by beduini
beduini2@yahoo.com
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Nine
Skinner Residence
 

Waking in the middle of the night to the summons of the telephone
never meant good news, and a chill ran down his spine when he heard
her voice issue one single word from the other end.

"Sir?"

"What is it, Scully?" he asked thickly, his voice rough from sleep.
He didn't need to ask - he knew it was about Mulder.  With the
appearance of Krycek in his parking garage and the connection with
the murdered priest it was only a matter of time before something
else happened.

Her voice was controlled but she spoke a little too quickly for
normal circumstances.  "Agent Mulder and I will be going out of town
for a few days, Sir, pertaining to the case we were assigned today.
We'll check in as soon as possible, as always."

He paused a moment at the oddness in the way she spoke.  But he was
relieved that it wasn't another Mulder disappearance or worse.  At
least she'd be there to back him up this time, hopefully keeping him
out of trouble.  "See that you do, Agent Scully," was all that he
said, and with that she hung up.

Skinner replaced the phone in the cradle and laid back against the
pillow.  'As always' stuck out like a sore thumb, although the
entire conversation was unusual.  Mulder and Scully didn't make it a
habit of informing him about their whereabouts and he usually found
out about their forays out of town after the fact.  But it was the
two words, 'as always' that made up his mind.  Scully was placing
him on alert.  He would make sure he knew exactly where Mulder and
Scully were and what they were doing by whatever means he had
available to him.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

Hanging up the telephone, Scully turned her back on Krycek, who was
standing in front of the window looking out into the darkness.  She
shrugged on her jacket as Mulder walked out of the bedroom pulling
his T-shirt down over his abdomen.  He had put on his tennis shoes,
but hadn't bothered to tie the laces.  Scully passed by him on her
way back to the bedroom to collect her weapon and cel phone - Bryan
Ferry was still playing softly on the stereo and she hit the power
button with the heel of her palm as she passed by.

Nothing like the appearance of Alex Krycek to kill a mood.

At Krycek's insistence, Mulder drove the three of them to the
airport in Scully's car.  This time, they would be traveling on a
commercial airline courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Krycek had directed them to Baltimore where he'd reserved three
tickets on a 5:30 a.m. flight and Mulder raced down the 95 toward
BWI, unconcerned as Scully usually was with the posted speed limit.
There was hardly anyone on the road at this hour, anyway.

All joking about her propensity for speeding aside, he was both
relieved and concerned that Krycek agreed to bring Scully along this
time.  In fact, it hadn't even been an issue, it was just assumed
that she would accompany them both.  If she could indeed be tracked
via the implant in her neck, then Krycek was no longer concerned if
the men behind the resurgence of the conspiracy knew her location.
It was certain that news of his own reinstatement at the Bureau was
already common knowledge.  Sadly, the halls of the Justice
Department could not discriminate between the just and those unknown
informants who were willing to share information for the right
price.  Based on this it was evident that, as opposed to the last
time, their involvement wasn't meant to be a secret.

Scully had been silent since she'd dressed and pulled a few things
together for their trip.  He knew from the expression she wore that
she was quietly seething in the presence of Alex Krycek.  But he
also knew that she was thinking about the situation, breaking it
down and examining the evidence like the top-rate investigator that
she was.  He would have beat the crap out of Krycek himself if he
hadn't held a gun to his head the last time he showed up for a road
trip.  He wasn't one of his favorite people now, but knowing that
Krycek was trying to achieve the same objective that they sought, he
could only try to keep the peace until they'd finished what they
started.

After that, Krycek was on his own.

In fact, if he wasn't doing all of the driving, and nighttime
driving at that, he'd focus on Krycek's thoughts for more
information about where they were going and what he knew about the
E.B.E.  But as tired as he was, he knew it was doubtful he'd be able
to make a connection, let alone sustain it for a decent amount of
time.  He'd have to make due with what Krycek was willing to divulge
for the time being.

Scully, however, had evidently reached her limit on unanswered
questions, preferring to take the direct approach.

"What exactly is your involvement with Antonio Cardinale, Krycek?"
she asked in her most severe voice, breaking the silence the three
of them had endured since they'd belted themselves into the car.

Krycek held his mouth in a straight line, staring at the road ahead
from the middle of the back seat.  "There is no involvement," he
replied.

"You deny that you were present when Cardinale shot Father
Schroeder?"  Scully asked, her lips pursed and her eyebrow raised in
question.  She received no confirmation and she looked over at
Mulder, who was staring ahead, down the road out into the darkness.

If he was surprised to hear the news, he didn't show it.

"I wasn't there," Krycek said after a long silence, his timbre less
defensive as the sound of the tires on the asphalt marked the
passing seconds.  "But I know who's behind it."

"Who?"  Scully asked, still on the offensive as she turned slightly
in her seat to make eye contact with him.

Krycek swallowed, looking back at her steadily.  These two could
glare at each other for days without flinching and Mulder would be
hard-pressed to choose which one would falter first.  He doubted it
would be Scully, knowing the strength of her will.

Scully had read an answer to her question in Krycek's steady gaze.
"Smoking man," she replied flatly, looking at him with contempt.

Mulder began to grit his teeth.  He'd figured out that old C.G.B.
was involved somehow, but hearing it confirmed only infuriated him.
He glanced at Scully, seeing the frustration in her posture as well.
She turned and faced forward once more, letting out a huff and
resting her elbow against the car door, covering her mouth with her
hand as she looked out the side window into the darkness.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

They were going to Sedona.

Their flight connected through Atlanta, where they transferred from
a MD-80 to a Boeing 757 bound for Phoenix Sky Harbor International
Airport.  Mulder and Scully were assigned to seats D and F with seat
E vacant, while Krycek was seated on the other side of the plane,
four rows ahead.  Mulder had taken care of the seat assignments
himself and it was the most distance between Krycek and he and
Scully that he could arrange without switching someone to first
class.

Scully had spent most of the first leg of the trip staring out the
window at nothing but clouds.  Mulder knew she needed time to think,
to deal with her emotions and set them aside so that she could focus
on the work ahead of them.  He had spent six months coming to terms
with Alex Krycek and all of the damage that he had done in their
lives.  He did not forgive him, but he knew that Krycek wanted to
put and end to the conspiracy once and for all just as badly as he
did.  He had to put that above his personal feelings about the man's
lack of morals and the methods by which he achieved his goals.

He had attempted to tune into Krycek's thoughts during that flight
to Atlanta, but he was drained from the lack of sleep and couldn't
focus enough to catch more than the random thoughts of the other
passengers.

After they were airbound out of Atlanta, Scully turned toward her
partner, her eyes weary but determined.  "Why Sedona, Mulder?" she
asked, her voice belying her fatigue.

She was letting him know that she'd put her issues with Krycek
aside, temporarily.  She had been considering the question of their
destination off and on since they left Baltimore, and now she wanted
his input.

Mulder unfastened his seatbelt and moved the arm rest out of the way
so he could stretch out and scoot closer to her.

"It makes sense, Scully," he replied.  "Some people believe that
Sedona is the place the Native Americans called Nawanda, a place of
spiritual growth where they would seek what the Great Spirit wanted
for their lives.  It's been said that 'Star People' had touched down
in ancient times, and that the Native Americans kept in contact with
other Galactic peoples for centuries.  The special energies and
frequencies in Sedona make it easier for them."

"Special energies?" Scully replied, watching him with a mixed look
of skepticism and curiosity.

"The Vortexes.  Sedona has four major and several other minor
vortexes within a ten mile radius."

"Vortexes," she parroted.

"Energy fields, positive and negative, yin and yang.  Like what we
experienced on our first case together in Bellefleur when the rental
car went ballistic."

She raised her eyebrow at him in acknowledgement and he continued
with a slight grin at the shared memory.  "Biologist Lyall Watson
wrote that the earth's magnetic field is riddled with local
deviations and irregularities.  These faults have been very
carefully plotted and the most persistent of them have become quite
notorious, such as the Bermuda Triangle and Stonehenge.  Native
Americans believe there's a powerful vortex on the island of Kauai,
also red-rock country, like Sedona."

"So what is it in the red rocks that makes it so powerful?" she
asked.

"Iron oxide and silica," he replied.

Her brow furrowed as her mind processed and catalogued all of the
information he'd just spewed.  She knew iron oxide and silica were
good conductive agents.  "So you're saying that because of its
geological makeup, Sedona is some kind of Grand Central for
spacecraft?"

"Spacecraft, witches, New-Agers, metatphysicians, psychics,
astrologers, mediums, healers, vegetarians..."

The last part earned him a slight smile and arched brow.  "That begs
the question, why haven't we been to this place before?"

"Too obvious," Mulder replied.  "Harmonic convergence and all of
that crap."

She let out a soft snort before falling silent again, lost in
thought.  Mulder was reminded of the time he had belittled her
sister's beliefs in alternative forms of spiritual enlightenment.
'Just because it's positive and good doesn't make it silly or
trite!' Melissa had told him when he called it crap to her face,
trying to get him to pull his head out of his ass and admit his
feelings for the younger Scully.

He reached out with his right hand to take Scully's left, his
fingers glancing over the ring like a testimonial.  It took them
more than six years since that day, but they finally got one thing
right - they both knew how they felt about each other.  He had to
give Melissa credit for seeing it so clearly then.  He only wished
that she was here to see it now.

Scully herself had come a long way in the last several years toward
accepting some of the less traditional methods of healing and
investigation.  She told him about the holistic healer she'd called
in to help her friend Daniel when he'd slipped into a coma.  She
believed that it was the alternative approach, rather than medicine,
that may have brought Daniel out of the coma and back to the road of
recovery.

Much like Melissa had done to Scully's comatose body all those years
ago.

Scully looked up at him, their eyes meeting.  She had endured more
than anyone because of the project and the conspiracy surrounding
it, and he reached over with his left hand, gently running a finger
down the side of her face.  "After this is all finished, Scully, I
promise you that justice WILL be served and the people who have
caused so much suffering because of this project will be held
accountable."

Her eyes clouded and she let out a long breath.  So many people had
suffered.  She knew it would be fruitless to even try to seek
restitution - these people were constantly beyond the reach of the
law and to expect results through the judicial system would be a
wasted effort.  But she did believe that Mulder would do his best
and make every possible effort toward that goal.

"I hope so, Mulder," she said wearily, laying her head back against
the seat and closing her eyes.  "God, I do hope so."
 

XxXxXxXxX Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.
 

By 8 a.m. Skinner knew that they had purchased two tickets to
Phoenix via Atlanta, with another connecting flight to Flagstaff.

He confirmed through Delta Airlines that Agents Dana Scully and Fox
Mulder had indeed boarded both the Atlanta and Phoenix flights, but
he wasn't aware that Alex Krycek was with them, and under an assumed
name, had purchased his own ticket with cash.

Skinner had his suspicions, though.  They didn't take off abruptly
in the middle of the night without a very good reason, Mulder's
enthusiasm notwithstanding.  Since it was officially the weekend, if
they'd gone to Las Vegas he might have assumed otherwise, having
noticed the nice gold ring she'd been wearing the last couple of
days.  And Scully didn't seem to him like a woman who under any
amount of persuasion would agree to run off to get married in the
Elvis Chapel of Love.

So he called the Phoenix Field Office and asked the S.A.C. if he had
anyone available to go down to the airport with a digital camera and
get shots of every passenger boarding the 10:51 a.m. Mesa Airlines
flight to Flagstaff.  It took a little negotiating and he ended
owing the man a favor, but by 2:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time he had
the proof via email on the screen in front of him.  Alex Krycek was
with them.

One telephone call ensured that he was on United Flight 1493 to
Phoenix out of Dulles at 5:45 p.m.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

Mulder drove the rented Ford Crown Victoria past the tall pine trees
and out of Flagstaff on Highway 179. The window was cracked on his
side so that he could feel the crisp, pine-scented air on his face,
helping him stay awake and alert as he navigated the mountain road.
The road edged a few very steep drops and he forced himself not to
look out at the breathtakingly beautiful mountains capped with
clouds.  Thankfully, he'd stopped at a news stand in Phoenix and
picked up some sunflower seeds.

Scully had fallen asleep on his shoulder after their conversation
when they'd left Atlanta and slept until their approach into
Phoenix.  He was going on 32 hours since he last slept, and as the
steep road gave way to the safety of the forest in Oak Creek Canyon
he allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

Neither Mulder nor Scully had spoken to Krycek unless completely
necessary since they had disembarked from the plane in Phoenix and
caught the puddle-jumper to Flagstaff.  Krycek wasn't much of a
conversationalist, but even if he had been they'd kept it strictly
business.  They were going to get the job done and get the Hell out
of there, which made it a quiet drive.

As they neared Sedona, Mulder began to grow aware of his retreating
fatigue, replaced by a feeling of buoyancy that left him fidgeting
in his seat.  To his right, Scully was sitting up straight, her blue
eyes wide as she watched the beautiful scenery unfold, mile after
mile.  Every once and a while a slight smile would float across her
lips, followed by a deep breath and slow exhalation of air.  Then
she would glance at him, their eyes meeting briefly.  He wondered if
she was feeling it, too.

It really was beautiful.  Maybe they'd come back here when they
could enjoy it, just the two of them, he thought.

"Now that we're here, where exactly are we going?" Mulder asked
Krycek as they crossed into the Sedona city limits.  There were a
lot of galleries, he noticed, but he didn't think they would be
doing any gazing at art on this particular visit.  He had been
feeling uneasy about Krycek's lack of forthcoming information,
telling them only what was necessary when it was necessary.

"Straight ahead," Krycek replied.  A few minutes later they reached
a stoplight at the crossroad to Highway 89A, and Krycek instructed
Mulder to turn right and follow the highway.

Instead, Mulder pulled into the parking lot of a Burger King and
stopped the car.  "I need to stretch my legs for a minute," he said,
opening the door and climbing out.  "Scully, you want something to
drink?" he asked, bending over and looking back at her through the
open car door.

She was already unfastening her seatbelt.  "I'll get it myself."

As they walked toward the entrance, Krycek got out of the back,
leaning against the car in the direct sunlight.

"Mulder, what's going on?" Scully asked as he opened the door to the
restaurant for her and followed her in.

"Don't you feel it, Scully?"

"Feel what?"

"The energy.  I feel like I could run a marathon and just an hour
ago I could barely keep my eyes open.  It's amazing."

She stepped into line behind a thirtysomething couple in matching
pink polo shirts scrutinizing the overhead menu with hesitation.
Mulder was headed for the men's room.

"What do you want to drink?" Scully called to him.

"Whatever you're having," he replied as the couple in front of her
argued about sodium versus fat content.

In the restroom, Mulder entered one of the stalls and turned the
latch behind him.  He sat on the toilet without dropping his jeans,
and took a deep breath, willing his breathing to slow.  Closing his
eyes, he focused on the light, expanding the point wider and broader
until it filled him.  It came so quickly that he nearly lost
concentration, all of his senses suddenly aware of everything within
and surrounding him.  The voices were crystal clear...someone
considering if sugar wouldn't be preferable to Nutrasweet...Scully
wondering if she should get two sodas or one super-size...

He paused on Scully a moment, feeling the warm liquid sensation of
her thoughts inside of his head.  Although she was merely ordering a
soda, it reminded him of the evening before, hearing her thoughts
while he was inside of her.  But sex wasn't something he should be
dwelling on at the moment, he decided, so he moved on.  Just beyond
was his intended target...

Krycek.

He was watching a woman in shorts at a gas station across the
Highway, filling up her Jeep Wrangler.  Krycek was thinking about
sex, too, but not in a complimentary way for the innocent young
woman - he had her placed in a position of submission but extreme
willingness to perform to his whims.  Mulder stayed with him through
the fantasy, though he was thoroughly disgusted, finding Krycek's
thoughts dirtier than any triple X film he'd ever watched.  Part of
the reason was he knew that it had little to do with sex and
everything to do with control.

Krycek had some serious control issues.

As the girl unknowingly climbed into her vehicle and drove away,
Krycek's thoughts shifted away down the highway, wondering how far
they were from enchantment.  Scully must have walked out of the
restaurant at that moment and drew Krycek's attention.  Rather than
risk hearing something equally disgusting about his future wife and
being forced to beat the living crap out of the sick fuck before
they got where they were going, he broke the connection, blowing out
a long breath.

Opening his eyes, he took a few more deep breaths.  He'd barely
broken a sweat and he wiped his brow with tissue, surprised.  He'd
been so tired earlier.  Perhaps the energy from the vortexes was
enhancing his ability, he guessed.  Never since he'd learned how to
use the ability had it been so quick or easy - he felt like he could
have gone on for hours.  Exiting the stall, he washed up in the
sink, running his hands through his hair before drying them on a
paper towel and going out to rescue Scully from probable, and
gratefully, incognizant defamation.

Along the way, he wondered what Krycek's twisted idea of enchantment
might be.

Krycek was already sitting in the back seat and when Mulder appeared
Scully climbed into the passenger seat, handing him the super-size
diet cola as he slid in behind the wheel.  He accepted the drink,
took a sip, handed it back to her with a look of gratitude and then
folded his hands in his lap.

Krycek was looking out the window, and after a moment, realized that
Mulder hadn't started the car.  He looked up at him, and saw that he
was being watched through the rearview mirror.  "Down the highway,
make a left out of the parking lot," he said.

"No," Mulder said firmly, "not until you tell us exactly where we're
going and what you think we're going to find once we get there."

"You're wasting valuable time," Krycek replied.  The muscle in his
jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth, and he and Mulder stared at
each other for a long, tense moment before Krycek assented.
 
"Alright."  He paused, letting out an impatient huff.  "We need to
get to a canyon just off of the highway.  Near one of the major
vortexes."

"Why?" Scully asked, "what's in the canyon?"

"The E.B.E.," Krycek replied.  "We may already be too late.  They're
not going to leave it there for long, they'll want to take it
somewhere secure to be analyzed."

Scully and Mulder exchanged a look.  "Then why did they leave it in
the canyon?" Mulder asked.

"It needs the energy.  Look, can we at least talk about this on the
way?" Krycek asked impatiently, "The name of the canyon is Boynton.
Boynton Canyon."

Mulder started the car and Scully pulled the roadmap courtesy of
Lariat Car Rental out of the glove box.  Her finger quickly ran up
the line representing Highway 89A.  "It's right here, Mulder.
Boynton Canyon."

Mulder pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway.  He was
intrigued by the notion that the E.B.E. needed energy from the
vortex.  If the raised energy level in Sedona affected him so
strongly, what would direct contact with a major vortex do to the
E.B.E.?
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Ten
Sedona, Arizona
 

'So, Enchantment is a resort,' Mulder thought as they made the turn-
off on Dry Creek Road from Highway 89A.  After nearly five minutes,
a sign indicated that Boynton Canyon was to the left, so he followed
that road, then made another right when the sign indicated the
canyon was that way.

He could see the grandeur of the canyon from the road.

Public parking and access to the canyon was ahead to the right,
whereas the resort was straight ahead on the access road.  In the
distance he could just make out the tall green fencing commonly
found around tennis courts.  After all, there's architecture that's
unobtrusive, and then there's necessity.  'What's a resort without
tennis?' he thought.  No doubt there was a nice green golf course
nearby as well.

There were a lot of cars in the public parking lot near Boynton
Canyon, and Mulder braked in the middle of it, just looking at them
all.

"Am I supposed to believe that there's an extraterrestrial
biological entity sitting out there in a public park filled with
tourists?" Scully asked, her voice flat as she looked over the lot.

"Maybe it has the ability to make itself invisible," Mulder replied,
not without mirth, turning his face to offer a grin when she shot
him a look.  She didn't smile, but he did notice a spark in her eyes
indicating that she appreciated his tease.

"It's there," Krycek replied with conviction, leaning forward in his
seat.  "Park the car."

Mulder pulled into a nearby parking space and stopped the car, then
sat back in the seat, dropping his hands from the steering wheel.

"Now what?" he asked Krycek in the rearview mirror.

"Let's go find ourselves an alien," Krycek replied, a near grin on
his face as he opened the back passenger side door.  He almost
seemed like he was having fun.

Scully glanced at Mulder and he met her look, then they both
unlatched their seatbelts and climbed out of the car.  Scully looked
ahead toward the trail, assessing the area.  Of course, she hadn't
thought to wear suitable shoes.  But then again, she hadn't been
forewarned that they would be hiking in Arizona.  She'd get by,
though - she always did, Mulder reminded himself.  She never
complained about it, either.

She had plenty of other things to say, however.

"Mulder," she whispered as they followed a few yards behind Krycek
through the parking lot, "you can't possibly be falling for this."

"What do you mean?" he asked her, leaning closer.

To their left a group of middle aged women gathered around another
woman, who was addressing the group.  The speaker was tall, with a
long silver braid and wearing a black turtleneck, long black skirt
and what looked like riding boots, black.  There were silver cuff
bracelets on each of her wrists and large silver hoops dangling from
her earlobes.  Around her neck she wore a long silver chain with
what looked like a large quartz crystal hanging from the end.

"...this vortex is a balance between the masculine energy, which we
talked about when we visited the Airport Vortex, and feminine
energy, as we experienced at Cathedral Rock.  Finding a balance of
energy is extremely important, as it is in our every day lives.
Having a masculine/feminine balance is important to our
relationships as it strengthens those qualities that make
relationships work well, honesty, openness, intimacy and
commitment."

The woman started walking as she spoke and the others followed,
about ten yards behind Scully and Mulder.  "As we walk toward the
vortex, we'll also have an opportunity to talk about the medicine
wheel and the healing effects it can have..."

"I mean," Scully continued, "that I find it extremely unlikely that
we're going to find anything extraterrestrial in a canyon full of
people looking for some meaning or purpose to their comfortable
lives in what appears to be the New Age equivalent of Disneyland."

Mulder let out a snort.  "You think they're charging admission?" he
teased.

"...ask that you please do not disturb or remove anything from the
area, even the smallest rock," the woman speaking to the group was
saying, "out of respect for the Native American spirits who reside
here.  If you would like a vortex-charged item to take home with
you, such as a crystal or a chakra stimulating pin or bracelet
specially designed by local Native American artisans, there are
special items available through our catalog or life-force shop that
the spirits have given us permission to offer to you on their
behalf.  And as participants in this tour, we can offer these items
to you today at an extra fifteen percent off of the original price."

Scully raised an eyebrow at Mulder as if to say, 'see what I mean?'
and he grinned back at her.

She always was a tough sell.

Krycek was waiting at the entrance to the trail, pressing against
his temples with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

"How far, do you think?" Mulder asked him, stepping onto the soft
dirt at the entrance to the trail marked BOYNTON CANYON TRAIL NO.
47.  He looked up at the sky, noticing that the ominous clouds that
had been hugging the mountaintops as they drove into town were now
growing darker and moving their way.

"That's up to you, wonderboy," Krycek replied with a smirk, dropping
his hand to his side.  "Ask It how we can reach It."

Mulder stood still, placing his hands on his hips as he looked down
the trail, seeing several hikers coming and going in opposite
directions.  "It doesn't work that way.  I have to have a target to
focus on and this place is full of people who will create
interference."
 
Scully was looking down the trail with her head cocked to one side,
almost as if she recognized someone or something, and she started
walking down the path by herself without turning to look back at her
companions.  Mulder noticed her out of the corner of his eye.
"Scully, what are you doing?" he called out to her, and when she
didn't reply, he followed, catching up to her with several long
strides.

"Scully?" he said again, "what is it?"

Scully shook her head, standing still but continuing to look down
the path.  "I was wrong, Mulder," she said.  "I think there may be
something here."

"What?" he asked, and when she didn't reply, he touched her face and
turned it toward him.  "Scully?" he said again.  She was beginning
to make him feel a little nervous...reminding him once again that
she carried an electronic device in the back of her neck...a device
that they knew little about.

"I don't know," she replied carefully, her eyes wide and sincere as
they looked into his, "but we need to see what is in that canyon."

"Scully..." Mulder prodded, still concerned.

"What do those rock formations remind you of, Mulder?" she asked,
pointing toward several large red-tinted pinnacles to the north of
them.

He looked at the formations.  His brow furrowed, and he sucked on
his lip, then let it go as the answer came to him.

"I saw similar formations near Trona."

Krycek had passed them just moments after Mulder reached her, and
was at least fifty yards ahead of them on the trail by the time they
turned together toward the path.  His steps were heavy, labored,
although he was moving at a fairly quick pace.  Scully and Mulder
started up the trail behind him, caught up with him and then passed
him at the fork to another trail leading up a hill.

Mulder could feel the energy increase in intensity.  To his right
there was what appeared to be a dry creek bed, and the energy seemed
stronger there, as if it were flowing through it.  Scully was just a
few steps ahead of him, and her gait was light and easy.  There was
a near bounce in the way she moved, and he was pretty certain that
she could feel the energy, too.  The wind had kicked up, teasing the
edges of her hair into her face, but she reached up and pushed it
away before he had the chance to think that he might like to do it
for her.

"Mulder, look at this tree," she called to him, stopping to examine
a Juniper tree growing along the trail.  "It's twisted into a
spiral."

Mulder looked up at the tree, his hands on his hips.  "They all
are," he replied, looking at the other trees nearby.  Farther ahead,
they could see that the trees became even more twisted.

As they walked Krycek was having an increasingly difficult time
keeping the pace.  He would trip on exposed tree roots, his feet
leaden and his bearing slow, as if he could hardly lift his feet.
He was having trouble navigating around some of the juniper
branches, and scrub brush that seemed to be completely off of the
path for Mulder and Scully scratched at him, catching his clothing
and even the skin on his face and neck.

Scully and Mulder easily navigated past the plants and rocks on the
path, their feet seemingly gliding above the ground rather than
touching it.  Turning a bend, they came upon a huge boulder, with a
woman sitting in lotus position atop it, her eyes closed and her
body relaxed in meditation.  Scully took a moment to look back.

Krycek had stopped back by the juniper tree they had examined, bent
at the waist and back heaving from his labored breathing.  Scully
reached out and took hold of Mulder's hand to stop him, and a charge
went through them, rolling down one arm to the other through their
joined hands.  They both jumped back in surprise.

"What the Hell was that?" Scully asked, her heart pounding.

Mulder was looking at his hand, massaging his tricep.  "I don't
know," he replied.  "Give me your hand."  He held his hand out and
she looked at him, then down at his hand, tentatively reaching out
to clasp it with her own.

It happened again, but when she moved to release the connection
Mulder held on tighter.  The sensation was moving past his arm,
through his upper body and spreading.  "Wait," he said softly, his
eyes holding hers.

Her breathing increased, and her eyes grew wide as the sensation
grew within her.  "Mulder..." she whispered, fighting it.

"Just go with it, Scully," he replied softly.  "Trust me."

His eyes held hers, and after a few seconds her shoulders relaxed
and her breathing slowed down, her body growing accustomed to the
foreign sensation that was now coursing through the whole of it.
She looked down at their joined hands with a look of awe, and he
could see by the expression on her face that it was not an
unpleasant feeling once she accepted it.  It was nothing more than
the simple experiments she probably conducted in high school science
class, but there was no visible source for the initial current.

She raised her eyes back to his, slow smiles spreading across both
of their faces.  They were each giving and receiving the current,
from one to the other, back and forth, again and again until the
feeling no longer seemed to travel through them, but was an ever-
present, pulsing sensation.  Like one heartbeat that they both could
feel.  After a moment, he let go of her hand and she gasped as the
connection broke, leaving her prickly and tingling.

After the initial shock from the break in contact, Mulder felt a
peaceful warmth spread throughout his body, like endorphins after a
long run, or an orgasm.  It was one of the most incredible things
he'd ever experienced in his life.  He'd never felt more aware, more
loved, or more in love.  And yet, he didn't feel like his mind or
body were impaired or hindered by the energy in any way.  He was
ready to do it again.

The woman on the rock had opened her eyes and was watching them with
a large, knowing smile before climbing down and making her way out
of the canyon.

"Something is wrong with Krycek," Scully said, drawing him back to
task.  He looked down the trail and saw Krycek standing off to the
side, bent at the waist and his hands resting on his knees.

They walked back down the path to where Krycek had sat on the dirt
and Scully stepped closer, shifting into doctor mode.  "What is it?"
she asked him, crouching down beside him.

"I don't know," he replied, and she could see the beads of sweat on
his brow.  There were several angry red scratches on his face and
neck.  "It started as a headache, but it's gotten worse.  I'm having
trouble catching my breath."

"You may be having an allergic reaction to one of the trees that
scratched you, or something that was on the branch that made contact
with your skin."

He looked up, embarrassed and irritated as a pair of hikers
effortlessly passed them on their way back.

"Any nausea?" she asked, reaching out to touch his forehead to test
his temperature, but he flinched away.

"Some," he replied, huffing out a series of short breaths.  "I'll be
alright.  You guys go on, I'll meet you back at the car."

Scully glanced up at Mulder, then stood.  The clouds above
threatened a heavy storm.  Krycek looked up at Mulder a moment, and
Mulder nodded, "Alright."  He turned, and Scully stopped him.

"Mulder..."

Mulder looked back over his shoulder at her.

"I think we should consider going back with him.  Look at the sky."

Mulder looked up, just as a flash of lightening lit up a dark cloud
to the north.  The storm clouds were moving in, and ever since they
entered the trail the sky had grown darker, the wind blowing almost
steadily.

"This path follows a dry wash, and flash floods in the desert are a
common and deadly occurrence at this time of year."  She let out a
long breath.  "Besides, we have no topographical maps, and we aren't
prepared for this kind of weather.  I want to find out what is going
on here as much as you do," she added, "but Krycek should have
someone keeping an eye on him to make sure his condition
doesn't get worse."

He looked at Krycek, who was shivering and sweating as he hauled
himself back on his feet, and Mulder glanced back down the path
leading into the canyon, thinking about the points she had raised.
Turning, he walked back toward her.

"What are you doing?" Krycek asked, wiping the sweat off of his brow
with the cuff of his shirt.  "We have no idea how long it's going to
be here."

"Scully's right," Mulder replied, biting his lip and his eyes
squinting in judgment as he looked at the terrain surrounding them.
"That looks like a Hell of a storm."

"You think It's going to let a storm hold it back?"

"Wait a minute."  Scully said, stepping closer.  "You said earlier
that the people behind this new conspiracy were keeping it here.
What do you mean by 'It' not letting the storm hold it back?"  She
paused, waiting for another hiker to pass.  "Exactly who is involved
in this?"

Krycek continued to shiver but remained silent.

Mulder stepped closer to him.  "I'd like to hear the answer to that
question."  When Krycek still didn't respond, he took matters into
his own hands.  "Fine," he said, pressing his lips together.  He'd
get the information out of him one way or another.  Closing his
eyes, he let out a long breath, regulating his breathing.

Krycek realized immediately what he was planning and decided to
share.  "They know It's here in the canyon, drawing from the energy
of the vortex.  They know It's wounded or seriously hurt and It
needs the energy to help heal Itself."

Mulder opened his eyes, pinning Krycek under his gaze.

Scully rested her hands on her hips, letting out a loud huff.  "So
they had you bring Mulder out here to find it for them."

Krycek glanced sideways at her.  "They don't know he can do what he
does, otherwise, they would be here instead of me and we wouldn't be
having this conversation."

Scully let out another huff, not believing him, and he turned to
face her.

"Look, right now, your presence here is nothing more than the usual
nuisance to them.  They've had people in here looking for it without
success.  They plan to create a public health hazard threat after
the sun goes down tonight so that they can shut the area down to
perform a thorough search.  Believe me, once that happens this place
will be locked up tighter than a drum."  He looked at Mulder.  "And
they aren't going to let a little bit of rain stop them."  He
swallowed thickly.  "It's your call, Mulder.  Either you find it, or
they do."

Mulder met Scully's gaze as she looked up at him.  He had to agree
with Krycek.  If the area was going to be closed down after dark
then his only chance at finding the E.B.E. before they did was to do
it as soon as possible, storm or no storm.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

The farther Krycek got away from the vortex, the better he felt.  By
the time he neared the beginning of the path he was almost feeling
back to normal except for a lingering headache.

The wind was nearly howling through the canyon, and the dark, heavy
clouds were hanging low overhead, the flash of lightening and the
subsequent sound of thunder indicating that the storm was about to
let loose.

He didn't follow the path back to his original starting point,
however.  He wouldn't be going back to the car as he'd told Mulder.
There was another entrance to the canyon for the guests of the
resort, and he went that way, as he had intended all along.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

The wind grew humid, then began to fill with small drops of rain.
As the desert accepted the moisture, the sweet, earthy smell of damp
red clay and rock permeated the air.  The rain increased into a
steady thrumming of light drops, pasting their clothes and hair to
their skin.  They kept moving, the vegetation growing thicker and
the air growing cooler as they passed through groves of Ponderosa
pines.

Big, fat drops were falling, faster and harder, soaking them
through.  Shivering, they moved carefully, cautious not to
accidentally slip or fall into the dry wash below.  Their footing
was sure, and like a guardian, the omnipresent energy seemed to keep
them alert and just warm enough to move on in the face of the rain
and wind.

When the sky opened up and the rain became slick cold sheets of
water that made it difficult for them to see more than a few feet
ahead of them on the path, they shared a look and agreed to find
temporary shelter.  Within yards they came upon a rock formation
with an alcove just big enough for the two of them to share, and
they ducked inside.  They sat side-by-side, with their arms wrapped
around their legs Indian-style on the dry flat rock.

Mulder coughed, shivering involuntarily and wiping the drops of
water off of his face with the back of his wet hand.  Scully was
struggling futilely to peel the sodden material of her jacket away
from the skin on her arms.  After a moment, she let out a resigned
huff and gave up.

"Cold?" he asked her.

"Not really," she lied, tightening her arms around her legs.

He knew she was lying, just as he knew it was for his benefit.
"Wanna hold hands?" he asked, bumping her shoulder with his and a
smirk playing on his lips.

She was silent for a moment.  "What the hell was that, Mulder?" she
asked, then turned her head to look directly at him, resting her
cheek on her left knee.

"The vortex," Mulder replied with a nod.  When she didn't respond,
he said, "Do you deny that you've felt the effects of the vortex's
energy since we've been here?"

She exhaled, then drew in a deep breath.  She couldn't exactly
refute the evidence when she was wide awake and feeling like she
could climb any mountain.

"Whatever the reason for the second wind we both are experiencing,"
she answered, "I'm more inclined to believe that what happened
between us earlier came from static electricity caused by the
storm."

"The storm," Mulder replied flatly.  "You're saying that was just an
over-glorified version of static cling?"

"Well, what do you think it was?"

"Yin and yang, masculine energy and feminine energy converging," he
replied with another cough, his knees gently bouncing with residual
nervous energy.  "The ideas behind Yin and Yang developed by
observing the physical world...nature appears to group into pairs
comprised of mutually dependent opposites.  According to the
Chinese, everything has physical existence because everything
manifests both Yin and Yang qualities."

"So you're saying that just from the simple fact that you're male
and I'm female the vortex generated an electrical current between us
strong enough for us both to feel it?"

"You saw what it's done to that tree."

She paused.  "We didn't generate that energy, Mulder, vortex or not.
It had to have come from a source that we made contact with."

"Maybe there's a current, like a river of energy that runs from the
vortex toward another source.  It's natural resting place."

"A river of energy," she repeated skeptically.  She turned her head
and looked up at the falling sky, trying not to get rained on any
more than she already had been.  "It doesn't seem to show any signs
of letting up anytime soon," she commented.  "How much farther do
you think we have to go?"

"Not too much farther," Mulder replied, drawing his legs closer to
his body as a drop of water dripped off of the end of his nose.  "I
think we're really close."

Scully fell silent, and Mulder added, "We've been going up an
incline, and seem to be fairly high up.  I don't think a flash flood
is in our near future."

She turned her head and looked at him directly, an eyebrow raised.
She had just been thinking that very thing.

"I didn't, Scully, I promise."  He shifted closer to her, tightening
his arms around his legs as he shivered.  "All these years together
have taught me a few things about the way your mind works."

She looked back out at the falling rain, watching rivulets of water
run in little blood-red ditches toward the lowest common ground.
Then she moved a little closer to him.  She wondered how easy it was
for him to do what he does.  Could he just turn it on like a switch?

"How do you do it, Mulder?" she asked softly without glancing over
at him.  "I've been thinking about it and I don't get it."

He shrugged lightly, understanding what she was asking.  "I put
myself into a position of relaxation and acceptance and then I
concentrate."

"That's what I don't understand," she replied, her voice gentle.
"How do you know what to concentrate on?"

"I don't," he answered.  "It's like peripheral vision.  I focus on a
single point of light and expand it.  The thoughts come and I have
to maintain my concentration on the light while listening to the
thoughts at the same time.  Then I sort of sift through them until I
find the one I want."

"What happens if you lose your focus on this light while you're
listening to the thoughts?"

"When I try to focus too hard on any one specific thought without
the light I lose the thought.  I have to do both or it doesn't
work."

"Hmm," she replied, nodding slightly as she thought about it.  "So,
the key was keeping yourself receptive and neutral."

He studied her for a moment, a look of fondness on his face.  "Would
you like to try it?"

"What, here?  Now?"  She asked, and he shrugged, still smiling
warmly.

"Do you have a better suggestion?"

She was biting her upper lip, still thinking.  "Yes, I would."  She
replied, glancing up at him a bit hesitantly.

He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.  Scully was forging new
territory.  "Have you ever tried to meditate, Scully?"

She gave him a raised eyebrow in response, knowing he already knew
the answer to that question.  The epiphany she reached meditating in
front of a Buddhist statue and the subsequent chain of events
changed a lot of things for the both of them.

Namely, their personal relationship.

Mulder grinned with understanding.  "Okay, this is a lot like
meditation.  The first thing is to relax your muscles and regulate
your breathing.  The best way is to start with your toes and work
your way up, imagining the muscles loosening as you go up.  Close
your eyes."

She did as he asked, and let out a long breath, drawing in a few
shallow breaths until her breathing began to slow and even out.  He
watched her hands grow slack, her shoulders relax and her head tip
slightly to side before he continued.

"Find a point of light and focus on in."  His voice was softer, more
melodic in its signature monotone.  "Behind your eyelids...don't
open your eyes, see it in your mind.. it's a pure white light...can
you see it?"

"Hmmmm..." she replied, licking her lips.  She could see the point
of brightness he described and she focused on it.

"Expand it, take it into you and feel the warmth spread throughout
as it grows."  He paused, watching her as her brow furrowed.
"Accept it, Scully.  Embrace it.  The light is everything that is
good and just and right with the world."

A smile came to her lips, and he smiled in response, even though he
knew she couldn't see it with her eyes closed.  "What do you hear,
Scully?"

"I hear you," she said softly.

"You do?"

"Your voice, Mulder.  I might be able to hear something else if you
weren't talking constantly."

He let out a soft chuckle.  "Alright, I'll just sit here and think
happy thoughts in your direction."

Without his conversation she could hear the rain falling against the
ground, the trickling of water as it traveled and dripped off of the
rock ledge above, and the rush of the wind through the treetops in
the canyon.  She kept her focus on the white light and as it grew,
the sounds became background music to the feeling of peace that she
began to feel within.

No wonder so many people extolled the merits of meditation.  She
found that her mind began to free-associate thoughts, random ideas
and memories floating by.  She didn't analyze it, but allowed them
to flow without censure.

She was aware that she wasn't hearing anything else, though.  Just
the wind and the rain from the storm.  The more she tried to hear
something else, the harder it was for her to maintain her
concentration.  She reminded herself of what Mulder had said about
focusing on the light and letting the rest of it come unbidden, and
she redirected her attention to the warmth and the light.

A flash followed almost simultaneously by a crash of thunder and the
cracking sound of wood broke her concentration completely, and she
opened her eyes to see a fallen pine only a few yards away.  The
storm was directly upon them.  But Mulder was no longer sitting next
to her.

She leaned forward, looking out from beneath the rock's ledge to see
if she could see him nearby.  When she didn't spot him, she climbed
out and stood, turning a full circle without catching sight of
Mulder.

"Mul-der!" she shouted into the wind, her voice no match for Mother
Nature.  It was still difficult to see, and the huge raindrops were
pelting against her, the water running into her eyes and ears and
down her arms and legs.  "Mul-der!" she tried again, feeling
something akin to panic beginning to stake a claim in her stomach.

Turning nearly full-circle again, she thought she could just make
out his shape standing on the other side of the fallen tree.  With a
sigh of relief, she pushed the dripping hair away from her eyes and
carefully stepped around the branches of the tree to join him.  The
rain began to soften, growing lighter and finer, giving her clearer
vision.  By the time she had circumnavigated the tree, there were
only a few residual drops falling from the sky.

Mulder was farther away than she had first thought, and he was
walking away from her, toward the back of the box canyon.  She
called to him again, but he didn't turn around.  So she followed
him.

He stopped when he entered a clearing, and as she got closer, she
spoke.  "What's going on, Mulder?"

Mulder didn't reply, and she stepped up behind him, tapping the back
of his soaked jacket to get his attention.  When he turned around,
her eyes grew wide and she caught her breath.

It wasn't Mulder she had followed into the box canyon.  It was
Father Ulrich Schroeder.
 
 
 

From: "beduini" <beduini@justduckies.org>
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 19:04:50 -0800
Subject: Return the Hero
Source: direct

XxXxXxXxX  Chapter Eleven
United Airlines Flight 1493
 

The flight was full, but it didn't matter to him since he was
traveling alone.  Assistant Directors were entitled to fly business
class, a luxury he chose not to take advantage of when traveling
with agents under his charge.  He preferred to focus on the work,
not the entitlement that comes with a specific title.  Some of the
other A.D.s he knew were not so considerate.  Then again, some of
those other A.D.s couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and
recognize a red flag when an agent subtly waved one in their faces.

Those other A.D.s didn't have Mulder and Scully under their charge.

Skinner had stopped by Mulder's basement office before leaving for
home and then the airport, making a quick visual survey of Mulder's
desk and the surrounding area on the chance that there may be more
information about their sudden departure for Arizona.  Other than
stacks of old X Files covering every conceivable area, there was
nothing.  Nothing to indicate the reason behind the unusual
telephone call he'd received from Scully.  No reason why they'd
dropped everything and taken off for Arizona with Alex Krycek in the
middle of the night.

The message light indicated that there were voice mail messages
waiting to be retrieved, but Skinner didn't know the password so he
was unable to retrieve those.  It would take too long to try to get
someone from the communications department down on a Saturday
afternoon to change it.  There were new faxes sitting on the fax
machine, however, and he scooped the papers out of the tray, shoving
them into the side pocket of his briefcase on his way out the door.

Now settled into his faux leather airplane seat with a Scotch and
water in hand, he pulled his briefcase out from under the seat in
front of him and retrieved the fax.  It was from the Miami P.D.,
sent early the previous evening, informing Agent Mulder as the FBI's
point of contact on the A.P.B. issued on Antonio Cardinale that
Cardinale was taken into custody that afternoon trying to catch a
flight to Mexico City under one of his known aliases.

Skinner popped the in-flight telephone out of the headrest in the
seat in front of him and swiped his Bureau-issued Visa through the
credit card slot.  Then he dialed the number listed on the fax for
the detective in charge, one Eric Castro.

"Castro," a voice barked on the other end, the din of the common
room he shared with the other detectives of the precinct audible
even through the poor air phone connection.

"Detective Castro, this is Assistant Director Skinner with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.  I'm calling about a man you've got
in custody, a Nicaraguan national named Antonio Cardinale."

There was a short pause.  "I believe you've got the wrong Detective
Castro, Assistant Director Skinner.  Hang on."

Skinner heard a muffled exchange punctuated with the word "shit"
before he was put on hold.  He imagined more words were being
exchanged, knowing how much local law enforcement detested dealing
with the Feds.  There was the faint sound of music mixed with static
coming through the line, and another voice picked up the extension
in less than a minute.

"Assistant Director Skinner?  This is Captain Hawkins.  There's been
a...well, there's a situation down here involving the man you're
asking about."

"What kind of a situation are we talking about, Captain?"  Skinner
asked, letting out a short huff.

"Detective Castro, the one who contacted your office, is down at the
county jail checking it out right now.  It...uh, well...it appears
that the suspect hung himself in his cell last night."

Skinner bared his teeth and closed his eyes.  He should have
expected to hear that.  Anything less would have been too easy.  He
blinked and let out a sigh.  "Any witnesses?"

"Apparently not, at least none that will own up to it."

"What about a note?"

"Not that we've found."  He heard the muffled sound of a hand being
placed over the receiver, then Captain Hawkins said, "Wait a minute,
Castro's just come back in.  I'll let you talk to him."

He was put on hold again, this time much longer than the last.  Some
nasally girl was whining in his ear to a disco beat about doing
something again and Skinner reached up and pinched the bridge of his
nose between his thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes and silently
cursing the situation.  He should just hang up the phone and save
the taxpayers a few dollars - experience dictated that nothing
will turn up and nothing will be done.  Cardinale is dead, just like
his brother, and whoever is responsible will remain unknown, just
like with his brother.

And he got the privilege of unwillingly reminding Scully of that
fact when he caught up with them in Arizona and told what had
happened.

A new voice spoke on the other end, this one softer.  "Assistant
Director Skinner?  This is Detective Castro.  I'm the one who sent
you the fax regarding Antonio Cardinale."

Skinner took a deep breath.  The background noise had disappeared,
which made him suspect that either Castro had moved into a private
office, or more likely, everyone had stopped to listen to him
explain the situation to the Feds.  "Detective, can you tell me what
is going on?"

The detective cleared his throat, but still he started off hoarse.
"Well Sir, the guard found him early this morning.  He'd taken off
his clothes and tied them to the upper bars of his cell and
around his neck.  We believe he had been standing on the lower bars
and jumped off.  The coroner places the time of death around four
a.m."

"When was the last bed check?"

"Two-thirty a.m."

"And no one saw this coming?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhh...no Sir.  I questioned Cardinale yesterday evening
after we confirmed his identity but he didn't say much.  I even
tried in Spanish but it didn't make any difference.  He kept saying
a name, or maybe it was a word.  He wouldn't tell us what it meant.
It wasn't Spanish, I know that.  I thought he was trying to convince
me that it was his real name or something."

"What was this word?"  Skinner asked shortly.  He was trying to be
patient, but his patience was wearing thin with the lack of anything
solid to go on.

There was a pause.  "Uh, hang on, it's in my notes."  There was the
sound of pages being turned.  "Cratchit, Crotchet..."

Skinner sat up in his seat, tilting his head slightly.  "Krycek?"

Castro repeated the name a few times softly.  "Krycek...Krycek.
Yeah, that sounds like it."

Skinner closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped as much as his
shoulders ever slumped, which was barely perceptible to the
untrained eye.  He wondered what the hell Mulder and Scully had
gotten involved in this time, running off with that son of a bitch.
He let all of the air out of his lungs and shook his head.
"Alright, Detective, when your men are finished gathering the
external forensic evidence they need to finish their reports I want
the body wrapped up carefully and shipped to Quantico."

"Yes Sir, I'll take care of it myself."

Skinner moved the receiver away from his ear and paused, then popped
the air phone back into its cradle and set his jaw.  He tossed back
the rest of his Scotch and water and stopped the flight attendant as
she passed by his seat, discretely showing her his badge.

"Is this flight on time?" he asked.

She replied soberly.  "Yes Sir, I believe we're actually a few
minutes early."

He glanced out the window, setting his jaw once again then looked
back up at her, leaning in and speaking low for privacy.  "I need
you to call ahead to Phoenix and ask them to hold the 7:12 flight
to Flagstaff.  I've got to make that flight."

She looked a bit spooked but she nodded, and moved quickly toward
the cockpit.  Skinner leaned back in the seat once again and closed
his eyes.

He'd have more than a few things to say to that bastard Krycek if he
caught up with him first.
 

XxXxXxXxX Enchantment Resort
 

The suite looked out over the canyon, an impressive display of
towering red rock and green treetops against the heavy black clouds
releasing their fury overhead.  Hundreds and thousands of years of
water and wind had formed the canyon, as it would continue to do for
hundreds more.  The changes were so slow and imperceptible, it would
probably look the same one hundred years from now.

That wasn't his concern, however.  He looked at the canyon only to
determine what was going on inside.  The man at the window took a
drag off of the Morley poised between his thumb and forefinger
and exhaled a long stream of smoke.

"What did you tell them?" he asked Krycek, who sat the wrong way in
a straight-backed armchair behind him and to the right, his good arm
resting across the chair's back.  He could just make out his
reflection in the window's glass.

"I told them it was ill.  That it was using the energy from the
vortex to heal itself," Krycek replied.

"We don't know that for certain," he said dismissively, taking
another drag from his cigarette.  "Did they believe you?"

"Mulder did."  Krycek leaned forward in his chair, watching the
smoking man carefully with his eyes while his face remained slack.
He was not physically well, and had lost much of the strength he
displayed in years past.  Mentally, though, he was at the top of his
game.  Krycek sat up straight and cleared his throat.  "She wasn't
as accepting, though."

A slight smile crossed the smoking man's lips, a look of near
fondness.  "Agent Scully is always a harder sell."  He blew out a
puff of smoke and stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the
table underneath the window.  Then he turned toward Krycek, taking
his time before looking at him, lighting up another cigarette.

"They know about Cardinale," Krycek said, watching his reaction
closely.

He exhaled, his face unreadable, like the consummate gambler that he
was.  "No matter.  Cardinale is no longer one of our concerns."  He
displayed the same ambivalence he might show if he'd been told he
was ten minutes late for a dinner reservation.

Krycek kept his eyes on him, knowing exactly what he meant when he
said 'no longer one of our concerns'.

"What makes you so certain Mulder will find It?  No one else has
been able to," he asked, nodding his head toward the window.

He tried to determine what else the man knew that he might be
holding back from him.  Outside there were flashes of lightening
illuminating portions of the black clouds, the answer of thunder
coming just seconds behind, but he saw nothing in the smoker's
demeanor to give him any new information.

"Because he's Mulder," the smoking man replied as he dragged on the
fresh cigarette.  "I have absolute faith in him.  He can find nearly
anything once he's set his mind to it."

The man smiled, nearly gleefully, as he spoke of Fox Mulder.  His
esteem and respect were evident, but as with Agent Scully, there was
a fondness present as well.

The room where the two men held their conversation appeared to be
nothing more than an upscale Southwestern-style resort hotel room in
a private hacienda.  But in the other rooms of the suite, it
was the complete antithesis of what one would expect to find in a
resort nestled into a picturesque canyon in the Arizona desert.
There were satellite receivers, monitors, a variety of computers and
electronic equipment cabled together, all maintained and supervised
by a handful of young men wearing lab coats, whispering silently to
each other over the data they were collecting.

An old German with thinning hair and cold blue eyes passed through
the stacks of equipment, appearing to be completely out of place as
he gingerly stepped over cables and electrical cords.  The men in
the lab coats fell silent and watched, allowing the man to pass
unhindered.  He entered the room where the smoker and Krycek were in
time to observe the end of the exchange between them, and both
men looked up when he spoke.

"For this you have brought me here?  To watch out of the window and
wait for a madman to run around in the rain when we have our own
ways of bringing It back secure?"  His accent was thick but he spoke
slowly and deliberately, like a man used to having everything around
him pause for his response.

"Need I remind you I've already had to clean up after one of your
sloppy mistakes," the smoking man replied flippantly without making
eye contact with the German.  "You should be grateful that I took
care of it before it became an issue within the Catholic Church."

The German's eyes grew colder, clearly not accustomed to being
treated so disrespectfully.

"Besides..." the smoker paused, exhaling a cloud of smoke, "no one
we've sent in there to retrieve It can get near It without becoming
violently ill.  Alex himself couldn't even get halfway into the
canyon before he was affected."

"And why does this Mulder not have the same reaction?" he scoffed,
issuing the agents name distastefully in the process.

"It had no effect on either of them, actually," Krycek said, turning
to look at him.  He was met by four more pairs of curious eyes that
had lined up behind the old German, all young men of obvious Aryan
descent.

They were not the same men monitoring the equipment in the next
room, and each one held an air of self-confidence, certain in his
ability and participation in the new project.  They were all so much
younger than their counterparts, who must have been their age when
the original project first came to fruition, Krycek thought.
Younger than himself, even.

There were only two men left from the onset of original project now,
left to pick up the pieces and try to rebuild a lifetime of work
gone to hell.  And it was apparent that those two men were not of
the same mind on how the new project should be managed.  Each
decided his own method for achieving his objective and each
assembled his own team of players.

There had been advantages to the consortium.  A group assembled to
decide on the fate of the world was much more democratic than two
men who couldn't agree.  There were more points of view and each
was considered by all.  It was easier to accept the decision of a
consensus.

"They were the perfect choice," Krycek stated, turning back toward
the smoker and fixing his eyes on him.  "But you already knew that."

The smoking man smirked with pleasure, taking another drag.

"And how do you know that they will not take It away from us?  Or
let It escape?" One of the young blonde men with the German asked.
"They are federal agents."

"We know exactly where Agent Scully is," the smoking man answered,
gesturing toward a laptop computer set up on the table next to the
ashtray.  It was the only piece of electronic equipment in the room,
and the screen displayed a topographical outline of the canyon,
along with a small red point of light indicating the location of
Agent Scully as indicated by the device implanted at the base of her
neck.  A swirl of smoke followed his hand as he gestured, and he
flicked the ashes off of the end of his cigarette as an
afterthought.

"And what of Agent Mulder?" the same young man replied.

The smoker sighed softly, resignedly, and replied as if speaking to
a very small child.  "Wherever Scully goes, Mulder will follow."
His posture indicated that he believed he shouldn't have to be
telling them this, they should already know.  "When they start to
move out of the canyon someone will be waiting for them."

"We have waited and they have not moved for a very long time," the
old German answered with a huff.  For all of his impatience he did
not refute the smoker's claims, for he knew them to be accurate.

Another enigmatic smile played on the lips of the smoking man, and
he drew a long, slow drag off of his Morley, savoring the power that
comes with making others wait.  His demeanor made it clear that
this was, after all, his show.  As far as he was concerned, he
called all of the shots now.  The others were just incidental.

All except Mulder, of course.

"Give them time," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the room.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

"What are you doing here?"  Scully asked Father Schroeder, her brow
furrowed and her eyes wide, showing her disbelief as she stared up
at him.  "I was lead to believe that you were dead.  Mulder and I
were assigned to investigate your homicide."

"And yet here I stand," he replied, folding his large hands in front
of him, a kind smile on his face.  "I am here for the same purpose
as you."

Father Marquette had indicated that Father Schroeder had been
involved in a spiritual quest, but Father Marquette also believed
that Father Schroeder was buried among his fellow priests in Holy
Cross Cemetery.  She doubted that this spiritual quest was about
finding an extraterrestrial biological entity.  And if it was, she
was fairly certain that the church didn't know about it.

"Do you believe in miracles, Miss Scully?" Father Schroeder asked,
giving her the same uneasy feeling that she had encountered in his
presence the time before outside of St. Cyril's.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.  "I believe that
God's hand can be witnessed, yes."

"Then why do you doubt my presence here?"

Scully opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again.  The
man standing in front of her was clearly just a man, a hulking big
man made of flesh and blood.  She'd experienced what she would
refer to as a vision before, several years ago, but from her
experience she believed it had to involve someone very special to
her to be valid.

This was not such a situation.

"Well, whether or not your being here is a result of God's hand as
you suggest, I need to know, are you or are you not Father Ulrich
Schroeder?" she asked bluntly.

"I have been called by that name, yes."

Scully let out a long breath of air and looked around, her eyes
squinting from the brightness of the emerging sun reflecting off of
the wet trees and plants around her in the canyon.  So this was
Father Schroeder.  Alive.  She still felt uneasy, and Mulder's
recent disappearance didn't help ease her nerves.  He still didn't
appear to be anywhere within eyesight and she wondered where he
could be and why he'd skipped out on her while she was meditating.

"He is nearby," Father Schroeder said, as if reading her thoughts.

"Who?"  Her voice was sharp, suspicious, as she looked up at him
once again.

"The one you are worried about.  Mulder."

"If you know where he is then tell me."

Father Schroeder smiled.  "As I said, he is nearby."  He looked into
her eyes and she felt like he was looking straight into her soul.
"You have resolved the personal issues we discussed the last
time."

His staring made her pulse race and she took a deep breath to slow
it back down.  She had a feeling of conflict because she knew this
man to be a legitimate priest, and she'd been raised a Catholic -
raised to trust men of the cloth.  Confide in them.  And yet, this
man seemed to know things about her that she hadn't shared, in
confession or otherwise.  And she knew he had formed a past alliance
with Alex Krycek, and man whom she distrusted almost as much as the
smoking man himself regardless of Mulder's assertions that his
intentions were the same as theirs.

Torn, she answered finally, "Yes.  How did you know that?"

"I have felt it," he replied, "We all have."

She held his gaze.  "WE who?  Who are you working with?"

He took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for something
important.  "Are you familiar with Universal Law, Dana?"

"In what context?  Where laws of the Universe are concerned, there
are no set laws, only theories.  The theory of a stationary Universe
states that the Universe is comprised of fundamental ingredients,
all of which are mutually present and fixed variants...space, time,
matter, energy, forces, fields, charges.  There's also..."

Father Schroeder shook his head and held up his hand.  "No, I speak
not of theories of science, but of Universal Law, the Law which
governs all things.  What defines the consciousness of God and how
it is expressed.  You may know it as Dharma.  It is the law of cause
and effect, of balance."

"Dharma."  Scully thought a moment, trying to tie what she knew of
Buddhism to what she knew of Father Schroeder.  "You studied
Buddhism as a Carmelite."

He nodded.  "Yes, I have studied many religions and religious
practices.  Buddhism is one of many, but I chose it specifically
because it is one I think you may be familiar with, besides your own
religion.  Is that correct?"

She nodded, wondering what Father Schroeder knew of Buddhism and
what it had to do with her inability to locate Mulder in the canyon.
"I am familiar with some of the teachings but I know very little.  I
have done a little reading in the last year."  She remembered
borrowing a few of Mulder's books on the subject just after her
experience in a Buddhist temple lead her and Mulder into opening to
one another about their feelings.  She'd stopped reading just after
Mulder disappeared.

He looked at her, his eyes warm.  "You have learned more than you
know."

She drew a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly,
processing their exchange.  Father Schroeder had steered the
conversation toward religion and religious theories, but her primary
objective still was to find Mulder.

"Perhaps, but right now I'd like to know where Mulder is."

He smiled again, shaking his head gently.  "You already have the
answer, you just need to access it."

"Fine.  How do I access it?"

"Ask yourself, what is life?  Life is comprised of relationships
within relationships, each one an evolving process.  And each
process is a system within a system.  All of these relationships,
processes and systems mutually share rights and responsibilities
that allow them to develop their potential and to fulfill their
ultimate purpose.  Everything that exists exists because of its
relationship to something else."

She crossed her arms in front of her.  "So you're telling me that
the answers to every conceivable question are available to me and
anyone who knows how to access them because we're all inextricably
tied?"

"Yes."

"Including Mulder's location."

He smiled and let out a soft laugh.  "Yes."

"And this information is..." she held her hands up, "where,
exactly?"  She was getting frustrated with his ambiguous replies.

"In the Akashic Records."

At least that was a specific answer.  She smacked her lips and
nodded, running her tongue over her upper molars.  "The Akashic
Records."

"The complete record of everything that has happened in the Universe
since the beginning of time."

She let out a huff.  "Right."  She bowed her head, sucking on her
teeth, then looked back up at him.  "And how, exactly, do I access
these records?"

"You already have.  You have accessed the Universal Consciousness.
That is how you and I have come to be standing here."

She stared at him and sighed.  "You're saying you're here because
I'VE accessed the Universal Consciousness?"

"Yes.  Through much resistance of mind and perception, you have come
to realize that thought and perception are life's greatest
adversaries when you take the time to observe your surroundings,
question and examine what you know to be true.  You understand that
everything in life has purpose, potential and value.  This means
that everything is unique and nothing is ever wasted.  We are all
connected, but you, Dana, have been given a gift.  A gift of faith
and of love, a unique gift that has seen, WILL see you through
adversity.  Both of you."

Scully blinked at him, her eyes wide and her mouth falling open.
Somehow, Father Schroeder had gained access to her innermost
thoughts and feelings.  About herself, about Mulder.  She'd had the
same unnerving sense when she'd met him before, but this time she
knew.  He had read her, everything inside of her, like an open book.

"I see you are uncomfortable," he spoke, more softly.  "That is not
altogether a bad thing.  Resistance develops potential and gives it
worth.  Obtaining or achieving anything of worth involves
overcoming some form of resistance.  But above all else, always
remember to listen to your heart, Dana.  That is where you will find
your answers."

He stepped forward and laid a hand on her shoulder, and she felt
herself sinking to her knees on the damp ground, no longer able to
resist.  His voice grew stronger, more resonant.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Even with her eyes closed she knew that he was giving her his
blessing, making the sign of the cross in the air above her.  Then
she felt his hand lift from her shoulder.

"Use it well, Dana.  For yourselves and for all of us."

A flash of light followed, and she raised her head, opening her eyes
with a gasp.  She was no longer in the middle of the box canyon, but
found herself back in the alcove, sitting cross-legged underneath
the rock's ledge.  The rain was pounding the ground and in front of
her lay the fallen pine tree.  It was as if she'd never left the
alcove, except that darkness had descended.

And to her right sat Mulder, his eyes closed and his breathing slow
and steady.
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Twelve
 

Mulder was chasing an alien.

A gray, to be exact.

He'd spotted It after lightening had struck and felled the pine tree
just outside the alcove, and he followed It into a box canyon, then
lost sight of It.  The rain had petered out, leaving the ground
soaked and foliage covered in drops of water, but the air was clean
and smelled fresh, like pine needles and newly tilled earth.

Reaching a clearing, he drew in a deep breath of air and let it out
as he turned a full circle, trying to figure out where It might have
gone.  There was a steep solid wall of red tinted rock at the back
and sides of the canyon, with a little bit of scrub brush growing
out of the cracks and on the ground, just for added color.  Farther
up there were trees.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" a deep voice asked.  He couldn't tell where
the voice came from, and he spun around to check behind him once
more.

It was there.

Mulder blinked at It a few times, and It blinked large, black,
almond-shaped eyes in response.  Mulder's lips parted, a look of
shock and surprise on his face.

"I don't bite," It said.  He noticed that It didn't move It's mouth.

"I didn't expect you to," Mulder replied aloud, noting how different
this one looked from the one he'd chased in the tanker trucks all
the way to Trona.  This one was small, smaller than Scully - exactly
like he'd expected a gray to look.

"I'll take that as a compliment," It replied, still not moving It's
mouth.  Mulder realized that he was hearing it telepathically, just
like reading thoughts only he didn't have to work at it.  It just
came naturally.

"It's just that the other one I saw wasn't like you."  Mulder
thought the response.

"Like me?" It answered.

Mulder paused, realizing that to the best of his knowledge, he was
communicating telepathically with an alien.

"It was...taller," he stammered, raising his hand in the air above
his head as an example.

"Are you implying that I'm short?"

"No, I wasn't implying that," he replied, quick to repair his
mistake.  Then he realized that it wasn't offense that drove the
question, but mirth, and he relaxed a little bit.  A gray with a
sense of humor.  Who'd have thought?

"I'll take that as a compliment as well.  I understand your last
experience left you confused."

Mulder shook his head, unused to having his every thought read by
someone else.

"So you're familiar with the other one.  Who was he?"  He paused, a
look of realization crossing his face.  "Or should I say she?"

"What do you think?"

Mulder thought about the question.  "She?"

"Not exactly."

"Okay, so It was of a different race altogether?"

"Not exactly.  I didn't say there wasn't a connection.  We're not
all the same, just like you're not all the same. I don't have to
look like this, you know."

"You mean you can change form?"  He had seen evidence of this
before.  "Then why this...?"  He gestured from head to foot.

"Because you are more inclined to believe if you see me this way."

"As an alien?  You look like an alien because of me?"

"Are you suggesting this look is less than desirable?  What makes
you think you're so much to look at?"  It paused a beat before
continuing.  "But let me put it this way, would you be more or less
believing if I looked human?"

Mulder ran his hand over his mouth, staring at It.  Unreal.

"I thought I'd found one of you guys once before.  It turned out I
was high on mushrooms.  I'm wondering what it is affecting me this
time."

"What did you have for lunch today?"

"Airplane food.  Tasteless, yes, but not psychotropic, at least, I
don't think it was.  Otherwise, there'd be a lot of weird crap going
on in Arizona tonight."

The gray chuckled, a low, deep laugh like James Earl Jones.  In
fact, it sounded a lot like James Earl Jones.

"You're pretty funny, you know that?"

"I could say the same about you."  Mulder paused, crossing his arms.
"Who are you?"

"I am not James Earl Jones."

"I didn't say you were.  I suppose you can change your voice as
well."

It raised a long, slim finger and pressed it against It's face where
It's nose would be, then pointed it at him.

"Nothing gets past you."

Mulder's lips parted in a near smile.  Unreal.

"So, who are you?"

"I am all that is and ever will be."

"That's what the other one said.  So It WAS one of you, then."

"Why do you need to know about the other?"

"I need to know why It was here.  Just like I need to know why
you're here."

"I'm here to talk with you."

"Uh huh, right.  You expect me to believe that you're here because
of me?"

"No, technically, you're here because of ME.  But, we are in effect
talking, aren't we?"  It asked.

Mulder blinked at It once more.

"Right."  He looked it over, still marveling at the fact that he'd
found It.  "And what do they call you, then?"

"They?"

"They.  Others."

"Why do you have to assign a name to everything?"

He shrugged.  "How else do you communicate?  Do you just call each
other 'hey you' or what?"

"We don't call each other anything.  We know who we're speaking to
and who is responding to us.  Names are irrelevant."

"You already know everyone?"

"Yes, and vice versa."  It sighed.  "But if you must, you can call
me Andy."

"Andy?" he spoke aloud, letting the name roll off his tongue with a
surprised tone, then quirked his eyebrow at it in a very Scully-
esque maneuver.

"I've always liked the name Andy."

'Andy' Mulder mouthed, looking down at the ground and shaking his
head with a smirk.

This was worse than his psychotropic mushroom experience.  Maybe
this was a result of that electric orgasm he and Scully had
experienced earlier, affecting his synapses.  Why else would he be
seeing an extraterrestrial biological entity named Andy with a sense
of humor and a voice like James Earl Jones?

"I can see you've picked up a lot of behavioral and thought patterns
from your partner.  The answer is, because you respond to humor,
that's why."  It replied.  "There is a reason for everything."

Mulder had forgotten that they were communicating telepathically and
his thoughts were the same as statements.

"So what are you here to tell me, Andy?  Or are you just here to
mess with my head?"

"That's not too hard to do, apparently."

Mulder scowled.  "So you're here to talk but you're not here to say
anything, is that correct?"

"I have plenty to say."

"Then why do you keep talking circles around the subject if you
already know what I want to know?"

"There was a subject?"

Mulder pressed his lips together and shifted his weight from one
foot to the other impatiently, crossing his arms in front of him.
He was seriously beginning to wonder if he was being set up for some
kind of candid camera program, or worse, some kind of cheesy Fox
Network ratings-grabber like 'America's Funniest FBI Pranks.'  It
was quite an elaborate scene if that were the case.  And where was
Scully?  He couldn't believe she'd wandered off without him.  He
needed to find her, and she needed to be here to see this.  He
glanced around, hoping to catch sight of her and uncrossed his arms.

"Just tell me why you're here."

"I told you, I'm here to talk with you.  Are you ready to listen
now?"

He paused.  "I've been ready.  So far all you've done is talk in
circles."

"I'm just answering your questions."

"Okaaaaaaaayyyyyyy," he replied slowly, nodding.  He wasn't going to
fall into another one of It's tangential traps again.  "What did YOU
want to talk about?"

"About the future of your people.  Your race, your planet."

Mulder drew in a long breath and let it out slowly.  "Let's just cut
to the chase, shall we?  You're here to begin colonization."

"I didn't say that.  I told you, I'm here to talk with YOU."

"Alright."  He took a moment to try to clear his head.  Maybe it was
the lack of sleep that was causing his mind to play tricks on him.

"It's not a trick." It responded.  "There is no ulterior motive.  I
am nothing more or nothing less than what I have revealed to you."

Mulder sighed.  The lack of sleep he'd had notwithstanding, he
wasn't' tired, and this - Andy, or whoever - was really starting to
annoy him.  He wanted answers.

"What is the future?" he asked.

"I don't know the answer to that question.  The future is not
predetermined.  There may be probabilities and likelihoods, but
everything depends on how each individual uses his or her free
will."

"Free will."

"Yes, free will.  Everything that is to come is a result of your
decision, and you can make a difference.  It all begins with you."

"Why me?"

"Why not you?  You see yourself as separate from the rest of the
universe, but you don't realize that you are as much a part of it as
the sun and the smallest grain of sand."

"I am."  Mulder replied flatly.

"Man has a habit of reducing his understanding to the perceptions of
his own mind.  He has difficulty breaking through his own frame of
reference and allowing his imagination to take quantum leaps into
other dimensions, transcending the limits imposed by lifetimes of
structured thinking."

"You said lifetimes."

"Yes, lifetimes."

"As in, more than one."

"Yes."

Mulder nodded, processing everything he had just heard.
Reincarnation.  This was getting interesting.  Strange, but
interesting.

"And everything I do has an effect on everything else."

"With each individual soul's progression, the machinery and the
movement of the entire cosmos is effected, because each individual
soul is that important."

"So each individual soul is a part of the whole, has an influence on
the whole, which is what will determine the future."

"Exactly.  Imagine then...the power of two."

"Two what?"

"Two souls.  Joined, progressing together."

"Twice as effective?"

"More than twice.  For along with each individual soul in the union
there is also the strength of the union."

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."  Mulder replied.

"Yes."

"And that isn't a common occurrence?"

"Oh heavens, no.  Anybody can claim they are in love and have sex.
Many do.  This is different."

Mulder looked down at the ground and kicked at a pebble with the toe
of his shoe.  Then he looked back up at Andy.

"I realize that.  Why have you gone to all of the trouble just to
tell me this?"

"What I'm telling you isn't anything different than what I would
tell anyone else in your position, if they were ready to listen.
You are ready to listen."

"That's it?  Because I'm ready to listen?  I thought you said that
two souls joined was a rare occurrence."

"Rare, but not impossible.  But you're both ready now.  You've
completed a journey of sorts."

"Both?"

"Yes.  The union you've formed is a very powerful one.  It has not
gone unnoticed."

"Then why aren't you talking to both of us?  Why just me?"  Mulder
looked around again, hoping Scully may have wandered into the
clearing.

Andy just blinked at him.

Mulder looked at him a moment.  "You said that you look and sound
this way, that you approached me with humor because that is what I
would respond to.  So Scully is seeing something or someone else,
something that SHE will respond to, isn't she?"

Andy blinked at him again.  "What can I say?  You're sharp as a
tack.  Can I tell you a story?"

Mulder paused a moment, then raised his hand in an open gesture.
"Be my guest."

"You see, you...your people...have been in a period of trial.  No
doubt you've noticed the enormous changes that have occurred within
the last century.  Technology, interpersonal relationships,
lifestyle, your beliefs and the way that you approach them.  Great
changes in your environment and the weather.  It's no accident."

Mulder drew in a deep breath and let it out, remaining silent.

"There have been great leaps in knowledge.  You've conquered
diseases.  But you've also created diseases.  You've found ways to
be more comfortable, yet people suffer every day.  Needless, painful
suffering."

"But we're working on it," Mulder replied.  "It's not completely
hopeless.  Every day we find new cures, new methods of treatment.
Lives are saved."

"Yes.  This is important.  Even the sparing of one life makes a
difference."

Mulder shrugged.  "So what's the problem?"

"You've strayed too far."

"Strayed how?  And from what?"

"You were given independence along with free will with the hope that
you would use that free will to CHOOSE to live your life the way He
intended.  But rather than strive for that ideal, you've turned away
from it.  You've been given models to follow, but over time you've
become lost in the earthly world."

"This sounds more like a sermon than a story."

"This isn't my story, smartass.  I'm getting to that."

Mulder's mouth fell open slightly and he nodded sheepishly.

Andy continued.  "I mentioned a period of trial.  Years ago, your
people were approached.  They were told what I've just told you and
given a choice.  Well, actually, several choices.  Mass destruction
of your world as you know it was spelled out.  The apocalypse.
Colonization."

"The Conspiracy."  Mulder supplied at the word 'colonization'.

"Yes.  You have some knowledge of this project already.  These men
who were contacted were not chosen randomly.  They formed a
consortium, a group comprised of men of position from all over the
world.  They shared one goal - to find a way to deal with the
ultimatum that they had been given."

"Resist or serve."

"That is correct.  The potential in their hands was boundless.
Hunger, dissention, socioeconomic tribulation...they had the ability
to end it all worldwide.  They had the basic elements:  an open
dialogue and a common obstacle to overcome.  They had the
opportunity, the voice, the financial means.  They knew what was at
stake.  But they chose another path.  They chose power and personal
gain over the greater good."

"Sounds like the U.N."  Mulder replied.

"With heavier overtones.  Those members who opposed the consensus
were punished, many had their lives and their loved ones taken from
them.  Not to mention the deliberate killing of hundreds of
innocents."

Mulder swallowed, nodding again.  He knew of this first hand.  His
sister, his father.  Scully's sister.  He nearly lost Scully.  More
times than he cared to count.

"Yes, you have lost loved ones," Andy responded.  "But I assure you,
they are not lost."

Mulder shifted his weight, crossing his arms again.  "The project
was stopped, but these men, those behind the original
conspiracy...they have resurrected the project.  They had the other
one, and they want you."

"I am in no danger," Andy replied.  "The project is finished and the
trial is over.  Don't misunderstand me, the men who are left are
dangerous.  They are not functioning with the greater good in mind
and they can do much harm.  You know this.  You should be careful."

Mulder nodded again.  "So what of this trial?  What happens now?"

"The future is not finite."

"But we passed?"

"By the skin of your teeth, you might say.  You played no small part
in that."

"Me?"  Mulder replied with surprise, then tilted his head, squinting
up at the sky as light sprinkles of rain began to fall again.

"You and your partner.  I told you, you have not gone unnoticed.
Two people united against a group of many.  You are an example of
how free will can be used toward the greater good.  You've proven
that there is still potential for your people to achieve their
ultimate goal."

"So if we've already achieved this, why are you here?"

"Remember, the future is not finite.  The two of you are among
millions in the cosmos.  Some have the greater good in mind and many
do not.  We felt that you needed to know that you're heading in the
right direction, but you've still got a long way to go."

Mulder shivered, feeling chilled as the rain grew stronger.  "But
what are we..."

He was interrupted by a sudden flash of lightening, so bright that
it illuminated everything in the canyon.  He reflexively shielded
his eyes, and heard a loud cracking, a crash and the booming of
thunder.  When he opened his eyes he was no longer standing in the
box canyon.

He was sitting in the dark underneath the rock ledge in the alcove,
barely able to make out the outline of Scully sitting next to him.
He could hear her quick, heavy breathing, and as his eyes adjusted
to the darkness he was able to see her eyes, looking at him with
bewilderment.

"You're not going to believe this," he said.

"Try me."

He shifted his position, and glanced out into the darkness.  "Okay,
but I'll tell you on the way.  Krycek said they'd close the entrance
to the canyon when it got dark and we've got to get out of here
before they find us."

He climbed out from under the ledge and she did the same, smoothing
her hands over her suit jacket as she stood.  She paused, and Mulder
stopped a few feet away, turning to look at her when he realized she
wasn't following him.

"What is it, Scully?"

She was suveying the ground.  "My ring," she replied, looked up at
him with wide eyes as she massaged her bare ring finger.  "It's
gone."

"What?" he stepped back over to her, kneeling down and reaching
inside of the alcove, running his fingers over the flat, layered
rock.  He didn't find anything but smooth rock.

"It's not here."  He stood, placing a hand on her shoulder and felt
her let out a shuddering sigh.  "It's too dark.  We're not going to
find it tonight, Scully."

She looked up at him, her face crestfallen and her eyes showing her
disappointment.

Mulder ran his hand over the back of her head tenderly.  "It's just
a ring, I'll get you another one.  I'll even let you pick it out.
C'mon, let's get out of here."
 

XxXxXxXxX Enchantment Resort
 

The room was lit by a flash of lightening followed almost
immediately by the loud crash of thunder, and the equipment set up
in the main room of the hacienda powered off, the monitors going
blank.  The men in lab coats rushed around pressing power buttons
and checking cable connections as the smoker lit another Morley in
the next room, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs.  After a
moment one of the men approached him, the sweat glistening off of
his brow.

"What is it?" the smoker asked.

"All of the settings and connections check out alright, but we're
not picking up any readings."

The smoker exhaled, his eyes squinting as he looked at the man.
"That's impossible."

"We've checked everything twice, Sir.  The lightening must have
caused a power surge that effected all of the settings.  Either
that, or..." he swallowed.  "It's gone."

The smoker turned and looked at the laptop on the table.  The spot
indicating Scully's position had moved - Scully and Mulder were on
their way back out of the canyon.  He glanced over at Krycek, who
met his look briefly, then quickly left the room.

He brushed by the old German on his way out.

"I was afraid that this would happen.  This is not acceptable," the
German stated, his blue eyes boring into the smoker's.

The smoker took another drag from his cigarette, forcing a smile.
"Nothing has changed."  He stubbed the cigarette out and turned to
face his co-conspirator.

"I told you, Herr Strughold, I have everything under control."
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

There were men from the C.D.C. on the flight from Phoenix to
Flagstaff, and Skinner overheard their conversation on the way.
Like him, they had been on the flight from D.C., and they were going
to investigate a reported public health situation that had come out
of one of their local offices, involving a highly trafficked tourist
spot in Sedona.

Skinner knew the M.O.

A sudden public health threat, the closure of a canyon after the sun
goes down, and all of it happening in the paranormal hotseat of
Sedona.  Without thinking twice he followed the men through the
airport, stood behind them in the rental car line, and followed them
out of the parking lot all of the way to Sedona.

He was certain Mulder and Scully would be there.

His credentials got him beyond the road block just beyond the
entrance to Enchantment Resort and into the parking lot at the mouth
of Boynton Canyon.  He stood off to the side, observing while some
of the men suited up in their protective coveralls.  What made him
uneasy, however, was the glimpse he'd gotten of a stack of high-
powered rifles in the back of one of the unmarked government
licensed trucks.

Military issue rifles.

An in-air phone call to the Bureau just after his call to Miami had
earned him the make, model and license number of the car the agents
had rented against Scully's Bureau-issued Visa, and with the parking
lot nearly empty now, it wasn't difficult to locate the vehicle.

They were in the canyon.

He wasn't one to take unnecessary risks, especially when there was a
potential for disease or virus.  He'd learned first hand about the
darker side of what modern medicine and technology were capable of a
couple of years ago when Krycek infected him with some kind of
nanotechnology that invaded his bloodstream, and kept him at the
bastard's mercy.  He had been pronounced dead on the operating
table, only to make a miraculous recovery just minutes later.

Krycek had made his point clear, and Skinner was compromised.

There hadn't been another demonstration of the power Krycek held
over him, and he'd done everything asked of him.  He knew even now
that Krycek would kill him without conscience if he didn't.  Still,
if he got one clear shot at that bastard, he wouldn't hesitate to
take it.

Now, even though he wasn't clear on what role Krycek was playing
with Mulder and Scully, the situation seemed to warrant action.  The
people behind the closing of the canyon were deadly serious in their
intentions and he feared that Mulder and Scully had been set up, by
Krycek or possibly the smoking man himself.  Making his way through
the parking lot by carefully crouching beside the parked cars, he
waited until he had an unobserved path into the canyon and sprinted,
slipping behind a large bush.  When he was certain that no one had
seen him he moved on down the trail, into the canyon and out of
visual distance of the parking lot.
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Thirteen
Boynton Canyon
 

The rain had stopped, and the clouds began to break up and move on,
allowing them moments of moonlight to help guide them along the
rocky path.

"I don't accept that, Scully," Mulder was saying ardently, following
closely behind her while the clouds temporarily masked the moon.
"We both came in contact with an individual entity that claimed to
be there specifically to deliver an important message, and we both
found ourselves right back in that alcove within seconds of each
other with no knowledge of the amount of time we spent there.  Yet a
significant amount of time had clearly passed."

Small pieces of rock crunched under the hard soles of her shoes as
she walked, and she was grateful that the path was more rock than
mud.

"Mulder, you and I have had very little sleep in the last 48
hours."

His mouth pressed into a thin line and his response was clipped.  "I
wasn't walking in my sleep."

"I believe you experienced something, Mulder, whether it was a
result of being in a highly suggestive state of fatigue or...or the
residual effects from coming into contact with that energy source
earlier.  What I'm saying is that I don't believe that what I
experienced and what you experienced was a possible abduction or a
simultaneous telepathic visionary event."

"Parallel experiences both taking place in a box canyon several
hundred feet away from where we started and finished, both during
the same block of time, both receiving the same message...what would
you call it, then?"

She stopped, her breathing slightly accelerated from the exertion,
and looked over her shoulder at him.  Her look told him she wasn't
going to take his bait.  If she did, he knew what her answer would
be.

Mulder sighed.  "Alright, for the sake of argument, say you and I
both were sleepwalking.  According to the Kabalist, Eliphas Levi,
the paraphernalia and instruments of divinations, such as
somnambulism, premonitions and second sight, are simply means for
communications between the divinator and the individual who consults
him.  They serve to fix and concentrate two wills upon the same sign
or object.  Thus one is enabled at times to see a message in the
leaves of a tea cup, or in the clouds, in the white of an egg..."

She drew in deep breath and held it a moment before letting it out.
"Father Schroeder is alive, Mulder, and he's in this canyon.  I
spoke with him."

"Then you admit the possibility of my abduction theory, that I
actually spoke with the E.B.E. then?  That it wasn't a vision for
me, either?"

"Andy?" she asked with no lack of incredulity.  The moon came out in
time for him to see her eyebrow cocked as if challenging him to
prove that one.

He realized how ridiculous it sounded as he was relaying the details
of his encounter to her.  If anything, she ought to know based on
that fact that it was too far-fetched NOT to be true.

"I told you, he said that he chose humor because I would respond to
it.  Just like you responded to seeing a man of the cloth."

"If your other theory is true, if we both saw was a vision at the
same time, then why him?" she asked, turning all of the way around
to face him.  "Why Father Schroeder?  Why not my Sunday school
teacher, or the family priest who gave me my first communion?"

Mulder stared back at her stubbornly, shaking his head as she
continued to walk ahead.  "I can't answer that.  I don't think we
choose our messengers, I think they come along when our minds are
open enough to receive them.  Explain to me how we both
simultaneously heard different presentations of the same message -
the oneness of all life, the power of two individuals striving for
the greater good of all mankind..."

"Mulder, it's a universal theme in most, if not all religions, and
we've both been exposed to more than just a little religious-themed
information of late.  We've had little sleep, combined with the fact
that our relationship has recently changed on a much more personal
level..."

He let out a huff, crossing his arms in front of his chest the way
that she had done so many times in the past.

"So THAT'S your explanation?  It's just coincidence?  The part that
we BOTH heard about you and I having a powerful connection...are you
gonna tell me it's just a load of romantic crap brought on in the
afterglow of last night's sex or that electric orgasm we both just
experienced?"

She could tell by his tone that he was growing angry, and she
studied his face carefully, trying to read what was in his eyes.
"Of course not," she said softly.  She knew their connection was a
powerful one before they ever set foot in Sedona, even if they had
never consummated the relationship.

"Then you accept the message?  Or at least PART of it..."

"It's not the meaning of the message that I doubt, Mulder, it's the
way that you claim it was delivered."

He ground his teeth together, stepping closer to her and she could
see the frustration flash in his eyes.  His voice was soft as he
spoke, but it held a slight tremor.

"Tell me something, Scully.  How is it that you can go into a
Buddhist temple and see a vision, you can see Emily lying on a
gurney in the place of a cadaver during an autopsy, but you can't
accept this for what it was?"

He held her gaze and she stared back at him, not knowing what to
say.  It wasn't him she doubted.  She never doubted him or the depth
of his beliefs, she merely questioned the plausibility of his
allegations.  Didn't he understand that by now?  She opened her
mouth a few times to tell him so, but Mulder broke their gaze,
moving past her to head down the path alone, his jaw set and his
shoulders squared.

"Mulder..." she called to him, then let out a frustrated sigh,
following him down the trail.
 

XxXxXxXxx
 

They moved on in silence, neither speaking but both thinking about
their disagreement.  Mulder was considering that perhaps she HAD
really spoken with Ulrich, as he hadn't actually seen the event take
place.  It was possible that she had walked into the canyon, had a
conversation with Father Schroeder and then returned to the alcove
without remembering how she got back.  What didn't make sense,
though, was the fact that she could remember the conversation but
not the part about returning to the alcove.  That, and the fact that
Father Schroeder was reportedly dead and six feet under back in
Washington D.C.

Mulder had to concede that he hadn't slept since the night before
last, and although he felt no fatigue, it was possible that he might
be suffering from sleep deprivation.  And he had spent more than a
passing thought on their developing relationship, so her arguments
were valid.

For her part, Scully was crabby, and she knew it.  She had the
beginning symptoms of a potential migraine.  She had been dragged
out of her comfortable apartment in the middle of the night, just
after sex, sans shower or sleep, and across the country to go
traipsing around nature in a rainstorm.  She felt dirty, sticky,
itchy and cold.  She wanted a hot shower and a soft bed, even though
she wasn't tired...she just wanted to shut her eyes and turn off her
thoughts for a little while.  She wanted to forget that Mulder was
pissed off at her for thinking the way she thinks and that they were
in Arizona with Alex Krycek, chasing aliens and talking to alleged
dead priests who wanted to impart divine wisdom about the power of
their relationship.

She wanted to go home.  At this point, she'd even settle for the
rental car and miles of good road in the right direction.

She considered that perhaps Mulder had come closer to the truth than
she'd like to admit - He had more or less implied that she might be
more inclined to believe she'd had a vision if it had been hers
alone.  She'd always taken a more skeptical approach whenever Mulder
insisted he'd seen something not easily explained, as it was always
her designated role to do so.  Usually, Mulder wasn't there to take
the leap of logic for her when she would more readily accept the
less-than-plausible theory.  And the fact remained that they both
received messages that were strikingly similar, both of them finding
themselves right back in the alcove with no knowledge of how they
had gotten back there.

"Listen to your heart," Father Schroeder had told her, and she had
taken his message to heart, despite her questions about his
appearance.  She had to consider both points of view.  And there was
one thing that had yet to be done, but she could do when she got
home.  She would petition the church for permission to exhume and
examine the body that they claimed and buried in the name of Father
Ulrich Schroeder, to lay to rest once and for all the question about
the identity of the man lying in St. Mary's Cemetery.  That would
explain a lot about the nature of her meeting with the man in the
canyon.

Mulder had stopped, and was looking at sky ahead.  She stepped up
beside him, watching his face for a clue about what he was thinking.

"What is it, Mulder?" she asked, concern in her voice.

His lips were pursed together, his eyes squinting.  "Chopper."

She looked in the direction of his gaze, and they both saw a
helicopter rise up in the distance, the movement of the spotlight
accompanied by the soft, distinct sound of the machinery.

"Do you think they're looking for us?"

He didn't appear to be angry with her anymore.  He bit the inside of
his cheek, still watching, and shook his head.  "I don't think so.
Whoever that is, we probably want to avoid them at all costs.  Come
on."

He touched his hand to her lower back and she let out a breath,
moving ahead with him at a much quicker pace than before.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

Skinner found himself at a juncture where the trail split and he
chose another direction, the one that led upward toward the back of
the canyon, rather than heading toward the prominent knoll and the
strange rock formations.  It was dark, but the moon was beginning to
make an appearance more and more frequently and he was able to make
his way without stumbling or falling into the wash that ran
alongside the trail.  The trail was firm, as it was mostly rock and
packed dirt, but there were a few muddy places that he had to
navigate around.  However, the lack of visible footprints led him to
believe that perhaps he'd chosen the wrong trail.

He heard a helicopter engine, and saw a searchlight illuminating the
area that he assumed was the mouth of the canyon where the C.D.C.
had begun their investigation.  The presence of the helicopter was
actually a bonus in his estimation, as it gave him an idea of where
they were in relation to where he was, so he had the advantage when
it came to staying out of sight.  He figured Mulder and Scully would
be avoiding that helicopter as well.

He proceeded cautiously, making as little noise as possible while
keeping his ears open for sounds of other feet on the trail or maybe
even voices.  After nearly half an hour of hiking in relative
silence, he paused just below a rocky incline which lead up to a
ledge.  It would be an easy climb and since nearly all of the clouds
had vanished, he had the assistance of full moonlight to help him
see the way.  From the ledge he'd be able to see a good portion of
the area that lay ahead of him.

He saw movement on the ledge, and crouching beside a large bush, saw
the figure of a man.  He was facing the other direction, looking out
over the canyon as Skinner had intended to do.  Unaware that he had
been spotted from behind, the man crouched down on his haunches as
he perused the canyon.

Alex Krycek.

Skinner moved slowly, picking his way up the incline as quietly as
possible.  The helicopter was drawing closer, the sound of its
engine helping to mask his approach.  As he reached the flat ground
of the ledge Krycek turned, realizing that he had company.

"Assistant Director Skinner," Krycek said with a chuff, as if he'd
expected to see him all along.

"Where are they?" Skinner asked.  He didn't need to say who - they
both knew who he meant.

"Down there, somewhere," Krycek pointed over the edge toward the
canyon below.  Skinner stepped closer and looked down.  There as a
sharp drop, and then a sprinkling of brush and trees on the wall of
the ledge where it gradually inclined toward the bottom of the
canyon.  Beyond the incline, there was a large clearing that
appeared to be some kind of camping site.

It was a long way down.

"What's going on here?" Skinner asked, looking Krycek in the eye as
he did so.

"An alien hunt," Krycek replied.
 
Krycek's flip demeanor played on his already raw nerves, and Skinner
grit his teeth.  "I've seen the C.D.C. gathering in the parking lot,
Krycek, and they aren't here to take water samples.  What kind of a
game are you playing?"

"It's no game," Krycek said, pressing his lips into a thin line.  He
turned, looking back out over the canyon once more.  "This is deadly
serious."

"Are they being set up?"  Krycek didn't respond, and didn't meet his
gaze.

Skinner folded his arms in front of him and shifted his
weight on his feet.  To say he was already irritated was an
understatement.  He let out a huff of air and clenched his eyes shut
a moment.

"What's your role in all of this?" he prodded.

Again, Krycek didn't respond.

Mulder's voice came from behind, saying, "That seems to be the
$64,000 question."

Skinner and Krycek both turned to see Mulder and Scully stepping
onto the rock ledge behind them.

"Are you two alright?" Skinner asked, glancing from his face to hers
and back to his again.

"Fine," Mulder said with a nod, standing with his feet spread apart
in a position of defense.

The sound of the nearby helicopter was growing louder, indicating
that it was getting even closer.  "But we need to get out of here
before that chopper finds us or we may all be what they'll sell to
the media as the next big outbreak of the Hanta virus."

Skinner nodded, and Scully touched a hand to Mulder's arm.  "Father
Schroeder..."

Mulder looked at her a moment, then nodded.  He understood she was
concerned that he might still be in the canyon.

Skinner watched their interaction, and asked with incredulity, "What
about Father Schroeder?"

Scully replied, "He's alive and I have every reason to believe he's
in this canyon."

They had to talk louder than usual to compensate for the sound of
the helicopter filling their ears.  Skinner turned to Mulder.

"I didn't see him, but Scully did," Mulder shouted.

Scully looked up at him with a look of gratitude for accepting her
interpretation of her experience and he met her look with a gleam of
respect in his eye.

"She saw him in the back of the canyon.  He may have made his
way out already but we have no way of knowing that."

Krycek let out a huff, shaking his head.  "That wasn't Ulrich.  I
can
promise you that he is very dead."

"You said you weren't involved in his murder."  Scully replied,
turning to face him.

Krycek remained silent, and Skinner stepped forward, grabbing the
younger man by the lapels of his leather jacket.

"You'd better start talking while you still have the ability,
Krycek.  What do you know about it?"

"I don't know anything more than what I've already told you.  You
won't find the shooter."

"Antonio Cardinale was apprehended trying to leave the country.  He
hung himself in his cell in Miami.  Again, what do you know about
it?" Skinner asked him.

"Antonio was a hired killer, hired by smoking man, just like his
brother Luis."

Scully paced back and forth in front of him like a caged tiger.
Smoking man.  C.G.B. Spender.  The man who made overtures to her
about the cure for cancer, convinced her to follow him, talked about
turning over a new leaf before dying then betrayed her and Mulder's
trust in her.  The mere mention of the man crushed her capacity for
forgiveness.

"You're saying that smoking man hired Antonio Cardinale to kill
Father Schroeder, just as he hired Luis Cardinale to shoot my sister
in my apartment?"

"He hired him, but it wasn't your sister he was supposed to kill."

She drew in a long breath, her chest rising as she glanced over at
Mulder.  His hands were clenching and unclenching into fists at his
sides.

"Smoking man wanted me dead.  You would know that because
you were there as well, weren't you?"  Scully nearly barked at
Krycek, her accusation hitting him square on the mark as her eyes
burned into his.  "Both times, then and now."

He averted his gaze briefly, then met her look head on, which in and
of itself was a reply.  "I didn't kill the priest."

Scully's anger was at full boil with Krycek's admission.  He was in
her apartment with Luis Cardinale.  Hired by C.G.B. Spender to kill
her because she'd gotten to close to the truth about the project.
And for all of Spender's paternal ramblings of affection and
respect, taking credit for saving her life, for the technology at
the base of her neck that allegedly put her cancer into remission,
he was the one responsible for taking Melissa's life.  Missy, her
big sister, who never knew what she was stepping into when she
walked in that apartment door and received a bullet.  All of the
suffering!  Not only had he tried to have her killed, he had taken
her, took away three months of her life and her ability to bear
children.

She felt the full implication of his betrayal even more keenly than
before, in addition to the sting of Krycek's participation in that
betrayal.  He stood before her.  A living, physical testament to the
pain and deceit.

She knew Mulder suspected Krycek of killing his own father, and as
all of the pieces fell into place her heart hardened.  She reached
behind her back, feeling for her weapon, making sure it was still
there.  One false move on his part and all it would take was one
clear shot right between the eyes...one shot in exchange for the
mountain of hurt she and Mulder had suffered at the hands of these
men.  For Missy, for Emily, for Bill Mulder and Samantha...

Her finger twitched as it touched the cold gun metal, her head
immediately starting to throb as her headache grew stronger.

One shot.

Mulder turned away from Krycek, his hands on his hips and his lips
pulled back over his teeth in an angry grimace.  His feelings were
obvious, and he was barely keeping them under control, but it was a
hell of an internal debate.  He wanted revenge, for himself and for
Scully.  He could see Scully seething, feel her pain and that was
even more of an incentive to take him out.  He should have taken out
that black-lunged S.O.B. when he had the chance, but Krycek would do
in a pinch.

He'd spent six months with Krycek, reading his thoughts.  He never
read this...the man was adept at keeping secrets.  For all of his
Hegalian intent, Alex Krycek deserved to die for his sins just as
much as C.G.B. Spender did.

Skinner was not oblivious to the pain his agents were experiencing,
and he already had his hands on Krycek.  He shoved him against the
rock wall that supported the ledge, his back mercilessly pressed
into a large protrusion that bent his spine at an unnatural angle.
Krycek grimaced, trying not to show how uncomfortable he really was
as Skinner got down in his face.

"Whether you actually pulled the trigger or not, this is where it
all ends, you son of a bitch."

Krycek laughed in his face in spite of his pain - a hollow,
frightened sound meant to show his lack of fear.

"You don't get it," he said, his eyes serious.  "It's not just me or
him.  It's never been just him.  He's had to answer to someone else
just like I've had to do." He tossed his head in Mulder and Scully's
direction.  "Just like they do with you and you do with..."

"Who?" Skinner interrupted.  He was close enough to feel his panting
breath, his teeth bared.  He shoved against him once more, his
forearm covering his trachea, crushing it.  "Who is calling all of
the shots?"

Krycek struggled against Skinner, unable to gain any leverage.  If
he could just get a foot on firm ground... "Strughold," he huffed
out finally, his body drooping from the exertion.

Mulder turned and looked at Scully, and she glanced up to meet his
gaze.  "Strughold Mining Company," she said to him in a low voice,
barely audible above the chopper's engine, and he nodded.  All of
those files they'd found years ago, locked in the side of a
mountain.  All containing tissue samples.  A genetic database of
every man, woman and child born in the United States since the
1950's.

Her name had been on one of those files.  So had his, covered over
with Samantha's name instead.

Skinner pushed him harder.  "Who is Strughold?" he asked roughly.

"An original member of the consortium," Krycek replied hoarsely, his
feet slipping out from under him, creating added pressure on his
throat where Skinner had him pinned.  "Part of the Paper Clip
operation, the one directly responsible for instigating and
implementing the project."

"The consortium is finished," Mulder yelled, stepping forward.
"They all died at El Rico.  There is no more project."

"No.  Not everybody," Krycek replied, the sweat dripping off his
brow.  "Strughold wasn't there.  Smoking Man wasn't there."

"And neither were you," Scully added with contempt.

Krycek coughed, the air passing through his lips in thin gasps.
"You're wasting time.  They're here now.  Both of them.  To capture
the E.B.E.  To rebuild the project."

"Whatever they told you, the E.B.E. is gone," Mulder replied, "and
there's not going to be another project.  It's out of their hands.
It's finished."

Krycek chuckled, despite his situation.  His eyes were dark and
cold.  "There will be another project.  Don't you get it?  These
people control the future.  In true Nazi form, Strughold has
retained records on everything.  He's got a team of geneticists
assembled.  All he needs is the genetic material from the living
E.B.E. to
pick up where they left off last time."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Skinner growled in his
face.  "You may have been able to manipulate me in the past, but
that stops right here, right now, even if I have to die to see that
it does."

Krycek closed his eyes, then looked straight at him.  "I don't have
the ability to kill you anymore."

Skinner barely heard him.  Or perhaps he misunderstood.  "What?" he
barked.

"The nanotechnology that infected your blood.  It's gone.  The body
breaks it down like any foreign substance."

"How?" Scully asked, stepping closer so that she could hear better
over the pulsing of the helicopter engine growing nearer and nearer.

"White blood cells.  They attack it like an infection and eliminate
it in the usual way."

"How long?" Skinner hissed.  When he didn't receive an answer, he
pushed his full weight against Krycek's throat and growled, "HOW
LONG?"

Krycek's feet kicked underneath him, struggling for leverage, small
rocks spraying out with his effort.  "A couple of months after you
were infected."

Skinner's fists clenched, and he let out a huff, the pressure on
Krycek's trachea easing off.  At that moment, Krycek was able to get
his foot firmly planted on a large piece of rock, and he shoved
against Skinner's chest with all of this strength.  Skinner stumbled
backward, grabbing onto Krycek's jacket in the processing and
pulling him back with him.  Their balance was thrown off and they
both fell to the ground, wrestling for power.

At that moment a helicopter appeared from behind the rock wall, a
drab green, the air from the blades thrashing the plants and shrubs
to and fro and whipping Scully's hair into her eyes.  It was dark,
but the spotlight shone down on them, creating a nearly cinematic
illumination on the scene that was unfolding and preventing them to
see beyond the source of the light.

Scully had her weapon out the second Krycek had shoved Skinner, both
hands wrapped around the gun's grip, her legs spread in the standard
position as she hunched forward, her focus right on the two men
struggling.  Her head was pounding and out of the corner of her eyes
she saw Mulder had assumed the same position, his attention
alternating between the men on the ground and the chopper in the air
above.

"I can't get a clear shot," Scully called out to Mulder, her eyes
never leaving the two men on the ground.

"Neither can I," Mulder yelled back.  The men rolled toward the
rock's edge and they held their breath, letting it out slowly as
they rolled back away.

With the sound of the helicopter and the spotlight hitting her eyes
adding to the throbbing cranial ache, Scully closed her eyes and
shook her head, hoping to clear her blurring vision.  When that
didn't work, she let her arms drop down to her sides, still
clutching her gun, and rubbed her eyes with the free hand.

"Scully?" Mulder called out to her with concern.  Krycek landed a
solid punch into the side of Skinner's jaw, and illuminated by the
spotlight, the two moved toward the steep side of the ledge once
more.

The helicopter had no place to set down so it circled, attempting to
keep the spotlight on them but their movement making the tracking
difficult.  Hovering above, the volume of the sound changed
according to its position in the air.

Scully heard a hum growing louder in her ears as the sounds of the
helicopter, the men struggling and Mulder shouting her name grew
fainter and fainter.  Her vision became a field of fuzzy white, the
bouncing spotlight fading out of view, and she stumbled to her right
in an attempt to compensate for the wave of dizziness that
disoriented her.  All at once she was wrapped up into two strong
arms, the comfort and warmth of Mulder washing over her like
security blanket and she buried her face under his chin.

The humming began to fade and the sounds of the helicopter and the
chaos grew stronger again, accompanied by the soft whispers of
nonsensical words and 'shhh' coming from Mulder's lips.  She turned
her head, and illuminated in the spotlight she saw Skinner
straddling Krycek's hips, pounding his fist into his face as Krycek
tried to hold him off with his one good arm.

For all of her anger, she knew that violence was not the solution.
Father Schroeder had mentioned that there was a connection between
all things, and she knew that answering violence with violence would
only perpetuate that violence.  Krycek had confessed to
reprehensible crimes, but it was not their right to take his life
from him.  His life was in God's hands.

"Mulder," she said with alarm, looking up at him.  Mulder was
watching the scene, a look of helplessness on his face.  "Mulder,
he's killing him."  Mulder looked down into her face with an
expression that said, 'I know, but I'm not letting you go' and she
met his look with large pleading eyes.  Do something.  "Mulder.
Please."

He drew in a shaky breath and ran a finger down her cheek, nodding.
He remembered what Andy had said about the importance of life - all
life, and each individual soul, and he understood why she wanted him
to intervene.  Helping her to her feet, he let go of her when he
could see that she was able to stand on her own.  'Are you okay?' he
asked with his eyes, and when she nodded he carefully moved toward
the two men near the edge of the ledge.

"Sir!" he yelled, receiving no response.  Krycek was twisting
underneath Skinner, his hand clamped around Skinner's throat as
Skinner pushed his face into the rock with one arm, the other trying
to pry Krycek's fingers off of his neck.

Mulder moved a little closer, illuminated by the spotlight and
entering Skinner's direct line of vision.  "SIR!" he yelled again,
the wind from the chopper blades whipping the loose material of his
T-shirt around his body.  He looked up at the helicopter, almost
expecting to see a rifle trained on him, but all he could see was
the glare of the spotlight.

Skinner saw Mulder out of the corner of his eye, and with his teeth
clenched, yelled, "Mulder, help me!"

"NO SIR!" Mulder yelled back.  "Not like this!  You have to stop!"

Scully appeared in the light next to him, her arms outstretched with
her palms flat out in the universal body language to stop.

"SIR!" she yelled, her hair thrashing around in the wind.  "Let it
go!"

Skinner glanced up at the both of them, and in that one second
recognized it as one of the life-altering moments of his life.  Out
of anger he was about to kill a man with his bare hands.  He could
claim self-defense, but he realized that his desire to kill had
nothing to do with self-preservation and everything to do with hate.

His years in Nam, barely old enough to vote, taught him about hate,
and he'd lived the rest of his life in the shadow of his actions.
He had done things since then that he was not proud of, but he would
not add this to his burden.

Skinner removed his hand from Krycek's face and used both hands to
wrench the fingers away from his neck.  Krycek let go, and for the
briefest instant the men saw into each other's eyes, both breathing
heavily.  Then Skinner moved to get off of him and Krycek twisted,
sliding his leg underneath Skinner's leg and dropping him to the
ground.  He rolled over on top of him, and Skinner grabbed his
shoulders to hold him off.  He shoved, and Krycek rolled over the
top of him, grabbing him around the neck.

Scully gasped as they came right up to the rock's edge.  In one of
those unforgettable moments in life that seem to move in slow
motion, both she and Mulder moved forward, too slow and too late to
stop the two men from rolling over the steep side of the ledge into
the canyon far below.
 

XxXxXxXxX  End Chapter Thirteen
 

Himself as in all beings,
And all beings in himself,
Sees he whose self is disciplined in discipline,
Who sees the same in all things.
Who sees Me in all,
And sees all in Me,
For him I am not lost,
And he is not lost for me.
Whoso reveres me as abiding in all things,
adopting the belief in oneness,
though abiding in any possible condition,
that disciplined man abides in Me.
- Bhagavad Gita [vi. 29-31]
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Fourteen
 

"NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

Scully's anguished wail echoed through the canyon as she knelt at
the rock's edge, her chest heaving as she peered into the darkness
below.  Mulder was right beside her, squinting to try to see farther
or better than the moonlight and his limited, unassisted eyesight
would allow.  The helicopter was pulling back, its spotlight
scanning the incline and the bottom of the canyon.

"It's too far, Mulder," she said mournfully, her eyes still intent
on the ground below, hoping for a miracle.  "There's no way..."

"We don't know that," he said firmly, his voice intense.

The farther the spotlight traveled down the incline, the stronger
her feeling of dread became.  The angle was wrong; they couldn't be
that far out into the canyon.  Skinner and Krycek would have had to
jump off of the ledge at a full run to even attempt to land that far
away.

Scully closed her eyes and turned away, her back hunched and her
shoulders sagging forward.  The sound of the helicopter marked the
passing of time, each second excruciating in its inability to bring
the men back.  Mulder was still scanning the ground below, and she
turned to look at him, her eyes weary.  She watched him a moment,
knowing he was clinging to his hope that they may have survived the
fall.

"Mulder," she said in a low, defeated voice.

He didn't reply, and she swallowed thickly.  "Mulder," she said
again, a bit louder.

"No, Scully.  No."  He shook his head.  "I don't believe it.  I
don't."  He wouldn't look at her, or let his eyes leave the
spotlight.

She drew in a deep breath, her entire upper body heaving as she did
so.  Then she exhaled slowly, placing a hand on Mulder's shoulder as
she watched his face in the pale moonlight.

He bit his lip, tracking the spotlight across the floor of the
canyon.  She turned away, tears forming in her eyes, unable to bear
the look on Mulder's face any longer.

"Scully," he said a moment later, his voice urgent.

She turned back.  He was leaning farther over the ledge, his face
expectant.

"Scully, look."

With both hope and dread she turned and looked back down into the
canyon, seeing the spotlight illuminate the figures of the two men
in the clearing far below.  They were lying on their backs, about
four feet apart.  It was too far to see if they were breathing, but
their limbs didn't appear to be set in any unusual angles.

It was impossible that they could have fallen that far and survived.

And then, Krycek moved.

Her mouth fell open as she watched Krycek look up at the helicopter,
then stand on his feet.  He seemed a little stiff and perhaps
disoriented.  He glanced down at Skinner, wiped his hand over his
mouth, and stumbled off into the darkness.

"That's not poss..." Scully said with disbelief, stopping mid-
sentence when Skinner lifted his head, the light shining off of his
bald spot like a beacon in the night.

Mulder's laugh was pure joy, and her own face showed her surprise
and then her delight as she watched the assistant director sit up.
He brushed himself off and shielded his eyes, trying to spot them on
the ledge.  Then he turned and looked up at the helicopter, rising
to his feet as the chopper slowly landed in the clearing.

They saw him move toward the helicopter and climb inside, and after
a few moments it lifted from the ground, rising up toward the ledge.
There was no room for the helicopter to land, but it came close,
hovering just above them with the side door open.  Both standing,
they could see the pilot, a Native American male wearing a uniform
that indicated he was a park ranger.

Skinner was belted into the passenger side adjusting the way his
glasses fit behind his ears.

"This is Joe Littlefoot," Skinner yelled at them through the open
door, his voice just audible above the sound of the chopper's
blades.  "He heard about the closure of the canyon and thought he'd
offer his services."

"Are you alright?" Scully yelled back.

"All things considered, I feel fine!" he bellowed, and Mulder turned
and looked at Scully with a wide grin on his face.  "Joe's offered
to take me to the hospital to get checked out."

"I want to come with you!" Scully replied.

Skinner shook his head.  "I'll be alright.  I need you to locate
Krycek before he gets too much of a lead."

Mulder raised his hand to bid them off, and Joe Littlefoot nodded at
them.  Then the helicopter lifted, turning back in the direction it
originally came from.  As the sound grew fainter, they realized that
they could hear another helicopter in the opposite direction.

There were, in fact, two helicopters.  Joe Littlefoot's, and the
C.D.C.'s chopper still hovering near the mouth of the canyon.  The
chance was pretty good that the agents' presence in the canyon was
now known, if it hadn't been previously.

Mulder held Scully's gaze, and without saying a word they agreed to
move on in search of Krycek.
 

XxXxXxXxX Enchantment Resort
 

His thick hands clenched in fists at his sides, Strughold glowered
at the men who nervously worked on the electronic monitoring
equipment.  He had seen this project through every development since
the very beginning, and it was clear to him that it was all falling
apart under his colleague's tutelage.

They had raw materials frozen from before - samples of blood and
tissue - but a live specimen was more than difficult to secure.  Not
the human test subject - they were easy to find, but there hadn't
been any 'contact' with the extraterrestrial race since before the
unfortunate incident at El Rico.

He questioned whether or not there was an actual extraterrestrial
biological entity in that canyon.  This time, he had not been the
one with whom contact was made, and this made him suspicious.  He
questioned his colleague's motives.

Conrad Strughold was a man who had seen more than most in his
lifetime.  He'd survived the war of his youth.  He missed his
country and, despite familial difficulties, he had made a good life
for himself in the United States and later in Tunis.  He had escaped
the Nuremburg trials so many of his peers had to face and survived
the recent horrors of the rebels who came to destroy the project and
the rest of the consortium.

Now the only one left besides him was Spender.  The smoker was a
mere shell of the man he once was - physically ill and delusional.

He'd never trusted Spender.

Watching him now, cool behind his cloud of smoke and staring out the
window into the canyon, Strughold knew that there was no future to
be made with this man.  This man wanted to play games with men like
Alex Krycek and Fox Mulder.  This man was not interested in the
science.

The young men that Strughold had brought into the project himself
were the new generation, though.  They had a vested interest in
Eugenics and racial purity.  They understood their heritage, the
importance of their role and that the future was theirs to fight
for.  They would do it for him.  These are the men on whom he could
lay his hopes and his legacy.

The new reich.

Strughold watched as Spender turned to check the laptop screen on
the table near the window, lighting another cigarette.

Again and again with Agents Mulder and Scully.

And Agent Mulder - he had been right under their noses all of this
time.  Bill Mulder's snot-nosed kid, the perfect hybrid.  The most
talented geneticists in the world would have been able to collect
years of research from him.  Mulder could have communicated with the
colonists, read their thoughts and learned their true intentions.

But Spender was not interested in the science.  He wanted to BE Fox
Mulder.  He had the most valuable part of Mulder cut out, placing it
inside of his own head.  It had been for nothing, and he had
rendered Mulder useless to the project as well.

Strughold was finished with Mulder and Scully, finished with Krycek
and Spender and their silly games.  Turning away from Spender, he
walked out of the room.  He would continue his project elsewhere -
there was nothing for him here.
 

XxXxXxXxX Boynton Canyon
 

As they came nearer to the entrance of the canyon, Mulder and Scully
moved more cautiously, aware that the area was under intense
scrutiny.  Ahead of them the helicopter was hovering over the trail
that they had just left, the one that led into the back of the
canyon.  The agents had turned and were now headed toward the knoll
and the unusual rock formations just inside the canyon's mouth.
They passed by the twisted juniper trees while above them, the stars
were bright against the clear, black sky.

Mulder paused just at the base of the knoll.  He listened intently
for the sounds of anyone nearby, hearing only the sound of Scully's
breathing and the helicopter in the distance.

"Mulder?" Scully said softly, leaning in close.

"I'm fine, Scully.  I want to try to pick up on Krycek's location."

"Do you think he's still in the canyon?"

"I don't know."

She let out a sigh, her eyes turning to look at the strange rock
formations outlined against the stars above them as they continued
up the knoll.

She thought that one of the formations looked a lot like a coffee
pot.

Mulder stopped again at the top of the knoll, feeling the energy of
the vortex at its most powerful.  This had to be the center.
Closing his eyes he drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and
almost immediately he could hear Scully's thoughts, pondering coffee
pots and the shapes of the rock formations just ahead of them.  He
forced himself past her, without trying to figure out her logic,
searching for what could almost be described as distorted white
noise, for the sound of another clear thought.  It was like trying
to tune a radio manually - finding a clear signal required finesse.

Suddenly, there was a cacophony of voices in his head and then the
feel of hard gun metal in his back.  He opened his eyes, seeing
Scully standing rigid beside him, her hands raised.

"We've got 'em," someone was saying behind him.  Whether it was to
others or into some kind of communication device, he wasn't sure.
When the man said, "no, just the two of them, on the knoll," and
then "yes, sir," in response to silence, he knew it was the latter.

"Federal agents," Scully declared over her shoulder in her firmest
voice.

They were searched and relieved of their weapons and told they could
drop their arms.  As they turned to look at their captors, they saw
three men dressed in full decontamination suits and bearing semi-
automatic rifles.

"Nobody told me this was a costume party," Mulder said without
inflection.  Scully's eyes met his, and they shared a look.

"What grounds are you holding us on?" Scully asked the men sharply.

"Exposure to a suspected contagion," was the reply.
They both knew that was a load of shit, just as they knew that these
men weren't from the C.D.C.

"What contagion?" Scully asked, receiving no further reply.  She
glanced at Mulder again, and the group was joined by half a dozen
more men in contamination suits.  The helicopter came shortly
thereafter, the red rock formations casting twisted coffee pot
shaped shadows over them as the black chopper's spotlight circled
behind and around to keep the scene illuminated.

One of the men stumbled and bent over at the waist, much like Krycek
had done earlier.  The man on his right lowered his rifle and leaned
down to look into the distraught man's face.  Another turned toward
them.

"What's wrong with him?"

The man who was ill shook his head, drawing in deep breaths.  "I
don't know.  It was just a headache, but it keeps getting worse.
I'm sweating like a horse, and I think I'm gonna throw up."

"It's the same thing that happened to the others back at the
entrance.  Get him out of here!" Came an authoritative voice from
the dark as two of the men in decontamination suites helped the man
climb down the side of the knoll.

"Agent Mulder."

Both agents turned to see C.G.B. Spender approach.  He wasn't
wearing a decontamination suit, and there was a lit Morley
positioned between his lips.

The armed men still standing in front of them moved to the side, so
that Mulder and Scully were effectively boxed in between the side of
the knoll, the sentries and Spender.

Agent Scully," Spender added with a lilt, "A pleasure to see you
again."

"What's going on here?" Scully nearly barked at him as Mulder
shifted his weight from one to foot to the other, his mouth pressed
into a thin line.

The smoker smiled at her, drawing on his cigarette as his eyes
narrowed.  "You're looking well."

"I wish I could say the same," Scully responded.  "You look like
hell."

Mulder crossed his arms in front of him.  "Cut the crap, and tell us
what you want this time."

Spender paused.  "You don't know?"

"Know what?" Mulder said, "That we're being held at gunpoint for
exposure to a SUSPECTED contagion, by a group of men masquerading as
the C.D.C., while YOU'RE walking around unhindered and unprotected?"

There was another pause as the smoker blew out a breath of smoke and
drew in another.

"What brings you to Arizona, Fox?" Spender asked, his voice
conversational, with a hint of paternal affection.

"I had a craving for real guacamole.  You?"

Spender dropped his cigarette to the ground and rubbed it out with
the toe of his shoe.  He immediately lit another.
"I heard there was an alien in this canyon."  He blew out a breath.
"Have you seen it?"

"She did," a voice answered from just behind him.

Krycek's voice.

He nodded toward Scully, and her lips parted in surprise as the
smoker turned to face Krycek.  She glanced at Mulder, who was
intently watching Krycek.

Spender took in Krycek's somewhat dusty and disheveled countenance.

"Nice of you to join us, Alex."

"I don't know where you got that idea, Krycek, but you're mistaken,"
Scully said.

Krycek stepped forward, entering their loose semi-circle.  "It was a
shapeshifter.  She saw it in the back of the canyon."

Scully's eyes grew wider at the assumption.  Was that what she'd
seen impersonating Mulder years ago?  A shapeshifter?

The question was, a shapeshifting WHAT?

"She saw a man," Mulder replied, glaring at Krycek.  With Krycek's
obvious betrayal, he expected his carefully-honed ability would be
outed as well, if it hadn't been already.

The smoker studied Scully as he drew in a deep breath of smoke.
"Where is it, Dana?"  His voice was soft.  Tender.

Deadly.

At the use of her given name, Mulder glared at Spender, his eyes
dark and angry.  He made it clear he didn't like the familiarity
that the smoker showed with her.

Spender exhaled smoke through his nose and smiled, knowing that he'd
struck a nerve.

"I saw a man.  A priest," Scully said firmly.  "Not alien."

"She said she saw Father Ulrich Schroeder," Krycek added.

The smoker took another drag from his cigarette.  "Is that right?
And where was Agent Mulder while this was taking place?"

"He wasn't there," Scully said firmly, glaring at Krycek in warning.

"So Agent Mulder hasn't been exposed, then.  He can go.  We need
only detain Agent Scully," Spender said casually.

Mulder stepped closer to him.  "Listen, you son of a bitch -"

He was stopped by the insistence, once again, of gun metal.

A thickly accented voice came from out of nowhere, saying, "Let the
evil-doer go on doing evil and the filthy-minded wallow in his
filth, but let the good man persevere in his goodness and the
dedicated man be true to his dedication."

Mulder's lips parted in surprise, and the smoker and Krycek both
looked up to see Father Ulrich Schroeder standing directly behind
Mulder, his hands folded in front of him.

Staring at the priest, Spender swallowed and drew in a breath, his
cigarette poised between his thumb and forefinger at his side.

Ulrich stepped up, standing next to Mulder.  He looked up at the
helicopter hovering overhead, then met Mulder's gaze, offering him a
knowing smile.

Mulder stared at him in understanding, and closed his eyes, focusing
on the mental voices around him.  He could pick up more than one,
coming in succession and sometimes overlapping, but each a distinct
voice.

Spender was afraid.  He had not counted on a shapeshifter.  He did
not possess the ability to communicate with it telepathically, and
he longed for that ability.

He was not aware that Mulder possessed that ability.

"Who are you?" Spender asked Father Schroeder, his tone no longer
conversational.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning
and the end," Ulrich answered calmly.

Mulder heard Ulrich's response in his head and in his ears.

Krycek glanced to the side at Spender, gauging his response to
Ulrich's presence by the growing cylinder of ash at the end of his
cigarette.

In his own hand he held a cylinder of steel.  The sharp point was
still encased in the metal, but when deployed it resembled an ice
pick.

Mulder read his intention, and inside his head he screamed, "No!"
Opening his eyes, he became caught up in Ulrich's peaceful gaze.

Ulrich knew as well.

"Who sent you?" Spender demanded in the same tone as before.

Ulrich's gaze shifted from Mulder to Scully, although his expression
remained the same.  "I am here to deliver a message."

"What message?" the smoker commanded.

Ulrich took several steps toward the smoker, speaking softly while
holding him in his serene gaze.  "Go your way to the end and rest,
and you shall arise to your destiny at the end of the age."

Spender raised his hand and brought the cigarette to his lips,
inhaling deeply.  His hand shook.

"Is that all?"

Ulrich did not reply.  He turned and looked once more at Scully,
then Mulder.

"Remember, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes
him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has
crossed over from death to life."

Krycek approached him from behind, the pick-like instrument
deployed in his palm, poised for striking.  With one swift motion he
buried the sharp end into the back of Ulrich's neck, dropping the
weapon to the ground and stumbling backward, away from the body.

They all waited for the bubbling green ooze and toxic fumes to seep
out of Ulrich's wound.

Instead, a ray of light extended out from the opening in the back of
Father Schroeder's neck, and his body began to radiate, outlining
him with a faint glow that gradually grew brighter and brighter.  A
faint, high-pitched hum could be heard, mounting in volume as the
light became brighter.

Krycek rose to his feet.  With darkened eyes he deemed that this was
not what it appeared to be, but much, much worse.  Out of self-
preservation he ran off into the night, as far as he could get from
the canyon and Ulrich's glow.

Scully reached over and grabbed Mulder's hand out of empathy,
feeling a jolt of energy between them like before, reaching up her
arm and into her torso.

This time she did not let go.

As before, the energy passed through her into him, and through him
back to her, both of them trying to control their physical reactions
to the sensations.  Like before, as it spread through their bodies
it became a constant throbbing sensation, its intensity increasing,
the tempo building.

The light around Father Schroeder grew brighter, and the smoker's
eyes belied his horror.

"Shoot!  Shoot!" he screamed at the armed men watching with open
mouths.

Several of the men raised their rifles and fired.

Light burst out of the places where the bullets struck the priest's
torso, the sound rising in pitch and volume, the light's intensity
growing brighter and brighter as the rays expanded.  Light was now
radiating out of his eye sockets and the ends of his fingers.

Mulder's eyes were closed, and in the midst of the chaos Scully
heard him say, clear as a bell inside of her head, "Don't let go."

"I won't," she thought in response, squeezing his hand tighter.

His squeeze in response told her that he'd heard her.

In the air above them, the helicopter's engine sputtered, and the
spotlight shot up into the clear desert sky as the chopper turned
forty-five degrees to the side.

Spender saw the helicopter pilot was losing control, and that the
bullets he'd ordered into Father Schroeder had no effect.  He knew
his only chance at salvation was to retreat, and yelled to the armed
men, "Get the hell out of here!"

He took two steps backward, then turned and disappeared down the
side of the knoll, followed by three of the men.  Four men stayed
behind on the knoll, watching the scene before them as if in a
trance.

Father Schroeder's wounds were growing larger, the light expanding
and taking up more of his physical being while still glowing
brighter.  His body began to break apart, light shooting out of him
in all directions, illuminating the night sky.

"Don't look at him, Scully!" Mulder said inside of her head, and she
shut her eyes tightly, sucking in a deep gasp of air.  The sound in
the canyon was deafening -- the failing helicopter and the high,
screaming wail coming off of Father Schroeder.

Inside Scully's head, Mulder's voice was soothing, repeating over
and over, "It's going to be alright; just hang on, it's going to be
alright."

The helicopter skirted to the right, going into a tailspin.  It was
a horrifying sound.  The wind from the chopper's blades was whipping
their hair and clothing against their bodies, and the sound was so
loud it seemed that the helicopter would come down right on top of
them.

Mulder and Scully did not move, nor did they open their eyes.  They
continued holding on to each other, listening to each others' mental
voices of comfort while the sounds of the world coming to an end
screamed all around them.

The armed men still standing on the knoll were shielding their eyes
with their hands, still watching as the light emanating from Father
Schroeder become so bright, so white that it was blinding.

The earth underneath their feet moved as the helicopter hit the
ground a few hundred yards away and exploded into a fireball that
rolled up into the nighttime sky, the heat from the fuel-burning
fire blasting against Mulder's and Scully's backs.  In front of
them, Father Schroeder expanded in a burst of white brilliance that
extended into the stars.

And then he was gone.
 

XxXxXxXxX Chapter Fifteen
 

The only sound in the dark canyon was the hiss and pop of the fire
coming off of the chopper's wreckage.

Mulder opened his eyes, and blinking a moment, turned his head to
look at Scully.  Her eyelashed fluttered as she met his gaze with an
expression of bewilderment.  They were all alone on top of the knoll
and except for the fire's glow from the wreckage, the canyon was
shrouded in darkness.

Their hands were still joined, and they slowly let go, closing their
eyes as the residual sensations of release washed over them.  As
their breathing returned to normal, they opened their eyes and
looked at each other again.

Whatever had just happened, they'd survived it.

Mulder turned to survey the wreckage of the helicopter crash behind
them.  From the mangled steel, the heat of the burning fuel and the
all-encompassing fire, he knew that there were no survivors.

Just below the knoll he saw the bodies of four of the armed gunmen
lying prone on the ground.  Scully had already started down the
hill, and she reached the men before he did.

The glow from the burning chopper was enough to see that the men
appeared to be thrown off of the knoll, their arms outstretched as
if they'd been pinned to the ground.  Although they were still
incased in their decontamination suits, each one of the armed men
was left with two black, smoking holes where his eyes had once been.

Scully let out a few short breaths and looked up at Mulder.  There
were no words to express her emotions at that particular moment.
 

XxXxXxXxX Enchantment Resort
 

"We won't know for certain until we can compare it against the
records back in D.C." Scully was saying into the telephone as Mulder
emerged from the bathroom engulfed in a cloud of steam.

She was wearing purple silk pajamas, her toes curling into the thick
pile carpeting as she twisted the phone cord around her fingers.

"Did you tell them how far you fell?"

Listening to her side of the conversation, Mulder rubbed a towel
over his head.  Another towel was wrapped around his waist, and his
hair stuck up on end.

"Yes, we've taken a room at the resort."  She looked up at Mulder
and smiled as he walked past her.  "Thank you, sir."

She hung up the phone and turned to face Mulder, who was crouched
down in the far corner poking at the fire he'd built earlier, while
she had been showering.

"Based on the distance he fell, the hospital wants to keep Skinner
under observation the rest of the night.  He's got a dislocated
shoulder, but everything else appears to be fine."

"Bumbles bounce," Mulder replied, throwing another piece of wood
onto the fire.

As an involuntary groan escaped, she smiled in response and sat down
on the bed.

Mulder turned and looked at her, but didn't say anything.  He only
offered a gentle grin.

"It'll be light in just a couple of hours, you know," she said
softly, watching him turn around and poke at the fire once more.

He stood, dusting off his hands.  "I know.  It's not even cold, but
I like the atmosphere."

He stood and crossed the room, switching off the light and coming
around to the other side of the bed.  She pulled back the comforter
and slid between the sheets, and he dropped the towel from his
waist, doing the same.

"I've come to a conclusion, Mulder," she said quietly as he scooted
up behind her, spooning against her body underneath the covers.

He propped his head up on his hand.  "What's that?"

"That I don't care how much a person can accomplish if a body didn't
have to sleep.  I need it for my sanity.  We should have driven back
to Flagstaff or Phoenix for a room."

"And miss the opportunity to stay at a world-class resort on the
Bureau's nickel?"  He smiled and reached out to run the back of his
index finger down the curve of her cheek, his voice rough and
intimate.  "Besides, YOUR sanity has never been in question,
Scully."

She turned her face and looked at him, her eyes shining at his
implication.

"It may be when I try to come up with a rational explanation for
whatever the hell it was I saw out there tonight."

Mulder thought a moment.  "I don't know that there is a rational
explanation, or one that can be proved, scientifically or
otherwise."

"We were in the direct line of fire when Father Schroeder was shot,
Mulder.  Why didn't either of us get hit?"

He was still stroking her cheek with his finger, his eyes glassing
over as he considered her question.

"I don't know," he replied, shaking his head slightly, turning his
focus back to her.

She sighed and he scooted closer, cupping her face in his palm.
"Let me take your mind off of everything for a while.  Just relax
and let go."

Scully closed her eyes in assent, and Mulder slid his hand under the
covers, gently glancing over her front, down her arms and over her
wrists, where his fingertips stroked the skin gently before moving
back up her arms again.

She felt herself loosening, softening to the sensations he created
with his gentle touch and the press of his warm body against hers.
Her breathing slowed and her mind traveled, not lighting on any
subject but drifting placidly.

Finally.

"That's nice," she murmured, her eyes still closed.

"Mmmmmmm..." he hummed, one hand reaching down underneath the hem of
her pajama top to stroke the soft skin on her abdomen.  "Since
neither of us needs the sleep..." he drawled, letting his voice and
his wandering hand finish the thought for him.

Her lips curled up in a smile, but her eyes remained shut.  "Alright
with me," she said in a low, husky voice, then reached up and curled
her fingers around his face, pulling him down for a deep kiss.  "Let
me drive," she whispered against his lips as they pulled apart, her
eyes sparkling in the darkness.

"Alright with me," he echoed.  He shifted his weight and turned onto
his back with his head resting on a starched beige pillow.  She
crawled on top of him, straddling his hips and pulling her pajama
top over her head in one fluid movement.

Mulder slid his hands up her back and around in front, caressing her
breasts and running his thumbs over the rigid nipples.

She let out a soft breath, and his hands rose up to cradle her face.

"I love it when you drive," he growled, pulling her down toward him
for another breathtaking kiss.
 

XxXxXxXxX
 

They lay on their backs side by side, arms and legs extended, the
moonlight streaming across their bare skin.

He rolled over onto his side, then parting her thighs with his knee,
crawled over her and with a self-satisfied smile, settled himself
into the cradle created there.

"Again?" she asked with a glint in her eyes, letting out a soft
grunt as his body sank down against hers.

"Mmmm..." was all that she heard as he pressed his lips underneath
her jawbone.  She decided it was more a vibration than a sound,
closing her eyes and lifting her chin to give him better access to
the soft skin of her throat as her hands came up to cup his bare
shoulder blades.

"How does anybody sleep around here?" Scully asked, blinking up at
the ceiling.

"Maybe you grow accustomed to it.  Think of all the things you could
accomplish."

"It's not normal."

"It has its advantages."

She lowered her chin to look at him, and he raised his head to offer
her a wide, lecherous grin.

"I can see that.  You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she stated.
"Vortexes to keep you awake all night, a four-star resort hotel
room, room service..."

He moved his hand over and entwined his fingers with hers above her
head.  "A beautiful woman in my bed...can't blame me for taking
advantage of a situation when it presents itself," he said, the
smile still curling on his lips as he lowered his face to her neck
once again.

She could tell from the way he was lightly grazing on her neck that
he wasn't really intending to make love one more time.

"I suppose not," she replied with a smile, closing her eyes.  She
was content with his attentions, even if they didn't lead anywhere.

Content to just float for awhile.

They were silent a few minutes, then Mulder lifted his head to ask,
"Wanna watch TV?"

"Anything good on?" she mumbled without opening her eyes, sorry that
it had to end so soon.

He reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the remote control.
He tried powering the television on over his shoulder, but the
screen was a menu of options, and he wasn't wearing his glasses.
Squinting at the television, he could just make out option three as
the number for viewing television programming, and he pushed the
button on the remote, hitting two by mistake and getting the screen
to review their room account instead.

"Shit," he muttered, rolling off her to lay on his side, trying
again and finally succeeding.  "Infomercial, Infomercial, Burt
Reynolds movie..."

"What's on HBO?" she asked, still not opening her eyes.

He was silent a moment, still flipping through the channels as small
blips of noise and conversation marked his journey.  Finally, Bruce
Willis appeared.

"Die Hard Two.  Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!" he quoted, settling
back against the pillows with the remote resting on his bare
stomach.

She still didn't open her eyes.  "Guy movie."

He turned his head and gave her a stony stare, his mouth set in a
grim line.  Then he picked up the remote control and turned off the
television with a pitiful sigh.

After a moment, he reached over again, pulling out the drawer on the
nightstand.

"What are you doing?" she asked, opening her eyes and raising her
head partway off of the pillow to look at him.

"Looking for a deck of cards.  Wanna play Go Fish?"  He pulled a
small booklet out of the drawer.

"Not really."

He made the grim face again, and laid back down, looking at the
booklet.  It was a schedule of timetables for America West Airlines.

"Mulder?" she said in the way that people do when they want to
preface a question or statement.

"Yeah?"

"Let's go home."

Statement, not question, he noted, flipping through the booklet to
the scheduled flights to Baltimore.  "There's a direct flight to
Baltimore out of Phoenix at around 9:30 a.m."

She looked back at him, her eyebrow raised, and he grinned.
Finally, something they could agree on.
 

XxXxXxXxX Sky Harbor International Airport, Terminal Four
 

Mulder took a sip from the too-hot cafe mocha and sucked in a breath
of air to cool his mouth as he stepped around a passenger examining
her airline ticket.  Crossing from the Starbucks counter to the gate
where Scully sat perusing the Sunday morning Arizona Republic, he
noticed a dark-haired man in his middle to late thirties standing
near the counter at the adjacent gate, watching Scully with wide
eyes, his mouth hanging open.

Smiling to himself over Scully's inattention to the admiration,
Mulder handed her the non-fat cappuccino she'd ordered, and a small
brown bag containing a non-fat apricot blueberry muffin, which she
hadn't ordered.  She looked up, met his gaze and his smile,
accepting the bag with appreciation.

She really did derive joy from the simplest things.

Scully went back to perusing the paper, and Mulder took another sip
of his mocha, smiling with the satisfaction of knowing her well
enough to please her.  Glancing up, he noticed that the lurker was
still watching Scully, and when he realized that Mulder had noticed
him, his mouth closed into a tight-lipped smile, his eyebrows
falling as he shrugged.

"Father Schroeder made the local paper," Scully commented quietly,
pointing to a small blurb near the end of the A-section.

Mulder looked back down at her and broke off a piece of her muffin,
popping it into his mouth as he read over her shoulder.

"I want to examine the body the church buried, Mulder."

He nodded, finishing the article, which was only a small, follow-up
blurb mentioning the burial and stating the official facts of the
carjacking.  He glanced up when his peripheral vision caught someone
approaching them.

It was Scully's admirer.

Scully looked up just after he did, and her mouth dropped open, a
look of surprise crossing her face.

"Mike?" she said, and Mulder realized that she actually knew the
man.

"Hi Agent Scully," Mike said, offering her a smile.  "Is this your
missing partner?" He raised his hand briefly toward Mulder.

She placed a hand on Mulder's forearm and smiled.  "Not missing
anymore.  Mulder, this is Mike Moreno.  Um..." she reached up and
rubbed a finger over her nose, presumably scratching an itch, before
continuing, "Mike is the manager of the Desert Rose Motel in Trona.
He took me to the mine to look for you after I'd spotted the
abandoned tanker trucks."

Mulder looked at Mike, and they nodded their heads at each other.
Mulder stepped closer to Scully, his hip brushing against her
shoulder.

"So what brings you to Phoenix, Mike?" she asked pleasantly.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot.  "Oh, just a layover.
We're on our way to Cabo."

"We?" Scully asked.

Mike smiled sheepishly.  "Oh, Mindy...uh, my wife.  We've just come
from Vegas.  We flew in from L.A. yesterday and decided to get
married, so we stayed up all night so we could get the early flight
out to Cabo."  He nodded at the both of them.  "You know,
honeymoon."

"Vegas?" Mulder turned his face to look at Scully with a hopeful
look in his eyes, his eyebrows raised and a playful smile on his
lips.

She cocked an eyebrow at him that said, 'no way', then offered Mike
a warm smile.  "Congratulations.  So where is your new wife?"

"She's in the ladies room, I don't know, fixing her makeup or
something."  Mike shifted again, crossing his arms in front of him.
"So I'm glad I ran into you, Agent Scully.  I found out a couple of
days after you left Trona that the government really does own that
land where we found those trucks.  They bought the mine and
everything about three months ago."

Mulder raised his head, his eyes focusing intently on Mike.  "Are
you sure?"

Mike shifted nervously under the scrutiny and nodded back.  "Yeah,
Mindy's dad works for the Naval Weapons Center.  He said they've
been doing some testing out there but they had to stop."

"What kind of testing?"

"He doesn't know; it's beyond his security clearance.  I only found
out about it because there was an accident when they were working on
the mine.  They contracted an outside company to seal off the
entrance to the mine, you know, so that nobody could get hurt
inside.  But they used too much dynamite or something and the entire
mountain caved in.  A couple of the workers got trapped inside and
died.  It was terrible - the story even made the Los Angeles Times.
There hasn't been anybody out there since the accident."

Mulder nodded and looked at Scully.  He'd told her about the upper
entrance to the mine that the men in lab coats had accessed by a
retractable ladder, and they both knew whatever had been left behind
wasn't meant to be found.  Just as likely, the people who were
buried inside the mine were already dead before the accident.

One more cover-up to be added to the list.  Mulder wondered how
Smokey and his men would cover up the deaths of those four victims
from the knoll.  Maybe they'd just doused them with gasoline, lit
the match and listed them as casualties of the helicopter crash.

A woman with long frizzy blonde hair walked up to them, and Mike's
posture straightened.  "What's going on?" she asked somewhat
suspiciously.

"Hey, Honey," Mike said, putting an arm around her.  "Remember I
told you about the FBI agent I took out to the mine?"

She was wearing enough makeup for them to be able to see it, and she
wrapped her arms around Mike's waist, looking up at Mulder.  "Hi,"
she said, smiling flirtatiously.

"Hi.  Uh, Agent Mulder," he replied in response, offering his hand
with a slight grin.  It was obvious that Mike had neglected to tell
his new bride that the FBI agent he'd escorted out to the mine was a
woman, and he decided not to remedy that oversight.

"Agent Scully," Scully added.

Mindy looked down at her, her smile fading a little, and shook
Scully's offered hand.  With mirth, Scully glanced up at Mulder just
as the flight to Cabo San Lucas was being called over the
loudspeaker.

"That's us," Mindy said, looking pointedly at Mike.  The look and
her tone was enough for them to see who was in charge of that
relationship.

"Yeah, okay," Mike replied.  "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," he nodded
to each of them, careful not to linger too long on Scully's face.
"Nice to see you again."

"You too, Mike," Scully replied, offering Mindy another smile as the
two of them headed for their gate.

Mulder glanced down at his partner with amusement, and she met his
gaze.  Then she drew in a deep breath, her demeanor changing.

"Los Angeles Times Online," Mulder said, reaching down and picking
up her laptop case.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," she replied, accepting the
case from his hand, pulling out the computer and powering up the
cellular modem.

After a few minutes she was connected and searching the Los Angeles
Times database for the article about the Trona mine accident.  She
found it, and when it came up on the screen, Mulder crouched down
next to her, both of them scanning the paragraphs until they found
what they had been looking for.

"There it is," Mulder said, pointing to the exact line.

"Yes, it is."  Scully answered flatly.  "Strughold Mining Company
was contracted to seal the mine."

Mulder straightened, looking down at her as she bit the inside of
her cheek.

"Strughold is the one we need to go after, Scully.  If Krycek is to
be believed, he's the one behind all of it."

She let out a huff.  "After all that we've been through with Krycek,
his believability is worn thin."

Mulder sat down in the seat next to her, stretching his legs out in
front of him.

"Mulder, if Krycek has told anyone about your ability..."

Her eyes were wide with concern when he met her gaze, and he let out
a soft sigh.

"I don't think he will, Scully."

"He could use it against you."

"I could use it against him."

She looked down, and he reached over and took her hand in his,
pulling it over so that their clasped hands rested on top of his
thigh.

"The project is finished, that much I'm sure of.  There are still
dangerous people out there -- there always will be.  But it's our
job, Scully, to use whatever resources we have available to us to
stop those people from hurting innocent victims and taking more
lives."

Scully looked up at him and let out a slow breath.  "No more running
off in the middle of the night without telling me, Mulder."  She
squeezed his hand tightly for emphasis.  "I want to be included, no
matter what."

"No matter what," he promised, his eyes warm and his expression
serious.

The announcement for their flight was called over the loudspeaker,
and Mulder stood, pulling Scully up with him.

"Let's go home, Scully."
 

XxXxXxXxX Epilogue
Six months later
 

Scully's autopsy report on Father Ulrich Schroeder lay open on his
desk, on the top of his current caseload pile.  Directly underneath
were previous X Files they had investigated; Kevin Kryder, Dara
Kernof.  Harold Spuller.  He was looking for the one thing that
would offer the perfect explanation for what they experienced in
that canyon in Sedona months ago.

The autopsy report was conclusive, but the implications of that
report could not be answered by science.  Father Ulrich Schroeder
was dead, had been read his last rites and buried in the cold
District of Columbia ground.

A small unmarked package inside of a padded shipper envelope arrived
for Scully in the afternoon mail drop, and Mulder considered it
carefully, turning it over in his hands as he sat at his desk, alone
in the basement.  Scully wasn't there to open it, she had taken the
day off - too much to do, she'd said.

He preferred the distraction of work, and figured he'd end up being
a nervous annoyance to her, anyway - although his nervous energy
manifested itself in other ways.  The ceiling was riddled with newly
sharpened pencils and the waste can was overflowing with freshly
wadded up balls of paper.

Along with the package for Scully there was a large envelope from
the German Consulate, which he had opened immediately.  The contents
from inside were also strewn across his desk.  There was a document
called a Geburtsurkunde, which he deduced was a birth certificate; a
Meldeschein, a census document from the City of Munich, and a few
other documents which he couldn't pronounce, along with a receipt
for the retrieval and photocopying charge imposed by the consulate.
He looked the documents over once more, then he picked up the
telephone and dialed Scully at her mother's house.

Leaning back in his chair, he placed his feet up on the desk as the
phone rang through.  "Hey Scully, how's it going?  You need my
help?" he asked when he heard her voice answer, slightly out of
breath, on the other side of the line.

She let out a soft sigh.  "No, unless you want to come over and keep
my brothers occupied.  They've been underfoot all day trying to
be...helpful."

Mulder rolled a pencil between his fingers, his foot wagging on top
of the desk.  "Trying or succeeding?"

She let out a huff.  "Charlie wants to move the gazebo across the
yard.  He thinks that we're going to need more chairs."

"ARE we going to need more chairs?"

"No.  I've told him repeatedly that this is a small event but he's
not listening.  I'm beginning to rethink your Vegas idea."  She
paused a brief moment before adding with amusement, "How's your
head, by the way?"

"Almost back to normal now.  What did they tell you?"

She laughed what might better be described as a giggle if it weren't
coming from Dana Scully.  "I was there when they brought you home,
remember?  Other than confirming that you're a lousy drunk, they've
said nothing specific."  Her voice changed, taking on a softer tone.
"Whatever happened, I'm glad you could all find some middle ground."

"You're the middle ground, Scully.  They love you.  We've found
something we could all agree on."  He heard her draw in a deep
breath through her nose and knew that tears were threatening.  "And
you?  Did you get your millions of things done today?"

She sniffed again, and sighed.  "Only about six hundred thousand."

"Want me to take your mind off of table assignments and party favors
for a little while?"  She could hear his smile in his voice as he
spoke.

"I've been tying Jordan almonds up inside of little lavender circles
of netting until my fingers hurt, Mulder.  And I don't even LIKE
Jordan almonds.  Any distraction is welcome at this point."  Her
voice changed from frustrated to interested with the change of
subject.  "You sound smug.  What have you got?"

He paused a moment for effect.  "A package of documents from the
German Consulate pertaining to one Father Ulrich Schroeder," he
replied, even more smug than before.

"Really?"  He heard her exhale through her nose, and imagined her
sitting up straighter in her seat.  She probably had a good idea of
what was in the package as she was the one who had requested the
information from the consulate in the first place.  He was willing
to bet she wasn't prepared to hear the results, though.

"It's all in German, but I assume that the 'Geburtsurkunde' is a
birth certificate, right?"

"Uh huh."

"So, Ulrich Schroeder's birth mother's maiden name was Louisa
Schroeder."

She was silent a moment.  "So, he used his mother's maiden name.
When I petitioned the church for permission to exhume the body,
Father Marquette indicated during our conversation that Father
Schroeder had a special bond with his mother before she passed away.
He probably felt that it would honor her memory to use her maiden
name when he was ordained."

Mulder was silent, and she knew he was setting her up for bigger
information than the fact that Ulrich was using his mother's maiden
name.  "What?" She added, sensing the mounting drama through the
phone line.  "Mulder, you're not going to try to tell me that the
body I examined wasn't..."

"No!  No, your results were conclusive.  But there was something
about his DNA that you weren't able to test, even if you'd known."
Mulder replied.

She paused.  "Known what?"

"Ulrich Schroeder's birth father is listed as one Conrad Strughold."

"WHAT?"  Scully nearly barked into the telephone, and he heard her
say, "No, mom, I'm fine" over her shoulder.  "Mulder," she said, her
voice lowered, "Are you sure?"

"Yep.  Keep in mind that my German isn't as good as yours, but
according to the heiratsker...heiratsur...

"Heiratsurkunde?"

"Yes.  According to that, Louisa Schroeder married Conrad Strughold
in Israel in early 1960 at the tender young age of nineteen."

"Israel?"

"Yes, but Ulrich was born in Munich in December of that year.  I did
a little checking...every marriage in Germany has to take place in a
city hall in order to be considered official, unless it takes place
in..."

"Israel," Scully supplied.  "This is the first solid information
we've been able to collect on Strughold, Mulder."  Her voice grew
softer.  "How can Father Schroeder be Strughold's son?"

This was a subject bordering on sensitivity for Mulder, having
questioned the role his own father had played in the original
project.  "We can't choose our relatives, Scully, but we can create
a family of our own choosing."

His implication was clear, and she waited a moment before replying.
"Mulder, Ulrich was murdered by a man hired by the remaining members
of the consortium.  If Strughold IS his father..."

"As far as the official investigation goes, it doesn't change
anything, Scully.  The case is closed.  We have no physical evidence
linking Antonio Cardinale to the consortium, whether Strughold was
involved or not."

The line was silent as Scully thought about what he said.   "Maybe
the son was trying to make right the sins of the father."  She
paused again, and it was Mulder's turn to be silent.

He could relate to Ulrich's situation.

"We'll find Strughold, Scully.  Someday, somehow."  His voice was
resolute.  "Justice will be served and he will pay for his crimes."

She let out a sigh, only too familiar with dead ends and cold leads.
"So what else have you got on Father Schroeder?"

"School records, it looks like."

There was a knock at his office door, and he looked up to see
Skinner standing in the doorway.  "Hey Scully, before I forget,
there's another package here for you," he told her as he waved
Skinner inside, sitting up in his chair and taking his feet off of
the desk.

"There is?" her voice indicated her surprise.  "Crate and Barrel or
Pottery Barn?" she asked happily, transforming into a girl on
Christmas morning.  Or simply a girl.

He grinned, turning the package over again.  "Neither.  And it's
addressed to you, not the both of us."

"Oh.  Well, who's it from?"

"I don't know.  There's no return address.  It's postmarked Sedona."

He heard a soft crack, like the sound of teeth coming down on a
candy-coated almond.  "Open it," she said, audibly chewing on
something.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes.  But I'm warning you, if it's proof of another E.B.E..."

"I know, I know.  I have a solid appointment at one o'clock tomorrow
afternoon and for two weeks after that and nothing is going to stop
me from keeping it."  He heard a voice speaking in the background on
her end and she sighed into the phone.

"Mulder, I've gotta go.  Bill has started cleaning out Mom's
refrigerator.  He says he wants to phone the bakery and tell them to
have the cake ready tonight for him and Tara to pick up so we have
one less thing to worry about tomorrow morning."

Mulder laughed.  "Alright, I'll be there in time for the rehearsal,
ok?"

There was a crashing sound in the background, and Scully muttered,
"Oh shit.  Make sure you're on time, Father McCue has to be back at
the church by 8:30."  He could hear her yelling, "Bill!" as she hung
up the phone.

Mulder replaced the receiver in the phone's cradle with a laugh.  He
looked up at Skinner, who was standing in front of his desk,
listening to his side of the conversation with a look of
commiseration, having been there before.

"Is everything alright?" Skinner asked with mild concern.

"She's crazed."  He noticed that Skinner carried his satchel.  "Are
you on your way out?"

Skinner shifted his weight, standing in 'at ease' position.  "I just
stopped by to see if you need anything."  He pushed his glasses
farther up his nose.  "How are you holding up?"

Mulder picked up the package addressed to Scully and twirled it
between his fingers.  "I'm fine," he replied with a self-effacing
grin.  "Anxious, but fine."

Skinner nodded, noting the green Mulder had worn to work in his
complexion that morning seemed to have faded.  "You're one lucky
bastard, you know."

Mulder nodded, his mouth set in a soft smile.  "Yeah, I know.
You're going to have to get in the ass-kicking line, though, if you
plan on making the 'be good to her or else' speech.  I've heard it a
couple of times already."

"I know - I was there, remember?"

Fox Mulder in a Navy family.  God help him, or help the Scully's.
Skinner couldn't decide.

Mulder grinned, his fingers worrying the edge of the package until
he tore it open, and he pulled out a small white cardboard box, his
expression clouding before he looked up briefly.  "You got
everything?  The rings?"

Skinner's eyes showed the same amusement he'd worn the night before
as he was reminded of the previous evening's events.  Mulder must
have asked him about the rings fifty times at the very least.
"They're safe in my apartment" was his standard, patient reply.

Mulder nodded and opened the small box, his mouth falling open as he
spied the contents.

Skinner's expression changed from warm amusement to mild alarm.
"What is it?"

Mulder held out the object with the tips of his fingers.  It was his
grandmother's ring, the one he'd given to Scully.

"Is that the same ring she lost in the canyon?" Skinner asked, his
eyes growing wide.

Mulder looked at it closely.  "One and the same."  His face split
into a grin as he looked at the ring more closely.

Skinner shook his head.  "How?"

Mulder shrugged.  "Native American legend states that bad luck will
fall on anyone who removes anything from holy ground without first
obtaining permission.  Boynton Canyon is considered a sacred place.
Maybe the reverse is true for something left behind."  He looked at
his watch, then popped the ring back into the box and stuck it in
his trousers pocket.  "I'll walk you out.  I have just enough time
to stop by the jeweler down on the next block if I leave right now."

"You doubt its authenticity?"  Skinner asked, stepping into the
hallway.

"No, I'm sure of it.  There's something I want to have inscribed
inside the band before I give it to her tomorrow."

Mulder pulled his suit jacket from the coat tree near the door and
switched off the light, looking around the office one more time.

"Two weeks in Italy and not an X File to be had," Skinner commented
over his shoulder.  "I expect I'll see both of you back here in
under a week."

Mulder shook his head.  "Not this time."  He meant it.  If he'd
learned anything, it was that life is uncertain.  With everything
that he and Scully had been through, they owed it to themselves and
each other to grab whatever piece of joy they could latch onto and
hold on to it as long as possible.

That included each other.

Skinner was smirking at him and he threw a look over his shoulder at
the A.D. before closing the door behind him, grinning.  He carried
no files out with him, no documents, just the ring in his pocket.
Everything else would have to wait.

Come hell or Alex Krycek, Fox Mulder was going to marry Dana Scully.
 

XxXxXxXxX The End
 
 

Notes:  There are so many people without whom this story would never
have been completed.  First and foremost, my family, who have to put
up with me and my obsession every day.

Thanks to the readers who kept me going through the long, long,
LOOONNNNNGG process.  And if any of you ever catch word of me,
beduini, and WIP in the same sentence, please nip it in the bud or
slap me upside the head with a two by four!

Kerri did the beta on the whole enchilada.  She's fabulous.  Not
only is she accurate and thorough, but she's timely and offered
great commentary and suggestions that helped out when my vision left
me.  And she's a great cheerleader and friend.  Thank you, Kerri.

Pam answered my plea for information and in turn offered me a wealth
of research that blew me away, both in its subject matter and in its
volume.  There's a future story in there.  NOT a WIP, I say.  Pam, I
hope you know what you're in for.  If you had HALF as much fun as I
did going through the research, we're going to have a blast.

Marty offered many valuable suggestions in characterization, none of
them sugarcoated.  I thank her, even if she did laugh at me when I
was describing the finale to her over the phone.  Hmpf.

Dlynn got stuck in the nastiest, hairiest chapter full of people and
made sense of my ambiguous pronouns.  Thanks to her we now know who
'they' are.

And finally, thanks to the people at the Haven's fic board, who have
kept me otherwise occupied with interesting conversation, fabulous
reading material and wonderful support over the last several months.

So - where'd this all come from?  (I always wonder about that when I
read a fic) - personal interest, mostly.  I don't necessarily
practice all of the ideas I put forth in this fic, but I've studied
the subjects for years and have always found more than a grain of
truth in there.  Revisiting the specifics was a lot of fun.  I've
been to most, not all of the places but I confess that the knoll in
Boynton Canyon is no where near as large as I imply here.  Creative
license, ok?  And Trona really does stink, in all senses of the
word.

As for the premise, I saw the potential for a Mulder disappearance
around the middle of Season Seven when I knew that there were
contractual issues, and decided to write my own version of events.
Chris Carter has done a better job - he is the master.  But writing
this was a fun ride, nevertheless.

On to season eight!  Bring him home, boys.

beduini2@yahoo.com

August 9, 2000