their appearances changed, he wondered,
and would he recognize them again?  Would they be able to
identify him with the short-cropped brown hair and aviator-
framed glasses?  With the t-shirts traded for the now-
comfortable flannel?

Curiosity got the better of him, and he reached into his shirt
pocket and drew out the glasses.  He had bought a cheap pair of
sunglasses, two towns ago, simply for the color and the frame.
He had punched out the dark plastic film that served as the
lens and put them on, hoping to see some semblance of his old
self in the mirror.

It felt strange for him to have these yearnings.  He had been
on his own now for nearly five years.  Five years of driving
across the country.  Five years of sacking out in the sleeping
bag in the back seat of the car.  Five years of never staying
put in any town, small or large, for more than the few weeks he
needed to scavenge for supplies and the temp work that paid him
a few dollars for food and gasoline, until he ran out and had
to stop again.

He first came to realize that he had unlearned the language he
had spoken for so many years.  Not the English but his way of
talking - the cadence of finishing one person's thought and
stopping just in time to allow another to begin the pattern.
To be so familiar and in-tune as to finish another's thoughts.
He did not have many opportunities to just gab with someone -
he was more afraid of having his voice recognized.  Early on in
his traveling, he wished that he could get his hands on one of
those voice-synthesizing retainers that they had used on
several jobs.

An urgent knocking on the locked bathroom door interrupted his
thoughts.  He hastily switched to his real glasses and then let
the next occupant in.  He walked over to the car that he had
left in the shade near a picnic area and picked up the road map
left on the passenger seat.  Spreading out the map on a nearby
table and tracing the Ohio backroads with his finger, he
calculated the remaining time it would take to reach his
destination.  He figured that there was a good chance that he
could get there ahead of schedule.

There were two things that they had all agreed upon That Day.
One was that they were to never, *ever*, try to find or contact
another until the appointed time and place.  If someone was
watching one of them, there was no need to give the others
away.

The second was to stay away from the computers.  If any of them
had taken a computer with them, the temptation to log on and
visit one of their old haunts would have been too great.  Those
sites, those domains, would be closely monitored as well as the
addresses of their old contacts.  They each had their own
style, their own signature, when online, and they could not be
sure if those nuances had been embodied in some surveillance
software and were lying in wait for them.  It was best to avoid
all contact.

It had not been easy for him.  He had practically grown up with
his hands on a keyboard.  After those first few days on the
road, his fingers began to twitch from the forced hiatus of his
normal routine.  Whatever he did end up doing, he knew that he
would have to work with his hands to get through the
withdrawal.

Luckily, thanks to Frohike and the needs of their aging van, he
had learned a bit about car engines.  He had had some training
with tractor engines growing up, and the combined experience
helped greatly during that first year on his own.  He had kept
mainly on the backroads and near farming communities, places
where transient labor was a common occurrence.  He could blend
in and talk the talk and any suspicions were quickly set aside
after a good day's work.

He skirted around Nebraska in his traveling.  Never one to
yearn to return to the place where he grew up when living back
East, it brought a chill to him to think that people could be
spying on his family and the old homestead.  The farther away
he stayed from them, the safer that they would be.

He gathered up the map and got back into the car.  He was on
his way home again - back to Byers and Frohike - the home he
had dreamt of for the past five years.  His only real home.
 

~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~

near Salinas, Kansas

The date across the newspaper legend caught his eye.  He
squinted and brought the copy of the week-old Denver Post
nearer to his face, cursing his old pair of glasses.  There was
something about the date that set off alarm bells in his head.

July, he read.  Is it July already, he asked out loud.

He rested the paper on his lap and looked around to see if
anyone else had heard him.  From his seated vantage point on
the breezeway just outside of the rented motel room, he saw no
one standing around.  The noise of the cab engines from the
truckstop next door had probably muffled over his outburst, and
he was grateful.  He did not want to give people notice, in
hindsight, that he might be planning something.  He again
looked at the date on the paper and settled back in the wooden
chair to relive the memories triggered open a moment ago.

He had hit the road back then in a peacoat and a seabag from an
old Naval supply store, hitchhiking with a trucker who thought
that he was an old ship buddy and had taken pity on him.  They
parted ways at a truckstop near Smithfield, North Carolina,
where he had lucked into his first job working in its kitchen.
Nursing a cup of coffee, he had overheard the counter waitress
complain about begin shorthanded in the prep area, and he had
volunteered his services in exchange for a meal until the next
shift showed up.  When the replacement also failed to show, he
found himself being offered the job, and he accepted.

He was now at his thirtieth truckstop job, give or take a few,
cooking for the breakfast-to-lunch crowd just outside of
Salina, Kansas.  He liked the truckstop clientele.  They helped
him keep up his ear for the accents that stretched the
continent, and the stories that they would tell the waitresses
of the towns they came from and where they were heading next
served as good intelligence for planning his next move.  As for
the waitresses themselves . . .  He resisted the first few
attempts as he sorted out the pros from the amateurs, from
those looking for more than just a few hours of companionship.
For acceptance meant entanglement, which made it harder to move
on to the next town, the next state.  And move on he would.

He had purposefully avoided traveling near certain areas of the
country.  Miami, for instance, was forbidden.  Prohibido.
Although he felt quite certain that a new life and a warm bed
could be found with a certain senorita from his past, he was
even more certain that Miami would be one of the first places
where people would start asking questions about him.  On a
similar note, Pontiac was also off-limits.  He had not been
home in many years.  There would be few still alive who knew
him back then, but there had been an agreement that they would
stay away from their respective hometowns for everyone's
safety.

The best thing he found about working at the truck stops were
the newspapers.  Newspapers from all over the country, carried
in by the truckers, found their way to the Formica countertops
of the dining areas.  He gathered up as many as he could when
bussing the dishes and took them back to his room to read at
his leisure.  He could keep up with the national and regional
news and those quirky local stories he found fascinating.  He
could also look for any leads as to the whereabouts of his
former acquaintances, just to be sure that they had not gotten
into any trouble.

He focused again on the date of the newspaper and began
calculating the amount of time needed to make the rendezvous
from his current location.  He figured that he still had a few
days before he had to begin traveling.  He got up, set the
paper down on the chair, and entered his room to begin making a
plan.

~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~

Sarasota, Florida

He had returned to his room after the latest late-night panic
button call to Mrs Butler's room.  Mrs Butler, ninety-eight
years old and weighing in at about ninety-eight pounds as well,
had a habit of waking up in the dark and believing that she was
in her coffin, buried alive.  So she would press her panic
button to see if anyone was going to come and dig her out.
Every time that it happened, he would rush to her room and
gently remind her of where she was and that she was not buried
alive and that, even if she had been, there would be no panic
button with which to summon help.  He would tuck her back in
bed, wish her sweet dreams, and wait by the door for a few
moments to listen for any sounds of further distress before
making his way back down the hall.

There would be no more panic calls to Mrs Butler's room.  This
time, she managed to succumb to her fears and expired before
the medical team arrived.

He resumed his packing.  This had been the fourth death at the
facility so far this month, not altogether unusual for a
nursing home, but it was beginning to make him uneasy.  Too
many deaths - for whatever the reasons - would invite questions
as to the care, which would lead to a closer scrutiny of the
nursing staff and the aides.  He had already been through two
close calls over the years and could see in the eyes of the
awakened residents that the night's events would be repeated to
the visiting relatives and friends over the next few days.  The
relatives would be concerned and insist upon answers from the
home's management, and he would again be placed in the position
of having to lie.  Besides, he had caught himself absent-
mindedly scratching the right-side of his jaw just underneath
the chinline.  It was a nervous habit he had developed in the
years since he shaved off his beard, and it had served him well
as his warning radar.  Tomorrow or the next day, when he sensed
the opportunity, he would disable an alarm and slip out one of
the side doors.

He liked living in Florida.  It was warm and the weather was
fairly consistent.  There was also a high concentration of
nursing homes with a yearly staff turnover rate of nearly three
hundred percent on average.  He had a Pennsylvania driver's
license in the name of John Miller and a clean Social Security
number to match, so he was never at a great disadvantage when
applying for jobs.  Most facilities were so desperate for help
that beyond checking for a criminal background, they did not
much care that you had only one reference and no formal
training.  How much training did it take to strip the beds of
incontinent residents, walk with others down the halls, and
oversee their meals?  The more minimum-wage aides they had to
supervise the patients, the more the nursing staff could
concentrate on those who needed their expertise and not be
bothered with babysitting duties.

He also liked being with the elderly.  Although they would ask
questions about his growing up and his family, he never felt as
if they were trying to pry out the past that he was trying to
keep secret.  Whatever they thought of a man in his forties
with no wife, no children, and no pictures from home, he did
not discourage.  When they would tease that he must be running
from the law, he would simply reply that they had found him out
and wouldn't it be exciting for the other residents when the
police arrived for the big capture.  Of course, by now, he had
been able to deliver those lines without breaking into a sweat
and without the nervous laughter.  He would pat their hands and
move on to the next table or the next room but kept his ears
open to any whisperings that might be going on behind his back.
Just in case.

There was the time that he had been in Corpus Christi, Texas,
when Hurricane Eugene came ashore, and he had to evacuate
nursing home patients to a high school gymnasium staffed with
FEMA volunteers.  Apparently it was standard procedure for
these volunteers to gather next of kin and other personal
information from the evacuees in case disaster befell them
while in FEMA's care.  He had put off filling out the forms for
so long that it made one volunteer question out loud just what
did he have to hide.  When the hurricane finally passed and
they were allowed back into their facility, he gathered his
belongings and left town, certain that the volunteer had
checked his meager information and found him out.  He would not
again be caught unprepared for those kinds of questions.

Not like they were five years ago, he thought.  He had always
hoped that if they ever *did* have to run, it would be on their
own terms, at a time of their choosing.  Leaving everything
they held dear - their work, their friends, without being able
to say good-bye or even saying when they might return, to let
everyone believe that they were dead - had not been an easy
choice, but there were others besides themselves who would be
harmed if they had not immediately run away.

And now it was time to return.  He had saved enough money over
the past couple of years, knowing that neither Langly nor
Frohike were likely to have done so.  They would need an
immediate cash source if they were unable to reach their
contact.  They would need money to buy new equipment, to start
over again.  And to make sure that they had a reserve should
they have to bolt once more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In public or out-of-the-way?  DC or Baltimore or someplace
else?  When they had initially mapped out their escape and
return, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial seemed a safe enough
bet to finally meet up again.  Over the years, they changed the
location around DC; their requirements being that it had to be
easily accessible (and escapable) by public transportation and
with enough of a crowd to disappear back into if needed.  The
events of September, 2001, made them steer away from large
public monuments that might be cordoned off at the last minute
during national emergencies.

That last morning that they had been together before heading
south, west, and north, they had argued about the new spot.
Frohike observed that baseball season would still be in full
swing and suggested Camden Yards.  Byers countered that they
could not foresee a possible players' strike that would cancel
games and the possibility that the Orioles might not be in
Baltimore when the time came.  Frohike scoffed at the idea of
the Orioles *ever* leaving Baltimore, and Langly sniffed and
reminded him of what happened to the Colts.  Frohike did not
further contest the point.

"We're supposed to be dead, you know," Byers whispered, always
aware that he could be overheard.  "Coming back to Baltimore or
even to DC is probably not a good idea."

Langly played with the straw in his soda.  "Should we even be
trying to get back together?"  The silence and the stern looks
the other two shot towards Langly after he spoke answered his
question, and he understood.  *Not* getting back together, or
at least not *planning* to get back together, would only hamper
the incentive to keep on going after today.  They each had to
believe, needed to believe, that they would meet again.

"We'll have to make a new start somewhere else, but I think, at
least for the purposes of hooking back up, we should head for
familiar ground."  Frohike was making his point by tapping his
finger on the table.  "How about Union Station?  We can get on
a train and go anywhere after that."

And so Langly found himself standing underneath the clock in
the landmark's lobby, five years later on the planned date,
nervously pacing about for over ninety minutes on a hot Sunday
afternoon.  He was almost afraid to take a bathroom break for
fear that he would miss the other two and that they would leave
early, believing that he had been unable to make it back.  He
considered buying a magazine and parking himself off to the
side but his impatience won out, and he took another stroll
over to the Information Desk and made himself look busy by
reading the current arrival and departure schedules.

Langly had lost track of the time staring up at the board, not
even really reading the updates, when the rumbling footsteps of
the recent arrivals on the staircases behind him made him turn
around.

He did not know why he kept on looking after the last of the
crowd had passed.  He would hear some hurried footfalls on the
steps and think that it might be one of them, but it never was.
Just one more passenger, Langly coaxed from the lobby, just one
more to disembark the trains and please, this time, let it be
one of his friends.

Silence greeted his plea, mocking his hope.  This is what I
deserve, he thought, after all those years of cynicism.  Why
would anything go his way for him now?

He was about to turn around, to return to the pacing around the
lobby, when he heard another set of echoes from the staircases.
Slow and heavy, weary steps, he thought, like someone who was
tired or someone who was older.

He froze at that thought and waited for the echoing to stop.
When it did, an older - but recognizable - figure stood at the
top of the steps, looking around and past him.  Langly took a
few steps forward, slowly at first, not wanting to frighten the
new arrival and to give him time to be identified as someone
familiar.  He saw a smile cross the other man's face, and they
both continued to venture forward.

Frohike reached around Langly for a hug and buried the side of
his face into Langly's chest.  He had been unsure as to how he
would greet the others - especially Langly, someone who had so
aggravated him at times - but the loss of the familiar
companionship with the other two that he had felt over the
years was greater than any need for outward appearances.  He
held tight and did not try to hide his tears.

Langly was not surprised by the gesture and was strangely
comforted by the acceptance.  Frohike had never seemed so happy
to see him before, and Langly was not certain as to who was the
more emotional at that moment.  He returned the hug and,
closing his eyes, rested his cheek on the top of Frohike's
head.

They were still hugging when Frohike heard rumbling sounds from
Langly's stomach.  "You're hungry.  That figures."  They
parted, and Frohike looked around for the closest food court.
"Come on, we both need something."  When Langly did not make
any move towards the exits, he added, "Don't worry.  We said
six o'clock, and I'm not even thinking of leaving without him
until they throw us out of here."

Pooling their money, they headed for the nearest place and got
burgers, fries, and cokes.  They sat down at a corner table
that afforded them a wide view of the passing passenger
traffic, in the off-chance that their missing companion might
happen by.

Neither spoke much at first, just offering general information
as to their health and what they both did that morning, as if
waiting to tell their full stories of the past few years until
they were all reunited.  Langly had just finished the last of
the french fries when something - someone - caught his eye.
The posture, the gait, seemed familiar, but the person had not
yet turned around.  Langly froze.

Frohike noticed the change.  "What's wrong?"

"Is that him?"  Langly's voice squeaked, gesturing to his
right.

At that moment, the person in question turned around, just as
if he had heard their voices.  A calming look of contentment
passed over Byers' face as he made his way over to the table,
not daring to break into a smile until he had gotten close
enough to be certain that these were his friends.  They all
quickly hugged, and then Byers tugged them down into their
seats so as not to draw further attention to their group.

The three sat looking at each other, none knowing who should
speak first.  Byers broke the silence.  "I got back in the area
a few days ago.  I've been making myself useful.  I went by the
old place."

Frohike appeared shocked at this admission.  "We said that we
weren't going back there."

"And we won't be."  Byers' soft reply accompanied by the
shaking of his head acknowledged that the warehouse, their home
for so many years, no longer existed.  "I was in Baltimore on
Friday and picked up some supplies," gesturing to the bag he
had been carrying.  "The world went on without us - there's a
whole new game out there now."

"Does anyone know about us?" Langly asked softly and hesitated
before continuing.  "About us being back?"

"If you mean alive, no.  Everyone who thought we were gone
still believes that."

Tears returned to Frohike's eyes.  "What about . . ."

Byers put his hand on Frohike's shoulder to comfort him.  "Word
has been sent through the channels.  We'll know soon."

The three rose from the table on cue, gathered their
possessions, and began walking back to the main lobby to make
plans for their future.  Byers looked up at the board over the
Information Desk for the next set of departures.  "Well,
gentlemen, what will it be?  Richmond, Philadelphia, or
Trenton?"

Langly groaned.  "Not New Jersey.  Please. Not New Jersey."

Frohike thought it over for a moment before voicing his
opinion.  "I vote for Philly.  I could go for some classic
cheesesteaks."

"But they make theirs with cheddar cheese."

"So get it without."

"It wouldn't be a *cheese*steak then, now would it?"  Langly
continued to argue with Frohike as they made their way to the
ticket counter.  "I mean, who came up with the idea of putting
cheddar cheese on beef?"

"You can get provolone, if you ask nice," Frohike teased.

"Yeah, yeah."

Some things never change, Byers thought.  They had just
reunited after being apart for five years, of knowing that
nearly everyone who had known them before thought that they
were dead and not knowing if they would ever see each other
again until just now, and what are they doing?  They're arguing
about food.  "Philadelphia it is, then," he said as he joined
the line to buy their tickets.

end

__________________________________________________