Title: Court and Spark Author: Foxie Meg Rating: NC-17 (eventually, I promise!) Summary: The death of their daughter was the death of their relationship. Now, years later, can Mulder and Scully recover what they've lost? Spoilers: Anything in the pre-Existence series is fair game. Keywords: Angst!, MSR, mytharc Disclaimer: Hmph. *Meg warily eyes her lawyer's electric cattle prod and mutters between gritted teeth* I don't own them. They're not mine. I would never claim to own them or try to make money with them. *Meg sits down and sulks, muttering under her breath* But Mulder's =mine=, dammit. Feedback: You betcha. mrschatterly@hotmail.com Archive: Anywhere, just tell me where and keep my name on it. Thank You: To Jen, the goddess of snark and beta (who sometimes mixes the two). AUTHORS NOTES: This does borrow quotes from songs and stories – forgive me. I suppose that makes it a "song fic" although I've never been quite clear on what those were anyway. More Author's Notes and Research Info at the end of the final section. *** "His eyes were the colour Of the sand and the sea; And the more he talked to me, The more he reached me --But I couldn't let go of L.A., City of the Fallen Angels." --"Court & Spark" - Joni Mitchell *** Crash... flow... tug... slide... retreat. Breathe deep, blue-green chest swelling with checked velocity, cresting white as it approached the edge of its restraint... And... Crash. Flow. Tug. Slide. Retreat. Again. And again. Like breathing. Standing silently, bare feet feeling the grains of sand being tugged from between her toes by the pied piper of the Pacific, she was content to let the ocean breathe for her. She wasn't sure she was capable. Ebb. She felt her life ebbing, withdrawing from the surface of her consciousness where it could be more easily hurt. Hiding in its own little shell, hard -- yet brittle. Gather. She struggled desperately for control of her feelings, finally clutching them all together in neat little boxes. The only problem was that -- while the outsides of the boxes were perfectly contained -- inside there was chaos. Build. There were rumblings inside her soul that reminded her that all was not perfect. That, even here, beside the ocean that had been her companion all through her childhood, the angels were silent. Crest. She could feel the whitecap beginning inside her chest. She struggled to tamp it down, but then came the memories, and she understood that -- finally -- her emotions had decided they had had enough. Even the Red Sea wasn't parted and held back forever. <"Where are you going?"> <"I'm leaving. I have to get out now, before they kill you. They'll kill you next, you know."> <"No, I don't know that, Mulder, and neither do you!"> <"They've killed everyone I love. Everyone, Scully, except you, and you'll be next. My father, my sister, my mother..." his voice choked and she knew it broke his heart to say it, "My daughters..."> Crash! Oh, God... she felt it break deep in her spirit and could not stop the tears falling down her face in heated torrents. Her arms wrapped tightly around her, despite the pleasant warmth of the summer evening, in an attempt to keep out a chill of the soul. Either that, or a desperate, feeble gesture to keep the fragile sand castle of her sanity from falling apart under the wave. He'd called them his daughters, even though only one of them was. No, not true... Emily had been his, too. Maybe not biologically... but she had been his. He had loved her, too. He would've been her father as he had loved being Hannah's father in the five years he had the opportunity. Hannah, the child with hair that was almost blonde, but not quite. A gift from Melissa, with soft curls that wisped around her sweet oval face. Hannah, the miracle she had prayed for, much as Hannah, the barren woman in the Bible, had prayed for her own child and had cried out in joy with the birth of Samuel. "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has heard my petition!" The sobs rose again from where they had subsided with the memory of Hannah's childlike face, her eyes of ever-changing hues brightening to a clear green as she cried, "Daddy!" and flung herself into Mulder's arms three years ago. The last day they'd ever seen her. He had laughed, kissing her all over her face with rapt adoration. She had never in her life seen Mulder so happy, ever. That thought made her almost sad, that she alone hadn't been able to make him this happy. But she wasn't too jealous. When he'd fallen in love with Hannah, he'd fallen in love with her all over again -- and deeper the second time. And when Hannah had... disappeared... Mulder had died. She knew he had. Over all the years, everything They'd taken from him -- his family, her, six months of his life -- They still had not been able to break his spirit. But when their little girl had disappeared one spring day in a park in Maine, and then they found a tiny body barely recognizable as human floating in the Penobscot River four weeks later, They had finally killed him. She had watched the light in his eyes go out when he saw the corpse being hauled out of the river. He hadn't even been able to cry. Neither had she, for the first three days. Shock, she supposed. And then it had hit her with the force of a tidal wave. Hannah, her beautiful child, was dead. Mulder had disappeared, too, after the memorial service. Closed casket. No autopsy -- they hadn't needed one to identify the body. Melissa's gold cross -- the one that matched Scully's -- had been still dangling around her neck, and neither of them could be forced to have their child desecrated in such a manner. "I don't want to know how badly she was hurt," Mulder had rasped, and she had only nodded mutely in agreement. She didn't think she could bear the discovery either. She hadn't seen him for two days. Then she'd gotten a call from a park ranger telling her to come to Acadia National Park immediately -- they'd found him, unconscious and barely alive. She had responded immediately, needing him with her. Needing him to steady her, to anchor her. But he had been adrift himself, feverish and near death from dehydration and exhaustion. He had whimpered and cried out in his fevered sleep, clutching at the tiny gold cross around his neck... Hannah's cross, that he'd managed to recover from the body without her knowledge... and she had sat by him on the bed in the hotel room, bathing him with cool cloths and her tears as she cried for her lost daughters and her husband -- for though he was not her husband in the eyes of the state, she was certain he was in the eyes of God. She clutched her own cross as she remembered the night his fever broke after thirty-six hours of her constant vigil, and she had fallen asleep beside him, exhaustion taking over now that he was no longer in danger from the high temperature. She had awakened to find him pulling on his shoes, his suitcase already packed and sitting by the chair. That was when she had asked him where he was going, and he had informed her that he was leaving. She had not talked to him -- or much of anyone, for that matter -- since then, but the Gunmen kept close tabs on him and reported to her from time to time, just to let her know he was still alive. He was traveling all over the continent, sometimes to different continents... but she didn't know what he was looking for. She wondered sometimes if he did. They had both been out of the Bureau before the Tragedy, and he had nothing to keep him tied down to any one place. She sometimes vaguely wondered where he got the money for his vagrancy, but decided she really didn't want to know. Thinking about Mulder was too painful, so she didn't do that too often. After all, Rachel Cartwright had never met a beautiful, tortured man named Fox Mulder, so why should she think about him? But on days like today -- with the ocean tugging at her soul as twilight descended over the restless waves -- Dana Scully trembled with the memories of the fire that burned in his hazel eyes; the brilliance that practically blazed from his ever-active mind. And then she would remember why those fires had gone out; would remember why she had changed her name to Rachel and moved to California. "A sound is heard in Ramah -- wailing and mourning unrestrained. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and she will not be comforted, for they are no more." *** She sighed, finally focusing her eyes from where they had been wandering the horizon, unseeing. She wondered when the sun had set, and when twilight had grasped the beach fully. Picking up her wide- brimmed sun hat from where it rested on the sand, anchored by her cell phone and car keys, she brushed the sand from the top of it and settled it on her head, over her hair, which she had allowed to grow unchecked. Dana Scully had short, practical haircuts with immaculately groomed auburn hair. Rachel Cartwright had long, untamed waves of California- blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in naturally tangled curls. She turned, staring at the shifting sugar-sands underneath her feet as she shuffled further up the beach to where her sandals waited, resting safely on the dry grass. She sensed rather than saw or heard him, and looked up, immediately on her guard. Instincts groomed over eleven years in the FBI don't disappear just because you quit your job and change your name. His silhouette was outlined against a sky that was already dark-purple with stars and pink-streaked clouds, but she recognized the tense set of his jaw, the strained hunch in his shoulders, the despairing slump in his spine. He looked like a man beaten and broken by the breakers of life. And maybe he was, she mused. Not necessarily breakers as in ocean waves, as she'd first meant by the analogy, but by Those who broke life. She stood up straight -- as straight as she could with the pain that suddenly seemed to arrest every square inch of her being -- and stared at him in the starlight and fading sunset. "Hello," she said softly. He said nothing, but she saw his eyes flash with recognition, then doubt. "Scully?" he asked, his voice deeper, huskier -- sadder -- than she remembered. She sighed. "It depends on who's asking." When had she become guarded around him? He looked like he was drinking her in, but his eyes were guarded too. "An old friend." She thought, absently, that she should be hurt by that naming. He was her husband, even if not in the conventional sense of the word; the father of her children. And yet he called himself a friend. Maybe that was more appropriate. They'd always been friends, even when they were more, hadn't they? But friends didn't leave friends when their only daughter had died. Friends didn't leave friends when everything in their lives had fallen apart. Friends stayed together. Her eyes sparked rebelliously at that thought. "You must be thinking of the wrong person," she spoke, almost politely, but with a glacial undertone. "Dana Scully has no friends." He flinched visibly at that, but she only finished slipping into her sandals and moved as if to pass him and leave him on the beach. He stopped her, his manner taking on the feeling of a friendly stranger. "Then may I ask your name?" When she was silent for a moment, he added, "I'm David. David Samson." She sucked in her breath. After she had explained to Mulder her reasons for naming Hannah what she had, he had become obsessed with learning the histories of biblical characters. She had no doubt that he had chosen that name for a reason. King David had become the chosen king of Israel against all odds and had lost his best friend and two of his sons. Samson, a hero of Herculean strength, had lost his power with one swift slice of a razor and been reduced to grinding grain for his enemies in blindness. She also recalled that neither man had died without a final victory. Was he holding on to that hope? "Hi, David," she said in a small voice. "I'm Rachel. Rachel Cartwright." This time, it was his sharp intake of breath that sliced the ocean's sounds. His eyes changed color mercurially, shifting from a deep golden brown to an odd, troubled shade of aqua. She heard him whisper under his breath, "A sound is heard in Ramah..." She almost smiled. Almost. He cleared his throat and forced a smile. She knew it was forced, fake, because she knew him. "It's very nice to meet you, Rachel," he said cordially. "Do you come here often?" She was finding it increasingly harder to keep up this facade, but played along for his benefit and smiled softly, sadly. "Not really," she murmured. "Only when... when things get too hard." He nodded, once, curtly, and she saw pain flash in his eyes. She didn't know if it was pain for her, or for his own memories. Once, a long time ago, she would have known that it was for both of them. But she didn't know if "both of them" existed as a unit anymore -- he had thrown that into jeopardy three years ago in a hotel in Bar Harbor, Maine when he'd left her without a backward glance. That wasn't just a figure of speech, either. She'd watched him out the window as he left and hailed a taxi. He hadn't looked back, not once. She felt a stabbing pain in her heart at that memory and glared at him. "And now," she said coldly, "I am on my way home. Excuse me." She walked around him and headed toward her car. The land had cooled off since sunset, while the water remained warm, causing the ocean breeze of the daytime to reverse itself into something much less romantic-sounding, a land breeze. So Mulder was working against the laws of physics when he struggled to make his words reach her before they were swept out to sea by the contrary wind. It seemed the winds always blew against them. "Scully, wait!" She didn't look back. But she wasn't surprised to feel his hand on her arm, gripping lightly yet authoritatively. No matter what his name, he was, after all, Mulder. "Scully, please." She stood still, not turning to face him, not pulling away. Simply standing still. "I... I can't tell you how sorry I am... that I left... but, Scully..." She knew by the tone in his voice that he was begging her to look at him. But she wouldn't. She closed her eyes so that she couldn't be forced to, but was assaulted by her memories of his pleading eyes, and that was worse. She opened her eyes quickly, finding a bright spot just above the horizon and focusing on it. She vaguely recognized it as Venus, the brightest spot in the sky. The Morning and Evening Star. He sensed her reticence, and stayed behind her, allowing her the safety and freedom of not having to face him. "I have no right to ask you for anything, not after what happened -- what I did. I understand that. But please... I'm... I'm leaving in a week... and..." he stopped, and she heard him taking deep gulps of air. She wasn't sure he had ever displayed this much pain in the time she'd known him. She felt feelings of compassion, the familiar urge to throw aside her own pain and comfort him... but she would not allow herself. She slammed the door of her soul against his pleas, not caring if his reaching hand got caught and severed in the process. She hurt. She needed to hurt him. She needed her daughter back, and he couldn't give her that. She needed her husband back, and he was gone. As far as she was concerned, he had died in Bar Harbor, Maine, and she had scattered his ashes to the Atlantic before she left the East Coast. When he spoke again, she jumped. She'd almost forgotten he was there. "And I want you to come with me." She didn't hesitate, and she sensed his wince as she answered in a flat tone, "I'm not leaving Los Angeles." "Please... will you think about it for a few days at least?" His voice wasn't really pleading anymore, not to anyone who didn't recognize it. To anyone else, he would have sounded perturbed, exasperated, and demanding. To her, to Dana Scully who was trying to hide inside a stranger's name and listen with a stranger's ears, he sounded like he was dying and begging for her to save him. Or maybe that was just her imagination. Maybe that was her whole problem. Maybe she'd just imagined -- through their entire partnership -- that he wanted her to save him. Maybe he didn't want to be saved. Well, she sure as hell wouldn't try to come to his rescue this time, she told herself firmly. But herself must not have been listening, because she heard her own voice saying petulantly, "I'll think about it." His relief was palpable, and he let go of her arm with a slight caress that made her shudder -- but with anger, she recognized, not desire. "Good..." Then he turned and walked away. She bit the inside of her lower lip, wanting to scream, to hit him, to claw him to pieces. To make him bleed. Why did he always have to be the one to walk away? Why couldn't she, for once, leave him? Why didn't she know by now to leave him before he had the chance to walk out on her? "Quit before they fire you." When had she forgotten that? She felt the sudden childish urge to yell, "But that doesn't guarantee anything!" at his retreating form, but wouldn't allow herself the immaturity. That was Mulder's game, and she was a big girl. She wouldn't play that game. *** The drive to her apartment didn't take that long, but she couldn't remember any of it. Even after two and a half years, she had not gotten tired of the scenery in Newport Beach, but tonight she saw nothing. Nothing but anger at herself, and anger at Mulder. She was just starting to get her life back together, and what did he have to do? He had to show up with no warning, for no good reason, and ask her to take him back. No, no he didn't even do that. He asked her to follow him. Again. To God knows where... if even He did. She unlocked the door to her lush apartment, not forgetting to be grateful that she could even afford to live her. When she'd shown up in Newport Beach thirty months ago (God, it sounded like such a short amount of time when she put it that way), she had been distraught, depressed, and destitute. Mulder had neglected to leave her anything in his haste to escape, and when she went to withdraw money from their mutual banking account, there had only been a couple of hundred dollars left. When had they let it get down so low? She thought she'd been paying better attention than that. Confused, she had asked the bank for the most recent statement, which they had given her. It was then that she saw it. Three days earlier, a twenty-five-hundred dollar withdrawal had been made by Mr. Fox Mulder. Her fury had flared, quick and hot. What had he been thinking? He'd left her with almost nothing! She had gone to her mother, reluctant to tell her of the situation, but needing her advice. Her mother had given her money -- she told Dana to think of it as a loan -- and told her to use it to start a new life somewhere. Dana had promised to pay her back with interest as soon as possible, and her mother agreed unhesitatingly. While Margaret Scully would have loved to have simply been able to give her daughter a gift of money, she knew Dana was too proud to accept it. She also knew that, with Fox's recent abandonment and -- it pained her to think of it -- Hannah's recent death, Dana needed every strength she had in her repertoire, and there was no way she was going to take one of them away from her. She let her keep her pride. It was more than Fox had done. Scully sighed again -- she seemed to be doing that a lot tonight, she thought ruefully -- and closed the door behind her, leaning against its wooden surface gratefully, glancing around the apartment that she really shouldn't be able to afford. She let her memories slide back to the day she'd found it... or rather, it had found her. She had just spent the night, shivering on the beach, watching the sunset and then dozing only lightly at intervals throughout the night, watching the progress of the moon in the deep velvet sky, then hugging herself against the chilling breeze while she watched the sunrise. She knew it was probably illegal to do such a thing, but she'd really had no choice. She had nowhere to live, her money was quickly dwindling after traveling cross-country, and she refused to ask for any more from her mother. She had been searching for jobs, but none were forthcoming. Up until this point, she had kept going on sheer determination and willpower, but she felt despair slowly beginning to creep in. She wondered if she could just die here, in California, and let the waves carry her out to sea, eventually, somewhere that the waters met, mixing her ashes with her father's. She missed her father keenly at that moment -- missed him and envied him. "Oh Ahab," she had whispered, not checking the tears that trickled down her cheeks. "What I wouldn't give to have you here, telling me what to do. What do you do when your first mate is the one who mutinies?" She had rocked on her heels slowly for a minute, hugging herself tightly, before adding, "Or when you are?" Her insomnia and malnutrition had caught up with her sometime before the sun managed to rise very far in the charmed California sky, and she had slipped into an exhausted coma, completely unresponsive to the surrounding world. Fortunately for her, she'd been rescued by a kindly old gentleman, whose name, she later discovered, was John Musgrove. Mr. Musgrove was a man of sixty-eight, spry and wiry. He explained to her that his excellent physical condition was a result of several years in the Navy, and a regular regimen of exercise after his retirement. She had gotten misty-eyed then, and murmured that her father had been in the Navy. He had perked up at that, and asked the name. When she told him, his eyes grew wet with unshed tears. "You're Bill Scully's baby girl? Dana, right?" She looked surprised. "You... you knew my father?" The Admiral -- for that's what she discovered he was -- looked as if he wanted to salute the very memory of Captain Scully. "He was a wonderful man, your father. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have even lived to become an admiral. We were young men when he saved my life, but we kept in touch over the years. He sent me pictures from his wedding, and pictures of you kids... And your mother has sent me a Christmas card every year since he died, God rest his soul." Scully couldn't believe it. While she still could not reconcile Emily's and Hannah's deaths with what she knew of a loving God, at that moment, she truly believed that God cared about her enough to drop her on the doorstep -- almost literally -- of a man he knew her father and actually cared about her. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks, tears of gratitude sparking in her eyes. "How did you end up in California, Dana?" He hesitated before asking, "May I call you Dana?" She smiled, nodding, too full of awe and humble joy to answer with words at that moment. "Then you must call me John," he told her, grinning at her with real delight, his white teeth in stark contrast to his tanned, weathered skin. This man was not just a Navy Admiral -- he was a true sailor. "Thank you, John," she had said softly, with one of her hundred-watt smiles, and the old man was smitten on the spot. He had asked again how she had come to California, and she took a deep breath and told him the barest facts. "My... my husband... left me after... after our daughter died two months ago... and took most of the money in our bank account..." she tried valiantly not to cry as she found herself pouring out her sorrow to this fatherly man. "My Mom loaned me some money, but... I haven't been able to find a job... and it won't last forever..." She wiped her eyes, sniffling and laughing slightly at herself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so pathetic. I'm sure everything will be fine." He had been watching her with compassion, and as she pulled herself together, he smiled with satisfaction. Oh, but she was definitely Bill Scully's daughter, no doubt about it. She had inherited his pride and independence in spades. "Well, I have a friend who is looking for someone to clean the clubhouse in his apartment building... would you be willing to take a job like that? I'm not sure how much he can pay you, but I think he mentioned something about free room and board for whoever he hired." Scully had swallowed. She needed the money -- but cleaning? And what did the apartment complex look like? Deciding it couldn't be much worse than some of the places she'd stayed while on cases, she nodded once, decisively, and, John noticed, proudly. She would have never imagined what a beautiful place the clubhouse or the apartment itself, for that matter, turned out to be. She had remained professional through the entire ordeal, but when Boyd Montgomery hired her on the spot, she couldn't contain her girlish impulse to give both her new boss and the Admiral affectionate kisses on their cheeks. And right then, she had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loved her, and that Ahab was laughing with delight from somewhere in Heaven. As she had walked away from her two new friends to gaze out the window at the fantasy-like landscape outside the clubhouse, she had whispered through her tears, "I love you too, Daddy..." One day, a long time ago, she would have taken a book and a glass of wine and gone to bed after one of her cleansing sessions on the beach. She laughed derisively at herself as she moved through her apartment, depositing her keys, phone, and hat on the coffee table in the dining room on her way to the kitchen. She stopped at the counter, her hand on the door of the refrigerator, wondering if she wanted to admit he had so much power over her. If she wanted to give herself proof undeniable that she had not recovered from her life with him. If she really truly wanted that bottle of vodka in the door of her fridge. Her eyes fell on a note on her kitchen counter. She vaguely remembered putting it there this morning, not having taken time to read it before she left for work. It had been stuck to her apartment door. Her fingers reached out for it, fingering the thin sheet gingerly. The handwriting was curling, elegant, and much too neat for a man's handwriting. And yet she recognized the flawless lines as belonging to Admiral Musgrove. "Dana, Please call me as soon as you get this, no matter how late it is. I won't be sleeping until I hear from you anyway. John." She was officially worried. The admiral and Boyd Montgomery had both agreed that adopting a new persona might be wise, if only to protect her from a former husband they didn't entirely trust. They addressed her as Rachel or Ms. Cartwright at all times... except when something was wrong. She smiled ruefully, thinking that she could never hear or see her first name without a flutter of panic. It was her signal from both John and Boyd that something was not right, much as it had once been a signal from... well, from him. She picked up the cordless phone that lay on the counter, slender fingers dancing nimbly over the familiar numbers. The first ring hadn't even finished when she heard his voice on the other end. "Hello? Dana?" She would have laughed at his abruptness if it hadn't been for the panic in his voice. "Yes, it's me John. What is it?" She heard a muffled noise on the other end of the line and then the admiral's voice, calm and professional, though still warm with friendliness. "I was in town yesterday, and overheard a young man in the grocery store looking for you, Rachel. Just wondering if he'd found you." His use of her alias tipped her off to the fact that someone was in the apartment with him. "Was he looking for me, or for Rachel?" she asked. "Yes," he simply replied, and she shook her head at her own denseness. Of course he wouldn't be able to answer specifically if someone else was there. "For Dana? He was looking for Dana Scully?" "Yes, that's right," he answered, sounding relieved despite his attempt at feigning impatience. She smiled. "What did he look like? Can you describe him?" "Um, he was tall, with dark hair..." She rolled her eyes. Men. Surely he knew that description was too general? "I didn't get to see him up close for long, but I remember him having dark eyes." Something sounded wrong about that. Mulder's eyes were sometimes brown, but they were very rarely dark, unless he was emotional enough for the pupils to be dilated so drastically they made his eyes look black. She took a deep breath, and questioned, "How did he look? Did he look tired, or..." she didn't know how to ask it. What was even more frustrating, she realized, is that most people wouldn't be able to read Mulder's body language as well as she could. Most people wouldn't be able to tell if he was tired. "Not that I could tell. He looked rather energetic, actually. He was wearing a black leather jacket, if that helps." She blew out a frustrated breath. "Not really," she answered honestly. "So you didn't talk to him, then?" "No, I didn't. I thought it might have been... you know." Yes, she did know. He thought it might have been Mulder. There really wasn't much she could tell him. "I don't know, it might have been," she said honestly. "But I can tell you that someone did find me, earlier tonight, on the beach, and it is probably the person you're talking about." "Are you all right?" he asked immediately, defensive concern underlying his tone. "Yes... I'm f--" she stopped. She wouldn't say it to him. "I'm a little shaken up, but I'll be okay." "Good, I'm glad to hear it. You'll call me immediately if anything happens, won't you?" "Of course, John. Goodnight." "Goodnight, Rachel." She hung up the phone and walked into her bedroom, the vodka forgotten. Something about John's description of the man didn't settle well with her, and she replayed every bit of it in her mind. There were little niggles over the description of his eye color, and the deduction that he looked "energetic," as Mulder very rarely looked "energetic," even on his best days before... well, before Hannah. But most certainly not after. Driven, yes. Energetic... probably not. Those could be explained away, however, as his habitually high emotion being misinterpreted by someone unfamiliar with him. She bit her lip. While she accepted her rationalization on those points, there was something else... something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Shrugging into her pajamas, she decided to forget about it and get some sleep. Morning comes quickly, she reminded herself ruefully, and she had to finish setting up the continental breakfast in the clubhouse before six o'clock. *** "Seemed like he read my mind He saw me mistrusting him And still acting kind He saw how I worried sometimes -- I worry sometimes." {-"Court & Spark" - Joni Mitchell} *** There was very little more satisfying to Scully than the time between getting the breakfast set out in the clubhouse and setting out the finger sandwiches for lunch. During that time, she was free to wander. She didn't wander far, because she knew she had to be back by ten thirty to begin preparing the lunch that would be set out promptly at eleven forty-five. Her favorite occupation was to stand in the cool stone foyer that connected the outdoor courtyard with the main complex. Just across the courtyard was the clubhouse, so she knew it wouldn't take long to get back. The thing about the foyer that fascinated her was the mural painted on the walls of either side of the open ended passageway. On one side was a stone walkway overtaken by wildflowers leading up to a dwelling place, the edges of which barely teased her vision around the stately spruce trees standing at attention like slender sentinels. It was a leap, but she was sure it was a castle. Surrounding the castle were rolling green mountains, protective and warm, with a hint of golden blush giving away the promise of a rising dawn. On the other wall were red hills sloping down to the ocean in a slippery race to the briny waves that bore the ethereal, other-worldly light of the time between sunset and twilight. Bluish white clouds were streaked across the pink-lavender- periwinkle sky, and she could almost smell the salt air. No matter which side of the foyer she faced, she felt her heart swell with a familiar longing -- a wistfulness that had its roots in her childhood. Her father had read her Moby Dick, but her mother had read her the Chronicles of Narnia, and she had secretly always fantasized about living in that magical world where animals talked. She let her mind wander to tales of four English school children who became kings and queens... the sort of thing every child wishes for. To grow up and become a king or a queen -- even in a country that had no such crown. She was just really getting into those memories when she had an unexpected and uninvited flash of memory -- finding the Narnia books on Mulder's bookshelf like Merlin's book of spells among pamphlets of magic tricks. She should have known that the magical world C.S. Lewis had created would tug at his heart. She often envisioned him as Prince Caspian, impulsive and honorable, whose identity as the true King of Narnia was concealed from him by a false father who was jealous of it. Her mind snapped closed on that thought, and suddenly the murals before her seemed like what they were -- brushstrokes of oil -- rather than a window into another world. Huffing a sigh of frustration, she turned to go out into the courtyard for a few more minutes before returning to the clubhouse. And that's when she saw him. She sucked in her breath sharply, hoping the recognition didn't flare in her eyes. Maybe he wouldn't recognize her; even Mulder had doubted. No such luck. "My, what a pleasant surprise," he said in a low, cordial tone that would have been pleasant were it not for the mockery lacing through it. "I came out here looking for a Ms. Cartwright and am fortunate enough to stumble across the ever-lovely Dr. Scully. How are you, Dana?" His smile didn't reach his eyes. She wanted nothing more than to slam him against the wall and scratch his eyes out with her fingernails, demanding his blood as the price for her daughter's life. She pinned him with a glacial glare and felt a wicked satisfaction when he flinched at the blue flame of anger in her eyes as if she'd struck him physically. "As well as can be expected, Alex, under such circumstances as I presently find myself, no small thanks to you." Her voice was cheerful -- warm, even -- in marked contrast to the sharp icicle blades of her eyes. "Well, Dana, I'm flattered, but I'm afraid you give me credit where none is due," he responded with a false humility that made Scully grind her teeth in an attempt to reign in the violence she felt trembling in her limbs. "I'm certain I would never accuse you falsely, Alex," she returned with saccharine sweetness that was again betrayed by her eyes, the glare from which he seemed powerless to escape. "Oh, but I can't take credit for Mulder's fickleness nor the ease with which he broke his vows to you." At her look of slight surprise and a slight narrowing of the eyes that demanded explanation, he smiled with a patronizing sympathy. "Oh, I know, the two of you were never legal... but that private ceremony you had in the hospital room when Hannah was born was simply... breathtaking." Sharp revulsion sprang up in her stomach at both the memory his words evoked and the thought that he had seen two of the most beautiful moments of her life -- the birth of her daughter and Mulder whispering to her that, for better or for worse, she was stuck with him for the rest of her life. she thought bitterly, but chose to direct the anger toward a more accessible target -- Alex Krycek. She smiled, tight-lipped and cold. "In an indirect way, I'm certain you could," she simpered. "After all, you put in motion the catalyst for his actions." Her eyes snapped on the last words, and her stance left no doubt as to what she meant. "I'm afraid you are operating on false information," he said, again with such a tone of artificial modesty that she subconsciously understood every time Mulder had slammed the man up against a wall and tried to beat him senseless. His next words stilled her heart, though. "I didn't kill Hannah." The next moment, her body was in motion without conscious thought. The element of surprise was on her side, and she pinned him against one of the stone columns. "Liar!" she hissed in his face. "Don't you dare add insult to injury and deny taking everything precious in my life!" Her voice had risen steadily from her original ferocious whisper until it reached a bellowing shout on the last word. Her forearm pressed threateningly against his throat, and his words were choked as he refused to fight back against her. That was something she never would have thought -- Krycek as a gentleman, refusing to do physical harm to a woman. "Scully, please, I'm not lying... I didn't... kill her." She let go of him with one more spiteful push against his clavicle. She walked away from him, hands on her hips, but just as he was beginning to move away from the column, she whirled and trapped him back against it with her eyes and he stuck there, as helpless as if he'd been a butterfly under an entomologist's shiny pins. "Don't lie to me, Krycek. Your life isn't worth the effort I would have to expend to take it, but don't think that would stop me." He drew in deep, ragged breaths past his bruised trachea, and when he spoke again, his voice was raw and hoarse. "That would have defeated the entire purpose. We took her to save her. We didn't kill her." He could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn't convinced, yet her stance and expression all gave him tacit permission to speak. He laughed wryly to himself; they practically demanded that he explain himself further. He saw the doubt... could anticipate her next words. "She was dead when we found her." Her face fell, and he could practically hear her heart shatter. "No records could be found on her - no birth certificates or anything. It was as if she was shaped out of the dust of the ground... perhaps born simply to take Hannah's place." Her eyes snapped up to meet his, unspoken questions warring in their depths. "It was easy enough to slip the cross around her neck... she was already so decayed that she was virtually unrecognizable... a week or two more helped that along." Again, her expression challenged him in unbelief. "You never had any medical testing done to identify the body, did you? No dental records, no autopsy. Very slack of you, Agent Scully." At that moment, she regretted their choice deeply. Why hadn't she had an autopsy done? Why hadn't they tried to match the dental records? There was no way she could know now... except... "Damn you, Krycek. You're a liar, and a thief, and I don't believe you for a second." She stalked past him, on to the clubhouse where she would begin preparing lunch for the apartment dwellers. She only faltered slightly as his voice called after her, "Think about it, Dana. I'd hate for you to lose your daughter twice." *** "Looked into my door With a sleeping roll and a madman's soul He thought for sure I'd seen him Dancing up the river in the dark Looking for a woman to court and spark." {"Court & Spark" - Joni Mitchell} *** The thought had been rumbling in her head ever since Alex Krycek's visit: Her quick, efficient movements and the dazzling smile she put on for the apartment dwellers masked her underlying tension well, though they also served as indicators thereof. The fact remaind that only one man would have known what she was going through. One man, she thought ruefully, who had been the cause of most of her emotional turmoil for the past three years. Or more. After she finished cleaning up the silver trays and crystal pitchers from the light luncheon in the clubhouse, she decided to ask Mr. Montgomery if he needed anything before she left for the rest of the day. He answered in the negative, and she went back to her room to change into shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes. If there was one thing Mulder had taught her that she was not willing to give up simply because she associated it with him, it was that physical exertion was a good way to relieve emotional tension. She ran the five miles to the beach, each footfall to the pavement pounding out one more ounce of frustration, anger, and confusion. Her mind was so focused on the pleasing pain of drawing in labored breaths and the jarring force of her relentless pace that she stumbled as the ground unexpectedly yielded below her feet and sand crept into her shoes. She often marveled at how sand managed to get into the oddest places -- even places that should be impossible, or at least difficult, to access. She skidded to a momentary stop, discarding her shoes and socks carelessly on the sand, before she resumed jogging at a much more leisurely pace, turning as she reached the gentle surf. Her feet reveled in the feel of the cool, firm sand and the occasional splashes of the warm aqua waves as she gradually began to slow her pace until she finally turned to head back toward her shoes with a strolling walk. She had once been forced to stop completely after a run without a cool- down, and she had sworn that no matter the circumstance, she would never do that again. If she had to handcuff a criminal to her and make him go through her cool-down routine with her, then she would, but she was not going to experience the muscular torture again. she thought absently, knowing at some visceral level that she wasn't just talking about exercise. She shuffled back to her shoes and socks, dragging her feet through the sand, feeling the shifting temperature between the sun-warmed grains on the surface and the cooler ones beneath. She picked up her shoes and smiled ruefully, a wry twist of the lips. So much sand in them, from only a few steps onto the beach. She sighed, dumping it out of the shoes, then dropping them carelessly to the ground again, falling rather ungracefully into a sitting position beside them, staring at the grains that had stuck to her hands. She brushed her palms together lightly, just enough to feel the friction of the sand but not quite enough to displace the grains. she thought whimsically. Irritant. That's what sand was. Between the wall of a shoe and the skin of a foot, it could rub blisters. In the soft flesh of a generous oyster, though, it was given a coating of material that turned it into a precious treasure. She knew she had often been considered shelled. Many people knew her to have firm walls in place. One man, one infuriating, beautiful, irritating man had slipped inside a crack in her shell... and where others had dumped him out of their "shoes" because he had rubbed them raw with his irregularities, she had begun to wrap him in her essence. In so doing, she knew, she had not altered the core of who he was. She had simply made him slightly more palatable to the general public, and infinitely valuable to herself. She pulled her legs up, her feet flat on the sand, crossed her arms over her knees and laid her head against them, drawing in cleansing breaths. She finally admitted it to herself. There was a very simple reason that she was so furious at Fox Mulder that she wanted to break something. The words of a book long ago read rushed back to her, although she didn't remember its source. "Love wounded bleeds anger." She knew that the intensity with which she hated him now was directly proportional to the intensity with which she had loved him then. Well, one thing was for certain. Whether or not she really hated him, there was a possibility their daughter was alive, and she would not hide that from him. She tugged her socks and shoes on, then stood up, brushing her hands ineffectually against the damp grains now clinging to her legs and shorts. As she stretched her legs once more to prepare for the jog back to the apartments, she startled to hear his voice, hoarse and penitent, behind her. "I never meant to run away from you, Scully." She didn't want to hear it. She was beginning to accept what had happened, what was happening, but she didn't want to talk about it, not yet. "It's fine, Mulder," she waved him off with a dismissive shake of her head. For once, he let it slide, although she didn't miss the flash of pain -- insecurity -- in his eyes. "He found you didn't he." It wasn't a question. It should have been. The sentence structure demanded a question mark at the end, a rising intonation of the voice. But there was none. She nodded anyway, answering a question that wasn't there. Confirming the declarative sentence when it should have been inquisitive. "He said... he said Hannah is still alive," she whispered, not looking at him now. Looking at the expanse of sand that quivered between their feet. "He's a liar." She knew this. She had said as much to the "he" in question. But when Mulder said it, so snidely, so derisively -- dismissing the possibility of hope out of hand -- her head snapped up and her eyes locked onto his angrily. "Aren't you even willing to explore the possibility?" she bit off. "All the times you chased false leads on UFO's and shadowy conspiracies, you can't give the benefit of the doubt to an idea that our daughter might still be alive?" The anger flashed in his eyes, but she saw it replaced momentarily by a fluttering, trembling, fragile hope. She'd called Hannah theirs. She hadn't said "my daughter". She hadn't even said "Hannah." She'd said "our daughter." His voice was still raw, still hoarse, and she began to wonder if it really was his emotions, or if he had simply done something in the three years they'd been apart that had permanently damaged his vocal cords. "Being disappointed in those things would not have devastated me like this would. They were important to me, but no matter, I knew I'd always have..." He looked away from her uncomfortably. She pressed him. "You'd always have what, Mulder?" He wouldn't meet her eyes, and his lips settled into lines of displeasure, as if he'd just swallowed something bitter. His voice held none of the tenderness his words implied, and she thought distantly that something was wrong with him. First he had made a question sound like a statement, and now he was making a love-speech sound like an insult. "You. I'd always have you." "I never left, Mulder." His eyes turned back to her then, and she barely controlled her impulse to flinch away from the fire she saw burning there. The anger, the desperation, the self-loathing and desire to lash out at someone -- her. "I =know= that, Scully!" he told her with the same heat, the same passion he'd utilized many, many times over the years. Usually when he was acting the part of a madman, turning his gun on her. <"For God's sake, Scully, it's me!"> <"You've been making reports on me since the beginning! Taking your little notes!"> <"You have my files and you have my gun. Don't ask me for my trust!"> <"Scully... run! Scully!"> She did flinch at those memories. So many times, so many moments that bound them together... how had they ever come to this place? But the problem was... they had. And here they were. "I need to know, Mulder. I need to know... I'd never forgive myself if I walked away from this just to save face, and my daughter" -- he flinched when she used the singular possessive -- "was still alive, waiting for me." He shook his head, biting down on the inside of his cheek. "It won't be the same, Scully. It would never be the same again." This time it was her anger that exploded. "Damn it, Mulder, =I don't care!=" He felt the intensity radiating from her in waves and stumbled back slightly as though she had struck him a physical blow, although she hadn't moved an inch. "It's my =daughter,= Mulder. It's =Hannah.= And you can't tell me I wouldn't love her just because I've missed three years of her life!" She knew she shouldn't say it. She felt it building inside her, felt the accompanying warning begging her not to say it. But she said it. "It's not like she left me on purpose." His jaw clenched, his eyes shut down. She felt her chest clench tightly, as if to give a comforting squeeze to her heart -- the one that wasn't there. The one that had been wrenched out when she'd lost everything at once. He had no answer for her, so he turned and walked away, quickly, sharply, his long angry strides turning into a loping gait as he jogged carelessly away from her. She bit her lip and let out a soft curse. He had no apology, she knew. There was nothing he could say in his own defense. But she didn't have to remind him of that. She shook her head, not entirely displacing the feelings of guilt that had overcome her, although she managed to retain a ripple of anger at the thought, *** "He was playing on the sidewalk For passing change Then something strange Happened - glory train passed through him So he buried the coins he made In People's Park And went lookin' for a woman to court and spark." {"Court & Spark" - Joni Mitchell} *** "Do you realize that you spend a lot of unnecessary time running from your problems, Agent Mulder?" The voice startled him enough to break his jogging rhythm and he skidded to a stop on the sidewalk, whirling around to face the man he'd passed seconds earlier without even noticing him. The voice grew patronizing, teasing. "Oh, I'm sorry -- that's right. You're not an agent anymore, are you?" "You rat bastard," he growled, aware of the cliché even as he moved forward to attack Krycek. "Hey wait a second," Krycek teased, reaching into his leather jacket and pulling out a gun, just enough so that Mulder could see he had it. And of course, Mulder didn't have one to match it. He dropped his hands, which had come up as if to strangle Krycek right there on the sidewalk, but didn't take a step back. "That's better," he smiled, still not taking his hand from the gun. "At least your pretty little former partner exchanged a few friendly sentences with me before she tried to break my neck." "What did you do to her?" Mulder growled, taking a menacing step forward, pausing only when Krycek tugged the gun out of his jacket a little further. "Your concerns are misplaced, Mulder. I was the only one on the receiving end of physical damage during our little... encounter." Mulder felt a small swelling of pride at his words. He only wished he'd been there to see it. Watching Scully kick butt had once been one of his favorite pastimes -- even when it was his butt she was kicking. "What do you want, Krycek?" The other man had a teasing smile on his face, obviously enjoying having the upper hand. "Oh, just a little friendly conversation, Mulder. I was your partner once upon a time, you know... care to chat? For old times' sake?" Mulder did his best to settle down, as he knew Krycek was only trying to provoke him. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction. But he couldn't force himself to make polite chitchat with him, so he stayed silent. "I heard you got married. Had a little baby girl." Mulder's eyes flickered, but his jaw was set and he gave no other indication of having heard him. "Not in that order, of course." "Cut the crap, Krycek. What's your point?" "Patience is a virtue, my friend." Krycek grew thoughtful, the look on his face dramatically exaggerated. "Explain something to me. Since you and Scully were never legally married, did that make it easier for you to leave her when you lost your daughter?" "I don't owe you anything, Krycek, and I refuse to play your games." For the first time, the facade fell from Krycek's countenance, and his eyes flashed dangerously. "You may not owe me anything, but you damn well owe Scully an explanation," he snapped, his hand tightening almost imperceptibly on the gun. "What do you care?" Mulder shouted hoarsely. "I care because it's time you got your daughter back. We can't keep her anymore." His head reeled. "What are you saying?" Krycek breathed out an uneasy sigh. "What I'm saying is -- and see if you can keep up here, Mulder, 'cause I'm only going to say it once -- I can't give you your daughter back. It's too dangerous for me; if the others found out, I'd be a dead man. But you can come get her, and I'd actually prefer that you did. It's getting too dangerous to keep her." "Damn it, would you tell me what's going on? I think you owe me an explanation!" Krycek put his gun away and gave Mulder a smile. "Oh no. No, I don't owe you anything, Mulder. But I'll give you a piece of advice anyway. If you don't come get her now, they'll kill her." With that, he turned and walked away, despite his fear that Mulder would tackle him from behind at any moment. Mulder, however, was frozen in place, having suddenly become aware of a sharp protest in his leg muscles. He'd stopped running without cooling down, and it was hurting like hell. he chided himself harshly. a very familiar voice inside him chimed in. "Shut up," he muttered aloud. "I didn't ask you." Several passersby regarded him strangely, but he merely bit back the pain, re-stretched his muscles, and started off toward his hotel at a slow jog. He had some serious plans to make. *** Wine. She loved wine. The warmth and texture of it in her mouth -- the way it smoothed out the tension in her neck and shoulders -- the almost-unpleasant tartness of it on her tongue. So warm, a silky, satiny feeling passing through her mouth, accenting the diamond stars of the summer night, all the lost angels flickering through the sky. She smiled at her own whimsy. Ever since she had mistyped Los Angeles as "Lost Angeles," she had thought of the city in those terms. Full of lost angels. She wondered where her own lost angel was. If she was truly alive, or if she was buried in a much-too-early grave as she had believed for the past three years. She took a too-large swallow of wine, hoping the bite of the Merlot would be enough to begin drowning out that voice in her head. The one that was still in love with Mulder. Unbidden, a quote from Matthew Arnold sprang to her mind, pricking tears in her eyes. <"A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain."> She frowned and swallowed her wine as though the taste had gone bitter unexpectedly. He was angelic. A dark, lost, fallen angel. She had a mental picture of him as she'd often seen him, in black jeans and a white shirt, shrugging into his black leather jacket, his dark hair falling rebelliously over his forehead. Beautiful. She saw him falling to his knees on the bank of the Penobscot River, dry-sobs wracking his body with agonizing intensity, shrugging her away from him as she tried to embrace him... slipping out of his leather jacket and wrapping it around the decayed body he'd thought to be his daughter in a too-late attempt to keep her safe from the freezing cold of the water. Ineffectual. He had done all he could, fought as hard as he could, to bring meaning and happiness to their mutual existence. Ultimately, however, it appeared he had failed, and they were still held in the infinite gravity of a black hole of despair; so dense that not even light could pass through the event horizon. Beating his wings in vain. She startled as her upturned lips were met with dryness. She hadn't noticed when she'd emptied the glass. Sighing, she turned to go back inside. As she set her wine glass in the sink and ran a little water in it, recorking the bottle and sliding it into the wine rack, it hit her with startling intensity. That was what had been wrong about John's description! The leather jacket! Mulder's was underground, wrapped around the body of a little girl they believed to be their daughter. The memory played out in her head despite the piercing pain in her gut. When he'd shrugged off her attempt at consolation, she had backed away from him, unable to watch as the local law enforcement tried unsuccessfully to keep him away from the body. She had looked up just in time to see him falling ungracefully to his knees in the mud, desperately wrenching his arms out of the leather jacket he wore. He had wrapped it around the tiny body before clutching the child to his chest, his heart-wrenching sounds of keening unaccompanied by the tears she knew he wished he could cry. She had bit her lip, unable to process what was going on. It wasn't real, she knew. It couldn't be real. She had done nothing worthy of this punishment. Her baby wasn't dead. It was all just a bad dream, and she'd wake up in a minute to see Mulder lying peacefully beside her with Hannah tucked safely between them instead of the surreal tableau that greeted her -- Mulder stumbling up the riverbank, clutching a bundle of black leather and something that bore only passing resemblance to the sunshine of their lives. They had agreed not to autopsy her. "I don't think I could stand knowing what happened to her," Mulder had told her over and over, his eyes unfocused and his voice dead. She had nodded her agreement time and time again. It would make no difference now. There was nothing they could do to change what had happened to her. And both of them had lost their will to fight back against whoever had caused it. They had finally been broken, defeated. And they'd fallen apart. The jacket was never far from the body, and Mulder had stubbornly insisted on her being wrapped in it when she was buried. Hannah had loved that leather jacket, often traipsing around the house stumbling under its weight, the hem and sleeves dragging the floor and tripping her. She would always giggle and stand back up again, running toward Mulder who knelt just a little ways away from her, his arms outstretched and a wide grin on his face, encouraging her with words and non-words and the love in his eyes. "Come on baby! Come on!" "Daddy!" she would respond, her feet moving faster than the leather that dragged the floor and toppling her forward over and over until when she fell for the last time, it was into Mulder's arms. He would bury his face in her baby-fine hair for a moment as he held her tightly, whispering, "I love you, baby," and blinking back tears when she responded, "Love you too, Daddy," in her sweet baby voice. She startled painfully and gasped when there was a soft knock that sounded much louder on her door. "Come in," she called in an unsteady voice, using the palms of her hands to wipe away the tears she didn't remember crying. "It's locked," came a familiar voice that made time stop, then jump start again when she realized he was waiting quietly in her hall. She padded to the door in her bare feet, unlocking it and standing behind it as she swung it open far enough for him to enter, closing and relocking it behind him. "Mulder." An acknowledgment. He didn't answer, and she chanced a look at his face. His eyes were bloodshot, and the lines around his mouth gave him a tortured, haggard appearance. "Scully, I..." he trailed off, his eyes darting around the room as if searching for hidden cue cards that would tell him what he wanted to say. "I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, not knowing really why she said it. Why she was apologizing to him when he had left her. His gaze found hers frantically and held it with an urgent desperation. "No, no!" he protested hoarsely. "No, you... Scully you didn't do anything. =I'm= sorry..." He swallowed, his gaze flickering away from hers again as he blinked back tears. When he had composed himself, he looked back at her again, the torment of his soul visible. He stretched one hand toward her, then stopped and let it drop to his side again when she flinched involuntarily. She regretted the reflex, but not enough to tell him so. He raised his hands in a display of anguish and bowed his head, running his fingers through his hair. "I... You deserve better," he finally managed. "You deserve someone so much better than me, but Scully... I'm an idiot... a goddamn idiot and I..." His voice cracked and he fell apart. She watched him crumble, literally wilting to the floor, falling hard onto his knees, burying his face in his hands as he fought for control of his emotions. She wanted to kneel beside him and gather him into her arms, but she was frozen in place. It was as if she were standing outside herself, watching a tragic drama on a stage far removed. She heard his harsh breathing gradually slow and quiet, and his hands dropped to his knees as he rested back on his heels. Without looking up, he said in a low voice, "I don't know if you can ever forgive me, much less love me again, but..." He swallowed, gathering himself together again, fighting against tears that still threatened to choke him. She waited quietly, not interrupting him although she sensed she had already begun forgiving him, and she had never stopped loving him. "But I want to look for Hannah." He lifted his head to look at her, searching her eyes with a piercing gaze. "And I'd like for you to look with me." *** "Help me; I think I'm falling In love too fast... It's got me hoping for the future, And worrying about the past, Cos I've seen some hot, hot blazes Come down to smoke and ash - And we love our lovin', But not like we love our freedom." {-"Help Me" - Joni Mitchell} *** She had not been sailing frequently with her father, but on one occasion, a terrible storm had blown up in the middle of the night, and the instruments had gone out, visibility at what she considered less than zero. She remembered the feeling of helplessness, being tossed at the mercy of the sea and knowing there was no such thing as solid ground for miles in any direction, including down. Now, while she remained composed and calm outwardly, she felt her soul begin to scramble for a steadying rail or a part of the deck that wasn't rolling with the storm that Mulder's unexpected appearance and unanticipated declaration had unleashed over her ocean. They remained in a silent, eerie tableau for long moments, him gazing up at her from his kneeling position, her standing with her arms crossed protectively over her chest, unable to speak or move. She had no purpose for either action. His sigh broke the silence, and she found the presence of mind to inquire as to the reason for his wistful release of breath. He shook his head, looking down at the floor. "You don't want to hear it from me right now," he said softly. "I know you don't." For the first time in a long time, Fox Mulder had made a wise decision. His sigh had not been intended to escape his mind, where he was pondering the whimsical idea that this was where he belonged, all his life, kneeling in penance before her. She was definitely not in the frame of mind for any such declarations from him at the moment. She regarded him for a moment, and decided to take him at his word. She probably didn't want to hear it, knowing Mulder. "Well, why don't we move this over to the couch?" she finally said with barely concealed tartness, moving ahead of him to curl herself up at one end, burrowed into the arm of the couch. Sensitive to her wariness of him, he sat at the opposite end, leaving plenty of space between them. He opened his mouth to speak, but she was tired of following his lead, and beat him to the punch, her voice harsh and clipped. "Why did you come here, Mulder? I don't understand." "I came to ask you to help me look for our daughter," he responded defensively, and would have gone on, but she interrupted, relentless. "No, that's not what I meant. Why did you come to California?" He was silent. "Were you looking for me?" Her voice was sharp, accusing, angry. He looked down at his hands and didn't answer. "Answer me!" she demanded. "Were you?" "YES!" he finally barked, louder than he had intended. "Yes, I was looking for you." This was said in a quieter voice, tempered with humility. "You had no right," she breathed in a dangerously soft tone. "For God's sake, Scully, I'm your =husband!=" he shouted before he could think better of it. Her eyes widened, and he felt the blood drain from his face as he realized with horror that, although he had secretly thought of them in the terms of "husband" and "wife," it was not an indulgence he had shared with her. He sat, silently, unable and unwilling to look her in the eye. He waited for the rebuke; the sharp chastisement for his presumptuous declaration. She recovered first, saying in a tone that was too carefully controlled, "You left me." He glanced up quickly. She had not even mentioned his possessive terminology. He allowed himself no relief, however, as she obviously just had bigger fish to fry. "Yes, I did," he agreed quietly, looking her steadily in the eye, inwardly preparing himself for his flogging, his penance. He wanted to sit there and take it. To let her beat him - physically if necessary – in retaliation for the pain he had caused her. He wanted for her to draw his blood. He needed it – craved the pain. He knew he deserved it, and needed to pay somehow for what he had done. But she simply regarded him with an enigmatic expression, refusing to show even a tiny crack in her armor. "Why?" He shook his head. He had no answer. He wished he knew. "I loved you, you know." Her voice was barely above a whisper, sharp with intensity. As she continued, it gradually rose in volume, although it never rose above a gentle hum, deceitful in its calm. "I loved you, and I needed you. I lost my daughter, and I needed you there with me. I needed you as my support, as my strength... as maybe just someone else who knew the pain I was going through and would go through it with me. But you left me." She stood up and walked away from him, crossing the room to stand in front of the bay windows. "After all we'd been through, Mulder. After everything we've come through together, you abandoned me when I needed you most. Left without a thought of me." Although his first instinct was to protest - when had he ever thought of anything =but= her? - he held his peace, knowing she was right. "Twenty-five hundred dollars, Mulder. You practically emptied our bank account. Left me with absolutely nothing." She whirled to face him, her eyes bright with angry tears. "No money, no daughter, no husband, no life! Nothing!" She turned away from him again. He watched her, feeling a sort of masochistic satisfaction that she was being so thorough, so unmerciful. She was silent for long moments, standing motionless with her back to him. When she spoke again, it was in a tone so quiet, so tremorous, that he barely heard her. "I still do love you, Mulder. I love you, and I hate you for it." She turned toward him again, tears dripping from her eyes. "I hate you for making me hope. For not letting me forget you. For being such a part of me that three years of being angry at you - angry enough to kill you! - weren't enough to exorcise you!" He wanted to say something - anything - to make it better, but could think of nothing. "I was almost convinced. Almost, Mulder. I was so close to making myself believe that I could get over you. That I =was= getting over you. And then you showed up, and I'm right back where I was three years ago. I could kill you, Mulder, I hate you so much." He nodded in acknowledgment, his heart breaking when he heard her next words, murmured quietly, almost to herself. "But then I would kill myself, because I love you so much." She looked at him, watching the emotions play in his eyes. Fear, love, shame, longing, remorse and hope. "I don't know if I could ever trust you again," she told him honestly. "I believed in us. Didn't think anything would ever ruin us." "I know," he whispered, and she startled. He realized they were the first words he had spoken for several minutes. He felt compelled to add to it. "I believed in us too." She looked at him sharply, and he forgot to breathe when she quoted, "'You loved me -- then what =right= had you to leave me? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us. You, of your own will, did it.'" He wanted desperately to quote the next part of the passage, slightly modified, but didn't dare, contenting himself with repeating it in his mind. <"And in breaking your heart, I have broken mine."> They were silent for long, eternal minutes; she challenging him to answer her, he searching for words to use. Finally, he took the chance. "I have nothing to tell you to excuse my behavior, Scully. I don't have any convincing argument to give you, so I'm not even going to try to plead innocent. You were right, I =did= love you, and I had no right to leave you. I still do love you." He trailed off helplessly before adding, "I always will." She gave the words no time to rest in the air before she challenged them. "Will that be enough?" "You have to answer that," he told her. "You have to decide if it's worth it to you." He paused, gathering his thoughts, before continuing. "I did mean what I said the other day. It will never be the same again. You and I, even if we got Hannah back, would never be like we were. We've been through too much." She looked at him sharply. "Was Hannah the only thing that held us together?" she asked quietly. "What do you mean?" "When she died, you left. And you only came back to me now, when there is a possibility that she is alive. Is she the only thing that makes us love each other?" "What do you think?" She paused. "I think that would be completely unfair to her if it were true." At his questioning look, she continued. "When I was younger, I knew a girl in Mobile, where Ahab was stationed for awhile. Her parents had wanted a divorce, but stayed together for her." Mulder nodded. "She told me once that she wished they had gone ahead and split up - that it would have been easier for her to deal with them separately than to watch them be miserable and feel like it was her fault. She felt like the well-being of their marriage was her responsibility." She looked away from him, then back again. "I wouldn't want Hannah to feel like that." "So, what you're saying is..." "What I'm saying," she cut him off, "is that if we decide we want to try to stay together, that we shouldn't do it out of some misguided intention to provide Hannah with a normal home." He smirked lightly. "I don't think she ever has to worry about having a normal home, whether or not her parents live together." She half-smiled, indulging him. "Mulder, I'm serious." "I know you are," he nodded, placating her. "And I'm serious about this, so listen to me, and believe me. Okay?" She nodded. "Okay. You." He looked at her pointedly, tilting his head forward slightly in emphasis. "Are the only thing I have ever been sure of. Hannah was something precious to me - she was my heart. But you are my soul, Scully, and no matter what happens - even if it turns out that we've been lied to again, I have decided one thing." When he didn't elaborate, she gave in. "What one thing is that, Mulder?" "That I can't live without you." *** "Oh, didn't it feel good - We were sittin' there talking, Or lying there not talking; Didn't it feel good?" {-"Help Me" - Joni Mitchell} *** She looked at him sharply, trying her best to keep her emotions at bay. she told herself again and again. "I mean it, Scully. I've tried. For three years I've tried, and I can't do it. How could I?" "Just what WERE you doing in those three years, Mulder?" He regarded her with an expression so full of love and hopeless longing that it managed to reach past her walls and tug at her heart, stealing her breath. "Watching you," he said simply. "Following you at a distance." "Some distance," she retorted, trying - successfully - to hide the effect he was beginning to have on her. "All the way across the world, I mean." He looked at her strangely, and she realized she had given herself away. Determined to admit it before he could call her on it, she shrugged casually. "I wanted to make sure you didn't die without my knowledge. After all, I am named in your will." She paused. "Or at least, I used to be." He smiled slightly and shook his head. "Scully," he chuckled, and she knew that he saw right through her. "I've been here in California for two and a half years." Her face went white and she swayed slightly on her feet. Mulder jumped up and was at her side before she even had time to realize how unsteady she felt. "Sorry," she murmured, stepping away from him and holding her hand out to keep him at bay. "I just felt a little... off-balance for a minute there." He nodded, and sat again, this time in an armchair by the sofa. She wandered over to the couch and sank into the cushions, wishing desperately for another glass of wine. From her dazed appearance, he guessed that she wasn't going to try to speak anytime soon, so he progressed with an explanation. "For the first six months after... Maine... I pretty much wandered around aimlessly. By the time I came to my senses and went looking for you, you had moved out here." "How did you know?" she interrupted softly, gazing absently at the wall, unfocused. He cleared his throat. "Your brother, Bill... I ran into him by accident, and barely escaped with my life." He looked down at his lap, suddenly bitter. "Although I certainly didn't deserve to." Shaking himself out of his melancholy, he looked back up at her. "Nobody else knew. He said that as far as the Scullys were concerned, Fox Mulder was dead, and good riddance, and he wouldn't have anything to do with spreading ghost stories. I realized he was right, but I had to be near you, to be sure you were safe." "But... but... You were in Australia, and South Africa, and Canada..." He shook his head. "Credit card records are easy enough to fabricate." "But, why? Why not tell me you were here?" "Scully..." He paused, trying to collect himself. "Bill was right. To you, I was dead. And I thought you'd be better off that way, without me. Especially after what I'd done." "So you just decided to haunt me, is that it?" He smiled ruefully. "You made me promise I would." Their gazes met, and locked, and suddenly they were no longer in Southern California, but curled up in their bed in D.C., steaming cups of coffee in their hands, four-month-old Hannah sleeping peacefully in her crib across the room. Between them lay a gilded copy of "Wuthering Heights," well- worn and dog-eared, opened to about the middle of the book. "I can't believe you've never read this, Scully," Mulder said as he raised the hot coffee to his mouth, taking a careful sip. "It's one of the greatest classics of literature!" She snorted, sipping her own coffee. "This from the man who once considered 'Playpen' high literature." He smiled at her. "I never said I considered it high literature. I just happened to keep it on my coffee table." She shook her head, laughing softly. "All right, keep reading." He swallowed, poking her calf with his foot under the covers. "No way. I've been reading for the last half-hour. It's your turn now." "All right, fine." She cleared her throat, reaching for her reading glasses and perching them on her nose. "Where were we?" "There," he murmured, pointing to a spot about halfway down the page. Glancing at him momentarily, she picked up reading where he'd left off, halfway through Heathcliff's speech to Nelly the maid. "'And I pray one prayer -- I repeat it till my tongue stiffens -- Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you -- haunt me, then! The murdered =do= haunt their murderers. I believe -- I know that ghosts =have= wandered on the earth. Be with me always -- take any form -- drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I =cannot= live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'" She stopped suddenly, studying his profile intently as his eyes remained on the page. He looked at her curiously, unspoken questions in his eyes. Setting her coffee on the bedside table, she got to her knees, turned to him, and -- after waiting for him to place his coffee on the other table -- took his face in her hands and whispered, "Be with me always -- take any form -- drive me mad! Only do not leave me where I cannot find you." He was silent, searching her eyes. "Promise me," she demanded, still holding his face. "Promise." "I promise," he whispered hoarsely before leaning up to capture her lips in a passionate kiss that quickly escalated until Hannah's soft cry broke through their haze. "Mulder..." she whispered, pushing ineffectually at his chest as he covered her face with kisses. Rather than answer, he nipped lightly at the skin where her shoulder curved into her neck, then sucked on the spot. She whimpered, and considered giving into his demands until Hannah made hers known again, louder this time. "Mulder," she moaned, trying once again to dislodge him. "The baby... I have to get up and get the baby..." He would not be easily dissuaded, however, murmuring in her ear, "Mmm, Scully. I love when you call me 'baby'." Laughing, she had thrown all of her strength into rolling him off of her and clambering out of bed, shrugging her robe back around her as she went over to pick up Hannah. The child had been hungry, and had immediately latched onto the breast that Scully's gaping robe had revealed. Scully had sighed, adjusting Hannah to a more comfortable position, and looked meaningfully over at Mulder. "Not fair," he groaned, splayed flat on his back, his arousal insistent and obvious against his cotton pajama bottoms. "You need to teach your daughter how to share. I was there first." She laughed, coming over to settle on the bed, cradling Hannah in her arms. "Mind if I take the other side?" Mulder leered, leaning over and nuzzling the breast that wasn't being claimed by their daughter. "Mulder, really!" she had laughed in a rebuke that quickly turned to a breathy gasp as he latched onto a nipple and began suckling. "Mulder!" She burst into giggles as she felt his strong, yet gentle, suction. He carefully kept his teeth mostly removed from the tender skin, and she lifted a hand to run through his hair. Unable to resist the temptation, she tugged sharply on a few strands, and he nipped her in retaliation. She squealed, trying to wriggle away from him, and inadvertently broke Hannah's suction. Scully quickly turned her full attention to helping her daughter continue her meal, while Mulder whimpered his protest more pitifully than Hannah. "Would you stop?" she teased him, cutting her eyes over to him playfully. "Share. You're a big boy; you should know better by now." "But I don't wanna share," he answered in an attempted whine, the effect ruined by the huge grin spreading across his face. "Besides, I'm hungry too." "Then go to the kitchen!" she laughed. "I'm not your personal milkmaid." "Oooh, but I =like= that idea, Scully!" "I'll bet you do," she grinned, pushing him away with her feet. He dodged her attempt, clambering to his knees and leaning over her and Hannah to capture her mouth, drinking her in with lips and tongue and teeth. Scully tilted her head back to allow him better access, and his hand had just gone up to cradle her neck when she felt her breast slide wetly out of Hannah's slack mouth. Reluctantly, she broke the kiss, whispering breathlessly, "Hannah... I need... to..." He smiled at her, and it lit up his entire face. "God I love you," he murmured before reaching out for Hannah. "Here, let me." Gently, she handed over the child's soft form, and he cradled her gently against his smooth, muscular shoulder, gently patting and rubbing circles on her tiny back as he sat back on his heels. Scully relaxed against the pillow, her eyes practically devouring the sight that greeted her; Mulder's muscles moving like liquid underneath his tanned, smooth skin as he held and caressed the tiny body of the miracle to whom she'd given birth. It gave her such a feeling of completeness, and she giggled when Mulder's efforts were rewarded with a rather loud burp from the baby in his arms. "Definitely your daughter," she laughed as his face lit up proudly. "Yep, definitely mine," he whispered, kissing the top of the baby's downy head as his eyes locked with hers. Suddenly, they both blinked and were back in the present, sitting across the room from each other in Newport Beach, California, their eyes filled with tears as the same memory stretched like a gossamer thread between them. Sucking in a shaky breath, Scully got up from the couch and retreated to the kitchen, her eyes wide and her hands shaking. She didn't know he'd followed her until she felt his breath on her neck and heard his voice in her ear murmuring, "Scully..." "No!" she gasped, jumping away from him and turning to face him, both hands up in defense. "No, please... not yet..." He backed away slowly, and she saw him reigning in the emotions that she could read so clearly in his green eyes as they began to cloud back to hazel. Not daring to look at him any longer, she lowered her gaze and darted out of the room, closing her bedroom door gently behind her and throwing the lock. He followed, and heard her slowly slide down the surface on the other side as he stood with his hand barely touching the door, his forehead leaned against it wearily. He would not leave, even if it drove her mad. He had promised, after all. *** He jerked awake to the sounds of movement on the other side of the door. He'd fallen asleep leaning against it, and his neck and back screamed in protest as he attempted to get to his feet. He didn't want her to know he'd been sleeping with his ear to the door, listening for any sound of distress. he grimaced to himself as he used the door as leverage to push himself up -- and then he was lying flat on his back, gazing up at a fully-dressed, nonplussed Dana Scully. She'd obviously been awake much longer than he had. "You look good upside-down," he told her, then blushed furiously as her icily raised eyebrow prompted the belated realization of his unintentional innuendo. Ignoring his comment, she stepped over his prone form, casually noting, "You're a little old to be sleeping on the floor, aren't you, Mulder?" Groaning, he pushed himself up on his elbows and watched her pour herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. "Yep, I am," he agreed morosely. "Nearly fifty years old, Scully." She set her mug down so quickly that a little coffee sloshed over the edge. Grabbing a paper towel, she mopped it up, looking at him with wide, surprised eyes. "Jesus, Mulder. Are you that old?" He nodded, his lips pursing gloomily. "Forty-eight this October. I'm over the hill." "Dear God, you really =are= getting old," she commented sadly, and he wondered at her melancholy until she lamented, "That means I'm forty-five this year." "Still a spring chicken," he grinned, finally getting up and brushing himself off as he walked into the kitchen. "Practically a baby." He reached for the extra mug she'd set on the counter, unintentionally brushing up closely to her in the process. He paused uncertainly, holding his breath. He jumped, his heart thudding against his ribcage in a painful tattoo, as he felt her fingertips slide through the hair at his temple, right above his ear. "Grey hairs," she murmured in disbelief, ruffling them slightly. Her breath fluttered warmly over the shell of his ear, and he let out a shaky breath as the tips of her fingernails barely scraped his scalp. "I can't believe it." He turned to her, the coffee forgotten, his pupils dilated so widely that his eyes looked black with a thin ring of jade green edging them. "Scully..." he breathed, and her fingers stilled in his hair. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted, but he felt no breath passing from them. He began to lean in, his movements painfully slow, and she didn't move. Her eyelids began to flutter shut, and he let his own close with anticipation. He felt the barest contact, the very surface of her lips against his, and then suddenly her hand was no longer in her hair, her lips no longer under his. He opened his eyes to see her nervously tucking her hair behind her ears and smoothing her jacket over her skirt. "You'll have to excuse me, Mulder," she said in a professional tone, only a hint of a tremor betraying her, not looking at him. "I'm going to be late to work." With that she straightened her shoulders and walked around him, pausing at the door to look back and say, "You can let yourself out, just lock door behind you when you leave." In other words, you'd better be gone when I get back. He was motionless, not even daring to breath until the door snicked softly behind her. He stood staring at the impartial, unyielding wooden surface for several long moments before he slammed his fist into the counter, making Scully's forgotten cup of coffee spill again. "Damn it," he muttered, eyeing the spill as he grabbed a paper towel and began to clean up the mess before it stained the white formica surface. "You know, Mulder, you do the damnedest things..." He tossed the wadded up, coffee-soaked paper towel into the trash, not allowing the realization that he'd just been talking to himself, and left the apartment, locking and pulling the door closed, then resting his open palm against the surface as he stood in the hall, just breathing slowly, trying to think of what to do next. He startled at the sound of approaching footsteps and looked up to see a weathered old man in a navy shirt and battered jeans striding down the hall. "David!" he called out cheerfully. "Didn't expect to see you here." "Hello, Admiral," he smiled back, reaching out to shake his hand in greeting. "How are you?" "John, David. It's John. How many times do I have to tell you?" he rebuked him good-naturedly. Mulder smiled indulgently and nodded. "Of course, I'm sorry, John." "No problem at all," he grinned, slapping the younger man cheerfully on the back. "What brings you here, to Rachel's apartment? I wasn't aware that you knew her." "Oh, you know her?" Mulder asked innocently. "I was just, um... no, I've only met her once, briefly. She was just ahead of me in line in the grocery store last week and left her ATM card. I told Tonya I'd bring it to her." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his own ATM card, flashing it briefly before returning it to his jeans. "Well I could take it to her," John commented. "She's at work right now." "Um, actually... I kind of wanted to... take it to her myself, you know?" John grinned, clapping Mulder on the shoulder. "Of course! If I were a younger man, I might fight you over it, but since I'm not, I'll take you down and introduce you properly. How's that?" Mulder grinned. What a perfect opportunity. "Sure, I'd love that, John. I mean, if you don't think she'd mind, since she's at work and all. Um, where =does= she work?" he questioned as they began walking toward the elevators. "Oh she works here, at The Colony. I think you'd really like each other." Mulder nodded. "She seemed very nice when I met her." As the elevator dinged and the door slid open, John gave him a curious, sidelong glance. "Where did you meet her? Was it in the grocery store?" Mulder shook his head, deciding he had better tell the truth -- at least a version of it -- in case Scully decided to say something. "No, we didn't speak then. She was in a hurry and didn't see me. We happened to be at the beach around the same time one evening." John nodded. "I won't tell you too much; I think it would be invading her privacy. But as much as I like you, I'm going to warn you to be careful with her. She's been through some rough seas, and I'd consider it a personal offense if anyone was to hurt her again." Mulder swallowed heavily. Scully hadn't punished him enough. He felt like the lowest scum on earth, and wanted to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and die a slow, painful death. He nodded in acknowledgment of the Admiral's statement, and quickly began trying to formulate a polite way to avoid this meeting, this charade he'd agreed to. He suddenly couldn't bear to do that to Scully. He cleared his throat nervously as they stepped off the elevator on the ground floor, and Boyd Montgomery greeted him from behind the registration desk. "Hello, Mr. Samson!" he called cheerfully. "Hello, Mr. Montgomery," he answered, smiling despite the sick feeling in his stomach. He stalled for time, strolling over to the counter. "How are you? I haven't seen you in awhile." Boyd shook his head, still smiling. "I don't have as much time to galavant around as some cads I know." He gave Mulder a meaningful glance and raised eyebrow, and Mulder laughed. "What makes you think I've been doing anything besides working hard?" he teased, leaning against the counter and settling in for a long conversation. Maybe if he could get John caught up talking with Boyd, he'd forget about introducing him to "Rachel." "Oh, maybe the fact that I've seen your truck down at Jake's Bar at least three times in the last week?" "Research, my friend, research," Mulder grinned. "No way the CDC is going to believe my reports of unsanitary conditions if I can't back it up with a little evidence." Boyd gave a short laugh. "You probably washed all that unpleasant evidence down with a shot or two of gin." "Never!" Mulder protested indignantly. "I'm extremely faithful to my long-standing drinking buddy, Mr. Cuervo." "Except for the occasional fling with Mr. Daniels," John pointed out helpfully. "Sounds like a regular old run-around to me," a sweet female voice broke in, and all three men unconsciously straightened up on were on best behavior. "Ms. Rachel," Boyd greeted her respectfully, and the Admiral echoed him. "Hello, Boyd; John. And..." she turned expectantly to Mulder, her eyes open with curiosity. Play-acting. "I'm, um, David Samson. We, uh... we met, the other night, on the beach." She nodded. "It's nice to see you again, Miss Cartwright," he mumbled almost shyly. "Rachel," she corrected with an amused smile at his discomfort. "Rachel," he parroted, looking down briefly at the floor to collect his thoughts. "Oh!" he blurted, reaching into his pocket. "Almost forgot. I, uh... you left your ATM card at the grocery store Thursday night. Um, here." He handed the card to her, face down so the name wasn't visible. "Thank you, Mr. Samson," she smiled, taking it from him and tucking it into the small pocket on the front of her jacket without looking at it. "David, please," he smiled at her, just beginning to find his footing and slide into his normal easy charm. "Of course." She smiled a full smile at him, and he felt all his charm go out the window along with rational thought. "Well, boys, I'm afraid I have to go. See you later, Boyd, John. It was nice seeing you again, David." "Yeah, it was. Maybe I'll see you around later?" he asked hopefully, and she regarded him with searching eyes. There were so many levels to his question. "Maybe so," she smiled as she turned to go. "Oh, Rachel, wait!" John called as she moved down the hall. "Yes, John?" "I nearly forgot. I came here to tell you... that man, the one I saw in the grocery store the other night?" "Yeah?" "He's asking about you again." Scully's eyes locked with Mulder's for a split second before he smoothed his features out to polite concern. She'd seen it, though; the look of worry, anger, jealousy. John caught the glance, but misinterpreted it by some stroke of luck. "Oh, don't worry about David, Rachel. He already knows a little. He was there the night you called me, and... I was worried about you, and..." He trailed off, embarrassed, as Scully's eyebrow arched skyward. Mulder jumped in to save the Admiral, if not himself. "I asked, Ms. Cartwright. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry... and the Admiral had a few drinks that night; I'm sure he didn't mean to..." Despite all his prior experience with it, Mulder wasn't immune to that eyebrow either. An eerie silence settled over them, punctuated by Boyd's typing at the computer, entering data and pretending he hadn't heard anything. "Um, maybe I'd better be going," Mulder mumbled, beginning to back away, a sheepish smile on his face. "It was very nice to see you again, Ms. Cartwright, and I hope to see you again soon." She was tempted to say, "Don't bet on it," but instead gave him a polite smile and a small wave. He nodded politely and left the building, running a hand through his hair in that way he had that let her know his emotions were in turmoil. Good. At least she wasn't the only one. She glanced over at John and saw the penitent, mournful look on his face, and realized she was probably glaring. "It's okay, John. I'm not upset with you. I'm just a little tired and unsettled; I had a rough night last night." "Ghosts?" John asked sympathetically. "Excuse me?" she questioned sharply, her eyes narrowing at his choice of words. "Um, ghosts... you know, like, memories you'd rather forget but they won't leave you alone? I didn't mean actual spirits..." She shook her head, feeling foolish. "Of course not. And you have =no= idea." Boyd glanced up at her from the computer, acknowledging the conversation for the first time. "Still having trouble sleeping, Dana?" She nodded, touching a hand to her forehead. "Actually, yeah. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to go lie down. I've already made the sandwiches for lunch; they're in the cooler in the clubhouse..." He waved off her concern. "Go. Take a nap. In fact, take the rest of the day off, on me. I'll set out the sandwiches today. You deserve a break." She smiled, grateful. "Thanks, Boyd." "Don't mention it," he grinned at her. His smile faded to a frown of concern, and John bore a matching expression as they watched her tired stride toward the elevators. "I don't like it," John muttered. "Something's wrong." "Something's definitely wrong," Boyd agreed. He shook his head and made a notation in his log book. "But I think she and David would get along, don't you?" He looked meaningfully at his old friend. John's smile bore a hint of mischief and plotting. "I definitely think I got that vibe from them." Boyd nodded. "I think they used to call it 'chemistry' back when anyone had any sense." The strangely dignified little man shook his head, peeking over the rims of his round spectacles at the Admiral. "Feel like a drink?" John breathed out a sigh of relief. "Dear God, man, I thought you'd never ask." Boyd called in Kimmie, one of the other girls who worked there, and asked her to set out the lunch sandwiches and not to bother Ms. Cartwright under any circumstances, and then he and John were off to Jake's for a much-needed rendezvous with a certain Mr. Daniels. *** "And I would be the one To hold you down -- Kiss you so hard -- I'll take your breath away." {-"Possession" - Sarah McLachlan} *** Scully stumbled into her apartment, sucking in a deep breath and exhaling it as a half-sob. She could still smell Mulder. Dear God, why could she still smell him? She carefully avoided the kitchen as she headed straight for her bedroom, dropping pieces of clothing as she went, finally stepping out of her shoes and peeling off her pantyhose before sliding between the sheets, loving the feel of the cool soft cotton against her bare skin. She sighed as she settled into her pillow, closing her eyes against the ache in her head. She hadn't slept at all the night before, sitting silently against the door, listening to Mulder's breathing on the other side. She knew the moment he'd fallen asleep, and had gotten up to get into her bed, but had only tossed and turned until it was too late to bother trying to catch any shut-eye at all. Exhausted, she felt her consciousness slide out of her like an essence, and gratefully fell into the embrace of Hypnos, sweet and easy. *** He stood outside her apartment, his hand hovering over the door knob. He'd watched her go in; she'd never seen him. He knew she hadn't locked the door -- he'd listened. He hesitated, unsure, listening to her move around inside before he reached out for the door knob again, only to jerk his hand back and duck into the shadows as he heard footsteps approaching. *** The door swung open to reveal a dark living room, no lights on, and she breathed a sigh of exhaustion. She'd been gone all day, running errands, and it was closing in on eleven o'clock. She gasped as two strong hands grasped her waist, but she relaxed as she felt his lips descend on hers and recognized their warmth and texture. His hands started roaming, leaving no doubt as to where he intended the kiss to go. "Mulder, no, we'll wake up Hannah," she murmured against his mouth, but he insisted without words, pressing his hips against hers so that she could feel how serious he was about this. She felt her insides turning to liquid and pooling between her legs as he covered her lips with his open mouth, roughly plunging his tongue between her teeth. His lips moved as if he were trying to devour her alive, and she trembled, catching hold of his shoulders to hold herself up. That was when she noticed that he didn't have a shirt on, when his golden warm skin burned like firebrands under her palms. He pulled away momentarily, looking into her eyes as much as he could in the chiaroscuro room, growling in a husky, unrecognizable voice, "I've been waiting for you all day." He turned her around, pulling her tightly against his body so that his arms crossed over her stomach and the curve of her back melded perfectly with his torso, his erection pushing into her ass. He nipped at her ear, breathing hotly into it as he continued, "When Hannah was down for her nap, I lay on the couch and imagined what I'd do to you when you got home." She groaned, and one of his hands darted under her shirt, tickling her stomach in a movement that under any other circumstances would have had her squirming away -- but he already had her so completely turned on all she did was thrust her ass back into his hips in wordless supplication. He sucked in his breath in reaction, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. Exhaling slowly, he licked the lobe of her ear, sucking on it before he breathed again, his movements matching his words. "I imagined that I would seduce you slowly, teasing your perfect breasts and pinching and rolling your nipples until they were so hard under my fingers, as hard as my cock that I was pressing against you..." She moaned deep in her throat and he pulled her head around, kissing her forcefully and deeply. "And then," he gasped, lowering them to the floor until she was lying flat on her stomach, his body draped heavily over hers. "I would take you hard and fast and deep right here on the floor, fucking you from behind..." She made a strangled sound in her throat. She was so turned on by now that if he didn't make good on those threats soon she was just going to... Oh, oh my... he sat up, straddling her ass, and she pushed herself up slightly, turning to look at him. A slash of light from the window fell directly across his face, and the expression there made her shiver. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a feral, hungry smile and his eyes glittered dangerously as he reached for the fly of his jeans, throwing them open and sliding the denim down over his hips, being much more careful with the material of his boxers. Kneeling as he was, he couldn't remove the clothing any further, but he wasn't willing to move, and she couldn't think about it in a second anyway. He reached down between them, pushing her flimsy skirt up and yanking her panties down her thighs, again not taking the time to remove them completely. There was really no need. She felt his fingers brush lightly against the soft sensitive skin he uncovered, finding it swollen and wet. "Fuck..." he breathed. "That's the idea," she rasped, and he laughed shortly before all thought of talk left them. He reached under her, clutching her waist, and pulled her upward and backward at the same time, and she threw her head back and gasped deep in her throat as she felt his thick shaft shove forcefully into her. "Ooohhhh God," she moaned, the sound so gutteral she didn't recognize it as her own voice at first. He clawed at the front of her blouse, the buttons scattering, and pushed her bra up so that her breasts spilled out underneath the cups, roughly clutching at them with one hand while the other groped between her legs, finding sensitive flesh there and grinding his fingertips against it. He leaned forward until she was face down on the floor again, then sat back up quickly, taking her with him, her weight forcing him deeper inside. He thrust upward vehemently, and she fell forward on her forearms. He leaned over her, turning her face to his and devouring her mouth, his teeth clashing with hers, his tongue delving back almost into her throat. She clutched his hair with her hand, returning the kiss with equal force. His hand and hips were still busy, and they both pressed upward at exactly the same moment, making her break the kiss with a sharp gasp that escaped as a hiss between clenched teeth. He released her breast, and she fell forward again when the support was unexpectedly removed. She felt his hand fist in her hair, arching her back in a concave shape as he thrust low and deep, riding her hard. A sound got choked in the base of her throat as it tried to escape her chest, and he released her hair, grabbing instead at the bra that was still fastened around her ribcage, using that as a cowboy uses the rope while riding a bucking horse. The image flashed momentarily in her mind, but was immediately replaced by a tumultuous feeling as Mulder clutched her skirt and yanked her hips down and backwards at the same time he thrust up and forwards. She felt her body begin to tremble in warning. "Shit," she breathed, completely overcome with the sensations flooding her. And then it happened, and she felt the scream beginning from deep within her abdomen. Something reminded her that she had to be quiet, and she bit down on the closest thing, which happened to be Mulder's hand. Understanding, he obligingly held his palm over her mouth as her climax hit her with unprecedented violence, arching her back and making her cry out from her deepest part. Her muscles clenching around him crushed his control, and suddenly he was pressed heavily against her back, and she was on her side as he thrust erratically up into her. She felt him roll her onto her stomach, his hand coming around to clutch her breast again and his other hand holding onto her upper arm as she clawed at the floor, scrambling for purchase against the hardwood, trying to gain enough of a handhold to brace herself as he thrust faster, harder, aching for his own release. Finally, he came, biting down on her shoulder to muffle his own hoarse yell of climax. She turned her head to see him, his face contorted in the agony of this peculiar ecstasy. After he breathed for a moment, regaining his equilibrium, his eyes fluttered open and he saw her watching him. Catching her chin in his hand, he kissed her fervently, passionately, though not as violently as before. When they broke apart, he whispered, "Can you move? Cos I don't think I can..." She hummed in sleepy contentment, her violent orgasm having exhausted her. "Are you kidding? I can't even feel my legs." He laughed softly. "Legs? What legs?" His hair was dripping sweat, plastered to his forehead. "You're beautiful, you know that?" she whispered, working one hand out from under them to push the strands away from his eyes. "I don't even know my own name," he grinned, then moaned as he rolled off of her, lying flat on his back, one hand laying palm-flat against his chest. She sighed, and snuggled against him, wiggling under his arm so that he held her tenderly, her ruined blouse sticking to her back with the sweat there. "I know exactly what you mean," she murmured, smiling at his jaw-cracking yawn as they drifted to sleep on the hardwood floor of their living room. Scully awoke with a start, drenched in sweat, sitting up in bed, barely registering that she was in her underwear. Groaning, she flopped back down on the bed, throwing an arm across her eyes. She hadn't been having those dreams for years, but now, with Mulder's reappearance... she sighed, licking her lips and tasting the salt of sweat. What was worse was that she knew that dream had actually happened. Remembered it with vivid clarity, in fact. Geez... she moaned again and rolled over onto her stomach, squeezing her legs together tightly in an attempt to ease the ache between them. she told her memories and dreams sharply. *** It'd been awhile since anyone had called him "Spooky," but not so long that his Spooky-sense had gone out of working order. He paused in front of Scully's apartment door, his hand raised to knock, when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with the certainty that something was amiss. He sensed the movement behind him and whirled to see a gleam of light in a thin line that meant only one thing: the barrel of a revolver was pointed straight at his head. Ducking in order to miss a shot he knew must be coming, he kicked his leg up, connecting with the shadow's stomach and sending it slamming back into the wall. He heard the 'zing' of the bullet muffled by a silencer just nanoseconds before he felt the heat rip through his side, and he collapsed to the ground in a senseless heap. *** She jumped, throwing the covers back as she heard the dull thud-and-slide at her door. Having the presence of mind to tug on the white button-up dress shirt she'd discarded, she fastened three of the important buttons on her way. Pulling it open, she gasped in surprise and dismay when Mulder fell gracelessly against her feet. "Mulder? Mulder, are you okay?" She knelt, two fingers immediately going to his neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, though thready and erratic. Then she saw the dark stain seeping through the material of his shirt, just under his ribcage. "Oh, dear God..." *** His first impression was of soft warmth surrounding him in a golden-red glow. His next was of the gentle cadence of a concerned voice, chanting his name in a calming mantra. "Scuh-lee?" he rasped, realizing how dry his throat was. "Ssh, Mulder," she responded, and he felt a cool wet cloth descend on his forehead to soothe the feverish burn there. His eyes fluttered open and erratic splotches of red on white registered against his retinas. "Scuh-lee..." he tried again, this time his forehead wrinkling in concern. "You're going to be okay, Mulder, just lie still," she told him, this time a little more forcefully. His instinct was to protest, to tell her he was worried about her, but it occurred to him that the blood on her shirt was his, not hers, and he relaxed. Only to tense up again a half-second later, sucking in a harsh breath at the sharp, merciless sting of the antiseptic against his tender side. "Sorry," she murmured, although she didn't stop her cleansing ministrations. His eyes slipped shut, and he felt himself sliding back into unconsciousness. His last coherent thought was of the woman tending to him, and the knowledge that he was *** "Mulder, please, please be okay," she pleaded with him in a soft murmur as she pressed the antiseptic-soaked cloth against the wound in his side. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered, leaning into him, throwing all her body weight into pressing against the flow of blood. "Stop bleeding, please stop bleeding..." "Oh, Mulder; Mulder, please don't die... please, Mulder..." "Scuh-lee?" His head turned toward her slightly, and she sucked in a breath of relief. He was conscious! "Ssh, Mulder," she murmured, dipping a washcloth into the bowl of water by the bed and gently mopping his forehead to soothe the fever she knew was raging. He repeated her name, and she saw his forehead crease in distress. "You're going to be okay," she told him, as much to hear it herself as to let him hear it. He breathed out a sigh, and she saw when he lost awareness again. She felt warm liquid against her fingers, and looked down to see that the cloth was soaked in his blood. She tossed it aside and grabbed a clean one, again throwing all her body weight into applying pressure. "You just have to stop bleeding," she whispered, bowing her head until it touched his bare shoulder. "Please, please stop bleeding." She felt her breath reflecting onto her face from his skin, and couldn't stop her impulse to purse her lips, pressing a pleading kiss to the gentle swell of his bicep. "Don't die. Please don't die." *** "You shot whom?" The voice was low and quiet, barely a rumble in the room precariously lit by the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead. "A man - came to her door - he, he saw me - I don't know how - and he kicked me in the stomach... and, and I just pulled the trigger -" A pale hand was raised to signal his silence, and he swallowed hard. "Was he killed?" "I, I don't know - I heard the woman come to the door and I left before she could see me." An eyebrow arched dangerously. "Why didn't you shoot her too?" His eyes widened, and he squeaked out, "I panicked! You didn't tell me there would be anyone else there!" A look was shared between the inquisitor and the dark haired man leaning against the wall in the heavily-shadowed room. During their silent conference, the young man shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. At least he wasn't being screamed at -- when the voice reached that high screeching, it was painful -- but he had a feeling that this deliberate calmness was even more dangerous. Finally they seemed to have reached an agreement, and the voice spoke again. "That will be all." He resisted the urge to bow and back out of the room, instead turning sharply on his heel and trying not to look to eager to reach the exit. The man's voice stopped him. "Morgan!" He turned, swallowing hard. "Yes, sir?" "You have one more chance before you are relieved of your duties with us and the privilege of life. Is that clear?" Somehow, he found his voice. "Yes, sir. Crystal." "You may leave now." *** Krycek watched with narrowed eyes as Dennis Morgan left the room. "Incompetence," he muttered, still staring at the closed door as if he could bypass it to kill the young man who had just exited through it. "You're sure he's in town?" the woman asked. Krycek nodded. "I spoke with him." "Do you think he's the one Dennis shot?" Krycek made a noncommittal noise. "It's always a possibility." She made a distressed little sound in the back of her throat, and Krycek regarded her with mocking eyes. "Does that thought upset you, Diana?" he purred. "Does the thought of Mulder, bleeding and injured, possibly dying, make you angry? Sad?" He laughed, a short burst of derisive cadence. She glared at him, and he returned the expression. "Somehow I think Mulder would prefer an honest gunshot wound to having his daughter killed." "We didn't kill her!" she protested vehemently. "No thanks to you," he reminded her. "You would have. You and Spender were all ready to kill her, just to save your own asses." He let his eyes rake over her body, and she shivered, feeling exposed. "Not that yours is worth saving," he added, and her face flushed bright red, although she kept admirable control over the anger that bloomed in her eyes. "I wouldn't say you have much room to talk, Alex," she commented coolly, her lips tightening. A wicked grin spread across his face and his eyes glittered with malice. "That's not what you said two weeks ago," he grinned. He strode over to the exit, pausing in the open doorway to turn back to her and comment, "Oh, by the way. I suggest you find our littlest guinea pig -- Heseltine lost her again." She bit her lip and closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing, trying to get over the memory he had thrown at her. Two weeks ago, she had slipped into Krycek's quarters, wearing a black teddy under a long black silk robe, intent on seducing him. He had laughed at her, saying that even he had limits, but she might try one of their test subjects because, after all, "Everybody has their level." She couldn't remember ever feeling so foolish in her life. She couldn't afford to think about that right now, thought. She had more important things to worry about, like how to fix Dennis Morgan's mistake, and finding Hannah. That child had nearly escaped more times than she cared to think about. She had hoped that, being Fox's daughter, the girl might have some potential to be attached to her. Her lips twisted downward as she reflected that the child had more of Dana Scully in her than she wanted to know about, and Diana had the scars to prove it. Sighing, she exited the room as well, flicking off the fluorescent light as she left, not turning to see the two spots of phosphorescent green that glowed dimly in the far corner of the room. *** It was deja-vu all over again, she told herself grimly, listening to his feverish whimpers as she wrapped the white cloth bandage tightly around his abdomen. One more time of nursing Mulder through a delirious fever. Just what she needed. She finished tugging off his jeans and turned back the covers, just leaving the sheets covering his feet to ward off the worst of chills. She sat cross-legged on the bed beside him, letting her fingertips brush across his face, memorizing every new line that had been etched across the planes and curves since she'd seen him last. She reflected with some awe at the strangeness of life. This man lying beside her was merely constructed of muscles, skin, tendons, and ligaments stretched over and around grayish white bone and rich red-brown marrow, protecting soft organ tissue and housing a passionate, mysterious, beautiful soul. Would he be as beautiful if any of it were changed? Would she love him as much if the planes of his jaw weren't quite so angular? If his lower lip didn't curve just so? Would she love him as much if he weren't so infuriating? If he didn't make her want to strangle him so often, would he still be an inseparable part of her that she couldn't sentence to her past no matter how hard she tried? She dipped her fingertips into the glass of ice water by the bed, trailing the cold drops across his parched lips. The tip of his tongue came out to flick at them, and his head thrashed on the pillow. She knew she should call a doctor; take him to the hospital. But for some reason, she couldn't make herself give him up to anyone else's care. This was her job, her responsibility, her purpose to fulfill, her life to save. There wasn't much they could do for him that she couldn't do, anyway. Sitting silently beside him, not disturbing him except to occasionally bathe him down with a cool rag, she had nothing to occupy her mind except the dream she'd had just before she discovered him, wounded and helpless, outside her door. The two images of him weren't quite meshing, and she wanted to cry from the frustration of not being able to reconcile all the Mulders in her mind. There was the beautiful paradox of an intense, angry, vulnerable young man that she'd met in the basement of the FBI building. There was the friend and protector she'd gradually come to know as her partner - especially after her abduction and return. There was the other half of her life, laughing and joking with her, teasing and peaceful, who had found answers to questions he'd been asking all his life and had hoped and believed with her for a miracle of their own making. There was the confused, hurt, withdrawn figure that had been thrown unceremoniously back into a world that had gone on without him and left him behind, unsure of his role and place in anything and everything - especially the two most important things to him: her life and the X-files. There was the quiet, confident, easy companion who had gradually come to terms with a deeper maturity than she had thought him capable of. There was the happy, loving father, living for the sight of his daughter's smile, the sound of her laughter; the devoted husband who loved her with a passion that surpassed anything she'd ever known could exist for an extended amount of time between two people. And then there was the madman, the one who had run off to lick his own wounds and left her behind, crippled with her own, only to return now as a would-be suitor, asking to be let back into her life. She sighed, brushing a hand lightly over his chest to test the temperature. She frowned. Surely he hadn't been that hot before... it wasn't that bad of a fever, after all. Grabbing the thermometer from the table, she carefully inserted it under his tongue, listening to the electronic beeps as it registered his temperature. It gave one long beep to signify its completion, and she tugged it out, her eyes widening at the number. 104.5 Dear God! Sustaining a fever that high could kill him. She leaped from the bed and sprinted into the bathroom, snatching a few of her bath towels from the shelf beside the tub. She ran a few inches of cool water into the tub, soaking the towels and then wringing out the excess liquid. She carried them into the bedroom and stretched them over his parched skin, smoothing the terrycloth over the planes of his body. "Don't do this to me," she commanded him. "You are going to break this fever, you understand me? You're gonna be just fine. Promise." Sighing, she settled onto the bed beside him again, curling up beside him, her hands tucked neatly under her chin, not touching him at all - just watching and willing him to be okay. *** The silence of the hall was merely rippled, not broken, by the almost non-sound of softly padded feet sliding over the surface of the tiles. The light disappeared into the black body like as if into an abyss, and reflected in the round green eyes. A small ivory hand broke the endless black motif, resting gently on the animal's spine, just behind its shoulders. The child and panther reached a fork in the hall and paused, looking down both hallways before turning to each other, understanding in their eyes. The panther made a soft snuffling sound before trotting down the hall to his right, the child turning and gliding down the corridor to her left - twin shadows sliding along the walls, undetected by the troubled souls that dwelt behind the doors that punctuated the foyer. *** "The child is a liability!" "I agree! She has been allowed to survive far too long now. She has served her purpose!" "She has outlived her usefulness!" Krycek held up his hands in an attempt to silence the insistent voices around the table. "Listen!" he commanded, and they fell silent with a few residual murmurs. "You -" he pointed to the young African woman sitting with her hands folded demurely on the table top, composed and dignified. "- and you -" he nodded toward a blind man with an ugly scar visible on his neck and running down under his collar. "Both of you, Ms. Ngebe and Dr. Barnes, believe that most of our religious literature was sent to us by extraterrestrials, is that correct?" The African woman nodded, agreeing in a softly-accented voice, "Yes, Alex. From what I found in Cote d'Ivoire, that would seem to be implied." "And I know some of you idiots had to have gone to Sunday school as children. Does anyone happen to recognize the phrase, 'And a little child shall lead them'?" A rather severe-looking, heavyset man spoke up from the other end of the table. "What are you saying, Alex? That this brat is some sort of 'chosen one' to fulfill a prophecy? That's a little Star Wars-ish, isn't it?" Krycek sneered at the speaker. "Some of us have better things to do with our time than watch science fiction films, Mr. Hudson, but for lack of better phrasing, yes, that is what I am saying." Amina Ngebe spoke up, the pleasant lilt of her voice emphasizing the intensity of her tone. "She has already proven herself to be resistant to all forms of the virus we have tested on her." "She's also much too clever for her own good," Mick Heseltine added, glowering. "She knows too much." "And she has her parents' sensibilities and morals," Diana Fowley put in disapprovingly. "She could bring the entire project down before we even knew what hit us." "I still stand by what I said before," Jeffrey Spender insisted. "She is a liability and must be disposed of." "You still don't get it, do you?" Krycek addressed the group. "She may be our only hope." *** "We're running out of time, Amina," Krycek mused in a low voice as he strolled leisurely toward his quarters, the young African woman gliding regally beside him. "I don't know how much longer I can convince them that Hannah will serve us better alive." Amina turned liquid brown eyes to him, sympathy playing over her expression. "I have no desire to see Dana's daughter harmed in the name of this crusade. You know that." He nodded, stopping in front of a door and unlocking it with a keycard. He opened the door slightly, looking back at her. "Are you coming in?" She shook her head. "Not tonight, no." She was silent for a moment, considering. "Alex, may I ask you something?" He nodded. "Of course." Her eyes bore into his, riveting him. "Do you really think that Hannah is the one who will save us?" He regarded her silently for a moment before stepping inside his room and closing the door silently behind him. Amina stood in the hall for a moment longer, a look of concentration and concern etched across her lovely features. Shaking her head, she headed for her own quarters, not noticing the pair of bright green eyes that followed her from the shadows. *** Scully looked at the clock, blinking several times in a valiant attempt to clear her blurring vision. the voice in her head noted. Twenty-three hours since Mulder had been wounded. Yet another night without sleep, thanks to the man beside her. His fever had broken seven hours ago, but she didn't feel comfortable going to sleep; not with a would-be assassin roaming about. She sat up in bed, doing crossword puzzles and casting regular glances at the small handgun that rested on her bedside table, within easy reach. Thank God for concealed weapons permits. Her background as an FBI agent didn't hurt any in securing the gun, either. At 5:30, she had called Boyd, explaining that she was ill and would not be able to work that morning. It wasn't a lie, either. She was beginning to feel very ill, indeed. She yawned, nearly falling over when the dizziness in her head reminded her that she was getting too old to pull two all-nighters in a row. Sighing with resignation, she got up and checked the locks on all her doors, then crawled back into bed with Mulder, tucking the gun under her pillow and falling asleep almost immediately. *** He chuckled quietly as he watched the videotape play out on the monitor before him, unable to erase the grin on his face. He knew he'd be in trouble if *she* decided to walk in anytime soon, but he was willing to risk it this time. "Alex?" came a soft, female voice, and he turned to see Amina standing in the doorway. "Come in, Amina," he gestured. "Close the door behind you." She did as she was told, despite the fact that it cut off any source of light besides the cold bluish light of the monitor screen. "What are you watching?" she asked, standing beside his chair, her hands clasped gracefully in front of her. "This is the tape of Hannah's preliminary interviews," he grinned, reaching over to take one of her slender hands in his. She let him, easily twining their fingers as she sat in the chair beside him. "This is the session with Diana," he explained, and they turned up the volume ever-so-slightly, just so the voices were easily audible to them, but not very loud, despite the fact that they were in a soundproof room. <"Hello, Hannah, my name is Diana. May I sit here with you?"> They watched as the child regarded her with narrowed green eyes before she nodded once, regally. <"I suppose so."> Amina chuckled at Hannah's manner. It was typical of the girl, even now. <"I'm one of your daddy's friends from a long time ago, and --"> <"Are you Diana Flowery?"> Hannah interrupted, one of her eyebrows arching in a manner that was eerily similar to her mother. Diana appeared astonished and pleased. <"My name is Diana Fowley, yes..."> she answered hesitantly. <"Has your father told you bout me?"> Hannah shook her head, her green eyes going wide. <"No, Mommy and Daddy have fights about you sometimes, when they think I'm asleep."> <"Fights?"> Amina thought disgustedly that the woman actually seemed pleased, as if she wanted to be a source of contention between the child's parents. Hannah nodded emphatically. <"Yes, sometimes they get really loud. Mommy calls you a 'bitch' and Daddy says that she shouldn't say that about you, even if it is true, because it isn't nice to talk about dead people like that and --"> she paused, regarding Diana - who had gone speechless - with appraising eyes. <"Daddy says you're dead, but you're not, are you?"> The young girl shook off the anomaly with the elastic ease that only comes with childhood. <"But I guess he's just imagining, again. Mommy says Daddy sometimes imagines things that aren't there - but he usually imagines that dead people are alive, not that alive people are dead."> Amina and Krycek shared a glance and a soft laugh. "She certainly is a precocious young thing, isn't she?" Amina questioned. Krycek nodded agreement. "Very self-assured. I'd say she got that in spades, from both of her parents." They focused on the screen again as Hannah's mood swung drastically, her full lower lip trembling as her green eyes grew moist. <"I miss my Daddy and my Mommy,"> she told Diana candidly. <"Will I see them again soon?"> Amina looked at Krycek, her eyes wide and sincere. "Alex, we must get her out of here." He nodded, his eyes still focused on the monitor, where Diana was lying, telling Hannah she'd see them again very soon and not to worry, as she stood up and left the interview room in a huff. "I know, love. I know. I'm trying." *** "Ain't nobody gonna say goodbye No ain't nobody gonna walk away This time, baby, I'm learnin' how to love you." {-"Like I Love You" - Amy Grant} *** She heard a movement in the living room and was out of the bed, her gun in her hand, before she even realized she was awake. Glancing over her shoulder to check on Mulder, she saw the empty space where he had been, the sheets rumpled. She was worried momentarily, but then saw the bathroom light on and relaxed. Silently, she crept into the living room, where the sunlight barely filtered through her dark curtains, lighting the room with a dim, dark-blue ambiance. There was a shadowy figure walking quietly toward the front door, and her eyes narrowed with fury as she recognized the silhouette. *** He heard the 'click' of a gun hammer sliding into place as her voice commanded authoritatively, "Hold it right there! I'm armed!" He put his hands up in the air and tried to turn around, but she shouted, "Don't move! I'll shoot!" He believed her. "Scully, it's me," he said as calmly and evenly as he could, standing perfectly still as she'd commanded. "I know," she said in a dangerously low tone. "Believe me, I know." "Then why do you have a gun pointed at me? And cocked, I might add?" He wished he could turn around and see her face, but he knew her, and he knew she'd shoot, just as she'd said. "We're not doing this again. I am not going to watch you walk away from me again. You are staying here, and if you try anything else, I'll pull this trigger. You know I will. And you won't be as lucky as you have been up until now." He grimaced, feeling a remembered twinge in his shoulder that echoed the ones in his side and in his thigh. How many times could a person be shot before he started getting lead poisoning, anyway? "All right, Scully," he placated her. "All right. I'm staying." Personally, he thought he'd never spoken sweeter words. *** His lips twisted with wry humor when he noticed that the handgun was lying well within her reach, glimmering with silent menace on the coffee table. They were at opposite ends of the couch - again - with her legs tucked up under her, shrinking away from him. Her arms were crossed across her chest and her mouth was set in a pout of intense displeasure. "Exactly what did you think you were doing?" she demanded without preamble, and he was torn between amusement and feeling like she still had the gun pointed at his head. "Honestly? I was getting a glass of water. I was thirsty, and you were sleeping. I was just going to get some, and go back to bed." "You should not be getting out of bed with that gun wound, Mulder. It isn't smart." Her eyes narrowed. "How is it, anyway? The pain?" He lifted up his bloodstained t-shirt, which he'd slipped back on, to poke at the bandaged area. "Well, it doesn't hurt much, really. It's a little tender, like a bruise, but not as much as gunshot wounds usually do." Perplexed, she pursed her lips thoughtfully and knelt beside him, in full doctor-mode now, forgetting everything except the oddity of what he had told her. "That's strange," she murmured. "It should still be very painful." She snatched the medical tape away from his skin, barely registering his gasp. "Ouch, Scully!" he complained. "That hurts worse than the gunshot!" "Shut up, Mulder," she murmured, probing his soft flesh with her fingertips. "This is bizarre," she whispered. "This is absolutely... incredible." "Well, thanks, Scully, but it's really just a normal torso, nothing very spec -- OW!" He glared at her, craning his neck to look at the red mark on his skin where she'd just pinched him. "What'd you do that for?" "You figure it out, bright boy," she muttered, still pressing the area around the wound. Shaking her head, she stood up, her hands on her hips. "Well, let's face it, Mulder. You're just a medical miracle." He tugged the t-shirt back down, grinning, "I think you just wanted to cop a feel." "My gun's still loaded, Mulder," she warned. "So is mine," he leered. She looked down at the floor, and he could tell she was trying to hide a smile. "You're being awfully confident, considering the state of our relationship right now, don't you think?" "Hey, you just admitted we even =have= a relationship. I think I'm feelin' pretty damn good." She shook her head. "I also happen to have a relationship with Alex Krycek, but it's not one that exactly gives me the warm fuzzies." He decided to stop that line of conversation before it went any further. "So what's so incredible about my abdomen, Dr. Scully?" She sat down on the couch, all business again in a matter of seconds. "Remember, about nine years ago - before Hannah was born - when you were abducted and returned in pretty rough shape?" He nodded. "And subsequently buried and resurrected." She tilted her chin downward in acquiescence. "And your... your scars from the time you were... gone... just, faded? Like your body had developed the skill of rapid regeneration?" He nodded again, his lips pursed and his eyebrows drawn together slightly. "Are you saying that I retained that quality?" "That's exactly what I'm saying." He shook his head slightly. "So, what does that mean?" She looked up at him, strands of blondish hair falling into one of her blue eyes. "The only other person I've ever seen display these characteristics of regeneration was Cassandra Spender." His eyes widened with the implications of what she'd said. "So, are you saying...?" She gave him a haunted look, lifting her shoulders in a helpless shrug. "I can't say anything for certain, Mulder, but it's a possibility. It's always a possibility." *** "Mr. Montgomery, Admiral Musgrove? Would you like anything else to drink? My shift's about to end, but Kris will be on next." Admiral Musgrove grinned up at the young blonde waitress, and she shook her head. He was obviously buzzing nicely. she thought ruefully, reflecting on the mostly-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. Their third one between them. "How about some coffee, Jen? That would be wonderful." She pursed her lips and looked to Boyd, who nodded his agreement. "I'll be sure to make you boys a strong brew, that's for sure." "Thanks, Jen," Boyd smiled absently, and she walked away to retrieve their coffee as the two men leaned in over the table like schoolboys whispering their plans to smoke a cigarette behind the locker rooms. When she returned, she plunked the mugs down between them, startling them apart. "There. Try that, and if it isn't good enough, I'll send Joe out here to convince you." She stood over them, her hands on her hips, like a mother making sure her children ate all their vegetables without slipping them under the edge of the plate. They took careful sips of the steaming liquid. Boyd Montgomery choked slightly, while the Admiral's eyes lit up. He put his cup down and looked up at Jen with wide eyes. "Marry me, Jenny," he beggedd her, clasping her hand, and she rolled her eyes. "Ah, John, I'd love to, but you'd only get tired of me and leave me, and then where would I be? I'd never be satisfied by another man." The older man snorted and released her hand to take another sip of coffee. "I'd get tired out by you, more likely," he muttered, and she winked at him before sliding their bill onto the table. "There's your tab. And before you decide you can't afford the tip, remember that I =did= warn you about the money when you were halfway through the second bottle, =plus= I stayed well over my shift to make sure you boys had enough coffee." "It's only two minutes past your shift!" John protested, checking his watch. "Yeah, well, two minutes is two minutes. And I'm not getting time and a half." "Well, thanks, princess," John said deliberately, and she smiled with affected sweetness as she recognized the joke. "You're welcome, *honeybuns*," she answered with a wink, turning on her heel, and tugging off her dark blue half-apron as she went. "Oh to be a younger man," the Admiral sighed as he tipped his coffee cup again, watching her retreating backside. "All right, John, that's enough wishful thinking for one day. Back to the business at hand," Boyd directed, pushing his coffee away from him warily. "Oh, right. Fox and Dana." "Precisely." "Well," the Admiral began, toying with the handle of the white mug in front of him. "There's always the chance that we should stay out of it, let them work it out themselves and keep thinking we don't have a clue..." Boyd laughed. "That might be highly entertaining. Watching them trying to be 'Rachel' and 'David' to each other was high comedy of Wilde-ean caliber." "'Wilde-ean,' Boyd?" The other man shrugged. "Whatever. It was amusing." John nodded agreeably. "That it was. You should have seen the look on Mulder's face when I gave him my 'personal offense' speech." "The one about hurting Dana?" "That's the one." "Damn, I wish I'd been there to see it. Must've been a helluva performance, my friend." John's eyebrows raised. "You've been spending too much time with me and Mr. Daniels. You're starting to talk like a sailor!" Boyd just grinned, eyeing the remaining drops of amber liquid in the bottle on the table. "Anyway," he said slowly, returning to their previous conversation. "What's our other option?" "Much less fun. We could tell them we know who they are and attempt to help them as such." The two men regarded each other silently for a moment, before chorusing with a chuckling, "Naaahhh," and toasting with their coffee mugs. "Here's to Rachel and David!" John chuckled, and Boyd laughed his agreement as they tipped their cups back. John swallowed with a satisfied smack of his lips as Boyd sputtered on the strong coffee. "That stuff has to be illegal," he muttered, and was startled by Jen as she sailed past to the door, throwing back a smug, "It is!" over her shoulder. *** "You can't fix this pain with money You can't rush a weary soul You can't sweep it under the rug now, honey Don't take a lot to know - It may not be over by morning, But Rome wasn't built in a day." {-"Takes a Little Time" - Amy Grant} *** "Basically, what you're saying is that I am quite possibly an alien-human hybrid." Scully shivered, rubbing her hands over her arms to ward off the chill. "Don't say that, Mulder. I'm saying you're displaying the same characteristics as Cassandra Spender --" "Who was the first successful alien-human hybrid," he interrupted. She glared at him. "You are human, Mulder. You are not an alien." "Why, Scully? Would it be so bad if I were an alien?" She was silent and he searched her face, insisting. "Scully? Would it?" "Yes, Mulder, it would." She bit her lip and refused to look at him. He shifted on the couch, scooting closer to her and lifting her chin with his index finger. "Hey," he said softly, looking into her eyes. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm me. I'm Mulder. Even if I do have alien biology now, it doesn't change who *I* am." She blinked back tears, trying to look away from him. "I know," she whispered. She looked back at him again and tried to smile before looking down shyly, licking her lips nervously as she drew in a shaky breath. Still tipping her chin upward, he leaned forward, his lips pressing reassuringly against hers. She didn't respond, but she didn't move away, and his tongue flicked out, teasing her lips. They were slightly open beneath his, and he slid his hand behind her neck, deepening the kiss. She gasped, scrambling off the couch and backing away from him, her arms crossed over her chest. "Scully, wha--?" he asked, his hands turned up helplessly. "I'm sorry, Mulder," she whispered, shaking her head. "It's too soon. I can't... can't be like that with you right now." He got up and crossed the room to stand before her, stopping and backing away when she held her hands up in warning. "But... why?" She shook her head again, tucking wayward blonde strands behind her ears. "Mulder... I was... really hurt when you left. You can't undo three years of damage in three days." Mulder bowed his head, pursing his lips and rubbing one of his hands over the back of his neck in a thoughtful manner. She could see the guilt settling over him like a tangible cloak, and reached out, concerned. He looked up at her when her fingers rested lightly on his wrist. "I still love you, Mulder. It's just going to take a little time until I feel safe around you." He nodded mutely, biting the inside of his lower lip. "I... I'm sorry, Scully." She stepped closer to him, her hand sliding up his arm until it rested on his bicep. "Mulder, listen to me. I didn't tell you that so that you could beat yourself up. I'm not mad at you." She paused, licking her lips again and resisting the urge to smile at the flicker of arousal that flared in his eyes at the action. She began moving her hand up and down his arm in a soothing motion. "And it won't be too long, I'm sure," she smiled at him. "I trusted you for thirteen years. That has to count for something." He gave her a small, hopeful smile, and she stepped forward a little more. "Could you maybe just hold me for now?" Sighing with something like contentment, he slipped his arms around her, pulling her securely to him and tucking her head under his chin. "I'd love to, Scully," he murmured huskily, nuzzling in her hair. She nestled her head in the hollow of his throat, breathing in his heady scent, her arms sliding around his waist as she hummed with pleasure. "I missed you," she told him softly, and his arms tightened around her. He pressed his face against the top of her head, one hand coming up to tangle in her hair. "I missed you too," he whispered. "More than you know." She gave a little laugh. "Well, dear, you're the one who left." He made a distressed little noise, and she pulled away from him just enough to look up into his face. "Hey, stop that. It's over. I forgive you. I'm sorry I mentioned it." He closed his eyes, then opened them again as he smiled at her. He searched for words, but found none. Leaning down, he pressed his lips to her forehead, and she let her eyes slide closed. "I love you too," she whispered, and he leaned down, placing his forehead against hers. "Oh, Scully... you have no idea how much." She smiled. "Oh, but I do Mulder. I do." *** "Don't you realize the implications of this? Every mutated form of the virus has been repelled by her, and the injection marks are invisible within seconds." "So she's a fast healer. It's not uncommon in children." Diana Fowley glared at Jeffrey Spender. "That fast =is= uncommon," she bit out. "Okay, so why don't you fill me in on your little theory?" Anyone watching would have wondered how the pair had ever survived as partners in the field. Of course, it could have had something to do with death threats from Jeffrey's father and... whatever Spender Sr. was to Fowley, which was a thought Jeffrey didn't care to entertain. "My *little theory,*" Diana snapped, "is that Hannah is the first true success. No implants, no grafts - she was born this way!" "What way, Diana? None of the genetic tests have shown any sort of evidence to suggest extraterrestrial biology. She can't be a hybrid." "No, not a hybrid necessarily," Diana mused. "More of an... immortal." "I'm afraid I don't follow you there." "The alien biology doesn't show up as an anomaly, like it does on the hybrids we create, because her body never had to adjust to it. It's naturally there, an integral part of her own DNA." "It showed up in Gibson Praise," Jeffrey argued. "He was born with it, wasn't he?" Diana shook her head. "Gibson Praise was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. He was born with the potential, but there had to be a catalyst to set him off. All of us are just waiting for the right catalyst, but he was more sensitive than most of us." "But Hannah has been this way from the beginning?" She nodded. "And she's displaying more characteristics than Gibson never did. He was not a rapid healer, if you remember correctly. And in fact, his growth seemed somewhat stunted. Hannah is in perfect health at all times. Do you realize she has not caught the first cold during all the time we've monitored her?" Jeffrey nodded as she continued. "And even when we exposed her to pneumonia, tuberculosis, and hepatitis, she was unaffected." "You exposed her to TB and hepatitis?" Jeffrey asked incredulously. "Krycek let you do that?" Diana frowned slightly. "Alex didn't know about it. Dr. Barnes and I conducted those experiments independently of Alex's over- cautious regimen. We're thinking of trying HIV and the AIDS virus next, and then cancer." "Diana, you can't do that!" "I know, the deadline is approaching. We're constantly in danger, and I'm afraid she's going to be killed before we get a chance to finish our tests." Jeffrey started to protest that he hadn't meant that, but another thought took precedence over debating morals with Diana Fowley. "But if she's so resistant - if she's truly immortal - can she even be killed?" *** He wasn't even all that sure of where he was going. All he knew was that down this corridor was a little girl who could be the ruin of everything. He clutched the shiny metal pick in one hand, the other lightly touching the wall to keep him oriented, as he listened intently for several moments before he sneaked down the hall toward the white metal door. He didn't think anyone would be around, as it was after testing hours and that Mulder child was probably asleep. Pausing in front of the door, he tilted his head, straining his ears for any noise. He pulled out the ring of keys that Diana had stolen and copied from Alex Krycek's master set. Silently, he slid the correct one into the lock and opened the door a crack. He slipped inside, closing the door behind him. There, in the corner of the gaily decorated room, he sensed the energy from a small form curled up on a soft mattress with down blankets tucked around her. He had a vision of her, wavering in his mind. She was facing the wall, with her back to the room, and his mouth stretched wide with evil satisfaction as he crept toward the sleeping child, the stiletto capturing the soft silver light from the window. When he was within two feet of her, he felt his hand being raised in preparation of the downward blow. *** Scully sat up in bed, panting harshly, her hair clinging to her face. "Scully? Are you okay?" Mulder asked, peering over his glasses at her from where he was lounging in her rocking chair, a book of crossword puzzles balanced on his lap. "Hannah..." she breathed, and Mulder pursed his lips in distress and sympathy, setting the book aside and placing his glasses on top of them. Standing up, he moved over to the other side of the bed, sitting down and reaching out for her. She went willingly to his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder. He began murmuring nonsense syllables meant only to soothe, and she realized that he thought she had been dreaming of finding Hannah in the river. Pulling away, she looked at him, trying to tell him with her eyes that she was serious. "Someone was trying to kill her!" He shook his head, unsure of how to answer. On the one hand, he didn't want her entertaining false hopes as to whether or not their daughter was still alive. On the other, deep in his heart, he believed she might be, and couldn't lie to Scully. "In a room, with... something sharp - he wanted to kill her." "Ssh, Scully, it's okay," he murmured, pulling her back against his chest so that he didn't have to look into her haunted eyes. *** The stiletto clattered to the ground with a metallic ring, and Dr. Barnes scrambled away from the stinging shadow that had leaped unexpectedly from between Hannah and the wall. A soft chuffing sound and a barely audible growl were all he had to identify the form, and it seemed to be everywhere at once. A slash of a giant paw, and he opened his mouth to cry out, but not even a small sound escaped his long-ago mangled larynx. Fumbling in the utter darkness of his visionless existence, he stumbled into walls and chairs in his desperate attempt to escape. He heard the menacing growl close to his left, and veered right, only to hear the angry chuff of breath very close on the right and slightly behind him. He lunged forward, colliding with the door and scrambling to open it. Frenziedly, he fell through the door, sliding across the cold tile floor into the opposite wall. Breathing with relief, he lurched to his feet and, keeping one hand against the wall for guidance, began a hasty, limping retreat to his own familiar quarters. *** "We are frail; we are fearfully and wonderfully made; Forged in the fires of human passion, Choking on the fumes of selfish rage. And with these, our hells and heavens, So few inches apart, we must be awfully small And not as strong as we think we are." {-"Not As Strong" - Rich Mullins} She sat on the bed, her back to the headboard and her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked up as he entered the room, two cups of steaming hot tea in his hands. "Here you go," he smiled. "English Garden, lightly sweetened with honey, no cream." She smiled back at him, taking the beverage gratefully. "Thank you, Mulder," she murmured, tilting the cup for a careful sip of the liquid. He watched her obsessively, forgetting his own cup in favor of watching her nurse hers. She set the china vessel aside and turned to him, nodding at the rapidly cooling beverage in his hand. He laughed shortly and set his cup on the table beside the bed. He barely had time to turn back around to face her when she was snuggling into his arms. "Tell me a story," she pleaded in a tiny little- girl voice that bore uncanny and poignant resemblance to Hannah's. He had a sudden flashback of the times his daughter had scrambled into his lap, sometimes sans book, and said the exact same words to him, turning jade green eyes up to his face in an irresistible plea. "All right," he murmured, cradling her against his body protectively. "It was New Year's Eve, 1999, and..." She made a disapproving sound, and he squeezed her rather tightly. "Hush. You don't even know what part of the story I'm going to tell." Sighing, she settled back into his embrace, and he resumed his story, stroking his hand lightly up and down her back. "As I was saying. It was New Year's Eve, 1999, and Special Agent Dana Scully had just informed a certain Mr. Frank Black that his daughter was there to visit. Now, Agent Scully was a very beautiful lady, and when her partner, Agent Fox Mulder, entered the room from the room where they'd confined his pitifully mangled right arm to a sling, he couldn't contain a smile of happiness." "You're not going to be mushy are you?" she asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder. "Probably, so you might as well get over it now so you'll be all sentimental by the time I get to the good part," he told her, and she giggled. "Now, stop interrupting or I won't tell you the rest of the story." She snorted. "Yeah, right. You like to talk too much for me to believe that." He jostled her slightly in punishment, and she giggled again. "I'm serious! Be quiet. This is a serious story. Settle down and listen," he teased, and she obeyed with only minimal protest. "All right. As I was saying, Agent Mulder had just been told he couldn't use his right arm for a week at least, but when he walked into the room, he suddenly didn't care very much, because he saw Mr. Black hugging his daughter, and he saw the look on Agent Scully's face and knew what she was thinking." "Oh, so you were turning clairvoyant on me, were you?" Ignoring her grandly, he continued. "You see, Agents Mulder and Scully were very good friends, and had been for a long, long time. In fact, Agent Mulder suspected he'd been in love with his partner for awhile now, although he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it had happened." "You sound like a bad romance novel." He pinched her shoulder lightly and she squealed softly, burrowing deeper into his chest. "Agent Scully had been told by her doctors that she would never be able to have a child, but it turns out they didn't know what they were talking about. But she didn't know that yet. She and Agent Mulder had been trying to conceive a child using in-vitro fertilization, and had not too long ago gone to the doctor's office for their second attempt." He paused, waiting for her interruption, but there was none. Concerned, he asked, "You awake?" She nodded against his chest, and he continued, knowing the memory had subdued her playfulness. His hand resumed its soothing strokes over her back, shoulders, and arms. "So when Agent Mulder saw the look on Agent Scully's face as she watched Frank Black and his daughter, he knew she was thinking about her own child, and what it would be like to watch Agent Mulder hug their daughter like that. He knew this because he was thinking the same thing." He felt a drop of warm moisture on his bare chest, and heard a barely audible sniffle. Concerned, he paused, holding her tightly. They were silent for a few minutes before she murmured, "Mulder?" "Yeah?" "What happened next?" He laughed softly, kissing the top of her head. "Well, Mr. Black and his daughter left the room, and Agents Mulder and Scully watched Dick Clark count down the last thirty seconds to the Millennium - although it wasn't really the Millennium because the people who made the calendars weren't very good mathematicians." She laughed softly at his concession to her "math geek" comment on that case. "As the ball dropped, Agent Mulder couldn't stop thinking about the look on Agent Scully's face when she was imagining him with their daughter someday. And he couldn't stop thinking about how much he liked that thought, and how happy it made him that Agent Scully apparently liked that thought too. And he realized that he wanted to show Agent Scully how very happy he was about the idea of having a baby with her, so he told himself that the beginning of the New Year would be a perfect excuse to do that." "And how was he going to show her this?" "He was going to kiss her." "Oh, is that all?" "Well, you have to understand. Those two agents didn't talk much about their feelings. It was a dangerous admission that they were even trying to be parents together. Agent Mulder wasn't really sure if Agent Scully even wanted him to kiss her, much less anything else." "Mm, he wasn't a very good agent then, when it came to gathering evidence, was he?" "Oh, I don't know," Mulder mused. "I think he might have just been afraid to believe in such an extreme possibility." She chuckled, adjusting her head on his shoulder. "So, did he kiss her?" "Oh you bet," he grinned, giving her an affectionate squeeze. "But it wasn't a real kiss, was it?" "I beg your pardon?" he asked with slight offense in his tone. "I mean, if Agent Mulder was as unsure as you say he was, then he wouldn't have tried to give Agent Scully an open-mouthed kiss, would he?" He sighed. "Well, he opened his mouth a little, but she didn't respond in kind, so he didn't force the issue." "Well, Agent Scully probably had enough good sense to not want to indulge in overt public displays of affection in a hospital." "Well, anyway, Agent Mulder couldn't wipe the silly grin off his face for days, and everybody who met him commented on how happy he looked, despite the fact that she hadn't even put her arm around him while they were walking out." "I was in shock, Mulder. I was dazed. It was a wonder I could walk at all!" He pulled back to look at her. "You? Getting a little into this story, aren't we?" She smiled at him, punching him playfully. "Mulder, we =are= this story." He grinned down at her, and she leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "I'm glad the story had a happy ending." "Oh, but it didn't," Mulder shook his head. She tilted her head questioningly. "It didn't?" "Well, not at first. You see, when Agents Mulder and Scully found out that the in-vitro didn't work, they were devastated. They had both been building such big dreams about raising a family together. And then Agent Mulder was abducted, and Agent Scully found out she was pregnant after all, but Agent Mulder wasn't there with her. When he came back, he was very, very sad and hurt that he had missed the beginning of the miracle he had wanted as much as she had." "And he was very confused." "Very." "But he still loved her, didn't he?" "Oh yes, more than ever. In fact, he didn't even mind so much when he quit his job, because that meant he could spend more time with Agent Scully without having to worry about getting in trouble with their boss." She grinned, leaning back against him. "See, it does have a happy ending." He laughed. "If you say so." "I do. Because everything always turns out all right in the end." "Oh really?" "Yes, really. If it isn't all right, then it isn't the end yet." He pushed her away slightly, and she looked up into his face, feeling her eyes brim with tears as she saw the emotions swimming in his. "We will find her, Scully. I promise. We'll get her back." The tears slipped down over her cheeks, and he kissed them away softly. "I know, Mulder. I know." *** She heard a knocking at the door and sat up, sleepily pushing her hair out of her eyes. Mulder's arm was thrown across her waist, and she smiled as she struggled against the weight of it. Yawning, she stumbled out of bed, careful not to wake Mulder, and tugged her robe on over her shorts and t-shirt. She shuffled into the living room, standing on her tiptoes to see through the peephole in the door. Standing outside in her hallway was a dark-haired man in a leather jacket, and she sucked in her breath softly, instinctively knowing that it was the same man who had been asking about her. She opened the door cautiously, knowing that Mulder was asleep in the other room and would be at her side in a moment if she called for help. "May I help you?" she asked quietly, and when the man looked up at her she was struck by the roundness of his wide-set green eyes, the regal, broad plane of his forehead, and the kind knowing of his smile. He rubbed a massive hand against the whiskers on his face as he nodded. "Yes, I've been looking for you." His expression became suddenly sober, his eyes glittering. "My name is Ikenna. I know where your daughter is." "You - what? Excuse me?" "Please, you don't have much time. There are some who want her to live, but they are far outnumbered by the ones who are trying to kill her." He pressed something cold into her hand, murmuring, "Please hurry. She's closer than you know." She threw a glance toward the bedroom door in time to see Mulder stumble sleepily through it, rubbing his eyes. She turned back to the dark-haired man, only to be met with empty space. "Wha - where did he go?" She stepped through the door, peering down the hallway. "He just disappeared!" "Who did?" Mulder yawned, pushing his hand through already tousled hair. "That - that man! The one that's been looking for me!" "He was here?" Mulder was suddenly wide-awake and on full alert. "What did he want?" "He... said he knows where Hannah is, and that we have to get to her soon." "Well, did he happen to tell us how to find her?" Mulder asked with annoyance, taking one last look down the corridor before closing the front door. She looked down at the cold, round object in her hand, then back up at Mulder. "What? What is it?" he wanted to know. She held it out in her palm, and he carefully picked it up, studying the engraved skull on the metal surface. Their eyes met. *** "Sir? I need to speak with you." Krycek recognized the tone of voice, and looked up from the test results in alarm. "Come in, Jeffrey. It's unlocked." Spender did as he was told, closing the door behind him. "What is it, Spender?" Krycek leaned back against the metal cage behind him, oblivious to the squawk of protest as the slight motion of wires awakened a nonplussed cockatiel. "It's Diana, sir. She and Dr. Barnes have been independently conducting experiments. Very dangerous experiments." "On whom?" He thought he knew, but he had to ask before he allowed his growing fury to blossom. "On Hannah Mulder," Spender answered quietly, unable to look at Krycek. "Thank you for alerting me, Spender. I'll take care of it. You can go now." Jeffrey nodded and left the room silently, leaving Krycek to clench his fists, attempting to rein in his anger without pacing. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Diana wasn't a worry to him. He could deal with her. He was more than a little wary of Dr. Barnes, however, as he was never sure to what extent the man's psychosis had developed. Not for the first time, Alex Krycek thought that letting him into the NeoSyndicate had been the most unwise choice he had ever made, but he'd had his reasons then. Only now, in hindsight, did he realize that those reasons weren't good enough. Despite the fact that the man had been resurrected and reanimated by the alien craft off the coast of Africa, though with extensive damage, Krycek now realized that he had never been a true asset. He was blind and mute as a result of the death wound he had received, and Alex was never sure just how much of the man's behavior was merely eccentric and how much was psychotic. What worried him most of all was the news that Diana was working in tangent with this maniac, independently of the regimen of tests he had carefully designed to be as least threatening as possible to the young Mulder child. Throwing down the file folders on the cold medical table before him, he stalked from the room, slamming the door shut against the protesting sounds of the animals he'd awakened with his fury. *** "What do you mean, you were attacked? By what?" Diana hissed, glaring at the bloodied face before her, despite the fact that he couldn't see her expression. With furious speed, Dr. Barnes spelled out the attack in sign language, and she sighed as she watched the story unfold from his fingers. "What was the panther doing out of his cage?" He made an impatient sign that translated into, "How should I know?" Diana blew out an exasperated breath, and said, "Well, if anyone notices these claw marks, just tell them you stumbled into the lab by mistake. I need to find out how Hannah has managed to unlock the panther's cage." Dr. Barnes nodded, and Diana left his room quickly and quietly. *** Diana was on her way to Hannah's room when she was unceremoniously hauled into a conference room by an unseen assailant. "Going somewhere, Miss Fowley?" Alex Krycek's cold voice reached her ears as he closed the door behind her and flipped on the light. "As a matter of fact, I was," she answered calmly, and Krycek grudgingly thought that he had to admire her false bravado. "I was just informed that the panther has escaped his cage, and was going to the lab to check it out." "Informed by whom, may I ask?" His cold formality was accented by the humorless smile on his face, and Diana shuddered inwardly. "By Dr. Barnes." Krycek's mouth twisted, and he said sweetly, "For right now we'll ignore the fact that Dr. Barnes is not even supposed to be anywhere near the laboratory and concentrate on the issue of why he informed you and not me." She coughed slightly. "Dr. Barnes and I have worked together in the past, and --" "How long ago in the past, Diana?" he asked, and she recognized the hard glitter of his dark eyes. "That's not important right now," she told him haughtily, and he thought for a moment that he would like nothing better than to introduce her insufferable, arrogant face to the back of his fist. Preferably with a few brass knuckles thrown into the mix for good measure. "Oh, but I think it is," he told her. "Starting now, you are to be stripped of your access to the human test subjects and will be reduced to cleaning the animals' cages in the laboratory. Your access to test results and testing supplies are suspended indefinitely." "You can't do that," she spat, and he chuckled. "Oh can't I, though? What are you going to do - leave? Defy orders?" His eyes glimmered with evil pleasure, and he tilted his head slightly to one side as his voice lilted almost happily over his next words. "You will comply if you value your life. I still run this place." He left the conference room, leaving Diana to stare at the impersonal white walls that blocked in the long wooden table. *** The rustling of the map on the dining room table was loud in the quiet of her apartment, but soft compared to the sudden burst of noise when Mulder slammed his palm down onto the table surface. She laid a calming hand on his forearm, and he stilled, bowing his head in acquiescence to her unspoken reassurance. "He said she was close by, which leads me to believe that she might even be in this state," Scully murmured, her hand not leaving the warm skin of his arm. "Or at least close to the state line in a neighboring state," Mulder agreed, maneuvering awkwardly to adjust the map without dislodging her hand. Finally, the paper fluttered to the table at an angle where they could both examine the lines and dots that peppered it with artificially imposed boundaries that were really little more than wishful thinking on the part of humans forever intent on dividing and conquering. Their eyes skimmed the colored two-dimensional representation in silent partnership, sighing when no answer readily greeted them. "I think we're looking too hard," she said. "It's probably the most obvious answer, and we're just missing it." "'Science seeks the simplest explanation,' is that it?" he quipped, and she shot him an indulgent smile. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day," she grinned, taking the map from him and folding it before he could do irreparable damage in his attempt. "I really should be offended, what with you comparing one of my favorite movies to a broken clock. It might have treated the subject lightly, but it really had a lot of good points, and was fairly accurate in dealing with the supernatural." "Mulder, really. 'Ghostbusters'? Accurate?" "On some points, I said. And besides, that particular quote was from 'Ghostbusters II'." She rolled her eyes. "All right, are you going to be channeling Bill Murray all day or are we going to look for more clues to help us unravel this one?" He smiled, tossing the heavy bronze charm to her, which she deftly caught. "Good catch, partner," he grinned, and she looked down at the round object in her hand, carefully studying the gruesome skull that grinned up at her with empty eyes. She turned the coin over, and her eyes widened at what she saw. "Hey Mulder, look at this," she said suddenly, and he was by her side in a second. "What is it?" She pointed to the inscription on the back, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Think it's a code?" "It might be," she answered slowly, lightly running her fingernail across the raised surface. "PS 23. What do you think it stands for?" She shook her head. "Psycho-somatic? Power surge?" "Post-script?" he tossed in, and she smiled. "Psalms?" Her head snapped up. "What did you say?" "Psalms. You know, like the book in the Bible?" She snapped her fingers. "Of course! Psalm 23!" "Isn't that the 'Lord is my shepherd' one?" he asked, and she nodded. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul." She paused, and Mulder joined her, their eyes locking as they recited the passage together. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." She flipped the coin over again, this time unaffected by the morbidity of the symbol. "Let's load up, partner. I'd say we're headed to Death Valley." *** "What does it profit a man now To gain the whole world - And lose his soul?" {-"1990..." - Michael W. Smith} *** He was only peripherally aware of his surroundings as he stalked down the hall, his mind torn between fury at Diana Fowley and amazement that he had not been able to detect in Hannah the results of the tests detailed in the file folders that Taryn, his personal assistant, had stolen from Diana's quarters. Hannah had been so fully resistant to the diseases they had exposed her to that his constant screenings had not even been able to detect their introduction to her system. He thought about it carefully - the way a disease was normally detected was a sharp spike in the count of white blood cells, signifying the body's overcompensation of protection against the invading parasite. The fact that he had been unable to detect any change in Hannah's already unusually high level of leukocytes meant that it was at a level that required no compensation against the offending virus or bacterium. He wondered where the threshold was - how vicious would the disease have to be to even warrant the attention of her immune system? And was there anything vicious enough to compromise her system completely? To defeat it? Could she ever die? His musings were interrupted by an urgent command from a side room. "Alex! Come here, immediately!" He stopped, backtracking slightly to enter one of the testing rooms. Amina was standing in a long white medical coat, gazing into a glass-enclosed observation room at a regal white tiger who was slouched miserably on a stainless steel examining table. Several individuals in biohazard suits were working around the big cat, injecting her with countless fluids, muttering to each other in hushed, urgent voices. "I am so glad you were walking by. I was about to send someone to find you. This is not good. Not good at all." Her lovely voice was marred with worry, and he crossed the distance to the observation window in two long strides. "What is it, Amina?" "It's the tiger. Look at her." She moved to the side to allow him room to stand beside her, and he felt his stomach plummet at the sight that greeted him. The majestic animal's mouth was open, as if to complain about the torture she found herself in, but her voice was cut off by the flow of black liquid that poured from her mouth, nose and eyes. "Oh, God," he breathed. "Amina, what happened to her?" "I don't know! She was doing just fine - she seemed to be responding to the vaccines - and then today she began vomiting the black oil. Not too long ago, it turned to this steady trickle. Alex, I think it has converted her system - she seems to be actually manufacturing the virus." He shuddered. "You're going to have to destroy it." Her head snapped up at his attempt to detach himself. Already calling the lovely animal an "it" rather than "she". "We have to save her, Alex! We can't let this happen to her!" His voice was sharp and harsh in retaliation to the urgency in her tone. "Amina, you know we don't have the means! If the antidotes we have don't work, there is nothing more we can do for her! You have to destroy her now, for her own good!" He paused slightly before adding, "And for ours." He stood silently for a moment, looking down at the tragic creature before him, not allowing the sorrow he felt at her demise to show on his face. He was startled by the sensation of Amina walking swiftly past him, yanking her lab coat off and flinging it into the decontamination container by the door to the observation room. He reached out and grabbed her arm. "Hey! Where are you going?" She whirled to face him, her dark eyes ablaze with fury. "How far does it have to go, Alex?" she spoke in a low tone that rumbled with her righteous indignation. "What perversions will we force on others for this cause?" He came close to her, lowering his voice so that they would not be overheard. "Sacrifices must be made, Amina. You know that." He pointed to the tiger, continuing, "Lenka and the others like her are giving their lives to save the world - like any soldier in battle." "You cannot compare the two," she bit off. "The soldiers go knowingly into battle - these subjects of ours have no idea what we are going to do to them. They have no concept of the violation their bodies and souls will undergo." Krycek shook his head. "It's not pretty, Amina, and it's not something I like. But it's necessary. A necessary evil to ensure the greater good. We are trying to guarantee a future, and we cannot do that without destroying some of the present." She pulled her arm angrily from his grasp, her head held high with regal composure. "What good is a future if you have no one to share it with? If you are the only one alive, what do you have to live for? I do not want to live a life bought by innocent blood, Alex. Kill her yourself." With that, she turned on her heel and left the room, leaving Alex Krycek with yet another issue to ponder. *** "I'd like to leave today, but that's really not practical," Scully mused, settled again onto the couch, again at the opposite end from Mulder. But this time the distance did not separate them - they were stretched out, their feet in the other's lap. "No, it isn't. I have to notify my employers that I'm not going to be around, and make sure my apartment is locked up..." "Not to mention packing, making sure we have everything we need - Mulder, do we even know what we need?" He laughed softly. "You mean besides each other? No, not really." "Well, it's in Death Valley, right? So I'd say we need water, definitely." "Cool clothes." "Map." "Compass." "Sunscreen." She narrowed her eyes at him. "And yes, you are wearing it. No excuses." He sighed dramatically, tugging on her big toe. "Yes, ma'am." She smiled, and he leaned his head back against the back of the couch, his mouth hanging slightly open in concession to the strain that the angle put on his neck. "And a miracle," she murmured softly. He stroked the bridge of her foot gently, closing his eyes. "You don't think we've had our quota of those already?" he asked in a lightly teasing tone that did little to disguise the worry underneath. She smiled, pressing the heel of her hand against the arch of his foot in a retaliating massage. "I don't think they've got a limit on them, Mulder." "Only so many per household?" "I doubt it." He opened his eyes and smiled at her, a genuine smile full of the hope that glimmered in his hazel eyes. "That's a good thing," he whispered. She smiled back at him - - and lightly tickled the soft skin on the underside of his foot. He jerked it away, laughingly protesting, "No fair!" and reaching for her. He was aiming for her ribs, she saw, and hunched over at the last minute so that his hands grasped her shoulders instead. In their current position, his ribs were an easy target, and she reached for them, but he pulled her against him closely, trapping her arms neatly between them. "Checkmate," he grinned, and she shook her head. "Stalemate," she corrected. His expression was one of mock offense, and he pouted, "What? I took a shower this morning..." She shook her head at his bad joke, chuckling despite herself and leaning her head against his shoulder. He shifted the pressure of his embrace to one of tender possession, cradling her against him, closing his eyes and just enjoying holding her. She hummed softly, sliding her arms around his waist, and they sat for long moments in mutual contentment. "Still mad at me?" he asked softly after awhile. She snorted. "Yeah, Mulder, I am. I'm so mad at you that I'm curled up here on my couch, snuggling with you and fantasizing about what I'd really like to do to you." She sat back to look at his face, judging his reaction. His leering grin made her laugh. "Ooh, Scully! Share with the class..." She shook her head. "If you're still in school after all this time, Mulder, we're in trouble." He laughed in acknowledgment of her teasing, but the look in his eyes told her he wasn't about to let her off the hook. When she simply kept her mouth shut, a superior smirk on her face, he tackled her, pushing her to the couch and pinning her with his body. "Ooh, you've still got some pretty good moves to be such an old man," she teased, pinching the flesh below his ribs sharply. He yelped, then kissed her harshly in punishment. When he pulled back, they were both gasping for air, but she followed the upward movement of his lips anyway. He pushed her back down, shaking his head. "No more until you dish," he teased. "C'mon, spill." Sighing with resignation, she took a deep breath, dismayed to feel a faint blush beginning to creep up into her face. For goodness' sakes, this was Mulder! Her husband! Her eyes went wide suddenly as she realized that was the first time she had allowed herself to think of this man, this particular one, the one who had re-entered her life not too long ago, as her husband. He was still looking at her expectantly, though, so she shoved the revelation aside in favor of answering his question. "Well, really, I was just remembering..." "Oh? Remembering what?" he murmured, dipping his head to trace the skin below her ear with the tip of his tongue. She whimpered slightly at the ticklish sensation, sliding her hands over his shoulders. "I... was... rememb-" her breath hitched in her throat as his teeth lightly nipped the juncture of her shoulder and neck before he sucked on that same spot with fervor, pressing the silky-rough texture of his tongue against her skin. She pushed him up, and he looked at her in confusion, his eyes clouded with lust. Breathlessly, she reminded him, "Do you want to hear this or not? Because I can't think when you're doing that." He grinned like the damn Cheshire Cat, settling his elbows on either side of her head to support his weight as he settled in to listen. "All right, go on then. I'll try not to interrupt, but no promises." Smiling in acknowledgment, she cleared her throats, trying to gather her thoughts. Oh yes. Remembering. "I was remembering that day I had to go to do a last minute favor for Skinner, after Hannah was born, after we were both out of the Bureau... and I came home later than we expected..." Her voice had lowered to a sultry rise and fall that was breathy and throaty at the same time, and she saw the arousal hazing his eyes as she went on with her verbal seduction. "And you met me at the door, kissing me -" "And despite the fact that I had actually planned to give you a little more warning, seduce you a little more slowly, I was so turned on by the mere smell of you that I couldn't resist taking you right there on the floor," he finished in a husky voice that made her forget to breathe. While she was busy remembering the complex formula of inhale- exhale, he was nuzzling the skin directly under her jaw. "I dreamed about that the night I slept on the floor in this apartment," he confessed. She hummed, tilting her head back to give him better access. "Funny..." she breathed. "I dreamed about it while I was taking a nap, right before you showed up injured on my doorstep yesterday." He looked surprised. "You did, really?" he asked, pulling away from his pursuit of passion. "Mul-deeeerrrr..." she complained, tugging at his head to beg to him to resume his exploration. "Wait, Scully," he choked out in halting speech. She gave him a curious look, and he took a deep breath. "I... you know, you were ready to kill me just a few hours ago." She smiled wickedly. "I still am, just in a much more enjoyable way," she teased. He closed his eyes and bit down on a moan. "You know what I mean, Scully." Her face grew serious. "Yeah, I do. But Mulder, I have always loved you. Always. More than you've ever understood. You broke my heart. The real bitch is, you were the only one who could make it better." She leaned up to press her cheek against hers, her lips at his ear, her breath ruffling the soft hair just above it. "Please, Mulder, make it better." He buried his face in her neck for a moment, breathing deep, calming breaths. He brought her face around to his, his mouth moving tenderly over hers, his tongue barely flicking over her lips as he caressed her with love-speeches made without words. *** The trip to Death Valley was silent, tension running high and rendering speech impractical and far too draining. Their reassurances were shared through looks and small touches that echoed the gentle passion of the night before. The wheels of their SUV crunched over the dried earth with the sickening sound of crumbling skeletons. The silver-white walls of the testing facility gleamed blindingly in the blazing sun, and Mulder squinted his eyes against it, even behind his sunglasses. They stopped several hundred feet away from the structure, the sounds of their opening and closing doors loud in the dry desert air. There was the occasional sound of a lizard scrabbling over the flaking surface of the earth, but for the most part there was only the overwhelming noise of silence and the crunching of their boots over the dehydrated jigsaw puzzle beneath their feet. "Scully -" he rasped hoarsely, turning toward her before they attempted to breach the compound's security with the minimal assistance they had been able to wrangle from the Gunmen. "Don't say it, Mulder," she warned. "It will sound too much like 'goodbye'." He nodded, giving her a reassuring smile instead, and they traipsed toward the prison where their daughter was being held. The Gunmen were good at what they did, that was for sure. Following their instructions, the front door opened easily enough and the NeoSyndicate was apparently confident enough that there were no guards present to question their authority. Not that they would have waited for an answer before firing, if they were anything like the original consortium. Their footsteps echoed eerily down the deserted corridors, the harsh fluorescent lighting giving the white tiles and matching walls a sterile, unfriendly appearance. They came to a dead end, intersecting a perpendicular hallway, and by unspoken agreement they snatched their handguns from the holsters at the smalls of their backs and split up. Mulder crept silently along the foyer, casting cautious glances over his shoulder from time to time, his back pressed to the wall. As he went along, the hallway widened and the ceilings became higher, though not by an extremely significant amount. He heard a child's anguished cry, followed by a high, piercing scream, echoing from a room at the end of the hall. Tucking his gun back into his holster, he took off, sprinting, feeling his body settle into a liquid, loping gait as he moved with a speed superior to any he had ever experienced before, his strength augmented by the adrenaline coursing through his veins. The voice was Hannah's. He tried to stop, but ended up crashing through the door to see her strapped to a table with two doctors in scrubs hovering over her. One of them held a syringe and seemed to be offering it to the other. "This will prove it," said a female voice that jarred through him like a nightmare. Diana Fowley. She was supposed to be dead! "I refuse to have any part in it," said the voice of the other ghost, making Mulder wonder if his own personal resurrection hadn't been as uncommon as everyone seemed to think: Jeffrey Spender. "Then why are you here, Jeffrey, if you don't intend to have any part of it?" Her voice was mocking, a tone Mulder recognized, and he could've sworn the hair on the back of his neck literally bristled. "I came here to stop you. You simply cannot do this. It's not right." "Who are you to say what's right?" she challenged him, and Mulder shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, then crouched low to the floor in an attempt to make himself less visible. Hannah was still whimpering softly, and he was trying to figure out a way to rescue her without killing himself and her in the process. She turned her head to the side, and her eyes locked with his. He moved his mouth silently, his lips forming her familiar, beloved name, and she held his gaze with a quiet confidence that he found calming. She blinked, breaking the contact, and he suddenly tuned back into the conversation between Fowley and Spender. "She has to be eliminated before they find us! They're looking for her, and they won't stop until she's dead." Jeffrey had taken the syringe from her at some point and was looking at the dark amber liquid within it. "So what if you inject her with this virus cocktail of yours, and it has no effect on her. What if she truly is immortal? What are you going to do then?" Diana wavered, opening her mouth and then closing it. "Then we'll just have to find some other way to dispose of her." Spender shook his head and handed the syringe back to her. "Kill her yourself, then. I will have no part of it." He began walking away, and Mulder saw with horror that Diana actually intended to inject that awful liquid into his daughter. Hannah turned her head, her gaze seeking and locking with his. Her green eyes were wide and desperate, and she screamed a plea for help as Mulder roared a furious "NO!" and leapt from his hiding place in the shadows. Diana's face went pale and she dropped the syringe, backing away from him before she scurried out the door like a cockroach. Jeffrey Spender regarded him with an air of calm satisfaction before following her flight, though less hurried. He turned back to Hannah, who was still rather frantic from her close brush with the horrors of Diana's viral solution. "Thank you, thank you so much," she breathed as he released her from her bonds. She threw her arms around his neck, stroking her small hands through his hair. "I knew you'd come. I knew you'd save me." He held her tightly, breathing in her familiar scent, taking comfort in her voice and her caresses. She gave his hair one final pat before she hopped down off the table. "Come on," she said, turning to give him a 'follow-me' gesture before she walked confidently from the room. He did as she instructed since she seemed to know where she was going, keeping her in the edges of his vision at all times as he let his surroundings soak into his memory, in case he ever needed the knowledge again. He followed her around a corner, only to be startled when she wasn't there. Nervous, he backtracked, thinking he must've only imagined her turning, and looked down the hallways in both directions. She was nowhere to be seen. Growing increasingly frantic, he picked up his pace, jogging easily down the various tunnels of the maze. After several long minutes of fruitless searching, feeling as if he were going in circles, he heard Scully's voice calling his name. "Mul-der! MULDER!" He sprinted toward the sound, feeling panic rise in his chest as he heard a high-pitched scream echo through the facility, followed by a rattling explosion. He skidded around a corner, only to be confronted by the sight of his partner (for she would always be his partner, just perhaps in different capacities) lying on her side on the cold tile floor, her beautiful face marred by a dark red spot in the middle of her forehead. He froze, hearing the sickening mental sound effect of his photographic memory going 'snap' on the moment - the thick crimson trickle that oozed slowly down her ivory skin, the lifeless staring of her blue eyes, the way her full mouth hung open as if to let air pass to lungs that were no longer sucking it in. Looking up, his vision was invaded by Diana Fowley as she smiled at him with false sympathy. He wanted to throw up. "I'm sorry, Fox," she murmured. "She was endangering the project. She compromised one of our experiments. It was for her own good." He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. Couldn't think to act or react. She stretched her hand out, stepping toward him. "I was your first partner. I always believed in you. I still do. You were my husband first. Hannah should have been ours, Fox. Yours and mine." Her words reached him, goaded him to action. With no consideration, no internal debate or questioning, he ground his teeth together, leveling his handgun at her face. "Go to hell, bitch," he choked out as he pulled the trigger, feeling a grim satisfaction at seeing her lifeless body slump against against the wall, her blood splattered in an accusing pattern over the antiseptic white of the plaster. Kneeling beside Scully, he felt her throat for a pulse despite his knowledge that there wouldn't be one. "Oh, Scully," he rasped, his hands skimming over her entire body, begging for just one sign of life. When there was no response, he stretched out behind her, spooning his body around hers, and sobbed helplessly into her hair. "I love you Scully, I love you," he keened as his arms tightened around her. The goodbye she wouldn't let him say before, he wailed it now, his heart breaking with the loss of what he knew was most important to him. His heart shattered inside his chest, each glass shard slicing through his lungs every time he drew in a tortured breath that was let out as wracking sobs against the back of her neck. *** "There ain't nothing left to soothe you when Love has marked your soul the way The sun has marked your skin And there ain't no way to find no shade When your soul's the very thing that feeds The blaze that burns within - ...Flames that burn as bright As the very flames of hell." {-"Love's As Strong As Death" - Kevin Max} *** "Mulder? Mulder, what is it?" Her hands were soft and strong, stroking over his arms that he had wrapped around her so tightly he was surprised she could even speak. "Scuhlee," he rasped into her hair, pulling her still tighter as tears squeezed past his eyelids. He felt her shift in his embrace to face him, her cool hands soothing the feverish flush of his face. "Ssh, ssh, Mulder, it's all right. It was just a nightmare. You're okay. I'm here. I'm right here, love." Refusing to open his eyes to find her to be an apparition, to find this voice to be his imagination, he worked his jaw soundlessly for a moment before whispering brokenly, "Take any form - drive me mad - only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you." Her lips descended harshly on his, and he gasped, his lungs pulling in air that Scully relinquished willingly, breathing the assurance of her life into him. He opened his eyes, pressing them closed again against the tears of relief that threatened to flood them. It =was= just a dream. Scully was here. Scully was alive. They were in her bed, not in the testing facility in Death Valley. With a ferocious growl, he rolled her underneath him, his hands touching her everywhere he could reach, not bothering to be gentle. She didn't protest, understanding his desperate need to know she was alive, even if it meant tasting her bleed. She let him continue with his gasping explorations for a moment longer before she surged upward with surprising strength, throwing him roughly onto his back on the mattress. Kissing him insistently, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth, suckling and nipping and taking sweeping inventory of his mouth with her tongue. "I - would - never - leave you," she growled, emphasizing each word with a kiss as her hands groped his body in an impassioned imitation of his movements from before. "'Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm' -" He sat up, making her straddle his lap, her arms sliding over his shoulders and back, her fingers stranding roughly through his hair. "'For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unyielding as the grave,'" he finished, his mouth bruising hers with the force of his punctuating kiss. He used his hands to comb through her hair, pulling the strands almost roughly as he tilted her head back, exposing the curve of her neck to him. "'Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the pools of Heshbon...'" he whispered as he laved the skin there with the flat of his tongue. Moaning at his attention, she mentally scrambled for a rejoining Scripture. Breathily, she asserted, "'My lover is radiant, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is purest gold' -" She brought her hands up, caressing his head as she pushed him back down on the bed, making love to him with her words and her hands. "'His eyes are like doves by the streams, bathed in milk, mounted like jewels.'" Her fingers traced the outline of his eyes, as he shifted impatiently beneath her. She was being too soft, too gentle, and he was desperate. She sensed this, and leaned forward over him, her hands beginning to roam relentlessly, her voice growing more ragged, but continuing with her recitation. "'His body is polished ivory, strewn with liberally with sapphires and other precious gems; his legs are sculpted marble on bases of pure gold.'" She twined her legs through his, the position forcing her to stretch her body out over his, bare skin electrifying against bare skin, as they had never bothered redressing after their earlier encounter. "'His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely.'" She illustrated this with a desperate, devouring kiss that left him gasping as she pulled back to whisper, "'This is my lover, this my friend, oh daughters of Jerusalem.'" He decided it was her turn, flipping her over effortlessly and draping his body over hers like an exquisite tapestry. "'You have stolen my heart, my beloved, my bride - with one glance of your eyes, brighter than any jewel or necklace... Your lips drip sweetness as the honeycomb..." His voice dropped to a gentle cadence, intent on returning her earlier torture by taking it slow and easy. He felt a wicked satisfaction when she began to writhe under him, begging for more substantial contact. Her hands began to work their way from his shoulders down, kneading every inch of skin as he continued. "'Show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.'" Grinning wickedly, she insinuated one hand between them, grasping his cock as he bit her lower lip and pinched a breast in retaliation. Her eyes sparkling, she quoted, "'Catch for us the fox - the little fox -'" "That's plural," he groaned as she helped guide him into place. She gasped, and he buried his head in her shoulder as he thrust into her sharply and unexpectedly. "It's 'foxes'..." Breathlessly, she rejoined, "Improvisation... I only see one of you..." His edge of control was paper-thin, but he fought to move slowly, to draw it out and make it last. "And - I suppose - I should - try - not to be - offended - by the - adjective?" he grunted. Her head was thrown back, her mouth open, her breath coming in little pants. "Wha- what?" she asked, not quite following. "You said - 'little fox' -" he clarified, dipping his head to suckle one of her breasts as she moaned. "Ooohhhhh... like that, yeah..." It took a moment for her to actually register his statement, and she threaded her fingers through his hair reassuringly. "Figure - of - speech," she gasped, her breath hitching in her throat as the motion of his hips brought him in contact with *that* spot... "Mmmulder..." she begged, her hands grasping at the curves of his ass, urging him to move. "Harder, please..." "Well, since - you asked - nicely," he said between clenched teeth as he obliged, slamming into her, closing his eyes tightly against the sensation, fighting to outlast her... It wasn't going to happen. He felt his control slip from his grasp, felt his thrusts becoming erratic and fierce, managing to gasp, and warn, "Sorry - Scully - can't - last..." before his orgasm hit him with full force, unsure if the roaring in his ears was his own voice or the pounding of his blood. He collapsed against her, fighting to catch his breath, as she lay motionless beneath him. After a moment, she whispered, "What did you say? I couldn't hear you..." He lifted his head slightly to nuzzle her ear, opening his mouth to repeat his apology when she added, "I was too busy screaming your name..." He laughed shortly, pushing himself up on his elbows to look at her. Her eyes were glowing, hazy with contentment, and he closed his own in an expression almost of pain. She stroked his face worriedly. "Are you okay?" "'Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me,'" he whispered, and she brought her lips to his, softly, sweetly. "'My lover is mine, and I am his - I am faint with love.'" He managed to roll them both over to a more comfortable position on their sides, her leg thrown over his, not bothering to break their connection. Sighing, he nuzzled the hollow of her throat with his lips. "'All beautiful are you, my love. There is no flaw in you.'" She hummed with contentment, kissing his temple. "'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.'" His kisses fluttered over her collarbone, his tongue flicking out to lick it periodically, tasting their combined sweat. "Though I already did that," he murmured, and she laughed softly, tightening her arms around him as sleep began to overtake them. She sighed, whispering, "'Who is this that appears like the dawn - bright as the sun, fair as the moon, majestic as the stars in procession? ...Thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment.'" He hummed against her skin, kissing her softly. "'Like a lily among thorns...'" He yawned, and they fell into the peace that comes only with the affirmation of true love, slipping into sleep in each other's arms. *** "You won't find him there." Alex jumped at the unexpected voice, the back of his head connecting with the bottom of the table he'd crawled under. "What?" he asked irritably, rubbing the tender spot as he crawled out to face Hannah Mulder. "Ikenna. He's in his cage." "Ikenna?" "The panther." Krycek always felt rather inadequate around this child, as he had the eerie feeling that she was always three jumps ahead of him and just pretended to wait for him to catch up. "How do you know he's in his cage?" "I put him there," she said simply, as if it should be obvious. He responded to her tone of voice, if not the logic of her actual words. "Oh of course," he nodded. "And how did you find him?" Patiently, as if he were the child, she explained. "I took him back to his cage after he saved me from Miss Fowler and Jeffrey." Krycek couldn't stop the smirk that crossed his face at her mispronunciation of Diana's name. Never once in her entire residence with the NeoSyndicate had Hannah pronounced Diana's name correctly. The child seemed to do it out of pure spite. Then it occurred to him what she'd actually said. "Saved you? What were they trying to do?" "Miss Frowney was going to give me an injection. Jeffrey called it a virus cocktail. She was trying to kill me. I think it might would have killed me, Alex, or at least made me really sick, except Ikenna got there before she could give it to me." Alex was trying to formulate the correct question or answer, but the fury he felt at that moment pre-empted rational thought. "Jeffrey was there to stop her, he said. But he wasn't doing a very good job. I think he was happy when Ikenna scared Miss Frumpy into leaving." Hannah giggled, peering up at Alex through her lashes with mischievous eyes. "She screamed." Alex couldn't help grinning at her. "She did?" Hannah nodded, still giggling. "Yep. And it was even more girlie than Daddy's scream." Alex burst out into full-fledged laughter. "Your Daddy screams?" "Only when he finds a bug in the house, and Mommy has to kill it. Daddy doesn't like bugs." Alex grinned. He was going to hate giving up this kid. "I know," she smiled, and he started slightly. "What do you know?" he asked uneasily. Her smile only widened mysteriously before she turned and left the room. He watched her, rooted to the spot where he stood. And they thought her *mother* was enigmatic. *** "You want a job, sweet cheeks?" Jen's gaze snapped up from the cash register where she was counting the money, and she grinned playfully as she John Musgrove sauntered up to the counter. "How much are you offering, cupcake?" she teased, then gave him a mock glare and a raised eyebrow, qualifying, "But I'm not doing anything that involves me on top of a table wearing only come-fuck-me shoes." John feigned injury and protested, "Of course not!" He grinned. "You'd be wearing a smile too." She threw her hands into the air in frustration. "Ay, lora! Men!" The Admiral just smiled and said, "Anyway, it's Boyd that's offering you the job." She shot him a suspicious look. "Now I'm really worried," she grumbled, shoving the dollar bills back into their proper slots. "Free room and board," he cajoled. "Lots of free time..." She grinned. "Now this is starting to sound better all the time." John pouted. "You'd leave me so easily, Jen?" She gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Who's leaving? Double the money, without much more effort." "Ouch, that stung!" She winked at him, and he sighed. "Oh, how you tease, Jenny. You'll break my old heart one day." "What makes you think I'm teasing?" He gave her a mildly reproving, albeit wistful, glance and she acquiesced. "All right, all right. So what's this job?" "You mean you don't know?" "Hey, Boyd's not a randy old man like you are. I'm sure he's offering me respectable money. Speaking of, why isn't he offering it himself?" "Oh, well, he's helping Rachel take care of a few things, so I volunteered for this detail." "Ah," she responded with a teasing lift of her eyebrows. "So, what - I'd be taking Rachel's job?" "You're a quick one, I'll give you that," he nodded, grinning. "Where's Rachel going?" She was suddenly serious - at least, as serious as Jen ever was. "Um..." the Admiral was suddenly at a loss for words, and a slight flush came over his face. She tilted her head with a worried expression. "Admiral?" she prompted gently. "Well, I'm just not sure she'd want me saying," he stammered. Jen nodded. "All I need to know, I guess, is if this is a temporary position, or permanent?" He looked at her, and she saw the sadness in his eyes warring with joy. "I'd say it's pretty permanent." *** "The light was shining from the radio, And I could barely see her face; But she knew all the words that I never had said: She knew the crumpled-up promise of this broken-down man." {"Rest Stop" - Matchbox 20} *** "Mulder, are you SURE you know where we're going?" He swatted irritably at the map, grumbling, "I'd be a helluva lot surer if you'd get that unnecessary obstacle out of my field of immediate vision! I can't see a damned thing except that map, Scully!" She snapped the map closed sharply, glancing over at him. "We're lost, aren't we?" "I am *not* lost," he muttered. "I know exactly where we're going." "Mm-hm." "I just don't know how to get there from here." She sighed, looking upward and gesturing with her hands as if beseeching the heavens for mercy. He gave her two sharp side-long glances, his mouth slightly open in indignation. "What?" he demanded. "What 'what'?" she rejoined innocently, with a slightly annoyed tone of her own. "What was that about? Like it's the worst thing in the world to be stuck in the car with me in the middle of the desert." She sighed, rolling her eyes. "That was not what that was about, Mulder." "What then?" She made a frustrated gesture with her hands, spluttering. "Wha--uh--well, I mean... okay, Mulder, we're supposed to be looking for our daughter, whom we have thought dead for three years, and rescuing her from people who have been experimenting on her for that same amount of time and who are now trying to kill her. Only we're lost. In the middle of the desert. And it's getting dark." He frowned, pursing his lips in that petulant way he had, giving her one last glance before he fixed his gaze on the unmarked desert plains before them that were fading in the glowing twilight. She sighed inwardly. The patented MulderSulk. Terribly attractive (as if anything Mulder did could be unattractive, she admitted to herself), but not in a long-term context. And not when they were going to be trapped in the car together for God knew how long. And it was getting dark. Very dark. "Mulder, maybe we should just stop for the night before we get any more lost. We have no idea where we're going, and--" She felt rather than saw his sharp glance out of the corner of his eye, and shut her mouth quickly. Damn. He was still sulking. Well, there was one good way to solve that. She smiled mischievously to herself, and lowered her voice a honeyed notch to that level she knew made him shiver as she unbuckled her seatbelt. "And it is getting *very* dark... and we're stuck in a car... in the middle of the desert..." She leaned across the armrests between the captain's chairs of the SUV, her lips close to his ear. "And I've always wanted to do you in the back seat of a car." He jumped away from her slightly, and she grinned as she felt the SUV jerk with his motion, lurching forward as his foot unintentionally hit the gas pedal. "Jesus, Scully," he breathed, she giggled. "I'd say you'd better stop the car, Mulder," she teased, her tongue flicking out to taste his ear. "Otherwise, you'll probably manage to ram it into the only cactus within fifty miles." She nuzzled his jaw, licking him lightly there. "I've heard it's pretty dangerous to receive a blow job while you're driving." She grabbed wildly at the seat to steady herself as the brakes screeched over the desert ground and the SUV slid to a sudden, ungraceful halt. She watched him carefully in the faint light from the dashboard, smiling at the way he was breathing heavily through his nose, staring out the window at the night that enveloped the desert in its earthy sounds. "Well? What do you say?" He made a strangling sound and looked at her with tortured eyes. "You start talking like a porn star and you expect me to *say* something?" he choked. She grinned. "Well, it's never been any problem for you before, and it doesn't sound like it's much of one now." He turned his face toward her, nuzzling the silk of her cheek just in front of her ear. Pursing his lips, he kissed it gently before puffing a breath of air directly into her ear canal. She ducked her head, her hand coming up to rub at her ear. "Mulder! How many times do I have to tell you, that doesn't do anything but annoy the hell out of me!" He mock-pouted. "Ah, Scully! Apparently you don't read Cosmo enough to know what is supposed to turn you on." She frowned at him, still rubbing the offended ear with the petulance of a child. "Apparently the writers of Cosmo either have never had it done to them or don't have ears as ticklish as mine," she muttered. "Besides," she grunted, reaching over him and shoving the steering wheel up as far as it could go, "Why get your sex tips from magazines, the editors of which probably haven't gotten any in years, when you can get it straight from other women?" She climbed over him, kneeling on the floor board to settle between his legs, unzipping his pants and pulling him free of his boxers. Grabbing his hands, she pinned them to the seat on either side of his thighs, grinning as she leaned forward. "Thank Jen for this one," she smirked before she took him in her mouth. "Oh - holy! shit - Scully!" Her low chuckle of amusement sent vibrations through him, and he clawed at the fabric of the seat below him, since she still had his hands pinned there. He was doing his best not to thrust into her mouth, reciting multiplication tables in his head. Two times two is four, four times four is sixteen, sixteen times sixteen is... is... "Two-hundred fifty-six," she said with a grin, raising her head from her task. "Wha - what?" he asked, blinking dazedly. "But I would suggest addition. It's much simpler to double than it is to square." She resumed her task with a smug grin, licking and suckling playfully, and he panted, "Scuhlee, if we're going to fulfill your fantasy tonight, you'd better stop that pretty soon." She made a questioning, humming sound, and he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, moaning. "Scuh-lee... stop!" She sat back, letting him slide out of her mouth, and gave him a look of amusement. "Mulder, we've got plenty of time for that later." "Scully," he protested, embarrassed. "I'm nearly fifty years old! 'Later' is likely to be a full twenty-four hours from now, if not longer!" She raised her eyebrows. "You don't think your capacity for rapid regeneration applies to more than wounds?" she questioned innocently, not waiting for him to answer before she took him in her mouth again. He was panting and moaning steadily now, and she honestly would have been giggling at the adorable ridiculousness of his noises if they didn't turn her on so much. Helpless Mulder was one of her favorite aphrodisiacs. The muscles in his thighs trembled with the strain of keeping his hips still, and she began sucking in earnest, taking him deeper in with every pass, until finally she relaxed and opened her throat, and he groaned, deep and guttural. "Scully...!" he gasped, giving her one last warning before... ...Dear God! She sucked him dry! That realization made his head swim, and he looked at her dizzily, loving the way she licked her lips delicately, then grinning when she discreetly hid a cough behind her hand. "You swallowed," he observed. She choked slightly, nodding in agreement. "You hate swallowing," he pointed out. She shrugged. "It's a rental car," she winked. "I don't think they'd like having to shampoo the upholstery." He sat still, watching her as she tucked him back into his boxers and pants. "Okay, this is no longer comfortable," she complained mildly once she was finished, struggling to extract herself from her awkward position. She managed to flop back into the passenger's seat, sprawling ungracefully. She tilted her head back, looking up at the stars outside the window with a satisfied smile. "Scully?" he asked softly, barely a murmur in the dark. "Yeah?" she answered, lifting her head to look at him, her eyes sparkling even in the low light that was still glowing from the dashboard panel. "If... if anything..." he paused, taking a deep breath. "I just want you to know, no matter what happens tomorrow --" "I know, Mulder," she interrupted him quietly. "And I love you too." *** The heavy metal door creaked open, and Amina sat up quickly, blinking in the sudden light, her hand going immediately to the gun beside her. "It's me," Krycek's voice assured her quickly, and she relaxed, resting her hand on Hannah's shoulder as she sighed with relief. "Alex," she breathed. He closed the door behind him softly, clicking on a low-powered flashlight, just to give him enough light so that he could see where he was going. Amina carefully untangled herself from Hannah's sleeping embrace, moving to the edge of the little bed. "How is she?" he asked in a low murmur, and Amina shook her head. "She's been sleeping," she answered simply. "No nightmares, no restlessness at all." She glanced over her shoulder at Hannah's peaceful face, her cupid's-bow mouth relaxed in slumber. Krycek nodded, his gaze flickering between the child and the woman. "I'll sit with her awhile," he said softly. "You'd better go check on the projects before they start missing you." She frowned slightly, but nodded. "All right. Be careful, Alex. Get some rest." She stood, her hand resting on his arm, caressing lightly. They locked gazes in the low light, and she started to move past him when his hand closed around her wrist, tugging her back. She stilled, turning to face him. His hand slid to rest on her hip, and he rubbed lightly with his thumb. "Watch your back," he said quietly. "I don't know who's on our side." She nodded, and he leaned forward, capturing her lips quickly with his before pulling back and whispering, "Promise me." "I promise," she assured him, grasping his fingers and squeezing comfortingly. He gave her a small smile, then watched as she left the room, the thick metal door closing behind her and sealing itself with a soft 'whoosh'. "Alex?" said a tiny voice behind him, and he turned, surprised, to face Hannah, who was sitting up in bed, blinking in the low light of the flashlight. "What is it, Hannah?" he asked quietly, coming to sit in the chair beside her bed. "Why do they want to kill me? The aliens, I mean." He thought for a moment, watching the seriousness of her expression. Her young face looked so old at that moment that he felt a wave of guilt for everything she'd been through here, ultimately at his hands. "They're afraid of what you are," he said finally. She nodded. "Because if there were any more like me, we could fight back," she confirmed. "I thought so." She seemed sad, and he reflected again on how often her fate had been in his hands... how he'd tried to have her killed before her birth, and then had twice saved her. How much he wanted to save her again. And not just because he truly believed her to be the savior of the human race from the coming apocalypse. It came down to choosing between keeping things at peace between the members of the NeoSyndicate and keeping Hannah alive. He suspected he'd made his choice long before it had been offered to him; the only problem was, he didn't know where that choice left him. *** Scully hummed languidly, shifting in his arms. The windows of the SUV were open, and the desert breeze sighed over the two of them where they were stretched out over the generous back seat, kissing their foreheads in a lover's benediction made for two. "Whatcha thinkin'?" he asked softly, passing his open palm over her hair, feeling the coppery strands tickle the soft skin. "About how much I wish it were morning," she yawned, turning her head and pressing her cheek against his chest. "And how much I wish morning would never come." He made a small noise of understanding. Tomorrow morning would be the defining moment. Either Hannah would be alive, or they would find out that they had been trailed along, played for fools for some dark, nefarious purpose. For now, there was nothing to do but wait. And the waiting was the hardest part, he reflected wryly. In the middle of the danger, it was easy to just react. To survive. To act on impulse and live by instincts. But in the waiting... in the silences and the spaces in the midst of the maelstrom... in the eye of the storm, it was easy to imagine. To watch the dark, threatening underbelly of the clouds until their shadows became magnified; until they took over your vision. It was in the quiet moments that you wondered if Zeus's anger would open the clouds to send forth catastrophic destruction, or whether he would favor you with the blessing of a gentle rain over your suppliant desert. And the worry could drive you insane. This he knew, so he kissed her forehead softly, his lips caressing the place he remembered from his dream, where Diana's bullet had lodged securely in the perfect ivory skin, draining away his last best reason for living. "Morning will be here soon enough," he murmured softly. "And all too soon." She let out a troubled sigh and kissed the hollow of his throat. "For better or for worse," she agreed, and his heart constricted at the sound of the traditional wedding vows spilling from her lips. He kissed her forehead again and tightened his arms around her, hoping that, by this time tomorrow, she would still be there for him to hold. And that maybe, just maybe, they'd have their daughter back too. *** The soft padding of huge feet did not awaken Alex Krycek as it should have, but Hannah sat up alertly, her sharp eyes barely making out the shadow that was just a little blacker than the seamless darkness of the room. "Ikenna," she murmured softly, reaching out her tiny hand toward the animal. The big cat leaped onto the bed with a fluid gracefulness, tucking his paws under his lithe body as he settled beside her, regarding her steadily with bright green eyes. She sighed, stroking her small hand over his silky head, teasing his ears. "You look sad," she observed, cupping his whiskered chin. "Are you?" His eyes closed and he bowed his head as if nodding once, regally. She lay flat against the bed, and he nuzzled her shoulder, butting her upper arm with his broad forehead. "I'll miss you," she said softly, and he made a low, thrumming sound in his throat. "But you won't be gone, right?" she asked, her voice quivering slightly. "Just different." He grunted, and she threaded her fingers through the short fur at the crown of his head, tugging on one of his ears. "Don't worry," she said softly. "Please don't worry." *** Mulder fumbled to the edge of consciousness, frowning slightly as one hand came up to rub his right ear clumsily, like an infant with an earache. He made a frustrated sound as his fingernail scraped the cartilage shell unyieldingly, but slipped back into unconsciousness as the cool night air blew soothingly across the minor injury. *** Ikenna ducked his head, one paw coming up to displace Hannah's tugging fingers as he rubbed his ear irritably, making a small chuffing sound through his nose. "I'm sorry," she said with childlike amusement, her hand sliding down his neck to rest between his shoulder blades. She yawned, and the panther watched her as she blinked sleepily at him. "Good night, Ikenna," she said softly, her lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks. And so Alex Krycek and Hannah Mulder slept soundly, stealing a few moments of peace as a large black cat kept watch from his regal position between them, his eyes constantly flickering around the darkened room. *** The sounds of the desert awakening were what brought Mulder to full awareness, the grey pre-dawn settling over him and Scully like dust particles that never quite alighted anywhere. Grunting, he pushed himself into a sitting position, trying not to jostle Scully any more than necessary. He yawned, gulping in the morning air that held no hint of dew, and stretched, cat-like, throwing his head back and arching his back as his arms reached skyward, his hands colliding with the roof as he felt his spine give several satisfying pops. "Mmm," Scully's voice greeted him in a sensual hum. "That was nice." He collapsed against the seat, regarding her somewhat self- consciously. "What?" he laughed. "The view," she grinned, indulging in a rather kitten-like stretch herself from her horizontal position, her diminutive form not even reaching across the width of the vehicle as her toes pointed toward one door and her hands reached for the other. "Yeah, it is rather nice," he agreed, letting his eyes roam over her form with open admiration. It was her turn to smile with self-awareness as their gazes locked in the not-so-silent half-light. Her smile faded suddenly, and she asked in a small voice, "It's morning, isn't it?" He nodded. "You ready?" She sighed, hauling herself into a sitting position, crossing her legs Indian-style and letting her hands rest on her ankles. "I guess so," she answered bravely, and he smiled at her. He leaned across the small distance that separated them, meeting her lips in what he intended to be a tender kiss. One of her hands came up to clutch the hair on the back of his head as her mouth opened to him, taking him in desperately. Moments later, breathless, she pulled back to search his eyes for reassurance. His heart thudded dully in his chest at the naked fear in her expression. He nodded. "Let's go then," he said, squeezing her hand before they clambered back into the front seat and started the ignition. *** The door slammed into the wall with a resounding metallic echo, and Alex was on his feet, gun in hand and aimed before he was fully awake. "We have to get out! Now!" He blinked to see Jeffrey Spender standing in the doorway. "Did you hear me, Krycek?" Alex stared at him for a minute. "Why?" he asked suspiciously. Spender made a frustrated sound and shouted, "You don't have time for questions! It's all about to be over!" Krycek turned to the bed to pick up Hannah, but it was empty. A quick glance around the room showed her absence. "Where's Hannah?" he demanded, but Jeffrey was already gone and he was left talking to an empty room. He took off running. *** Despite Mulder's continued reminders that what they were looking for wasn't on the map, Scully insisted on studying the piece of paper intently as if its conundrum of dots and dashes and solid lines held the answers of the universe. It gave her something to do. One hand flew out to brace herself against the dash and her seatbelt yanked unmercifully against her shoulder as the SUV slid to a halt, kicking up dust from the parched desert floor. "Mulder, wha--?" He was out the door and into the cloud of dust before she could finish her question. Sighing, she waited for the particles to settle back down before she unbuckled and slid gracefully out of the vehicle. She strode toward him where he was standing a few feet away, his hands on his hips, squinting despite his sunglasses as he studied the sandscape and the snow-capped mountains in the distance. She was momentarily amazed at the contrast between the desert and its bordering mountains. "It was here, Scully. Right here," he said in that voice she knew so well. The determined one. "What was?" "The building. Where they were keeping Hannah. I'm sure this was where it was." "When?" she wanted to know, crossing her arms over her chest. "Mulder, what are you talking about?" "In my dream --" She sighed. "Mulder..." she began in the same tone of voice she had used the day three-year-old Hannah had announced that she had decided she was going to live forever. "Don't patronize me, Scully," he cut her off, beginning to walk away from her and the car. "I know it's here." She pursed her lips and nodded in acquiescence before she walked toward him, veering slightly to his right as he wandered off to the left, both of them canvassing the area for any sign that something had once been here. She was getting rather lost in her thoughts as she stared down at the dirt that was sticking to her black boots, so the sudden hollow sound startled her more than she would have expected. Stopping, she stood still for a moment before stomping once, experimentally. The same sound greeted her and she looked up, calling Mulder's name loudly. He was at her side in moments. "What have you got?" he asked, even as he joined her in testing the ground beneath their feet for that odd echoing sound. Excited, he was on his knees immediately, and Scully didn't bother reminding him that he was probably ruining a pair of perfectly good jeans as she joined him in sweeping away the reddish sand until their fingers brushed beige metal. "It's underground," he whispered, catching her gaze as they heard a strange mechanical whirring under the metal. *** "ALEX!" He skidded to a stop, whirling to see Amina running toward him, her white lab coat billowing out behind her. "GET OUT!" he yelled at her, waving her towards the upper levels as he turned back to his journey deeper into the complex. She didn't, though, catching up to him and matching his pace instead. "What's happening?" she managed to gasp, and he shook his head. "No time," he answered, panting harshly as his footsteps increased in speed. "Get Hannah - get out." She nodded and took off toward the level where the test subjects were kept, glancing back over her shoulder several times until Alex turned a corner and faded into the darkness of the lower levels. *** Mulder grabbed Scully's hand and pulled her with him as he frantically backed away from the metal slab they'd been standing on as it began to rise under their feet. It was huge, slanted upward at about a sixty degree angle, the sand making a harsh slithering sound as it poured off the tilted surface. Underneath, the desert floor had sifted downwards to partially cover a concrete slope that disappeared into murky darkness. The slope was wide enough that a Mack truck could have driven down it. Mulder grinned at Scully, and they scrambled back to the SUV. Mulder got there first, and Scully had barely gotten inside and shut her door before he was gunning the accelerator and they went sliding down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. *** His breath was burning in his lungs by now, but he only forced himself to go faster. What worried him most was that, despite the fact he had accounted for most of the employees and NeoSyndicate members, neither Diana nor Dr. Barnes were anywhere to be found. Well, that plus the alarm systems indicated that someone had breached security at the Sixth Level. The reason no one else had been alerted was that it wasn't technically a breach of security. The access code used had been slightly outdated, a month old but still operable due to a technical oversight. The only two people who had not received the updated code were Diana Fowley and Dr. Barnes, with good reason. Level Six housed their supply of nuclear weaponry. *** Oddly enough, just under the surface of the desert was a parking garage that eerily reminded them both of the J. Edgar Hoover building in D.C., and a large red-and-white sign proclaiming, "Level One." Mulder pulled the car into a parking space near the door, ignoring the spray-painted notice that it was reserved for employees with Code Six clearance only. He found it a little absurd that a secret operation hidden away in the depths of one of the hottest valleys on earth would have designated parking. "Like having your very own parking space reserved in Hell," he quipped to Scully. She shot him a look that was half impatience and half amusement as they scrambled out of the car and approached the wide-open door to Level One with caution. "Think they're in a hurry to get somewhere?" Mulder asked as a group of people in generic navy coveralls surged through the door in a frantic stream. Mulder and Scully stood back and let them pass before letting themselves in. Halfway down a hallway that seemed to house conference rooms, offices, an employees' lounge and a cafeteria, a siren began wailing ominously and an electronic voice announced, "LEVEL TWO PLEASE EVACUATE NOW." A door marked "Stairs" opened and the hallway was flooded with people in white lab coats, pushing and shoving each other as they struggled toward the door Mulder and Scully had just entered. She heard Mulder call her name and called back, loudly. They kept shouting, trying to move toward each other in the seething mob, but his voice grew steadily fainter until finally, when the hallway cleared, he was nowhere to be seen. "MULDER!" *** "Mina!" Amina turned sharply to see Hannah running toward her, full-tilt, her eyes a little wide. She opened her arms, ready to scoop the child up and run, but a figure shot out of a side door. She watched in horror as Diana Fowley yanked Hannah against her roughly. "Diana!" she said harshly. "Let her go!" Hannah's lack of struggle caught her eye, and she locked gazes with the child. Her expression was calm, expectant. As if she were trying to tell her she knew what to do, if Amina would only play along. "You were planning on saving her," Diana hissed. "You were planning on risking all our lives for hers!" Hannah's eyes flickered up to pierce hers and she smiled at the other woman. "No, not at all," she assured her. "That's just what I made Alex think." She gestured toward the room. "Let's take this somewhere a little less public, shall we?" Diana gave her a look of suspicion, but Amina kept the perfect smile in place, and Diana began backing toward the room. Amina followed at a safe distance, and when they were just inside the door, Diana let out a gasp of pain as Hannah's tiny teeth pierced her arm. She loosened her grip in the shock of pain, and Hannah bolted, shouting, "Close the door, Mina!" Her instruction was unnecessary, however, as Amina was already moving to slam the door before Diana could recover from her shock. She pulled out her key card and locked the door, punching in the code to override the system, keeping the door locked unless her keycard and code were run back through it. "Let's go," she gasped, taking Hannah's hand and running toward the upper levels. *** As Krycek punched in the necessary clearance codes and waited for the heavy metal doors to slide open, he felt a chill sweep over him that was only augmented by the perpetually eerie silence of Level Six. There were three layers of doors, each of them boasting three feet of solid lead, and they made a grinding sound as the powerful motors pulled them apart to let Krycek pass into the bowels of the facility where they were holding weapons that were capable of making Texas into a peninsula. He thought ruefully that no one would ever have to worry about getting sunburned on the beaches of Arkansas once the nuclear explosion blew off the entire west coast - they'd be too busy avoiding the radiation burns. Besides, he wasn't sure they'd even be able to see the sun. An echoing clatter in the back of the pitch black storage room shoved his heart into his stomach. *** Amina flinched as the emergency siren began to wail again, signaling that the stairway doors for the next level were being opened. The melee of workers had already begun to surge into the hallway, rushing for the stairs. The pain in the back of her head was unexpected, and she fought against unconsciousness as she fell forward. She felt her body being dragged across the cold tile, her hand reaching out toward the last thing she heard fading into the darkness - Hannah's voice. Screaming for her mother. *** "LEVEL THREE PLEASE EVACUATE NOW." Mulder ducked into an open doorway, grimacing at the ear-piercing sounds that echoed through the facility. From the rush of people in the hall, he assumed he was on Level Three. He still wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten there, aside from the fact that he felt a little too much like Alice, and that the laundry chute just down the hall bore a much-too-strong resemblance to a rabbit hole. When everything had quieted down a bit, he poked his head out the door to confirm his suspicion. The coast was clear. Except for a shady-looking character furtively swiping a keycard through an electronic lock... He sneaked closer, keeping close to the wall, and feeling an electric jolt go through his body when the voice called softly into the room, "Miss Fowley?" *** "Dr. Barnes!" Krycek called out, expecting to hear his voice bounce eerily off the walls. The evil chuckle that floated back to him, however, sent far deeper chills down his spine. "Are you prepared to die, Alex?" came the disembodied voice. He shuddered, knowing it was a distinct possibility. "Not before I make sure you're long gone," he growled. "The building is collapsing, Dr. Barnes. Beginning at Level One, it is folding in on itself right now." "Well, then it will just be even more fun when it all explodes, won't it?" he laughed maliciously. "Ah, Alex. Only you could have such a complete storehouse - why, you've been keeping the makings for Armageddon right under the noses of the entire world! You were so perfectly right. We *do* make great friends." Alex shut his eyes against the echo of his long-ago greeting to the maniac who now taunted him with a catastrophic death wish. "I didn't know what friends were," he murmured, his mind flashing to Hannah and Amina. The floor underneath them shook, and Alex grinned as the structure of the facility was wracked with the beginning tremors of its suicide. *** Amina struggled to her feet, fighting the dizziness that had overcome her. "Hannah?" she called weakly, whimpering softly at the throbbing in the back of her head. "Here," came the soft voice as a tiny hand slipped into her own. "We need to get out, Mina." "Yeah, we do," the African woman answered, pressing a hand to her forehead as she swayed on her feet. "Hold on just a second." Hannah's mouth formed a moue of sympathy as she squeezed her friend's hand encouragingly. "We don't have much time," the child reminded her gently, tugging on her hand as another tremor swept through the structure of the building. "I know. Let's go," Amina agreed as she started out rather unsteadily, smiling when she felt Hannah slip under her arm to try to help support her, the child's arm wrapped around her slender waist. *** He stood outside the door quietly, listening as the young man addressed the unseen entity in the room. The woman's voice was enough to make him clench his jaw in anger and disgust... and regret at the ruin of someone who could have been a good friend and ally. Someone who had once been those things, long ago and far away. "Did you kill her?" the voice asked now, sharp and cold. "Um, no, she got away..." he stammered quietly, and she exploded. Mulder flinched at memories that her angered voice brought up - long arguments over his work hours... then over his decreased attraction to her... then finally over the divorce settlements and her transfer to Europe. He felt the weight of the entire mistake kick him in the gut all over again. "Incompetence!" she shouted. "I can't trust you with even the smallest of jobs!" There was a silence. A slight pause. "The woman who was with her?" He must have gestured in the negative, for her voice rang out again, shrill and harsh. "First you fail to kill Scully and instead injure Fox, and now you can't even accomplish the simple task of killing an unarmed woman and an eight-year-old child?" <...eight-year-old child...> The words rang in his head, stealing his breath like a sucker-punch to his stomach. "Hannah," he breathed. She had been trying to kill Hannah. His daughter. Fury poured through him, moving him to action. "You BITCH!" he cried as he leaped into the room, realizing the consequences a moment too late, as always. He froze momentarily as he saw the young man level the handgun at him for the second time in four days, but when the hammer clicked back, he lunged. The room was filled with the sounds of a gunshot, a body slamming to the floor, and Diana's scream. *** Gun at the ready, Scully pounded down the stairs toward Level Three, having swept all of Level Two for any sign of Mulder and come up empty. All she found were dozens of labs, abandoned in haste, missing random pieces of equipment, as if those working there had haphazardly grabbed whatever was closest and ran. And they probably had, she mused. The sound of more footsteps on the stairs had her stopping suddenly, her gun held up by her ear as she peered downward, trying to see around the corner of the stairwell. Gripping her gun, she licked her lips nervously as she saw the shadows leaping up the stairs, stretching across the wall... "FREEZE!" she shouted, swinging the gun downward. The elegant, dark-skinned woman looked ready to argue until their eyes locked. "Dana?" she asked incredulously. Scully lowered the gun. "Amina?" A movement behind Amina caught her eye, and her gun was automatically coming up again until she saw the sweet face. Even though she had changed some in three years, as was to be expected, there was no mistaking her eyes and soft reddish-blonde hair. "Oh my God," Scully choked, tears brimming on her lower lashes. "Hannah!" *** Mulder swayed on his feet, clutching the gun in his hand uncertainly, looking down at the bloody mess that had once been Dennis Morgan. Morgan's first shot had missed him, impacting the roof as he'd tackled the young hitman, and Mulder had managed to wrestle the firearm away from him, shoving the barrel under his chin and pulling the trigger. Diana cowered against the wall, trembling. He looked to her with uncertainty in his eyes for a moment, the gun hanging loosely by his side. She seemed to gain confidence, straightening and tossing her head. "Fox," she smiled, and he felt his dreams and memories rush into his brain with the shattering force of a hurricane. Diana standing over Scully as she bled to death on the floor. Diana hovering over Hannah, a syringe full of deadly viruses in her hands. Diana's voice wanting to know if the poor bastard behind him had succeeded in killing an eight-year-old child. *His* eight-year-old child. Hannah. He swung the gun up, leveling it at her. "You tried to kill them," he accused hoarsely. "My wife and child. You tried to take them away from me!" "Fox," she placated, trying to sound calm and soothing. "It was quite necessary. Scully and Hannah are both dangers to the entire world. As long as they're alive, the aliens will be looking for them, killing everyone along the way until they find them." "Liar," he ground out, his finger twitching on the trigger. "You know, Diana, you used to be my friend." He laughed humorlessly. "Funny how thin the line is between friends and enemies." She flinched, watching as his body shuddered with the force of restraining the violence of his anger just a little longer. She forced her voice to be quiet, begged it not to tremble, not to betray the unadulterated panic that washed over her at the madness in his eyes. "It is the truth, Fox. The aliens are trying to kill Hannah - they will wipe out the entire population until they find her, beginning with those of us who are working here to try to forestall their invasion." "So you took it upon yourself to sacrifice *my daughter* to their whims?" He pulled the hammer of the gun back, hearing it snick into place as he felt something cold and hard settle in the pit of his stomach. For once in his life, he found he couldn't forgive her for her betrayal. It was too blatant, too unrepentant. "Fox..." He ignored her plea, the begging of her wide brown eyes, much like the expression she'd worn when she'd begged him not to divorce her. When she'd insisted they could work it out. When he'd believed her, and she'd screwed him over, taking her pound of flesh and disappearing. "Fox, please, I'm your friend... I was trying to save *you* by... eliminating Hannah..." Mulder bit his lip. No matter how much he hated the bitch, he was not a cold-blooded murderer. At least, he didn't like to think he was... but he was rapidly changing his mind. "I promise, we could have more children... you'd forget about her, eventually... both of them..." At her words, his ears rang with the memory of his dream. < "You were my husband first. Hannah should have been ours, Fox. Yours and mine." > She would really kill Scully and Hannah. She would really sentence him to hell for the rest of his life... at least, the few short minutes before he swallowed his gun. The explosion rang out before he realized he'd pulled the trigger, and he stumbled backwards as the building began to shake. Watching Diana's lifeless body slide down the wall, the sickening wound in her forehead gaping accusingly at him, he fell against the door. He felt it close, a cold feeling slithering through his body. The locked engaged audibly as the building shuddered, the plaster in the ceiling above him beginning to tremble and crack. He looked up just in time to see a huge chunk of it crashing down onto his head. As he slumped to the floor, his last thoughts begged Scully and Hannah to get out of the building. *** Amina bit her lip, hating to interrupt the sweet mother and child reunion, but knowing that within minutes, Level One would be absolutely destroyed and they'd have no way of escaping the building. Scully was on her knees, holding Hannah closely, breathing harshly through her mouth as if the shock of the moment had constricted her lungs. Amina reached out, touching Scully's arm lightly. "We must leave," she said softly, urgently. Scully looked up at her, her blue eyes wide and bright. She nodded wordlessly, getting to her feet and grasping her daughter's hand as she turned to go up the steps. She gasped when she felt Hannah's hand slip from hers. "Hannah! Where are you going?" she called as the child ran down the stairs. "Daddy!" she yelled back up at her mother. "I've got to get Daddy!" "HANNAH!" Scully shouted, bolting down the stairs after her with Amina close on her heels. Both women skidded to a stop as they saw Hannah posed on the bottom step, pleading with a huge black panther. "Ikenna, let me past!" she begged, but the big cat bared his teeth and growled low in his throat. Scully began to leap forward, but Amina's forceful hand on her arm stopped her. "It's okay," she said softly, but Scully wasn't quite sure she believed her. "I've got to get to Daddy!" Hannah insisted, gesturing emphatically. In response, Ikenna snarled at her, butting her with his head and forcing her back up the stairs, occasionally cuffing her gently with his paws. With one more wistful look toward the door, she surrendered and turned, racing past Scully and Amina on her way up the stairs, the cat literally breathing down her neck. When the two women didn't immediately follow, Hannah and the panther paused at the top of the stairs, close to the door. "Mom! Mina! Come on, let's go!" Amina did as she was told, but Scully paused, glancing over her shoulder down the stairs. "Mulder..." she breathed before she turned to follow her daughter. *** The blood dripping from his hands was a necessary evil; a sensation he was not unfamiliar with, and yet it repulsed him. Grimacing, he wiped his palms on his jeans, glancing over his shoulder at the mangled form lying among the boxes and wooden crates. There was no spaceship here to animate him this time. No alien symbols to bring him back to a crazed, maniacal parody of life. This time, Dr. Barnes was going to stay dead. Alex felt the building creaking, knowing that it was finally beginning to collapse, hearing the dull thuds as Level One's ceiling became its floor and the steel beams protested the concrete's surrender. There was no possible way he could get out through the stairwell now - he only hoped the workers on Level Four had managed to escape along with the animals. Level Five housed nothing but supplies and file cabinets. And of course, on Level Six, he was the only person still alive. He only hoped he could find the passageway soon enough to maintain that status. *** The ceiling was already dropping in huge chunks around them as Scully, Amina and Hannah followed the confident, weaving path of a silent black cat up the tiled hallway. Scully clutched Hannah's hand, feeling the surreality of the moment; the complete dream-like quality of everything that was happening. But it wasn't a dream. She blinked, realizing they were in the parking garage, and that the ceiling to that was in the process of caving in as well. They had to hurry. She dug into her pockets for the extra key, cursing when her fingernail caught on the denim on the way out. The doors were open, and Amina and Hannah were already inside. Something made her look over her shoulder, wondering if the panther would ride with them. Wondering if - despite Amina's assurances that the cat and Hannah were old friends - she really wanted him to. But the cat was already gone. *** The bedrock held onto the chilled dampness like the sand above it held the sun's heat. The walls were slick with the desert's hidden moisture, and the pebbled clay beneath his feet sent up a slight musty smell as he crunched over them. He'd forgotten that the bedrock would be affected by the caving of the building, and cursed when the ceiling above him rained down tiny pieces of rock in response to the facility's death-rumble. *** Level Two was already well on its way to complete collapse, but the panther wasn't going down by the levels anyway. Paws braced far apart, he skidded down the bedrock incline in a controlled slide, growling softly when the wall scraped his muscular shoulder in a particularly narrow passage. His intimate knowledge of the emergency tunnel alerted him to the fact that he was at the level he wanted to be, and he pushed at the cold wall with his front paws, chuffing in satisfaction as the panel fell away and he stepped into the tile hallway. *** The debris was raining down in massive pieces, rocking the SUV as it roared over the concrete. Hannah gave a little scream as a rock came crashing through the window across from her, and Scully gripped the wheel a little tighter. "Hold on," she muttered through clenched teeth. They could see the opening just ahead, and Scully gunned the engine. The vehicle lurched and pitched into the bright sun, and she slammed on the brakes, sliding to a stop. Not waiting for the dust to settle, she leaped out of the car, with Amina and Hannah following quickly. Coughing in the haze of the sand, she felt her heart sink when she realized they were utterly alone. *** He scratched insistently at the door, but the electronic lock only blinked back at him with an angry red eye. Stopping, he closed his eyes as a violent shudder ran through his sleek body. Every muscle went still, and he crouched before the door until the hallway practically hummed with his potential energy. Tiny bits of the ceiling began to fall around him, but he ignored them, his muscles beginning to tremble with the strain of remaining motionless. With a determined snarl, he opened his eyes and leaped - and melted through to the other side of the door. *** Alex paused momentarily at the square of light that interrupted the tunnel of darkness, listening for any sounds of someone in the passage ahead of him. When he heard nothing, he inched forward again, cursing when the tiny rocks shifted underneath him without warning, slamming him into the bedrock floor. *** Ikenna stood patiently over the man on the floor, his long tail snapping back and forth like a whip, his green eyes sparkling with energy. A constant sound rumbled forth from deep in his throat - it might have been a purr or a growl; it really didn't matter. Carefully, slowly, he placed two of his big paws on the man's shoulders, settling his huge body onto Mulder's. Closing his eyes, the magnificent animal rested his head on Mulder's chest, just underneath his chin. He gave a shuddering sigh, and then melted into Mulder, slowly soaking into him like reverse sunlight until, of man and cat, only the man was left. *** The two women were odd mirrors of each other, standing in the waves of desert heat, the child between them, staring at the gaping trapdoor in the floor of the Valley of Death. The open mouth of their lovers' graves, they were sure. Reluctantly, obsidian met sapphire over Hannah's red-gold hair, and by unspoken mutual consent, they turned their backs on the serene sandscape that hid a world of death and violation. Hannah did not follow. Scully and Amina turned to watch her, giving each other sad, knowing glances. "Come on, sweetie," Scully called softly. Hannah shook her head, her strawberry-blond curls bouncing in the sunshine. "Not yet, Mom," she answered, her eyes fixed on the yawning hole in the sand. "Gotta wait for Dad and Alex." The two women looked at each other helplessly. Scully went forward, kneeling beside her daughter, placing her hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Honey, you need to come with me right now. I don't think Daddy and Alex are going to be coming out." Hannah stiffened under her touch, drawing herself up and squaring her shoulders. Scully sighed, recognizing the stubborn gesture as one of her own. "All right," she consented. "We'll sit here and wait for a little while." She looked up over her shoulder at Amina, who had come to stand behind them. "But just a little while." *** Despite the searing pain in his head, he knew where to go. He knew that the only way out was up - and the only clear path upward lay in the tunnel in the rocks, separate from the structure of the building that was now crumbling to bits, building an underground sepulcher for the nuclear storehouse below. He only hoped he could make it. *** Hannah stood stoically, never moving, not even to shift her weight. Scully knelt beside her and Amina stood behind her, both women squinting into the desert sun, trying to tell themselves that they did not have Hannah's faith. That they did not have faith in her faith. They were failing miserably. Finally, unable to stand the internal war any longer, Scully stood up, brushing ineffectually at the red sand that had been pressed into the knees of her jeans. She and Amina shared a glance, a sigh; a look of empathy and understanding and misery. "Let's go, Hannah," Scully said softly, running her hand through her own sun streaked hair. "No." Scully closed her eyes, moistening her lower lip with her tongue before she pulled it between her teeth. She felt guilty, like a deserter, telling Hannah to give up hope that her father was still alive. "They're coming." The words tugged at her heart and she pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she could honestly think Hannah was right. Hoping that, of all the times he'd cheated death, this would not be the exception. She was about to insist that Hannah get in the car *now* when Amina's breathless voice reached her ears. "Dana! It's them!" She opened her eyes, shielding them against the bright sun as her gaze darted first to the open trapdoor. Seeing nothing she asked desperately, "Where?" "There," Hannah pointed, sounding more than a little smug, a happy smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Still she did not see them. <*Where?*> she screamed frantically inside her head. There. There, coming up from the shimmering sands was the most beautiful of mirages. Scully wondered why anyone ever thought of desert visions in terms of palm trees and oasis pools when this was the most beautiful treasure any desert had ever coughed up, she was certain. Struggling up from the waves of heat that jumped and leaped like a bad cable reception were Fox Mulder and Alex Krycek, leaning heavily on each other, both looking bruised and scraped. Hannah rushed forward to greet them, followed closely by Scully and Amina, and Mulder fell to his knees, holding out his arms, tears of desperate joy streaming down his face. As Hannah launched herself into his embrace, sobbing "Daddy!" into his ear, Scully could have sworn she saw the shadow of a great cat on the sands behind him. *** EPILOGUE The sunrise over the ocean was beautiful, but as Scully and Mulder walked hand in hand along the beach, their eyes never left the child who was teasing the surf with her game of hit-and-miss tag. "It's incredible, you know," Mulder murmured, lifting their entwined hands to his lips to kiss her fingers. "I know," she answered, smiling happily as she leaned her head into his shoulder. "I never thought you'd marry me once, much less twice." She elbowed him gently, correcting, "I actually haven't ever married you, Mulder." His gaze flickered to her then, momentarily, before seeking out their daughter again. "What?" "Well, we were never officially married before, and this morning, I seem to remember the marriage certificate reading that Rachel Cartwright had married David Samson. The Admiral, Boyd, and Jen will all say the same. That doesn't sound like us at all." He laughed, slipping his arm around her shoulders and tucking her in close to his body. "Well," he said after a moment, kissing her temple. "Are Mr. and Mrs. Samson going to stay in Newport Beach with their daughter, or are they going to find adventure elsewhere in the great blue yonder?" Scully snuggled in a little closer to him, waving to Hannah as she held up a five-pointed seastar. "Mm, I d'know," she murmured. "Can we think about that later? Right now, I'd just like to enjoy being together again. All of us." He smiled, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her into a full embrace. "Of course," he murmured against her hair. "Of course." *** The stainless steel cage slammed shut as Mick Heseltine glared at Alex Krycek as if the dark-haired man were responsible for all the trouble in the world. Krycek thought, a bit sardonically. "We recovered nearly all of the animals except for that damned black panther the Mulder spawn was so fond of." Alex nodded. "That's all right," he said softly. "Just make sure they're all well-fed tonight, would you?" Heseltine nodded, and moved off to follow the order. Sighing, Alex turned his back on the experiments and traipsed wearily to his quarters, where Amina greeted him from her perch on the bed. "How's it going?" she asked quietly once the door was shut and locked. He settled down beside her, pulling her soft form to him in an embrace. "I think it's going well," he murmured, placing a tiny kiss on her temple. "Heseltine didn't even notice that the mice were missing. I'm sure they'll start to worry when the larger animals mysteriously disappear, but..." "They will not worry if I say they died in an experiment," Amina tells him confidently, slipping her hand inside the open collar of his shirt. He laughed softly as she nestled into his chest. They were silent for a few moments before she called his name softly. He answered with a questioning hum, and she whispered, "What about the invasion? What are we going to do when that happens? Do you have any idea?" He sighed, settling them back into the pillows. "Not yet, but *she* knows," he said simply. "She told me she knows." *** THE END *** END 20/20 AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, for those of you still with me, thanks for sticking it out! I'd really like it if you told me what you think about the story... the way it ended... the way you would have liked to see it end... too much smut... not enough smut... you name it, I want your opinion. :) A sequel is in the works, titled "Falls the Shadow," which takes place 10 years after the end of this story and answers the question once and for all if Hannah is truly the savior against Colonization. Who knows when it'll be finished, though! The Research below was done in a desperate attempt to give some validity to the idea that Mulder's spirit could unconsciously guard Hannah in the form of a panther. The panther wrote itself into the story despite my best attempts to write it out, and only once we started delving into the legends surrounding black panthers did I realize how very much he *needed* to be written in. It was incredible - truly an X-file in itself. Or maybe I'm just easily amused. But anyway - all this stuff was found post-facto, (except the panther's name, for which I searched and deliberated intensely) so that's just an interesting (or not) bit of fanfic trivia for you. Thanks for reading! RESEARCH INFO: * Ikenna - of African origin, means "Father's power" * Panthers are a symbol of Dionysius, who represents unconscious emotions and urges. * When the Kayans have shot one of the dreaded Borneo panthers, they are very anxious about the safety of their souls, for they think that the soul of a panther is almost more powerful than their own. Hence they step eight times over the carcass of the dead beast reciting the spell, "Panther, thy soul under my soul." * Panther denotes caution is necessary. A savage and cunning animal, it has superior fighting courage of the female. In the positive, it has a beautiful voice; it symbolizes Christ. The Panther is said to keep the diabolical dragon away. A black panther is considered especially dangerous. * In Native American legend, the Panther teaches us patterns of chaos, movement in darkness without fear, self empowerment, pattern recognition, shape shifting, psychic sight; teaches us to trust our inner voice. They also teach us agility, strength, *ability to stalk truth,* the power of silence, and the power of patience. Spotted skin symbolizes the stars in the night sky, the animal symbolizes the force that lives within mountains giving them their transformative and volcanic power. * Black Panther has all the above attributes, and is often attributed to carry knowledge of death and rebirth, be a guardian/gatekeeper into the void. * A tribe within the Cross River Valley provinces of Cameroon believes that a man can have an 'external soul' or can occasionally house his soul in the body of a panther or leopard. * Death Valley National Park has more than 3.3 million acres of spectacular desert scenery, interesting and rare desert wildlife, complex geology, undisturbed wilderness, and sites of historical and cultural interest. Bounded on the west by 11,049 foot Telescope Peak and on the east by 5,475 foot Dante's View, Badwater is the lowest point (-282 feet) in the western hemisphere