I did not write this.  Send feedback to bonetree@aol.com
 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0.  This is Chapter Seven A.

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

U.S. AIRWAYS FLIGHT 289
30 MILES FROM RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
DECEMBER 29
4:33 p.m.
 

It had snowed in Richmond, just a few days shy of the new year.
Scully watched as the winter landscape, scarred with the plowed
black ribbons of highway, the patches of subdivisions, came into
view.  The plane continued its descent, dipping through the last
of the thick clouds and into the gloaming light of early
evening.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our final descent into
the Richmond metropolitan area. Please fasten your seat belts
and return your tray tables to the upright position.  For those
of you remaining in the Richmond area, the weather report is
overcast skies, temperature 31 degrees...."

Scully put the in-flight magazine she'd been pretending to read
for the duration of the flight in the pocket of the seat in
front of her.  There was no need for her to adjust her seat;
she'd been sitting upright, stiff as stone, since she'd gotten
on the plane, feeling as uncomfortable with her body as she did
with her new name.   It was as if she wasn't quite sure who she
was or how she should behave.

The first thing to tip off this feeling of unreality, the
feeling that something fundamental had changed about her
identity, was the nearly empty briefcase beneath the seat in
front of her.  It had somehow been a comfort to her to have all
the files on Curran and The Path, all the autopsy reports of
Mary Rutherford and the other victims.  It was all there if she
needed to refer to it, if she needed to recall some vital
detail. Now, she had nothing but her memory to carry her
through, the files, all copies, burned in Flaherty's fireplace
that morning before she left.

So she'd spent the flight replaying facts in her mind,
rehearsing as though she were an actor on a well-attended
opening night.

First, she tried to recall everything she knew about Owen
Curran.

Curran's father, James, had died in prison after starving
himself to death during a hunger strike.  His mother had died
soon after, leaving Curran, his sister Mae, and his brother,
also James, orphaned at the ages of 10, 11 and 15,
respectively.

James had entered the priesthood when he was 17 years old, and
Curran and his sister had raised themselves on the streets of
Belfast, soon becoming part of the I.R.A.  No one was exactly
sure when this was the case, though by the time James was killed
in a protest when Owen was 14, Curran was already a suspected
member.  He'd been arrested and questioned in relation to a
retaliatory attack on a British convoy on the outskirts of
Belfast soon after the protest, but had been released because of
lack of evidence tying him to the terrorist act.

All of the information about Curran's youth had come from that
questioning, and once he was released, Curran disappeared into a
hazy series of blurred photographs and rumors about his
involvement with various I.R.A. operations.  He was reputed to
be climbing the ranks quickly, but he stayed one step ahead of
the British authorities, covering his tracks and connections
with care.

Scully recalled the most recent photograph from the file well:
Curran on a crowded street in Belfast, a cigarette dangling from
one corner of his full lips.  He'd been about 30 in that
picture, the photo only a few years old.  A distinguished nose,
though crooked at the bridge from being broken.  High
cheekbones.  Thick brows.  Dark, closely cropped hair, already
hemmed in gray at the temples.  A scar running along the side of
his mouth.

But what Scully remembered most were his pale blue eyes.
Staring straight into the camera.  Aware he was being watched,
even in the midst of the bustling crowd.

"Owen Curran," Mulder had said in his presentation to the task
force, "...is obsessive to the point of paranoia.  Cautious.
Meticulous.  A natural leader, as evidenced by his quick rise to
power within The Path.  He will be afraid to make any authentic
affiliations with anyone other than his sister, Mae, and a few
close advisors.  However, with the exception of his sister, he
won't trust even those advisors completely because of his early
exposure to abandonment."

Mulder had come around the table, clicking on a slide of the
picture she remembered so well.  He stood beside the screen, his
face even with Curran's.  "He carries a deep hatred of the
British.  He blames them for the death of his family, so his
fight goes beyond politics and into the deeply personal.  This
makes him more dedicated and more dangerous."

The flaps were coming down on the wings now, the plane filling
with the sound of rushing air as the plane began to brake for
its final descent.  Scully stared out the window at snowy ground
coming closer, the blue and white and red lights of the airport
coming into view.  Off in the distance she could see the city
skyline of Richmond, the buildings still outlined in lights in
the blue-gray dusk.

One of those buildings, she thought, was the hotel where she
and Mulder had stayed, where Mulder would be still.   She took
great comfort that he was there.  It scared her how much comfort
she took in that fact.

Sitting up straighter, as if to shake those feelings away, as
if to reassert her own confidence, she continued to recite in
her mind the things that she knew about the case.

She was being picked up at the airport by Mae Curran.  Little
was known about Mae, except that she was always, it appeared, at
her brother's side.  Scully had seen one picture of her in the
series of slides in Mulder's presentation -- curly long black
hair, pale skin dotted with freckles, the same intense blue eyes
of her brother.

According to Flaherty, Scully would be staying with Mae, at
least until she could find a place of her own.  It had been
meant as an offer of hospitality by Curran, and the task force
had been pleased at this unexpected offer of access.  Scully was
pleased as well, but the fact still made her apprehensive.  As
long as she was staying with Mae, there would be no way for her
to ever be "off duty" -- she would have to be Katherine Black 24
hours a day.  There would also be no way for her to meet in
complete privacy with Mulder or anyone else from the task force
that would be monitoring her.

She would make finding a place to live her first priority.

The runway rushed up, the plane lurching as the wheels touched
down, the engines roaring as the plane slowed.  She reached down
to her feet, pulled out her small purse and the briefcase.
Shifting in her seat, she was once again keenly aware of the
absence of her Sig, of her coat pocket empty of her badge, of
the wallet in her purse empty of every shred of her real self --
even the pictures of her family.  Everything had been replaced
with the documents of her new identity.  Without thinking, she
held the purse to her chest as the plane taxied to the gate.

*********

RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
5:16 p.m.
 

The first lesson that Scully realized she was going to have to
learn about being undercover was that she was going to have to
abandon her prejudices.

She knew this the moment she walked off the plane and saw Mae
Curran at the end of the gate area.  Curran was wearing a brown
suede overcoat and jeans, a grey wool scarf, her long curly hair
pulled back in a loose ponytail.  She held in one hand a sign
with the name "Dr. Katherine Black" neatly written on it.  Her
other hand rested on the small shoulder of a five or six year
old boy.

Scully wasn't exactly sure what it was that she expected to
find on her first meeting with a known international terrorist,
but someone who looked like a kindergarten teacher was not it.

Shouldering her briefcase and purse, she went toward Curran,
trying her best to appear casual and nonchalant.   It was hard
considering Curran was watching her so intently as she
approached.
 
"I'm Katherine Black," Scully said softly once she'd stopped in
front of the woman and boy.  Curran kept studying her for a few
seconds, taking in her face, her eyes a little wide, as though
she were surprised.

"Is something wrong?"  Scully asked, feeling instantly nervous,
as though Curran could already see through her cover.

The other woman tucked the sign under her arm, struck out of
her staring.  "No, of course not, Dr. Black,"  she said
hurriedly.  "You just look very much like someone I used to
know."  She put a hand out.  "I'm Mae Curran.  Welcome."

Her voice was soft, a bit breathy.  Heavily accented.  A
hesitant smile came to her lips as Scully reached out and shook
her hand.  The blush of color on Curran's cheeks and the shyness
of her manner surprised Scully again.

"And this," Mae continued as she released Scully's hand and
looked down at the boy between them, "This is my nephew Sean.
Can you say hello to Dr. Black, Sean?"

Scully looked down into the boy's deep green eyes, smiled
through her nervousness.  He had an open, warm face as he looked
up at her.  His hair was a bright shade of red, not unlike
Scully's own.

"Hello, Dr. Black," he said, his voice light as a bell.  He did
not have any of his aunt's shyness, it appeared.  Scully also
noted the first gap in the information the task force had
assembled on Owen Curran -- they had not told her that he had a
son.

"Let's see to your things then," Mae said softly, gesturing
with her hand towards the corridor that led to the baggage claim
area.  As Scully passed her, she reached out and lifted the
briefcase off her shoulder by the strap.   "Here, I'll get that
for you."

Scully let her have it, thanked her quietly.  They moved with
the throng of people coming off the flight, reunited families
surrounded by boisterous children, businessmen talking on cell
phones as though their lives depended on them as they hurried
along.

"Dr. Black, were you told you'd be staying with me until you
got settled in?"  Mae asked as they walked, her hand firmly
holding Sean's as they moved through the crowd.

"Yes, I was," Scully replied, glancing at the other woman's
pale face as they walked, struck once again by how gentle, how
innocent Curran looked.   It was only the lines around her eyes
that gave her age as being over twenty.  That and a certain
heaviness in her carriage, a sadness, as though she were very
world weary for being so young.

"That's very generous of you," Scully continued.  "And you can
call me Katherine."

Since "Katherine" was her middle name, and a name she'd
occasionally been called when she was younger, she was somewhat
relieved to be able to use it.  It gave her cover a touch of
familiarity that she found comforting.

"All right, Katherine it is."  Curran smiled again, the same
shy smile, as though she didn't want anyone to see her doing it.
 "We'll be going to the flat to drop off your things and then
we're going straight out again."

"Oh?"  Scully replied.

"Yes," Mae continued, helping Sean onto the escalator going
down.   "My brother Owen wants to meet you tonight.  He has
something for you to do that needs taking care of right away."

"I see,"  Scully said, following right behind them.  So soon,
she thought....

Sean turned to her now, standing backwards on the escalator as
they descended.  "We're going to a party," he said happily.

"A party?"  Scully said, smiling down at the boy.  "Who's the
party for?"

"It's not really a party," Mae corrected, looking down at Sean
as if to tell him to hush, then she returned her gaze to Scully.
"There's just a gathering to hear a friend's band play at a
local pub."

"Ian is playing his guitar," Sean continued, and began
chattering people's names, people who would be at the pub.  Mae
looked at Scully apologetically.

"Dr. Black will meet everyone when she gets to the pub, Sean.
That's quite enough talk for now."

"No, he's fine," Scully said, smiling.  It really was more than
fine.  The more names she heard the better.

They reached the baggage claim area and Scully took her place
beside the conveyor.  It was already moving, carrying the
battered large and small shapes of bags around and around.

"If you don't need any help with your bags, I'll go ahead and
get the car."  Mae gave Sean's hand a tug to keep him away from
the belt.

"That would be fine," Scully replied.  "I can take care of
them.  I'll meet you out front."

She watched Mae and Sean go, weaving through the crowd.  She
felt her nervous energy beginning to ebb a bit.  She found Mae
Curran not only accessible but friendly, likeable.  And Sean's
presence had put her much more at ease.

There was something so normal about them.  They were, in many
ways, just a woman about her age and a young boy.  People who
also existed outside the dark agendas of The Path.  Who went to
a pub to listen to a friend play the guitar.

She felt herself calming with the thought.  If she could do
this assignment by approaching the people she encountered from a
sense of  common ground, it would make it easier for her to move
among them.

And she was going to meet Owen Curran that night, apparently to
find out what sort of task he had in mind for her this soon in
the operation.   She would have information for Mulder and the
task force by the end of the night.

She kept her eye on the belt, watching for her bags and
considered all this.  Nothing was coming out exactly as she had
envisioned.  For that, she was grateful.

***********

END CHAPTER 7a.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7b.

***********

THE GREY MOUSE PUB
7:03 p.m.
 

Mae pulled the battered Chevy pickup into a spot in the crowded
parking lot of the pub, the music audible even in the closed-up
truck with the heat blasting.   Scully could only make it out a
bit, but she could tell it was upbeat and full of fiddles.

Sean was squirming between her and Mae.  He'd been excited the
whole time they'd been at Mae's apartment on Grace Street,
putting Scully's things in her small bedroom.  It had reminded
Scully of one of the apartments she'd lived in in medical
school, the room at the end of a long shotgun hallway, the
furthest room from the kitchen and living room area.  Two large
windows, almost floor to ceiling, looked out on the brick side
of the house next door.  They were hooded with cheap plastic
blinds.

The room was sparsely furnished:  a full-size bed made up with
clearly second hand blankets, capped with a cheap metal-slatted
headboard;  a dresser with six drawers; a small rug in the
middle of the room; a round table beside the bed.   Radiator
heaters hissed at the persistent chill in the poorly insulated
room.

Mae had apologized for the sparseness of it, but Scully had
responded kindly that it was everything she needed until she
found a place of her own.  She'd set her bags on the bed and
hadn't even been able to take her coat off and relax for a
moment before Sean started pleading with Mae for them to go.

Now, Mae turned off the truck and opened her door, stepping out
in the frigid night air, Sean clambering out her side, as well.
Scully climbed out the other side, slammed the door shut, met
Mae and Sean in front of the truck.

"It's a bit wild tonight," Mae said, nodding towards the front
door.  "But my brother has a small room in the back where he
conducts his business.  It'll be quiet enough for you back
there."

They entered the pub and Scully was immediately assailed by a
loud Irish reel, a press of bodies, and a cloud of cigarette
smoke.  They picked their way through the crowd, people greeting
Mae and Sean as they did so.  Scully got many an interested look
as she followed Mae -- clearly they weren't very used to
strangers.   She found it hard to meet all the curious stares.

A band was playing on stage -- guitars, fiddles, hand drums,
flutes.  People were dancing in the one clear area of the entire
bar.

They finally reached the back of the bar where double swinging
doors guarded a small corridor.  Mae led them down the corridor
to another door and knocked on it.  She'd been right.  The
music, while still loud, was at a tolerable level back here.

A huge man answered the door, more than a foot taller than
Scully and twice as wide.  He had a scowl on his face as he
looked at Scully.  Sean slipped by him and ran into the room.

"Mae," the man said by way of greeting.  "Who've you got here
now?  That doctor from Boston's my guess."

"It is, John," Mae replied, and turned to Scully.  "Katherine,
this is John Fagan.  John, this is Dr. Black."

The man looked at Scully for another moment, as though he were
debating whether to let her in or not.  Finally he stepped
aside, and that was his only greeting.  Mae brushed past him,
Scully following behind.  As she passed Fagan, he gave her body
a long, lascivious look; she felt herself redden, but met his
eyes, forcing him to look her in the face.  Once he had, she
returned her attention to the room.  She could still see Fagan
smirking at her as she passed, then he closed the door behind
them.

Three men sat around a round table covered with papers, beer
glasses.  Sean was on his father's lap.  Scully recognized
Curran immediately.  He was exactly the same as he was in the
picture, right down to the close-cropped dark hair.  He looked
up at the newcomers in the room.

And locked eyes with Scully.  His mouth hung open a bit and an
expression of sadness, surprise, something Scully couldn't quite
name flashed across his face.  Scully met the intense look
evenly.

The other two men at the table had likewise turned to look at
her.  She met their eyes, as well, and she grew immediately
concerned.  They both looked haggard, almost emaciated.  Dark
circles clung to their eyes.  One of them was lifting a glass of
beer to his lips, and his hand was trembling.  They were clearly
very ill with something.

Curran snapped himself out of his state quickly, moved Sean off
his lap and then stood himself, regaining a smooth hard mask of
a face.

"Dr. Black, is it?"  he said, forcing Scully's attention away
from the two men.  "I'm Owen Curran.  I'm the man who got you
down here."   He put out a hand over the table, wiping it on his
pants leg before he did so.

"Yes, I'm Katherine Black," she replied, and took his
outstretched hand, shook it lightly.  "It's good to meet you,
Mr. Curran."

He didn't answer her, but rather gestured to the other men at
the table.  "This is Danny Conner.  Jim Creeley."  The two men
nodded, looking at her warily, but said nothing.  "You'll be
working with them a good bit."

Again Scully's attention was drawn to the two men's appearance.
She'd never seen anyone look as exhausted.  But Curran himself,
Mae, Sean....they all looked fine, healthy.  She wondered if
Conner and Creeley had just gotten off some task that kept them
up for a few days.

She nodded to them by way of greeting.  Curran was looting
around on the table, sifting through the piles of paper.
Finally he found what he was looking for, a sheet of paper with
a list on it.

"I need you to write some prescriptions for me," Curran said,
handing her the list.  "There's what I need, and I've put some
people's names on there for you to use as the dummy names for
the scrips."

Scully studied the list as Curran continued.   "I want you to
write the scrips, then have them filled at the pharmacy at the
hospital.  They'll have everything you need.  Jim and Danny here
will pick them up after you've put them in.  Just let me know
once you've done it and I'll send them to fetch them."

Scully read the names of the drugs to herself:  ketanserin,
ondansetron, granisetron, satosetron.  And mescaline, the
powerful hallucinogen.  They were all serotonin inhibiting
drugs.   Just like the ones found in Mary Rutherford's blood
stream during the autopsy.

"You sound like you've done this before," Scully commented
under her breath, still looking at the list.

"Aye, that we have," Curran replied curtly, his voice lowering.
It sounded like a warning, like the rumbling of thunder before a
storm.

"May I ask what these are for?"  she asked, though she didn't
really expect him to answer.

Curran reclaimed his seat, lifted Sean back onto his lap.  "No,
you may not," he said flatly.  "You're getting paid to do what
you're told, Doctor.  I'll tell you everything you need to
know."

Mae was looking at her nervously.  Curran stared her in the
face now, his brows raised in a "do I make myself clear"
expression.  Behind her, she could feel John Fagan's presence,
and turned to glance at him.  He was smirking at her again.

Finally she nodded, folded the piece of paper in half and
stuffed it in her pocket.

"All right," she said, and her voice was perturbed.  She did
not want to appear weak in front of this man.  She got the
feeling he would disdain it.  "I'll take care of it tomorrow
when I begin work at the clinic."

"Very good," Curran replied, reaching for his beer.  The band
started up again, a man singing.  He gestured to the door.

"You might want to go hear the band then,"  he said, took a
gulp of the dark beer.  "They're a pleasure to hear, and last I
looked there was quite a party going on."

Behind her, Fagan opened the door, the music flooding the room.
Sensing that she was being dismissed, Scully angled her head at
Curran.  "A pleasure, Mr. Curran," she said, her voice dripping
with sarcasm and irritation, irritation she wasn't having to
muster much as part of an act.

Curran gaped at her, surprised at her tone.   He wasn't used to
being spoken to like that, that much was clear.

"Thank you for the warm welcome," she finished, then turned on
her heel and, brushing past Fagan brusquely, left the room.
Mae followed behind her and Fagan closed the door.

Once they were back in the corridor, Mae came up alongside
Scully.  "You'll have to pardon my brother," she said just
loudly enough to be heard over the music.  "He can come across a
bit rude when you first meet him."

"I see that," Scully replied, not looking at her.

"But you might want to watch how you speak to him, though,"
Mae continued, her voice lowering.  "He has a way of dealing
with people he thinks don't give him the proper respect."
"I'll try and remember that," Scully said, though she had no
intention of cowing.  In front of any of them.   Still, the
image of Mary Rutherford's body flashed into her mind.
Relenting, she decided she would attempt to tread more lightly
when she could.

They walked the rest of the way to the double doors in silence.

"So," Mae said brightly, trying to break the dour mood.  "Will
you drink a pint before I take you home?  Ian's band really is
quite good."

Scully wanted nothing more than to go back to the apartment,
unpack, attempt to settle in.  And she'd never been one for bars
or crowds.  But she also didn't know where her opportunities to
glean information would be coming from, so she nodded, opening
the doors to the pub, taking in the crowd and the noise.

"Sure, I'll have a pint," she said, and forced a smile,
gesturing to the throng of people.  "Lead the way."

Mae smiled slightly, clearly pleased, and did just that.

********

Later, she lay on her back in the rickety bed, watching snow
fall outside the window through the light filtering between the
houses from the street lamps.  She'd been so tired when they'd
returned to the apartment that she hadn't even unpacked her
things.  She'd opened one of the suitcases enough to find her
travel alarm, her bag of toiletries and her pajamas and had gone
straight to bed, trying not to listen to the muted sound of the
television, which Mae was watching in the living room.

She considered her first meeting with Owen Curran, with Mae.
She liked Mae, who seemed so open and trusting to her, the exact
opposite of her brother.  It was going to be hard getting close
to Owen, that much was clear.  But then, that was to be
expected, she thought as she rolled over, facing the window now.

Her mind then replayed the names of the drugs he'd asked for
again and again, searching for some connection, some way they
could be used together, and for what purpose.   It remained a
mystery to her.

Shifting, she pulled the covers up closer to her chin.  The
radiators thumped and hissed, trying to fight the chill that
bled through the old windows.   She thought of how, when she was
cold at home and Mulder was there, he would wrap his body around
hers, pressing against her for warmth.  If she closed her eyes
she could almost conjure the feeling of his arm wrapped around
her, his leg slipping between her knees, his warm breath at her
ear sending a tingle down her spine that had nothing to do with
cold.....

She missed him terribly.  And so soon, too.  She missed not
only his body, but everything about him.  Sharing a meal with
him.  Working late at one of their apartments, surrounded by
files.  Sitting in their office, arguing about some point or
another.  She wondered when she would see him.

Her last thoughts were of him as she slipped, exhausted, into a
deep sleep.  She slept heavy, the night cold, dreamless.

**********

BROAD STREET
DECEMBER 30
7:34 a.m.
 

Bus 19 took Scully straight down Grace Street, through the area
around Virginia Commonwealth University and then onto Broad, the
long main street of Richmond that led through the older sections
of downtown.  She looked out the window at the snow-capped glass
walkway over the street that marked the 6th Street Marketplace.
They passed beneath it, heading toward the tower of the hospital
at the Medical College of Virginia.  She started work in their
outpatient clinic that morning.

She was sitting on one of the seats that faced the side of the
bus.  In front of her, several other morning commuters hung onto
the overhead rings and swayed slightly as the bus lumbered down
the street.   She held her briefcase, filled with her falsified
credentials, between her calves as they rode along.

The bus pulled over at a stop, the doors hissing open.  A blast
of cold air came in with a rush.

From her pocket, she pulled out the list of drugs, studying
them again.  The amounts that Curran was asking for were huge.
There were over twenty names on the list, and nine drugs for
each of them.  She wondered once again what Curran could be up
to.

Someone brushed up against her leg as several people pressed
into the bus from the street.  She pulled her leg away slightly,
keeping her eye on the list.

"Excuse me," the voice said, and she looked up immediately at
the sound of it.

There stood Mulder, dressed in sweatpants and a hooded
sweatshirt and coat, with a stocking cap on his head.  He looked
for all the world like a jogger, his cheeks flushed from the
cold wind.  He wore a day's growth of beard, as well.

 She felt a smile curling her lips as she looked at him, and he
smiled back.

"No problem," she said aloud.

He hung onto a ring as the doors closed and the bus lurched
forward again, his other hand jammed in the front pocket of his
sweatshirt.  She couldn't take her eyes off of him, nor could he
stop looking down at her, it seemed.   She could feel so much
from just his gaze, and she drank it in.

Finally, she glanced out at the street as the hospital loomed
outside the window.  Standing quickly, she grabbed her briefcase
and tapped the call strip for the driver.  Now she was right
beside him, close enough to smell the soap he'd used in the
shower that morning.

His hand snaked out from his pocket.  He reached down
surreptitiously and tucked a small slip of paper into her gloved
hand, which she closed her fist around as the bus stopped.  With
one last look at him, and with a brush against him as she moved
to the door, she stepped down off the bus onto the curb.  She
could feel his eyes still on her.

The bus pulled away, and she watched it go.

Standing there on the freshly shoveled curb across the street
from the hospital, she shouldered her briefcase, then opened the
note he'd tucked in her hand.

"10 a.m. tomorrow at the clinic," it said.  "Under the name
George Hale."

Then there was another line, written smaller than the rest of
the note.

"I'm right here.  Close by."

She was still smiling when she reached the other side of the
street.

*********

END OF CHAPTER SEVEN.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER EIGHT.

*********

J&J WAREHOUSE
THE BANKS OF THE JAMES RIVER
10:34 p.m.
 

The water at this place in the James River was partially
frozen.  Huge islands of ice moved slowly past the triangles of
lights thrown by Owen Curran's car as it came to a halt, the
tires sliding just a bit in last night's snowfall.  There was
another car there, partially hidden behind the abandoned
warehouse's squat frame.

"He's here on time for a change," John Fagan said from the
driver's seat.  Curran nodded and said nothing; instead, he took
a long drag on his cigarette and opened the door, stamping it
out in the snow as he stood.  Fagan followed him out of the car,
coming around to stand beside him as they moved toward the
warehouse.  A crack of light shone through the gap in the
doors.

Fagan pushed the door aside, let Curran enter first.  It was
just as cold in the warehouse as it was outside, the metal walls
offering no insulation from the winter night.  In the corner,
the source of the light -- an electric lantern sitting atop a
small stack of wooden crates.  A man sat on a crate beside it.
He wore an old army-surplus parka, jeans, and black boots, and
was rubbing his hands together for warmth.  His head jerked in
the direction of the movement in surprise.

"Relax, Hugh," Curran said, holding up his hands and he walked
towards the light.  "You'd think you were expecting someone
else."  Fagan followed just behind him as Curran pulled up a
crate to sit across from the man.  Fagan remained standing
behind him, his gloved hands clasped in front of him.

"It's not that," Hugh replied.  "It's just been so quiet in
here you could hear a fuckin' mouse get a hard-on."   He let out
a half-hearted laugh, glancing nervously at Fagan, who didn't
share in it.  But then, he rarely did.

Curran smiled indulgently, his lip crimping the thick scar that
ran alongside his mouth.  "Sorry to startle you then."  He
regarded the other man in the strange electric light, noted his
pale face, slicked with sweat, noted the fact that he was
trembling.

"What's the matter, Hughey?" he asked, his voice dripping with
concern as he leaned back a bit and jammed his hands in the
pockets of his jacket.  "You not feeling well?  The trip tire
you out then?"

"That must be it," Hugh said, trying to sound casual, though
his eyes continued to dart back and forth between Fagan and
Curran.  He smiled a bit again, met Curran's eyes.  "Though I
think another little pick-me-up would do the job for me."  He
swallowed, the smile vanishing.  "You got any with you, eh?"

"You know I don't do that sort of thing, Hugh," Curran said,
reached from his pocket and pulled out another cigarette.  He
lit it, the flame flaring and turning the world red in the glare
for a second.  "You can get some back at the house after we
finish having our little private conversation here.  How's
that?"

"All right then..."  Hugh swallowed again nervously.  "Though
I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you."

Curran blew out a puff of smoke, his eyes boring into Hugh's.
Behind him, John Fagan shifted his weight from one food to
another on the cold floor.  "What do you mean by that?"  Curran
asked.  "You couldn't get in to have a look around?"

"Oh no, no, I got in," Hugh replied quickly.  "I just...well, I
didn't get around to looking at the outside much.  It seemed too
risky at the time."

"But that's why I sent you, Hugh," Curran said slowly, as
though he were talking to a child.  "And you've done more risky
things than that before.  I know that for a fact."

He took another drag off his cigarette when the other man's
only response was to look down at the ground, then up again, his
eyes continuing to flick around the room like an animal looking
for an escape.  Curran knew he didn't have to worry about him
running, though.  Not with Fagan here.

"Could it be," Curran continued almost casually, replacing his
lighter in his pocket carefully.  "... that your heart wasn't
quite in this, Hughey?"

Hugh looked down at the ground.  "I just don't understand what
you want with that building.  Why you'd be looking at the exits
and entrances so carefully.  It made me wonder what exactly I
was doing up there."

"You were supposed to be doing what you were told," Curran
said, his voice lowering.  "That's all you have to worry about,
Hugh.  Just doing what you're told."

"I've always done that in the past, yes," Hugh replied.  His
voice gained a touch of confidence, strength.  He even sat up
straighter on the crate. "But if you're planning what I think
you're planning here, I don't want any part of it.  And none of
the others will either."

Curran made a small "tsking" sound with his tongue.  "Hughey,
you've never questioned anything I've planned in the past.
That's why I picked you for this special task for me, because I
thought I could rely on you in particular."

He stared Hugh in the face, shaking his head slightly.  "I'm
very disappointed."   He cocked his head back to look at Fagan
over his shoulder.   "Aren't you disappointed in Hugh, John?"
he asked.

"Very," Fagan replied with mock regret, his hands going into
his pockets.  He drew out a pair of handcuffs.

"What are you doing, Owen?"  Hugh asked, his hands going to the
crate he was sitting on, as though preparing to leap up at any
second.  "We've been friends for a long time, you can't -- "

"Aye, we have," Curran said with a hint of regret in his voice.
Just a hint. Then he nodded a bit, urging Fagan forward.

As Fagan moved, Hugh jumped up, tried to bolt for the door, the
crate clattering across the concrete floor.  Curran took a drag
from his cigarette as Fagan wrestled the other man to the
ground, jamming his knee into his back as he slapped the cuffs
on him, trapping his hands behind his back.  Fagan stood now
beside him, keeping his foot squarely on Hugh's back.

"What are you doing?!"  Hugh shouted shrilly, the sound echoing
off the metal walls of the warehouse.  "Have you completely lost
your mind?!"

Curran stood now, going to Hugh.  He knelt down beside him, so
he could look in his face.  He blew out a long stream of smoke,
and Hugh was forced to shut his eyes against it.

"No, Hughey, it's *you* that has," he said quietly,
dangerously.

"What, you're going to kill me, just like that?  After all
these years with you, you're just going to kill me?"  Hugh
panted against the floor, struggling vainly against Fagan's foot
on his back.

But Curran only shook his head.  "No, I'm not going to kill
you," he said softly.  He reached down and ran a hand over
Hugh's curly hair almost fondly.  Hugh looked at him, relief,
but still some fear in his eyes.  Curran leaned close so that he
could whisper directly into the other man's ear.

"But I am going to let you die."

There was a beat of stunned silence.  "What the hell are you
talking about?"  Hugh asked desperately.   "Wha--?"  Fagan
kicked him in the ribs, silencing him.

Curran stood now, tossed his cigarette on the floor right
beside Hugh's face, stepped on it, grinding it into the concrete
with his foot.  He looked to Fagan.

"You'll see to it then, John?"  he asked quietly.

"Aye, that I will," Fagan replied, handing over the keys to the
car.  "Don't worry about a thing."

Curran ignored Hugh's pleas as he walked from the warehouse,
closing the door against them.  Then he slowly went to the car,
got in, and pulled away into the night.
 

***********
 

BELLE ISLE
DECEMBER 31
8:16 a.m.

Mulder hunkered against a cold wind that swept off the rapids
of the James River.  He was on the suspension bridge beneath the
Lee Bridge, a long walkway above the water that led to the tiny
island in the middle of the river.  Below him, he could see the
tell-tale signs of a crime scene -- the black body bag spread
out on the sandy bank, the plain-clothes and uniformed cops
knotted here and there, drinking cups of coffee for warmth.  And
the ubiquitous whine and snap of flashbulbs going off around a
dim shape sprawled on the bank, one he couldn't quite make out
from this height.  He sipped his own cup of coffee as the wind
tore at his face with icy fingers and he quickened his gait.

Which only made the distance between he and Granger, who was
trailing behind on his much shorter legs, even greater.  Granger
stepped it up, nearly trotting now behind Mulder, pulling his
own coat around him.  He had a stuffed briefcase tucked under
one arm, his collar turning up in a sudden breeze.

"Agent Mulder," he called.  Mulder could tell that the younger
man was getting out of breath and reluctantly slowed his pace a
bit, turning to spare Granger a glance over his shoulder.
They'd reached the winding ramp that would take them down to the
ground, and Granger caught up with him there, taking up his
place beside him.

"What is it?" Mulder asked, his tone flat, but attempting
interest.  Granger had been flitting around him like a fly all
morning.  Actually, he'd been doing it ever since yesterday when
Granger picked him up two stops past the hospital where he'd
left Scully.  The young agent's eyes had darted around behind
his dark, prescription sunglasses with enough suspicion to make
Mulder think he was picking up the President.

Granger, Mulder decided dourly,  was taking this Secret Agent
Man routine a little too much to heart.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you in the car that I picked up
all the copies of the reports of the other deaths before you
came to get me, just in case we wanted to compare the settings,
the weather, anything like that."  He fumbled a thick file out
of the briefcase, proffered it to Mulder, who took it, jammed it
under his arm without looking at it.

"Thanks," he replied.  "That was good thinking."  He only half-
meant the compliment, but figured he'd throw the guy a bone.
Maybe it would help him relax.

The task force had been monitoring the police scanners since
Mary Rutherford's death.  Padden wanted to make sure that they
kept ahead of the Richmond police should anything related to
their case crop up like that again.  Mulder had gotten the call
at seven from Jessup.

One of the plain clothes cops came forward, his hands up to
halt the two agents' progress.  Mulder shifted his coffee to his
other hand, groped inside his coat packet and produced his
badge.  Granger had his out already.

"I'm Agent Mulder with the F.B.I; this is Agent Granger with
the C.I.A."

"C.I.A *and* F.B.I?"  the cop said incredulously.  "I'm
Lieutenant Nachman, Richmond P.D."  He eyed the two agents
almost suspiciously.  "You sure you two are in the right place?
I mean, all this for this poor son-of-a bitch?"

"We're both profilers, involved in an ongoing investigation
that we're not at liberty to discuss."  Mulder said quietly.
"We'd appreciate your cooperation."

Nachman stuck his bottom lip out, considering, looking from
Granger to  Mulder and back.  Mulder sipped his coffee, met his
probing look blithely.  Finally, Nachman shrugged.

He gestured toward the bank of the river where the
photographers were gathered.  "Well, there's not much to see
over there, but you're welcome to it.  Two joggers found him
this morning, just like you see him there."

"Thank you for your help, Lieutenant," Mulder said, and he and
Granger moved carefully over the rocky ground, toward the thin
ribbon of sand that lined the bank.

Mulder tossed his coffee cup into a nearby park trashcan, dug
around in his coat pocket and pulled out two pairs of rubber
gloves.  He passed one pair off to Granger as he edged through
the two photographers, kneeling beside the body lying face down
on the beach.

Well, he would have been face-down, Mulder corrected himself
wryly.  Had the body had a face.

Pale flaps of ragged skin were frozen to the collar of an army
jacket.  The corpse's white hands were cuffed behind its back,
thick bruises around the wrists.  The neck vomited strings of
icy tissue and the remnants of the spine.

Bile welled up into Mulder's throat and he put the back of his
hand across his mouth for a moment, averting his eyes.  From the
corner of his eye, he watched Granger kneel down and probe the
tissue in the neck with his fingers, looking through the bottom
of his bifocal glasses at the frozen gore.

"Do you mind if I turn him over?" Granger asked, turning to
peer at the photographers.

"Be our guest," one of the photographers replied.  "We're done
here anyway."  With that, they retreated to their equipment
cases, just beyond where the police were standing.

Once they were safely out of earshot, Granger leaned down,
getting his arms beneath the body.  Pushing with his legs, he
flipped the stiff body over onto the snowy sand.

Mulder forced himself to look now.  The bony bare chest,
visible because the parka had come open in the swift current,
the thin T-shirt pushed up almost to the base of the ruined
neck.  The man wore jeans, one black boot.  The other foot was
encased in an icy sock.

"It looks like he went the same way as the others," Granger
said, brushing sand off his gloves.

"Yes, it does," Mulder agreed, putting his hand in front of his
mouth again.  He had the same sense from this body when he
looked at it.  One feeling.  Incredible anger.

"And there's not going to be any residue because of the water,"
Granger was saying, probing the neck for pieces of bone, teeth,
anything he could find.  Mulder watched him in horrified
amazement.

"There won't be any residue anyway," Mulder said.  He had yet
to touch the body.

Granger looked up at him.  "But wasn't Agent Scully's report
that she thought this was some sort of explosive dental
implant?"

Mulder nodded.  "Yes, that was her report, but I don't believe
that's the case."  Now he did reach for the neck, pushing at the
end of the spine.  There wasn't any sheering here -- it was as
if the head had just snapped off.

"But I thought, with her being your partner that you'd --"

"Agree with her all the time?"  Mulder smiled a bit at that.

Granger gave him a quizzical look.  "Well, not all the time,
but...you didn't say anything in the meeting about any other
theory."

Mulder leaned back on his haunches, blew out a puffy breath
into the cold air, looked out at the river.  "You haven't had a
partner yet, have you, Granger?"

Granger shook his head, looked down almost as though he were
ashamed.  "No, I haven't," he replied.  "I haven't been out in
the field much."

Mulder nodded.  It wasn't exactly a surprise to him, and he
swallowed down any smartass reply he might have usually had,
knowing that what Granger had told him was a concession.

"Well," he said, turning his attention back to the young man
before him.  "Let me tell you something I've learned over the
past six years.  One of the first things you do for your
partners is never challenge what  they say in front of the
brass.  You can argue all you want in private, but once you get
in front of your boss, you act as a team.  Always."

Granger nodded.  "I see," he said thoughtfully after a moment,
staring down at the body.  "So...what's your theory then?"

Mulder stood now, peeling off his gloves.  "I don't have a
specific theory as yet," he said quietly.  "But I don't think
we're dealing with any sort of explosive device."  He shivered,
pulling his coat around him more tightly.  "As a matter of fact,
I don't think this is going to turn out to be any sort of
conventional explosive at all."

Granger stood, too.  "What else could it be?"  He suddenly
looked at Mulder dubiously.  "You're not going to tell me that
this is some kind of telekinetic thing, are you?  One of your X-
Files or something?"

Mulder smiled, a full-toothed exaggerated smile.  "What if I
did?  What would you do then, Agent Granger?"

Granger smiled back, but it was a nervous smile.  He stood and
surveyed a train that had appeared on the tracks across the
river.  It blew out one long mournful note as it chugged along
the opposite bank.  He blew out a long breath.

"That, Agent Mulder, I can't answer for you.  Yet."
 

 ****************

END OF CHAPTER EIGHT.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER NINE.

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

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA HOSPITAL
OUTPATIENT CLINIC
10:23 a.m.
 

Mulder sat on the edge of the examining table, one foot tapping
the metal side of it impatiently.  He still wore the coat and
jeans and boots, even though the nurse that had shown him in had
curtly instructed him to change into the blue and white gown
that sat haphazardly folded beside him.  He would only take this
"patient" cover so far, he decided, scowling at the windowless
room.

He checked his watch.  His appointment had been for 10:00.
Scully was late.

Pushing himself off the table, he paced the small room, reading
the posters on the walls to distract himself.  A multicolored
child's drawing for public awareness about childhood
immunizations.  A graph on the prevalence of sexually
transmitted diseases, complete with close-up pictures.  He
grimaced at that and continued his circuit of the room.

Looking up, he saw a Garfield poster taped to the ceiling,
right above the head of the table, announcing how the cartoon
cat hated Mondays.  His eyes dropped to the table, saw the
stirrups retracted into the side of it.  He took a step back.

Sighing, he finally relented enough to remove his coat and toss
it in the chair against one of the walls, folded his arms across
his chest.

He was nervous about seeing her, he realized suddenly.

It had only been four days since they'd last spoken, but it
seemed much longer to him.  He remembered how frustrated he'd
felt on the bus yesterday by his inability to talk to her, to
touch her, *really* touch her.  How he'd simply held her in his
eyes, trying to convey all that he felt for her with his gaze.

She'd looked a little bit haggard, he recalled, and the memory
concerned him.   He knew from experience how being undercover
could be a draining experience, always having to pretend to want
or be something else.  He tried to chalk her tired appearance up
to that, and hoped he was right.

He heard a rustling outside the door, his chart being removed
from its tray.  Two knocks at the door.

"Come in," he called.

She appeared in the doorway, dressed in black pants and boots,
and one of her white work shirts.  Over those, she wore a
doctor's lab coat, a stethoscope draped around her neck.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said for the benefit of the
nurse who was passing by the doorway before she could get it
closed.

"Not a problem," he replied, his lips curling up a bit as he
looked at her.  She made a very believable doctor.  It was like
looking at Scully as she would have been had she not joined the
F.B.I., like looking at some secret side of her.

"What are you staring at?"  she asked, laying the chart on the
countertop near the small sink.  She was smiling as well.

"You," he said, leaning against the table, his hands planted
behind him.  "You look so much the part it almost fools me."

She pushed her hair behind her ear self-consciously.  "I'm glad
I look the part, because I sure am having to act it.  You're the
fifth patient I've seen this morning already.  Thank God medical
school is coming back to me so quickly."

The smile melted off his face.  "How are you holding up?"  He
said it softly, tenderly.  She looked even more tired than she
had yesterday.

She took a step towards him, drawn by his tone.  "I'm okay.
It's been a busy few days, though."

"Tell me what's been going on."

She leaned against the countertop now, crossing her own arms at
her chest and began to tell him what she had experienced so far -
- about the meeting with Curran, the names she could remember of
the people she'd been introduced to.   Mulder studiously wrote
down the names in a small notebook he'd retrieved from his
coat.

She then told him about the drugs she'd been asked to get,
pulling out a copy of the list from the chart she'd brought in
with her and giving it to him.  He glanced at it, then folded it
up and put it in his pocket.

"I'm surprised you've met Curran already,"  he said.  "I'd
assumed from my initial profile that he would be more cautious
about strangers than that."

She nodded.  "I am, too.  But apparently he was willing to risk
meeting me so soon because he needed me to write those
prescriptions for him."

"They're the same drugs that were found in Mary Rutherford's
body?"

She nodded.   "And those are massive amounts of them -- see how
many people they're prescribed for?"

He nodded.  "What do you think?"

"I don't know what to think at this point," she replied.  "I do
know that two of those men I met at the pub, Conner and Creeley,
appeared to be ill, though Curran and those closest to him seem
to be fine.  Mae, his son Sean, his bodyguard...."

"Wait a minute," Mulder interrupted.  "Curran has a SON?"

Scully nodded.  "Yes.  He's about six or seven I would guess.
I asked Mae about his mother last night just in passing and she
wouldn't answer me.  She changed the subject right away."

He nodded, chewed his lip, putting this new piece of
information into the puzzle that was Curran.  This changed
several things in his mind.  A man with a child was a man with
something precious to lose, something important to protect.  And
if he had a wife, as well....

He concluded that Curran would plan things with more care than
he first realized.  That he would be extremely unlikely to make
any careless mistakes.

"You might want to check out the owner of the Grey Mouse,"
Scully was saying, breaking him from his thoughts.   "The
licensing of the place, that sort of thing.  See if you can find
anything there."

Mulder smirked.  "I'm sure Padden will know the guy's favorite
food within five minutes of getting his name.  You should see
the operation now.  There must be 40 new agents from three
different divisions working in there now, including three
doctors from Bethesda.  You can barely move around in there when
the whole task force is meeting."

He paused, putting the notebook back in his coat pocket.  "I've
got some information for you, as well," he said.

"What?"

He told her about the body that had washed up from the James
that morning.

"He wasn't wearing any identification, but we're assuming at
this point that he was Path or I.R.A., because the cause of
death was identical to the others.  The Richmond Medical
Examiner is going to do the autopsy, following the steps you
took with Rutherford.  I'll show you the report the next time we
meet up."

"Good, " she replied, sighing, and ran her hands through her
hair tiredly.   "I haven't heard anything about it.  Nothing
from Mae, at least.  She seemed fine when I was having tea with
her this morning."

 "Well, that certainly sounds like it's working out all right.
You staying with her."  His hackles had risen up immediately at
the mental image of Scully sitting around a table drinking a cup
of tea with this woman.  His mood shift showed clearly in his
tone.

"What?"  Scully said, her gaze sharpening on him.  "I'm living
with this woman.   I have to make an effort to do ^^normal'
things with her from time to time, for the sake of the cover and
for the sake of my own sanity."  She paused.  "Plus that, she's
kind of....nice.  I like her."

"You like her," Mulder parroted back quietly.  "Let me tell you
a little story about Mae Curran.  In 1977 there was a British
mounted patrol stationed in Belfast, a contingent of about 30
horses.  One day, a homemade bomb filled with nails and broken
glass exploded in the stable where the horses were kept.  Twenty-
two of the horses had to be put down because of their injuries.
And you know who the British questioned about that?  A twelve-
year-old little girl named Mae Curran who had begged her way in
past the guards because she wanted to pet the horses."

"Did they ever prove that she did it?"  Scully asked,
horrified.

"They never found out," he replied.  "She slipped out of
custody before anyone could prove anything.  Just disappeared
back into the woodwork."  He paused for effect, watching her
look down.  "Think about that while you're having tea with her,
Scully."

She looked up, met his eyes.

"Don't forget who these people are," he said gravely.  "No
matter what they may seem like on the outside."

She nodded now, blew out a breath.  "I understand," she said
softly.  "It's just so hard to imagine.  If you could see her
with Sean...see how she is..."  She trailed off.  He could tell
by the expression on her face that she felt chastised for a
moment.  It flashed across her face in a flush of color.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately, tenderly, and moved close
enough to take her hand.  "I don't mean to talk you down.  It
just scares me, you being around these people, knowing what I
know about them.  I just don't want your guard coming down."

"No, you're right, of course," she replied quickly.  "I know
you're just looking out for me."   He felt her fingers tighten
on his hand, a small squeeze.  She forced a smile up at him.  He
smiled back.

He wanted to let the moment linger, knew that she wanted to, as
well.  But she broke his gaze.

"Listen, " he said, "One more thing.  I'm not going to be
seeing you on the bus again.  It's too risky if we make a habit
of it.  It's hard to know if you're being watched."

"How will I contact you then?"

"Put an ad in the personals in the Times-Dispatch.  Make it to
George from Gracie.  We'll be watching the paper every day.  You
do the same -- we may need to contact you, too, to get some
information to you.  And you should know that it may not always
be me coming to you here  -- it might be Granger, or even one of
the other agents.  I'll do everything I can for it to be me,
though."

"Okay," she said, smiled.  There was something bittersweet in
the smile.   "I think that will work."  She caught sight of her
watch as she looked down, then started to say something.

"I know," he interrupted.  "You have to go.  Come here for a
second, though."

With that, he gathered her into his arms.  He felt her surprise
at his spontaneity melt immediately, felt her bury her face in
his shoulder, her arms tight around his back.  He nuzzled her
hair.

"I love you," he whispered close to her ear.  He felt her
shiver, her grip tightening.  "Please be careful."

"I will," she whispered back.  "I love you, too."  Then she
pulled away from him enough to find his mouth with her own.  The
kiss didn't last long, but it spoke volumes between them.

They stepped apart and she looked up at him for a beat, then
gathered up the chart she'd come in with and went out the door.
He saw her have to make a concerted effort not to look back.

**********

MAE CURRAN'S APARTMENT
2233 GRACE STREET
7:23 p.m.
 

Scully dropped her keys on the still-empty dresser in her room,
peeled out of her coat and tossed it on the edge of the bed.
She then put her hands on the small of her back and stretched
the kinks out slowly as she yawned.

She needed a good night's sleep, she thought, not the restless
turnings she'd had the previous night in her room, the lamplight
bleeding across her face for hours as she stared up at the
ceiling.  She was on edge, unable to quite adjust to her new
surroundings.

She hadn't told Mulder that when she saw him today.  Though she
knew the fatigue showed on her face.

She decided that perhaps finally unpacking her suitcase would
be a good start to trying to mentally place herself where she
was.  She would be looking for an apartment of her own this
weekend when she was finally off from work, but until she found
one, she figured she should go ahead and settle in where she was.

Sighing, she pulled the suitcase off the floor.  It was open,
clothes nearly spilling out of it from her early-morning
rootings for socks and underwear.  She started taking things out
a piece at a time, going to the dresser and opening the drawers,
placing the clothes into their respective drawers.

Out in the hallway, she heard the front door open, keys
jangling as they dropped on the countertop in the kitchen as Mae
entered the apartment.

"Katherine?"  Mae called down the long shotgun hallway.  Scully
heard footsteps coming towards her.  "You home?"

Scully picked up a few more clothes, folded them carefully.
"Yes, I'm in here, Mae."

The footsteps drew nearer, and then Mae was in the doorway to
her room, wearing a black sweater with a thick turtleneck
gathered around her neck and a pair of worn jeans.  There was
still snow on her boots.

"You're finally settling in, are you?"  Mae said, smiling
kindly.  Scully glanced up at her and tried to force out the
image of Mae as a child, carrying a bomb while she stroked the
velvet nose of a horse.  She managed to stifle it down quickly
in the face of Mae's smile.

It was too hard to make the two images mesh.

"Yes, I thought I would.  It will probably be a week before I
can find a place of my own, someplace furnished that will let me
rent month to month. So I might as well get comfortable."  She
strained a smile in return.

"That's good," Mae replied, coming into the room.  She sat down
on the edge of the bed.  "You need some help?"  Scully saw her
eyeing the open garment suitcase in the corner of the room.

"Um, sure," Scully replied, still pulling clothes out of the
suitcase.  "If you want to you can hang those up in the closet."

"All right then," Mae said, and stood.  Just as she did so,
Scully pulled out a shirt and it fell open.  The snowglobe
spilled out, rolling a couple of times and then coming to a stop
on its side on the bed, the water inside forming little
agitation bubbles on its surface as the plastic flakes swirled.

Scully went for it instantly, an irrational feeling of panic
coming over her, as though the presence of the snowglobe, a
remnant from her real life, would give everything away.  Mae
beat her to it, picking it up and giving it a little shake.

"Isn't that cute?"  Mae said, smiling at it.  "It looks like an
old Dublin Christmas scene!"

Scully quelled her panic, regaining her wits about her.  It
was, she told herself, just a snowglobe, after all.

"Where'd you get it then?"  Mae asked.  "A Christmas present?"

"Yes, it was," Scully said, and she smiled a bit at that,
remembering opening the package in Mulder's arms.  The warmth
must have eased onto her face, because Mae saw it immediately.

"From a...friend?"  She was teasing her now, Scully realized.
Mae's eyes were clearly mischievous at this newfound piece of
information.

"Yes, it was from a friend," Scully replied, snatching the
snowglobe from Mae's hands.  She was hiding a smile though, a
blush coming to her cheeks.  "And you're not getting any more
out of me than that."

 Mae laughed at that as Scully put the snowglobe on her
nightstand, returned to her suitcase.

"All right," Mae said indulgently, feigning a put-upon tone.
She stood and went to the garment bag.  "I won't press you for
anything then.  But why would you leave him to come down here, I
wonder?"

Scully was struck by the irony of being asked that, when she'd
spent the better part of the day at the clinic after Mulder left
thinking the same thing.

"He....understands my convictions,"  was what she said aloud.
It was the truth, after all.

"I see," Mae said, nodding as she began removing clothes from
the suitcase, hanging them in the small closet.  Scully was
relieved that Mae seemed to be giving up on that particular line
of questioning.

"What are you doing for the New Year?"  Mae asked.

Scully heaved out a sigh.  "Going to bed early, I'm thinking,"
she said tiredly.

"Oh, you can't do that!"  Mae said, her face lighting up.
"There's a huge gathering at the Grey Mouse tonight -- there'll
be music again and we'll be celebrating the New Year twice, once
when it's midnight here and once when it's midnight in Ireland.
You can't miss it."

"I don't know, Mae, I'm really ti-"

"No, no, I insist!" Mae interrupted, smiling.  "I'll even agree
to take you home early if you'll come out for just a little
while, how's that?  There's got to be more to your time here
than work.  We owe you that."

Once again, Scully was torn between what she needed and what
her job required of her.  It would, after all, be a good
opportunity for her to be exposed to the Path members again,
maybe even get some new names.  And she might see Curran again,
as well....

"All right," she said finally.  "I'll go for a little while,
how's that?"

"Excellent!"  Mae replied, and returned to hurriedly hanging up
Scully's clothes.

Scully was struck by how excited she was -- there was something
so child-like about her.  It appeared that Mae had not had a
friend for long time and was badly in need of one.

Pulling the last of her clothes out of the suitcase, she turned
to the dresser again, realizing that she could easily exploit
this weakness in Mae to get information out of her.   A heavy
feeling settled in her belly.

She felt strangely guilty for having that thought.

**********

End of chapter 9a.  Continued in 9b.

**********

THE GREY MOUSE PUB
11:33 p.m.

If it was possible, the atmosphere at the Grey Mouse was even
more festive than the night before last, Scully thought.  The
same band was playing an Irish instrumental, a folksy sounding
song with long solos for the fiddles and guitars.

The place was packed with people, though Scully and Mae had
managed to secure themselves a small table near the back of the
pub where people had been dropping by all evening to speak to
Mae.  Scully had been introduced to many more people, though she
couldn't, of course, tell from Mae's introductions if the people
were in the Path or not.  Many of the people she met were
Americans whom Mae introduced simply as "friends of Owen's."
Scully had no idea what that meant, but kept a running list of
names in her head just the same.

Mae was up for another dance with another man who'd come by the
table.  Scully was sipping a pint of Guiness, trying once again
to get used to the heavy dark taste of the stuff when Owen
Curran appeared at her table.  For once, Fagan was not with him,
which Scully was relieved about.  Fagan made her more nervous
than Curran did.

He sat down without being asked, straddling the low chair back
as he sat.

"Mind if I join you?"

"You seem to have already," Scully replied, keeping her tone
carefully neutral.

He picked up Mae's beer and swirled the liquid until tan
bubbles came to the surface.  "I just wanted to thank you for
getting those things I needed to me so quickly."

Scully had put the prescriptions in first thing that morning to
be ready that afternoon.  She assumed from what he said that
Creeley and Conner had picked them up already.  Whatever the
drugs were for, she thought, he needed them in a hurry.

"You're welcome.  That's why I'm here, isn't it?"   He was
looking at her in a vaguely sad way, his eyes taking in her
features.  She could almost feel his eyes moving over her face.

His gaze dropped when he realized she was watching him,
suddenly intent on his beer.

"Aye, it is," he replied, taking a sip.

She studied Curran's face for a beat, taking in his blue eyes,
their sharpness gone to sleepy, the scar on the side of his
mouth crinkling as he strained a somewhat friendly smile at her.
The width and raised quality of the scar showed it had been a
sloppy stitch job.  She wondered if a doctor had even done it.

"You noticed this then, did you?"  he said, running a finger
over the scar.

Now it was her turn to look into her beer, embarrassed.  "I'm
sorry," she said.  "I don't mean to stare.  It's just as a
doctor --"

"You're curious," he finished for her.  "I got in a fight when
I was a kid.  I took a knife down my face."  He made a quick
slashing motion down with his finger, punctuating it with a
hissing sound for effect.  He smiled at her again, making her
feel slightly uncomfortable.

Like a shadow, John Fagan appeared from the crowd, leaned over
Curran's shoulder to say something into his ear.  Curran
listened for a minute, then nodded.   "I'll see to it, then."

With that, he rose.  "I hope you enjoy your evening, Dr.
Black," he said, taking one last swig of Mae's beer.  He all but
emptied the glass.

"I will," she replied, looking up at him.

She decided to take a risk.

"And my name is Katherine," she added.

"Katherine," he repeated.  "All right, Katherine it is.
Goodnight."

With that, he rose, melting into the crowd.  Fagan stood there,
looking down at her, his lips forming a rough approximation of a
friendly smile.

"So, Katherine...."  he began, stepping a bit closer.  "Can I
interest you in a dance?"   He put a hand out to her, apparently
doing his best to play the gentleman.

Scully looked at his outstretched hand, then up into his sharp-
featured, handsome face.  His eyes were so dark they were almost
black, shining in the lights.  They reminded her of a shark's
eyes.

"No, thank you, John," she said, leaning back a bit
unconsciously.  "I don't dance."

He smiled a bit more, revealing his teeth.  "You do now.  Come
on.  Just one dance."

Her eyes gleamed as she met his.  "I said no, thank you."

Their eyes met, held.  Like two immovable forces pushing each
other across the table.  He withdrew his hand, but started to
say something else.

"John, what are you doing?"

Mae had come up behind him, causing him to break his gaze away
from hers reluctantly.  "Just trying to get Katie to have a
dance," he said cheerfully.  He shrugged for innocent effect.

"Well, I guess she doesn't want to," Mae said lowly.  "There's
a lot of women here to dance with, John.  Best you be on your
way to find them."

Fagan held his hands up in a "hands off" gesture.  "Sorry to
disturb," he said, and it was clear he didn't mean it.
"Goodnight, ladies."

With that, he wandered off, towards the back of the pub.
Scully watched him go.

"Don't mind him," Mae said with a forced casual tone.  "He's
just a bully, that's all.  He can actually be quite nice when he
wants to be."

"It's not a big deal," Scully replied, sluffing off her nervous
reaction to him.  She reached for her beer, took a sip.

Mae picked up her own nearly empty glass.  "That sneak!"  she
cried.  "Owen's been here, hasn't he?"

"Yes, he just stopped by to thank me for getting him some
things from the pharmacy for him.  And yes, he drank all your
beer, too."  Scully smiled at Mae's exasperation, leaned over
and poured half her beer into Mae's glass.

"Here," she said.  "I can't drink it all anyway."

"An Irish girl who doesn't like Guiness," Mae teased.  "Unheard
of."

"Sorry to disappoint," she replied, smiling, just as the band
stopped playing and the room erupted with applause.  There was
huge television just above the bar that everyone began to gather
around.  It was showing Times Square, the throng of people
mirroring the crowd clustering around the set.  Scully could
just make out the ball, the clock counting down five minutes
until New Year's.

"There's something I've been wanting to ask you, Katherine,"
Mae said cautiously, running her finger over the rim of her
glass.

"What's that?"

"I don't mean to pry,"  Mae said hesitantly.  "But I was
wondering..."  She paused for a beat.

"What is it?"  Scully urged.  She was simultaneously curious as
to what she would want to know and afraid that it might have
something to do with her cover, something she wasn't playing
right.

"It's just....well, what did you do to lose your license
anyway?  Since I've known you, and I know that hasn't been for
long...it's just that you don't seem the type to make that grave
a mistake.  I was just wondering, is all."

Scully was inwardly relieved.  She had her answer all prepared
for this one.  It was just a matter of pulling the telling of it
off convincingly.  She paused for a moment, feigning reluctance
to talk about this blot on her past.

"Well, strangely enough, it was prescription fraud," she said,
looking down with mock regret.

"Really?  Is that all?"  Mae replied, and barked out a laugh.
"God, I was worried you'd killed someone or something like
that."

Scully laughed bitterly.   "No, no, nothing so dramatic.  But I
did violate the rules of conduct for my profession."  She paused
for effect.  "It's not something I'm particularly proud of.
That's one of the reasons I came down here.  I love to practice
medicine.  I've worked my whole life to be able to do it.  It
was only my debts that got me started down that path in the
first place."

"I see," Mae said, and she looked down at the table again.
"Well, don't feel too bad about that."  Her face grew deathly
serious, sad.  "We've all done things that we're not
particularly proud of."

The statement was a loaded one, Scully knew, as she watched Mae
purse her lips and take a long drink of beer.  She wanted to
press her, but the room had started a countdown, ticking down
the thirty seconds before the New Year.

Mae turned her attention to the television, as did Scully.  The
seconds went by.  The room grew louder in its litany of numbers.
Finally the ball touched down, and the room exploded with a
cheer of "Happy New Year!"  It was loud enough to shake the
glasses on the table.

Mae turned to Scully, raised her glass.  "Happy New Year,
Katherine," she called over the tremendous noise. Then she
leaned forward closer and spoke more softly.   "To a fresh
start."

"To a fresh start," Scully replied, and they clinked their
heavy glasses together, drank, two quiet figures in the middle
of the boisterous crowd.

******

THE RICHMOND MARRIOTT
JANUARY 1
12:00 a.m.

Mulder pulled his beer off the night table in the dark of his
hotel room, took a swig out of the long-necked bottle, adjusting
his head on the two wadded up pillows behind him.

The tickertape was flying in Times Square on the television in
front of him, people were kissing, waving signs, their breath
coming in excited puffs as the camera panned the crowd.   The
ageless Dick Clark was raving about the people, the cold,
anything the camera fell on.  Mulder watched it all,
expressionless.

Granger had asked him if he wanted to go down to the hotel bar
for a beer to watch the ball drop, but Mulder had declined,
preferring to spend the evening with his background checks, his
computer, his beer, and his loneliness.

He took another drink from the beer, holding it in his mouth
for a moment before swallowing it down in a huge gulp.  His
thoughts were on Scully, as they always were when he was alone
now.  He wondered for the hundredth time that evening where she
was, what she was doing.

They had planned on spending this New Year's together.  It
would have been their first as a couple.  Just as they had
planned on spending Christmas together.  It was strange, the
feeling that came over him at the thought.  The holidays had
never mattered very much to him in the past; they were just days
for him to endure alone.

But now, the emptiness of the holidays, her absence from them,
was needling him terribly.  Pricking his mind with
disappointment and the first hints of something akin to anger.

Who was she with?

Unbidden, Curran's face flashed in his mind.  The strong set of
his features, the dark hair, the piercing eyes.  He recalled the
things that Curran was suspected of doing.

Smoke, a spray of blood, screams, running footsteps.  The
distant sound of siren wails.

Without his will, he suddenly pictured Curran looking at
Scully, maybe even this night.  The feelings in him intensified,
burning into his gut like acid.

Then he saw her as Curran would see her.  Strong.  Capable.

Beautiful.

The spark of rage hit him in a flash, hurling him from the bed
and onto his feet.  Without even thinking, the beer bottle was
out of his hand, smashing against the corner of the room,
sending a hail of broken brown glass and a stream of bubbled
liquid down the bland wallpaper.

He watched it, his chest heaving.  The act both satisfied and
disappointed him.  He couldn't afford to lose control, he
reminded himself.  He couldn't afford to let these feelings
welling in him get the better of him, or he would be useless to
her.

With a tired and frustrated exhale, he snatched the remote off
the night table and muted the sound on the television.   He went
to the window, watched the city blinking slowly below him.   He
was shirtless, wearing his worn jeans and bare feet, and a chill
came through the thick closed window, sending him into a shiver
as the heat of his rage dissipated.

Standing there above the city, he looked up into the night sky,
clear and cold and black, seeking solace.

The moon hung suspended on its invisible cord, alone among the
crowd of starlight surrounding it.  It looked to him like the
last light on earth.

**********

END OF CHAPTER NINE.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TEN.

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

BROAD STREET
OUTSIDE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA HOSPITAL
JANUARY 7 3:50 p.m.

Danny Conner shielded himself and his cigarette from a cold
wind and the view of the street by leaning against the wall near
the ambulance entrance. He put the cigarette to his mouth,
holding it between his index finger and thumb to stabilize it
against the shaking of his hand.  When even that didn't work, he
reached up with his other hand and grasped his wrist, pulling in
a deep breath of smoke.

The tremors would pass.   It was simply a matter of waiting.

For perhaps the tenth time in five minutes, he glanced around
nervously at the people moving in and out of the building,
afraid of seeing a familiar face.  He wasn't supposed to be
here.  He knew this all too well.  But ever since he'd seen the
American doctor that night in the Grey Mouse just before the new
year, he couldn't get the thought out of his mind that maybe
this would be the person who could help him.

Now it was just a question as to whether she could be trusted,
whether she would keep his secret.

Remembering that night, recalling his stunned reaction to the
tone she'd taken with Owen Curran, he reassured himself once
again that anyone who would dare talk to Curran like that was
someone with her own mind.  Plus that, she wasn't Path.  Or even
IRA.  She was just a well-intentioned American doctor sent to be
a prescription pad.  One who had no idea what she'd really
gotten herself into.

He glanced around again, steeling his nerves.  He would risk
it.  He didn't really have a choice.  Not after what had
happened to Mary and Hugh.

As he looked around, his eyes caught his vague reflection in
the glass entranceway behind him.   He was only 22 years old.
He had to remind himself of this fact because the man in the
reflection looked much older than that.  Worn out.  Used up.
His dark hair was a mass of unruly spikes on top of his head,
his face shadowed with the beginnings of an accidental beard.

Stricken by this funhouse-like reflection, he smoothed his hair
down desperately, adjusted his coat around him, trying to make
himself recognizable, even to himself.

He took another drag off the cigarette, his hand already
recovering from its fit of shaking, then stumped it out in the
sand-filled ashtray beside the doorway.  Checking his watch, he
stepped through the automatic doors of the hospital, seeking
sanctuary from the cold.

***********

POWHATAN ROAD
ACROSS FROM THE GREY MOUSE PUB
4:07 p.m.
 

Mulder was gnawing on a sunflower seed and tossing the shell
out the window of the car, his eyes intent on the newspaper in
front of him.  Out of the corner of his eye,  he could see
Granger beginning to squirm, both from the cold and impatience.
Granger's eyes, however, remained on the doorway to the pub, a
camera with a telephoto lens on it in his hand poised and ready.
Mulder heard him sigh heavily.

"You gotta love a stakeout," Mulder said through his teeth.
He'd placed another seed in his mouth and was delicately working
the shells apart.  "You should have a little more patience,
Granger.  This is important stuff we're doing here."

The sarcasm was evident in his voice.  He fluffed the paper
again, folding it in half, keeping his eyes down.

"All right," Granger said, releasing another long breath.  "I'm
sorry.  I just wish we could do something besides sit here."

Mulder smiled at the other man's apology.  Granger could never
tell when Mulder was pulling his leg.

They were outside the Grey Mouse with three other cars of
agents, all placed at various angles to the front and back
doors, all trying to get pictures of the people coming in and
out of the place for Happy Hour.  Of the names that Scully had
given him when he'd seen her in the clinic over a week before,
Padden and his team had only been able to get information on a
few of them.  Most, it seemed, were using aliases.  Padden hoped
that by getting some pictures they could match the faces up with
some of the Irish immigration files the NSA and the people from
Scotland Yard had on hand.

Mulder guessed he understood the necessity of the operation
they were performing, but it still made him feel like a cog in a
machine.  Apparently, Granger, though new at all this, was
feeling the same thing.  They were both, after a week of
meetings and endless background checks, beginning to feel ground
down by the whole thing.

Granger reached into a bag next to him, pulling out his dinner
that they'd picked up on the way over.  He began unwrapping it,
handed Mulder the camera.

"Here, I'm going to eat," Granger said.  "Could you watch the
door for a minute for me?"

Mulder took the camera, laid it on his lap without another
thought.  He was still staring at the paper, reading, once
again, the personal ad in the "Between Friends" section that
Scully had left in the paper that morning:

                "To George.  I sure hope you don't mind that I plan on
            staying where I am, keeping up a good old-fashioned
            household.  Stability is the key for me.  Write me back
             when you get a chance.  Gracie."

He'd already told Padden and the rest of them what he thought
Scully was getting at.  She was going to stay with Mae Curran,
not find a place of her own after all.  He could only hope, from
what she said about stability, that she thought that by staying
put she could get the information she needed.  That had been
Padden's take on the whole thing, and he and the task force were
glad that she wasn't moving, losing the inside access she had
gained through Curran's original agreement with Flaherty in
Boston.

But Mulder wasn't concerned about access at this point, or the
free flow of information.  It was what could be behind Scully's
actions that bothered him.  Maybe she couldn't leave?  Maybe
they weren't letting her?  Maybe something had slipped in her
cover and she was afraid to make a move, afraid of exposing
herself?   His mind ran rampant with the possibilities.

A lot of questions and no answers in sight, he thought
drearily, looking up at a car arriving in the parking lot of the
pub as he spit the sunflower shells into his hand, then flicking
them out the window.  Scully hadn't asked for a meeting in the
ad -- apparently she had nothing to report that warranted it.

Regardless of the reason for it, Mulder didn't like the idea of
Scully staying with that woman any longer than she had to.  He
was convinced that Mae Curran would have no qualms about killing
her if her cover was found out.  Everything that he knew about
Curran's background pointed to this fact.

Sighing, frustrated by the tedium of his assignment and his
inability to do something proactive to help Scully directly, he
put the paper down and picked up the camera, absently snapping a
shot of the incoming car's license plate.

A smell wafted into his side of the car, strong and full of
spice.  Mulder sniffed at it.  It made his nose itch with its
strength.

"What the hell are you eating, Granger?"   He turned to the
other man in irritation.

Granger had a foil-wrapped, vertical sandwich in front of his
mouth, chewing a huge mouthful of whatever it was.  The sandwich
steamed in the cool air of the car.

"What?"  Granger replied, his mouth full.   He chewed and
swallowed hastily.  "It's a couscous and tofu wrap.  I picked it
up at that middle-eastern place next to the McDonald's you were
in."

Mulder barked out a laugh.

"What?"  Granger repeated, smiling as though he were hoping to
be in on the joke and not the butt of it.  "What's so funny?"

 Mulder shook his head, peering through the camera at the
incoming car's passenger, who had just climbed out of the car.

"Nothing," he said.  "It's just that I get saddled with a new
partner and it figures that it would have to be another freaking
tofu-eater."

"It's good," Granger insisted, offering the sandwich across the
space between them.  "You should try it."

Mulder waved him off.  "Get that thing away from me," he
grumbled in mock anger, still smiling.  "It stinks."  His eyes
didn't leave the figure beside the car, huge and close-up in the
camera's lens.  He studied the man carefully, the smile fading
from his face as he did so.

"Hey, you didn't hear me complaining to you about that huge
burger you ate," Granger was saying, but Mulder ignored him.
"And speaking of something that stinks...."

"That's John Fagan," Mulder interrupted softly, as though he
were only speaking to himself.

He could see Granger lean over towards him, squinting, trying
to make out the figure in the distance.  "You think so?"

Mulder continued to stare at the man.  He snapped a picture,
then another.  "I'd bet my life on it.  From the way Scully
described him to me at the clinic."

The man was big, bulky with muscle beneath his long coat,
almost oafish looking.   But his face was keen with a suspicious
look and a sharp intelligence.  He looked like a bookish
wrestler.  Mulder watched him go into the pub, oblivious to
being watched.

Curran's bodyguard, Scully had called him.  Mulder found
himself wondering about what Fagan was like up close, wondering
what kind of person he really was.  Scully had been somewhat
circumspect, hadn't said much about him.

His mind began to play over the fact that this was one of the
people Scully was spending her time with, and he knew so little
about him.  He wanted to know more.  And he wanted to find it
out for himself.

"Um....hey, I've got to take a piss,"  Mulder said suddenly,
putting the camera down on the seat beside him.  He reached for
the door handle.

"What?"  Granger asked, putting a hand on his arm.  "Where?"

Mulder gestured to the pub.  "Well, that's the closest place to
do it, isn't it?"

"Hey," Granger said, his surprise showing on his face.  "We're
not supposed to go in there.  We're just supposed to take
pictures, remember?"

"Relax, Granger," Mulder soothed, removing his arm from
Granger's grip.  "I'll be back in a minute."   He opened the
door, climbing from the car.

"Mulder, this is damned irregular!"  Granger hissed, clearly
stricken.  "You're not following proper surveillance procedure.
You're going to get us both in trouble!"

Mulder ignored him again, slammed the door shut, jamming his
hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, pressing himself
against the door to let a car pass.  He heard Granger swear
through the cracked window just as he left the side of the car
to trot across the street.

********

"What the hell is he doing?"  Agent Coulson asked, watching
Mulder through his car window.  He was in another dark sedan,
his vantage point the opposite side of the parking lot from
Granger's car.

Beside him in the passenger seat, Agent Hirsch's lips curled up
in a smirk as he put the camera up to his face.  He zeroed in on
Mulder in the lens as Mulder stopped before the pub door,
looking from side to side as though making sure he wasn't being
watched.  Hirsch waited until Mulder's face was straight on in
the camera, the sign for the pub over his head, before pressing
down the camera's shutter button.

"Hanging his ass out to dry," Hirsch replied, and snapped the
picture again.
 

********

The interior of the pub was dark and smelled faintly of pipe
smoke.  Mulder stood in the doorway for a moment, letting his
eyes adjust to the lighting, and then surveyed the room.  The
place was fairly empty, lazy fans spinning on the ceiling,
keeping the stale air moving.  The place was quiet, only a
murmuring of conversation here and there.  A bartender was
watching a television beside the bar, polishing a beer glass as
he did so.  Billiards was on.

Snooker, Mulder corrected himself, remembering the game from
his Oxford days.  It would be snooker.

The man he was convinced was John Fagan was sitting at the
corner of the bar, nearest the television, drinking a glass of
what appeared to be milk and eating from a bowl of pretzels.
His long coat was draped on the stool next to him.  He was
watching the match on the television.

The place was definitely cautious, he thought.  Almost every
head had turned towards him, the obvious newcomer.  Even the man
he thought was Fagan was watching him out of the corner of his
eye, though he didn't turn his head away from the match.

Mulder averted his eyes from the man quickly, trying to be as
casual as possible.  He didn't like the attention he was
getting.  He suddenly regretted that he'd come in at all,
wondered if he might be possibly doing more harm than any good
that could come out of it.

But he was in the bar now.  He couldn't very well just turn
around and walk out.  That would arouse even more suspicion.  He
decided he had to play it out now.

Seeing the sign for the bathrooms, he picked his way through
the tables towards them, pretending to be watching the match as
he did so.

One of players made a tricky shot across the length of the
table, the dark ball disappearing into its pocket.

"Ah, John, will you look at that?"  the bartender laughed.
"Your bloke is losing this one for sure now, isn't he?"

So it was Fagan, Mulder thought, turning a bit now to get a
better look at him, memorizing the man's profile.  He kept
moving, though.

Mulder entered the bathroom, relieved to be out of view of the
bar.  Standing before one of the urinals, he unzipped his fly,
did what he'd come in to do for a long moment.  He really *had*
had to go pretty badly.

The door creaked open.  John Fagan came in.

<<Shit...>>

Mulder closed his eyes, inwardly wincing.  Then he reopened his
them, keeping his gaze down, willing his very full bladder to
empty.  Fast.

Fagan took the urinal two down from him, rocking back on his
heels as he took care of business.  Mulder could see Fagan
looking at him in his peripheral vision.  He didn't look back.

"Never seen you in here before," Fagan said, his voice low,
vaguely threatening, like thunder.  Mulder sensed immediately
some sort of challenge in Fagan's tone, but he didn't take the
bait.

"Just came in to take a piss," he replied, his tone friendly as
he continued to look down.  He didn't want Fagan getting a good
look at his face.

"Ah," Fagan said, and zipped himself back up.  He hit the
flusher with his fist, straightened his jacket.  He walked
towards the door, and Mulder thought he was going to get off the
hook clean.

Then Fagan stopped behind him, leaned close to his ear.

"Well, pick another place next time, Yank.  Sod off."

Mulder kept his face down.  "I'll be sure and do that," he
replied, his tone careful, still friendly.

"There's a good man," Fagan replied, smiling, and slapped
Mulder on the back.  With that he walked out the door.

"Son of a bitch..."  Mulder swore under his breath.  He'd had
no intention of coming face to face with Fagan at all.  It was a
horrible miscalculation on his part and he knew it.

Finishing quickly, Mulder zipped his fly and headed out the
door.  Fagan was just taking his seat back at the bar, the
bartender bringing him up to date on what he'd missed.

Mulder made it to the door, then stopped.  Turning, he surveyed
the bar again, imagining Scully in this cave-like place, with
Fagan hovering around her.  He didn't like the image at all.
Noting eyes still on him around the room, he moved quickly out
the heavy wooden doors, back out into the light.

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

End of chapter 10a.  Continued in 10b.

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

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA
OUTPATIENT CLINIC
4:32 p.m.
 

Scully entered the small examining room, the chart in hand, and
looked with surprise at the man standing beside the table
against the wall.  The name on the chart  had read  "Bob Smith,"
the reason for the visit listed simply as "headache."

"Hello," she said, striking herself out of her surprise.  "Mr.
Conner, isn't it?"

"Aye, Danny Conner," the man replied softly, nervously.  His
eyes darted into the hallway.  "Close the door, if you would,
please."

Scully did as she was told, her eyes not leaving Conner's face.
She was struck once again by how ill the man looked, the deep
circles beneath his eyes, his pale complexion.  He still wore
his navy peacoat, which hung on his shoulders as though it was
on a hanger.  His jeans bagged around his hips.   Looking at him
closely, she realized he was much younger than she had thought
when she'd first seen him at the pub.  His age was hidden well
by whatever was ailing him.

"What can I help you with, Mr. Conner?"  she asked, laying the
chart down on the counter.  Her tone was gentle but
professional.  "Is there something else that Mr. Curran needs
from me, or are you here for yourself?"  She sincerely hoped it
was the latter, for his sake.

Conner looked down, his mouth opening and closing, trying to
form words, and didn't answer her.  Scully noticed he was
shaking slightly, as though he were overcome with a fit of
nerves.  She waited, unwilling to press him, afraid she might
spook him even more than he already was.

Finally, he looked up at her.  "If I come here as a patient,
you're not allowed to tell anyone that I've been here, right?"

Scully nodded.  "Yes," she replied.  "You're protected under
doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Does that include Owen Curran and Mae and the others?" he
added quickly.  "I know you're here to do work for him, so--"

"That includes everyone," Scully interrupted.  "My work with
Mr. Curran is separate from the work I do here as a doctor at
this clinic."

She said it reassuringly, but something in her was cautious,
wondering if Curran had sent Conner here to test her, to see if
she would keep a secret from him.

But looking at the man's trembling, his sickly pallor, she
decided to go ahead and play it out.  This could be an
invaluable opportunity for her, for the operation, she thought.
She wanted desperately for him to let her examine him.

Though she wasn't sure what it was that he was ill with, part
of her thought it had something to do with the drugs she'd
gotten for Curran the week before.  Conner could, she thought,
hold the key to the entire mystery of this.

And he'd walked right into her hands.

Conner was looking around the room uncertainly, something
desperate in his eyes.  She decided that she'd better put him at
ease or he was bound to walk right out on her.

She took a step closer.  He looked at her wide-eyed but didn't
move away.  "I can tell there's something wrong.  Why don't you
tell me what it is."

Conner was searching her face, as though considering carefully
if she could be believed.  Inside his pockets, she could see his
hands shaking even harder.

Again she waited.  It was like having a frightened animal in
front of her.  She held his gaze, nodded to him, reassuring him.
His eyes darted to her, then around the room, then back to her.

Finally he spoke, his voice just above a whisper, as though he
was afraid someone else would hear.

"I have a drug problem."  He looked down as he said it.

"What sort of drug problem?"   Scully asked quietly.  She had
to play dumb about this, suppressing everything she suspected.
She had to come at him as though she knew nothing or she might
arouse his suspicion.

"Well," he began.  The words came from him haltingly.  "You
know those prescriptions you wrote out for Owen?  Those pills I
picked up for him?"

"Yes."

"I've been taking those drugs for awhile now.  And now that I'm
on them, I can't stop taking them."

She nodded.  So it *was* the drugs that were causing the
symptoms she saw in him.  "All right," she said, crossing her
arms in front of her chest.  "Have you tried to stop taking
them?"

He nodded.  His eyes were very afraid.  "Yes,"  he replied.
"Several times."

"What happens when you try to stop taking them?"  It was like
talking to a child, the way he wouldn't supply any information
save what she asked for specifically.  She kept at it, gently
persistent.

He looked at her gravely, his breath heaving in suddenly.  She
saw tears fill his eyes and grew more concerned now.  She took
another step closer to him, putting a hand on his arm.  Her brow
creased down sympathetically.

This man wasn't spying, she thought.  This man was terrified.

"It's okay," she said softly.  "I'm here to help you.  It's all
right."

"I can't stop taking them," he choked out, his lower lip
trembling.  He swiped at his eyes roughly with the sleeve of his
coat.  "I can't stop...or I'll die."

"How do you know you'll die?"  She wondered if the drug acted
like cocaine or speed, sending Conner into a fit of withdrawal
so severe that it *felt* like he was going to die.

Conner looked at her, the tears spilling down his cheeks.
"Because people have been dying already," he whispered.

She looked at him, alarmed, comprehension dawning on her.
Rutherford's death, hers and the others, had something to do
specifically with the drug itself.  Not with some external
device as she'd first suspected.

How, she couldn't fathom.  But she knew that the answer was
inside Conner.

"You're not the only one addicted to these drugs then," she
stated, reaching up and holding Conner's face between her hands,
her thumbs pulling down on the skin below his eyes, exposing his
lower lids.  His eyes were bloodshot, the lids pasty white.

"No," Conner replied, doing his best to be still while she
examined him.  "There are a lot of us on them.  Most of us, in
fact."

"Most of the people who work for Mr. Curran?"  Scully
clarified.  She was checking the pulse in his neck now, her
fingers cupped around his stubbly throat.  His heart was racing.
She couldn't tell if it was from fear or from the drug itself.

He nodded beneath her hand.  "Owen brought the drugs to us
about six months ago, told us they would help us stay alert,
that we wouldn't need to sleep as much.  We travel a lot in the
work we do, so that was good.  A hit of the stuff gives a good
high, too, that lasts for a couple of hours.  I started taking
them a lot just for that.  Then before I knew it I HAD to take
them."

"Sit down on the table and take off your coat," Scully
instructed quietly, steadying him as he pulled himself up on the
table.  He was shaking so hard now she was afraid his arms would
give out under him.  He shouldered out of his coat, revealing a
baggy long-sleeved white T-shirt.   He was thin.  Too thin.

"Take off your shirt, too," she murmured, going for the blood
pressure cuff on the wall.  She nearly had to double it around
his upper arm.  His bones were stark against the white, hairless
skin of his chest.  He looked to her like an overgrown, haggard
little boy.

She put the stethoscope's earpieces in her ears, pressed the
flat circle of it against obvious needle marks on the inside of
his arm, pumping up the cuff.  She released the air with a hiss,
watching the display.

"Your blood pressure is extremely high," she said, shaking her
head.  "And when's the last time you ate?"

He looked down, unable to meet her gaze.  "I had something to
eat a couple of days ago.  You don't want to eat much when
you're taking them."

She nodded, filing all this information away.  "How often do
you sleep?"  Considering the drugs inhibited, almost completely,
serotonin production, she assumed that it wasn't very often.

"I haven't slept in over two weeks," Conner replied, and his
eyes shone again with frustrated tears.  His tone was
desperate.

"Two WEEKS?"  Scully replied, horrified, halting her exam to
look into his eyes.  He jerked a nod.

"I try every night.  We all do.  But all we get are these
strange dreams.  Real dreams.  Happening right in front of our
eyes."

That was the mescaline, she concluded to herself.  The
hallucinogen.  She imagined that Conner and the others
hallucinated quite a bit, especially if they were having to take
the drugs regularly.  That would be where the "high" Conner
spoke of came from, too.

"Danny," she began, looking him in the face.  "May I call you
Danny?"  When he shrugged and nodded, she continued.  "What
happens when you try to stop taking the drugs?"

"Bad headaches," he replied, shaking his head as if against a
terrible memory.  "Nosebleeds.  I've never made it past that.
The headache was too bad to bear for long."

She recalled the police report on Mary Rutherford.  She had had
a nosebleed right before she died in that market.

"And you've tried tapering them off?  Not just stopping them
cold?"

He nodded.  "I've tried everything I know to do," he replied.
"It's always the same."

"All right," she said, gathering her thoughts.  "The first
thing I'm going to need from you is a sample of everything
you're taking.  I see that you're taking something else
intraveneously?"  She gestured with a glance at the track marks
on his arms.  He shook his head.

"No, it's the same drugs you wrote the scripts for.  We all end
up taking them like this most of the time, though some people
still take the pills or drink it mixed in something from time to
time.   I've found, though, that sometimes if it's been awhile
between fixes, it takes too long for the pills to work."

"But how do you get the drugs in an intraveneous form?"  she
asked, confused.  "I only write scripts for the pill forms."

Conner rooted around his pocket, pulled out three vials of a
dark liquid, each capped with a rubber stopper.  He hesitated
for an instant, but then offered Scully one of the vials.

"That's what Owen gives us, that and single capsules.  There's
a lab here in town that makes them up for him.  Some of our
people have jobs there."

Scully took the vial, swiveled it around against the light,
looking at it carefully.  It was pure liquid, nothing suspended.
Someone was processing the pills that she got from the hospital
into some sort of drug cocktail, she realized.  She would have
to get into the lab as soon as possible and do a breakdown of it.

She popped the top off the vial carefully, sniffed at the
contents.  It smelled vaguely of hazelnuts.  She replaced the
cap, slipped it into her pocket.

"Do you think you can help me, Dr. Black?"  He was looking at
her with his wide, dark eyes.

She sighed, tried to smile reassuringly.  "I'll do everything I
can to help you, Danny," she replied.  "I'm going to start by
having some blood work done on you.  See what we can see in
that.  And I'm going to run some tests on what you're taking to
see exactly what we're dealing with.  We'll start there."

She handed him his shirt and he pulled it on.  Turning to the
counter, she pulled out a lab sheet, began checking off boxes
for things she wanted done with a blood sample.  In the patient
name block she wrote "Bob Smith," just as he'd done.  Then she
turned and handed him the sheet.

"Take that to the lab down the hallway and they'll draw some
blood, all right?  And I want to see you back here in two or
three days.  I should have the results by then and we can talk
about them then."

He was already back in his coat, standing beside the table as
he'd been when she came in the room.  He nodded.

"All right," he said.  "I'll do my best to get away by then."

"And in the meantime," she said firmly.  "Don't alter how
you're taking the drugs at all.  I don't want to play around
with them until I know what we're dealing with."

"Aye, I'll agree with you on that," Conner replied.  He
hesitated, then reached a hand out towards her.  She looked down
at it, shook it gently.

"Thank you," he said softly.  "I didn't know where to turn.  I
hope I can trust you with this."

She smiled gently at him, meeting his eyes.  "You can trust me,
Danny.  Don't worry about that.  We'll get to the bottom of
this."  She just hoped she could deliver on what she said...

He smiled back, then stepped around her and went to the door,
closing it behind him.

Once she heard his footsteps receding down the hallway, Scully
picked up the phone, dialing Information.

"City and listing, please?"  the operator responded after a
couple of rings.

"Richmond.  The Richmond Times-Dispatch."

"Which department?"

"Personals section, please," she replied.  She turned away from
the door, lowering her voice in case anyone might be walking by.

She fingered the vial in her pocket.  It was the first big
break in the case, and so soon.  She couldn't believe her luck.

She had to get to Mulder.  Right away.
 

***********

END OF CHAPTER 10.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 11.

********

YOUNG'S TEXACO & U-HAUL
ASHLAND, VIRGINIA
JANUARY 9 8:43 a.m.

John Fagan and Danny Conner pulled up outside the dilapidated
gas station, parked the late-model sedan in front of one of the
vacant pumps.   Fagan glanced around the side of the small
building, saw the rows of battered U-Haul trucks gathered at its
side.  The trucks were still covered with a dirty layer of
snow.

Conner sat almost completely still, as though any movement
would deplete his dangerously low supply of energy.  He blew a
stream of smoke out the crack of the car's window, tilted his
head absently and took in the sight of the trucks himself.  He
shivered despite the heat blasting from the car's dash.  No
emotion crossed his face as he looked at them.

Apparently satisfied with the selection of trucks he saw, Fagan
reached down and turned the car off, his eyes following a man in
a baseball cap that was leaving the gas station.  He watched him
as he got into his car and drove away.

"Stay here until I come out with the keys," he said.  "Then
take the car back to the Grey Mouse.  I'll meet you there in the
truck."

Conner simply nodded in response, blowing out another puff of
smoke, the cigarette trembling in his hand.  He saw Fagan frown
at his silence, knew it was a risk to show any disrespect to
this man in particular, but for the moment couldn't care less.
He knew that he wouldn't even be here unless Curran thought he
was one of the Path members that could be trusted most, so a
reprisal from Fagan seemed unlikely.   If you were on Curran's
"A" list, nothing could touch you.  Not even Fagan.

Fagan climbed out of the car, straightening his coat around
him.  He reached behind him into the pocket of his black pants,
groping for his wallet, and for an instant Conner saw the gun
that Fagan kept hidden at the small of his back, a not-so-subtle
reminder of what Fagan could be capable of, and how quickly.  He
watched it disappear as the coat fell back into place and Fagan
made his way to the door of the station. The bell on the door
jingled as he entered and disappeared from sight.

Now Conner did lean back, crossing one leg over the other as he
reached for the radio, flicking it on.  He surfed the stations,
rolling over news and the country/western stations until he
heard Dave Matthews asking his lover to lay down, the haunting
voice echoing in the car around him.

He took comfort in the sound, remembering, not so many years
ago, how he and his friend Kyle would sit out on the fields
around Ballycastle, a tape player beside them.  They would lie
on the greenest grass in the world, listening to this band and
others.  They would talk about America, the word passed between
them like a secret.  Both wanted to leave Northern Ireland and
go there, start lives away from the poverty, the small town
meddling, the fits of violence that had surrounded them their
entire lives.

His lip curled up at the memory.  <<God, what an idiot,>> he
taunted himself as he looked back at that boy in the grass.  The
draw of a trip to America was what had brought him into The Path
in the first place.  That and his father's urging to do
something for the Cause.  He still remembered watching the green
rim of land disappear from the airplane's window, stretching out
to a seemingly endless expanse of sea below him, leaving
everything he knew and was behind him.

Now he looked at the U-Haul trucks before him, realizing once
again the irony of his choice.  He'd left neither the meddling
nor the violence behind him.   Only Kyle.  Those days of
American music out on the grass overlooking the sea.  The smell
of the house when his mother baked bread in the mornings.  And
something else, something essential about the man he should have
become, who was not the trembling figure who stared back at him
from the side-view mirror.   The man who had spent so much time
doing things he'd never imagined himself capable of doing.

He closed his eyes, opened them again, like a blink in slow
motion, willing the view before him to change, for the past five
years to become nothing more than one of the waking dreams that
haunted him night after night.

My God, he thought.  What have I done?

He looked at the trucks again, stubbing out the cigarette in
the car's small ashtray, lifting the armrest between him and the
driver's seat.  He slid across the seat until he sat tiredly
beneath the steering wheel.  He closed his eyes, covering them
with a shaking hand.
 

*********

MONUMENT AVENUE
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
8:16 a.m.

Scully crossed the wide circle around Meadow Avenue, looking up
at the statue of Robert E. Lee on horseback, shining bronze in
the winter sunlight.  Her hands were deep in her pockets against
the chill, her mind deep in thought.  She stepped carefully
through the patches of snow that clung to the sidewalk here and
there, making her way slowly up Monument Avenue toward Mae's
apartment building on Grace.

She was returning from Mass at the Cathedral, some nine or ten
blocks back.  Though it was cold, she'd elected to walk,
figuring the crisp air would help her clear her mind.  She'd
been unusually distracted when she'd gotten up early that
morning, and had thought that the Mass would help center her,
give her time away from Mae and the details of the case.  She
desperately needed time to herself, especially since she'd
elected -- at Mae's insistence -- to stay in Mae's apartment for
a while longer. She found she craved the solitude now like air.

So she'd risen early and dressed in the quiet, made her way to
Mass while Mae was still sleeping.

She'd slid down to the very end of the dark wood pew in one of
the back rows of the huge cathedral, the early light vaguely
illuminating the stained glass window next to her.  It had been
a portrait of a shepherd carrying a lamb across his shoulders,
who was being followed by a golden angel.

Beside her, in stone relief, the Station of the Cross titled
"Jesus Falls the First Time" hung on the wall, and she'd found
herself staring at it as people trickled down the main aisle,
the usual light attendance for the seven o'clock Mass.

She'd knelt down to pray on the narrow kneeler at her feet,
folded her hands in front of her, gripping them into a fist.
The serenity she sought wouldn't come.  Her mind was too filled
with the details of the case now, with Danny Conner and Mae and
Curran.  She carried the weight of her cover, her life with
these people, like a burden.

And, as always, she was preoccupied with thoughts of  Mulder.
She felt his absence sometimes as though it were a physical
presence.  It was that real to her.  Her thoughts of him
followed her around throughout her days as tenaciously as her
own shadow.

She would see him soon, though.  She'd placed an ad for today's
paper, asking for a meeting.  He would make an appointment at
the clinic and she would see him again.  She could almost
picture him standing before her in one of the small clinic
rooms, the feel of his body as she held him, the warm smell of
him as she buried her face once again into his shoulder.

Finding solace in the thoughts of him, she'd felt herself
beginning to relax a bit.

Not for long, though.

She had gone to the Mass to get away from her casework, and
she'd walked right into the middle of it instead.

She could still recall her surprise at seeing Owen Curran and
his son Sean come down the aisle.  Though she knew that Curran
would be Catholic, it still surprised her to see him at Mass.
He hadn't exactly struck her as the pious type.  She was even
more surprised when he turned, ushering Sean into the row where
she was sitting, and came down to join her.

The priest was already making his way down the aisle with the
altar boy and girl as he and Sean sat, precluding any
conversation between them other than a softly mumbled "good
morning" they exchanged.  Sean's greeting was a small but open
smile.

By the start of the first reading, Curran was restless, looking
around at the people peppered throughout the cathedral.  Scully
watched him out of the corner of her eye.  Gradually, his eyes
fell on a man sitting on the other side of the church, who
likewise seemed to be looking for him.  They nodded to each
other, then Curran patted Sean's leg and rose, slipping out of
the pew.  The other man did the same thing and they both
disappeared out the back doors of the church.

Scully pretended to show no interest, simply sat with Sean and
listened to the reading.  Sean did not seem surprised at his
father's departure one bit.

By the second reading, an epistle of Paul, Sean had taken a
deck of cards out of his coat pocket, sitting cross-legged on
the pew.  He fanned them out in his small hands, offered them to
Scully.  She recognized the "pick a card" game and drew one,
looked at it, then reinserted it into the deck.  Sean obediently
began to awkwardly shuffle the cards, cutting the deck several
times.  Scully had watched him, amused.  Then he looked through
the deck and stopped on a card, showing it to Scully.  She shook
her head, smiling kindly at him.  He flipped through several
cards, showed her another.  She shook her head again.

It took him seventeen guesses, but he finally chose the right
one.

All this time, Scully half-listened to the Mass, half-thought
about where Curran had gone, and what he and that man could be
talking about.   One thing she'd noticed about Curran was that
he always seemed to have some important business to conduct when
she saw him.

She wondered what exactly that "business" could be.

He'd returned, alone, at the beginning of the Eucharistic
prayers.  He'd reached down and tapped the cards in Sean's
hands, looking down at his son disapprovingly.  Sean immediately
slipped the deck back into its box, replaced it in his coat
pocket.  Then he stood up straight between his father and
Scully, suddenly intent on the priest's words.

He'd remained at attention through the rest of the service,
walking soberly up the aisle in front of Scully to receive the
Host, kneeling dutifully beside her when they returned to their
seats.

For his part, Curran went through the motions by rote, his
hands limply clasped in front of him as he knelt, his eyes
darting around the church impatiently.  The only thing he looked
at with any attention was Sean as the young boy said his
prayers.  Curran was clearly, Scully thought, more interested in
Sean than he was in God.

At the end of the Mass, Scully had bundled back up in her coat,
helped Sean back into his.  Curran took his son's hand, turned
to Scully.

"Thank you for watching him," he murmured, looking slightly
embarrassed.  "I hope he wasn't too much trouble for you then."

"No, not at all," Scully replied softly.  She forced a smile at
Curran; she found speaking to him made her decidedly nervous.
He looked down almost shyly as she did so.

"Are we going to light a candle for my mother this time?"  Sean
asked, looking up at Curran, who flushed immediately and looked
at Scully as though she'd just heard something she shouldn't
have.

"Aye, Sean," he said quickly.  "We have time this week.  Come
along."  Again, he had a hard time meeting her eyes.

"Bye then, Katherine."

"Goodbye, Mr. Curran," she replied formally, then reached down
and put a hand on Sean's hair, smoothing it down.  "See you
later, Sean," she said, smiling.

"Owen," Curran replied, and this time he looked her in the
face.

She nodded.  "All right, Owen."

Curran tugged on Sean's hand, who waved goodbye to Scully as
they withdrew, walking down the aisle against the flow of
people, heading toward the statue of the Virgin Mary at the
front of the church.  She'd joined the people going out the
heavy wood doors of the cathedral, bundling her scarf up around
her chin as the wind whipped around her.

Now she crossed over Allen Street, past the statue of Jefferson
Davis, the hand he held outstretched to the city filled with a
small dome of snow.

So Curran's wife was dead, she thought.  She wondered about the
circumstances behind her death, how long ago it had been.  She
noted that Sean had called her "my mother," as though he didn't
know her at all.

For some reason, she sensed it was important to find out what
had happened to Sean's mother, sensed that there was some clue
there that would help her unravel the mystery of these people,
what motivated them.

As she walked slowly beneath the stark branches of the huge
trees lining the street, she realized she had nothing to base
the feeling on.  It was only her instincts that told her so.

***********

End of chapter 11a.  Continued in 11b.

***********

CHURCH HILL
4:36 p.m.

Mulder leaned further against the back of the rickety bench,
blowing out a breath of condensation into the evening air.  He
was high above the city, sitting on the rise of Church Hill that
overlooked the cityscape.  From here, he could see the rapids of
the James River off in the distance, winding through the city
like a dark ribbon. A coal train chuffed and clacked its way
through the city on its raised track, heading off toward the
hill on the other side of Richmond.  Mulder could barely make
out the mausoleum of Hollywood Cemetery, sitting like a snow
white church, a silent sentinel on the city's western edge.

The sun was setting over the James, the water glinting a pale
pink in the gloaming light.   Mulder shivered in his leather
jacket, pushing the garment closer around him from within the
deep pockets.  He burrowed his chin into the black of his
turtleneck, like a bird huddling into its feathers against the
wind.

He watched the cars angling through the streets below him, his
eyes drawn to the movement as he tried to ignore the cold
creeping into his body and the thoughts that kept popping into
his mind, pricking him.

He had fucked up.  Pure and simple.

He closed his eyes against the memory of the meeting with
Padden and Jessup and the others, the picture someone had taken
of him entering the Grey Mouse shoved in front of him from
across the table.  He assumed from the glib look on that son-of-
a bitch Hirsch's face that it had been he who'd taken it.
Mulder tried to not meet his eyes, though it was hard
considering Hirsch had seated himself at a desk near the table,
close enough so he could hear the fireworks.

And fireworks there were.  Though Padden wasn't the yelling
type, it was clear he was angry.  The words "foolish" and
"unprofessional" had been peppered throughout the conversation.
"Violation of proper procedure," the phrase that had followed
Mulder throughout his career at the Bureau, found its way in
several times, as well.

"I had to take a piss," he'd answered when asked why he'd gone
into the pub.  But Padden wasn't biting.  He kept talking as
though Mulder hadn't spoken at all.  So Mulder sat there and
took it.

Until they lit into Granger, who sat loyally beside him through
the whole thing, silent.
 

"Hey," he'd interrupted.  "Granger didn't do anything.  He even
tried to stop me from going in."

Mulder had stepped in it so surely it wouldn't hurt him to
incriminate himself more, especially since he could tell Granger
was taking it hard.  It was probably the first time Granger had
ever done anything wrong in his job.  He wasn't as used to the
joys of being bitched out.

"Well, he should have tried harder," Padden had responded, then
continued in on Granger, talking about how partners were
responsible for each other's behavior, etcetera, etcetera.
Mulder eventually tuned him out, though part of him wondered how
many times Scully had gotten the same treatment over one of his
little stunts.

Thinking of that and watching Granger seem to shrink in his
chair, he felt suddenly very guilty.

The punishment had been swift and sure and was designed to hit
Mulder where he hurt.  He had been pulled off of surveillance
duty indefinitely, doomed to the background checks that were
taking place in the hotel's opulent suite.

That meant, he was told specifically, that he wouldn't be able
to see Scully.  They were afraid