From: Ellie <windblownellie@yahoo.com>
Date: 7 Jul 2004 08:43:47 -0700
Subject: NEW First Flight (WIP, 1/?)
Source: atxc

Title:  First Flight
Author:  Ellie	(windblownellie@yahoo.com)
Rating:  PG-13, for language and graphic images
Category: X, M/S UST, AU (veers off mid-S4)
Summary:  Mulder and Scully meet a woman who may provide 
answers about the origins of Scully's cancer.
Author's Notes: This is a WIP.  Currently, the plan is to post 
one update per week until finished; I'm several chapters up 
now, so this will work for now.
Major beta thanks to XScribe for comments, advice, and 
smoothing over the rough edges.

****


First Flight: those in the hunt field who follow most directly the 
hounds and hunt staff in pursuit of their quarry, at speed and 
over obstacles


****
Chapter 1
****

"And this woman got in touch with you how, exactly, Mulder?"  
Scully rifled through the sparse file for the tenth time as Route 
50 led them out of Washington's bustle and towards the 
manicured fields of Virginia.  The information in the folder 
consisted of little more than directions and a few pages of 
Mulder's messy scrawl, written as he spoke with Beatrice 
Stevens.

"By phone."  A glance at Scully told him that response was 
neither satisfactory nor amusing.  "Actually, I'm not sure how 
she found my name.  But she has an interesting history of half-
ties to the government, and I suspect some of her family has 
worked for the same men as our cigarette-smoking friend.  But 
she seems legitimate enough, and experienced some interesting 
phenomena regarding her animals.  I told her we would be happy 
to come meet with her."

"Interesting phenomena regarding her..." she paused and 
scanned the folder.  "Corgis and horses?"  The weariness of so 
many wild goose chases seeped through in her voice.

Mulder shifted in his seat, searching for something to spark her 
interest.  "Her husband, now deceased, worked for the State 
Department, but she was never sure in what capacity.  Her father 
worked at the British Embassy and other members of her family 
are still involved in the British government."

"Wouldn't all that make her less likely as a target of 'interesting 
phenomena'?  Surely people would have taken her seriously if 
she'd brought accusations of wrongdoing to light."

"You'd think, but I'm wondering if they were counting on both 
upper class reluctance to talk of things out of the ordinary and an 
active travel itinerary leading to her not wanting to talk or failing 
too notice anything to talk about."

"Which leads to the question of why she's talking now."

"Apparently the only things you don't mess with are her animals.  
When microchips were found in two of them, she had them 
removed.   Within a year, both of those she had chips taken out 
of developed cancer."

"Oh."  Scully fell silent as they passed a wooden sign welcoming 
them to historic Aldie.  

Mulder was troubled by her silence, but accepted it as he made a 
left onto a smaller road.  "Where am I going after this?"  He 
reached for the directions lying on the dash.

She grabbed them first, speaking safely as navigator.   "Go two 
miles on this road.  Her farm is on the left, with two grey stone 
pillars marking the drive.  Avalon?"

He shrugged it off.  "She was an English teacher.  Maybe it's a 
literary choice."

"Right."

Both fell silent as they turned into the drive.  Maples lined the 
drive, forming an archway of bright new leaves over the car.  
Newly green fields rolled away to either side, bright in the spring 
morning.  Dark wood boards enclosed them, three planks to the 
left, where a few horses could be seen grazing; chicken wire with 
a single plank surrounded the right field.  It existed in urbanized 
northern Virginia like an anachronism from a fifties film or and 
old novel.

The house that appeared when they reached the end of the drive 
fit perfectly into the setting.  A two story redbrick colonial, it was 
possessed of the easy grace of age and money.  Ivy twined up 
columns that may have been white, while forsythias blossomed in 
bright contrast to the brick.  Two steps led from the portico to the 
circular drive where Mulder stopped the car.

They remained silent as they stepped up to the portico, their 
shoes confidently announcing their arrival in a muffled staccato.  
With less confidence, Mulder raised a hand to the brass knocker, 
rapping on the fixture.  A lingering finger traced over the 
engraved "s" as he released it.  He stepped back as the door 
swung open.

Had either of them been asked to describe the imagined 
inhabitant of the house, the woman appearing before them would 
have certainly fit the description.  Graying blonde hair was swept 
back from her face, revealing pearl earrings the size of gumballs.  
Bright blue eyes were made more striking by a silk scarf around 
her neck, yet there was something practical in her white linen 
shirt and jeans.  Beyond her, in the foyer, stood a silent pack of 
corgis, foxy faces taking in the visitors.

"Hello, welcome to Avalon. You can't be anyone but Agents 
Mulder and Scully."  She extended a hand to each of them in 
turn, before sweeping it aside to invite them in.  "Come in, come 
in, don't mind the dogs.  Unless you're allergic, of course.  Are 
either of you?"

"No, the dogs are fine."  Mulder noted the smile creeping over 
Scully's face as Beatrice Stevens spoke, and he couldn't help but 
grace their interviewee with one as well.

"Wonderful.  You can never be too careful now, though, with 
people allergic to everything left and right.  Can I take your 
coats?  Miriam!"  Her voice rang with authority across the 
granite and plaster hallway.

A maid appeared, footsteps barely registering on the slate floor.  
"Yes, Mrs. Stevens?"

"Please take their coats, then bring tea into the office for us."  

Mulder and Scully had no choice but to follow her as she opened 
a door to their right, ushering both them and the dogs through.  
Once inside, they didn't make it two steps before they were both 
struck by the urge to look around the room.  Its central feature 
was a large, dormant fireplace, overhung with a painting of a 
huntsman.  The walls were lined with books of all varieties, on 
shelving perfectly matched to the mahogany furniture.  Mulder 
barely registered the dog hairs on the cream upholstery, but he 
did notice Dante's "Divine Comedy" shelved next to Goethe's 
"Faust," and a shelf of Shakespeare's plays before drawing his 
attention back to their hostess' voice.

"...was my father," she was saying to Scully as she gestured to 
the painting over the fireplace.  "He was the Chief of Staff at the 
British Embassy in Washington from the time I was twelve, and 
owned this property for years.  Fox hunted all his life, and spent 
his retirement as a field master.  He hunted the day before he 
died, actually. "

An open doorway led them from the library into an office space, 
done in an inversion of the burgundy and cream of the previous 
room.  Brightly colored ribbons formed a border around the top 
of the room, and Mulder squinted to read them.  Some were 
marked with horses and emblazoned with names he vaguely 
recognized as towns in the vicinity, Upperville and Culpeper and 
Middleburg, while others had dogs and names of kennel clubs he 
failed to recognize, excepting Harrisburg and Westminster.  
Scully brushed past him, stepping closer to a sideboard that drew 
his attention primarily because it piqued Scully's interest.

An array of sparkling silver frames filled a long table.  At the 
front were pictures of the Stevens family--a young boy waving in 
front of Big Ben, a pair of little girls in tutus--while deeper layers 
showed yellowing shots of a younger Mrs. Stevens with a corgi 
with a Best in Breed ribbon from Westminster Kennel Club, a 
different pair of little girls on a sled, the same little girls again
on ponies, a young boy with a tennis racquet.  Most striking in the 
silver were black and white pictures, and one of two women on 
horseback with hounds was particularly stunning.

"Is that you with--?"

Mrs. Stevens cut Scully off with a nod, and came over to the 
table, bustling with pride and joy at someone's interest in her 
photos.  "Yes, it is.  Everyone who sees it asks.  Mrs. Kennedy.  
My husband and his father both worked at the State Department, 
and my father at the Embassy.  Somehow they volunteered one 
of my horses for her use hunting with us one weekend. I always 
had at least two, one to show and one to hunt, though the show 
horse hunted and the hunt horse occasionally showed.  My 
husband and father-in-law had a fit when I told them she was 
welcome to hunt my hunter, not my show horse."

She reached past Scully and picked up the simple four by six 
frame.  "We had an awful row about it, but I stood by what I 
said, because as fancy as Karenina was, she had only been 
hunting once with me and had a nasty buck.  So Mrs. Kennedy 
rode Heathcliff, who'd been hunting for years and didn't have a 
mean bone in his body.  She had a wonderful day, and ended up 
hunting him twice more over the season.  I ended up with a 
broken wrist after being bucked off, not an hour after this picture 
was taken." 

Beatrice chuckled and replaced the picture with a measure of 
reverence.  "Have a seat, please."  Another frame was snatched 
from the table as she moved to sit behind her desk. 

A knock sounded and the maid entered, carrying a silver tea 
service.  There was a long, awkward silence as the young woman 
poured cups of steaming tea.  

As she closed the door, Mulder cleared his throat.  "Mrs. 
Stevens, thank you for inviting us out to your lovely home to 
speak with us."

"If I'd known you were such a handsome young man, I would 
have called you sooner.  And please, call me Beatrice.  Only the 
help and my old students call me Mrs. Stevens."

"Of course, Beatrice."  Mulder smiled and turned on the charm, 
though he sensed it probably wasn't necessary with this shining 
example of upper-crust southern hospitaility.

"Beatrice," Scully cut straight to the heart of the matter, "when 
you spoke with Agent Mulder on the phone, you discussed some 
interesting phenomena with several of your dogs and horses." 

"Yes, I did, Agent Scully."  She stared for a moment at the 
picture frame she'd placed on her desk before setting the 
photograph of her at Westminster up to face them.  "This was 
Champion Avalon's Noble Sir Galahad.  He won best in breed at 
Westminster twice, and was group winner once.  Galahad was 
the best show dog I've had in fifty years of breeding and 
showing.  He was whelped in 1978, and was at his peak as a 
show dog when he disappeared for almost a month in 1981.  
Paul--Mr. Stevens--was out of the country on business, as he 
often was, and I had been away at a horse show for the weekend.  
When I came home Sunday evening, he was gone from the 
kennels.  Everything was still locked, nothing out of place, none 
of the other dogs were missing.  I called the police, my friends at 
the local shelters, no sign of him.  

"Then in late August, I was out hacking one of my young horses, 
and he came trotting out of the brush.  He was filthy, and had a 
few cuts, but was otherwise fine.  In fact, after that, he was 
unnaturally healthy.  He never developed arthritis, and remained 
spry into his teens.  Then my son, Thomas, came home drunk 
from a party one evening, and bumped into a table, knocking over 
one of the dog's trophies.  It fell on Galahad, and tore up his 
shoulder.  I was worried about breakage, as he was lame on it, 
and had x-rays done."  She paused, almost dramatically.  "His 
shoulder was fine, but there was a piece of metal in his neck."

Reaching into the top drawer of the desk, she withdrew a set of 
keys and unlocked another drawer on the upper left of the desk.  
Delicately, she removed a porcelain pillbox and sat it at the center 
of the desk, before giving it a slight nudge in the direction of her 
guests.  

Scully reached over and took the box, opening it to reveal a small 
metallic dot in the white box.  She tilted it towards Mulder as 
Beatrice continued.

"I have no idea what that was, or how it could have gotten into his 
neck.  I assumed it had happened somehow while he was 
missing all those years before.  This was before it was possible 
to put identification chips into one's pets.  Paul said it was just 
trash, and told me to throw it away, but I've held on to it these six 
years.  Six months after I had the vet take it out, I noticed 
Galahad's stomach looking swollen, though he'd been eating less, 
and took him back in.  He had a tumor the size of a baseball, 
which we removed, though not soon enough.  Cancer had spread 
to his blood and he was dead within a year.  At the time, he was 
in his early teens, and such things aren't unusual for dogs of that 
age, sad though they may be."

Scully's brow furrowed, and she took advantage of Beatrice's 
pause.  "Was Galahad examined by the veterinarian when this 
piece of metal was removed?  Did your veterinarian notice note 
the developing tumor at that time?"

"Oh, well of course.  I had a complete workup when we found 
the chip, just to make sure there weren't any other bits of metal 
that we'd missed.  There were no signs of anything wrong with 
him.  As many x-rays as were done, I would think the vets would 
have noticed a tumor of that size developing."

"Would you object to our contacting your vet's office, to see if 
they still have the x-rays?"  Mulder sat to the edge of his seat, 
preparing to fetch the x-rays that instant.

"No."  Beatrice shook her head, and Mulder deflated.   "Well, 
you can call Dr. Carruther's office, but he doesn't have the files 
on Galahad.  I took them after we had him put down.  They're in 
my files somewhere, just give me a moment." 

She rose and turned to shuffle through the filing cabinets behind 
her.  Mulder shifted eagerly in his seat, barely noticing as a corgi 
puppy sidled up to Scully's chair.  He glanced over at her as she 
stretched down to pet its head.  For a split second he envied the 
puppy, then dismissed his foolishness.

Beatrice turned back from the filing cabinets, an immense manila 
file in hand.  "Here we are.  Oh, who's managed to beg some 
attention from you, Agent Scully?"  She peered over the desk as 
she laid down the file.  "Tristram.  He's such a spoiled little runt.  
Galahad's great grandson, but not half the dog Galahad was.  
Still, he'll make a nice companion for someone."

She flipped through the folder until she reached an envelope, 
which she pulled out and passed across the desk to Scully.  
"These are all of them."

Scully took the envelope, removing her attention from the puppy 
at her side to open it and flip through the neatly labelled films.  
Mulder watched her skim over them until she found one of the 
shoulders, neck, and forelegs.  He could see the trepidation as 
she held it up to the bright spring light streaming through the 
windows.  The microchip was clearly visible, a bright spot 
between the skin's ghostly outline and the solid forms of the 
scapula.

"May we take these with us, Beatrice?"  She dropped it back into 
the pile on her lap.

"Oh, certainly, certainly."

Mulder broke in.  "Would we be able to take the chip with us, 
too, for our experts look at?"

"Quite all right with me."

"Has anything similar occurred with any of your other dogs?"  

"Not with the dogs, Agent Scully.  After that happened with 
Galahad, I had all of my dogs checked.  I traveled so frequently, 
a dog could have been gone for several weeks at some point and 
I would never have known.  Nothing was found in any of mine, 
but I rather wonder about all the dogs I'd sold on to other homes.  
But I have recently realized that several of my horses may have 
experienced something similar."

"What made you suspicious about them?" Scully asked.

"Marks on their withers, though I first noticed them years ago."

This was met with puzzled looks from both Mulder and Scully.  
After a pause, Scully managed, "Do you mean scarring, as if 
surgery had been performed?  And where exactly?"

The older woman nodded.  "I noticed that two of my mares had 
white hair growing on their withers--where the neck joins the 
shoulders.  That's normally a sign of a saddle rubbing them, but 
their saddles never did. I had the saddler check them when I 
noticed, as they were both being shown at the time, but we 
couldn't find a cause. Paul convinced me that it was probably just 
a random pasture injury, which seemed plausible enough.  
Ophelia I had worked over before she was sent off to be bred last 
spring, and the veterinarians found a similar piece of metal to the 
one I had removed from Galahad.  Like with Galahad, I had the 
chip removed, though the vets disposed of this one.  The 
breeding never took, and she's developed several melanomas 
since the summer, which aren't terribly common in black horses."

"You said there were two horses?"  Scully jotted quick notes on a 
small tablet.

"Yes, the other was Tinkerbelle, who had been my daughters' 
show pony.  She's in her thirties now, and has been a pasture 
puff since the girls outgrew her.  But I couldn't bear to part with 
her.  I noticed her markings around the same time as Ophelia's, 
but I've never had anything done about them.  Like Galahad 
before the removal of his chip, Belle's still very spry and feisty, 
carrying on like a ten-year-old."

"And these horses never disappeared as your dog did?"

"I can't say for certain, Agent Mulder.  Definitely not that 
weekend, and never to my knowledge, but that doesn't mean they 
couldn't have vanished at some point without my noticing.  After 
the children were old enough, I often acted as both an instructor 
and chaperone for the Foxcroft interim trips abroad, and would 
be gone for a month.  Especially once Julia and Charlotte were 
old enough to be enrolled and accompany me, they could have 
been gone.  I went every year then.  But Paul made it a point to 
stay here during those times, to keep an eye on Thomas.  He 
would have noticed if they went missing."

"You don't have any reason to suspect your husband would have 
not told you if they'd disappeared and were returned while you 
were gone?"  Mulder hoped he'd been tactful.  

For a long moment, Beatrice sat, her brow furrowed.  "While he 
was alive it never occurred to me that he would try to hide 
anything like that from me, even if he thought it would upset me.  
But after he passed last winter, and I began thinking about things 
like this, it did become more suspect.  He never wanted me 
delving into things, and was dismissive of my concerns about 
them."

"Was he that way in general?"  Scully asked.

"Oh, no.  Normally he panicked anytime something went wrong 
with the animals.  He was fine with them when they were healthy, 
but useless when they weren't."

"Both of these horses are still in your possession?"

"They all have a home for life with me.  Would you like to meet 
them?"

Mulder's nod set Beatrice back into motion, though he noticed a 
slight hesitation on Scully's part.  How could she not be 
intrigued by this, and eager to see living proof, he wondered.

****
End Chapter 1.
To be continued in Chapter 2
****

****
Chapter 2
****

Beatrice left them standing by the fence as 
she went into the ten stall barn to 
retrieve halters for her horses.  Mulder 
turned to face Scully, the spring sun 
warming his back, his tall form casting a 
shadow over her face.

"What do you think?"  There was an edge of 
cautious enthusiasm in his voice.

She turned her face out of his shadow, 
gazing over the pasture where the horses 
had raised their heads to examine the 
intruders to their world.  "She's certainly 
noticed some interesting coincidences with 
both her dog and her horses, and while she 
seems solidly eccentric in the way only the 
wealthy can be, she also appears to be 
honest.  However, what she perceives as the 
truth may be a far cry from what the truth 
actually is.  I'd like to speak with the 
veterinarians about the animals' health in 
general."

He could do little more than nod in 
response as he saw Beatrice emerge from the 
stable, leather halters slung over each 
shoulder.  Both agents jumped slightly as a 
high, clear whistle escaped her lips.  
Before she'd crossed the half dozen steps 
to their side, the dull thunder of 
hoofbeats over grass was growing louder 
behind them.  Beatrice didn't hesitate, 
walking straight for the green gate.  Eight 
horses met her there in short order, and 
she dropped one halter and rope into the 
grass before opening the gate and stepping 
into the herd.

Mulder could barely follow her head through 
the tangle of horses, until she returned to 
the gate with a black mare.  When she 
opened the gate, the mare plodded out after 
her, raising no fuss when she paused to 
relatch the gate.

"Meet Ophelia," she said as she tied the 
mare to a fencepost in an elaborate knot 
that Mulder vaguely remembered from 
childhood.  "Come closer, she won't bite.  
You can see the first white mark I noticed 
here."  She touched the mare's withers and 
a patch of white hair marring them.  

Mulder eyed the horse warily, crinkling his 
brow as he looked at what seemed to be a 
blindfold on her face.  Scully took a step 
closer to Beatrice, tentatively patting the 
animal's shoulder.  Before Mulder could ask 
about the mask on the horse, Beatrice 
reached up and pulled it off with a rip of 
Velcro.

"Poor darling started developing carcinomas 
in the summer.  They're relatively common 
in gray horses, but rare in darker colored 
animals.  I've had a few grays that have 
developed them, but they've never grown and 
spread this rapidly.  Then last month, I 
noticed something amiss with her eye.  She 
has a carcinoma there.  Again, those aren't 
uncommon in horses, but are most often seen 
in Appaloosas or Paints with white around 
the eye--not in Thoroughbreds.  I've been 
keeping a fly mask on her to keep it 
somewhat protected, but I don't know that 
it makes much difference."

Scully was silent as she ran her hands over 
the mare's dull black coat, dropping them 
as the horse pulled away from the fingers 
tracing the outline of her eye.  "What has 
your vet had to say about this?  Do you use 
the same vet for your dogs and horses?"

Beatrice shook her head, reaching up to 
scratch the mare between her ears as she 
did so.  "No, I have an equine practitioner 
for the horses and a separate small animal 
vet for the dogs.  Both have clinics up the 
road in Middleburg.  I've had Ophelia up to 
be examined by Virginia Tech's equine 
center in Leesburg as well.  Everyone's 
been puzzled by the aggressiveness and 
rapid progress of the cancer, which is 
normally fairly benign.  We had surgery 
scheduled for two weeks ago-just a few 
weeks after we found it, mind you-and by 
that point, it was already too far gone to 
operate.  She's lost approximately eighty 
percent of her vision in that eye.  It 
looks as if the tumor is eating through the 
eye itself.  Their best advice at the 
checkup last week was to put her down, and 
I can't disagree.  She's being put down on 
Monday."  Her voice remained matter of 
fact, even in announcing the death sentence 
pronounced for the horse her hand rested 
on.

Mulder was startled at the casualness in 
her tone.  "You don't sound very broken up 
about that."  His gaze locked on Scully as 
he spoke, watching as she once again traced 
her hand down the mare's neck.  Mulder 
stepped closer to her, ostensibly peering 
at the mare's clouded eye, but taking the 
opportunity to drop his hand onto the small 
of Scully's back.

"Every story ends in death, Agent Mulder.  
I've been raising horses and dogs all my 
life, and have been hunting since I could 
ride.  You come to gain a sense of respect 
for the cycle of life and death that way.  
These animals give us their hearts; it's 
our duty to see that they find a fitting 
end."  There was steel in her voice, and 
she met his eyes as she continued, "It 
doesn't mean I love her any less.  She 
raced as a youngster, produced two lovely 
foals, had ten years as a show horse, and 
hunted.  She's had a good life, and my only 
regret is that her cancer and the 
euthanasia will prevent me from giving her 
the end that truly befits a good hunter."

Scully's gaze turned from the mare's neck 
to the pasture, where the other horses were 
now grazing by the fence.  A moment of 
tense silence hung before she continued, 
"Most live out their lives in the pasture, 
then, after retiring?"

Beatrice sighed and looked from Scully to 
Mulder and back.  "Most do, yes," she 
began, speaking carefully.  "But that's not 
what I meant in this case.  It's considered 
a proper end after the death of a good 
field hunter for its body to be butchered 
and fed to the foxhounds.  It sounds a bit 
shocking to you, I'm sure, but it's a sign 
of great respect for the horse, for its 
body to end in the cycle of hound, fox, and 
horse."

"Like a sailor to the sea."  Scully's voice 
was far away. 

"Exactly."  Beatrice nodded solemnly to 
Scully.  She reached up and began to 
replace the fly mask on the mare.  "She 
should have an end such as that."

Without another word, she untied the horse 
and led her back to the gate, releasing her 
and reaching down for the other halter in 
the grass.  

This time she emerged from the tangle of 
horses with a brown and white paint pony, 
who she tied just as she had done with the 
mare.  Mulder stepped closer, less 
intimidated by the smaller creature.  As he 
did so, the pony tried to turn and look at 
them, placing its hoof squarely on Mulder's 
toes.

"Belle!"  Beatrice's voice was very nearly 
a growl, and she gave the pony a firm swat 
on the shoulder with her palm.  It 
immediately stepped off Mulder's foot.

Scully turned to him as Beatrice dealt with 
the unruly pony.  One eyebrow arched 
slightly in concern as she watched him hop 
a few steps backward.

"Ah.  I'm-uh--I'm fine. Really."  Mulder 
wiggled his toes inside his shoe before 
retreating behind Scully, out of the pony's 
range.

"I should have warned you, I apologize.  
Tinkerbelle is smaller than Ophelia, but is 
a much bigger brat.  Ponies."  She shrugged 
and turned to glare at the pony, who stood 
innocently, an ear swiveled back to catch 
her voice.  "If they think they can get 
away with something, they'll try it.  By 
her age, though, it's rather unusual.  She 
taught both my daughters to ride and is now 
in her mid-thirties.  I've known several 
who lived as long, but none that stayed so 
healthy.  She's shown no signs of 
arthritis, of joint problems, of vision 
problems, nothing.  Because of her 
coloring, Tink's a much more likely 
candidate for carcinomas than Ophelia, but 
has never had a problem.  I don't think 
this pony's taken an off step in at least 
fifteen years."

Scully eyed the pony, then ran her hand 
lightly over its shiny coat, just as she 
had with the mare, stopping at the withers.  
"This is the same mark the larger mare had.  
But you can hardly notice it, with all the 
white on her.  You're sure she has the same 
type of subcutaneous chip the other animals 
had?"

"I had all of them x-rayed after the chip 
was found in Ophelia.  This is the only 
other mare I have, and the only other horse 
with a chip.  But I didn't have this one 
removed."

"Why did you decide to leave hers, after 
removing the other two?"  Scully continued 
the line of questioning.

"By that time, I was already noticing the 
tumors on Ophelia, and was wondering if 
they might be related.  There was no reason 
to remove it, either, as it didn't seem to 
be harming her, however long it has been 
there."

"Those x-rays are all with your vet?"

"All of the horses', yes.  Let me put her 
back, and I'll get you their number from 
the tack room."  Beatrice untied the pony, 
who immediately tried to take a bite of the 
leadrope.  After replacing the pony in the 
field, she once more disappeared into the 
wooden barn, carrying the halters.

Scully sighed and looked down at Mulder's 
feet.  "Is your foot all right?"

"Yeah, it's fine, really.  Better me than 
you in those fancy shoes, anyway.  But that 
little thing was surprisingly heavy."  He 
bounced back and forth, offering proof of 
his well-being.

"It's not the size, it's the way that you 
use it."  She quirked an eyebrow up at him.

"And just what do you mean by that, Agent 
Scully?"

"I'm telling you that you shouldn't make 
assumptions based on size, Agent Mulder."  
A smile teased at the corners of her lips.

Mulder chuckled softly, sobering when 
Beatrice approached again.

"This is the number for the Middleburg 
Equine Clinic.  It's about fifteen minutes 
down the road.  Just continue on fifty 
west, through Middleburg, then make a right 
at the fourth crossroads.  Ask for Dr. June 
Miller.  I'll call her and ask her to make 
a copy of Ophelia and Tinkerbelle's records 
for you."

Scully took the business card from 
Beatrice, glancing briefly at the number 
before tucking it into the manila case 
folder.  "Thank you, Beatrice.  I look 
forward to taking a look at those records.  
Is your dogs' veterinarian based out of the 
same offices?"

"No, the clinic is strictly equine 
practitioners.  Dr. Carruthers is at the 
Animal Hospital, just past the town sign as 
you enter Middleburg.  I'll call ahead to 
him, too, if you like."

"That would be wonderful."

"Is there anything else you need?"

"No, you've been very helpful.  Thank you 
for your time, and the tea."  Mulder smiled 
and reached out to shake Beatrice's hand.

She took the hand, and then offered hers to 
Scully.  "You're very welcome, and are 
welcome here any time if ever you have more 
questions."

"We will, thank you."  Scully's hand on 
Mulder's forearm was the impetus needed to 
set both of them moving uphill, towards 
their car.

****

Two new folders had joined the initial one 
on the table at Mosby's.  Each was nearly 
two inches thick, the paperwork proof of 
two impeccably cared for animals.  Both 
were spread open in front of Scully, who 
was making the best of waiting for her tuna 
salad on toast.

"I have to admit that I don't feel 
qualified to comment on any of this yet.  
Not until I can dig out some veterinary and 
equine anatomy texts and brush up my 
knowledge.  I'm afraid I haven't had to 
know anything about horses since my 
undergraduate days."  She shook her head 
and shuffled through several more of the 
pages in Ophelia's folder.  "But from these 
records, I can't see anything that appears 
particularly unusual, until the appearance 
of this rapidly metastasizing cancer this 
past summer."

Mulder took a sip of his iced tea and 
looked at the upside down pages of the 
folder.  "But that's definitely something."

"Not necessarily.  I don't know enough 
about equine melanomas to make a judgment 
on that.  And as Beatrice mentioned, the 
problems that occurred with both animals 
were not uncommon for their age, just 
rapidly developing."

"And the foot stomper?"

"Your friend the pony is thirty-seven years 
old, current on all her shots, and has her 
teeth cleaned every May.  She's in 
remarkable shape for her age.  There are no 
records of any illness or unsoundness after 
1983, when she was treated for a puncture 
wound to the foot which apparently healed 
quite rapidly."

"Healthy as a horse, then."

That earned a smile.  "Healthy as a horse."  
She closed the folders and dropped them 
into her bag as their lunch arrived.  

They ate in silence for several minutes, 
enjoying the moment of normalcy.  Over 
Mulder's shoulder, she watched as the 
twentysomething who had seated them struck 
up a game of darts with a group of regulars 
at the bar.  An elderly couple in tweed 
waved to the darts players as they entered 
and seated themselves at a nearby table.  
The other booths near them were empty, she 
noted, taking a small bite of her sandwich.  
Scully was reluctant to break the silence 
to debate Mulder, but she wanted to hear 
his take on this.  

"Okay, spill it," she said, sitting her 
water glass down on the varnished maple 
tabletop.  

"Spill what?"  Mulder tilted his glass, 
threatening to pour it on the untouched 
half of her sandwich.

The action was greeted with a stern look.

He sat the glass back down on the table and 
took a bite of his burger.  Grease dripped 
down, landing on his fries, and Scully 
crinkled her nose in disgust.  For a moment 
he chewed thoughtfully, then continued.  
"These animals were perfect test candidates 
for the microchips.  From what those 
records and Beatrice tell us, these chips 
were implanted in the late seventies or 
early eighties.  They belonged to someone 
who worked for the State Department, in a 
capacity unknown even to his wife.  
Beatrice was often gone on weekends, or 
even for weeks.  The opportunity was there 
for the animals to be taken, implanted, and 
returned with no one the wiser but Paul 
Stevens, who was most likely in on the 
project."

"To what end?"

"There are a couple possibilities, but I 
think the most likely explanation is that 
these animals were used as a test run.  
Aren't new medical procedures tested on 
animals first?"  

She nodded, surprised at how nearly 
plausible this was sounding, if she ignored 
the presumption that these chips were 
implanted by a shadowy pseudogovernmental 
conspiracy.  

He continued, "So these animals were used 
as the test runs.  I haven't seen any 
indication of chips in abductees prior to 
the late eighties, so chronologically, it 
would make sense."

"You think they were simply making sure the 
chips were undetectable and worked to their 
purpose in independently functioning 
organisms?"

"It sounds so sexy when you say it like 
that."  She glared at him, and he hastily 
continued.  "It makes perfect sense, 
though, that they would want to make sure 
the chips functioned out of their direct 
supervision and weren't noticeable by the 
public at large.  We just don't know what 
the chips are meant to do."

"I'll admit that does make some sense.  But 
we also haven't seen any chips in males 
prior to this dog."

Mulder shook his head.  "That one's got me, 
too.  But I really wonder if he wasn't 
simply part of a larger implantation group 
of dogs.  He was pretty old and a good 
decade had passed before Mrs. Stevens 
noticed the chip in him.  I'm sure most of 
the other dogs who'd been in her kennel at 
the time of his disappearance had been sold 
or died."

"He only stood out as the one who got lost 
on his way home?"

"Possibly.  And in having chosen a bad 
place to sleep later on."

Scully sighed and abandoned her sandwich, 
less than half-eaten.  "But none of that 
answers the question of what the chips 
actually do.  If the goal was simply to see 
if a piece of metal in the neck would go 
undetected, it seems an unusual coincidence 
that they would develop medical problems 
only after its removal."

Mulder shrugged and popped the last bite of 
burger into his mouth.  She saw him glance 
at her own plate with concern, but he said, 
"That I don't have the answer to.  It 
sounds as if the chips keep the animals 
inordinately healthy, but I'm clueless as 
to what purpose that would serve."

****

With a sigh, Scully closed the heavy text 
and removed her glasses.  After making a 
few additional notes, she tore the top 
sheet off the legal pad in front of her and 
placed it in the folder of Ophelia's 
records.  As she was reaching over the 
folder for another of the veterinary texts 
she'd fished out of the bowels of the FBI, 
the phone rang.

"Scully."

"I've been trying to call you for an hour.  
What have you been doing?"

"Hi, Mulder."  She was tired and wasn't up 
to question and answer games with him.

"Hi.  What are you doing?"

She sighed and gave in.  "I've been on the 
phone with various animal people about this 
case."

"Animal people?  This sounds promising.  
Continue."

"Mulder."  There was warning in her tone.  
"Breeders, registries, what have you.  
According to the American Kennel Club, 
there were twenty-four offspring of 
Champion Avalon's Noble Sir Galahad whelped 
in Mrs. Stevens' kennel the summer he 
disappeared, so I would assume all of them 
could have been targeted as well.  Only two 
of those dogs were subsequently registered 
as Mrs. Stevens' animals.  The others were 
all sold--some as far away as Colorado.  
She also had eight other dogs registered in 
her name in 1981, so presumably they were 
in the same kennel as well."

"Did you get names and addresses on all of 
the puppies' buyers?"

"They'll be faxing us what they have 
tomorrow.  Most of the information will be 
outdated, of course, and the odds are good 
that all of those dogs are now deceased.  
The average life span of a dog is something 
like 14 years; these dogs were born almost 
twenty years ago.  None of the other dogs 
Mrs. Stevens owned at the time are still 
alive."

"But if one of them was still alive and 
healthy, that in and of itself would be 
important."

Scully closed her eyes and pinched the 
bridge of her nose, trying to avoid the 
headache threatening.  "I also contacted 
the Jockey Club and the American Horse 
Shows Association about the horses."

"The Jockey Club?  I didn't know you were 
considering a career change."

"They register Thoroughbred racehorses.  
Ophelia was foaled in Virginia in 1975 and 
registered to race under the name Southern 
Charm.  She raced eight times with two 
wins, was retired at the end of her three-
year-old year, and had one foal before she 
was purchased by Mrs. Stevens in 1979.  She 
had another foal in the spring of 1980, 
also registered with the Jockey Club, but 
never raced.  From what I can tell from the 
Horse Show Association, both Ophelia and 
her second foal were shown by Mrs. Stevens, 
rather successfully, for many years.  Per 
the veterinary records, she was bred twice 
more, resulting in one foal in 1986 who was 
not registered anywhere.  While the mare 
was shipped all over the east coast, from 
Florida from New York, it appears she was 
very well managed, so I would assume it 
would have been noticed if she went 
missing.  It just doesn't fit with the 
information on her."

Mulder made a noncommital noise.  "What 
about the pony?"

"She was...." Scully trailed off as she 
pulled out the third folder.  "Registered 
with the Horse Show Association for three-
year-old pony breeding classes in 1964, as 
Farnley Lustrous.  The woman I talked to on 
the phone sounded rather excited about her; 
apparently her brother was quite famous.  
She had two owners before being purchased 
by the Stevenses in 1972.  Both girls 
showed her, with her last recorded show in 
November 1982, ridden by Julia Stevens."

"Okay."

"What else do you want to know?  Their 
complete race and show records are being 
faxed over tomorrow, too."

"So we can account for all the animals' 
whereabouts nearly all their lives."

"Either showing, at home with the 
Stevenses, or being shipped between those 
two points."

Static crackled over the line and they were 
both silent.  "Someone could have tampered 
with them while being shipped.  It's a long 
way from Virginia to Florida."

She didn't even try to argue.  "What did 
you find out about the family?"  She could 
tell he was chomping at the bit to share 
even more theories.

"Her father, James Llwellyn was the chief 
of staff at the British Embassy in 
Washington from 1945 until 1985.  He then 
retired, but remained in the country and 
died in 1989.  The grandfather was in 
Parliament, and Beatrice Llwellyn lived 
with her grandparents during breaks while 
she attended boarding school and later 
Cambridge University.  She received her 
degree in Literature, then came to the 
United States.  At some point while she was 
here, she met Paul Stevens.  He had just 
started at the State Department, following 
in his father's footsteps.  There isn't 
much information on him or his job, just 
that he was an employee of State.  They 
married in 1955, and somehow she still has 
dual citizenship with the US and UK."

"How is that possible?  I don't know of 
anyone over eighteen who's been allowed to 
maintain that."

"No clue, but she has it."  He sounded 
puzzled, but continued eagerly.  "She 
became an English teacher at Foxcroft 
School in 1963.  They had three children.  
Julia--who you mentioned--was the youngest, 
born in 1968.  She has British citizenship 
and lives just outside London.  Thomas, the 
middle child, was born in 1964, and works 
at Goldman Sachs in New York.  Most 
intriguing is the eldest daughter, 
Charlotte.  She was born in 1960 and now 
works as a consultant to the government.  
No Department listed, or mention of where--
just a consultant.  Very fishy."

"You know very well that means nothing.  
There are any number of vital positions she 
could hold that would necessitate her being 
nearly nonexistant."

"We're meeting her for lunch tomorrow."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know me so well."  She 
couldn't tell whether it was a joke or a 
compliment.

****
End Chapter 2
Continued in Chapter 3
****

****
Chapter 3
****

The restaurant wasn't overly crowded at 
11:30.  It was still early for the 
bureaucrat crowd to be out to lunch, though 
a few suspiciously governmental patrons 
looked as if they had more than a passing 
acquaintance with the bar.  Mulder sipped 
his diet Coke and watched as Scully chased 
a lime wedge through her club soda with a 
swizzle stick.

There had been an uneasy silence between 
them all morning.  He couldn't put his 
finger on why, precisely.  Though lately 
there had been more uneasy silences than in 
times past.  It seemed as if they were 
always oscillating between they-either-
hate-each-other-or-are-sleeping-together 
banter or completely failing to 
communicate.  More often than not, the 
decision rested solely on the mood Scully 
was in.  He wanted to ask what was wrong, 
and went so far as to draw a breath with 
which to ask when he noticed Scully's gaze 
shift to the doorway.

A woman in a tailored black suit was making 
her way towards them, deftly weaving 
through the empty tables.  The only 
resemblances to her aging Hitchcock heroine 
mother were in her 50's starlet figure and 
balletic grace.  Her brunette hair and 
medium complexion would have let her blend 
in anywhere from Malibu to Moscow with a 
simple wardrobe change.  She was studiously 
unremarkable.

"Agents Mulder and Scully?"  She paused at 
the edge of their table, extending a neatly 
manicured hand.

Both agents rose to greet her.  "I'm Agent 
Mulder.  This is my partner, Agent Scully.  
Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on 
such short notice."

"Charlotte Stevens.  Good to meet both of 
you."  She dropped down into the remaining 
chair, waving a hand towards the waiter.  
"What can I help you with?"

"We spoke with your mother yesterday about 
the health complications of several of her 
animals," said Scully, pausing as the 
waiter arrived.  "We'd like to ask you a 
few questions about them as well." 

"Jameson's Gold on the rocks and a Nioise 
salad, please."  Charlotte reached into a 
handbag that Mulder guessed was made of 
some sort of reptile, extracting a silver 
lighter and a pack of Morleys.  "Do you 
mind?"  She waved the pack at them.

Mulder glanced quickly at Scully and waved 
a hand at Charlotte.  Was secondhand smoke 
really a concern now?

With a practiced flick of the wrist, she 
lit a cigarette and exhaled a thin plume of 
smoke.  "I'm more than willing to answer 
your questions about Mom's animals.  But up 
front I will tell you that just because my 
mother occasionally trained with Barney and 
Paul when she was in Florida does not mean 
that she's involved in anything untoward 
with her animals.  I assumed those concerns 
were in the past now."

"I'm sorry?"  Scully's brow furrowed.

"Agent Mulder mentioned the health problems 
with Mother's animals.  I assumed if the 
FBI was involved in such matters, it was 
connected in some way with the wire fraud 
charges that came down over the insurance 
killings the other year."  She sat back in 
her chair with the air of a judge who'd 
just made his ruling.

Scully adapted to this shift in information 
while Mulder sat staring at the 
presumptiveness of this woman.  "Was your 
mother questioned about this during the 
proceedings?"

"Briefly, as her horse was stabled next to 
one of those killed.  Mom's well-meaning, 
but rather oblivious to some of the seedier 
things that go on around her."

"What sort of 'seedier things' are you 
talking about, Ms. Stevens?"  Mulder tried 
to remain neutral as he posed the question.

His efforts were apparently in vain;  her 
brown eyes hardened into a look similar to 
those Scully gave him when she was in no 
mood to joke.  "Certainly, Agent Mulder, if 
you have even a passing familiarity with 
the recent fraud charges, you have no need 
to ask me that question."

An icy silence fell over the table as the 
waiter appeared with her whiskey and their 
lunches.  Charlotte raised the golden 
liquor to her lips as Scully redirected the 
questioning in what Mulder would have 
reluctantly admitted was a much more 
productive manner.

"Did you ever notice anything usual about 
the animals on your family's property?"

Glass and ice clinked as the whiskey was 
replaced on the table.  Charlotte stalled 
further by taking a long drag on her 
cigarette.  "It depends what you mean by 
unusual."

"Unusual illnesses or behavior," Scully 
clarified.

"The animals were always healthy," 
Charlotte replied.  "We took good care of 
them, but animals get sick or hurt 
themselves, even under the best conditions.  
I don't ever recall them being seriously 
ill.  I think the last problem Mom had with 
the horses before now was with Ophelia, 
too.  She miscarried half term in her last 
pregnancy.  With the dogs...." She trailed 
off, taking another drag of her cigarette.  
"One of them was hit by a car while chasing 
a rabbit last fall."  A shrug silently 
added "shit happens" to the end of her 
statement.

"As for behavior," she continued, "well, 
you tell me what normal is and then maybe I 
can give you a better idea.  We always 
ended up with the ones with big 
personalities."

"Fair enough."  Mulder nodded.  "What about 
you or your siblings?"

The brown eyes hardened again.  "Nothing 
remarkable.  We broke wrists and sprained 
ankles.  No chronic problems.  As for 
unusual behavior, well, who calls their 
siblings normal?  Thom was always doing 
something.  He was never idle--very driven.  
Julie marched to her own drummer, and it 
drove my parents mad.  And I was my 
father's daughter."

There was a beat of silence as they all 
busied themselves with the food in front of 
them.  Mulder watched Scully push a cherry 
tomato through her garden salad while she 
formulated a question.

"Did you travel much as a family?"

"Yes, we did, Agent Scully.  Every summer 
we went to visit our grandparents for at 
least a month.  Dad couldn't always stay, 
but was always traveling for work.  Julie 
and I always did interim abroad with school 
once we were old enough, and sometimes Mom 
went along.  And of course there were horse 
and dog shows nearly every weekend."

Scully nodded and looked ready to dismiss 
her.  Mulder could tell Scully had arrived 
at a perfectly plausible rationalization 
for everything based on what Charlotte 
Stevens had said.  He was less sure, but 
couldn't put a finger on what else he 
needed to ask.  "What do you think of the 
cancer that Galahad had, and that Ophelia 
currently has?" he blurted.

"It's sad, but it happens," she stated.  
"Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened 
to one of the animals before the last 
couple of years.  It's been hard on Mom, 
though, after not having to deal with many 
drawn out, painful deaths.  Her animals are 
like children to her.  When I was a 
teenager, I was sure she cared more about 
the damn dogs that she did about us.  For 
her it's like watching her children die."

Mulder nearly missed the look that flitted 
across Scully's face--anyone else would 
have.  He couldn't identify it, but there 
was something sympathetic and sad in it 
that was quickly overtaken by her 
professional veneer.

"I think that's all we needed to ask you 
about, Miss Stevens.  Thank you very much 
for taking the time to speak with us."

Charlotte neatly tipped back the last of 
the whiskey before rising.  "Glad to be of 
help.  I'm not sure how you got my number, 
Agent Mulder, but you know where to reach 
me if you have any more questions."

With the same casual grace as she entered, 
Charlotte Stevens slipped away from the 
table and out the door.  As she passed the 
window, she'd already blended in with the 
black and gray crowd of politicos moving 
past.

Turning back to face Scully, Mulder noted 
her crossed arms and raised eyebrow.  
Taking her off guard, he asked, "So what do 
you make of Ms. Stevens, Agent Scully?"  It 
was easy for him to mimic Charlotte 
Stevens' crisp, faintly British diction.

"I think her last statement was very 
telling."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that sometimes death is just 
death, and cancer is just cancer.  People 
and animals become ill and die for reasons 
we're not meant to understand everyday.  
That does not make their deaths X-files."

"And sometimes it's not 'just' anything.  
Sometimes it merits further investigation, 
because it's not just a random twist of 
fate."

Everything left half said crackled between 
them.  They remained quiet for a moment, 
searching for a way back to solid, less 
sensitive ground.

The waiter exchanged Charlotte's place 
setting for their bill, and Mulder 
automatically reached for it.  "So you 
think we should just stop looking into 
this?" he asked as he rummaged his pockets 
for the FBI-issue charge card he knew was 
lurking somewhere.

"I think Charlotte Stevens' immediate 
assumption about wire fraud is worth 
looking into, because it seemed too pat a 
denial.  She's either very worried about 
something there, or it's a total red 
herring.  But it is far more plausible that 
these animals died for their owner's greed 
than that they were used as guinea pigs to 
test run microchips the purpose of which we 
don't even understand."

"Fine," he said, finally finding the credit 
card in his left pocket.  "Why don't we 
spend this afternoon looking into that 
fraud possibility?  But I also want to call 
Mrs. Stevens and arrange for you to autopsy 
her horse after she's euthanized on Monday.

"Necropsy.  And I can't."

"What?"

"Autopsies are performed on humans; 
necropsies are performed on animals."  She 
managed to look at him without meeting his 
gaze.

"That's not what I meant."

Scully sighed softly and studied her half-
full plate.  "I can't necropsy the horse on 
Monday."  After a beat, she continued, as 
if unsure that she should share with him.  
"I have to go into the hospital in the 
mornings next week.  I'll be in the office 
in the afternoons, but I don't think I can 
go do the necropsy."

It took him a moment to fully comprehend 
what she'd told him.  Had she just 
disclosed something about her health and 
admitted weakness in the same breath?  He 
wasn't sure how to respond to that.  "Oh.  
Well, uh, I can call the vet hospital and 
have them do it, right?  And they can send 
you the results?"

"If you call Mrs. Stevens and get consent, 
I'll take care of calling the equine center 
in Leesburg.  There are a few tests I want 
run, and a few things I'd like to have them 
look for."

"Sounds like a deal."  He signed the 
receipt with a flourish then stood, 
extending his hand to her as she rose.  For 
the two seconds it took her to stand, she 
took it, then lead them to the door.

****

Scully heaved a sigh and glanced down at 
her watch as she hung up the phone.  Four 
forty-five.  She slipped her glasses off 
and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of 
her nose as she did so.

"Scully?  Are you all right?"

Her eyes flew open and she spun in her 
chair to face Mulder.  "I'm fine.  Just a 
bit unsure that the veterinarian I spoke to 
really understood what I want.  They'll be 
faxing the complete report over Tuesday 
afternoon."

He made a non-committal noise as he 
shuffled through several sheets of paper.  
"What did you come up with on the fraud 
possibility?"  

She could hear the challenge in his voice 
and was slightly reluctant to respond.  
"After comparing the facts involved in 
that, I don't know how plausible it is for 
Mrs. Stevens to be doing something similar 
here.  It just doesn't fit with the MO from 
that case.  There the horse was 
electrocuted with the intention of making 
it look like an accidental death.  
Electrocution isn't a kind way to go, but 
it is quick.  In this case, the mare has 
been subjected to a slow wasting illness.  
I also don't know of any way to 
intentionally and reliably give any 
organism cancer outside of a laboratory 
environment.  It's just not feasible."

"That fits with what I got from the 
insurance company.  Both animals were 
insured, but it seems like Mrs. Stevens 
went out of her way to verify with multiple 
vets that the illnesses were as claimed.  
The insurance company never had any reason 
to doubt her claim on the dog, and is in 
the process of working on the details on 
the horse.  The dog that she did collect on 
wasn't insured for much, either.  Certainly 
it's unlikely that anyone would go through 
so much trouble for five thousand dollars."

"Five thousand dollars?  For a dog?"  
Scully was incredulous.

"Yeah.  Apparently show animals are worth 
big bucks.  Don't even ask how much that 
horse is worth.  Just think more than you 
make in a year for mutant-chasing."

"I don't think I want to know.  But while 
that's a lot of money for an animal, it 
doesn't seem like an amount someone like 
Beatrice Stevens would resort to fraud to 
come up with.  The earrings she had on when 
we met her were probably worth the payout 
on the dog."

Mulder nodded.  "Exactly."

She sighed again, not wanting to concede 
the argument, but realizing it was lost.  
"Which eliminates fraud as a possibility 
here."

He nodded again, then looked away from her, 
to his watch.  "Let's get out of here.  
It's five, and there's nothing more we can 
do with this today."

Wordlessly, she swiveled back to her desk 
and began gathering the notes she wanted to 
take home and review.  They were still 
missing some key piece, she thought, but 
she couldn't put her finger on exactly what 
it was.

She paused at the door and turned back to 
Mulder, who was still jotting notes on one 
of the papers littering his desk.  "I 
should be in around one on Monday.  If I 
won't be, I'll call by noon."

He looked across the room at her, freezing 
her in place.  "Don't worry about it.  Why 
don't you just take Monday off until you 
know how you're going to be feeling?  You 
won't have the paperwork you want until 
Tuesday anyway."  She was surprised at the 
tender note in his voice.

"I'll be--" she stopped herself, willing to 
admit by omission that she may not be just 
fine Monday afternoon.  "That might be a 
good idea.  I'll see you Tuesday then.  If 
anything comes up before that, call me."

"I'll stop by Monday evening with dinner 
and fill you in on how things are going."   
Even across the room, she could see the 
furrow of concern on his brow.

Her breath caught for half a second as she 
processed that.  She was still torn on how 
to treat Mulder's attempts at chivalry.  
She appreciated that he wanted to help her, 
but still resented that he felt the need.  
"Thanks."  She left without another word, 
not trusting herself to say anything 
further.

****

When his soft knocks on her door went 
unanswered, Mulder felt justified in using 
his key to enter the apartment.  He nearly 
dropped the bags of take-out and files in 
his rush to enter and make certain she was 
all right, but froze just inside the door 
when he spotted her sleeping form on the 
couch.

He so rarely saw her this way--no make up, 
unstyled hair, wearing faded gray 
sweatpants and a navy tee shirt from which 
the white "FBI" logo was starting to wear 
away.  Her feet were flat on the couch, and 
a book rested open against her thighs.  

Reassured, he stepped into her kitchen, 
depositing dinner on the counter and the 
files on the table.  She hadn't moved when 
he returned to the living room.  Trying to 
be as quiet as possible, he crouched beside 
her and slid the book from her loose grasp.  
For a moment, he stared at the sepia-toned 
cover of Isak Dineson's "Out of Africa" 
before sliding in the bookmark on the 
coffee table and picking up the remote.  
With a flick, the muted CNN broadcast faded 
to black.

Scully finally stirred when he pulled the 
afghan off the back of the couch to cover 
her.  "Mulder?"  She looked up at him with 
bleary, tired eyes.  "What time is it?"

"Just past six.  I brought dinner and some 
paperwork from today, but I can just leave 
it and let you sleep...."

"Where did you get dinner?"

"Cosi.  I brought you one of the turkey 
sandwiches you like--the one with that 
godawful mustard.  And vegetable soup," he 
added as a healthy afterthought.

She shook her head and sat up slowly.  "No, 
no.  For that I can wake up, and you can 
stay.  But," she frowned and caught his 
eye, "that mustard is not godawful.  It's 
delicious."

"Whatever you say, Scully."  He turned back 
towards the kitchen, until he heard her 
shift, moving off the couch.  "No, no.  
Just sit.  I'll bring dinner in here."

He turned to see her appraising him with 
narrowed eyes, but then her face suddenly 
softened, and she nodded in assent.  He 
heard the television flick back, CNN's 
headlines shouting across the apartment to 
assail him.

When he returned balancing trays with 
plates, bowls, and glasses, he found Scully 
had settled back onto the couch.  The 
volume on the news was lower, and the book 
was back in her lap.

"Good read?" he asked as he sat the trays 
carefully on her coffee table.  The soup 
sloshed, but only trickled down the side of 
his bowl.

She shrugged before answering.  "I haven't 
read much of it yet.  I started while I was 
waiting this morning.  It's somewhere I've 
always wanted to go," she finished softly, 
averting her eyes and reaching for the 
water glass on the tray in front of her.

Mulder nearly choked on his spoonful of 
soup at her revelation and tried to fit 
this new information in with what he knew 
of Scully.  "You want to go to Africa?"

She blushed and put down her glass.  "Yes."  
She said nothing else, and simply picked up 
the soup bowl.

They ate in silence for a moment, spoons 
clinking softly against porcelain.  
Finally, he sat the bowl down and broke the 
silence.  "Is that something you've been 
thinking about lately?"

At this she finally met his gaze.  There, 
she hesitated before asking, "About 
visiting Africa?  Or about things I've 
always wanted to do?"

"Yes."

She seemed to shrink in front of him, 
turning away as she reached one arm out to 
pick up her sandwich.  For a moment she 
simply nibbled on the corner of the turkey 
and brie.  Eventually, her head bobbed in a 
slow nod as she replaced the barely-eaten 
sandwich on the plate.  "I have been.  
Today, especially."

He wasn't sure how he should respond.  Part 
of him badly wanted to crack a joke and 
lighten the tension that had filled the 
room.  But the psychologist in him kicked 
that part square in the ass, and he 
considered how rarely they really talked.  
She probably needed that now more than 
ever, he realized.  "What else have you 
always wanted to do?"

The thin, pressed line of her lips broke 
into a soft smile, and he knew he'd spoken 
the right words.  "Well, visiting Africa, 
obviously--I'd like to go out on tour and 
see the wildlife there."  

She picked up the sandwich again and took a 
real bite this time, chewing as she 
thought.  He smiled, picked up his own club 
sandwich, and nodded in encouragement.

"I'd like to have a dog again.  I really 
did like Queequeg, and those dogs at Mrs. 
Stevens' last week were adorable.  We moved 
around a lot when I was a young, and we 
didn't have much room, so Mom and Dad never 
let us have a dog, no matter how much Bill 
and I used to beg for one."

She took another bite, and Mulder did the 
same, waiting and enjoying her small 
revelations.  "I'd like to go to Europe, 
too.  I've never been out of North America.  
There's so much I'd like to see there--
museums and churches and historical sites."

"Hey, if you ever want a personally guided 
tour of England, just name the date."

The small smile on her face grew into a 
wide grin.  "I'm sure you could tell me 
where every crop circle in the country has 
ever occurred."

"Well, yes," he admitted sheepishly.  "But 
I also know all about the ghosts at the 
Tower of London.  And I know my way around 
the British Museum--some of the artifacts 
are cursed, you know."

"I'll bear that in mind if I ever go."

Silence fell again for several moments as 
they made quick work of their sandwiches.

"So is that all, Scully?"

"Well, I always wanted to try skiing...."

****
End Chapter 3
Continued in Chapter 4
****

****
Chapter 4
****

Scully slowly made her way down the basement corridor 
to the office.  She hadn't been sure she would make it 
in, not after the way she'd felt yesterday.  The first 
day of radiation had left her exhausted and dizzy.  If 
Mulder hadn't shown up at her apartment, she probably 
would have slept on through until the next morning.  
But, she reflected, she enjoyed their dinner 
conversation, even if it had a slightly morbid tinge 
to it.  It had also reassured her that he would be 
able to treat her with a solicitous respect as she 
worked through her illness.

That thought didn't quite prepare her for finding 
Mulder looking rather green and staring down at an 
open folder on his desk.  She could see the relief 
wash over him as he watched her enter the room.

"What have you got there, Mulder?"

"The, ah, courier arrived ten minutes ago with the 
report for you."  He slammed the folder shut and held 
it out to her before she was halfway across the room.

She took it, wondering why he looked so put out by 
this information.  He'd certainly looked over gruesome 
human autopsy reports without looking so affected.  
But as she read the description of the mare's tumor 
pressing through the ocular space and into the brain, 
she understood his queasy face.  She had to take a 
deep breath before she could continue reading.

Several moments passed in silence as she sat and read 
the preliminary findings on the mare.  Most of the 
tests she had requested were noted in the file, with a 
Post It thoughtfully scribbled and stuck in to let her 
know the results would be forwarded to her as they 
were completed.

When she had skimmed the report twice, she looked up 
to find Mulder very busy doing nothing at his desk.  
With little effort, she could see him as a child, 
asking if they were there yet.

"There's nothing here that catches my eye as 
particularly unusual, Mulder."  He started at the 
sound of her voice and turned to give her his full 
attention.  "The melanomas on her body and tumor in 
her eye were very aggressive and rapidly 
metastasizing, but there's nothing to indicate there 
was anything unnatural about them beyond that.  The 
only thing to show up on the preliminary blood test 
was a standard pain killer prescribed by the 
veterinarian, and of course the drugs used in the 
euthanization."

He was silent a long moment as she faced him over the 
opened folder.  "So you think this is nothing?"

"I don't think it's nothing.  But I don't necessarily 
think it's something, either."  She sighed.  "But at 
this point, it seems more like a remarkable series of 
coincidences than anything else."  

"But--"

She cut him off, continuing her train of thought.  
"We've got no proof that anything was actually done to 
these animals.  We can account for their whereabouts--
excepting the dog Galahad over several weeks--for 
their entire lives.  It would have been difficult at 
best to have abducted, implanted, and returned them 
with no one the wiser.  That they all have chips that 
may or may not be like the ones we've seen previously.  
Have you found anything else about that?" 

A shake of the head combined with a shrug granted her 
the point.  "Nothing much.  It looks similar, 
structurally, to the one removed from your neck, but 
slightly larger.  There aren't any markings to 
indicate a manufacturer."

"I didn't expect there would be."  She closed the 
folder and sat it on top of the mounting heap from 
this case.

"So you think we should stop pursuing this?"  She 
could hear the panic of a dog being asked to give up 
its favorite bone in his voice.

"Keep the file open, at least until I get all the test 
results back.  Those will be another week coming, at 
least.  But we're lacking any evidence to link your 
leaps of logic together."

"Yeah."  He ran a hand through his hair, further 
tousling it.  "But if I could prove those links, I 
would have put those bastards away a long time ago."  
His gaze met hers and held until she glanced away, 
back to the towering paperwork.

****

Mulder looked up from his paperwork as Scully shuffled 
into the office.  A glance at his watch told him she 
was twenty minutes later than she'd been yesterday.  
From the way she moved across the office, he guessed 
it was related to how she felt rather than how 
congested lunch hour traffic was.  But he knew better 
than to comment.

It was a full minute after she sat down before he 
heard her pull open the bag he'd left for her.  Her 
chair squeaked as she spun to look at him.

"Turkey club, extra tomatoes."

"Oh."  She swiveled back to face the bag, pulling out 
the foil-wrapped sandwich.  "Thanks."  Her voice was 
barely audible over the crinkling of foil.

Several long moments passed with only the shuffling of 
papers and crunching of sandwich.  A thousand 
questions flickered through Mulder's mind, but he sat 
silent.

Finally, it was Scully's voice that broke the silence.  
"When did this package arrive?"

"It was delivered while I was out getting lunch--
sometime between eleven thirty and noon."

"Mm."  There was a rip as she opened the packaging, 
half-eaten sandwich forgotten.

Mulder abandoned any pretense of working as he watched 
her slowly flick through the small file.  As he 
waited, he tried to determine whether the paleness of 
her face was due to the terrible fluorescent lighting 
or to her treatments.  He didn't think she'd looked 
quite so pale a week ago.

He was broken out of this train of thought when she 
rose and reached for a thick reference tome on the 
shelf above the desk.  "What'd you find?"

"I'm not sure yet."  She sat and flicked through the 
text, pausing and rereading the information in the 
file.  "Hmm."

"Scully."

She looked up at him, seemingly started by his 
interruption.  "Oh.  Nitrofurazone."  She turned back 
to the book.

What the hell was she talking about?  He tried to put 
the pieces together, wondering where this one fit.  
"The lab found nitrofurazone in the tests you 
ordered?"

She nodded and turned back to him.  "Yes.  It's not 
that finding it is so terribly unusual--it's commonly 
used as an antibacterial ointment in large animals," 
she explained.  "But the levels that they found in 
this mare don't correspond to what one would 
reasonably expect to find in her system from topical 
use.  Recent studies have shown that while it is an 
effective ointment for wounds, it is also a 
carcinogen.  Many veterinary hospitals are moving away 
from using it when possible and towards compounds with 
fewer potential side-effects."

"But it was used on the mare in larger than average 
quantities?"

Scully hesitated and glanced back to the lab results.  
"Not excessively so, but definitely in larger 
quantities than are usual."  She frowned at the file.

"Was it present in quantities sufficient to cause the 
tumors found in her?"

"I don't know.  It's not a controlled substance, so 
anyone would have access to it.  I'd really like to 
speak with Mrs. Stevens and her regular vet about it.  
There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation."

"Of course there could be," he muttered, reaching for 
the main case folder to find the number for Beatrice 
Stevens.

"What was that, Mulder?"  One eyebrow raised on her 
pale face, but he wasn't sure if it was safe to play 
today.

"I'll just get those numbers for you."

"Sure."  She turned back to stare at her sandwich as 
he flicked open the folder and reached for the phone.

Before his hand touched the receiver, it rang, causing 
both of them to jump slightly.

"Mulder," he barked into the receiver.  His eyes grew 
wide and weary as he listened.  "No.  No, we have the 
copies you sent us right here."

Scully turned to stare at him, an inquisitive look on 
her face.  He shook his head and gestured for the 
paperwork she'd just received.

"Yeah, we've got it here, and we really appreciate 
it...." He paused, listening to the panicked voice on 
the other end of the line before continuing, "No, I 
don't know why it would have been removed, and I'm not 
happy about it.  But I appreciate you letting us 
know."  

The receiver fell back into the cradle with a dull 
thud.  "Fuck.  That was the Virginia Tech labs where 
your tests were being run.  They wanted to make sure 
we still had the paperwork they sent us, because the 
originals are gone," he answered her unasked question.

"Gone."

"Everything--all the samples, all the original 
paperwork.  There this morning, gone after lunch."

"What about the samples that were still being tested?  
There were a couple things I don't have back yet."

"All gone.  No signs of forced entry, and nothing else 
is missing.  It's just like this never existed."  He 
shook his head in disgust.  "Not that I can say I'm 
surprised."

She sighed and looked down at the duplicate files now 
sitting on his desk.  "We have almost everything, 
though.  Why would someone steal the originals after 
copies have been sent to us?"

"To destroy the ability to verify what we have."

They were both quiet, staring and the three inches of 
paper piled between them.

"You said you wanted to talk to Beatrice Stevens 
again.  I think that would be an excellent idea.  Are 
you up for a drive out there tomorrow afternoon?"

There was a half-beat before she nodded where he held 
his breath.  Slowly, her head dipped in assent.  "It's 
not far, there's no reason why we can't."

"If I pick you up on the way, we can get out of here 
earlier.  What time will you be done with treatment?"  

The pause before she answered this time was even 
longer.  He couldn't be sure if she was calculating, 
or trying to avoid answering.

"It would be fastest if you could pick me up right 
from the hospital.  There's no reason I can't get 
ready there.  Noon?"

He nodded, and they turned back to their paperwork.

****

She wasn't quite sure why she'd agreed to leave 
straight from treatment.  It had seemed like a good 
decision at the time, but in retrospect, she'd really 
needed that trip back to her apartment to change and 
collect herself before facing work.  Scully felt 
entirely too vulnerable as Mulder followed the 
twisting road towards Avalon.   She tried to convince 
herself that it was Mulder's driving that left her 
feeling mildly nauseous.  Looking out the window at 
the bright new leaves, she tried to push the queasy 
feelings away and appreciate the sunny spring weather.  
At least she wasn't in the basement.

Watching out the passenger window as they rolled down 
the drive, she noticed the horse and rider before 
Mulder did.  "Out in the field," she said with a 
gesture towards the window.

The car stopped as they both watched the bright bay 
horse and elegant rider fly over a fence erected in 
the field a hundred yards away.  The rider's black 
velvet cap cast a shadow over her face and hid her 
hair, but from the neat green sweater and tailored 
breeches and boots, Scully knew it had to be Beatrice 
Stevens.  The rider nodded slightly in their direction 
before turning the horse to the right and cantering 
over a low, painted wall.

Mulder edged the car forward down the drive, coming to 
a stop by the gate to the field.  Both sat for a 
moment, unmoving, until the horse and rider approached 
the gate and slowed.  Only then did Scully unbuckle 
her seatbelt and slide from the car.

"Good afternoon, Beatrice."

"Agents Scully and Mulder, welcome back."  She patted 
the sweating horse's neck with a gloved hand as she 
nodded in welcome to them.  "I'm sorry, I must have 
lost track of time while working with Prospero."

"He's beautiful."  Scully reached over the fence to 
pat Prospero's velvety nose, watching as his nostrils 
flared with each hard breath.

"His first show is this weekend, so we've been working 
hard to get ready.  Eight months off the race track, 
can you believe?"  There was pride in Beatrice's voice 
as she patted the horse again heartily, walking him 
away from the fence in a large, lazy circle.  "If you 
don't mind, I can talk while we cool out for a few 
moments."

Once the horse moved away, Mulder had moved up to 
stand at her side at the fence.  "No problem at all.  
It looks like he had quite a workout."

"He needs all the schooling he can get.  Too smart, 
this one.  Prospero gets into trouble when he's not in 
work."  She turned him to walk back towards the 
agents.  "What can I help you with today?  You 
mentioned that Agent Scully was interested in 
Ophelia's care?"

"Yes," Scully replied.  "I had several tests run on 
her, and one of them turned up nitrofurazone in her 
system.  Did you ever use it on her?"

"Oh, yes."  Her matter of fact tone startled Scully, 
instantly vanquishing any suspicions that the 
substance was of more than mundane origins.  Feeling 
Mulder deflate slightly beside her, could tell she was 
not the only one.  Beatrice continued, "Last month she 
had a swollen fetlock, for no reason I could find.  I 
sweated it with furazone and DMSO.  Cleared right up."

"You didn't call the vet?"

"I've been at this a long time, Agent Scully, and have 
seen a lot of injuries.  Short of matters requiring 
stitches or tranquilizers, I can take care of most 
things myself."  Her tone was sterner than any than 
she'd previously used.  

For a few minutes, Scully and Mulder simply watched as 
the horse's long strides carried him around in an easy 
circle.  Scully began to wonder what they'd driven 
back for, when Beatrice's voice interrupted, once 
again gentle.

"Would you mind getting the gate for me, Agent 
Mulder?"

"Certainly."  He stepped behind Scully, pulling the 
green pipe gate wide open.

Beatrice and Prospero passed through, heading across 
the drive towards the stable.  Her voice rung back to 
them, echoing off the brick of the house and drowning 
out the hooves in soft gravel.  "You know, he'll be 
the last horse I make.  He's shaping up to be a fancy 
one.  I think he'll outlast me.

Mulder and Scully followed behind her and slightly off 
to one side.  Scully could see one of the horse's ears 
cocked back, listening to their footsteps behind him. 
He might be able to hear her voice, but Beatrice could 
not.  "Mulder, I think we're wasting our time here.  
We really didn't have to come out all this way--"

"No," he whispered back, "we did.  I want to see if 
there's anything different about her particular 
furazone.  And I want to get a few more records from 
her."  

She could only sigh in response as he raised his voice 
to catch Beatrice's attention, as she was now 
chattering on about the possibility of being ready to 
show at Upperville.  

"Beatrice!"  

She quieted and slowed the horse's step without 
appearing to do anything.  

When Mulder caught up to the horse's shoulder, he 
continued.  "I was wondering, though, if we could 
possibly get a bit of the ointment you used?  Just to 
check in case it was a bad batch or something."

"It was an older container, from last year.  It's 
nearly gone now.  You can have the rest of it, if you 
really want it."  They reached the front of the stable 
and she swung off the horse with a spryness that 
belied her years.  "Is that all you came for?"

"I was also hoping you might have some records from 
the shipping company you used when transporting your 
animals to events."

"Oh."  She furrowed her brow under the hunt cap's brim 
as she led the horse into the barn, Mulder and Scully 
following.  "I do most of the hauling myself, unless 
it's to Florida or indoors.  I do keep records of 
that, though, for the insurance."

"Those would be just what I want."

Securing the horse, Beatrice stepped into an open 
doorway, reemerging with a bucket of brushes and a 
small blue jar.  "Your furazone, Agent Scully.  Agent 
Mulder, if you give me a few moments, the records are 
all up in my office, and you're welcome to them.  Are 
you any closer to finding the answer to what happened 
to Galahad and Ophelia?"

Scully looked down at the dusty, slightly battered jar 
before answering.  "We're not sure.  But we're still 
looking."  She saw Mulder give her a look she couldn't 
interpret in the stable's dim light, but he remained 
quiet.

"Good to hear."  Beatrice nodded with conviction as 
she smoothed a brush along the horse's back.

****
End Chapter 4
Continued in Chapter 5
****

****
Chapter 5
****

Beatrice shuffled through several files, seeming to 
pull sheets out at random.  "Did you just want the 
shipping paperwork on Ophelia, or on all the horses?"  

"If you have them for Tinkerbelle, that would be 
wonderful as well."  Mulder watched as she continued 
to pull on papers, gathering a large sheaf in her left 
hand.

Scully stood to the side, near the table of 
photographs that had caught her eye on their first 
visit.  Mulder stepped beside her, trying to see what 
caught her eye.  Was there a specific picture?  Or 
were these like the book she'd been reading the other 
night--reminders of things she'd like but never have?

Apparently at least one of them had drawn her 
attention. As Beatrice approached them with the 
paperwork, Scully gestured to a beveled silver frame 
at the far end of the table.  "Was that Ophelia?"

Beatrice squinted slightly at the photo.  "Yes, it 
was.  That's Charlotte riding her in Florida."

"She was a gorgeous horse.  I'm sure she will be 
missed."

"Very much.  But we had a lovely time together, and 
all--Agent Scully, are you quite all right?"  Panic 
cut through her previously casual tone.

Mulder looked quickly up from the photograph to see a 
thin trail of blood streaking down from Scully's right 
nostril.  Discreetly, he tapped his own.  She saw his 
gesture immediately, dropping her face and covering 
her nose with a hand.

"Do you have a washroom she could use?"

"Oh, yes, yes of course.  Right down the hallway.  The 
doorway to the left of the staircase."

Mulder's fingers grazed the small of Scully's back as 
she spun and marched out of the room.

"Is she all right?  Agent Mulder?"  Beatrice's gentle 
voice broke into the worry scurrying through his 
brain.

"She'll be fine."  He hoped--he prayed to a God he 
barely believed in.  If he had any control in the 
matter, she would indeed be fine at some point in the 
future.  If he believed enough, it wasn't a lie.  She 
would be fine again, eventually.  Somehow.

Silence fell in the room as Beatrice handed the 
shipping papers over to him.  He barely registered the 
paperwork charting movements between Virginia and 
Florida as they waited without a word until Scully 
returned, looking as if nothing had happened.

****

She'd collapsed, exhausted, onto her bed upon 
returning home.  It had taken all her concentration to 
remove her shoes and jacket before she'd been dead to 
the world.  The piercing ring of her phone broke into 
her dreamless slumber, forcing her into a groggy 
stupor.

"Sc-Scully."  She cast about, trying to locate her 
alarm clock's luminous digits.  11:17.  She'd been 
asleep five hours and felt as if she'd not gotten a 
wink of sleep.

"I'm sorry."  Even if she hadn't recognized the voice 
instantly, she would have known who it was.  "I didn't 
think about waking you up.  You need to sleep..."

"No, I'm already awake.  What's so important?"

"You're sure it's okay?  You're feeling all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine now.  I was just asleep."

"If you're sure..."

"Oh, for God's sake, Mulder!"  She was feeling every 
bit of her exhaustion now.  "Just tell me why you 
called."

He didn't say anything for a moment, and she was 
afraid he was going to make further inquiries into her 
health.  "The smoking man was waiting for me when I 
got back tonight," he finally blurted.

"Oh."  She wasn't quite sure what to make of that.  
"What did he want?"

"He came to discourage me from continuing to pursue 
this case.  His exact words were that 'There is 
absolutely nothing amiss with the animals owned by the 
Stevens family, save an owner who has made one too 
many flights across the Atlantic.'"

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

"My guess is that like everything else he's 
discouraged us from investigating, the more we look, 
the less we'll find."

"That doesn't make any sense.  Why not just make it 
disappear without telling you?  Then it really would 
just seem like the case didn't merit further 
investigation."

She could hear him draw a deep breath through the 
crackling phone line, and knew there was more to the 
confrontation than he was telling her.  "What else did 
he say?"

"He offered...he said that if we dropped the 
investigation into the chips in these animals, he 
would provide us with access to another chip for you."

It was her turn to draw a deep breath, before 
responding firmly, "And what would I need another one 
of those for?"

"He said that without it, your cancer will progress 
just as it did in the animals we're investigating."

Mentally she ticked off several implications of that 
statement for later discussion.  "And why should I 
believe him?  When has he ever told us the truth 
before?"

His heavy sigh hung between them for a long time.  
"But it's a chance to save you, Scully.  What's the 
value of a few animals against your life?  I can't let 
that opportunity slide by."

"You don't have to.  It's not your decision to make."

"But Scully--"

"No.  It's ultimately my life and my decision.  I need 
some time to weigh that trade for myself, and I can't 
do that right now.  Give me some time to think about 
it."

"He said he would be in touch tomorrow."

"Then we'll talk about it when I get into the office 
tomorrow afternoon."



When she walked into the office the following 
afternoon, she could tell Mulder had been anxiously 
waiting for her.  She could feel his eyes on her as 
she removed her coat and sat at her desk, expecting an 
answer from her.

She tried her best to ignore him for a few moments, 
busying herself with the day's mail and checking her 
email messages.  When she ran out of ways to credibly 
avoid discussion of the matter, she slowly swiveled 
her desk chair to face him.

Before she could begin to speak, he began, "Scully, I 
really think you should consider this offer.  I know 
that the smoking man isn't the most reliable of 
sources, but he's never done anything to 
intentionally--"

"Just stop, Mulder.  Stop."   She heaved a sigh and 
held up a hand to ward off his nervous rambling.  "I 
need you just to listen to me, okay?"

He seemed startled, and hastily closed the jaw that 
had opened to continue.   Subtly, he bobbed his head 
in assent, relaxing back into his seat and ceding the 
floor to her.

"You have nothing but the best of intentions in all 
this, and I know that.  I understand that you only 
want to make this compromise out of a desire to see me 
healthy.  I appreciate that, I really do."  She was 
wary, trying to tread carefully and make her point 
while remaining respectful of the fact that he felt at 
least partially responsible for the situation.

"But I also know that even if this would work--and 
there's no guarantee that it would--I can't live my 
life in debt to that man.  And if I accepted this 
trade, that's what would happen."

Mulder was quiet for a moment, until it was clear that 
she had finished.  "But you're not the one making the 
trade.  He didn't offer it to you.  He offered to give 
me the chip in exchange for stopping the 
investigation.  You wouldn't be indebted to him at 
all." 

"It's our investigation and my body that the chip 
would be effecting.  It most certainly would be my 
debt, whatever you want to believe about it.  It's not 
a trade, it's making a deal with the devil.  I'm not 
going to do it, and I won't let you do it, either."

"What if I want to?"

"I have no doubt that you want to."  Her eyes sparked 
with her inner turmoil.  "God knows that I would love 
to know that something so simple could cure me.  But 
nothing is that simple, and the consequences far 
outweigh the potential benefits.  I can't throw 
professional ethics out the window and trade a case 
for my own personal welfare.  And we don't even know 
that this chip would really help me!"

"All the evidence in this case seems to suggest that 
it would."

"Three examples in animals, with incomplete evidence, 
I can't take as proof, or even as good faith in what 
the smoking man told you."

"You'd rather die?"  

It was the first time either of them had ever voiced 
the understood potentiality.  The air in the office 
seemed to chill a few degrees and silence hung 
ominously.

"I'd rather respect myself for the time I have left 
than live a compromised life."  She met his eyes, 
refusing to be the first to look away.

Mulder blinked first, looking down to stare at his 
hands, which had begun to clench against the edge of 
his desk.  "Is it that poor of a trade to you?"  There 
was a sadness in his voice that was tempered with a 
barely restrained frustration.

"I can't believe you even have to ask me that."  She 
met his tone with steel, refusing to yield on this.

He met her eyes again, and she could see that he 
didn't have to ask.  He was just weighing the 
consequences of running off and making the trade 
himself, letting her hate him and live.

"Look, Mulder, it's not about the case.  This case is 
too tenuous to concern me.  Did you fail to notice the 
two men on the horses in the photo behind Beatrice and 
Jackie Kennedy the first time we visited?"

He furrowed his brows and looked perplexed, something 
she was not used to seeing.  She clarified,  "The 
smoking man was one of the men.  Much younger, but it 
was him.  She had to know him."

"You're sure?"

"I wasn't certain it was, until I got a look at it 
again yesterday.  I'm sure it was him; I figured you 
would notice, but apparently I shouldn't take things 
for granted with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he growled.

"You're the one who wants to make a deal with him.   I 
don't want to live the rest of my life with the 
knowledge that either one of us is indebted to that 
man for my continued well being.  Because it won't 
stop with this case if that trade is made."

He nodded and glanced around the office.  She could 
see tears sparkling in the edges of his eyes, but they 
cleared as he spoke again, softly.  "I just...I want 
to see you healthy, Scully.  I don't want to leave a 
possibility by the wayside just because it seems a 
little dangerous."

"A little dangerous?" she exploded.  "Having radiation 
directed at my brain every morning is dangerous.  
Making a deal with that man, while it might seem like 
the right choice now, would be fatal in the long run."

"Better that you chose your own end?  Sailors to the 
sea, horses to the hounds?"  His voice was soft.  Had 
he replied harshly, she would have stormed out.  This 
compassion she wasn't quite sure how to take.

She simply nodded.  "Yes."

"I'd rather you didn't have to make a choice at all.  
That it was decades down the road before you had to 
give thought to any of this."

"So do I, but while I can't control the circumstances, 
at least I can have some choice in the outcome."

"I don't like the choice, but I'll respect it."

"Thank you."

Silence fell over the office again, but it had a much 
different feel.  They turned back to their respective 
desks and burrowed into their work.  None of the 
tension remained that had surrounded her arrival.  
Rather, the silence held a palpable comfort and 
agreement between them, uneasy and unpleasant though 
it was.

****

Beatrice Stevens carried the big green bucket in one 
hand, scooping feed out of it with the other.  The 
sweet smelling grain drew the horses to the fronts of 
their stalls.  At one end of the aisleway, she heard 
Belle bang a hoof against the oak door, impatient for 
her dinner.

Prospero was much more of a gentleman about it, 
standing patiently in front of the feed bin as she 
poured grain through the opening in the front of his 
stall.  His soft nose brushed her hand as he plunged 
his head into the feed, rattling grain and a salt 
block around in the plastic tub.  

The only sounds as she moved down the aisleway were 
the hearty tread of her sturdy barn boots and the 
shuffling of the horses in their stalls.  When she 
heard the scrape of footsteps on the concrete aisle 
while pouring feed into the next stall, she froze, 
then sniffed the air.

"How many times over the years have I told you not to 
smoke in the barn?"

****
End Chapter 5
Continued in Chapter 6
****

****
Chapter 6
****

"How many times over the years have I told 
you not to smoke in the barn?"

He took a long drag on the cigarette before 
dropping it to the concrete and putting it 
out with a twist of his black, shiny shoe.  
"Too many times, Bea.  Too many times."

"Then you ought to know better by now.  
I'll thank you to keep your filthy habit 
out of here." She dumped the last of the 
feed into Belle's stall before walking up 
the aisle to face him.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure of your 
company?  It's been a long time."

"Two years, I believe."  He shoved his 
hands in the pockets of his grey trench 
coat, as if unsure what to do without a 
cigarette to occupy himself.

"It's been a good two years."  Her voice 
was brittle.

"Recent events would convince me 
otherwise."

"Oh?"  She turned away, dropping the feed 
bucket back into the tack room, in its 
place beside the grain bin.

"I believe you've taken concerns about some 
of your menagerie to the FBI."

"And when have you ever concerned yourself 
with my animals, except when they've served 
your political interests?"

"You assume it doesn't serve them now?"

"I shouldn't be surprised to hear it.  But 
I still wonder what business it is of 
yours."

He slowly withdrew what looked like a 
penlight from his pocket.  "I would ask you 
what business you think it is of the 
FBI's."

"Something has been done to them, Charles.  
They haven't become ill simply because of 
age or genetic predisposition.  It's 
unnatural, the way their cancers have--"

Before she could finish, he clicked the 
object he was holding.  That was the last 
thing she saw before the world faded to 
black.

****

Mulder was pulling off his running shoes 
when he heard his cell phone chirping from 
somewhere in the depths of his apartment.  
He pulled the nearly-removed shoe off and 
dropped it to the floor, before limping 
half-shod into his living room.  He'd left 
his phone somewhere in the room, he knew. 

After following the sound and shuffling 
several of the magazines and papers 
littering his coffee table, he picked up 
the phone.  Peering at the caller ID, he 
tried to figure out who 703-555-0407 might 
be.  No one he knew, he was sure.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder?"

"Yes, may I ask who's calling?"

"This is Phil Beckett with the Loudoun 
County Sheriff's Department.  I'm calling 
from Beatrice Stevens' estate.  Your 
business card was on her desk, and you're 
in her planner twice this month."

"Yes."  He was suddenly wary.

"Can I ask what the nature of your meetings 
were?  Was she under investigation?"

"Not her, exactly."  He exhaled.  "It's 
complicated."

"I have a feeling it may have just gotten 
more complicated for you, then.  This 
morning, her farrier showed up for an 
appointment and found her dead in her 
barn."

Mulder glanced at his watch before 
responding, "How long ago was this?"

"Just an hour ago.  I thought I ought to be 
in touch with you, in case the FBI had some 
interest in her."

"I do.  I'll be there in an hour."

"We'll be waiting for you."

Mulder ended the call, then hit the button 
to call Scully.  As he waited for her to 
answer, he gave himself a sniff and moved 
towards the bedroom, pulling out weekend 
work attire.  He could get there much 
faster if Scully would hurry up and answer 
her phone, and if he could skip a shower.

****

Scully watched the pastureland roll by as 
they drove to Beatrice Stevens' property 
for the third time in two weeks.  She had 
still been asleep when Mulder called her, 
and she was astonished by the late morning 
hour as much as the information he'd 
relayed to her.

The graceful circular drive was crowded 
with police vehicles when they arrived, the 
lights on a few still flashing off the 
brick facade of the house.  A gangly young 
man was leaning against one of the cars and 
he made his way to them as they exited 
their vehicle.

"Agent Mulder?"  He looked back and forth 
between the two of them.

"I'm Agent Mulder, and this is my partner, 
Agent Scully."

The young officer glanced down at her, and 
she suddenly wished she'd spent a few extra 
seconds digging a pair of higher heels out 
of her closet.  Her voice was cold as she 
spoke.  "We were called about Beatrice 
Stevens, Officer --?"

"Lee.  Just follow me, ma'am."  He bobbed 
his spiky blond head and started down the 
hill towards the stable.

Mulder had the grace to look apologetically 
at her as they followed Lee down the hill.  
A red pickup truck was backed up to the 
barn's entry, the sides of the cab open to 
reveal vast racks of nails and horseshoes.  
It seemed forgotten, simply trapped by the 
flock of police cars blocking its exit.  

Emerging from behind the truck, a portly, 
middle-aged man strode past Officer Lee and 
stopped in front of Mulder.  "You must be 
Agent Mulder.  Glad you got here so 
quickly.  Not that I'm positive that this 
is a crime scene, mind you, but I thought 
you'd want a look."

"I'm very glad you did.  I'll let Agent 
Scully have a look--she'll be able to tell 
us if it is."  He extended a hand, ushering 
her forward.

She edged around the farrier's truck and 
halted just inside the doorway, looking 
down on the collapsed form of Beatrice 
Stevens.  It appeared that she'd simply 
lost consciousness and fallen, landing 
heavily on her left side with arms and legs 
akimbo.  

Scully took a deep breath before crouching 
for a closer look at the body.  First she 
noticed that the body's fluids had settled 
on the left side and the lack of any 
bruising.   She took note of posthumous 
nibbling of rodents on the fingers and 
wrists.  Otherwise, there was very little 
amiss with the body.  Nothing about it 
suggested foul play.

When she heard Mulder's steps on the 
aisleway, she turned to tell him that what 
they were most likely seeing was the result 
of a stroke or heart attack.  The words 
died on her lips when she saw him staring 
down at a lone cigarette butt ground into 
the concrete.

"Mulder, you don't really think--that has 
to be a coincidence."

"On another case, I might give you that 
point.  But given what we've already seen 
on this case--did you forget that 
photograph already?--I don't think it is."

"It's a lone cigarette.  It could be the 
farrier's.  It could have been Beatrice's."

"There's no lipstick on it, and she's 
wearing some."  He looked warily down at 
the body.  "I'll go talk to the farrier."

Scully watched him give the cigarette 
another glance before turning to the 
doorway.  A series of shrill whinnies broke 
the quiet, punctuated by the thudding of a 
hoof against the wooden stalls.  "While 
you're talking, ask if someone's fed them.  
She's been dead for at least twelve hours.  
They're probably hungry."

"Sure."  He disappeared into the bright 
spring light as she turned back to the body 
and pulled on a pair of gloves.

****

Mulder tried to keep one eye on Scully, 
still working over Beatrice's body, as the 
farrier led him down the barn aisle.  The 
spry older man carried a full bucket of 
grain, dumping seemingly arbitrary amounts 
in to the hungry horses.

"What time did you arrive here, Mr. 
Willard?"

"Oh, 'round 8:30.  I was supposed to be 
here at eight, but I got a call last night 
and had to stop and reshoe a horse that's 
'chasing this afternoon.  I was supposed to 
be at the 'chase now, but I guess that's 
not happening."

"No, that's not looking likely."  Mulder 
had no idea what the horse was going to be 
chasing, but this whole case left him 
wishing he had more knowledge of horse 
sports.  "Did you contact Mrs. Stevens to 
tell her that you would be late this 
morning?"

"Naw, she knows I always show up.  I've 
done--er, did, I guess--last minute things 
for her over the years enough.  Didn't 
figure that a quick shoe this morning would 
make me too late, anyway."  Robert Willard 
paused outside Belle's stall, ignoring her 
pounding on the door, and dumped grain into 
her bucket after a quick glance at the 
notecard affixed to the front of the stall.

"Do you smoke?"

"Used to.  But then, oh, seven, eight years 
ago Lily--that's my wife--got lung cancer.  
We'd both been smokers.  At our age, there 
aren't many people who weren't at one time.  
No one told us when we were young that it 
was bad, like they do now.  We both quit 
then.  Lily had a lung out, and we try to 
stay away from it now.  Why d'you ask?"

"A cigarette butt was found a few yards 
away from Mrs. Stevens.  I was wondering if 
might have been yours, or if she might have 
been smoking it."

"I never saw Bea with a cigarette in thirty 
years of doing her horses.  Maybe she did 
at parties or something, but never when I 
was around.  She'd've known better than to 
smoke in a stable, even if she did."  He 
inclined his head towards a bale of hay 
sitting beside the wood wall.

Mulder realized instantly just how easily 
the whole structure could be burned with a 
single errant ash.  "Most people who spent 
much time around horses would know better, 
then?"

Robert shrugged and trudged up the aisle 
towards the tack room, swinging the now-
empty feed bucket.  "Well, they know 
better, yeah.  But that doesn't mean that 
they don't.  I know a few older huntsmen 
that smoke while out riding.  But that 
wasn't her style."

"No, it doesn't seem like it."  Mulder 
looked around the tack room as Robert sat 
the bucket back on top of one of the tin 
trashcans filled with grain.  A desk sat in 
one corner, and strapgoods he couldn't 
identify were neatly hung on the walls.  
Three saddles sat on racks along one wall, 
which was hung with yet more ribbons and 
photographs.  The small room smelled of 
dust and leather and very faintly of the 
sweet grain that had just been provided to 
the horses.

"Was anyone here when you arrived?  You 
didn't see anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nope, no cars at all.  I pulled down here 
without seeing the horses out--she always 
had 'em in and ready for me.  Barn door was 
open, so I figured she was ready and 
waiting.  Then I came in and saw her lying 
there..."  he trailed off with a small 
sniffle.  "A lotta people around here are 
going to miss her.  She was a very good 
lady."

"I'm sure she will be."  Mulder hesitantly 
put a hand on the man's shoulder.  "Thank 
you for taking the time this morning to 
help us out with this."  He removed his 
hand and pulled out a business card.  
"We'll be in touch with you if we need 
anything more than the statement you gave 
the Loudoun County officers this morning."

Robert nodded.  "Right.  Glad to have 
helped someone, though I'd have been 
happier not to."  He turned and strode out, 
bandy-legged, and made a beeline for his 
truck.

Mulder watched him go, from the safety of 
the tack room doorway.  Scully didn't spare 
him a second look from where she was deep 
in conversation with one of the Loudoun 
County Sheriffs and her cell phone.  From 
the fractions of conversation that filtered 
through to him, Mulder heard her making 
arrangements for an autopsy bay for the 
following afternoon at Quantico.

He knew that her first reaction was to 
assume that this death had been caused by 
heart attack or stroke.  Apparently her 
subsequent investigation had left her 
thinking otherwise.

****
End Chapter 6
Continued in Chapter 7
****

****
Chapter 7
****

For the first time in several years, Mulder 
settled himself into an orange plastic 
chair in the autopsy bay, watching Scully 
as she began the autopsy on Beatrice 
Stevens.  He'd been eager to sit in, and 
she had no particular objection.  In 
autopsies past, he had usually been more of 
a hindrance than a help, but today she was 
inexplicably grateful for the silent 
company.  If he'd asked her, of course, she 
would have simply said she was in an 
indulgent mood.  She had to admit, too, 
that he did occasionally ask questions that 
led her in a useful direction with her 
examination.

She worked slowly, taking her time and 
double-checking everything.  As she 
progressed, she took samples, carefully 
tagging them for laboratory testing.  Along 
with the mounting stack of samples for 
testing were an increasing number of 
questions.  While she hoped the lab work 
would provide answers, she doubted that 
would be the case.  Mulder had allowed her 
to work without interruption, though she 
could feel him watching her every move.

Two hours into the autopsy, she paused to 
stretch, her shoulders and back popping as 
she did so.  Before returning to the body, 
she caught Mulder's gaze, inviting his 
inquiry.

"Find anything, Scully?"

She sighed.  "Unless something shows up on 
the tox screen, the cause of death was 
cardiac arrest."

"Heart attack?"

"Well, technically.  But I'm at a loss to 
explain the cause of that--she was in 
excellent shape for her age.  There's 
minimal atherosclerosis.  It's looking more 
like her body just...stopped, instantly."  
She paused and looked down at the body open 
in front of her.  "I'm running enzyme 
tests, but because she died so rapidly, I 
doubt that they'll tell us much."

Mulder just nodded and settled back into 
the chair, surprising her.  She'd expected 
him to press for more information or 
theories.

She returned to work, cautiously tipping 
the body onto its side, then peering at the 
scar on the back of Beatrice's neck.  It 
was small, faint, and would probably have 
been missed by someone not knowing what to 
look for.  But then, she told herself, it 
could just be a coincidence.  Yet given the 
number of coincidences on this case, she 
felt it unlikely.

With a gloved finger, she carefully probed 
the skin before making a shallow incision 
with her scalpel.  In seconds, she saw what 
she feared she would find.

"Mulder."

Her voice caused him to snap to attention, 
bouncing toward the edge of his seat.  
"What did you find?"

"Come here."

She exchanged her scalpel for a delicate 
pair of tweezers, and extracted a small 
microchip.  As Mulder reached her side, she 
held it out for him.

When she dropped it into a Petri dish, both 
stared at it silently for a long moment.

****

Mulder looked up into the camera as he 
waited for the Gunmen to buzz him into 
their lair.  One hand remained in his coat 
pocket, lightly grasping the Petri dish 
there.  The other hand toyed with the door 
handle, giving it a swift tug when he was 
finally granted entrance.  The long hallway 
back to their offices was dark, and he had 
to walk carefully to avoid the piles of 
paperwork and unidentified mechanical 
parts.

"Mulder, my man."  Frohike's voice rang 
across the electronics-filled room as 
Mulder entered.  "What have you brought for 
us today?"

He removed the chip from his pocket, 
setting the Petri dish on the cluttered 
countertop next to one of the computers.  
"Scully found this today."

Langly looked away from one of the monitors 
long enough to take in the chip.  "Whoa.  
Another one?"

"Yes."  Mulder felt no need to elaborate.  
Langly's startled question was enough to 
draw Byers and Frohike in for a closer 
look.

"Is this related to Agent Scully's current 
health situation?"  Byers' inquiry was 
tentative, and he spoke from behind Langly.

"Not directly.  It's related to a case 
we're currently investigating.  But the 
case does seem to have some parallels."

Frohike pushed Mulder aside and removed the 
chip, placing it on a microscope.  Langly 
clicked a few buttons on the computer, and 
the chip appeared, ten times larger, on 
screen.

Mulder looked around at the faces of the 
Gunmen, all staring carefully at the 
magnified image.  "Well?"

"Well, it looks an awful lot like the one 
you and Scully brought us."  Langly clicked 
away as he spoke, pulling up an image of 
the chip that had been removed from 
Scully's neck.

Side by side, the images were nearly 
identical.  

Frohike reached for the microscope, 
carefully shifting the chip a few degrees 
to the left.  Langly zoomed in once more, 
bringing the details of the chip into the 
foreground.

"I looks like the processors are a bit less 
advanced than the one removed from Agent 
Scully," commented Frohike, tracing a few 
of the electronic components and addressing 
Langley.

"Yeah.  I'd definitely say it's an older 
model."  Langley clicked away once more, 
bringing a similar but streamlined image 
onto the screen.  "Look at that.  Totally 
version 2.0."

"You boys all agree we're looking at the 
same thing here?  But a slightly different 
model?"  Mulder squinted at the monitor, 
trying to spot the differences between the 
chips.

"There are some minimal differences in the 
exact components used, but they're 
essentially the same thing."  Byers sounded 
certain.  He reached out a finger, tracing 
a group of tiny wires on Scully's chip.  
"See this circuit?  Not wired exactly how I 
would expect it to be, but in and of itself 
nothing unusual."  He traced a similar set 
on the chip from Beatrice.  "But it's 
exactly the same way here, just with 
slightly different wires."

Mulder continued to stare at the monitor, 
looking between the two almost-identical 
images.

"Does this make those parallels a whole lot 
closer?" Frohike queried, toying with the 
microscope set up, bringing the chip into 
sharper relief.

"A whole lot closer," Mulder echoed.

****

Wind rustled through the tender spring 
leaves and pushed puffy clouds across the 
slender moon.  Charlotte watched the 
ghostly clouds race overhead as she rocked 
back in the worn, wooden chair.  The wicker 
seat creaked as she shifted, nearly 
drowning out the sound of approaching 
footsteps on the gravel walkway.

The figure was a silhouette in the dark as 
it emerged around the corner of the house.  
Only when the figure halted at the bottom 
of the steps did Charlotte deign to look 
down, noting the thin wisp of smoke 
floating away into the darkness.

"You've got a lot of nerve showing up here 
tonight, Charles."

"And you've got a lot of nerve to speak to 
me that way, young lady."  He stepped out 
of the shrubbery's shadows and dropped the 
cigarette into the gravel.

"Young lady, am I?" she drawled.  "Compared 
to you, I suppose I am.  But I think it's 
more than justified, given the 
circumstances."  She didn't move from the 
rocker, simply gazed coolly down at him.

"You had to know what the outcome of this 
would be.  Especially after your little 
luncheon.  You're lucky you haven't met a 
similar fate."

"I told Agent Mulder nothing of use."

"Your mother would have been wise to do the 
same."  He stepped closer to the porch, 
once again standing in the shadows.

Charlotte sat up straighter, poised on the 
edge of the chair.  "You took great care to 
make sure she didn't reveal more than you 
wished.  It never did sit well with you 
when someone actually knew what game they 
were playing with you."

"But you're well aware of the dangerous 
game you're playing now, my dear."

"I am."  She leveled a hard look at him, 
focusing on the faint sparkle of his eyes 
in the darkness.

His eyes traced over her sitting form 
before he answered.  "You always were a 
gambler like your father.  Are you sure the 
odds aren't too high for you this time?  
The stakes are very high."

"That's what makes the payoff worthwhile."  
She finally looked away, out towards the 
pastures where the dark shadows of horses 
could be seen grazing.  "And occasionally 
there are chances you have to take, because 
not taking them isn't an option."

"You would risk everything we've worked 
for--your father worked for--over this?"

"Are you barking mad?"  She whipped around 
to look at him incredulously.  "A few 
harmless chips, brief disappearances, the 
deaths of a few animals--that was all 
justifiable.  Unpleasant, but justifiable.  
But to dispose so casually with the 
daughter, widow and mother of those who 
have been involved since the beginning is 
the most reprehensible thing you've ever 
done.  And you've done a lot of 
reprehensible things."

"You don't have much room to criticize my 
behavior, Charlotte.  You're no angel."  He 
withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his coat 
pocket, taking his time in lighting one 
before offering the pack to her.

"No thank you," she said.  "I'm well aware 
of what I've done."

"Then you should think very carefully about 
what your next move should be.  You know 
there's only one out in this--you've known 
that since the beginning."

"I never said I wanted out.  But that 
doesn't mean I don't want retribution."  
She settled back into the chair, crossing 
her arms against her chest.

"There's no having it both ways.  And I 
don't think you'll find the others any more 
amenable to retribution or restitution than 
I am."  He took a long drag on the 
cigarette, the end flaring red in the dark.  
"We'll expect you at the meeting, to settle 
this matter once and for all.  I suggest 
you weigh your words there carefully."

"I wonder whether I haven't already been 
weighed and measured.  I doubt my words 
will make a bit of difference."  She pushed 
off with one foot, slowly rocking the 
chair.  "Just give me time to grieve this."

"A few days may give you a much better 
perspective on all this, in the grand 
scheme of things."

"Indeed."  She refused to be baited further 
by him.

For several minutes, they both rested in 
uneasy silence on the porch.  When a shrill 
whinny broke the night, he turned away from 
her.

"Good night, Charlotte."

She didn't respond as he disappeared back 
down the walkway into the still Virginia 
night.

****
End Chapter 7
Continued in Chapter 8
****

****
Chapter 8
****

Scully shuffled into the office and Mulder 
instantly regretted the ruin of her 
weekend.  He'd known she needed rest, but 
he'd also needed her on the case with him.  
His guilt increased when she sat down, 
motionless at her desk, without turning on 
her computer.

"Did the preliminary test results come in 
yet?" she finally asked.

"Yeah, they did."  He rose and carried the 
bulky envelope to her desk, resting it 
gently on the corner.  He took one step 
back, resting against a filing cabinet as 
she tore into the package.

There was silence as she flipped through 
the pages, occasionally nodding her head or 
frowning.

"Well, what do you think?"

"There's absolutely nothing in any of these 
tests to indicate cause of death.  No 
elevated enzyme levels, no foreign 
substances.  Nothing," she said.  "For no 
apparent reason, her body systems just shut 
down."

"Which is something, though, right?"
  
"Oh," she said with a sigh, "I don't have 
the energy to play 'is this something?' 
with you on this case again.  Any other 
time, I'd say it wasn't, and that plenty of 
people drop dead from nothing more than old 
age every day.  But like the cancer in her 
animals, there are too many coincidences 
here for them to be just coincidences."

He nodded and took in the exhausted 
resignation in her voice.  "So where do you 
suggest we go from here?"

For a moment she stared down at the test 
results, then said, "Well, I don't know 
that there's much of a case now.  There's 
no medical evidence that Beatrice Stevens' 
death was from anything but natural causes.  
The animals are, for all legal intents and 
purposes, property, whatever emotional 
attachments we chose to place on them.  
Without a property owner interested in 
pursuing the matter..."

"There is no investigation," he finished 
for her.

Both were quiet for a moment, and he 
studied her pale face.  He would almost be 
happy to give up this case, to stay in the 
office doing inane paperwork for several 
months.  But this case had offered a 
possible solution, tantalizing clues that 
seemed to point to answers to his questions 
and her health problems.  Could he just 
walk away from that?

"I know you don't want to leave it, Mulder, 
but unless one of her children is 
interested in pursuing it, I fail to see 
how we can."

"There were just so many pieces of the 
puzzle here, floating just under the 
surface.  If I just had the right lens, I 
could have seen them all, put them all 
together-"

"Don't do this to yourself, not over this," 
she said.  "I know you would have liked to 
untangle this mess, to find answers.  
Personally, I-I think I would have liked 
some answers about all of this, too."  She 
stared down at her hands, denying him the 
opportunity to study her face as she spoke.

"That's the biggest reason I wanted this 
case."  He spoke honestly, emotions close 
to the surface.  He needed her to know he 
felt this almost as deeply as she did--that 
he wanted this for her.  "This could have 
saved you."

"You don't know that.  It might have," she 
paused and met his gaze before correcting 
herself, "looked likely to provide some of 
the answers we've been hunting for.  But 
I'm not willing to make deals with the 
devil or operate outside the boundaries of 
the law to find them.  Especially when we 
don't know whether they'll really be of 
help to us.  To me."

"You don't think the evidence we've seen on 
this case was genuine?  After being warned 
off it by that chain-smoking bastard and 
seeing the woman who presented it to us die 
under questionable circumstances?"

She shook her head.  "I think Beatrice was 
truthful about what she knew had happened.  
But you of all people know that truth can 
be subjective.  The information we've seen 
on this case, though, especially given the 
smoking man's involvement, I can't quite 
bring myself to trust.  It may be as much 
of a red herring as Charlotte's denials of 
insurance fraud--it looks and sounds 
plausible, but is it really?"

"But what if it's not?  What if pursuing 
this would have revealed a cure for you, 
and answers about the tests that were 
inflicted on innumerable women across the 
country?"  He knew he sounded as 
righteously angry as he felt.

"Then it means I won't have a cure and we 
won't have answers."  How did she manage to 
sound so pragmatic?  "We're no worse off 
than before we took this case."

He raked his gaze over her, noticing a 
thousand tiny ways in which she seemed much 
worse off than when they'd taken this case.  
"Can you honestly tell me you're not any 
worse?"

That seemed to spark something in her.  
"While I can't tell you that I'm better, I 
also can't say that I'm worse.  But I'm 
undergoing treatment that has been 
scientifically proven to help.  That's 
worth far more in my book than the 
speculation and presumptions we've worked 
under on this case."

"Fair enough."  

Mulder settled back down behind his desk, 
and Scully turned back to hers.  She 
finally started up the computer and was 
checking her messages when he rose, loudly 
jangling change in his pocket.  "I'm going 
to grab a soda.  You want anything?"

"No, thank you."  She didn't glance away 
from the monitor as he passed.

When he returned from the vending machines, 
she was still scrolling through the 
messages.  He paused in the doorway, 
watching and wondering if she was even 
reading the messages, or merely putting in 
the appearance of doing something.  Closer 
to the latter, he decided, as she stared 
for a long moment at what he knew to be a 
reminder about the carpet cleaning due to 
take place over the coming weekend.

Without a word, he walked back to his desk, 
pausing only to place a small, yellow 
package on the corner of hers.  As he sat, 
he heard the crinkle as she picked it up, 
then the split second of silence before she 
ripped it open.

"Thanks," she said, her voice slightly 
garbled by the peanut M&M she crunched down 
on as she spoke.

They continued playing at normality at 
their desks for the rest of the afternoon.

****

The pungent scent of permanent marker ink 
filled her nostrils as she finished 
addressing the manila envelope.  The 
padding inside crackled as she firmly 
pressed the seal closed.  It was all a bit 
more than was necessary, of course--the 
tiny metal cylinder now enclosed within 
certainly would withstand anything that the 
US Post Office could throw at it.  Just to 
be safe, though, she reached into the top 
desk drawer and withdrew a stamp.  Pressing 
it to the front of the envelope, she 
emblazoned FRAGILE in vivid scarlet.

The cylinder was small, barely making a 
bulge in the mailer.  For a moment, she 
worried about sending it through so public 
a source as the US Mail.  But she returned 
to her original rationalization that hiding 
in plain view was often the most secure 
camouflage of all.  And if she hurried, it 
could be in the mail tonight, for delivery 
tomorrow.

Surely that would buy the valuable package 
enough of a chance of arriving at its 
destination.  So long as no one realized it 
had come from her, perhaps she might even 
see the fruits of its successful delivery.

****

Like a young child on Christmas morning, it 
was all Mulder could do to resist ripping 
open the small envelope that had arrived 
for Scully.  With great restraint, he'd 
placed it on her desk, propped against the 
edge of her keyboard where he was sure she 
would notice it immediately and put his 
curiosity to rest.

At the moment, his interest over the 
package was tempered only by his concern 
over Scully's whereabouts.  It was around 
the time she had taken to drifting into the 
office after her radiation treatments, 
stolidly keeping up the faade of working.  
Neither of them were getting much work 
done, but he respected her effort enough 
not to mention it.  And he knew that she 
had taken that first Monday off to humor 
him; further such suggestions would not be 
met so well.

The trilling of his phone broke into his 
reverie.

"Mulder."

"It's me," Scully whispered over the line.

"Hey, Scully, where are you?  There's 
something waiting here for you."

"Oh."  There was a moment of static before 
she continued, "It'll have to wait for 
tomorrow.  Put it in the fridge.  I'm 
not...I won't be in this afternoon."

He smiled as he answered, "I wasn't talking 
about your salad, but I'll put that in the 
fridge for you.  Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, just tired.  Working over the 
weekend caught up with me.  I've got 
journals here to catch up on.  I can read 
my mail tomorrow."

"Sure, get some rest.  I'll catch you 
later, Scully."

"See you tomorrow."

He heard the beep across the line as she 
terminated the call.  He couldn't help but 
stare at the package as he replaced the 
receiver on the cradle.  Maybe another Cosi 
visit was in order.

****

She wasn't surprised when a knock at the 
door roused her from half-heartedly 
reading.  The news ticker on CNN told her 
it was nearly six; she'd passed the 
afternoon without accomplishing a thing.  
Tossing the latest issue of the New England 
Journal of Medicine aside, she made a 
beeline for the door.

Without looking through the peephole, she 
swung the door open wide; there was only 
one person it could be.

"Come in, Mulder."

He stepped into the apartment, the paper 
bag containing dinner rustling with the 
movement.  "I brought sandwiches.  I 
thought you might not feel like cooking."

That earned him a smile as she locked the 
door once more.  "I never like cooking.  
But what's in the envelope?"

"This arrived for you in the mail today.  
It doesn't feel like there's much inside."

"You were groping my mail?"  She barely 
stifled a laugh as she reached for the 
small manila envelope.

"Just a little."  He handed it to her and 
carried their dinner into the kitchen.  "It 
was mailed yesterday from the post office 
by Farragut Square," he called back over 
his shoulder, to where she stood starting 
perplexedly at the envelope.  "I don't 
recognize the handwriting, and there's no 
return address."

"Suspicious," she concurred, walking into 
the kitchen herself and placing the 
envelope on the table.  She left it there 
as she found plates in her cupboards and 
handed them to Mulder, who was eagerly 
unwrapping a still-steaming tuna melt.  
"How close did you come to ripping it open 
without me there?"

"Pretty damn close."

"You must have been terrible at Christmas."

"My parents made a rule when I was younger, 
that I was not allowed out of bed before 
seven a.m. on Christmas morning for any 
reason."  He frowned and placed a ginger 
chicken sandwich on the plate she proffered 
him.  "I used to bribe Sam with candy canes 
to go see what was under the tree."

They were both quiet as they sat down at 
her table, plates buffering the space 
between them.

Scully cleared her throat after a bite of 
sandwich.  "So this envelope arrived for me 
today, and you have managed to avoid 
opening it.  But you have your suspicions 
on what's inside."  It wasn't a question; 
she knew he needed little encouragement to 
offer up speculation, even when the 
question could easily be settled by ripping 
the paper right now.

"I think it's from Charlotte Stevens."  
Scully's raised eyebrow prompted him to 
continue, "The handwriting looks feminine.  
I think she's doing what she can to answer 
for her mother's death."

"By sending me an envelope."  She put down 
her sandwich and reached for the envelope, 
turning it over in her hands.  One small 
bulge was visible, and the only sound was 
from the crinkling of plastic packing, not 
from any notes.

Mulder held out a hand in invitation.  "So 
open it and find out for sure."

The kitchen suddenly seemed preternaturally 
silent.  The sound of the envelope being 
torn open was astonishingly loud in the 
silence.  Scully squeezed the sides of the 
envelope, causing it to gape open.  She 
tilted it towards her face and stared 
inside, confusion furrowing her brow.

She pushed her plate away, then tipped the 
envelope sideways.  With a metallic thunk, 
a silver cylinder, no bigger than her 
pinkie finger, fell to the table and rolled 
a few inches, coming to rest against her 
napkin.

Before she could pick it up, Mulder's hand 
snaked across the table and bore it away 
for his own examination.  She looked on in 
frustration as he stared, nearly cross-
eyed, at it, rolling it between fingers 
that obscured it from her view.

Suddenly, he brought it down to table level 
and twisted one end, which came off in his 
fingers.

"Stop, Mulder."  He did, meeting her gaze 
without a word.  "We can't just open up 
whatever that is on my kitchen table."

"And where do you suggest we examine it?  
The lab at work?"

No, that struck her as a worse idea than 
experimenting on her table.  "The Gunmen?" 
she ventured.

Mulder was already pulling out his cell 
phone as he nodded in assent.

****
End Chapter 8
Continued in Chapter 9
****

****
Chapter 9
****

Mulder shifted impatiently from foot to 
foot as Scully and Byers took turns gazing 
though the microscope.  He was getting an 
eerie feeling of dj vu as Langly called a 
series of images up on the computer 
monitor.  

"Yeah, so this looks pretty similar," 
Langly said, nodding to the side-by-side 
images on the monitor.  

They looked identical to Mulder.  "Which is 
which?"

"This one's from before," said Langly as he 
pointed to the image on the left.  "And 
this one is the one you brought us 
tonight."

Mulder stood frozen, captivated by the 
images before him.  His fixation on the 
monitor broke only when Scully took a few 
steps backwards.  She'd been quiet since 
they'd opened the tiny tube to reveal a 
microchip.  Now she was slowly disengaging 
from the situation.  The Gunmen were too 
engrossed in examining their newest piece 
of mystery technology to pay much heed, but 
Mulder noticed, saying nothing as she edged 
out of the computer-filled room.  He simply 
followed her.

She had to know he was behind her; the 
poured concrete floor did little to muffle 
either of their footsteps.  Still, neither 
of them spoke as she strode rapidly down 
the cluttered hallway, maneuvering adroitly 
around racks of electronics and piles of 
old magazines.  Mulder trailed two steps 
behind.

When she reached what passed for the 
Gunmen's kitchen, she finally halted, her 
back to Mulder and her hands planted firmly 
on the counter on either side of her.

"Scully?"  Mulder's voice seemed terribly 
loud as it echoed off the Formica and 
plastic of the kitchen.  Without thinking, 
he reached out for her, fingers barely 
grazing her shoulder.

She drew up and away from his touch, 
pressing closer against the battered puce 
countertop.  "Mulder, I just....  Give me a 
minute, okay?"  She didn't turn to face 
him.

He didn't respond, simply stepped away 
towards the refrigerator.  He pulled out 
two Diet Cokes and walked to the ancient 
dinette set, sitting down and placing the 
second can directly across the table from 
him.  He could hear her drawing a few deep 
breaths as he snapped open the can.  The 
sharp sound finally drew Scully's 
attention, and she glanced back over her 
shoulder at him.

Without a word, she crossed to the table 
and dropped into the rickety metal chair 
across from him.  "Thanks."  She popped 
open the can and took a sip, buying herself 
yet more time to think.

Mulder waited.

"I don't know what to think," she finally 
said.

Mulder nodded and sat his can on the table, 
staring at it rather than her.  Abruptly, 
he looked up at her.  "How do you feel?"

Mulder could see the panic flicker across 
her face before she replied.  "It scares 
the shit out of me.  This is so far outside 
the realm of what I understand about our 
medical technology that I don't even know 
how to think about it."  She drew a deep 
breath and continued in a whisper, "It 
terrifies me to think that I'm entangled in 
this."

All Mulder could do was nod and let her 
talk.  He was startled when she reached 
across the table and latched onto his hand.

"There's someone out there with the ability 
to get to anyone, anywhere.  Who got to me.  
Someone who can make information disappear 
and answers appear out of thin air.  And I 
don't know whether to be more frightened by 
the power that these unknowns have, or by 
the fact that this chip might not do what 
we're meant to think it will."

"But Scully--"

"No, that's a possibility we have to 
consider.  We have no idea where that chip 
came from.  I know you want to believe it's 
a cure for me, but we have no proof at all 
that putting a chip back into my neck will 
ameliorate matters.  What if it makes them 
worse?"

Mulder saw the unspoken fear in her eyes, 
and being a natural paranoid, he knew what 
was worrying her.  What if this chip did 
nothing?  What if it caused her cancer to 
metastasize more rapidly?  What if They 
could use it to control her?  What if this 
chip killed her?  

Too many what-ifs.

For once, he kept his darker concerns to 
himself.  "What do you want to do?"

She graced him with a watery smile.  "Do 
you think the risk is worth taking?"

He was stunned and it took him a moment to 
formulate a response.  "I can't fathom not 
taking a chance that could save your life.  
I think that potential good outweighs all 
the other risks." 

Slowly, her head bobbed in assent, and it 
seemed an eternity before she quietly 
responded, "I'm not ready to die yet."

"I'm not going to let you."  He rose from 
the table and used her grip on his hand to 
draw her up as well, watching as the 
protest died on her lips.  For just a 
moment she tensed as he wrapped his arms 
around her, then she returned the embrace.

He reluctantly drew away from her and 
looked down at her face.  There was fear 
and worry there, but also determination.  
"So let's go figure out how to make this 
happen."

The mood was much lighter as they 
maneuvered back down the Gunmen's cluttered 
hallway.  The men looked up as Mulder and 
Scully returned to the room, seemingly 
startled to realize they'd been missing at 
all.

****

Charlotte walked down the dim hallway, 
heels connecting sharply with the 
herringboned hardwood floor.  When she 
reached the elegantly carved door that 
loomed over the corridor, she rapped three 
times.

After a moment, the door swung open.  All 
the old familiar faces were there, though 
once more it struck her how odd it was to 
see Marcus sitting in what had been her 
father's wingback chair.  It should be her 
place.

The room was brighter than the hallway, but 
not by much.  Heavy draperies hung at the 
windows, blocking much of the bright 
morning light.  Two white stripes broke 
through, making the darkness elsewhere seem 
much more prominent.  In the light beams, 
she could see flecks of dust floating in 
the air.  Everything here smelled faintly 
of cigars.

"Charlotte my dear, so glad you could join 
us."  Stepping out of the darkness between 
two windows, CGB Spender approached her.  
He gestured towards one of the old cordovan 
leather chairs, urging her to sit.  The 
others, who had been socializing in small 
groups around the room, moved to do the 
same.

A wizened man with a faintly British accent 
spoke as the last members gathered around.  
"So has the Stevens issue been resolved, 
Charles?"

Spender exhaled a cloud of smoke, which 
drifted up to join the smoky haze lingering 
around the ceiling.  "It has, Richard, 
unless there's something our own Miss 
Stevens would like to add."

Everyone in the room turned to look at her.  
She still wasn't quite sure what to say to 
them, despite a day spent thinking of 
little else.  Even the funeral planning had 
fallen to Thom as she planned for this 
meeting.  After a deep breath, she said, 
"Yes, there is something I would like to 
add.  While I realize that some action was 
necessary to prevent Beatrice Stevens from 
revealing information to the FBI, I don't 
believe the manner of resolution was an 
appropriate one."

"And what would you have had me do?"  
Spender continued to gaze placidly at her.  
"Certainly those who have crossed us in the 
past have met worse ends.  Of the possible 
solutions, this was the most humane."  
Several of the other men nodded in assent.

Charlotte shook her head.  "I don't know 
that it was necessary to dispatch with her 
at all.  She was a woman of discretion, who 
knew that some information was best kept to 
oneself.  She was privy to secrets over the 
years that she managed to keep.  I feel 
sure that had this been discussed with me 
before any action was taken, I could have 
spoken with her and dissuaded her from 
cooperating further with Agent Mulder."

"Just as you avoided cooperating with Agent 
Mulder?"  There was a nasty edge to 
Spender's voice.  

"Just as you've done so much to hinder him 
over the years."

The assemblage looked between the two of 
them as they spoke, like the crowd at 
Wimbledon.

"You're treading on dangerous ground, Miss 
Stevens.  Don't speak on matters you have 
not been fully apprised of."

"I think I know enough to put two and two 
together on this.  I did meet with Agents 
Mulder and Scully over lunch, but told them 
nothing of help.  Unless you count the 
suggestion that my mother was involved in 
fraud 'helpful'."

"Enough of this," barked a voice with a 
harsh New York accent.  "We're getting 
nowhere here.  What's done is done.  As 
much power as the committee has, Charlotte, 
we cannot raise the dead."

"I understand that very well, Johnny."

"So what would you have me do?" Johnny took 
a long drag on his cigar, the end sparking 
to red.

"Nothing here can be undone," Charlotte 
said.  "But I ask that in the future, 
should such situations arise with the 
families of those involved here, they be 
apprised of the circumstances.  My mother 
didn't know what she was revealing--if 
she'd known it was a matter of such 
importance, she would never have spoken a 
word."

Around the room, heads nodded in assent.  
Their families may not have known the 
nature of their work, but they all 
understood its importance.

"Agreed," said Richard with a nod.  "Now, 
on to more pressing matters.  I believe you 
have an update for us, Marcus?"

Charlotte relaxed back into the comfortable leather chair as 
Marcus began outlining his engineers' most recent achievement.

****
End Chapter 9
To be concluded in Chapter 10
****


****
Chapter 10
****

Mulder sat in another uncomfortable orange chair, 
waiting.  He'd calculated the number of ceiling tiles 
in the hallway--214--and monitored the average length 
of time the doctors spent in their patients' rooms--
six minutes--and was now busy figuring out the ratio 
of avocado floor tiles to melon ones.

The door to Scully's room swung open and the doctor's 
shoes squeaked against the garish tiles.  Mulder 
barely looked at him; the doctor had been clear in his 
opinion of Mulder when he and Scully had presented the 
chip to be implanted into her neck.  The doctor had 
thought they were both crazy, and had nearly refused 
to be involved.  It had of course been Scully who 
convinced him that there would be no harm in trying.  
Either nothing would happen and she would resume 
treatment as she had been receiving it, or it would 
work as she expected it to.

It wasn't even an operation, really, just a bit of 
anesthetic on her neck and a quick slice of the 
scalpel.  She hadn't told him to leave the room, but 
he couldn't stay.  He wasn't even sure why--he'd seen 
her cut and bleeding before and this would at least be 
for her own good.  He only knew that he couldn't stay 
and watch that chip disappear into her neck.  In the 
abstract, it had seemed like such a good decision, one 
that would save her life.  Yet he could only see the 
specter of the smoking man as the doctor stood ready 
with scalpel and chip.  So he had fled to the tacky 
refuge of the hallway.

Less than ten minutes had passed between his flight 
from the room and the doctor's departure.  Drawing a 
deep breath, he stood and pushed the door open.

Scully sat on the bed, two pillows propped neatly 
behind her.  Before Mulder could draw a breath to ask, 
she drew her hair aside and turned her head slightly, 
revealing a neat white bandage to him.  "All done."

Stepping closer to the edge of the bed, he traced his 
index finger down the taped edge of the gauze.  "So 
that's it."  She dropped her hair back and he drew his 
hand away, sitting half on the edge of the bed.

"That's it," she echoed.

"What do we do now?"

"Dr. Zuckerman thinks I'm crazy for even doing this, 
but he doesn't see any need to keep me here.  As soon 
as I get changed, I can go home.  And then...I guess I 
wait and see."

"It seems too easy."  He toyed with the edge of the 
battered hospital blanket.

She nodded and reached back to touch the gauze, 
herself.  "It does, after all this.  But we still 
don't know anything.  We won't for a few weeks."

"Weeks?"  He looked up, meeting her entirely 
reasonable gaze.  How could she remain so pragmatic?

"I was scheduled to have another MRI on Friday to 
monitor my radiation treatments.  I'll still have 
that, of course, but we won't have any way of knowing 
whether what we see there is a result of the 
treatments or this chip.  Then I'll just wait a few 
weeks and let this chip do whatever it's supposed to 
do.  Dr. Zuckerman is going to schedule me another MRI 
in three weeks; we should know something then."

He forced a smile that appeared more enthusiastic than 
he felt.  "Well, then, what are we waiting for?  Get 
dressed so we can blow this joint."

As he headed back out the door, he saw her trying to 
suppress a smirk at his lame attempt at humor.

Just maybe, things were going to be all right.

****

A corner of the tarp flapped loose on the back of the 
truck bed; if Charlotte had peered closely as it drove 
down the tree-lined drive, she could have seen the 
curve of hoof it revealed.  She didn't care to look.  
Making the decision to destroy all evidence had been 
simple enough and easy to accept.  Even acknowledging 
that this meant the death of Belle had not been 
difficult.  But actually killing her had been more 
wrenching than anything she'd ever done.

It was no crime to destroy one's own property, of 
course, so long as the end of one's living property is 
humane.  She could have simply shot Belle in the 
middle of one of the pastures and no one could have 
done a thing about it.  But that would not have the 
intended effect.  The quiet death in the night of an 
almost-forty pony would attract no attention.  One 
shot, far too much tranquilizer, and it was done; 
without an insurance claim by her, there would be no 
one to question the death.

The truck carting away the body disappeared into the 
descending dusk, and she turned to enter the house.  
The pack of corgis watched her as she passed through 
the entryway, only Tristram rising to follow her 
through the house.  Moving purposefully, she went 
directly to her mother's office to begin the removal 
of more delicate evidence.  Casting her eyes about the 
room, the glint of the setting sun on her mother's 
collection of silver-framed photographs caught her 
attention.  Quickly taking inventory of the pictures 
and thinking of the paperwork to disappear, she 
stepped back into the library and dropped to her knees 
in front of the fireplace.  In two minutes, she had a 
small blaze kindling, deepening the burgundy tones of 
the room and casting out the damp spring evening.

Returning to the office, she gathered four of the 
frames and carried them to the fireplace.  Tristram 
hopped onto the couch, alert eyes following her 
movement.  Removing the photos was simple, and she 
soon had the four in hand.  First into the blaze was 
Bea and Galahad at Westminster; that went with little 
difficultly.  She had not been lying when she told 
Mulder that her mother often seemed to care more for 
her animals than her children, and Galahad above the 
others.  A magazine-perfect shot of Julie foxhunting 
Belle went into the flames next, as easily as the 
first.  Thom hitting a tennis ball to Galahad followed 
with little sentiment.  Charlotte lingered on the last 
photo, however.  The shot of her on Ophelia was such 
an image of show ring perfection she hated to part 
with it.

The scuttle of the dogs' nails on the slate entryway 
floor and the creak of a floorboard interrupted her 
reverie and she nearly cast the photo into the fire 
without any conscious thought.  She tightened her grip 
on the corner of the page as she turned.  "You really 
must learn to knock."

"Tsk, tsk.  I see the hospitality here is already in 
decline."

"Friends of the family are always welcomed with the 
greatest of conviviality."

"Always so wise, my dear Charlotte.  And always one 
step ahead of the game."  He stepped closer and tossed 
a cigarette butt into the smoldering pieces of 
photographs.

"Just doing a little cleaning up around here.  Someone 
must clean up the messes, after all."  She rose to 
face him, wishing she were eye-level.

"You're quite good at cleaning up messes," he smirked, 
"especially other people's."

On the couch, Tristram sat up, alert, watching the two 
of them.  The foxy little dog's seemed to understand 
the tension crackling around him, and chose to bound 
to Charlotte's side, where he sat like a sentinel 
statue.

She patted the dog and responded coolly, "Perhaps if 
other people took time to think their actions through 
beforehand, their messes would not become my problems 
with such alarming frequency."

"Anticipating messes and averting them has always been 
your specialty.  I see you're at it once again."  He 
nodded towards the fireplace.

"I'm just doing what should have been done in the 
first place.  It would have been so easy, if you'd 
just taken the time to ask."

"Like you took the time to ask me about sending that 
chip to Agent Scully?"

She met his eyes and refused to look away.  "I don't 
know anything about Agent Scully receiving a chip."

"Spare me, Charlotte.  I'm not so nave as some of our 
compatriots and am well aware that Agent Scully 
received an 'anonymous' envelope the other day, 
containing a chip identical to one that went missing 
from our vaults the day prior.  Curious, isn't it?"

"It certainly sounds curiously like something you 
would do."

"Are you going to accuse me of this?"  Incredulity 
crept into his voice for the first time she had ever 
heard.

"As far as I know, nothing happened at all.  And I'm 
just disposing of some of my mother's things, that are 
no longer of importance."

"We have an understanding then?"

"I understand that my mother is dead, the case she 
brought to the FBI is no longer being investigated as 
you wished, and now I am lady of the house here and 
free to dispose of what I wish.  As to the well-being 
of Agents Mulder and Scully, it's outside my realm of 
knowledge.  You should understand that you're no 
longer welcome at Avalon."

"Fair enough.  I'll be seeing you, Charlotte."

Without waiting for her reply, he faded back into the 
shadows of the room and glided out the door.  
Charlotte sighed and headed back to the office, and 
began pulling paperwork out of the filing cabinets, 
Tristram trailing along behind her.  Most of the 
sheets were merely tossed in the trashcan; a smaller 
pile was made on the desk, which she then took back to 
the fireplace.  She reached down to stroke the loyal 
dog's head as she watched the old paper burn quickly, 
leaving no trace that a trio of the Stevens' animals 
had ever existed.

****

Mulder was surprised to see Scully bent industriously 
over her keyboard when he entered the office.  Since 
implanting the chip several weeks ago, she'd been 
feeling better, though she had made no mention of any 
appointments to confirm that her good health was more 
than coincidence.

"Morning, Scully."

Her head whipped around from the monitor.  "Oh, good 
morning."

For a few moments, they settled into companionable 
silence, before Scully spoke up once more, with some 
measure of hesitation.  "What are you doing the week 
of September sixth?"

He wasn't quite sure how to respond to her query.  
What on earth was she talking about?  "Nothing that 
I'm aware of.  It's a long way--" in the seconds it 
took him to speak, a conversation on her couch 
replayed in his head.  Name a date, he'd said.  "Oh."

"You were serious when you made the offer, weren't 
you?  I don't want to impose on you, but I thought..." 
She trailed off, looking embarrassed, face reddening 
as she looked down at her hands on the keyboard, hair 
obscuring her face.

"No, no, I definitely meant it.  I would love nothing 
more.  So what do you want to see across the pond?"

****
End
****

Feedback is always welcome: windblownellie@yahoo.com
www.geocities.com/windblownellie/firstflight.htm