By Deborah Davis
dadavis@nyx.cs.du.edu  or cpmr56b@prodigy.com
 

Date: 14 Aug 1995 13:22:46 GMT
 

Hi  folks!  Time to put our favorite duo through the
wringer.  This is drama, or maybe melodrama, you decide.
No graphic stuff to warn you about.

Send all comments to: dadavis@nyx.cs.du.edu  or cpmr56b@prodigy.com
If you like it, I'd love to hear from you.  If you hate it, well, I
guess I want to hear from you too; I'm a little thin-skinned, but
I'm trying to get over it.

Thanks are due to Kellie R. for her encouragement.
 

Mulder, Scully, and The X Files are the property of
Chris Carter and 10-13 Productions.  No copyright
infringement is intended.
******************************************

Restoration
By Deborah Davis

        Dana's nightmare begins with the shadows.  Men in
suits, the shadows fill half the briefing room.  She cannot
make out their faces, but she can hear their voices.  One by
one, they fire their pointed questions.
     "Agent Scully, explain why you helped a known fugitive
escape the law."
     "What were you and your partner doing in New Mexico?"
     "There was a gunshot reported outside Agent Mulder's
apartment; do you know anything about that?"
     The smoke begins to curl around her chair, smoke
without any sign of fire except the glowing cigarette in the
corner.
     "You have to put that out," she says each time.
"Please, put it out."
     There is only the cold smile each time, barely visible
in the gloom.  The questioners don't seem to notice the
thickening smoke.
     "What happened to your partner, Agent Scully?"
     Where is this 'evidence' you believe excuses your
behavior?"
     "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR PARTNER?"
     The smoke fills her lungs.  As she struggles for
breath, white-hot fire suddenly erupts like an explosion.
In the moment that sears the flesh from her bones, she
thinks she hears someone calling her name.  She turns,
desperate to see the caller before she wakes.  But no one is
there.

     ****
     Dana woke from the nightmare and buried her face in her
hands.  Not this, not again . . .
     A look at her clock confirmed that she'd slept through
her alarm.  She was late, and facing morning rush hour with
half of downtown Philly between her and the airport.
     "Maybe I just shouldn't go, "she  thought.  "If the
nightmares are going to come back, maybe I should just stay
away from Washington . . ."
     She brushed that thought away as cowardly, and jumped
resolutely out of bed.  She'd done most of her packing last
night.  She could still make her flight if she hurried.
     "There is no way your are missing this trip," she told
her reflection sternly.  "Not when you are about to set a
world record for career rehabilitation."
     It was true.  Two years ago, she'd been a failure, an
agent who resigned from the bureau in disgrace.  Today, she
had a gilt-edged invitation to give the Academy's
prestigious Forensics Lecture.
     "You earned it," she told herself grimly.  In her new
career as an assistant medical examiner in Philadelphia,
she'd felt she had a lot to prove -- to herself more than
anyone.  So she'd put in nearly a year of 16- and 20- hour
workdays.   She'd led the effort to gather the forensic
evidence that captured and convicted the serial killer Chris
Mallon.  She was proud of the work she and her colleagues
had done, and more than a little embarrassed that the media
gave her the lion's share of the credit.  Her testimony at
the televised trial had earned her a high profile in a
position where women were a novelty; soon every newsmagazine
and tabloid wanted to do a feature on the striking, copper-
haired M.E.  Newsweek had even headlined its profile "Beauty
and the Beast."
     The Mallon case had had all of Dana's commitment for a
year.  Her commitment, but not her passion.  "To serve and
protect" was still the duty that defined her life, but the
passion she'd brought to her work at the Bureau had died
with her resignation.  With Mulder.
     Against her will, images from that terrible time
crowded her mind:  The doomed investigation she'd conducted,
over Skinner's objections, had gone nowhere.  The Navajo boy
who'd guided Mulder was gone.  The old man and the MJ files,
gone.  The site of the buried railroad car was scoured of
evidence.  Even the cellular company's records had been
altered.  There was no record of  the last call Mulder had
made to her from the valley.
     There was nothing to contradict the conclusion of the
coroner's official report. "Agent Mulder's death must be
ruled a misadventure, an accident caused by his own
carelessness in striking a spark in an abandoned munitions
dump.  It is most unfortunate that the army failed to
properly secure this forgotten site.  We are informed that
the site has since been secured so that civilians cannot
wander into it . . .:"
     She'd done no better in Washington.   In an abandoned
building, she'd met with Mulder's anonymous contact.  The
single bare light bulb picked out drops of sweat on his
forehead as he spit a warning into her face.  "It's over,
Agent Scully.  Your partner gambled and lost.  If you keep
your head down, they *might* just leave you alone.  If you
pursue this, you just might destroy both of us."
     The Lone Gunmen could give her nothing but sympathy.
"If we knew anything, we'd tell you, Scully.  We miss him
too."
     And Skinner, sounding stern but looking tired, had
given her his own warning.  "You have no grounds for
reopening the investigation, Scully.  There's nothing you
can do for Mulder now.  For your own sake, let it go."
     But she hadn't been able to let it go.  She'd kept
pushing for a new investigation, right through her own
disciplinary hearing.  Kept pushing even as sabotage
undermined her position.  Her reports mysteriously
disappeared when they were due; files deleted themselves
from her computer; a crucial piece of evidence disappeared
from her workstation.
     "You know why this is happening!" she'd finally shouted
at Skinner in frustration.
     "Do I?  Bring me one piece of evidence, Scully, one
piece of proof I can use, and I'll back you up.  Otherwise..."
     There was no proof.  Exhausted by grief,  and on the
verge of dismissal, she'd handed in her resignation.  It was
the second bitterest day of her life.
          But even that day paled beside the moment when
she'd stood on the lip of  a valley, looking down on the
black smoke from still smoldering debris on the valley
floor.  That's when she'd known it was real.  That's when
she really began to know that he wasn't coming back.
     "I'm sorry, Mulder.  I should have been here," she'd
thought in despair.  "Oh God, did it have to be *fire?*"
                     ****
     Gathering up the last of her travel gear, Dana tried
hard to push those memories to the back of her mind.  Wasn't
two years was long enough to mourn?  She would never forget
what had happened in New Mexico, but surely she should have
moved past it by now.  She'd made a success of her new life;
so why was she still so numb?
     In the early days of her grief, she would have welcomed
this numbness.  She would have welcomed anything that dimmed
the moment-to-moment ache of her loss, and the knowledge of
their defeat.
     Dana had known grief before, but there was something
more hovering over her memories of Mulder.  Important things
had gone unsaid between them.  Their partnership was, in a
way, an ongoing conversation.  When it was silenced, she
began to hear, endlessly, the echoes of things she wished
she'd said.
     "You can't change the past," she reminded herself.  It
was time to think about the future, she resolved.  It was
time to drop the paranoia she'd picked up in Washington, and
start trusting people again.   As if on cue, the phone rang
just before she headed out the door.
     "Morning, sunshine," said a buoyantly cheerful voice.
     In spite of herself, Dana smiled.  No one would ever
mistake Detective Tim Philips for anything but a morning
person.
     "We still on for this weekend?"
     "Of course," she replied.  "I'll pick you up at the
airport after my lecture."
     Inviting Tim to join her in Washington was the bravest
thing Dana had done in a long time.  Even though their work
on the Mallon case had thrown them together constantly, it
had taken a long time for them to get together socially.
Dana knew that she was the reason.
     "People feel a space around you," was the way Tim put
it when they'd finally begun to date.  Since then, he'd
worked diligently and patiently to get through that space.
He'd shared with her the details of his childhood as the son
of the Maryland Attorney General. "They tried to groom me
for politics,"  he'd said with a laugh  "But it didn't take.
All I want to do is solve mysteries.  Just like you, right?"
     And Dana had laughed along with him, but ignored the
openings he gave her to talk about herself.  There were some
things she wasn't ready to talk about with anyone.
     "You don't need to pick me up;  I can find my way to
the Sheraton," he was saying now.  "Um... should I ask how
many rooms you've reserved?"
     "Surprise is the spice of life," Dana teased him.  "See
you later."
     Actually, she had reserved separate rooms, but was
thinking of changing that.  Now, she thought, is the time to
start taking chances again.   She resolved that this weekend
-- with Tim's help -- she would bury her Washington ghosts.
Or at least, one restless ghost.

                                       ****

     The Forensics Lecture was especially well attended this
year, and Dana felt that her presentation had gone well.
She should have been pleased, but surrounded by people who
wanted to congratulate her, she felt claustrophobic.  Some
of them were agents she'd known before, and their presence,
and the familiar walls of Quantico, were bringing back too
many memories.  Also, there was the man in the gray suit.
The intent and anxious way he looked at her made her
nervous.  As soon as possible, she slipped away from the
group and nearly ran to her car, afraid if she looked back
he'd be following her.  "Dana" she chided herself, "A few
hours in Washington and you're paranoid all over again."
      But when she met Tim at the hotel, the man in gray was
waiting.  This time he had a companion with him.
     "Dr Scully, I'm Agent Anderson from the bureau, and
this is Detective Welsh of the Washington PD.  I'm sorry I
missed speaking with you this afternoon.  We have a case
that might interest you, and we were hoping you might be
willing to come downtown and help us."
     "A case?  Is your medical examiner requesting my help?"
Dana asked, wary of stepping on another investigator's toes.
     The agent and the detective exchanged glances before
the agent answered.
     "The Bureau believes **you** are the best person to
help us with this."
     Dana looked at Tim and shrugged.  The agent's air of
mystery both intrigued and annoyed her.  "All right," she
said.  "Let's go."
     Half an hour later, she sat looking at two sets of
autopsy photos.  The cause of death was obvious; the
victims' heads had been destroyed in a rather spectacular
fashion.
     "This is odd.  If I didn't know better, I'd say this
was caused by an explosion, but there's no charring or other
signs of explosive damage." She felt the tingle of
excitement, the challenge of confronting a mystery.  "I'd
like to review all the reports before I venture an opinion.
Have you had any luck profiling the suspect?"
     The cop and the agent exchanged glances again.  "We
have a suspect in custody," Welsh said.  "Witnesses place
him at or near both murder scenes.  In fact, that's why we
really asked you here.  We'd like you to look at him"
     Dana frowned. "You mean examine him, medically?"
     Another exchange of glances.  "Not exactly.  Look,
Doctor, this all may become clear if you'll humor us and
just see this guy."
Puzzled, Dana nodded.  With Tim, she followed Anderson and
Welsh down a hall to an observation room with a one-way
mirror.  Crossing to the glass, she looked in on an
interrogation room.  A man stood inside with his back to
her.  Tall and lean, wearing ancient jeans and a denim
jacket.  Brown hair just starting to curl over the back of
his collar.  From here, he could have been almost anyone.
Then he turned around, and Dana looked into the eyes of a
ghost.
 

                                  ***

     For several moments, Dana couldn't get her breath.  The
edges of her vision flickered black.  She could feel Tim
pressing her backward into a chair, and shoving a paper cup
into her hand.
     "I'm OK," she said.  She drew a deep breath and looked
through the window again.  There was no doubt.  "It's
Mulder."
     Anderson, the FBI agent, looked at her sharply. "You're
sure?"
     "Yes."  The complete unreality of the situation kept
her pinned in the chair, giving answers in a ridiculously
matter-of-fact voice.
     Anderson nodded.  "Several people at the bureau thought
they recognized him," he said.  "The crazy thing is, we run
his prints and get --" he consulted a file. "Harold Trent, a
schizophrenic who walked away from a community treatment
program 3 months ago."
     "No, that's Mulder."  Dana stared through the glass.
Somewhere in the center of her being, a protective wall was
cracking, and something was rising through the opening; a
great mass of guilt and grief was lifting away.  "He's
*alive*," she thought.  "Somehow, impossibly, he's alive."
     "I'm sorry we had to spring him on you like this,"
Anderson was saying, "But we didn't want to bias you by
warning you.  It was our good luck you were in town; we
hoped you could provide a positive ID."
     "I want to talk to him."
     "And we want you to, Doctor, but now may not be the
best time.  They're getting ready to transfer him to a
secure hospital ward in a few minutes."
     "Hospital?"  Dana asked sharply.  " Why?"
     "He's running fever, needs to be checked for pneumonia
and a few things you can get from living out of dumpsters.
Also, we expect the court to ask for a psychiatric
evaluation."
     Pneumonia.   Dumpsters.   Psychiatric evaluation.  She
felt the pit of her stomach ache.  *Steady, Dana* she told
herself.  *Mulder could be a candidate for psychiatric
observation on the best of days.*
     "I'm not leaving until I speak with him."
     They walked down a corridor to the interrogation room,
the heavy security door in the hall slamming behind them.
The cop on duty outside the room nodded at her.  "Just yell
if there's trouble and we'll be in there in a flash,"  he
said.
     "You don't have to see this guy, you know," Tim was
murmuring in her ear.  "You're a civilian;, you don't owe
the Bureau anything."
     "I'm not doing it for them."  She paused with her hand
on the door knowing that the new life she'd patched together
for herself was about to be irrevocably shattered.  She
looked back at Tim and managed a smile.  "I'll be all
right," she assured him, and went in.
     For a moment she just stood in the doorway, forcing
herself to observe, cataloging the changes.  His hair was a
little longer and still fell in his eyes; there was a new
scar along one side of his jaw, a burn, she thought.  The
lanky runner's body was leaner than she remembered, but the
way he sprawled in the chair was the same.  His hands hadn't
changed at all; looking at them, she could remember a
hundred gestures and conversations. She remembered the way
he would casually press her elbow or shoulder when going
through a doorway, as if to usher her more quickly into the
presence of whatever mystery awaited them, and she
remembered those same hands brushing her cheek in a rare
tender moment.   The muscles of her throat and chest
tightened, threatening to choke off speech, but she must
have made a noise, because he looked up.
     For a moment, his look of disorientation and fear was
so strong that she felt it too.  She forced as much calm and
gentleness into her voice as she could.
     "Mulder, it's Scully, Dana Scully.  Remember?"
     "Scully!," he asked urgently, "Where am I?"
     "You're in a police station," she said, carefully
keeping her voice neutral. "They picked you up this
afternoon, in Georgetown, remember?" Clamping down on her
emotions, she was rapidly cataloging her observations: he
was shivering even through the room was warm; there was a
slight glaze to his eyes that suggested fever.
     'I *know* I'm in a police station!" he said
impatiently.  "A police station *where?*  Am I still in
Washington?"
     "Yes."  She didn't know why it should matter, but he
seemed enormously relieved.
     '"Good.  For a minute there, I thought . . .how did you
find me?"
     "It doesn't matter . . . " her own impatience broke
through her professional demeanor.  "Mulder, WHERE HAVE YOU
BEEN for the last two years? WHY did you let me go on
thinking you were dead?"
     "I'm sorry Scully."  Now he met her eyes intently.
"Believe me, for the last year, there's been nothing I
wanted more than to speak with you."
     For a moment, as they locked eyes, Dana felt the weight
of the last two years between them.  She saw that whatever
that time had done to her, it had been worse for him.  She
sank into the chair opposite his and laid a hand on his
wrist.
     "All right. I'm here now. Tell me what happened."
     But Mulder looked around, frustrated.  "I want to, but
this isn't the place.  They may be listening --"
     "Do you think you're going to get to speak to me any
place BUT a lockup?" she demanded.  "Mulder, do you KNOW how
much trouble you're in?"
     "I didn't kill anyone, Scully.  I don't expect anyone
else to believe that, but I hope you will."
     She nodded.  The churning emotions she was keeping in
check threatened to overwhelm her.  To keep control, she
tried to focus on the practical.  "You need a lawyer.  I'll
see about it; I can stay down here a few days --"
     The door opened and the cop put his head in.  "We need
to transfer the prisoner now."
     She looked helplessly at Mulder.  "I'll come to the
hospital tomorrow." She wanted to say more, but didn't know
what.  She reached out and brushed the hair from his eyes.
For a moment, she rested a hand against  his temple, feeling
the feverish warmth.  Then the cop touched her arm, and she
left.
                                    ***
     In his mind, Mulder followed the sound of Scully's
retreating footsteps for far longer than he could actually
hear them. He wanted nothing more than to follow her out of
here. He fell into a chair. Their brief interview had
drained the last of his resources.   For most of the last
year, he'd tried to block out the fact that there was anyone
who cared what became of him, anyone but himself who would
be hurt by what had happened to his life. He almost laughed
at the miserable irony of it;  he'd wanted for the longest
time to talk to Scully, and now he had his chance,  in the
one place he couldn't talk safely.  Maybe he should have
told her everything anyway, but if someone were listening,
that was the surest way to get branded crazy, or worse.
Maybe the hospital would be safe . . .
     Looking at the impassive faces of the officers leading
him from the building to a police van, he had a flash of
intuition.  For no reason he could adequately explain, he
was sure he was not going to the  hospital.  He'd been in
that lockup for hours, he thought.  Plenty of time for THEM
to find him.  Well he wasn't going to make this easy.   He
came to a sudden stop and tried to break from his guards.
The cop in front of him turned, and before Mulder's eyes,
his features melted into a different shape.
     "I'm dead," he thought, as the creature's hand came up
and the two cops behind him shouted.  But the figure in
front of him only laughed and broke the handcuffs off
Mulder's wrists.  Mulder started running without hesitation.
Behind him, he heard the sounds of a struggle, but he knew
there was nothing he could do to help the cops.  As he
crested a hill and ducked into a side street, he could only
hope that no one would be hurt.
                                   ***
     "Day?  Dana?"
     Scully started, and looked at Tim from the passenger
seat of the car.
     "Dana, you've been a zombie since we left the station.
Tell me what he said to you."
     "He didn't tell me anything," she said distractedly.
"Except that he's frightened. . . ."
     From the moment they'd left the police station, her
mind had been frantically churning through the facts she
knew, trying  make them make sense.  Her thoughts snagged on
details, like how some schizophrenic's name could have
become attached to Mulder's fingerprints.  The Bureau's
fingerprint files were supposed to be protected by the
tightest security; who could have changed them?
      "This doesn't make any sense," Tim was echoing her
thoughts.  "I want you to start at the beginning."
Unconsciously, he had fallen into what Dana recognized as
his interrogate-the-witness voice.  "This guy is . . . was
your partner, and he's supposed to be dead? How?"
     "A fire.  Tim, I can't talk about it now." <<Because I
wasn't there.  Where I should have been..>>
     "There was no body recovered?
     "No.  Nothing but ashes."  <<But somehow I should have
known.  I should have tried harder to be sure.>>
     "Dana?" Now Tim's voice was hesitant.  "Were you and
this Mulder . . . involved?"
     Involved?  She'd gone to the edge of sanity with
Mulder, and on some cases, a little beyond.  She'd trusted
him with her life.  In a sense, she might never be that
involved with anyone again.  But she knew what Tim was
asking.
     "No.  Of course not.  We were partners."
     In the hotel hallway, Tim took her hand.  "I guess this
is a bad time to pursue the one-room, two-room question,
isn't it?"  He said with a sad smile. Dana tried to smile
back.
     "I'm afraid so."
     "I understand, but Dana?  Remember, if you need me ---
and this is in no way, shape, or form a come on -- if you
need someone to talk to, or anything, I'm right down the
hall."
     "Thanks, Tim."
     He didn't let go of her hand.  The look on his face
hardened a little bit.
     "Dana, are you sure you don't want to talk about this?"
     Now was the time to tell him, she knew.  If he was ever
going to know her, he was going to have to hear it all --
about Mulder, the X-files, and the way the last few years
had tested her faith.
     But the thought of explaining it all exhausted her.
Tim was better off not knowing all the things she knew.  She
shook her head.  "Good night , Tim.."
     Once in bed, the past wouldn't let her sleep, and she
wouldn't let herself call for Tim, so she was alone and
awake when Anderson and another agent knocked on her hotel
room door.  She heard them out, then made them wait while
she called Tim.  She made them repeat the story for him.
     'We're not sure how he escaped," Anderson said.  "The
two guards he overpowered remember nothing.  They're in the
hospital for observation, and a third man is missing."
     "Is Dana in any danger?" Tim asked.
     "Possibly."  Anderson looked at her.  "Did you tell him
where you're staying?"
     "No"  But it wouldn't be hard for an investigator of
Mulder's abilities to find out, not if he was still the
Mulder she knew, anyway.
     "Maybe we should go back to Philadelphia," Tim
suggested.
     Anderson shook his head.  "We believe we can better
protect you here; this building should be relatively easy to
secure."
     Dana let their discussion flow past her as if she
weren't there.  "What the hell is going on?" she thought.
"Mulder, just what are you up to?"
 

     ***
 

     Three days cooped up in the hotel had done nothing to
improve Dana's mood, or Tim's.  Wherever Mulder had gone to
ground, he'd disappeared pretty thoroughly.
     "They can't keep us here forever," Tim muttered on the
morning of the fourth day.  "I should be at work right now.
Screw it! Let's just tell them we're going home.  We can
arrange protection for you there."
     Dana considered.  In the last few days, she'd had
plenty of time to mull the strange details of Mulder's
disappearance and reappearance.   Like a mariner who catches
a glimpse of some monstrous predator gliding through the
depths beneath his ship, she was sure she detected the work
of THEM -- the powerful enemies Mulder had made through the
X-Files.  Her enemies.
     If she went with Tim now, she might never have to
confront them.  She might get to keep her safe new life, her
worthwhile job.  Her numbness.
     "Go ahead," Dana said.  "I'm going to stay a while.
Until . . ."
     "Until they catch him?" Tim asked bluntly.  "You do
realize the police here are using you as bait? That they're
hoping this maniac comes here for you?"
     "I'm not in any danger from Mulder."
     "He may not be the man you remember, Dana."
     She had no answer for that, nor much to say when Tim
left a few hours later.  That afternoon, she insisted that
she was not going to eat room service again.  She was going
out.  With an escort provided by the Bureau, she went for a
walk on the Mall, then drove to lunch at a restaurant.  She
noticed that her escort was deliberately low-profile, just a
few plainclothes agents at a discreet distance.  Tim was
right; they were using her as bait and didn't want a
noticeable escort to scare Mulder off if he tried to contact
her.
     But nothing unusual happened while she ate her
dispirited lunch -- until she paused to look over her lunch
check.  She'd picked the restaurant at random, and it turned
out to be a cutesy deli where all of the sandwiches were
named for politicians.  Dana was quite sure she'd ordered a
Newt Hamwich, but now she stared at a bill that proclaimed
she'd had the George Hale Special.  Slowly, she turned the
bill over.  An address was scrawled on the back.
     Slowly, she crumpled the check, dropping it in her bag
as she withdrew a few bills and laid them on the table.  She
was sure she spotted an agent at the door and another
covering the corridor to the rest rooms.   Someone would
probably be covering her car.  Cautiously, she got up and
moved toward the women's room.
       She was in luck.  As she headed toward the door at
the end of the corridor, a large man exited the Men's room,
blocking her escort's view of the rest of the corridor.
Using his bulk as a shield, she kicked open the door to the
women's room in front of her as she glided to the right,
through the door marked "Employees only."  With any luck,
the agent at the end of the corridor would think she'd gone
into the rest room, and wouldn't look for her right away.
By the time they began looking for her in earnest, she hoped
she'd have found an exit from the kitchen that they weren't
watching.  She had an appointment to keep.
                                      **
     Darkness had swallowed the short block of  abandoned
condominiums by the time Mulder saw her coming.  Crouched at
an upper story window, he watched Scully pick her way among
the debris scattered over the street, avoiding the pools of
light thrown by the few streetlights that had not been
vandalized.
     He flicked his eyes up and down the street, and pulled
a ragged blanket tighter around him.  The little rest he'd
been able to get had helped a little, but he still felt weak
and feverish.  He hoped Scully had really come alone.  He
knew how her mind worked, and it was not beyond possibility
that she might believe she was doing the best thing for him
by bringing him back into custody.  He was asking her once
again to take a leap of faith with him, and he couldn't
blame her if this time she refused.
     Oh hell, he thought, pulling back from his surveillance
at the window and heading downstairs.  If he couldn't trust
Scully, the ballgame was over here and now.  He might just
as well give up on survival, embrace his adversary and throw
the two of them under the next freight train he saw.  At
that thought, he suddenly felt the same cold prickling
sensation of intuition he'd had outside the police station.
What if just such a sacrifice was required of him?
 

                                         ***
 

     Dana as she picked her way down the abandoned street.
Afraid that her Bureau escort might be watching her rental
car, she'd taken three buses and taxi to reach this
unpromising area.  Along the way, she'd purchased a scarf to
hide her hair and a couple of maps.  Her route had taken her
over the Maryland border to a depressed industrial
neighborhood.  She'd had the cabbie let her out at the
area's last vestige of commerce, a collection of bars and
strip joints a few blocks away.
     The door to the address she sought was ajar.  Gingerly,
she pushed it open.  "Mulder?" she called softly into the
gloom.
     "In here."
     She followed his voice through a doorway on her left.
This must once have been the living room;  one wall was
dominated by a picture window.  Reflected streetlight
shining through it gave the room its only illumination.
Dana smelled mildew, abandonment, rot.  The recesses of the
room were in shadow, but she could make out a few cartons
and a sleeping bag on the floor.  A shaggy shape silhouetted
against the window turned out to be a ruined chair. Dana
squinted into the darkness in dismay.
     "He may not be the man you remember," Tim had said.
Had Mulder been living in this rat's warren all along?  Fear
for that fine mind stabbed at her.
     "Sorry about the mess, Scully, but it's the maid's day
off."  Typical Mulder; Dana almost smiled with relief.  "I
think the Bureau actually put us up in someplace worse,
once," he continued.  "In Tuskaloosa, remember?  Sorry I
can't offer you much hospitality, but they forgot to stock
the mini bar. Have a seat."
     Dana sat in the moldy chair and waited.
     "I'm going to tell you something that may be hard to
believe," Mulder said.  He grinned at her raised eyebrow..
"OK, so it wouldn't be the first time. "  He turned serious.
"After I left you in New Mexico,  I followed a Navajo boy to
a railroad car buried in the desert . . ."
 

                                         ***
 

     He hadn't known what to expect.  Sweeping away the dust
of years, the boy had shown him the rectangular entrance, so
like the entrance to a cave.  He'd dropped into the cool
interior, the strong Southwestern sunlight shining over his
shoulder.  It cast his shadow into a charnel house.
Mummified by the desert air, the bodies were like kites,
just skin stretched over a fragile framework of bones.  He
took in the misshapen heads and the oversized eye sockets
with a growing wonder and triumph.  Aliens!  He had proof at
last.
     He didn't have her with him, but he had to share this.
On the phone,  he described what he saw, and they shared the
awful moment when he realized his mistake. The vaccination
scars proved these mummies were not his long-sought aliens.
They were humans, whose distorted features now spoke volumes
of agony and fear.  They were the unwanted "merchandise" his
father had warned him about, victims of an atrocity that
changed them from the inside out
     Without warning, the overhead door had closed, plunging
him into darkness.  He could hear the distinctive whomp-
whomp of the helicopters.  Panic.  There was nowhere to
hide.  He felt his way around to a loose wall panel, and
felt behind it.  Nothing but more earth packed solidly
around the car.  He stood with the panel in his hand as the
door opened and a soldier dropped in.
     Mulder  froze as the soldier's glance swept the room,
then came to rest on him.  For a long moment, they stared at
each other.  Then the soldier gave him a nod and climbed
back through the entry.
      "He's not here," Mulder could hear him telling those
above.  He stood rooted to the spot with amazement.  Then
something dropped through the door.
     He recognized the incendiary just in time and threw
himself down behind the loose panel.  The fiery shock wave
slammed the metal panel against his head and seared the skin
of an exposed hand and leg.  He felt the pain and heat as
the fire consumed the bodies.  As he lost consciousness, he
heard the helicopters take off.

     ***
     "Wait a minute," Dana interrupted.  "The soldier saw
you?"
     "I'm sure of it."
     "Then why didn't he say something?  Was he trying to
help you?"
     "That, or get me barbecued."

                                                ***

     The fire was the last thing he would remember clearly
for a long while.  He didn't remember being removed from the
boxcar, but he couldn't have been in there long, or he would
have smothered.   There was a hospital afterward, he was
sure of that.  He was too sick to talk or think much.  He
thought he remembered Albert Hosteen, the code talker, among
the faces bending over him.  "You will be the Truth Seeker,
because you are not afraid," Albert told him though the haze
of his pain and the drugs they gave him.  "You will be lost,
but you will find yourself again."
     Gradually, the pain in his head and in the burned parts
of his skin receded.  But it seemed the  drugs they gave him
never diminished.  He couldn't clear his head.
     "I need you to call someone," he told a nurse one day.
"Her name is Scully."  But he didn't remember the end of the
conversation.  Had he given her a number?  Had she even
replied to his request?
     One day he wasn't in the hospital any more.   The new
place was some kind of institution, but for a long time he
saw it only from the inside.  Nothing he saw gave a clue to
where he was.   The rooms were clean, modern, anonymous.
The staff wore hospital uniforms, but it wasn't a hospital.
There were other inmates -- patients ? -- but Mulder saw
them only in passing as they and he were shuffled from one
room to another:  A dining hall.  A lounge with a TV.  A
courtyard to exercise in.  Most of the others he saw were
older, some in wheelchairs; none responded when he spoke to
them.  The staff all called him Harold.
     At first he was polite.  "There has been a mistake," he
told them.  "I'm not Harold.  You have the wrong man."
Everyone listened, nodded, and assured him it would be all
right.  Everyone treated him with a sort of cheerful
condescension and a firm but wary courtesy.  Just like any
other lunatic.
     Eventually, he got less polite.  The drugs they gave
him after his first escape attempt did more than confuse his
mind; they sapped his will.  "It's for your own good,"
orderlies would say soothingly, as they checked the
restraints.  "We can't let you hurt anyone."
     Worse than the restraints was the Dark Room, where he
lost all track of time, and even of his own body.  He didn't
exist.  What if he forgot, between one breath and the next,
to breathe at all? Sometimes, he saw things against the
blackness that weren't there.  Creatures with exaggerated
eye sockets and long skinny fingers.  Sam, they had Sam.
The Dark Room was supposed to calm him down, but a few
times, he emerged screaming about aliens.  If he'd had any
chance to convince anyone that he was sane, it was gone
after that.  More often, when he came out of the Dark Room,
he'd be subdued, confused.  His eyes would sting and run
with tears from the unaccustomed light.
     Even outside the Dark Room, he lost track of time.  It
never seemed to be winter in the small courtyard.  Did that
mean he was still in the Southwest, or only that not enough
time had passed for a change of seasons?  For mental
exercise, he memorized all the staff.  Their features,
voices, touch, moods were all he had to study.  He tried to
construct a mental clock based on the schedule of their
shift changes, but the effort gave him a headache, and his
clock kept getting confused.
     One doctor seemed to make all the decisions regarding
Mulder.  Compact, dark-haired, seemingly detached, Dr.
Meerman never called Mulder anything but "Harold," both in
front of people or when they were alone.  But studying the
man's unwavering brown eyes, Mulder was sometimes sure that
he knew the truth.
     "You have to work with us, Harold, if we're to help
you," Meermans was saying during one of their brief sessions
together.
     "Cut the crap," Mulder replied wearily.  What had
started as a cry of defiance had, after weeks or perhaps
months, become a tired ritual between them.
     "What good is fighting doing you?  If you want to make
more decisions for yourself, if you want outdoor privileges,
you have to earn them."
     An idea caught at Mulder's tired mind.  Outdoor
privileges?  More freedom?  Perhaps there was a better way
than defiance.  Go along.   Let them think  they were
getting to him.  Sooner or later he'd be found.  Scully
would come for him.  Until then, he'd be Harold.
     He did as he was told.  He schooled himself to answer
to his new name.  He acceded to requests, accepted all
statements made to or about him.  Things became more
pleasant.  The staff rewarded him with smiles, jokes, and
extra desserts slipped with a wink onto his tray.  It was
all false, he told himself, but it was the first pleasant
human contact he'd had in -- how long?  He stopped trying to
figure it out.  Play along, survive, stay out of the
restraints.  Stay in the light.
     Maybe they changed his drugs after that; he couldn't be
sure.  He felt less groggy, more energetic.  But something
more subtle was at work.  His own life -- Fox Mulder's life
-- seemed farther away and less real.  It began to be an
effort to call up his own memories.   He had periods of
amnesia now, or maybe sleepwalking.  Sometimes he woke -- he
thought -- hearing voices.  What, they asked him, was so
important about remaining Mulder?  Mulder who failed to save
his sister, who disappointed his father and FBI mentors,
who was a burden on his partner and his few friends?
     Under the pressure, Mulder could not survive.  "Take a
rest," Harold suggested.  "Let me take care of things for a
while."  Harold was at home here; it was a good idea.  One
day Harold/Mulder went to sleep.  Harold woke up.
 

                                    ***

     "I caved in,"  Mulder said quietly.
     "In response to some classically effective brainwashing
techniques."
     "I know.  I knew the whole time what they were doing to
me, but I couldn't --" his voice caught on the words for a
moment.  "-- couldn't resist.  I cracked."
     This bitterness in his voice twisted Dana's heart.
"Mulder, as a psychologist, you of all people should know --
"
     "That no one can resist those techniques forever.  Yes,
but I cracked within a few months -- a few weeks for all I
know.  Scully, all my life I've kept my beliefs in the face
of everyone telling me I was crazy.  Even though I've had my
moments of doubt, deep down I always believed I could trust
myself to know what was real."
     "And now you're not sure."
     "I let them take my whole reality away from me.  How
can I ever be totally sure again?"
     In the near darkness, Dana could just make out the
tense set of Mulder's shoulders.  His head was bent down in
shame or exhaustion. In the time she'd been listening, the
whole world seemed to have shrunk to this room, and the
sound of his voice.  Now she uncurled from her position on
the wreck of a chair and leaned forward.  She chose her
words carefully.
     "Mulder, everyone has a breaking point.  Everyone.  You
know I've always thought I could count on myself, too, but
after you were gone . . . I let them run me out of the
Bureau.  I ran away.  Worse,  I buried myself in a life that
didn't matter to me, where I didn't feel anything . . . In
spite of everything, you still have yourself, Mulder.
You're still the strongest person I know. "
     A long silence followed her words.  In its hollowness,
Dana became aware of the distant hum of traffic, the sound
of Mulder's breathing, the pulsing of her own blood in her
head. Perhaps she'd said too much, she thought uneasily.  It
was so hard to know, with Mulder, what he could accept.
What she could accept.  Finally, Mulder raised his head.
     "Yes, I still have myself."  His voice was a hoarse
whisper.  He turned his face toward her at last.  "And I
still have you."
     A hard knot of unshed tears formed at the back of her
throat.  All she could do was nod.
     He moved suddenly to kneel beside her chair. "I'm
sorry, Scully," he said softly.  "About dragging you into
this, about everything."   He laid a hand lightly on her
arm.
     "Don't -- Don't apologize," she said tightly, turning
away.  "Mulder, if anyone is sorry in all this, it should be
me."
     Surprised, he sank back on his heels.  "What?  Why?"
     "I should never have let you go to that railroad car
alone.  Maybe, if  I'd been there, at least to keep watch .
 .maybe none of this would have happened."
     "You were trying to save our jobs," he reminded her.
     "I know that's what I said, but. . .  Maybe, as much as
I said I needed the truth, I was just afraid to face it that
way.  And if I hadn't accepted that you were dead, if I'd
kept investigating instead of letting them beat me --"  Her
voice dropped to a whisper.  "I let you down, Mulder.  I'm
sorry."
     Slowly, his hand came up to touch her cheek.  A single
tear escaped her eye and rolled over his fingers.  "Of all
the people I have ever known," he said. "You're the only one
who has never let me down."
     Silently, she pressed her cheek hard against his hand.
Some fierce emotion pulled her slowly from the chair to the
floor beside him.  He leaned forward until his forehead
tipped against hers.  "Scully . . . ."  The tenderness in
his voice was enough to start her tears flowing. Gently, she
rested her hands on his shoulders, then slid them around his
neck and hugged him with all her strength.
     The tide of emotion caught them both by surprise.  She
felt him flinch as if a shock had passed through him, then
his arms came around her tightly.  Without thinking or
weighing consequences, she pulled him hard against her,
savoring the contact.  "I thought I'd lost you," she
murmured against his shoulder, but the words were lost in a
blur of tears.  He felt them only as a buzz against his
skin, and held her tighter.  She felt the giddy sense of
having passed some barrier as she pressed her cheek against
his and tasted salt tears, hers or his, she couldn't tell.
When his lips grazed hers, she felt as though she'd stepped
into an elevator shaft without an elevator.  She wanted to
pull away, and she never wanted to let go.
     Locked in that fierce embrace, Mulder drowned in a
flood of contradictory emotions.  He'd never held Scully
like this, and no one had held him in longer than he cared
to remember.  It felt strange, awkward, naked.  Part of him
wanted to pull away, but he couldn't seem to let go. Her
softness against him seemed to open a great rift inside and
at the same time to heal it.   He felt light-headed and
anchored at the same time. Following instinct more than
thought, he pressed his lips to her forehead, her cheek, and
finally her lips.  He heard her gasp softly, but she didn't
let go.
     Neither of them broke the embrace for a long time.  By
some unspoken agreement  they held on, silently, knowing
that something was being restored to each of them, and that,
perhaps, something new was being born.  At last, Mulder
sighed deeply, and slowly relaxed his hold.  He drew back
slightly, but kept his hands on her shoulders.  Something
had happened, they knew; something was, perhaps, still
happening between them, but now was not the time to deal
with it.
     "There's more I have to tell you," he said quietly.
     She nodded, smiling a little shyly at him.  "I know."
He felt her, not exactly drawing away from him, but putting
aside what had just happened and preparing to listen.  "Tell
me the rest.  What made you remember, what brought you back
to yourself?"
     Surprisingly, a slight smile flickered at the corner of
his mouth.  "That's easy," he said.  "You did."

                                    ***

     The day Mulder came back started as a good day for
Harold.  Only that morning, his doctor and his favorite
orderly had praised him for the progress he was making. Even
without their words, he knew he was getting better.  For
several weeks now he'd been feeling stronger and calmer than
before.  His bad dreams had diminished and the waking
visions and voices were nearly gone.  His mirror told him
that he was putting back the weight he'd lost in his early
days at the center.  He knew its name now, the Karen C.
Tabenhouser Center for Mental Health in Jared, Arizona.  He
accepted that he had been ill when he came there and had
lost much of his memory, but now he was recovering. He
cherished the hope that someday soon he would be able to
leave and live on his own.

     He got outside on the grounds nearly everyday now,
under the watchful eyes of the staff.  Often, he was
assigned tasks. Today, he was washing windows, one of his
favorite jobs.  He found it pleasant and soothing to be
active in the mild Arizona winter.  Better still, he'd been
assigned a partner, a shy, gawky woman named Julie who
helped move his equipment -- buckets, squeegees, rags --
from one window to another. Although she spoke little, he
thought she had an attractive smile.  Without words, they
developed a rhythm for working together, slinging the wet
rags back and forth between them, taking turns refilling the
buckets.

     There was something oddly familiar about this
situation, he thought.  Working in tandem with a woman,
anticipating each other's moves, deftly staying out of each
other's way, it brought him feelings of warmth he couldn't
quite explain.  It lifted this day a little above all the
others.  He was nearly sorry to finish the windows.

     He wondered if Julie would come to the TV lounge this
evening. Someone had caught on to his preference for old
science fiction movies and supplied the lounge with a bunch
of them.  He walked in that early evening anticipating
"Mothra's Revenge,"  to find that someone had accidentally
left on the news.

     It was practically the first newscast he'd seen in --
well, however long he'd been at the center.  On the screen
at that moment, a striking looking flame-haired woman was
testifying in a courtroom.  He didn't bother listening to
what the trial was about; he intended to turn it off as soon
as he found the tape he wanted.  He rummaged through the
collection on the shelf beside the TV, but something kept
drawing his attention back to the screen and that woman.
She was sitting straight and confident in the witness box.
Without really paying attention to her testimony, he knew
she was coolly deflecting cross examination. Against his
will, he looked again, and froze.

     It wasn't her words that kept him thunderstruck in his
place.  It was her *voice.*  It came to him in a swirl of
loose associations: coffee, black;  a raised eyebrow; the
tapping of computer keys; cool, dry hands; a touch that was
somehow firm yet affectionate. Longing swept him; yet he
didn't know what he longed for. He lurched clumsily toward
the television, as though the answer might be apparent
closer up, but  a staff member hurried in just then and
turned it off.

                                                  ***

     "It didn't come back all at once," Mulder said. "In
fact, I still have some gaps.  And what I did remember came
in flashes, out of order, sometimes not making any sense.
But I remembered enough in a few  hours to know that I
needed to get out of there.  The next time I got outside, I
took out the man who was supposed to be watching me and
escaped."  He looked at her soberly.  "If I let them start
in on me again, next time there might have been *nothing*
that could bring me back. "
     Silently, Dana squeezed his hand and waited for him to
continue.
     "I knew they'd be looking for me, so I had to move
fast.  I didn't have the price of a cup of coffee on me,
much less a bus ticket, so I started hitchhiking."
     "Toward Washington?"
     "At first.  Once I saw a copy of Newsweek, I started
heading for Philadelphia."  A flicker of amusement lit his
face.  "*'Beauty and the Beast*, Scully?  Anyway, that's how
I got here."
     He paused as if the long recitation had tired him, and
Scully noticed once again the signs of illness.  He
shivered, although the room was cool, and she reached to
help him pull a blanket around his shoulders.  She wanted
this to be over, wanted them both safe.  But she didn't know
everything yet.
     "There's more you haven't told me," she said gently.
"What about the two dead women?"
     Mulder was silent for so long that she began to get
uneasy.  What was he afraid to tell her?
     "After I'd been hitching a few days, I got a ride from
a woman near Denver.  Her name was Kate.  She was the kind
who collects strays, I guess.  She told me I needed a shower
and a meal more than a ride, and offered to take me home . .

"
                                          ***

     "Do you have someplace to stay when you get to
Philadelphia?" Kate asked as she scooped some coffee into a
coffee machine.  She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as
Mulder himself, with an economical, athletic way of moving.
She turned the machine on and leaned her back against the
counter in a relaxed way.  A very large, hairy dog rested
its snout on her foot with a contented sigh.  Mulder looked
up at her from one of the kitchen chairs.
     "I have a friend there who'll help me."
     "Well, you're in luck; I have a trip planned.  I could
take you as far as St. Louis, but I'm not leaving 'til
Saturday.  You can stay in the apartment over the garage if
you like."
     Saturday . . . that was two days.  Mulder was tempted,
but shook his head.  "No, thank you, I'll just have the
coffee and then I have to be going."
     Her expression sharpened with disapproval.  "Forgive
me, but you look like a few nights in a real bed wouldn't do
you any harm.  And you're not likely to get as far as St.
Louis in two days of standing on frozen roadsides.  I have a
friend at the university there; he knows a lot of people.
He might even be able to arrange you another ride . . .
unless there's a reason you can't stay in one place too
long?"
     Mulder stood up.  "Thank you, Kate, I really appreciate
the chance to get warm."
     "Mulder, how much trouble are you in?"
     He shouldn't have given her his real name; he still
wasn't thinking clearly.  Now, he wondered what he could
safely say to reassure her.
     "I'm not in any trouble with the law that I know of,"
he said finally, hoping it was true. "But there are . . .
people I'd rather not talk to right now.  And I need to see
my friend in Philadelphia as soon as possible."
     Kate digested that while she poured coffee.  Mulder
sipped, letting the warmth run through him like new blood in
his veins.  Let her think he was running from gambling
debts, or leaving his wife, whatever.  Just so she didn't
call the police and inquire about him.
     "Maybe you should call your friend," she said at last.
"Make sure he expects you. I can stand you to the cost of a
long distance call, if it's short."
     "My friend has gotten an unlisted number since we last
talked," he admitted.  He'd already tried calling Scully
collect without success. "But I know if I can get there,
she'll help me."
     Kate looked dubious.  "At least stay tonight.  You
can't go out in this weather."  She smiled.  "Not everyone's
a soft touch like me, who'll pick a drowned rat like you off
the roadside."
     Later Mulder would remember that smile, and see it in
his dreams.  Just then, the warmth was making his eyelids
heavy.  She was right; it was a bad night for sleeping under
an overpass; he could freeze before morning.  "Ok," he said.
"Thank you."
     Hours later, he woke to a woman's scream.
     At first, he thought it was one of his nightmares, or
one of the waking visions his returning memory brought.  But
he was awake, and by moonlight he recognized the plain,
comfortable room Kate had shown him to a few hours ago.  He
heard Kate's dog give two deep, menacing barks, then it was
silent.  Quickly, he pulled on clothes and crossed the space
between the garage and the main house.
     The front door was open, a bad sign.  Instinctively, he
fell into a crouch and moved silently, checking around
corners before rounding them.  In the hall, he saw that her
bedroom light was on.  Hardly breathing, he moved to look
through the bedroom door.
     Inside, Kate was confronting a man whose back was to
Mulder.  She had one hand on the dog's collar, restraining
it.  The guy must have a weapon, Mulder guessed, or she'd be
letting the dog chase him off.  He crept closer to the door,
hoping to take the intruder by surprise from behind, but the
dog suddenly shifted its attention to him, and gave another
bark.
     Damn!  The intruder started to turn around, and then
everything seemed to happen both fast and slowly.  As the
intruder took his eyes off her, Kate bent down and pulled a
pistol from under the bed.  The movement, or perhaps the
click of the hammer, drew his attention back.  Before she
could fire, he reached for her.  Mulder couldn't see what he
did, but suddenly she was reeling back, her eyes blank and
her head distorted and bloody.  Mulder was sure she was dead
before she hit the ground.  The killer turned to Mulder.
His eyes were alight with something like exhilaration and
his mouth was frozen in a wide grin.  His hands were empty.
Mulder stood transfixed.  Then the  huge dog leapt for the
killer's throat, and Mulder came unfrozen and ran.  He
grabbed her car keys from a table on his way out.
 

                         ***

     "There was nothing I could do for her," Mulder repeated
dully.  He'd already said it twice, but Scully could see he
didn't really believe it.
     "You were unarmed," she reminded him.  "It wasn't your
fault."
     "He was there because of me.  I took Kate's car and
drove until I thought it was safe, then stopped and
exchanged license plates with another car.  I drove her car
until it ran out of gas."  Shame tinged his voice.  "I
didn't even stop to report the murder."
     "But how can you be sure it had anything to do with
you?"
     "Because it's happened five times since!  Six women,
Scully, counting the two in Georgetown this week.  I was
there, or nearby, every time."
     Scully stared at him, aghast.  "Six murders?"
     "I reported the others anonymously."  Shame again.  "I
was afraid to go to the police, to be locked up again . . .
I phoned in a description, but I don't think they took me
seriously.  At first, he covered his tracks pretty well.  He
burned down Kate's house -- I heard that on the news -- to
cover the damage to the body.  He hid some of the others.
But now he's getting sloppy."
     Scully shook her head.  "Why?  Why kill these women?"
     "They're not his real target, Scully I am."  Mulder
spoke now with rapid intensity.  "I think Kate was an
accident, maybe his first taste of killing.  And he liked
it.  And he likes having me for an audience. He may have had
orders to kill me in the beginning, but I don't think
anyone's holding his leash now.  I've seen his face when he
kills.  I  think this is a machine for killing;  Scully, I
think it's what he was born for."
     "I don't understand, Mulder.  You think he's a serial
killer, acting under some irresistible compulsion?"
     "Scully, I don't even think he's *human*."
                                    ***
     It was Dana's turn to shiver in the darkness,
considering Mulder's story.  A tiny pulse of fear had begun
to throb in her temple.  "Stay calm, examine this
rationally," she told herself.  Aloud, she asked, "Let me
get this straight, Mulder.  You think this . . . killer is
some kind of *alien*?"
     "Or a human hybrid of some type.  We know they can do
that, Scully."
     Keeping her voice level, she asked, "Do you have any
evidence of this?"
     "The rather spectacular way he kills.  Their heads
*explode* Scully."
     "That could be the result of  an explosive  --"
     "A pretty damn selective one!"
     "Or some weapon of a type we're not familiar with," she
finished.  "What else?"
     He told her about the way the guard's features seemed
to shift during his escape from police custody three days
ago. Scully watched him thoughtfully.
     "Mulder, how long have you been running this fever?"
     "Dammit, Scully!  I'm not delusional.  This *thing* is
real and it has to be stopped."
     A terrible weariness descended on Dana.  She was tired,
frightened -- as much by Mulder's sudden agitation as by his
story.  The rapport that was so powerful between them
earlier seemed to have evaporated.  Still, she pressed on.
     "I'm sorry Mulder, but this doesn't make any sense.
They kept you alive for months.   Now you believe they've
sent this  . . . thing to kill you.  Why didn't they just do
that in the first place?"
     "I don't know.  Maybe it was a form of insurance.  If
you were ever able to prove that anything I said was true,
they could arrange for me to make a reappearance.  Spooky
Mulder, gibbering idiot.  In the state I was in, no one
would ever believe I wasn't always crazy.  I'm not even
convinced the people who kept me are the same ones who want
me dead.  Or maybe --"  He hesitated.
     "What?"
     "Maybe they have orders to keep me alive . . . for
THEM.  For some reason THEY wanted Sam; maybe, for some
reason, they want me alive too."
     Dana stared at him.  <<I should have known this would
come back to Samantha, some way or another>> she thought.
"Mulder, " she said aloud, briskly.  "All of this is nothing
but speculation.  What we have to do now --"
     "Is stop this killer." Abruptly, he got to his feet. "I
need your help, Scully."
     "Mulder --"
     "But if you don't believe me, if you won't help me,
then you'd better go.  Just don't tell anyone that you saw
me, please . . . It was . . .good to see you again."  He
moved to show her to the door.
       "Mulder, wait."  Slowly, Dana hauled herself to her
feet.  She placed a hand on each of his shoulders.
     "Mulder, I don't know the answers, but if you say it's
important we find this guy, then we will.   You've gone
ahead without me for the last time. Just tell me where we
start."
     "Oh, that's the easy part," said Mulder.  "If we wait
long enough, he'll find me."
     Just then, a scream of terror split the night.  Without
hesitation, they both dashed for the street.

     ***
     Under one of the few working streetlights a large blond
man stood holding a young woman.  He gripped her from behind
by the shoulders and her expression was terrified.  The man
stood relaxed, waiting, until Dana was sure he must see them
coming.  Then he smiled, gestured like a magician about to
perform a particularly good trick, and placed his hands on
the woman's temples.  Her head exploded.  It tore itself
apart in a fashion Dana had never seen before.   The man
laughed silently, then stepped casually off into the night.
     For a moment, she was too shocked to move.  Then she
realized Mulder had taken off after the assailant.
     "Mulder, wait" she started off after him, acutely aware
that she was unarmed.  As a medical examiner, she'd had few
occasions to carry a gun, and so far as she knew, Mulder
didn't have one either.  What was he thinking?  She swore as
she followed the sound of footsteps around a corner and
something exploded in sparks above her head. She pressed
myself against the side of a building, then rushed forward,
aiming for the cover of a doorway ahead.  Something bright
whistled toward her face.  Before she could react, someone
hit her from behind, shoving her hard to the pavement.

     ****
     A heavy body pressed her to the pavement, as a gun was
fired over her head. She struggled to roll out from under.
     "Damnit Day, stay down!"  A bright bolt of something
ricocheted off the building wall above.  In the momentary
light, she could see Tim transfixed, gun ready and looking
for a target.  "What are those things he's shooting?"
     She had no answer.  The footsteps had receded.  Silence
fell.  The alley was dark before and behind them.  Slowly,
Tim rose to his feet and helped her up.  Without a word, he
lead her back to where the girl's body lay in the lonely
pool of light under the street lamp. They stopped just
beyond the circle of light.   Grasping Dana's forearm, he
turned her to face him.
     "Dana, just what is going on?"
     Before she could answer, he whirled and pointed the gun
toward the shadow of buildings behind her.
     "Come out slowly with your hands up." Dana turned and
breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the shadow.
     "It's OK,"  she said, laying a hand on Tim's arm, but
the gun did not come down.
      "Did you see him?" Mulder demanded.
     Dana glanced over at the corpse, deeply disturbed and
nodded.  To her surprise, Tim nodded too.  "I saw."  The gun
descended an inch, and Dana decided it was time to make
introductions.
     "Detective Tim Phillips, Philadelphia Police," she
gestured from one man to another.  "Agent Fox Mulder, FBI."
     "Retired," Mulder added.  Damn it, she thought, don't
try to be funny now.  The gun wavered a moment, then Tim
reholstered it.
     "How did you find us?" she asked.
     Tim tapped his nose and grinned.  "I'm a bird dog,
didn't I tell you? I just had to pick up your scent.
Seriously, there are things beat cops know that they aren't
about to share with the FB-Almighty-I.   By the time I got
to Philly, I knew I'd made a mistake leaving you alone here.
I turned around, and came back to find the Bureau
complaining that you'd gone AWOL.  So I looked up some old
friends on the force, spoke to some of their informants,
asked around.  I know something about how you think, you
know.  You did a good job of covering your tracks, Day, but"
another grin "redheads like you aren't that easy to hide."
     Then he turned serious, locking his eyes on hers.
"You're in trouble.  Don't you think you should come back
with me and straighten this out?"
     Dana glanced over at Mulder, who was studiously
examining the pavement a few feet away.  Shadows hid his
face from her.
     She laid a hand on Tim's sleeve.  "I can't Tim.  I'm
going to ask you a big favor -- to just go and pretend you
never saw us."
     He stared at her hand for a moment.  "No way.  How
about you come back with me, and I'll say I didn't see
anyone else?"
     "That's not a bad idea, Scully"  Mulder looked up at
her at last.  "I don't want you to end up a fugitive -- or
worse -- because of me."
     Silently, she looked from one man to the other; without
answering, she walked into the lamplight and knelt beside
the dead woman.   With her back to them, she began an
examination.
     "Judging from her clothes, she could be a prosititute,
"she said.  "The age is going to be hard to determine, but
going by her physique and appearance before death, I'd say
19, or early 20s.  There are several burn marks on her arm;
they look like cigaretter burns.  And some old bruises on
the clavical." She paused for a moment, thinking what a
misery this girl's life must have been.  There were so many
"ordinary" monsters among people that sometimes mutants and
aliens seemed totally superfluous. She moved up to the head.
Silently, Tim and Mulder had come to join her in the light.
     "Damage to the head and neck area is extensive.
Significant bleeding is absent, even though the jugular is
severed.  It's almost as though the wounds were cauterized
as they were made.  This bronzing of the skin is usually a
sign of heat being applied, but there's no evidence of burns
or charring.  The skull is fragmented; the brain is -- well
there's not much left.  It looks like her head just tore
itself apart."
     "What could do that?" asked Tim, but she had no answer.
     Mulder squatted beside her, careful to keep out of her
light.   He'd once been a little squeamish about autopsies,
she remembered, but he seemed to have gotten over it. She
thought fleetingly about how much two years could change,
and how much it didn't.
     "The skull fragments are scattered," he said.
"Wouldn't that indicate that the skull blew apart from
*inside* rather than being crushed from without?"
     She considered.  "Yes, but how?  Why?"  He had a
theory; she could see the familiar glint in his eyes.
     "Scully, the brain, like the rest of us, is mostly
water, right?  What if this killer has the ability to
manipulate matter, maybe raise its temperature?"
     Scully looked dubious.  "Boil  the brain, Mulder?"
     "Maybe.  Or create some kind of chemical reaction
inside all of the cells at once?"
     "I don't know, Mulder, that's --"
     "The biggest load of comic book tripe I've ever heard,"
Tim finished.
     "Do you have a better explanation for what we saw
happen?" Mulder challenged.
     "Look," Scully said reasonably, "There's no way to tell
without examining the body on a microscopic level --"
     "I don't believe you're taking this seriously!" Tim
protested.
     "-- And for that kind of examination," she continued
firmly, "we need to go back to the authorities."
     "No," said Mulder.  "Scully, we don't know who we can
trust in the Bureau.  And we haven't got that kind of time.
He'll kill again as soon as he makes the opportunity."
     Before she could answer, a chorus of sirens began not
far away.  For a moment, they all froze listening
     "We have to get out of here," said Mulder,
straightening up and casting about for an escape route.
"Or, at least I do."  Flashing lights turned into the street
less than two blocks away.  For the second time that night,
Mulder took off into the dark ahead of her.
     "Dammit! Here we go again," thought Dana as she
struggled to stay at his heels, regretting -- not for the
first time -- the extra length of her former partner's legs.
She felt something cool and metallic being pressed into her
hand.   Car keys.
     "I have a rental, bugundy Olds, two blocks that way, "
Tim shouted at them as he ran beside her.  "Split up so
we'll be harder to track.  Anyone who isn't at the car in
ten minutes, gets left behind, got it?"  Then he veered away
down a driveway between two condos.  Dana veered the other
way.

                            ***

     After several minutes of wild zig-
zagging through the decrepit condo complex,
she came out on a quiet residential street
and found the car.  She waited, heart
pounding, until the others joined her.
     "You drive," Tim said shortly, as he
slung himself into the passenger seat.  He
sat sideways, keeping an eye on Mulder, she
realized.  "A friend loaned me his apartment
when I told him I was tired of hotels.
He'll be at his girlfriend's all night. At
least it will give us a place to regroup."
     "I wish I had my medical bag," Dana
fretted as she followed his directions and
pulled onto a commercial strip.  She was
thinking of Mulder's fever again.  Their
adrenalin-fueled escape had taken a lot out
of him, she thought, and she didn't like the
way he looked, pale and shivering in the
back seat.
     "Your wish is my command." A hint of a
grin was back in Tim's voice.  "I picked
your bag and your suitcase up from our hotel
before I came looking for you.  Somehow, I
figured you'd need it."
     Dana glanced over at his profile in the
dark.  She was going to owe Tim Phillips a
lot before this adventure was over, and she
wasn't sure how she felt about that.  She
thought of  that moment of lost control and
emotional release she'd shared with Mulder -
- was it only an hour ago?  She remembered
his breath warm on her cheek, his arms
solidly around her, the fleeting kiss.  She
shook her head hard and told herself sternly
to focus on the present.   Pulling over at
an all-night drug store, she fished a
prescription pad out of her bag, and quickly
wrote a prescription for a broad spectrum
antibiotic.  She sent Tim in to get it,
since her face and Mulder's might be on the
news by now, and waited tensely.
     "Scully?"  Mulder spoke softly.
     "Mmm?"
     "All that time I was telling you what
happened to me, it never occurred to me to
ask. . . I mean, it's been two years.  For
all I know, you could be married --"
     "I'm not."
     "Or engaged --"
     "No."
     "Or, " Mulder tapped on her suitcase
lightly.  "Have . . . other commitments."
     Dana smiled in some amusement.  "Tim's
a friend."
     "He seems a little, um, territorial."
     Still facing away from him, Dana smiled
wider.  No one she'd dated had ever treated
her with the casually proprietary air Mulder
was capable of assuming.  Of course, Mulder
was in a different category from her dates,
she reminded herself.  Mulder was a category
all his own.
     She shelved those thoughts as Tim slid
back into the car.

     ***
     Tim's friend's apartment near the top
of an aging high-rise in a bland communter
neighborhood just on the Maryland side of
the state line. There was a single elevator
and two sets of fire stairs.  Not a good
place to get bottled up in, Dana thought.
     The apartment was modestly furnished,
with a galley kitchen, a dinette set, sofa,
and two chairs.  Its best feature was two
large, low windows that must have flooded it
with light in the daytime.  Now they were
just dark holes, like eyes into the night.
Between them, a door lead from the living
room to a small balcony.  Another door led
to a short hall with a bedroom and bathroom.
Tim went directly to the refrigerator, gave
audible thanks on discovering a six-pack,
and placed three beers in the center of the
dining table.  Dana opened one and put
another back in the fridge.  She pushed a
glass of water and two antibiotic pills at
Mulder instead.
     "You need these more than a beer."
     "Mmmm . . . if you say so, Doctor."
     The two men sat at the dinette table.
Dana leaned back against the refrigerator
studying them.  Outwardly, they were all
contrasts.  Sandy-haired and broad
shouldered, Tim looked like the former
college football player he was.  Sprawled in
his chair, with long legs stretched under
the table and eyes half closed, he'd assumed
the posture Dana thought of as Laid-Back
Tim.  He looked like a sleepy bear.  But she
knew it was an act, one she'd seen him pull
on suspects or people he wanted information
from.  In reality, she thought, he was as
relaxed as a tiger waiting to strike.
     Across the table, Mulder had gone
remote and unreadable, his eyes focussed on
nothing in the room.  Dana remembered that
look; it could cover anything from powerful
emotion to deep thought.  Or just
exhaustion. A twitch of his ankle betrayed
the tension he was under.  At any moment,
she expected him to rise and pace the room
with the compressed energy of a caged
animal.
     "Well?"  Tim broke the silence.  "I
paid a lot for this story,  Dana.  Don't you
think it's time I heard it?"
     Dana nodded, and took a deep breath.
"About two years ago . . . No, the real
beginning is when I started working with
Mulder four years ago --"
     Mulder stirred to life and leaned
across the table, interrupting her.  "The
real beginning is even earlier than that.
Have you ever heard of the Bureau's X Files?
"

     ***

     It took a while to tell the entire
story, with Mulder and Scully alternating
parts.  When they were through, she put her
hands firmly on Mulder's shoulders and
pointed him toward the bedroom.
     "You need rest."
     "Scully, he. . .it  . .is still out
there--"
     "And you're in no shape to confront it
now.  Get some sleep.  Tim and I will keep
watch."
     Reluctantly, Mulder saw that she was
right, and dragged himself off to bed.
     In the living room, Tim sighed deeply
and stretched.  He flicked on the balcony
light and went out to stand looking over the
dark neighborhood.  Dana followed.
     After a few minutes of silence, he
said, "I'm sorry, Dana."
     "You think he's crazy?"
     "You don't?  I mean, I understand
loyalty to your partner, but cripes, he's
talking about space aliens and monsters.
This is what you're putting your career,
your life, on the line for?  Your friend
needs help, Dana."
     Dana leaned her elbows on the railing
and sighed.  Her temples were beginning to
throb with the start of a headache.  "Tim, I
don't know how to say this but . . .
Mulder's more than a little 'out there' but
he's not always wrong."
     "See reason, Day.  The man admits he's
spent most of the last two years heavily
drugged, in an institution.  You can't
believe this story about alien assassins."
     The throbbing in Dana's head grew
worse.  Her head spun from lack of sleep.
<<Of course, he doesn't believe,>> she
thought.  << Would I, if I hadn't seen what
I've seen?>> "Do you have another
explanation for what we saw tonight?," she
asked.
     "No, but there has to be one.  A
*scientific* explanation.  That's what I'd
expect you to say.  Dana, please, you've
*got* to turn him in."
     At that moment, Dana became aware that
the pounding  vibration she felt was not
inside her head.  She looked up to see two
lights in the sky growing larger as they
approached.  It took a moment for her tired
brain to understand what she was seeing.
Helicopters.  Furious, she turned on Tim.
     He didn't try to lie.  "I signalled
them when I turned on the balcony light.
You got a hearing from me, Dana, which is
more than you would have gotten from most
people. "  He looked at her steadily and
sadly.  "Don't try to warn Mulder; they've
had the doors downstairs covered since we
got here, and the SWAT team is landing on
the roof. It will be safer for him if they
take him asleep.  I don't want to see either
of you hurt."
     Ignoring him, she ran into the living
room, yelling for Mulder, and grabbed her
medical bag.  She skidded to a stop in
surprise.  The door to the apartment was
open.  The area around the lock was busted
and distorted, the wood fibers sticking out
at crazy angles.  In the middle of the room
stood the killer.  Dana looked into his eyes
and saw . . . nothing.  No human feeling
that she could recognize.  How did he find
us, she thought inanely.  We parked the car
out front, was that it?  Or could he just
sniff us out somehow, like some relentless
bloodhound?
     Tim's reached for his holstered pistol.
With a bound that was faster than any human,
the killer leapt to Dana and grabbed her
around the neck.  "I'd put that down, if I
were you," he said, and smiled.  He looked
strong enough to break her neck.   He shook
Dana and she dropped the medical bag.
"There's only one thing missing," said the
killer.  The door to the hallway opened.
"Mulder,"  the killer purred.  "Good.  They
are quite insistent that I get on with
finding you, but now that we're together, we
can have one more good time."
     Watching him coil his fingers through
Scully's hair, Mulder prepared himself to
spring, then froze.  In his mind  he saw a
picture of Dana's head distorting as Kate's
had, tearing itself apart like the girl
under the streetlight.  Fear for her choked
him.  The creature grinned at him again,
smugly.
     Then Scully caught his eye with hers.
As clearly as ever, he understood her.  "I'm
making my move," her look said, just before
she plunged the scalpel she'd palmed from
the medical bag into the creature's upper
thigh.
       With a scream of surprise and pain,
it dropped its hold on Dana and staggered
back.  Mulder was already running at it.  He
had never played football, but he
instinctively bent low, driving his shoulder
into the thing's midsection, taking
advantage of the backward momentum it
already had.  He didn't even hear it when
the creature's head cracked the large window
behind it.  He just kept driving as the two
of them fell through the glass and over the
windowsill.
     For a moment, they hung together on the
edge of the darkness, their bodies
outstretched above nothing, gravity sucking
them toward the ground below.  Mulder felt
his feet leave the floor behind him, and his
head tip downward.  "This is really it," he
thought, momentarily more surprised than
frightened.  Then, grimly he thought, "If
this is what is costs to get this thing,
it's worth it."
     Then before he could apprehend what
happened, his adversary was falling away
from him, arms outstretched like a lover.
And Mulder was hanging head down, twenty-
five stories above the ground.  Overcome
with vertigo, he twisted his head around to
look up, and saw Scully and Tim Phillips,
pale with fear, each holding one of his
feet.
                               ****
     Hours later, in the soft, pink light of
dawn, Dana walked by the side of the
Reflecting pool, heading toward the Lincoln
Memorial.  The city had not yet woken up,
and Dana had not been to bed.  The long
night --including the trip to Bureau
headquarters, the autopsy of the killer, and
hours of interrogation -- should have left
her exhausted.  Instead she felt strangely
calm and alert, and more alive than she had
in the previous two years.  The Bureau was
supplying a room in a nearby motel, but Dana
didn't feel like sleep.  She walked the Mall
as she'd done many times when she'd worked
in Washington.
     At a familiar bench, she paused and
sat.  As Dana watched, the sunrise inched
its way across the city, warming first one
monument then another with a golden glow.
Only a few clouds caught and held the
moment's radiance.  In a few hours, Dana
knew, the air would be heavy and muggy, but
just then it was as soft and caressing.  In
the distance, the sound of a single car
presaged the flood of commuters and
residents who would soon bring the city to
noisy, busy life.
     "Is this seat taken?"
     Without turning, she smiled.  "No, but
I should warn you, I haven't had my first
cup of coffee yet."
     From behind, Mulder reached an arm in
front of her, dangling a steaming styrofoam
cup.  "I came prepared."
     He sat beside her, close enough for
their shoulders to touch.  He was still
keyed up from the night before, she saw.
"Well, did they let you stay for the
autopsy?" he asked.
     Dana nodded.  "I assisted."
     "And?"
     "He's human, Mulder.  There were some
oddities, abnormalities in organ size and
structure, but nothing to indicate
extraterrestrial origin."
     "That's impossible!"
     "We did the autopsy in a level 4
containment unit to be safe, but there was
no sign of toxic body fluids or exotic
retroviruses.  Maybe something will turn up
in the blood and DNA tests.
     "And maybe we'll never see the real lab
results," Mulder said cynically.
     Dana shook her head.  "This killer died
in Maryland.  There's a turf fight going on
you wouldn't believe between the Bureau and
the state M.E.'s office.  Basically, the
Maryland attorney general's office has
orders not to let anything pertaining to
this case out of its sight.  And to keep us
involved."
     "The attorney general?"
     "Tim's father."
     "Oh."
     "He's not a bad guy, Mulder.  I almost
can't blame him.  Who'd believe without
seeing what we've seen?"
     Mulder didn't answer.  She wondered
what he was thinking.   "If there's
something there Mulder, we'll find it.  They
won't get away with hiding it this time."
     Mulder nodded, but he wondered.  He
wondered how long it took for news of their
wild night to reach a certain office where a
gray shadow of a man smoked his cigarettes
and spun his plots.  The killer's body had
been out of Mulder's sight for only a brief
period as they travelled from the high-rise
to Bureau headquarters.  Was it possible
that it had been replaced during that drive?
Was it possible that the forces he and
Scully had opposed so long thought far
enough ahead to have a human replacement
ready for just such an emergency?  He had no
doubt that they could justify such an
action.  They wouldn't get away with it
forever, he vowed.  If it took the rest of
his life, he'd have the truth.
     Aloud, he said, "I spoke to Skinner."
He gave Scully a wry smile.  "Stopping a
serial killer goes a long way toward
rehabilitation, it seems. He's asked me to
come back to work.  I got the distinct
impression that he intends to treat my two-
year absence as some kind of strange but
acceptable vacation."
     Dana nodded.  There were probably many
elements of Mulder's return that Skinner
would prefer not to deal with.  But he was
willing to risk asking Mulder back; if that
was all he was willing to risk, it was still
something.  "That's wonderful, Mulder.
You've got your life back.  That is what you
want, isn't it?"
     "Sure."  He looked away.  "And you
still have your job.  You may even be famous
again.  You'll be going back to Philadelphia
when they finish interrogating us?"
     "Mmmm . . . Maybe not.  I had my own
talk with Skinner.  He made me the same
offer."
     Mulder still didn't look at her.  He
seemed to be holding his breath.
     "I said yes."
     Mulder exhaled.  He turned to her
intently.  "It's going to be dangerous, more
dangerous than ever after everything that's
happened."
     "I know," she said, accepting it.
     For a moment, as she met his eyes, she
remembered the powerful release of emotion
they'd experienced in each others' arms the
night before.  In the light of day, it
seemed unreal.  Someday soon they might have
to deal with what had awakened then, she
thought, one way or another.  Whatever
happened, she planned to let nothing
important go unsaid between them again.
     "Come on " Mulder said, standing
suddenly and smiling.  He put a hand out to
help her up.  "You can buy me breakfast.
Then we have a lot of work to do."
                               --- End ---