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Threnody: Divested

By stellar_dust
stellar_dust_x@yahoo.com
 

WEBSITE: http://katycat.net/xfiles
SPOILERS: Requiem, Within, Without.  Ah, heck, the whole
series.
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: "Scully, you have to understand that they're
taking abductees.  You're an abductee.  I'm not going to
risk ... losing you."  But what if he did?
KEYWORDS: AU, mytharc, angst, MSR, season 8
ARCHIVE: Absolutely.  And I'd love to come visit.
FEEDBACK:  Please, please, would you?  This thing is
*dying* for feedback.  Good, bad, I don't care, I want to
know what you think!
DISCLAIMER: They all belong to Chris.  It's just as well;
after all, Mulder never went through such hell when *he*
was in charge.  Not very often, anyway.  Usually.  Except
when ... Ah, whatever, just don't sue me, please, ok?
DATE: Written Jan. to April 2004.  Completed 2004-04-03.
NOTES:  This story is the first in a series that will
eventually compose a whole virtual season 8.  "Threnody"
is a synonym for "requiem."  It's an AU, positing
that Scully got abducted instead of Mulder halfway through
Requiem.  Everything else is the same - at the beginning,
anyway.  I'm planning to explore Mulder and Doggett's
relationship (I have *no* experience writing Doggett, so
Doggett fans especially, send feedback!), Mulder's illness,
etc.  Some episodes will happen, some won't, some will only
be referred to in passing.  In any case .. it should be an
interesting ride, and each episode should be fairly self-
contained - much like the real Season 8.  This is also my
first attempt at writing anything really long.  Hopefully,
though, I can maintain a flow of shorter fics while
working on this, and still write my masters' thesis, too.
*grin*  And now, curtain up on Scully!
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Divested

"Scully, you have to understand that they're taking
abductees.  You're an abductee.  I'm not going to risk ...
losing you."  -- Mulder, Requiem
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Scully knew that if she turned around, she'd see Mulder.
He would be covering ground rapidly with his long strides,
taking in every detail of the area.  He would be worried.
No, she corrected herself, he would be *frantic*.

She could almost hear him now, in high, wavering tones:
"Scullllyyy!"

She didn't turn around.

Is this what it was like, Scully wondered?  Is this what it
was like, the first time, when Duane Barry took her to
Skyland Mountain, and they came?  She didn't remember.  She
never had remembered.  She wondered if she would remember
this.

She should turn around, Scully thought.  She should go.
She should step back.

Standing in the beam of light she could see Theresa Hoese
and her husband, other people from Bellefleur that she
recognized, some that she remembered from seven years ago.
There was Billy Miles, now, she noticed, and wondered idly
how many officers the town's police force had left.

They looked so happy.  Radiant.  Welcoming.  As though
nothing in the world could compare to what they were about
to do.  Scully thought of Cassandra Spender, how she had
been convinced that they were here to help, to do good.
And she thought of the Twilight Zone episode, the one
Mulder liked to watch when he was feeling ironic:  How to
Serve Man.

And, because in the end, there really was no choice, Scully
went.

Goodbye, Mulder, she thought.  I love you.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder looked at the charred husk of flashlight in the
boy's hands.  What could do this, he wondered?  Radiation?
Is there radiation powerful enough, directed enough to set
a flashlight aflame, and leave the person holding it
untouched?

"Scully," he turned to show her, to ask her, needing a
scientific explanation before his mind concocted a thousand
horrified possibilities.

She wasn't there.

He turned again, scanning the forest, looking for where
he'd seen her last - there, an opening in the undergrowth,
foliage creating a natural fork in the overgrown game trail
they'd been following.  No Scully.

"Do you see her?" he asked the boy.  Richie.  He looked
around uncertainly and shook his head.

Mulder was moving now, almost running, over the log, around
the trees, through the briars, thorns grasping hungrily at
his jacket and slacks.  "Scully?" he called.  "Scully, can
you hear me?  Scully!"

Suddenly Mulder was brought up short.  Almost
imperceptibly, he felt himself rise above the ground.  He
started to shake, uncontrollably, spasming, limbs moving
faster than his muscles had ever been forced to work.
Worse than that: his *brain* was vibrating.

Mulder was aware, hyperaware, his barriers down, more open
than he'd been even when the alien writing had granted him
telepathy.  He could feel Richie's confused, frightened
mind, and the whole town of Bellefleur, and another, more
familiar sense ˆ someone he knew but couldn't place ˆ and,
far, far off, through fog and rain and a million lives, he
could feel Skinner, taking the hit again for his and
Scully's latest journey.

And he could feel Scully.  Close.  So close, her mind rapt
and awed in a way he'd never known her to express, except
once, under regression hypnosis.  He felt like screaming,
or crying.

And as suddenly as it had begun, it was over, and he landed
hard on a tough, knotted root.

Richie slid through the leaves and landed at Mulder's side,
shaking him.  "Mr. Mulder?  Are you okay?  What happened?"

"Yeah," Mulder moved painfully, rolling over, and eased
himself into a sitting position.  He rested his elbows on
his knees and rubbed at his forehead.  "It's out here, all
right.  It almost got me."  He looked up at Richie, almost
daring to hope.  "You didn't see Scully anywhere else
around here, did you?"

Richie shook his head, eyes wide.  "Did ˆ did they take
her, too?"

Mulder took a deep breath and was about to answer ˆ he
didn't know what he'd say, but he had to say something ˆ
when his eyes fell on a glimmer in the leaves to his right.
He reached out for it.

It was Scully's necklace.

Oh, God, he thought.  No.  No.  How could he have been so
*stupid*?

He closed his fist around the charm, tightly, the pointy
end of the cross digging into his palm, and squeezed his
eyes shut against the flood of guilt and remorse.  Thoughts
chased each other around his mind, fleetingly, reaching the
conclusions his unconscious mind had already developed.

Three deep, ragged breaths later, he opened his eyes again.
"Richie, your friend ˆ Gary ˆ did he ˆ was he ever missing,
before?  Go away for days or months at a time?"

"You mean, was he ever abducted?"  Richie's eyes flitted
nervously through the trees around them.

Mulder nodded, mouth dry.

"Yeah," Richie whispered, frightened, licking his lips.
"Twice."

Mulder nodded, and eased himself to his feet, placing
Scully's necklace reverently into his pocket.  I should
have seen it, he thought.  These aren't random abductions.
They're taking abductees, and this time they're not coming
back.  Not coming back ... the phrase echoed ominously,
piteously through his mind.  Not coming back. Scully ....

He took a few steps forward, placed his hand experimentally
in front of him.  It flopped and flailed like a hyperactive
fish out of water.  He pulled it back.  Scully. Oh, Scully
....

"Agent Mulder!"  He whipped around at his name.  Two
Bellefleur cops were picking their way through the forest.
"Detective Miles and his son!  They're both missing!"

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder's entire body ached, from the dull pain behind his
eyes to the gaping emptiness in his gut.  He fumbled with
the hotel key, dropped it, tried again.

Billy Miles was still missing, of course; his father was
found dead in the trunk of his own police car, dead for at
least three days, the coroner said, though Mulder'd spoken
with the man just yesterday.

Was it really only yesterday that he and Scully had come
back to Bellefleur, the scene of their first case together?
It felt like a century.

Skinner had called that afternoon, royally pissed at them
for leaving in the middle of an audit.  He'd commented that
Scully wasn't answering her phone and Mulder had said,
haltingly, yes, he knew that.  Skinner had insisted on
starting the search process, and now Mulder was due on a
plane back to DC at 8 AM tomorrow morning, to give
testimony.

The lock finally clicked open beneath Mulder's shaking
fingers, and he staggered over the threshold, and leaned
back against the closed door.  He flicked the lights on.
His suitcase was open on the dresser, a jumble of socks and
underwear and the occasional tie.  Towels and running shoes
on the floor, scraps of paper and muddled notes covering
every available surface.  Scattered across the floor were
all the photos and medical files on Ray Hoese's abduction
experiences, fallen when he'd tucked Scully into his bed
last night.  Finally Mulder let his eyes drift across the
unmade bed, to the pile of clothing at the foot of it, his
and Scully's garments mingled together as comfortably, as
securely as their bodies had last night, when Scully had
recovered from her vertigo and warmed enough to roll over
and press her full length against him, to tell him that no,
there was no way she'd go back to Washington, not now,
twining her leg around his, reaching first for his t-shirt,
his mouth, his ˆ

Mulder choked on a sob.  No, he wasn't ready to relive that
moment, not yet.

Mulder stumbled forward and came to his knees beside the
bed, pressing his face into the sheets.  They smelled like
Scully.

Why?, he thought in agony, balling his fists into the
covers, pounding at the mattress, small sounds of pain
escaping from his throat.  I should have pushed harder, I
could have talked you into it, I knew this was coming,
Scully, I could feel it, and you'd be safe now, Scully,
safe at home ..

There was no way he'd be able to sleep in that room
tonight.

Some time later, empty of tears and drained in his soul,
Mulder rose and quickly, deliberately, packed up all of his
things.  All the papers, tucked into a briefcase; his
clothes balled up and stuffed in the suitcase, his extra
suit, and the one he'd worn today, hung neatly in the
garment bag.  As he grabbed clothes off the floor, he
couldn't bear the thought of pulling his and Scully's
apart, of taking hers next door and zipping them into her
own suitcase, so into his they went, together.

And when he pulled off his suit to change into sweats, he
reached into the pocket and gently lifted out Scully's
necklace.  The cross glinted in the warm motel room lights,
deep and golden and sparkling; like Scully, Mulder thought.
I'll find you.  I have to.  I can't live *without* you.

He clasped it around his own neck, slowly and carefully,
remembering the last time it had hung there, six years ago,
and how he'd never wanted to see it anywhere but resting on
Scully's chest ever again.  He tucked it under his
turtleneck and sweatshirt, taking comfort in the cold metal
against his skin, almost, for one tantalizing moment,
feeling Scully's presence in the room with him.

Later, his bags packed into the rental car, Mulder unlocked
Scully's room and did the same, deliberately, quickly.  He
didn't think about her, or how the entire room smelled of
her, or the way all her clothes were perfectly folded and
organized and unworn.  He didn't think about the way her
hair fanned out against the pillows, or how she looked in
the three-inch heels he found on the floor of her closet.
And he definitely didn't think about where she was now.  He
did smile at the sight of her laptop, still on, still
blinking, waiting for her to type the next sentence of her
case report.  Always responsible, Scully.

Mulder finished, locked the door, packed the car, checked
out of the motel.  He put a hand to his chest and felt,
through the layered fabric ˆ like the princess and the pea,
he thought ˆ Scully's cross.  I'll find you.  I promise,
Scully.  I will.  Don't give up.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder waved his flashlight through the trees,
concentrating hard, trying to look everywhere at once out
of the corners of his eyes.  There!  The beam seemed to
end, wavering, diffusing itself into the air.  Yes, this
looks like the spot, he thought, glancing around,
recognizing trees and fallen logs.

He walked to where the light disappeared, stretched
his hand out again, watched it begin its spasmodic
vibrations.  He nodded to himself, pulled the roll of
"Police Line - Do Not Cross" tape out of his pack, and
knotted one end of it around the nearest tree trunk.

Mulder started walking, sketching out a wide, rough circle.
As he went, he played the tape out behind him, keeping one
hand inside the field, never reaching in deeper than his
elbow, never losing touch altogether.  In the end, when
he reached the original tree again, he'd been walking for
twenty minutes, outlining a circle of about 200 feet in
diameter.  In the moonlight, he could look through the
trees to the other side of his circle, and see the yellow
tape there, twisted around branches.

Well, he thought.  There it is.  I found it, I've marked
it, and I know she's in there.  What next?

He picked up a long stick from the ground, and
experimentally thrust it all the way into the energy field.
Five seconds later, it bounced right back out at him.

All right, then.  Mulder thought.  He didn't want to risk a
bullet ˆ too much chance of being heard, or, worse yet,
that it would penetrate the field and hurt Scully, or
another abductee.

Mulder was at a loss.  He sank to the ground and buried his
face in his hands.  Scully, he thought, and it was almost a
prayer, but a prayer to Scully, directed not at the heavens
but to someone less than two hundred feet away from him.
Scully, I feel you so close to me, but I can't get to you.
I need you so badly, Scully; please.  Please come back to
me.  Please be all right.

"So you found it," said a clipped, guarded voice behind
him.

Mulder leapt to his feet, gun out, pointed it
instinctively.  "I swear, Krycek, if you step one foot
closer to me, I'll shoot you."

Krycek raised his hands slowly.  "Hey now, Mulder.  We're
on the same side here."

"What are you doing here?" Mulder motioned with the gun for
Krycek to step further into the clearing.  He did so
tentatively, never taking his eyes off the gun.

"The old man sent me," Krycek spat.  "To find *that*."

Mulder blinked.  "Did he, by any chance, tell you what to
do with it once you found it?"

Krycek grinned ferociously.  "Of course not.  He doesn't
*know* anything.  He never has."  Sarcastically, "He thinks
he's *dying*.  He wants his *conspiracy* back, he wants his
*power* .. "  Krycek's eyes glinted in the starlight.  "I
want the bastard dead."

Mulder's voice broke, but his hand didn't waver.  "They
took Scully."

"Did they?"  Krycek's face fell.  "Jesus, Mulder, I'm
sorry."

"No, you aren't.  You know nothing."  Mulder replaced the
gun in his waistband, and turned dismissively back to face
the alien craft.

"I know you loved her," Krycek said, more gently than
Mulder had ever heard him speak.  "Isn't that enough?"

Mulder didn't respond.

"Look, Mulder, I can help you," Krycek said desperately.

"I don't trust you."

"Believe me, it's mutual." Krycek's tone was icy now.  "I
know things, Mulder.  Things you've barely started to guess
at.  Things that can stop this, forever.  You need me,
Mulder.  You know you do."

"I don't need *anyone*," Mulder turned, eyes flashing, "but
Scu ˆ"

The air suddenly came alive with sound and motion.  Bright
flashes of white light burned into Mulder's retinas as
leaves swirled around the men in a whirling, rising vortex.
Bits of police line were flapping in the wind, breaking off
of their trees and rushing to join the mad, spiraling dance.
Mulder raised his hand against the light and looked up, up,
 and far away he saw the ship, its hatch still irising shut,
and lights, so many lights.  "Scully!" he shouted, but his
voice was lost on the wind.

The ship seemed to hover for a moment, then soared off to
the west, dwindling to a point of light that flared
brightly just before it vanished.

In the clearing, the silence was oppressive.

"Scully," Mulder whispered.  He fell to his knees, hands in
fists, defiant.  "Noooo!" he shouted.  "Sculllyyy!"

And Krycek stood, perfectly still, wondering, watching,
listening as Mulder's screams faded into the silence of the
woods.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Two mornings later, Mulder woke up in his own bed.
Thankfully, he'd been so worn out by the fifteen-hour plane
ride that he'd had no trouble getting to sleep.  He
showered and dressed in a haze, trying to prepare himself
for the questions the investigative committee would ask;
the same ones they'd asked six years ago, when Scully had
gone missing the first time.

Mulder paused with his tie draped over his shoulders and
scrutinized his reflection in the bathroom mirror.  There
were new wrinkles there, on his forehead and at the corners
of his eyes.  I'm getting old, he thought.  I can't do this
again, Scully; I can't bear to wait and do nothing, I can't
be the X-Files alone again, never knowing when you'll show
up in some hospital with a tube down your throat, or worse
...

You have to, said a voice in the back of his head that
sounded like Scully's.  His voice of reason.  You can.

Mulder stared deep into his own eyes, trying to find what
Scully would see there, what reservoirs of strength and
courage she would insist that he had within him.  And he
didn't move until he found it.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder burst into A.D. Skinner's office, fists clenched,
eyes blazing.  He carefully stopped himself from slamming
the door behind him.

"What is going on, sir?" he asked tightly.  "There are
agents crawling all over my office!  I can't get a straight
answer out of them, and they won't leave!"

Skinner replaced the phone on its cradle.  He looked
harried.  "I'm trying to figure that out, Agent Mulder.
Believe me, this is not my idea.  I just found out about it
myself."  He picked up a file from the table and paced back
around behind his desk.

"Well, whose idea is it then!  They didn't do this when
Duane Barry took her!  They're not gonna find her by
running a," he waved his hands around, "an FBI *manhunt*!
They know that!  And you know that, and I know that .. "
Mulder slowed down and rubbed his cheek, mind racing.
"There's something else going on here.  They're trying to
cover it up.  Somebody is *already* trying to bury this,
and they're going to succeed.  Sir, we have to *do*
something!"  Mulder crashed his hands onto Skinner's desk
and leaned forward, eyes wild.

Skinner stood and put a hand on Mulder's shoulder.
"Mulder, cool it.  Just calm down.  The Duane Barry case
wasn't an X-File."  Mulder looked at him hard, and Skinner
backed down.  "Well, all right, it wasn't officially an X-
File.  Your office was closed up; you and Scully were
serving as consultants for the Behavioral Sciences Unit.
There was no *reason* to look for clues in the X-Files.
This week, you were on an X-File; and you, Agent Mulder,
are the only witness to her disappearance."  Mulder sank
into one of Skinner's chairs, deflated.  "It does make
sense, Mulder.  There's no ˆ there's no deep conspiracy
here."

"Sir, that doesn't change the fact that it's the wrong way
to look.  And I want my office back, exactly the way I left
it.  Who's running this investigation, anyway?  Who've you
got in charge?  Why isn't it you?"

"Like I said, Mulder, I tried to put a stop to all this."
Skinner sighed.  "But this ˆ investigation ˆ is being
handled by our new Deputy Director and his golden boy, John
Doggett."

Mulder looked at him askance.  "Our new Deputy Director?"

The phone rang, and both men looked at the digital display.
"Kersh?"  Mulder asked incredulously.  "Alvin Kersh is the
new DD?  When did that happen?"

"While you were in Oregon," Skinner said distractedly, and
picked up the phone.

Well, I figured that much out for myself, Mulder thought as
he paced the room impatiently, half an ear on Skinner's
conversation.

"Mulder," Skinner said finally, hanging up the phone,
"Kersh wants to see us both immediately."

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

"Sir, I am in no fit state to give a statement, after
witnessing *that* performance," Mulder muttered to Skinner
as they strode out of the DD's office.  "If I walk back in
there and pop him one in the jaw, would that be 'placing
the FBI in a ridiculous light'?"  His fists were clenching
and unclenching themselves as he stalked down the hall.

Skinner smiled tightly.  "I would join you on that one,
Mulder, if it weren't both our careers on the line.  This
isn't about finding Scully, it's about covering the FBI's ass."

They stepped into the elevator, and Mulder looked Skinner
in the eye.  "I won't lie to them, sir.  I won't say it
didn't happen, and I won't say it happened differently."

Skinner sighed.  "Agent Mulder, you can't help Scully if
you lose your job.  Think about it.  She wouldn't want you
to do this."

Mulder closed his eyes, considering, and when he opened
them again they were set.  "You're wrong.  Scully would
want me to find the truth.  And this is one time when a
lie, at least that lie, won't help me do that."

Skinner took a deep breath.  "I can't help you a whole lot,
Mulder; I didn't see any of this, and I can't corroborate
your story.  I'm on your side, but the best I can be is a
character witness.  I hope you realize that."

Mulder nodded slowly.  "I do, sir.  And I thank you.  But
whatever I may need to do, I'm prepared to do it alone."

The elevator doors opened and Mulder stalked off, still
muttering " .. 'comes at a stressful time' .. "

Skinner stared after him for a moment, sighed, then
followed Mulder down the hallway.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

"Where's Agent Doggett?"  Mulder shouted above the din in
the room serving as HQ for the case.  "I want to speak to
Agent Doggett right now!"

Skinner entered the room too late to stop him, and was
quickly pulled away for questioning.

A wiry-looking, middle-aged man with close-cropped brown
hair and a pleasant expression walked up to Mulder and
stuck out his right hand, shoving a file folder beneath his
other arm.  "Agent Muldah?" he had a very pronounced accent.
"I'm Agent Doggett.  What's the problem here?"

Mulder didn't shake.  "What's the problem?  What's the
*problem*?  The problem is that my partner is missing, my
office is being ransacked, and the agent in charge doesn't
have the first *clue* what he's dealing with!"  Mulder's
voice was out of control.

Doggett pulled his hand back and narrowed his eyes.  "Well,
that's just what we're tryin' to figure out here, Agent
Muldah.  You just step over here and tell us what happened,
and I'm sure we can get it cleared up in no time."

"You don't want to hear what happened, Agent Doggett.  You
don't want the truth.  You want a pretty little story that
you can take back to Kersh, and if it ruins me in the
process, hey, even better!  Right?  Am I right, Agent
Doggett?"

Doggett's eyebrows were nearly climbing off the top of his
forehead.  "Agent Muldah, I think you need to calm down ˆ"

"Calm down?  No, I do *not* need to calm down."  Mulder
pointed a finger at the other man's chest.  "*You* need to
step back and take a close look at what's going on here,
Agent Doggett, because if you aren't in on it with them,
then you are being led.  You need to take a good, long look
at your own priorities before you continue, Agent Doggett!"

Mulder turned and began to stalk out of the room.
"Muldah!" Doggett called, and he turned back to face the
man.  "What?"

"You need to do some thinkin', too, Agent Muldah," Doggett
met Mulder's eyes fearlessly.  "You need to think hard
about how well you really knew your partner, and what she
might've been doin' goin' off on her own like that."

Mulder blinked.  "Oh, this is beautiful.  This is just
*precious*."  He shook his head, disgusted.  "So at least
you don't think I killed her.  But you actually believe
Scully would just walk off, right in the middle of a crime
scene no less, without a word to me or to anyone?"  Mulder
consciously lowered his voice.  "Maybe I don't know Scully
as well as she knows herself, Agent Doggett, but you know
*nothing* about her.  She wouldn't do this."

Mulder started toward the door once again, turned back when
he thought of something else.  "If you want to talk to me,
Agent Doggett, I will be in my office tomorrow.  And it had
better be *my* office, Doggett, exactly as I left it!"
Eyes blazing, Mulder finally, purposefully strode out of
the room.

Doggett exhaled slowly and blinked his eyes.  So that was
Agent Mulder, then.  Well, after that exchange, the rest of
this investigation ought to be a snap.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder lay back on his couch, restless, fingers tapping a
quick tattoo on the soft leather.  He'd already called the
Gunmen, and they'd said they would compile a map of UFO
sightings across the US over the past week.

Mulder needed to do something, to feel useful, to know that
he was helping find Scully, some how, some way.  Sitting on
his couch doing nothing didn't quite cut it.  He teetered
on the verge of heading to the Lone Gunmen office and
trying to give them a hand; he knew he'd just be in the
way, though, as he had to keep reminding himself, and
forced himself to sit back down and try, just try to find
something, anything else he could do.

So, he thought about Scully.  He thought of her rich,
auburn hair, and how good she felt in his arms; he thought
of how competent and self-assured she was, and how she
never failed to give him a swift kick in the ass when he
was barking up the wrong tree.  He remembered when his
mother had died, less than a year ago, and how Scully had
sat with him all night as he tried to come to terms and
accept his inability to change all the various ways he'd
failed his family.  And he fingered the necklace at his
throat, and he thought of Scully's mother.

Maggie.  He wondered if anyone at the FBI had thought to
give her a call.  That's something I can do, he realized.
I need to talk to her, anyway ...

He dialed.

"Hello?"  She didn't sound too good.

"Mrs. Scully, this is Fox Mulder.  Are ˆ are you all
right?"

"Fox!  Oh, I've been hoping you would call!  What's
happened to Dana?  Is she okay?  Where is she?"

"Mrs. Scully, I don't know what the FBI has told you ˆ "

"They haven't told me anything, Fox, I just, just, two days
ago, I started to get these feelings, just like that, that
other time, and ˆ Fox, she isn't okay, is she?  Please tell
me what happened!"

"Mrs. Scully, it ˆ it is.  She, we were out in Oregon on a
case, and ˆ well, they ˆ they took her again, Mrs. Scully."

Mrs. Scully was quiet for a moment, and in the silence
Mulder heard a couple of small, tiny clicks in the line.

"Oh ˆ oh, my God.  Dana."  Mrs. Scully sobbed quietly into
the phone.  "I knew it."

"Mrs. Scully, I promise you I did everything I could."
Mulder looked out of his window and saw a large, dark van
parked across the street, with a shadowy figure in the
driver's seat.  "I still am.  Everyone at the Bureau is
working round the clock on this.  We'll find her, Mrs.
Scully.  I promise."

"I know you're doing everything you can, Fox.  I know
you'll find her.  You always have.  Fox .. " she sniffled
loudly and cleared her throat.  "I know you're busy, but
can we meet sometime?  I just, I would really like to talk
with you."

"That would be great, Mrs. Scully.  In fact, I'd like to
talk to you, too .. "  He was investigating the bottom of
his phone for hidden wire taps.  "I don't think this line
is secure.  Can I come visit you tomorrow evening?  Would
that be all right?  We can go to dinner somewhere if you'd
like."

"That sounds fine, Fox.  And don't worry, I'll make
dinner."  Mulder smiled at that.  "Oh, and Fox?"

"Yes?"

"Call me Maggie, Fox."

"All right.  Maggie."  Mulder chuckled.  "See you tomorrow,
then.  And Maggie, I promise you I'll find her."

"I know.  Good night, Fox."

Mulder hung up the line and rapidly redialed.

"John Doggett."

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Agent Doggett?  I
want to see a copy of the court order that gives you
permission to tap my phone."

"What?  Who is this?"

"Oh, you have to ask.  How many agents are you surveilling,
Doggett?  Is it really that difficult to remember all of
us?"

"Ah.  Is this Agent Muldah?"

"Thank you, Agent Doggett, that's all I wanted to know.
I'll have your ass for this."

Mulder yanked the phone cord out of the wall and hurled the
entire assembly across the room, where it fell to the floor
and sat, dinging pitifully.

Well, that was worthless, Mulder thought, and threw himself
back onto the couch, narrowly missing the fish tank with
his foot.

I have to get out of here, he thought.  I can't stand it
here tonight.  I won't stay here, alone and powerless, to
be spied on.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder cracked open the door to Scully's apartment, half
expecting her to come rushing from the bathroom, wrapped in
a towel, demanding to know what he was doing here at that
hour of night.

But of course, Scully wasn't there; so Mulder stepped
tentatively over the threshold, like a child tiptoeing into
his parents' bedroom when they aren't home, locked the door
behind him, and flipped on the lights.

Mulder hadn't consciously been heading for Scully's place
when he left his apartment, but it must have been his
unconscious destination; Scully's suitcase had ended
up back in his car.  It made as good an excuse as any, he
guessed; returning the things she'd taken with her to
Oregon.  Of course, he didn't know where any of it
belonged, and he didn't feel right poking around in her
closet and drawers; so for now he carried it through her
silent apartment to her room, and left the suitcase sitting
at the foot of her bed.  Some of it should probably be
aired out and washed, folded, and hung, he knew; but not
now.  It can wait.

Mulder realized he was distracting himself with thoughts
about her clothes, deliberately not noticing the empty
apartment, the smell of absence, the lack of Scully.  Just
as he'd done in her motel room two nights ago.  I have to
face up to it, he thought.  I have to see for myself that
she isn't here.  I need to internalize this and accept it.
I won't be able to find her if I keep looking over my
shoulder, expecting to see her there.

Mulder took off his overcoat and laid it over the back of
Scully's green-and-white striped couch.  All right, he
thought, let's start with this couch.  He caressed the back
cushions with his hands.  I've sat on it many times, and
slept here; I kissed her here once, and once I stopped her
from kissing someone who wasn't really me.

He almost smiled at the last memory; he could have laughed
at it, now, if only Scully had been there.

Christ, Scully, I feel so *empty* without you, he thought,
and tears started to prick at the back of his eyes.  All
right.  Next.

He walked to one of her tall floor plants and fingered the
leaves.  He'd thought she was silly, for keeping plants;
any that he tried to raise always ended up dead within a
few months.  But then, she'd said the same thing about his
fish ...

How often do they need to be watered, Scully?  You told me
once, but I don't remember.  I'll find out, Scully, and
I'll water them for you.

I could water them with my tears, he thought whimsically,
and that was all it took.  He sat down at Scully's desk and
cried, cried until his heart ached a little less and his
eyes were raw and red, beating at the desk and sobbing deep
in the back of his throat.

So that was why it took Mulder a little longer than it
should have to comprehend that Scully's desk was empty,
that he really wasn't supposed to have enough room there to
cradle his head on his arms.

They took her computer, he realized, fingering the
extension cord that came from the wall, powering nothing.
I bet they took mine, too.  Well, that's certainly
interesting.  But you know, I don't think I really care.

Slowly, Mulder eased himself to his feet and wandered back
down the hall to her bedroom, steadying himself with one
hand against the wall.  He'd never slept in Scully's bed
before ˆ she'd slept in his, yes, but never the other way
around.  It hadn't occurred to him to notice that, before,
and he wondered if it was significant for only a second
before he lowered his head softly onto her pillow.  He felt
a lump beneath the blankets and pulled out her pajamas,
satin peach-colored drawstring pants and a matching
buttoned top.  He held them to his face, and felt the soft
satin on his cheek, and smelled Scully.  His breath
hitched.

Mulder took off his shoes and belt and tie and burrowed
deep under Scully's covers, feeling and smelling nothing
but her.  And though it hurt, so much, to be this close to
her and yet so very far away, there was a comforting
presence in her apartment that would ease him to rest, that
he knew he'd never find in his own rooms.

I'll find you, Scully, he repeated in his head like a
mantra, just before he dropped off to sleep.  I promise.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Scully was in pain.  Terrible pain.  She was naked ˆ God ˆ
her body strapped down to a slab of rock.  In places the
rock seemed almost to devour her alive.  She was in a dark
place, very dark, but bright lights beat down from every
direction, catching each nuance and fold of her skin,
bringing the sharp waves of agony that coursed through her
into sharp relief.  Oh, God, her wrists ˆ there were poles
going *through* her wrists, pinning her down to the slab,
her hand scrabbling for a hold, for *anything*.  Mulder
could see her, he could see everything, and ˆ no, fuck, no
ˆ her face, her face was being held open and up by six long
wires embedded in her cheeks, and her eyes, her eyes were
streaming with tears, rolling frantically, desperately,
agonized.  Mulder called her name and thought he saw her
tense in recognition, but he couldn't hear his own voice,
couldn't move, couldn't do anything but watch helplessly as
the drill ˆ God, the drill ˆ moved relentlessly forward and
entered her open mouth, whirring and whining and spinning
and finally *buzzing*, and spray splattered everywhere and
Scully *screamed* ...

Somewhere in the distance, an alarm was going off.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder's eyes shot open.  His chest was heaving, his body
drenched in sweat.  He sat up and rubbed one hand through
his hair, the other over his face.

A dream.  It was only a dream.  "Scully," he breathed out
through dry lips.  It couldn't be true.  She was okay.  She
had to be.

The phone rang.

Mulder jumped.

Without thinking, he stretched over the twisted, soaked
sheets ˆ testimony to his restless night ˆ and lifted the
handset from Scully's portable phone beside her bed.

"Scu-scully residence."  Mulder swallowed and licked his
lips, willing himself to stop shaking, to be calm and
collected.

"Hi, this is Nurse Owens calling from Dr. Parenti's office!
Is Dana home?"

Dr. Parenti's - ? I thought that was over with ˆ "Um, no,
she, she isn't here right now.  Can I, uh, can I help you
with something?"

"Well, the results of the tests she had done last week are
in, and we have some good news!  Are you, by any chance ˆ "
there was a pause ˆ "Fox Mulder?"

"Yeah, that's me."  Mulder swung his legs over the edge of
the bed and massaged his forehead with his free hand.  Good
news from Dr. Parenti's office?  She couldn't be ˆ God, if
she was ˆ

"Dana's donor!  Good.  She's authorized us to release her
information to you, Mr. Mulder, so if it's all right with
you I'd like to leave her a detailed message."

"I, um .. " She's not here.  She's gone.  Mulder fumbled
for a piece of paper and a pencil.  "All right.  Go ahead."

"Well, this was just a routine checkup, but both her blood
and urine tests came back positive; so she needs to
schedule her first prenatal visit ˆ sometime within the
next week would be best ˆ "

"Wait, wait, whoa."  Mulder let himself fall back onto the
bed and screwed his eyes shut.  "Are you saying Scully's
*pregnant*?"

"Yes, exactly!  I'm so happy for both of you, Mr. Mulder; I
know how much Dana hoped for this."

"Um.  Thank you."  Mulder tried to sound like a happy
parent.  He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his middle
finger.  "Um, but ˆ she told me that the in vitro procedure
didn't work.  How is this - ?"

"You must have made a baby the old-fashioned way, Mr.
Mulder.  Congratulations!  Just have her phone the office
as soon as possible, all right?"

Mulder breathed out slowly.  "Um.  All right.  Thank you,
Nurse - ?"

"Owens.  Have a great day!"

"Yeah .. "

Mulder hung up the phone and let it drop next to him on the
bed.  Pregnant.  Scully was pregnant.  With *his* child.
He covered his face with his hands.

He had to find her.  Soon.  That's all there was to it.  If
he waited, Scully could come back in any kind of condition,
and if they found out she was pregnant, who knew what would
happen to the child?  Damn, what if it wasn't even her they
wanted, but the baby?  Mulder groaned.

"Agent Muldah, what are you doin' here?"

Mulder whipped around to face the bedroom door, immediately
on the defensive.  "I could ask you the same thing, Agent
Doggett.  First you tapped my phone, now you're following
me!  Or are you just here to ransack Scully's apartment,
like you did to my office!?"

Doggett didn't back down.  "Actually, I'm just doin' my
job, followin' up a line of evidence that might help find
her.  You may be able to shed some light on this, in fact."
Doggett reached into his pocket.  "I heard voices.  What
*are* you doin' here, Agent Muldah?"

"I, uh .. "  Mulder wiped a hand across his eyes, suddenly
very conscious of the rumpled, sweat-encrusted dress shirt
and slacks he hadn't gotten around to removing the night
before.  "I came by to drop off her travel bag, from
Oregon."  He indicated the suitcase at the foot of the bed.

"I see, and you were so tired you just decided to lie down
and take a nap."  Doggett sounded amused.  What an arrogant
*bastard,* Mulder thought.

... Fuck it.

He sat back down on the bed, deflated, and cradled his head
in his hands.  "I miss her, Agent Doggett," he said softly.

Doggett blinked.  Of all the possible responses he might
have expected from Mulder, this quiet, forlorn desperation
wasn't one of them.  He walked around the bed and squatted
down next to Mulder's bent form.

"Agent Muldah?  My job is to find her.  I'm gonna do that.
Whatever you may believe my motives are here, all I wanna
do is find Agent Scully and bring her back."

Mulder cleared his throat and breathed in loudly, and
leaned back over the bed, stretching his back and neck
muscles.  His eyes were closed, his nose red.  "If that's
true, Agent Doggett, then I'm more sure than ever that
you're being used."  He wiped his nose and blinked, then
met Doggett's steady, concerned gaze.  "But that can wait.
What did you want to show me?"

Doggett pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed
it to Mulder.  It was an appointment notice for Scully from
Dr. Parenti's office.  "You know anything about this?"

"Where'd you find this?"

"Sittin' on a shelf in the X-Files office.  She must've
left it there."

Mulder sighed, and tugged at his lower lip.  "Yeah, I know
about this.  Scully was ˆ well, you've read her file,
surely you know that she was left barren when her cancer
went into remission.  Recently she learned that she might
be able to conceive, after all, and she ˆ " Mulder
hesitated.  Just say it, he thought; it's all going to come
out anyway, and better it be sooner ˆ "well, *we*, I should
say ˆ we were working with this Dr. Parenti," he waved the
paper in Doggett's direction, "to try and help Scully have
a baby."

Doggett eyed Mulder warily.  "I'm surprised you're willin'
to tell me all this, Agent Muldah.  Thank you for bein'
candid.  .... I presume the treatment didn't work?"

"We thought it didn't.  But that's why I had no choice but
to tell you about it, Agent Doggett; it's suddenly
relevant."  Mulder sighed again, more deeply.  "That call
you heard me take?  It was from Dr. Parenti's office.
Scully's pregnant."

The two men's eyes met over the top of the paper, tired
hazel into shocked blue.

"We have to hurry," Doggett said hoarsely.

"Yeah,"  Mulder answered.  "We do."

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder stood up, carrying his plate from the table to the
kitchen sink.  "Thank you for dinner, Maggie; I really
appreciate this.  It was wonderful."

"It's the least I could do, Fox," Maggie joined him with
some more dishes, smiling sadly.  "You're working so hard
all day to find Dana, and at the same time I know you miss
her as much as I do."  She put an arm around Mulder's back
and looked up at him.  "I'm so glad she has a friend like
you looking after her at the FBI."

Mulder answered her with an equally sad smile.  "Maggie,
more often than not, *she* looks after *me*."

Maggie stepped away, nodding.  "You're good for each other.
I've always thought so."

Mulder leaned against the counter and reached into his
pocket.  "Maggie, I need to get back to work soon, but
there's something I wanted to ask you."  He pulled out
Scully's necklace ˆ he'd thought it might be inappropriate
to actually *wear* it to her mother's house ˆ and held it
out to her.  "I found this again."

Maggie nodded slowly, and reached out with one finger to
touch the tiny cross.  She pulled her hand back quickly,
blinking away tears, and glanced up at him.  "I want you to
keep it again, Fox.  Give it back when you find her."

He nodded.  "I will.  But that isn't what I wanted to ask
you, Maggie.  This is ˆ this is the third time Dana's been
taken.  Every time, I've found this necklace left behind.
I was just ˆ I was starting to wonder if there's anything
special about it.  It seems like too much of a coincidence
that the clasp just came undone ˆ three times ˆ when I've
never seen it fall off her neck.  Can ˆ can you tell me
anything interesting about this necklace, any special
properties it's supposed to have, a particular store it was
purchased from, anything at all?"

Maggie frowned.  "Well, no, as far as I'm aware it's just a
plain, 14-carat-gold cross necklace.  As for where I bought
it, that would have been ˆ hmm ˆ we were living on the base
in California at the time, and I'm sure it was just a chain
jewelry store at the nearest mall."  She shook her head.
"I'm sorry, I can't ... well, wait here a minute."

Maggie left the room and went upstairs.  In the meantime,
Mulder put his hands to his temples.  He was starting to
get a pounding headache.  He hoped it would go away on its
own, and he hoped it was just a stress headache; he wasn't
up to dealing with anything else right now.

When Maggie came back into the kitchen, she was carrying a
long velvet-covered jewelry box.  "When Melissa died ˆ "
she put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, choking
on a sob.  "I'm sorry, Fox, I'm just so worried for Dana;
everything's coming back .. "

Mulder took her hand and held it, concerned, headache
forgotten.  "I understand, Maggie.  It's all right."

Maggie nodded and swallowed sharply.  "Thank you, Fox."

She held to him tightly for a long moment.  Then with a
deep breath, Maggie reclaimed her hand and wiped her
eyes, smiling at him sadly.  Mulder nodded back slowly,
understanding.

Another brief moment to collect herself, and Maggie
opened the container.

"This was Melissa's.  She hadn't worn the necklace for a
few years, and when I was going through her things, I
found it in the original box.  There might have been some
information underneath ... "  She pried up the velvet-
covered cardboard on which the necklace rested, and pulled
out a folded sheet of thin paper.  "Ah-hah!  I thought so!
Well, there you have it, Fox; that's all I know."

Mulder took the sheet from her and unfolded it, smoothing
out the creases.  "'This pure gold cross serves as a
reminder of God's eternal love, for our Lord and Savior'
... yadda yadda yadda ... 'the tiny sliver of lodestone in
its heart will steer you on God's course as you navigate
the turbulent seas of life.'  ... Lodestone?"

Maggie shook her head.  "I never knew.  They must not have
advertised that."

"Lodestone, like a compass, that's, that's iron, magnetic
iron, magnetite.  Hmm."

"Does that mean something to you?"

"No, no it doesn't.  Hmm.  Maggie, do you mind if I keep
this?"  Mulder's cell phone rang.  "Excuse me."  Maggie
nodded and went back to the dishes.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's us."  It was Frohike.  "Can you get over here
right away?"

"I'm on my way.  What've you got?"

"Don't want to discuss it on the phone.  See you when you
get here."  He cut the connection.

"That was a lead, Maggie; I need to get going.  May I?"
Mulder indicated the paper from Melissa's necklace.

"Of course, Fox.  In fact .. I want you to take the box and
necklace, too."

"Maggie, no.  I couldn't."

"It's been on my dresser for five years, Fox; I'm not going
to do anything with it.  And when you give Dana's back to
her, you may find that you miss the comfort of having it."
Maggie looked knowingly at Mulder, and he smiled sheepishly
back; because of course she was right, as soon as he got
back in the car to leave, Scully's necklace would be right
back under his own collar.  He didn't have the heart to
tell her that any comfort he derived from it came from
knowing that it was Scully's, and not from any religious
power watching over him.

"All right, Maggie."  He took the box from her.  "Thank
you.  Thank you for everything."

"Fox, Dana's my only daughter now, but in many ways you're
like a son to me."  Maggie's lower lip trembled as she
reached out to give him a hug.  "Be careful."

Surprised, Mulder hugged her back.  "I will.  And I'll let
you know if we find anything.  Anything at all."

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Byers let Mulder into their office.  "What've you got for
me, guys?" he asked, stepping around tables cluttered with
electronics and piles of back issues.

"Well, first of all," said Frohike, "we got the dirt on
Agent Doggett."

"We knew you weren't likely to look him up on your own,"
Byers added.

"Yeah.  That's the sort of thing Scully does," Langly put
in.

The room went silent.

"Er.  Yeah," Langly cleared his throat.  "So.  Agent
Doggett."

"What kind of dirt?" Mulder asked.

"Well," Frohike said.  "None, actually.  He's an
ex-marine.  Served with the NYPD for awhile after his
discharge.  Quantico grad with honors.  Divorced."  He
shrugged.

"He seems pretty clean," Langly added.  "I dunno, Mulder;
you might be overly paranoid on this one."

"Coming from you guys, that says a lot," Mulder tried to
smile, then rubbed his forehead again.  The headache was
getting worse.  "I talked with him for awhile this morning;
I'm starting to think he'll work out ok.  I'm just afraid
someone's pulling his strings.  And of course he isn't
looking for her in the right places."

Byers nodded seriously.  "We'll check into that."

"All right."  Mulder screwed his eyes shut against the
pain.  Dammit, go away, he muttered to the headache.  "What
else have you guys got?"

"Voila!" Langly flourished a large map of the United
States, with little dots of red marker congregated in the
southwestern states.  "We got your UFO activity right here,
G-Man."

"This is all from the same ship?" Mulder asked, leaning
over the map.

"Well, we see a clear trail of activity leading from Oregon
right down the to Arizona desert.  No reason to suspect
otherwise," said Byers.

"If she's on that ship, she's there," Frohike said,
pointing.

"How about ˆ um."  Mulder was having a hard time
concentrating.  "The abductees.  Are they all multiples?"

"Seem to be," Langly answered.  "That's one thing, though;
many of the abductees show signs of abnormal brain
activity."

"Like you did, a year ago," said Byers.

"Yeah.  That's strange," Frohike added.  "You weren't
abducted."

"I'm not an abductee," Mulder muttered.

The guys exchanged glances.  "How sure are you of that,
Mulder?" asked Byers.

Mulder looked up, painfully.  "Pretty damn.  Why?  You know
some ˆ"

His cell phone rang.  He nodded apologetically and opened
it.

"Mulder. .. What?  Agent Scully?  ... I'll be right there."

Mulder replaced the phone in his pocket.  With one hand to
his temple, eyes closed, he said, "That was A.D. Skinner.
Two hours ago, someone entered the FBI using Scully's
keycard, and removed something ˆ as yet, exactly what is
unknown ˆ from the evidence room."

"Mulder ˆ are you all right?" asked Byers.

"Yeah, I'm .. I'm fine." Mulder went on in a monotone, eyes
still closed, thinking rapidly.  "It's not her.  It's the
bounty hunter.  He took our computers, too.  Doggett knows
that the computers are missing.  They're disposing of
evidence.  They're taking abductees.  Plausible
deniability.  They're looking for proof, proof that they
exist, so they can destroy it.  They're taking people like
me ˆ I don't know why they didn't take me." His voice
broke.  "I know what they want.  They want Gibson Praise.
He's in Arizona."

Mulder opened his eyes and looked at the Gunmen.  "We have
to ˆ nnnnggggh!"  Mulder felt as though a spear had pierced
his skull.  He slid to the floor, pressing his head between
his hands.  "Scully!"  He could see her again, in flashes,
still strapped to the slab, and slowly, slowly, a saw came
down towards her chest ˆ "aauuggghh!" ˆ more pain, right
behind his eyes ˆ more for Scully too as the saw drew near ˆ
and they screamed together, anguished, and then, blissfully,
there was nothing.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

When Skinner stopped by to see him late the next morning,
Mulder was staring out the window of his hospital room and
brooding on mortality.  His parents and sister, Scully's
father and sister, Scully's impending death, his own, their
child's.  It shouldn't have to end, he thought.  There are
things that just ˆ should last forever.  He fingered
Scully's cross, which they'd returned to him that morning
at his insistence, and wondered if he'd see her again.  How
many obstacles can you avoid, he thought, until finally one
comes along and you say, enough, I'm done, this is the end,
take me?

Scully, if you come back and I'm gone, will you forgive me
for not being strong enough?  Can you understand why I
didn't tell you?  Will you tell our ˆ our son, our
daughter ˆ all about me?  Will you teach him to grow up to
be a better man than I was?

There was a plot waiting for him, next to his mother's and
father's, and a tombstone on order that already had the
final date engraved.  This year.  There's not enough time,
he thought.  There's never been enough time.  I don't have
enough time.

I don't want to leave you, Scully.  Not like this.  Not
now.  It isn't right.  I need to see you again.  I need
*you* to see *me*.  I need to know you forgive me.  I guess
I need to know you love me.

I only want to see you.  I only want to hold your hand.
That's all I ask.  One last time.

Scully, I'll do it.  Somehow, I will try.  I will be here
for you when you get back, and I will do everything within
my power to hasten that day.  I promise.  I will.

Scully, I can't bear any of this alone ...

"Mulder?"

He didn't realize there were tears pouring down his face
until he heard Skinner's voice in the doorway.  "Sir," he
smiled shakily and wiped his face on his sleeve.  "Sit
down.  I was just ˆ thinking."

"I see that."  Skinner sat.  "Mulder, are you all right?
I've never seen you cry like this."

"Yeah, I'm ˆ " Mulder nodded in Skinner's direction.
"How's the investigation going?"

Skinner eyed Mulder skeptically, but accepted it for the
moment.  "We're following up your lead on Gibson Praise.
Turns out his file is the only thing missing from the
evidence room.  Doggett's got a team down there right
now; the Gunmen are with him.  I'm catching a flight to
join them in two hours."

"If we're going to find her any time soon, it'll be there,
sir."

Skinner nodded.

"Book me a flight, too," Mulder hazarded.

"No way.  I need you here, getting better.  You're not
going *anywhere* until your doctor says it's okay."

Mulder looked away.  That wasn't likely to happen, at least
not in time to help Scully.  He took a deep breath and
looked Skinner in the eye.

"Sir, my doctor is currently on board a UFO somewhere in
the Arizona desert.  When I find her, I'll be sure to ask
if it's all right for me to leave this bed."

"Mulder ˆ "

"Sir, listen.  You need me down there.  Doggett's fine,
he's competent, but he doesn't have any idea what he's
dealing with.  The guys are okay, but they have very little
field experience. You ˆ you haven't seen it, sir.  Whatever
beliefs you have, are through me.  I'm the only one that
can do this.  I'm Scully's best chance.  Sir, you need me.
Regardless of what my medical charts say, I am feeling
fine.  I have to do this, sir."

Skinner broke the gaze first.  "All right, Mulder, you win.
I'll book you a seat.  But you be careful."

Mulder smiled, remembering Maggie.  "I promise I will, sir.
I've already promised."

For a few minutes, charged silence seemed to hang in the
room like an oppressive cloud; then both men began to speak
at once.

"You go first, sir."

Skinner nodded slowly.  "Smoking Man's dead.  Someone
pushed his wheelchair down a flight of stairs."

Mulder turned back to the window, unsurprised.  "Krycek."

"How do you figure *that*?"

"I ran into him in Bellefleur.  He said he wanted to see
the bastard dead."

"Well, we'll never prove it."

"No."

After a moment, Skinner stood up to go.  "Mulder, I ˆ"

"Sir, there's something I need to tell you."

Skinner bit his lip.  "I already know.  Doggett told me.
We'll find her in time, Mulder; we don't have a choice."

"Doggett told you ..?"  Mulder raised an eyebrow, confused.

"Scully's pregnancy ... ?"

"Oh, that."  Mulder sighed heavily.  "Yeah, you need to
know that, too.  But there's something else.  And I'd ˆ I'd
appreciate it if you keep it quiet for awhile."

Skinner waited expectantly.

Mulder looked down at his hands, the window, the door,
anywhere but Skinner.  "Sir, I never fully recovered from
the abnormal brain activity I suffered a year ago."
Holding his breath, he looked up to meet Skinner's eyes.

Skinner looked guarded, uncomprehending.  "What are you
trying to say, Mulder?"

Mulder sighed.  "Sir, my ˆ my brain is still functioning
too quickly for my body.  It's not to the degree that it
was when I was institutionalized ˆ I can't hear thoughts,
 and except when it gets really bad ˆ like last night ˆ
I can think more clearly than most people.  I've been
taking medicine for a year, to control it, and going
to doctors, but unless something happens to reverse it ˆ "
he shook his head.  "I only have a few months to live. At
most.  Sir."

He glanced up at Skinner, whose face was registering shock
and dismay.

Mulder looked at his hands.  "I never told Scully," he
whispered, his throat tight.

"Oh .. Mulder,"  Skinner rasped out.  He shook his head.
"I can't believe that.  We'll find something.  There has to
be a way ˆ "

Mulder looked at Skinner in defeat.  "There isn't, sir.
Believe me.  I've tried everything.  And you know me, that
really means *everything*."  He smiled wryly.  "But you see
why I need to go, sir.  I have to see Scully again.  I
*have* to.  And I need someone ˆ you ˆ to know just what it
is that I'm fighting."

"Mulder,"  Skinner leaned forward and put his hands on
Mulder's, stilling their nervous kneading of the bedsheets.
*He* was the one about to cry, now.  "I'll keep this to
myself.  Thank you ˆ thank you for telling me."  He
squeezed Mulder's hands.  "You sit tight.  I'll be back in
an hour, to get you on the plane."  He stood up and wiped
his eyes, started to say something else, then headed for
the door.

"Sir?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah?"  Skinner spun around on the threshold.

"On your way back over here, can you pick me up some
sunflower seeds?"

Skinner's laugh turned into a sob.  "Of course ˆ of course
I will."  And he was gone.

Mulder pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head on
his arms.  I'm coming, Scully.  One way or another, I'm
coming.

Slowly, creakily, he pulled himself out of bed and began to
dress for work.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

The school for the deaf was turning into a circus, Mulder
thought.  Agents everywhere, confused teachers, photos of
Gibson strewn on the floor.  He braced his arm against a
wall and rested his head in the crook of his elbow,
swallowing dryly.  The heat wasn't doing anything for his
headache.

He felt a tentative hand on his shoulder and looked up.  It
was Skinner.  "Mulder, if you need to rest ..." he said in
a low voice.

Mulder wiped a hand across his eyes and shook his head.
"No, I'm fine.  I'll be fine.  Any sign of Gibson?"  He
squared his shoulders, pushing aside the momentary
weakness.

Skinner's forehead creased, and Mulder let himself be led
to one of the child-sized chairs in the middle of the
classroom.  "I don't think you're fine, Mulder.  I want you
to be careful."

"Dammit, you're not responsible for me!  I'm FINE!"  Mulder
leapt to his feet, eyes flashing.  He aimed a kick at the
small desk, harder than he intended, sending it flying
across the room and into the blackboard with a resounding
crash.

After a moment of clenching and unclenching his jaw and his
fists, Mulder shoved his hands in his pockets and looked
hoodedly at Skinner.  "I'm fine, sir," he said quietly.
"Don't treat me like an invalid.  I'm not.  What about
Gibson?"

Skinner righted the mistreated desk and sat on top of it,
sighing.  He shook his head, lips tight.  "No sign of him.
He was definitely in class, right here.  We've got the
whole school gathered on the lawn and all the teachers are
being questioned.  No one saw him leave, so far."

Mulder sighed, letting out a "whoosh" of air.  "We can't be
too late.  We can't be."

Skinner opened his lips as if to answer, when Agent Doggett
poked his head in the door.  "Sir, can you come out here
for a second?"  Doggett looked cagily at Mulder but didn't
include him in the invitation.

Skinner smiled tightly at Mulder and followed the other
agent out, closing the door behind him.

Mulder stared at the closed door, then folded back into his
chair and covered his face with his hands, rubbing at his
temples again.  Of course Skinner didn't believe him.
Mulder never believed Scully, either, when she used that
line.  A small, impotent cry leaked from his throat.

Mulder stood up and began to pace across the classroom.
I'm supposed to be able to solve this, he thought.  This is
my job; I find people missing under impossible
circumstances every day.  Think.  I can do this.

He reached the window and tightly gripped the sill, staring
sightlessly out at the desert.  Not without Scully.  Not
anymore.

He gritted his teeth and wiped that thought away.  His hand
migrated again to the cross at his throat.  Stop it, he
thought to himself.  Stop wallowing.  You'll never find her
if you don't believe you can.

Mulder took a deep breath and stood up straighter.  He
closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw a
sudden movement in the oppressively still desert.  A quick
motion, a flash of color, a shimmering in the air - he
leaned forward and squinted, senses on the alert, self-
doubt forgotten.

The door opened again and Doggett entered behind him.
"Muldah, I don't wanna do this, but I gotta ask.  ... What
the hell are we doin' here?  There's nothin' but a scared
kid who ran off when he saw the feds were after 'im.
There's no Agent Scully, there's no kidnappers - there's no
*aliens*, Agent Muldah."

Doggett eyed Mulder warily, who was still focused intently
on the desert.  "Muldah, could she have known about this
baby already?  'Cause she ain't *here*, Muldah.  She ain't
gonna *be* here.  If she knew she was pregnant, she mighta
been scared, she mighta gone -"

Mulder turned to Doggett and shoved a finger into his
chest.  "No way."  He glanced out the window again.  "I
gotta go."

Mulder ran out the door, leaving a consternated Doggett
behind, shaking his head.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder rounded the top of the next hill and saw them.  Only
a few hundred yards in front of him - a small figure, and a
taller, petite one with red hair, wearing a pantsuit.
Gibson - and Scully.

It's not Scully, you idiot, he tried to tell himself.
After so many days without Scully, just seeing her was like
a potent drug, enough to wipe all of that out of his mind.
He knew it wasn't Scully, but *oh*, how he wanted to
believe it could really be her.

His breath caught in his throat as he continued down the
far side of the escarpment.  He could almost imagine he was
watching Scully and their son, walking calmly down the
beach in Martha's Vineyard on vacation, pointing out pretty
shells and seagulls to each other as they waited for Mulder
to catch up.

He rubbed at his eyes, and gave his head a firm shake.  No.
Stop it.  If you ever want that to happen, get a grip on
yourself, Mulder.

Gibson turned around, wide-eyed, still trying frantically
to free himself from Scully's grip.  He shook his head
frantically at Mulder, who ignored him and ran forward,
crying out Scully's name.

She stopped and turned around, never shifting her hold on
Gibson.

Mulder slowed and halted in front of them.  "Scully .. ?"
he asked uncertainly.

A searing pain shot through Mulder's mind and he distinctly
heard Gibson shouting "It isn't her!"

Mulder put a hand to his forehead and breathed deeply,
willing the pain away by sheer force.  I know, he thought,
hoping Gibson could understand.  I know.  Ow.  Geez.  I
know it's not her.

Gibson bit his lip and stopped struggling.

Raising his head again, Mulder turned back to Scully.  "Let
Gibson go," he said.  "You're surrounded.  You can't get
away.  We'll take you someplace where you can get help."
Hopefully the bounty hunter didn't realize Mulder was
on to him.  "Now just let him go."

Neither of them moved.

Slowly, Mulder pulled out his gun.  His arm was shaking,
but he steadied it with a two-handed grip.  All he could
think about was a warehouse in DC, and Scully's lifeless
body collapsing in front of him, a gun in his own hand.  He
made a conscious effort to keep his voice even when he
spoke.

"Let him go."  Mulder's eyes were desperate and dangerous -
or simply scared.  "I'll shoot.  You know I will."

Please let her do what I say.  I don't think I can do this.
I can't shoot Scully.  No matter what, I can't shoot
Scully.  Please, please, just let him go ...

But his hands and face didn't waver.  "Let him go, Scully."

Slowly - thank God - her fingers loosened around Gibson's
arm.  As soon as he could move freely, the boy turned and
fled into the desert.  He glanced back once in trepidation,
but Mulder wasn't watching.

"Okay,"  Mulder said, trying not to shake in relief.
"Good.  Now just come over here, and we'll get you home,
Scully."

She took a step backwards.

What the -?  "Scully, that's the wrong way."  He tightened
his resolve and his grip on the weapon.  "Walk *towards*
me."

She kept walking backwards, step after step, faster now.

Mulder glanced quickly behind her, and his eyes widened.
"Watch your step!  Scully, stop!  The cliff - "  He dropped
his gun and ran to her, reason forgotten.

Too late.  She took a final step, and just as he reached
her side, tumbled gracefully, almost swooning, over the
edge.

"Nooo!" Mulder shouted.  He fell to his hands and knees at
the edge of the precipice, watching as her lithe, small
form crumpled into a heap at the base, a hundred feet
below.  Oh my God, Scully, no .. it can't be.  He blinked
away tears.  Of course it isn't.  It isn't her.  It isn't
her it isn't her it isn't her itisntheritisnther ...

He knew it wasn't her.  He also knew he'd be watching
Scully fall off that cliff in dreams for the rest of his
life - no matter how short the rest of his life turned out
to be.

Oh, God, Scully.  He rocked back on his heels, wracked with
dry sobs.  I'm so sorry.

He felt a presence behind him, and there was Byers, looking
stricken.  The rest of the Gunmen and the search team were
right behind.  Skinner picked Mulder's gun up off the
ground and silently handed it back to him.  Doggett walked
to the edge, and peered over at Scully's still form.  He
glanced at Mulder, swallowing, and rasped out, "We were
right behind you, Muldah, but we couldn't get here in
time."  He kicked a loose stone over the cliff.  "Muldah,
I'm so sorry, I - "

Mulder just looked a him with bright, tortured eyes, and
said nothing.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder stared at the base of the cliff, eyes locked on the
small depression in the sand where Scully ˆ not Scully.
Where not-Scully had landed when she ˆ it.  When it had
stepped backwards off the hundred-foot-high cliff and
plummeted to her death.  Not to its death.  Where it had
stood up and walked away, faded away into the desert.

A pretty tableau they made, standing in the fading sanguine
twilight of the desert.  Mulder was slowly collapsing in on
himself, as he stood perfectly still, arms crossed tightly
over his chest, gazing greyly at the sand beneath him.  The
Gunmen stood to the side, huddled together, conversing
among themselves in fits and starts.  Doggett's men milled
confusedly around the rented SUV.  The man himself was
staring perplexedly into the distance, hands on hips, eyes
following the track left by the suspect until the sandy
ground gave over to gravel.  Skinner's forehead creased as
he glanced from Mulder to Doggett and back again.

A cool breeze ruffled Mulder's hair, flapped the too-loose
tail of his t-shirt, made him clasp his elbows more tightly
to his body.  Freeze, he thought.  Pause.  Stop now.  I
want to get off.

"I don't get it," Doggett walked over to Mulder, gesturing.
"I mean, I've seen people live through a lot of dangerous
shit.  I'll buy she survived the fall.  But got up and
walked away?  *Ran* away, accordin' to the tracks?  What
the hell's goin' on here?"

Mulder slowly raised his head and looked Doggett in the
eye.  "It's not her, Agent Doggett."

"I know what Agent Scully looks like, Agent Muldah.  And
that was Agent Scully."

Mulder just shook his head distractedly and turned away,
taking a few steps in Skinner's direction.

Doggett waved his arms in consternation and followed.
"What are you trying to get at, Muldah?  If it ain't her,
who is it?  If that weren't her, where is she?  Muldah?!?"

Mulder turned to Doggett and skewered him with a look.
"You don't want to hear what I think."

Doggett blinked, but he recovered quickly.  "Agent Muldah,
look.  I *do* want to hear.  If it can help find Agent
Scully, I *gotta* hear it.  I don't know *what* you think
I'm doin' here, but I'm not a spy, and I'm not tryin' to
cover up anythin' - I am here just like you - to *solve*
this!"  He narrowed his eyes at Mulder.  "Now you tell me
what really happened up there, Agent Muldah, or I'll hafta
arrest you for withholdin' evidence."

Mulder put his hand to his forehead again, covering his
eyes and rubbing his temples.  The headache was back again,
and he suddenly had a memory of Scully saying those exact
words, outside of a hospital in Bellefleur on their first
case.  They keep sending me spies who don't realize
they're spies.

God, I'm paranoid.  Scully ... -

Mulder looked back up at Doggett, a glint of humor in his
grief-darkened eyes, a tiny smile trying to form at the
corner of his mouth.  He said it naturally.  "It's a shape-
shifting alien bounty hunter."  Of course it is.  What else
would it be?

Doggett gaped.  Mulder smirked and turned away again.
Skinner rolled his eyes.

One of Doggett's agents shouted "Sir!" and pointed to a
figure mostly obscured in the sparse brush just ahead of
their position.  Mulder whipped around and had his gun out
and aimed before any of the other agents had started to
think about reacting.

He aimed for the left shoulder - just in case.  He felt the
scar on his chest tingle where she'd shot him years ago as
he pulled the trigger.

She kept coming.  Her blood oozed green.

The second time, he aimed for the neck.

Mulder calmly replaced his gun in the holster as she fell.
He held himself calmly, tightly composed, as all the other
agents and the Gunmen stared, shocked, between him and
Scully's body.

Doggett recovered first and ran to her side.  As he knelt
at her head, her body began to writhe and bubble; her face
collapsed in on itself and became a fluorescent green mass,
and the rest of her body quickly followed suit, sputtering
and roiling and dissolving itself away, finally, into
nothingness.

Doggett looked at Mulder, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.  So
did everyone else, for that matter; even the Gunmen.

"Well,"  Mulder shook his arms out and glanced casually
around at the sea of shocked faces, as though shooting an
alien who looked like his partner was something he did
every day, and announced calmly,  "I'm going to find
Gibson."

He strode out of the canyon and into the darkening night.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder walked west, toward the sunset, until the light had
faded and the stars were out and he couldn't walk any more.
He didn't think about anything; just put one foot in front
of the other.

When he finally stopped and sat on the ground, his back
against a large rock, he couldn't keep the thoughts out.
He'd shot Scully.  He hadn't thought he was capable, but
he'd done it, with his own hands, he'd shot his partner.
He'd shot and killed the woman he loved.  He looked at his
hands, spread out in front of him, pale in the starlight.
They shook in grief and despair and self-loathing; and even
the starlight, the light that had been a comfort to him
since he'd realized Samantha resided there, seemed
accusing.  He could imagine Sam saying in a bratty little-
sister voice, "You failed her, too, Fox!" and flouncing
away.

Even as he'd pulled the trigger, he'd known it wasn't
Scully; but that knowledge couldn't soothe him as he sat,
shaking from head to toe.  He was capable of shooting
Scully, what kind of a monster did that make him?  If he
could shoot her today he could shoot her any time.  All he
had to do was convince himself that she was an alien and
he'd do it.

He moaned and clasped his hands around his head.  How can
this be me? he thought.  I can't - I could never hurt
Scully.  I love her.  I love you, Scully!

It can't be.  It can't be me.

I fucking SHOT her!!

Mulder's breath came in short gasps as he rocked back and
forth.  He couldn't stop shaking.  He took out his gun and
held it loosely in his hands, between his knees, and it
shook wildly along with the rest of him.  I'll end it, he
thought.  Right here, I can stop this.  I'll be dead soon
anyway.  It'll be clean and quick.  They might never even
find me.  I don't want to be the sort of man who'd shoot
Scully, good, well, I won't be.  I'll never hurt her again.

If I shoot myself, I'll never find her.

I'll never find her anyway.  She's gone.  They aren't
coming back this time and it's too late.  Even if she does
come back, I'll already be dead.

Mulder leaned his clammy forehead against the cool barrel
of the gun, still shaking uncontrollably, still sobbing
disjointedly.  Scully, I'm so sorry ...

From this angle, head down, all he could see was Scully's
cross against his chest.

He couldn't do it.

/Stop it, Mulder.  Stop it!/

He dropped the gun as though it were a red-hot brand, and
with one final, wracking shudder, his shaking calmed and
stilled.  Scully ... ?

/Stop it, Mulder.  You did what you had to.  I believe in
you.  I know I'll see you again.  I love you, Mulder ... /

Scully, I'm so sorry ...

/No apologies, G-Man./  He could hear her smile.  He could
feel her cool fingers against his forehead, smoothing his
hair.  /You can't get away from me that easily, Mulder./

Apparently not.  Mulder smiled, though he was crying openly
now.  You'll have to shoot me yourself if you want me out
of your hair, Scully.

/I'll keep it under advisement.  Just remember, Mulder,
*I*'m the only one who gets to shoot you.  Deal?/

Yeah.  He laughed brokenly.  Deal.  Scully, will you come
back to me?

/Mulder, I will.  I know I will.  ... Mulder, we're leaving
now.  Don't give up ... /

"Scully!"  Mulder shouted and raised his head.

Gibson was sitting next to him.  "I heard you in my head,"
he said by way of explanation.

Oh, no, Mulder thought.  He'd been thinking such dark
thoughts ..

"It's okay," Gibson shoved his glasses farther up his nose.
"I don't mind.  I wanted to help you, so I brought her
here."

"Scully?  You brought Scully here?"  Mulder latched his
hand onto Gibson's shoulder and looked at him intently.
"Where is she?"

"I brought her in my head," Gibson answered calmly.  "I
helped her talk to you.  She hurts, but she didn't want to
tell you that."

That was real, Mulder thought wonderingly.  That was really
Scully.

"Does that mean they're gone now?"

"Yeah," Gibson answered.  "They had to go.  They're late."

"For what?  You can read their thoughts?"

"I don't know.  They're just late.  And yeah - I can.  Not
as easily as yours, but I can."

"Okay.  ... But what about you?"

"They couldn't stay long enough to try again." Gibson
shrugged.  "They don't need me that badly, I guess.  I
don't know."

Mulder didn't answer, and the two of them sat in silence
for awhile.  Mulder looked at the stars and picked out
Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper.  Scully had promised
that she would be back.  He would have to hang on to that.
It could keep him going for a long time, that tiny shred of
hope.  A last word from Scully that he hadn't dared hope to
receive.

She said she loves me, too.

"Gibson," Mulder said, breaking the quiet.  Gibson turned
and faced him, though Mulder knew he could pick the rest of
the sentence out of his mind, if he wanted.

"Thank you.  You saved my life tonight."

Gibson blinked behind his thick glasses.  "It's okay,
Mulder.  I like you."

Mulder smiled and put his arm around Gibson, pulling him
near.  Almost like father and son.

Mulder had his eyes on the stars, thinking about Scully,
when the helicopter landed, bringing Skinner, Doggett, and
a medical team.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Two days later, Mulder was back in the same hospital room.
They said he'd be able to leave that afternoon - his
neurologist was not pleased with him for going to Arizona,
but he was prescribing a stronger dose of medication that
should let Mulder go back to work - for real - within the
next week.

Mulder supposed he should be happy about that - at least
he'd spend his final days working, not strapped to a bed in
an institution.  But he still didn't want to face his
basement office alone.  He hadn't been back since he'd
found Doggett's men searching it, and the thought of taking
an actual case, without Scully - without even the
possibility of calling her in the evenings - wasn't really
something he could conceive of doing, ever again.

Mulder looked up at a knock on his door.  "Come in," he
called, expecting Skinner.

It was Agent Doggett.

"How're you doin'?" Doggett asked, looking concerned.

"I'm fine," Mulder answered, keeping his eyes hard.  "What
are you doing here, Agent Doggett?"

"Well, uh ... " Doggett fidgeted.  "I thought you'd want to
know a few things.  Gibson Praise is right now a ward of
the state, but I asked for special protections, as I
assumed you would yourself.  What remained of .. Agent
Scully -" Doggett looked warily at Mulder - "was
unidentifiable.  And, uh .. the case has been shelved,
pending further leads."

"I could have guessed all of that, Agent Doggett.  Why are
you *really* here?"

Doggett looked at Mulder, a pinched expression on his face.
"You were right, Muldah.  Kersh promised me a promotion if
I solved this, but he never wanted me to.  I defended our
actions to him, not two hours ago, and- "  Doggett raised
an eyebrow.  "He's assigned me to the X-Files, Agent
Muldah."

Mulder let out a breath he'd forgotten he was holding.
"No way.  I work with Scully or I work with no one."

"Muldah, I don't think we have a choice on this."

Mulder shifted higher in bed, raising himself up.  "They're
putting an official seal on her disappearance.  I won't
stand for it."  His voice was tight.  "They think they can
just assign me a new partner, and business as usual?  No
way.  You tag along with me if you want, Agent Doggett, but
*Scully* is my partner."

".. I know."  Doggett nodded resignedly.  "I'm sorry,
Muldah.  I didn't ask for this."

Mulder snorted.  "Of course not.  No one ever *asks* to be
assigned to the X-Files.  It's a fast track to nowhere, and
if you have a shred of ambition in you, you'll try as hard
as you possibly can to get transferred out as soon as
possible."

After a moment, Doggett spoke again.  "Muldah, I don't
believe in aliens, I don't believe in ghosts, I don't
believe in whatever-the-hell else you deal with down there.
But I've seen enough on this case already - whatever we
differ on, we'll find her.  That's what I'm here for, and
I'll do it."

"You find her, Agent Doggett, and you can kiss your career
goodbye."

"I don't care.  I keep my promises.  .. See you Monday at
work?"

Mulder nodded with a resigned sigh, and turned back to the
window, already thinking of Scully again, as Doggett closed
the door behind him.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Threnody: Domani Non Viene

By stellar_dust
stellar_dust_x@yahoo.com
 

WEBSITE: http://katycat.net/xfiles/
SPOILERS: Specific for Detour, Requiem, and all things
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Mulder copes, remembering Scully.  An interlude.
KEYWORDS: series, AU, angst, vignette, MSR, season 8
ARCHIVE/FEEDBACK: Sure thing.
DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully aren't mine, except in
spirit, and I'm not making money from them.  "Forget Domani"
is performed by Frank Sinatra.
DATE: April 2004
NOTES: This vignette is part of an alternate universe
season 8, in which Scully was abducted instead of Mulder.
You might want to read _Threnody: Divested_ first.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Domani Non Viene

"One man alone cannot fight the future."  -- Strughold,
The X-Files Movie
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

"Let's forget about tomorrow,
let's forget about tomorrow,
let's forget about tomorrow, for - "

" - tomorrow never comes," Mulder softly finished the
refrain with Ol' Blue Eyes, his own hazel ones closed and
leaking slow tears.

Fox Mulder liked his music the way he liked his science
fiction - vintage, comforting, and well-aged.  There were
those who might take exception to calling "Revenge of the
Blob that Ate Cincinnati" "well-aged," precisely, but that
wasn't one of his favorites, anyway, and hey, it was the
thought that counted.

That was why he liked Elvis: he'd grown up on those
records, the strains of "Jailhouse Rock" and "Blue Suede
Shoes" filling the house, a background to childhood
memories from the time before his life went to hell and
back.  Just as his parents' Sinatra records would play in
the evenings, after he'd gone to bed, when they were still
in love and dancing in the living room hadn't yet given
over to screaming around the kitchen table.

Scully was different.  She was younger than him, he
reasoned; but not *that* much younger.  She was mostly into
classic rock: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Three
Dog Night.  "Never understood a single word he said, but I
helped him drink his wine - " If those words didn't sum up
their relationship, what did?  She liked some of the newer
groups, too: Metallica, Moby, Green Day, Counting Crows.
Some of her tastes were starting to grow on him, he had to
admit, but - how in the world could he have let himself
fall in love with a *Beatles* fan?

Anyway, after Scully had appeared at his door that night,
like a vision in the starlight, bringing him release and
perfection and everthing he'd ever dreamed of - afterward,
with Scully nestled snugly against his body, as he strove
to memorize every facet of her, every square inch of her
skin and hair and face, each scar and bruise and every
twitch of her muscles, her perfect nails, one of them
ragged, her full lips open in sleep, still wet and swollen
from his kisses, marveling at the peace she seemed to find
here, with him, his mind clamoring at him to preserve this
moment that might never come again, that in the morning he
could be dead or back in the nuthouse, finally succumbing
to his fevered mind and never knowing what the rest of his
life with this woman would hold, happy beyond expression
that they'd finally shared this night, even if no more
would ever, could ever follow -

He'd spooned up behind and pulled her closer, wrapping both
arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder.
"This is it, Scully," he'd whispered in her ear.  "This
moment is forever.  No matter what happens tomorrow, or the
next day, or the next, I'll always be right here with you,
right now.  And you're with me."  He'd shifted and buried
his face in the curve of her neck, infusing himself with
her scent.  "I'm stopping the clock right here, Scully, I'm
freezing time, I'm taking these seconds and engraving them
in stone."  Let's take the minutes as they speed away, and
hope it's true what people say: when you're in love -
"Tomorrow never comes."

"Mmm, Mr. Bond," Scully had turned slowly in his arms,
moving to face him again, her eyes heavy with sleep and
smiling.  "Don't you mean 'Tomorrow Never Dies'?"

"Mmmm, no," he'd thrummed deep in the back of his throat,
covering her collarbone with kisses.  "The name's Mulder,
miss.  Fox Mulder.  And I always say what I mean."

She'd laughed and swatted lazily at him, told him to go to
sleep and not to worry, she'd always be there and so would
he, they had years and years ahead of them full of moments
just like this one.  And he'd taken an inviting nipple in
his mouth and sent one hand questing between her thighs to
quiet her so he wouldn't have to tell her that she was
wrong, not that night anyway - he could always tell her
tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.

She'd gasped and moved toward him, protesting that they had
a meeting tomorrow and he should stop so they could sleep -
sounding as though they'd been lovers for years instead of
only half a night - which he supposed they had, really, if
he thought about it - but he hadn't stopped, and she'd
climaxed around his fingers, gasping out his name as her
arms shuddered clasped tight around him, her mouth worrying
the tender skin of his neck, leaving a mark that he took
special pains *not* to cover up for the meeting the next
day, earning him an exasperated look but an apology and
another kiss to make it better when they'd finally made
it down to their office.  He had no idea what the meeting
had been about.

He hadn't told her that day, or the next, or any of the
too-few tomorrows that had followed.  He'd told himself
that she would find out eventually, and in the meantime
there was nothing she could do: he would give her as many
blissfully ignorant days as he could, and shower her with
love and affection while he was still around to do it.
She'd had no idea that this outpouring of emotion came from
anything other than the sudden release of seven years'
worth of pent-up tension and firmly bottled love; she
laughed, gently, at his overeager attentions, but never
suspected a thing.  When she'd caught him staring at her,
brooding, melancholy written on his features, he'd said he
was afraid of the future - he hadn't specified *which*
future and had let her soothe away his fears about
colonization.

And now it was too late.

"Let's forget about tomorrow, for
tomorrow never comes!"

"God damn liar."

Mulder hit "stop" and threw the remote at the stereo,
unsure if he was directing that at Frank or at his own
words of not even a month ago.  He creaked himself upright
- he was creaking a lot lately - and rested his forehead
on his hands, massaging the headache that never seemed
to entirely disappear anymore.

Tomorrow had come - and by all appearances, had every
intention of continuing to come - and Scully wasn't there.
That moment engraved in stone was eroding fast, awash in
the tide of reality; he grasped at it desperatly, running
his mental finger over the words even as they faded into
dust.  Scully was his reality, his eternity; and without
her his entire world crumbled into a single dark point of
dust in the trash pile of the universe, fading silently and
unheralded into nothingness.

I don't want to die without you, Scully, he thought, even
as he felt himself doing that very thing.  His nightly
litany as he curled up on his couch for another sleepless
night, or, more often, in her bed in her apartment.  I want
another tomorrow, just one more, with you, Scully.

Tonight, as he drifted in the state between aching and
nightmares, he could swear he heard her answer as plainly
as if she were sitting next to him:  Yes.  Mulder, don't
give up on me, or on yourself.  I believe in you.  I won't
let you go alone.

He wrapped himself in those words and slept peacefully for
the first time since Bellefleur.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Fin
 
 
 
 
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Threnody: Indelible

By  stellar_dust
 stellar_dust_x@yahoo.com
 

WEBSITE: http://katycat.net/xfiles/
SPOILERS: I think the whole series is up for grabs.
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Will Mulder and Doggett find Scully, at
Skyland Mountain?
KEYWORDS: AU, mytharc, angst, MSR, season 8, X-File
ARCHIVE: Of course, and if you tell me where, I'll
link back to you.
FEEDBACK: Yum.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, they just sneak over to
play with me every once in a while.  I send them home
happy, so who's complaining?
DATE: finished 2004-08-25
NOTES: This story is part of an alternate universe season 8,
in which Scully was abducted instead of Mulder.  You might
want to read _Threnody: Divested_ first.  _Indelible_
fits into my virtual season about where the episode
"The Gift" falls in the canon series.  It picks up
immediately following the "BADLAA" case, and you'll
probably notice a reference or two.  I *do* know what
happened between _Divested_ and _Indelible_ - I just
haven't written it yet.  No fear.  It'll come.  And
this story's just as self-contained as the first one.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Indelible

"I won't let you go alone."  -- Scully, Requiem
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Scully staggered through the trees, panting, gasping
as the branches and thorns pulled at her clothes.
She had to get out, had to get away, had to find
Mulder and warn him before -

She spotted headlights ahead, through the darkness.
Must be a road.  With one last burst of energy she
propelled herself through the final row of trees,
falling to her hands and knees on the shoulder.  She
felt like hell.  She just thanked God she'd escaped
before they had a chance to - another car sped by.

Mulder's in there, she thought.  She just *knew* it,
somehow.

"Mullderr!"  She shoved herself to her feet and
called as loudly as she could.  Digging into newfound
reserves, Scully ran after the car, faster than
she'd run in her life, screaming Mulder's name at
the top of her lungs.

She didn't get very far before she had to stop,
bending over, wheezing.  Had he seen her?  She
thought maybe he had.  She looked up.  The car wasn't
stopping.

*Damn* him, she thought, wiping angry tears from her
face.  That's just *like* him.  He *never* believes
what I want him to.

With a deep breath, she got a grip on herself.  All
roads lead somewhere.  Eventually, there will be a
town, with a phone.  She raised herself on shaky legs
and began to walk.

Two steps later, Dana Scully disappeared.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
10:53 A.M.

Mulder sighed.  He hooked his glasses over the desk
lamp, rubbed his eyes, and leaned back in his chair.
He missed Scully more every second, but he missed her
*most* acutely when he had to write up case reports.

He hadn't asked Doggett to take over report duty.  He
wasn't sure why, exactly, except that maybe he felt
he owed it to Scully to write them himself; that by
not turning over this one duty that had always been
Scully's he could assure  himself that she had *not*
been replaced, that she'd be coming back soon.

That, and while he trusted Doggett, he didn't quite
trust the man to write a completely objective report
on a paranormal casefile.

Mulder grimaced.  Not that he was exactly Mr.
Impartial.  Scully could turn shit into gold.  She'd
taken the most bizarre cases imaginable and spun them
into something so natural, so obvious, so logical,
that even Kersh would be willing to sign off.  He, on
the other hand ... Scully came at things from a
different tack, yes, but with an open mind that
Mulder was just not capable of.

He frowned as he read over his words.  Scully
wouldn't call the little man a "shapeshifting butt-
genie."  She'd say something like, oh ... "diminutive
Indian mystic with a remarkable penchant for
disguise."

Mulder snapped his fingers.  Thanks, Scully, he
thought ruefully.  He crashed his chair upright and
began to type.

Three loud raps sounded on the door, and Agent
Doggett walked in.  Mulder glanced up, a twisted
smile on his face.  "You know, Doggett, theoretically
this is your office.  You don't have to knock."

Doggett blinked.  "I didn't wanna disturb -" Mulder
chuckled.  Doggett scowled.  He sat heavily in the
chair across from Mulder and tossed a file onto the
desk between them.

"I was goin' through the files on Scully's
disappearance, seein' if maybe we missed something
the first time around.  I found somethin' odd."

Mulder thumbed through the file, frowning.  Credit
card statements.  "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."  Doggett leaned forward, intense.  "Over the
past year, her credit card was used seven times at a
gas station in Warrenton, Virginia.  It don't
correspond to any of your official cases, and as far
as the bureau's aware she has no friends or family in
the area.  What was she doin' there, Muldah?  You got
any idea?"

Mulder put down the file and sat back, biting his
lip.  "Maybe she did have a friend down there.  Or ..
it could be anything, Doggett.  I don't think we
should jump to conclusions."

Doggett's eyebrows rose.  "You don't think it's worth
checkin' out."

Mulder sighed.  "Look into it if you want, Agent
Doggett, but it's not gonna help find her."  A
thought crossed his mind, suddenly.  He stood.  "Oh,
are we back to this again?  Look, Doggett, she was
*not* a member of any cult, and she was *not*
undergoing fertility treatments without telling me,
and no matter where you look you *won't* find any -"
Mulder's eye fell on the first statement in the
stack.  "Wait a minute."  He slowly sat back down
again, as though afraid he'd break in half with a
sudden movement.  "You said Warrenton, Virginia?"

Skyland Mountain.  Oh, God.

Doggett nodded.

Mulder closed his eyes briefly and, steeling himself,
stood and shrugged into his trench coat.  "You up for
a drive, Agent Doggett?"

Doggett felt the breeze on his face as Mulder dashed
out the door.  He snorted.  "Thought you'd never
ask," he muttered, and followed.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Skyland Mountain
Skyland, VA
4:18 PM

Gravel crunched beneath the tires as they pulled up
to the lift base.  In three years, not much had
changed, Mulder reflected.  The small parking lot and
thin dirt road winding up to the peak were just as
they'd been after the lighthouse massacre.  The
attendant's station still needed a new coat of paint,
but the skyway lifted majestically up the mountain,
disappearing above the fir trees almost into the
clouds.  Promising peace and natural beauty.
Promising the stars.

The car sputtered into silence as Mulder turned the
key, and perfect quiet descended like a curtain.  It
felt for all the world as though time had stopped.
The early sunset glinted orangely from the mountain
and reflected off the plate-glass windows of the
resort hotel, giving everything such a surreal,
timeless beauty that Mulder closed his eyes, wanting
to believe with all his soul that at this cusp in
time he'd open them to find Krycek in the passenger
seat, Scully missing (/but coming back in just short
months/), or he'd walk up the mountain and there
she'd be, trying to convince him that a meadow full
of crispy corpses could only be due to homicidal
E.B.E.s ...

Doggett cleared his throat, snapping Mulder out of
it.  A young man was walking toward them from the
direction of the lift station, passing a tennis ball
from hand to hand and curiously eyeing the bureau-
issue sedan.  Mulder smiled wryly at Doggett in
acknowledgment and stepped out of the car.

"You work here?" he called out, slamming the door
behind him.

The kid stopped in his tracks and was looking from
Doggett to Mulder warily.  "Yeah .. look if you guys
want a ride, we're closed.  Come back tomorrow at
ten."

"Actually, we just wanted to ask you some questions."
Mulder pulled out his badge; beside him, Doggett
followed suit.  "Agents Mulder and Doggett, FBI.  Can
we come in for a minute?"

"Hey, man, what's this about?"  The kid was walking
backwards now, hands in the air, eyes wide and tennis
ball clenched in one nervous fist.

"Calm down - you're not in any trouble."  Doggett put
his badge away and stretched a hand forward
placatingly.  "We just have some questions for you
about a woman you mighta seen.  All right?"  He took
a few steps forward and the kid visibly relaxed.

"Oo-kay."  He glanced at Mulder distrustfully, but
tugged at the brim of his baseball cap and turned
around.  "This way, I guess."

Doggett shrugged bemusedly at Mulder, whose eyes were
lost on the horizon as the pair followed trudging
footsteps into the station.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

"I dunno, we get a lot of people through here."  The
kid, Joe, took another long look at Scully's photo
and then glanced up, worrying his lower lip.  "Maybe
she came in?  I dunno if I'd remember ..."

Mulder paced the length of the small room.  He would
walk to the window, gaze up the lift trail to the
top of the mountain, run his hands over the
controls, walk three paces to the gear box, stare at
Doggett and Joe through the chicken wire, and
repeat.  He was reliving the nightmare of six years
ago, trapped in this room while Scully was tied and
in pain, unable to reach her fast enough.

It was driving Doggett slowly insane.

Doggett called his name.  Mulder's head whipped
around.  "Yeah?"  With a quick shake he came back to
the present, intensely focused.  "Sorry."  He
quirked a self-deprecating smile at Doggett who
sighed in exasperated understanding.

Mulder sat down at the table across from Joe and
pulled out a calendar marked with the dates of
Scully's gas purchases.

"She would have been here on these dates at least,
maybe some others."  He spun the calendar around and
placed it facing Joe, next to Scully's photo.  "Does
anything about these dates ring a bell?  At all?"

Mulder's eyes searched the kid's face, bare *need*
written all over his features.  A lead - any lead -
at this point was more than he'd dared to hope for.

Doggett stood back, frowning, concentrating in turn
on Mulder's features.  He'd grown pale and gaunt in
the few months since the two men had met, and after
a number of hospital stays Doggett was starting to
get seriously worried.  He didn't know what it was,
but with every mention of Scully, Mulder seemed to
collapse bit by bit.  Doggett narrowed his eyes.
Whatever was goin' on, he'd be damned if Mulder
would "Spooky" himself to death on *his* watch.

Joe was spinning his cap around on an index finger,
shaking his head.  The crease between his eyes
deepened as he looked at the calendar.  "No, I don't
think there's any - oh! .. wait, hang on."  He stood
and pulled a logbook from a shelf behind the desk.

Mulder watched impatiently.  "You remembered
something?"

"I think so, hang on ..." Joe flipped through pages,
excited now at the prospect of helping an official
investigation.  "Yeah!  Here it is."

He thunked the binder down in front of Mulder and
pointed to the second Saturday in November.  "We
keep a count of how many people go up the mountain,
who drives, who takes the lift, you know?  This is
one of your dates, right?  We had about *ten* times
the normal number that day!"

Excited, Mulder paged through the rest of the book.
Doggett leaned in over his shoulder.

"Yeah, of course I remember that!"  Joe went on,
comfortable now that he understood what the agents
wanted, bouncing his tennis ball off the floor.  "We
get these big groups of people in every once in a
while.  Come  from all over, you know?  Florida,
Oregon, Canada ..." he  frowned.  "They always drive
and they never schedule in advance.  The boss hates
that.  If we knew they were coming we'd have
security ready, offer to cater some barbeque, stuff
like that."  He stopped bouncing, looked up.  "One
day the boss stayed late and tried to figure out who
was in charge, give the guy a piece of his mind.  He
couldn't find a leader.  No one would say why they
were  there - he told me, sounded like they didn't
even *know*.  Ain't that *weird*?"

Mulder and Doggett glanced at each other.  Doggett
cleared his throat.  "These people - what do they
do?  Just drive up, stay awhile, drive down?"

Joe shrugged.  "Pretty much.  They get here like, 5
PM, usually Saturday.  Pay their two bucks a vehicle,
drive up, stay there till about midnight.  Sometimes
I think they don't even get out of their cars.  It's
*freaky*."  He punctuated this statement by bouncing
the tennis ball against a wall.  "And they might set
off a firecracker or two."  Scowl.  "Boss don't like
*that*, neither, but there ain't nothing he can do."

"It's a match."  Mulder leaned back and propped his
feet on the table.  "*Every* one of these dates
corresponds to one of Scully's fill-ups.  There's
about five more that don't, but each one of *those*
matches a date that we were out of town on a case.
And the *last* one -" Mulder pointed - "took place
while we were in Bellefleur."

Doggett swallowed.  "Can you get us a copy of this?
Each date, number of people, anything else you got?"

"Sure."  Joe fished for a pencil and paper.  "This
don't mean your mystery lady was here, though.  I
still don't remember seein' her.  But like I said, we
got a lot of cars those nights."

"I think it's a pretty damn sure bet at this point."
Mulder's voice was quiet, strained.

Doggett glanced out the window.  The sunset was in
full swing now, the top of the mountain nearly
combusting in a blaze of glory.  His eyes narrowed
in thought.  "While you're gettin' that together, I'd
like to take a look at the top of the mountain.  If
that's okay."

Joe looked up.  "Sure!  I mean, I'm not *really*
supposed to let you, but seein' as you're federal
agents and all .." his eyes lit up.  "Say!  You
wanna take the lift?  We just had it checked out and
oiled up for spring, she's ready to go!"

Mulder laughed humorlessly.  "I think we'll pass on
that.  I'm - taking the drive this time."

Joe shrugged.  "Hey, sure .. suit yourselves."  He
waved his paper at the agents as they strode out the
door.  "I'll have this ready for you when you get
back down!"

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Maybe he should have picked the lift after all.
Mulder shivered and closed the collar of his trench
coat more tightly around his neck.  Instead of
reliving the vertigo of swinging unsupported
hundreds of feet in the air below a moving
tightrope, he'd been treated to forty-five minutes of
hell, imagining Scully tied in the back of Duane
Barry's car, hurting, scared, tired, feeling every
tiny bump in the unpaved road like a sledgehammer to
his heart.  Mulder shivered again.  God, he hoped
she'd been unconscious by then.

"So this is it, huh?"  Doggett had gone ahead, to the
middle of the clearing.  He walked in circles, hands
on hips, squinting at the sky.  It had darkened as
they drove, and the stars were out.  "This is a
lighthouse for alien abductions?"

Mulder worked saliva into his mouth.  "Yeah. They're
called by a chip, implanted somewhere in their body
.. Scully's is in her neck .. and they have to
come, they don't even remember later that they've
been called .."

Doggett kicked at the ground, trying to visualize
what this place would look like filled with hundreds
of abductees, men and women brought here against
their will.  He frowned.  "In the X-Files I read, the
last time this happened everyone died.  Agent Scully
was hurt bad.  And there was a note that this isn't
supposed to happen for a long time yet."  He started
walking back toward Mulder and the car.  "So what
gives?"

"I don't know," Mulder barely whispered.  "Maybe the
colonists have defeated the rebels.  Maybe they're
being called just for quick check-ups.  Maybe ...
maybe they *did* put an embryo in her.  Maybe
colonization is about to start."  He sighed heavily.
"I just don't *know*, Agent Doggett."

Doggett worried the inside of his lip and eyed Mulder
skeptically.  Several beats passed.  "I don't believe
a word you just said, y'know."

Mulder laughed shortly.  "You don't have to."  He was
barely audible.  "It's good enough that you're
*here*."

Doggett blinked and nodded slowly, then joined Mulder
to lean back against the car, staring up at the
stars.  They stood there, breathing in the night
air, listening to the chirps and whistles from the
forest around them.  Mulder's hand crept to the cross
at his throat.

Doggett broke the silence first.  His voice was
hushed.  "Hey, Muldah .. d'you still think they're
beautiful?"  He nodded up at the sky.  "All the
horrible things you believe are out there - what
d'you see, anymore?"

Mulder didn't hesitate.  "The stars are the most
beautiful sight in the universe."  He swallowed.
"Everything - everything I care about, is out
there."  He thought of Scully, trapped in a
spaceship; Samantha, her brown hair flapping, so
happy to see him in the blue, blue starlight.  "I see
hope, Agent Doggett."

Mulder closed his eyes, his voice dropping in pitch,
echoing with a sadness and guilt that seemed too much
for any thousand lifetimes.  "How many times could I
have saved her, Agent Doggett?  How many times did I
call her apartment, and assume she'd gone out
somewhere?  I could've *stopped* this, if I'd
checked even *once*, if I'd asked her where she'd
gone ... aaauuuggh!"  He spun around and slammed his
fist into the roof of the car.  Mulder spoke weakly
through clenched teeth, and despite his best efforts,
tears leaked down his cheeks.  He supported himself,
clutching convulsively to the car.  "Dammit, John ...
I *hate* this."

"...  You couldn't have known."  Doggett spoke
softly.  He wasn't quite sure how to react.  "None
of this is your fault, Muldah.  You know that."
Mulder snorted.  Doggett sighed.  "Look, we got a
lead.  Might not go anywhere, but it's more than
we've had.  We'll get a pair of agents out here
round the clock, soon's we get back, f'r as long as
Kersh'll sign on it.  Sound good?"

"..  Yeah."  Mulder stood, took a deep breath, and
rubbed a hand over his eyes.  "Sorry I lost it,
Agent Doggett, I ..  whoa."  Mulder swayed, tried to
steady himself, swallowed.  "I gotta sit down."

Doggett helped him into the passenger side, leaned
the seat back, then climbed into the driver's seat
himself.  Doggett peered at his partner.  This was
just what he'd been worried about.  "You okay,
Muldah?"

A ghost of a smile played over Mulder's face as he
waved the car forward.  "I'm fine," he rasped.
"Let's just go home."

With one last glance at the trees, grass, and silent
sky, Doggett turned the key in the ignition and
started back down the mountain.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Doggett glanced at Mulder, still lying in the
passenger seat.  His eyes had been closed by the
time they reached the bottom, and Doggett had
gone in alone to collect the information from
the lift attendant.  Mulder's eyes were open now,
though, as they turned onto the county road that
ran around the perimeter of Skyland  Mountain,
staring blankly at the roof, his hands clasped
behind his head.

Doggett turned back to the road and cleared his
throat.  "Thanks for takin' me out here, Muldah."

Mulder turned his head in surprise.  "It was your
idea, Agent Doggett."

"Yeah, but -" Doggett adjusted his hands on the
wheel.  "You were the one who knew what it meant."

Mulder conceded the point with a thoughtful nod,
encouraging the other agent to go on.

"Anyway, that's - that's not what I meant."  Doggett
swallowed.  "It's just, bein' here with you, lookin'
around up there -" he indicated the mountain with a
nod - "it's like I - " he shook his head, biting his
lip, trying to put what he felt into words.

Mulder's gaze was intense.  "You feel close to Scully
here, too, don't you?"

Doggett chuckled.  "No, Muldah, I don't even *know*
Scully.  I think I'm just closer to understandin'
what you and her were all abou-"

"Stop the car."  Mulder sat up suddenly, straining
against  he seat belt.  He twisted his body around
to stare behind them, one hand scrabbling
desperately at the door lock.

"Wha -" Doggett tried to look at whatever Mulder was
seeing.  The car swerved wildly.  "Shit!  Muldah,
what the *hell* -"

"She's out there.  Scully.  I just saw her."  Mulder
had successfully removed his seat belt and was
turning his full attention to the door.  "Dammit,
Doggett, STOP THE CAR!"

Scully?  Here?  "All right!  Muldah, just calm down,
let me find a -"

He spotted an opening and swerved off the road, into
what seemed to be a clearing in the forest, but
turned out to be six inches of mud.  Doggett felt
the car sink to the axle.  "Shit."

Mulder was already running back the way they'd come,
the passenger side door freely bouncing on its
hinges.  Doggett climbed out to follow and couldn't
even see Mulder's figure in the darkness.

"Dammit, Muldah ..." he sighed in frustration and
clicked his flashlight on.  The car wasn't sunk as
badly as he'd feared - they might be able to push it
out, but he'd need Mulder for that.

Doggett closed both car doors and started down the
road after Mulder, walking slowly, swinging the beam
of his flashlight back and forth as he went, calling
out Mulder's name every few yards.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder tripped and fell, splashing mud on his slacks
but not caring as he pulled himself up and rushed
onward into the night.  He'd seen Scully, he was
sure of it, coming up out of the trees right ahead,
just - there ...

And there she was, running toward him, bedraggled,
shouting.  He ran faster.

"Mulder!  Mulder, we have to get out of here!  Now!"
she yelled.

Mulder stumbled on a stone, glanced down for a
fraction of a second.  When he looked up again, she
was gone.

"Scully?" he called.  "Where are you?  Scully!!"
Mulder slowed, wincing as he remembered why he'd
been reclining in the car.  He felt dizzy, and yet
another headache was coming on.  Taking deep breaths,
he pushed the vertigo away, peering into the trees
beside the road.  The moon shed just enough light
to show that scully wasn't anywhere close.  He yelled
again and wished for a flashlight.

When he looked straight ahead again, she was there,
almost where he'd noticed her from the car, standing
beside the road and looking disoriented.  He put on
a burst of speed.  "Scully," he panted as he reached
her side.  "Oh, God, Scully."  He gathered her in
his arms and held her close, breathing her in.

"Mulder?  Oh, Mulder, I knew you'd come!"  Scully
buried her face in his chest and sobbed.

After a second she got ahold of herself, and pulled
back, worried.  "Mulder, we have to get out of here.
He probably followed me, he could be right here -"

"Okay.  Okay, Scully, I have a car right down the
road."  He led her, not letting go of her hand.  He
still didn't know where she'd gone a few minutes
ago, and he wasn't about to let her disappear again,
not when he'd just got her back.

He couldn't stop looking at her.  Scully, back!  Safe
and sound!  And not a scratch on - he frowned.

"Scully, you were tied?"  Mulder rubbed the welts at
her wrist, reached out to touch the redness beside
her mouth.

She flinched away.  "Yes.  I don't want to talk about
this right now, Mulder.  It can wait."

Wordlessly he dropped his hand and nodded.  They
continued down the road, hand in hand, Mulder still
scrutinizing her face and depending on Scully to
steer them right.  There was something a little bit
strange, something besides the rashes; he couldn't
quite put his finger on it, but it was there.

Suddenly Scully was gone.

"Sc -" he gasped.  But she was *here*, he'd been
*touching* her, *looking* at her!  He reached forward
blindly, struggling to find her hand again, clasping
only empty air.

"SCUUULLLLYYY!!"

Mulder bowed his head, lost.  What the hell was going
on here?  Where could she be going?  She'd been so
happy to see him, she was trying to elude her
captors - aliens, he guessed, maybe bounty hunters,
or the military - why would she run back into the -

Wait a minute.  She'd said "he," she was running from
"him."  One person.  Suddenly that little bit of
"off"-ness about her started to make sense, and
Mulder began to understand.

He already knew what he'd see when he turned around.

Scully, fighting her way through the undergrowth;
Scully struggling to stand upright, Scully looking
both ways down the road, her face luminescent in the
moonlight.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was
obvious.

Her hair was too long, her face too round and smooth.
She had bangs.  She was wearing a suit he hadn't
seen on her in -

In six years.

Mulder took a breath and walked forward.  He wouldn't
let it happen again.

"Scully?"

"Mulder!  There you are."  She trotted toward him,
outwardly composed, but her eyes were wild.

He crushed her in another hug.  Whatever was
happening, she was still Scully and she felt real
and alive, and that meant that *he* was more alive
than he'd felt in months, and he would take that for
whatever he could.

She pulled away.  "Mulder, we have to go.  He's not
that far behind me."

Mulder sighed.  "No, Scully."

She blinked.  "What?  But -"

"Scully, come here."  He led her to a fallen log
beside the road, and they sat next to each other.

"What is it, Mulder?  Because we really should go.
Duane Barry could be -" she looked sharply up at
him.  "Did you figure out the barcode on the
implant?"

Mulder smiled softly, trying to ignore the fist
squeezing his chest.  *Had* he -!  "Scully -" he
reached out compassionately and stroked her cheek.
"Duane Barry's dead."

"Dead?" she gasped.  "But - but I -"  Scully looked
back and forth between Mulder and the mountain.  "He
was -"

"Scully."  He gathered both her hands and held on
tight, looking into her eyes.  He swallowed.  "Duane
Barry's been dead for six years."

She just stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Look at me, Scully.  Really look at me.  What do you
see?"

Scully shook her head briskly and looked him up and
down, carefully, hands still clasped in his.  She
smirked.  "Your tie doesn't make me want to gouge my
eyes out."

"Thanks," he said dryly.  "Anything *else*?"

"You cut your hair," she said slowly, frowning.
"Your -"  she gasped.  She seemed to *see* his face,
suddenly, all at once, and her hands went to stroke
the creases by his eyes and mouth, the hollows under
his eyes.  "Oh, God, Mulder, what happened?  You
look so -" old, he heard her swallow  in her throat.
"Mulder, is this all because of me?"

He smiled again.  God, if she only knew -!  "No,
Scully, not because of you.  You kept me sane."  He
raised her hands and kissed them.  "Six - six years
happened, Scully."  He watched her carefully for a
reaction.

"You can't mean I've been missing for six years.
That's not possible, I remember everything, calling
you, Duane Barry, the car, driving up the mountain -"
she breathed heavily, frightened.

Mulder took a deep breath.  "No, you were only
missing for two months.  You came back, and -
and we've been partners ever since."

She was trembling now, scared.  "What are you trying
to say, Mulder?  What's going on?"

He tried to pull her closer, but she was having none
of it.  He didn't want to say it.  Speaking would
make it real, and he wanted her - *needed* her to
stay ...

Mulder held her eyes with his.  He had to tell her.
"Bear with me, Scully, okay?  Just hear me out."
She nodded tentatively.  "I think you're a psychic
impression of the Dana Scully that was trapped in
Duane Barry's car six years ago.  I think you were
frightened - I think you were *so* *scared* that you
imprinted a piece of yourself in this place.  A
piece whose only concern is to get away from
Duane Barry and back to me."

Scully eyebrow was twitching.  He rushed on.
"There's precedent, Scully.  I've - I've got files
full of - they're - they're called .. residual
hauntings, when, when an emotion is so strong it .."

He trailed off and looked at her carefully, biting
his lip.  She sat very still for a minute, then
pulled away quickly and stood.  Her voice shook.

"That's not true, Mulder.  I'm real.  I'm no - I'm no
*ghost*.  You touched me, dammit!"  She was getting
worked up now, and Mulder let her talk.  "I don't
know what kind of fantasy you've worked up for
yourself, Mulder, but that's all this is, a fantasy!
I'd slap you if I thought it would -!  That doesn't
even make sense, Mulder, even if I believed in
ghosts, which I don't, that, that kind you're
talking about, they, they can't interact with people,
and here I - That's it, Mulder.  I'm getting out of
here, with or without you."  And she started to head
off in the direction of the car.

"Scully, please don't."  Mulder's voice was quiet and
desperate.  She turned slowly.

"I've found you two other times tonight, Scully.
Each time you disappeared when you got about twenty
yards from where you're standing now.  I don't want
to lose you again."

With a swallow, she walked back and knelt beside him,
resting one hand on his bowed head and the other on
his knee.  She spoke softly.  "Mulder, I'm willing
to listen.  But as far as I know, there's a madman
in that forest whose only concern is to recapture
me.  Can you understand that?"  He nodded.  "All
right.  Now, can you give me any kind of proof that
what you're saying is true?  If - if I'm not *real* -
and I know I am, Mulder, I'm sure of it - where am I?
She.  Whoever.  The me who looks as old and tired as
you do."  She quirked a smile at him and he
grudgingly reciprocated.  "You know me, Mulder.  Now
what've you got?"

"She - you -" Mulder struggled.  "*She* was taken
again, three months ago."  He swallowed.  "I've been
looking for you ever since, Scully ... "

This time when he started to sob, she pulled his head
to her shoulder and rocked him against her chest.
"Shhh, Mulder, shhhh ..."

Suddenly as he moved to grasp her more tightly, she
caught a glimpse of gold around his neck.  She
pushed him firmly back and pulled the necklace out
of his shirt.  Her eyes widened.

Shakily, she pulled her own necklace forward and
compared the pendants.

Mulder held his breath and said nothing.

"No," she breathed.  "No!"  Scully stood up, turned
her back