Disclaimer in Chapter 0.  This is Chapter 11. 


********


UNKNOWN LOCATION 
NEAR ALDER CREEK, COLORADO 
MARCH 25 
6:03 a.m.


The gun felt good in his hands.  Owen Curran gripped it easily, the
weight and presence of it familiar and comforting to him.  

He adjusted himself carefully on the hard bench seat of the tree
stand, pulled his camouflage jacket closer around him.  His
companion, a 13-year-old inhabitant of the Sons of Liberty compound
named Thomas, sat with his own rifle cradled in the crook of his
elbow as he blew into his hands, warming his fingers, which were
uncovered by the fingerless hunting gloves.  

Neither had spoken for some time, Curran enjoying the quiet, both of
them watching the clearing just a few dozen feet away for any sign of
deer.  

Curran had never been hunting like this before, and Thomas had
instructed him on what to do as they'd climbed into the stand, snow
falling from the ashen branches of the tree as they went up the rungs
nailed into the trunk.   They would sit with their Browning rifles,
downwind of the clearing, and wait for a buck to come.

They'd been up there for a little over an hour, with no sign.  Just
a low note of wind coming every now and then through the thick forest
they sat in.  A snowshoe hare that had scampered across the field,
almost hidden against the background of white.  No birds.  Nothing.  

Thomas reached down and pulled something out of his rucksack he'd
been wearing as they'd hiked through the woods to the stand – a
thermos full of something warm.  Tomato soup, steaming a cloud from
the mirror surface of the interior.  The boy poured some into the
thermos' top, offered it to Curran. 

"Aye, I'll have a bit.  Thank you, Thomas."  He took the cup, blew
on the thick surface of the soup and took a sip, handed it back to
the boy.   Thomas did the same, and they settled in again.  

Curran reached into his pocket and drew out a smoke and some
matches.  He put the cigarette in his mouth, struck the match,
sending up a flare and the smell of sulfur.  He took a long drag,
blew it out.  

Beside him, Thomas was looking at him, at the cigarette.  Owen
squinted a bit at him as he pulled in another breath of smoke.  

"Can I have a drag?"  Thomas asked, doing his best to sound tough. 
The boy's sandy blonde hair ruffled slightly in another push of the
cold wind.  

Owen smiled around the cigarette, shook his head.  "Not good for a
boy your age," he said, cupping the cigarette in his hand.  

"You sound like my dad," Thomas replied, returned his eyes to the
clearing.  

Curran stopped at that, looked away from Thomas.  The boy's words
were like someone pushing on a bruise deep inside him.  He couldn't
help but think of Sean.  

He wondered once again where he was, how he was.  He wondered if he
would see him again.  

He stared off into the clearing, his blue eyes ice.

And then, he wasn't thinking of Sean any more.  It was always the
same when he thought of his son, of Fagan.  And Mae.  Especially Mae.
The one person he had trusted completely in his life.

The image of Dana Scully entered his mind, fury coming soon after. 
He felt it flush through his system, a shot of heat.  He took another
drag on the cigarette, held it in until he could blow it out without
it shaking from him.  

His hatred was like a living thing inside him, clawing at him.  The
images he had of what he would do to her when he caught her flooded
his mind.  

Torture.  He would kill her slowly.  She would pay for everything
that she had done to him with her body, a piece at a time.  

And he would break her.  He would control her before he killed her. 
He would find a way.  She would beg him to kill her.

He let the breath out slow, smoke seeping from his lips as though he
were on fire inside.  

A rustle of movement caught his eye at the edge of the clearing, on
the other side.  He tossed the cigarette and raised the rifle quickly
in one smooth motion, his eye looking through the scope.  Beside him,
Thomas did the same.  

Curran looked at the creature.  Soft tan sides.  White chest.  Large
dark eyes glistening in the morning light as it cocked its head from
one side to the other nervously.  It took a tentative step further
into the clearing, its hooves crunching in the snow.  

Beside him, Thomas lowered his gun.  

"It's a doe," he said, dejected.  

But Curran did not lower his own weapon.  He kept the scope trained
on the doe's forehead, above the wide eyes, the ears pricked forward,
soft and dark.  

"Mr. Curran…" Thomas said, perplexed and a little nervous.  "You
can't shoot a doe."  

Curran ignored him, waited until the doe's face was in the
intersection of the sights.  

Then he pulled the trigger.  

The shot echoed, tearing through the woods and sending up a black
cloud of crows from the tree tops.  The rifle kicked back against
Curran's shoulder, the force nudging a smile from him.  

Thomas gasped beside him.  

In the clearing, the doe staggered, her head thrown back.  Her front
legs buckled until she knelt, struggling to stand.  The snow around
her was spattered with red.  

"Mr. Curran!"  Thomas cried.  "You shoot for the heart!  You didn't
have a clear shot!"   He dropped his rifle on the wooden deck,
shocked,  nearly sending it over the edge, gaping at first Curran,
then the doe.  He reached over and touched the barrel of Curran's
rifle.  

"Get your fucking hand off," Curran snarled, jerking the rifle away.
He bolted the rifle, then he sighted the doe again, fired.  

This shot hit her in the chest, right at the triangle of white at
the base of her throat.  The doe's head flopped forward, digging into
the snow as she toppled to the side, sending the snow into bunched
piles around her, brown on red on white.

He bolted and fired again.  And again.  

"Mr. Curran, stop!"  Thomas implored.  "Please stop!"  

Something in the boy's tone reached through the clamor inside him,
the rage.  Thomas' voice was high.  Sounded younger.  

He turned and looked at Thomas, found him crying, his chest rising
and falling, fast as a hare's. 

He lowered the gun, looked out at the clearing.  

The doe lay in a twisted heap, blood seeping into the snow.  She was
still, the only movement her fur as the wind moved over it.  

He put the butt of the rifle on the deck, pushed himself into a
standing position.  He bent over and retrieved Thomas's rifle, shoved
it into the boy's hands.  

"Get your things," he said, slinging his own rifle over his shoulder
by the strap.  "Let's go back."

Thomas looked up at him, his eyes wider.  "You're not just going to
leave her!"

"I fucking said we're going back!"  Curran spat.  "Now mind me.  Get
your things."  

Thomas kept his eye on Curran as he closed up the thermos, zipped up
the bag and shouldered into it, slung the rifle, then followed him
down the makeshift ladder to the white below.  


***********


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO INDIAN RESERVATION 
11:34 a.m.


Albert Hosteen sat on the concrete porch outside his double-wide
trailer, rocking slowly in a rocking chair and nibbling on the end of
his pipe.  His eyes were on the long dirt road that connected his
house to main road of the reservation, dark pools set into the
pleasant crags of his face.  His long white hair was pulled back,
gathered behind his head with a rubber band, and it trailed down the
back of his flannel shirt toward the low back of the chair.  

The chair made a soft squeak as he moved, rocking himself slowly
with one booted foot, deep in thought.  He pulled on the pipe, most
of the smoke leaving his mouth before he inhaled it.  He really
simply liked the taste of the tobacco, not the strength of the
smoke.  

They would be there today.  He was sure of it. 

He thought once again about the choice he had made.

When the man from the FBI had called him, asking him for a favor,
there had only been a moment when he'd had trepidation at the
prospect.  There was a part of him that thought he had paid his dues
to the U.S. Government, paid more than his dues for what he'd been
given in return.  His time as a Code Talker during the second World
War had made him invaluable to them at the time, but then he'd been
cast aside, paid a small pension for his efforts at creating a Navajo-
based code that baffled the Germans and the Japanese and eventually
helped the Allies win the war.  

It all felt very distant to him now, that part of it.  And they were
not the memories that caused him the knee-jerk of fear when the man
from the FBI had called him.  It was the more recent ones -- the
boxcar filled with bodies buried in a canyon a few miles away.  Men
in his house, the beatings, the efforts to kill the other FBI man for
uncovering their secrets.  

It had all solidified something he knew from his time with the
government before -- that they were not to be trusted.  That they
would do anything they could to protect their lies and their plans
for things he knew of but would rather not think of now.  He was an
old man.  He would let it be.  

He'd made one stand against them, though, before he'd returned to
the reservation and the silence of all that he knew --  he'd memorized
the more damning of the lies, the machinations, and relayed them to
others, passing the story along like a folk tale.  He'd done this to
protect two people whom he'd somehow grown to trust.  

The FBI man whose life he had saved -- this man Mulder -- and his
partner, Scully, a woman he knew less of but whom he probably
understood better than he did the man.  

He'd protected them then because they were worth protecting.  They
both had a pure human sense of what was right.  The woman even more
than the man in some respects, because her actions were not tinged
with the rage of his.  After all, she had shot Mulder in an effort to
protect him from snaring himself in the trap those men had laid for
him.  She was willing to do anything for what she believed in.  

And Mulder, despite his personal anger over what was happening, had
proven the same.  

They both sought nothing more or less than the truth, and the truth
was like a faith to Hosteen, the basis for all he did and knew.      

So when the man from the FBI had called, telling him of the
accusations against Mulder, the danger that Scully was in, he knew
the right thing to do.  

The door to the trailer banged open and his grandson, Victor, came
out, stood next to his grandfather.  Victor looked older than his 28
years, age burned into him with days spent at the corral caring for
the family's small herd of horses and sheep.  He had deep lines
around his eyes, much like his grandfather's, his hair -- jet black in
a short cut that had grown out, ruffling lightly in the wind coming
in off the valley around them.

"What makes you think they're coming today?" he asked, his eyes on
the dirt road, as well.  

Albert quirked a smile.  "I feel it on the wind, in the trees, off
the mountains...."  

He said it hugely and dramatically, raising his arms for effect. 
Victor laughed.

"Yeah, right," he said, still laughing.  He jammed his hands in the
pockets of his Levi's. "Just one of your feelings, huh?"  

"Hm," Albert said thoughtfully.  "Yes.  But it makes sense that they
would come as fast as they could.  Been running for a long time."  He
took another pull on his pipe, breathed out.

"I'm still not sure this is such a good idea, grandfather," Victor
said, though his tone was resigned.  They'd been having this argument
for days.  

Albert nibbled on his pipe, grunted softly.  "It's necessary," he
said cryptically.  He couldn't explain that feeling, but he was sure
of it somehow.  

Victor, who was used to this kind of response from him, he knew,
nodded and said nothing.    

Movement caught Albert's eye down the highway and he grew very still
for a moment, watching the car come around the wide curve that led
into town.  He could make it out from where he sat -- an SUV of some
kind.  Older model.  He followed it as it approached.

When it reached the end of his road and took the turn, he stood,
pulling himself up to his considerable height.  He turned and tapped
out the pipe, the glowing tobacco raining down onto the concrete and
snuffing out.  Then he lay it down carefully on the arm of the chair,
faced forward again. 

The truck came slowly, as though unsure of itself, bumping up the
uneven road.  Hosteen could make out two figures through the dirty
windshield and recognized them as they pulled up next to Victor's
pickup.  Mulder was driving.  His partner, Scully, was looking out
the side window.  Albert came forward as the truck's engine died into
quiet.

Mulder exited first.  He looked leaner than the last time Hosteen
had seen him, bearded, his hair longer than he remembered.  His eyes
were guarded by sunglasses, which he removed as he came forward. 
Scully was just opening her door as Mulder closed the distance to
him, his hand extended.  

"Mr. Hosteen," he said, and he sounded ragged.  Albert looked into
his face, saw his eyes rimmed with red, bloodshot.  He hadn't slept
in awhile; Hosteen was sure of that.  

And there was swelling at the corner of his left eye near his
cheekbone, a bruise forming beneath his lower lid.  

"Agent Mulder," Hosteen replied, keeping his face neutral.  He
smiled kindly as he shook Mulder's hand.  "So you made it, eh?"  

Mulder smiled weakly.  "Yes, we made it," he said softly.  Scully
came up, and Albert turned his attention to her as she stood a little
off to the side behind her partner.  

He swallowed, and his face fell as he looked at her.  

So thin.  Her face pale.  Faint bruises around her neck.  She, too,
removed her glasses and Hosteen looked into her eyes, though her gaze
darted from his as soon as she saw him studying her. 

 Something haunted in those eyes.  Pain-filled.  

Something terribly wrong.   

He smiled to her, regaining his composure.  "Agent Scully."  He
closed the distance between them and reached out.  She took his hand
almost reluctantly.  The smile she gave looked like it would crack
her face.  

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Hosteen," she said, distant. 
"Though I wish the circumstances were better."

Hosteen chuffed softly.  "They were not so good the last time we
met."  

"That's true," Mulder said, and Hosteen turned to see him rubbing
his shoulder absently, as though the gunshot wound Scully had given
him suddenly hurt again.  He smiled at Mulder faintly.

Then he stepped back so that he could face both of them again. 
Scully had made no move to stand next to her partner.  Albert
wondered at the distance, his head cocked as he looked at them both,
gauging what he saw.  

An awkward silence fell.

Hosteen was so distracted by the feelings rising off of both of them
that he forgot Victor was even standing there until his grandson came
forward himself, breaking the strange moment.  

"I'm Victor Hosteen," he said, shook hands with Mulder and nodded to
Scully.  She nodded back.  "One of you is going to be staying next
door to me.  There's an empty trailer there that we've put a few
things in.  It's got two bedrooms, so you could both stay there if
you'd like, but we have another place, too,  if that's not what you
want." 

Mulder seemed to look uncertain, wary.  He glanced at Scully, who
did not glance back.  "How safe are these places?"  he asked.  "I
mean...are they secluded enough that people won't see us there?" 

Hosteen nodded.  "Yes, both are secluded, Agent Mulder.  No one
comes out this way who doesn't live here -- all my family --  and no
one here will tell anyone of your whereabouts.  They consider it my
business, my concern, and they will not interfere with that."

He studied the two of them again.  Scully was looking away, as
though the conversation didn't involve her at all.  Mulder was
chewing his lip nervously.  He considered for a few beats, finally
nodded.  "We want separate places then, if that's not too much
trouble," he said, and Hosteen heard the sadness behind the remark,
though Mulder had tried to sound nonchalant and business-like.  

Hosteen slipped his hands into his pockets, nodded as he began to
understand.  

Two things wrong, he thought.  Something wrong with Scully herself. 
And something between the two of them.  He could almost see the wall
that separated them, thick and wide and made of stone.  

And newly built.  The tension in them was too acute for it to have
been there very long.  

"The other place to stay is a smaller trailer here a ways out behind
my house," Hosteen said.  "It's not much, either.  One room.  This
one on wheels, you know.  You'll have to shower at my house, but it's
got propane.  You can cook."  He looked at Scully intently, his head
tilting again.  "Why don't you stay in this one, Agent Scully?  It
would be more...private.  So much coming and going at my grandson's
place with the livestock to care for."  

She avoided his gaze again, nodded.  "That would be fine," she said. 

"It's about a mile and a half to my place from here, down the road,"
Victor chimed in, and Hosteen could tell the agents' tension was
making his grandson nervous.  "I'm sorry it's not closer.  I see
you've only got the one truck, but I'll be happy to drive you back
and forth if you want to leave the car here--"

"Agent Mulder can have the truck," Scully interrupted, looking away.
"I won't be needing it."

Her meaning was clear.  She wouldn't be going anywhere.  Not even to
see Mulder.

Victor was looking at Scully, then turned to the other two men. 
Mulder was looking down at the ground, scuffing a stone with his
foot.   Albert held Victor's gaze for a few seconds, nodded,
reassuring him.

"That's fine," Albert said gently, trying to diffuse the crackle in
the air.  "Why don't I help you get your things and take you back
there, Agent Scully?  It won't be hard with both of us carrying the
load."  

Scully nodded and turned, going for the truck.  

Now Hosteen chanced a look at Mulder.  The younger man's eyes had
yet to return from the ground, but his jaw was working, his face
hard, fiercely controlled.

Yes, Hosteen thought.  Whatever was between them, whatever had dug
this chasm, was new, indeed.  Mulder's pain was rising off him like
smoke.

"Go on with Victor, Agent Mulder," he said, his voice soft.  "I'll
see to Agent Scully."  

Mulder met his eyes then, and their gazes hung.  Then Albert smiled
that same half smile, and walked past him to where Scully was pulling
her suitcases out of the back of the truck.  

She didn't look at him as she slammed the back of the truck closed,
replaced the spare tire on its hinge against the tailgate.  He
reached down and hefted the larger of the two suitcases, and Scully
picked up the other and a sleeping bag.  

"It's not too far," he said.  "Come with me."  

Scully nodded.   "All right," she said, gestured ahead of them
almost impatiently.  

Albert's lip curled, but he hid it as he started toward the house. 
Scully followed close behind.  

Neither she nor Mulder looked at the other as they passed, Hosteen
noted.  Mulder simply turned and went toward his truck, Victor
hurrying to his own to lead the way down the road.  


*  *  *  * * 


LAKE McCONAUGHY 
OUTSIDE OGALLALA, NEBRASKA 
12:13 p.m.


Jimmy Shea hooked the minnow through the side, checked the sinker
and the hook, then cast the small fish out into the water toward the
shore of the black lake.  There were submerged logs there, overhangs
of branches, and he knew that there would be bass hovering just
beneath the surface, dozing beneath the tree limbs and waiting for
tap on the water, for food to come.  

He'd read it all in the guidebook he'd bought in Belfast, The Best
Fishing in All Fifty States, all this information about the bass and
catfish that inhabited the lake.  A quick stop at the tackle shop at
the marina, $30 to rent the boat for the afternoon, and he was back
out on the water, waiting for the fish.  

He was just down from Ringgold, a tiny town northeast of the lake he
now bobbed on, the place where Curran had last been sighted.  He'd
gotten the call from Rutherford two days ago, and had immediately
packed up his things and headed west.  

Shea had been all over the town, just as he'd been in Tyner, tracked
down the lead that Rutherford had had leaked to him from someone on
the NYPD who was following the case, an Irish cop with ties to the
underground IRA in the boroughs.  The lead was a motel on the
outskirts of town where surveillance video had picked up someone
matching Curran's appearance, and on looking at the still photos
Rutherford had decided that the resemblance was close enough to
warrant notifying Shea about it.  

Shea had gone to the motel, shown pictures of Curran to a clerk who
apparently wasn't aware of the manhunt and the manager's report of
the sighting to the CIA and FBI.  The woman had looked at the photo,
said "yes," that Curran had indeed been there, but that it was weeks
ago since he left.  He'd stayed for a week, she said, and then, like
everyone else who stopped in the tiny town, he'd moved on.  

So Shea had checked the map in the pickup, called Rutherford on the
cell phone and told him the news.  Then he'd said he was going
fishing until Rutherford called him again, that he'd be staying down
in Ogallala in a cheap motel that had free cable and a restaurant. 
In other words, everything that Shea would need.  

His back creaked as he leaned back on the small seat in the center
of the boat, and he stretched.  He was feeling his age on this trip. 
There had been times when he could hole up in a building for days,
weeks if he had to, sleeping on floors or hunkered in corners.  All
those years of doing the work and then hiding out afterward, waiting
for the heat to die down enough for him to vanish back into the
woodwork.  

All those assignments from James Curran.  Those meetings at the
lovely house near Ballycastle overlooking the sea.  Curran's children
growing up before his eyes over suppers.  The smaller James, always
so quiet and serene and growing more so as the years went by.  Mae,
the only girl, lovely and so full of life, always getting into
everything.  

And then there was Owen.  Always at his father's side, listening in
on the business at a chair at the table as he played with his toys. 
Some of what Shea and the elder Curran had discussed Shea felt
uncomfortable talking about in front of the boy, but James didn't
seem to mind.  He seemed to want Owen to hear.  The younger James was
too introspective, destined from a early age for the priesthood by
his disposition and his faith.  And Mae was just a girl, after all. 
Owen was where James had his hopes for the family continuing in the
Cause, the boy fascinated by everything his father said and did, a
slight shadow that followed James almost everywhere he went.

Shea reeled the hook in slowly, giving the line a slight jerk every
few rotations or two of the silver reel.  Nothing.  He pulled the
bait in all the way and checked it, the boat drifting down a bit
further along the grassy bank.  When he saw a good shady spot, he
tossed the bait back out, landing it right against the shore and
giving it a gentle pull down the slope and into the deeper water.  

He thought of Ruby back home suddenly, a vision of her as she
bustled about in the morning around him, picking flowers from the
garden as he drank his tea, read the news.  Her coming to him in the
shed behind the house where he worked his wood, bending it, smoothing
it.  She would fuss at him to come for dinner most nights.  He got
that lost in his work.  

The small boat he'd been building was nearly done when he'd gotten
the call, and he longed to get back to it.  

He missed Ruby.  The thought made him smile sadly.  After all those
years of losing friends, he'd thought himself beyond missing anyone
or anything.  But Ruby was somehow, thankfully, different.  She
proved that something was still alive within him, something that
they'd been unable to completely take with the years of loss and
sacrifice.  

He'd thought he'd just been left with his resignation about the work
-- how it was never done, how many of the sacrifices seemed worthless.
Resignation tinged -- and more often these days -- with something like
regret.  

For a moment he let the line go slack, the sinker bumping on the
bottom.

Car bombs going off outside the UDR police station in Derry, bodies
staggering from the raging hulks, screaming, engulfed in flame.

A faked road block outside Belfast, two women, 18 and 19.  Heads
shaved and shot in the temples for snitching and fucking the Brits.  

Dozens of men at the point of impact, their stunned faces. 

The glassy, open eyes of the dead.  Their ghastly faces becoming so
familiar to him when he was younger that he had difficulty, at times,
telling them from the living.

Glass shattering in a hundred store fronts, distant siren wails. 
Bombs of Sinn Fein hate and carpenter nails.  

He closed his eyes against it, turned his face up toward the midday
sun, shining on the surface of the lake.  He took a deep breath, let
it out slowly.  Then he opened his eyes.  It was like waking from a
bloody dream.

The boat had drifted further down the bank, his line dragging across
the bottom.  Pulling himself together again, he reeled the line in,
pulling up mud and clumps of reeds.  He cleared the hook, tossing the
debris back into the water, laid the pole down in the boat and
reached for the motor.

Enough, he thought, tired. 

Enough for one day.  


* * * * 


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
5:34 p.m.


The sun was sinking, sending the sky into a pale gold over the bare
landscape of scrubby trees, the rises of the mesas and buttes in the
distance.  Scully watched it as it fell, sitting on the small bed
built into the side of the Winnabago trailer, her back against a
cupboard that acted as a headboard.  Her knees were drawn up against
her chest, her arms looped around them, pulling them in close.  She
wore her shoes still, the soles on the blanket.  

She didn't move as she looked out the window, as she felt the cold
creeping in through the metal walls of the trailer, through the blue
bunting top she wore, her jeans.  She'd have to turn on the heater
after all, she thought absently.  There was nothing around her to
hold any warmth.  Just red stones, low dry bushes.  And silence.

She did not think of Mulder.  Or at least that was what she told
herself.  But trying so hard not to think of him was the same as
thinking of him, she thought bitterly, and sank down further against
the cupboard, sighing.  She ran a hand up her forehead, pushing her
hair out of her face where it had fallen, partially occluding her
eyes and the view out the window.  

She'd been alone the night before, but had been so numb that that
fact had hardly seemed to matter.  After Mulder had gone, she'd sank
down between the two beds, her back against one of them, curled in on
herself like a shell, and simply sat there.  Occasionally, she had
cried, tears silently streaking her face, but more often she'd just
stared at the draped window, her mind spent and blank as snow.  

She'd stayed like that until the light behind the thick curtain had
faded from gold to gray to black, then she's risen, stiff, and
slipped beneath the covers in the darkness, still wearing her clothes
and shoes.  She'd fallen asleep almost instantly.    

Now here she was, finally truly away from everyone.  This was what
she had wanted all these weeks, she thought.  To be completely alone,
to have time to process everything that had happened in the past
months.  

But now that she had it, she was still as paralyzed as she'd been
the night before, struck into an impasse with her emotions.  It was
as though, since her outburst yesterday, she'd rescinded her
permission to feel anything at all.  What she'd done yesterday had
frightened her, the way she'd given in that much to the anger and
pain.  She did not want to do that again.  

She didn't know who that person was, the one who had struck Mulder
across the face with the hard blow, finally driving him away.  

This was not to say that she thought what she had said to him before
that had been a mistake.  The things about their relationship being
over.  She truly felt that, and thought that it had needed to be
said.  She should be alone now, unattached.  Perhaps permanently.  

The old person she was could give herself that way.  This new one
could not.  

The outburst about the rape, she was not so certain was the right
thing to have done.  But it was done now, and there was nothing she
could do about it. 

Weary, she rose and went the short distance to the tiny kitchen, the
two burner stove.  She opened the cupboards over the stove, found
soup, crackers, rice.  In the small refrigerator beside it she found
a quart of milk, a few apples.  Butter.  A container of orange juice.
A loaf of dark bread.  

Hosteen had given her enough to feed her for the first couple of
days, at least.  She would not have to ask him for a  ride to the
market right away, and she was glad for that.  She felt like a
stranger to the outside world and did not relish the thought of
joining it.  

She closed her eyes.  

Maybe if she stayed out here long enough, she thought, she might
just disappear.  Mulder could forget about her.  They all would. 
Curran.  Padden.  Even Skinner.  They would forget her and all that
had happened to her.

And maybe she could, as well.  She longed for forgetting more than
she'd longed for anything in her life.  For a kind of white amnesia. 
Maybe by forgetting, it would stop the hurting, the grief.  Maybe the
outburst yesterday to Mulder had been all the feeling she had left,
and she could let it go, feel nothing.  

Maybe that was who she was now, this new person she'd become defined
by that.  

And perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing in the end, she decided,
and closed the refrigerator, no longer hungry for anything.    

Distantly, she heard a sound, the first in hours.  Footsteps coming
down the road.  A horse, walking slowly, the easy cadence of hooves.  

She went to the flimsy door, peered out its small window.  Her gun
was nearby, balanced on the edge of a built-in table.  She eyed it as
the figure drew nearer.    

Then she relaxed some as the horse and rider drew nearer.  It was
Albert Hosteen, sitting tall on a beautiful dapple-gray horse.  He
wore a denim jacket, a plaid flannel shirt beneath it, worn jeans and
cowboy boots.  There was a plastic bag slung by the handles to the
horn of the western saddle he sat on.  It swung slightly as the horse
shifted its weight from one side to the other as it walked.  

The corners of her mouth drew down.  She was not in a good state for
visitors.  In fact, she couldn't foresee a time when she would be.  

Still, she opened the door, stepped down onto the sand, walked
toward him as he stopped a dozen feet from the trailer, looking down
at her kindly.  

"Hello," Scully said, forcing her face into something she hoped was
friendly.  

"Agent Scully," Hosteen replied, his face kind.  "I came to see how
you were getting on, and to bring you some dinner."  

Scully looked down.  "I'm doing fine," she replied.  "And thank you,
but I'm not hungry.  And what you've left for me will be fine for a
few days if I do want something to eat."  

Hosteen smiled, dismounted carefully so as not to disturb the bag. 
"My wife, Eda, before she died, was a wonderful cook, you know," he
began conversationally, reached up and lifted the bag off the saddle.
"She could make fried chicken and fry bread like no one for miles."  

"Is that so?"  Scully said, being polite.  

"Hmm," Albert said, turning to her.  "She taught me how to make both
of them before she died.  Said I'd starve to death, me and the boys,
if I didn't learn to do for myself."   

He opened the bag, and warm, inviting smells came from it.  Scully
looked at the bag, then at him again uncertainly.

"Well, I made some this evening, some of both, and since my son Keel
couldn't come to eat, I thought I'd come out and eat with you."  

Scully tried to smile, but didn't quite make it.  "Really, Mr.
Hosteen, I'm just going to go to bed really early.  I'm very tired
and--"

"Can't let it go to waste," he interrupted.  "And you really should
try them.  They're the best you've ever eaten, I promise."  He smiled
again.  "Eda knew how to make them best."  

He walked right past her now, and Scully stepped aside, watched him
go to the cluster of wooden chairs outside the trailer, set just a
few feet from a fire pit that had been dug into the ground beside the
trailer.   There was a pile of ragged branches and old lumber next to
it, a collection of kindling.  Hosteen eased himself down into one of
the chairs, began looting through the bag.  

Scully looked at him, not sure what to do.  Finally she sighed.  It
was just a meal with him.  And the sooner she ate it, the sooner he
would most likely go, leaving her to the night of solitude she had
envisioned.  

So she went to the chair beside his, watched him pull out a plate
encased in tin foil, which he handed to her.  It was still warm.  He
took out another for himself, setting it on his lap.  She did the
same, removed the foil to reveal three pieces of chicken, the flat
disc of a piece of fry bread, some beans cooked in heavy spice.  

She had to admit -- it smelled delicious.  Her stomach rumbled as the
smell drifted around her.  

He handed her a spoon from the bag, and she slowly took a spoonful
of the beans and ate.  They were as good as they smelled.  

Hosteen was digging into his own plate, eating the chicken with his
fingers, using the fry bread to mop at the beans.  Scully followed
his lead, though with a bit less enthusiasm.  

They ate in silence.  Off somewhere, a coyote called, another
answering from the distance.  The sky turned a bruised blue, then
faded to black, lit by a canopy of starlight.  Scully looked up at it
as she finished off the last of the bread.  The number of stars one
could see in the desert always astounded her.  It was like the sky
was more star than night.  

The only light besides the stars, the bulb over the stove that she'd
left on.  It threw a small yellow square around them from the window
above their heads.  Scully couldn't see Hosteen's face, but he set
the plate down on the ground in front of him when he finished eating.
Then she saw the flare of a match illuminate his face and eyes, the
burning circle of the interior of the end of a pipe.  The smell of
sweet tobacco came toward her, and she found it somehow comforting.   

She set her own plate on the ground, looked down at it, surprised to
have left nothing but bones on her plate.  Maybe she was hungrier
than she had thought.  

The quiet stretched again, and she let it.  

"You look different than the last time I saw you," Hosteen said
finally out of the darkness, the pipe's end growing brighter as he
inhaled.  

She looked up into the sky.  There was a small light moving far up,
drawing a curve across the night.  It was a satellite, she realized,
after watching it a few moments.  Mulder had said you could see them
in the desert if you looked hard enough, but she had never believed
him.  The sight of it and the memory of his words made her smile
sadly.  

"I imagine I do," she said at last.  "It's been a long time since we
last met."  She paused.  "It's strange though -- you look the same."  

"Not had the years you've had, I should think," Hosteen replied.  

She looked down.  "Probably not," she said vaguely.             

"Hard years."   He inhaled again, the tobacco glowing like a dim
bulb and then fading out.  

She hesitated, unsure of the turn in the conversation.  "Yes.  Some
of them," she replied cautiously.

Another long moment of silence.

"You were so young when I saw you last.  Young in many ways."  His
voice was calming, serious but not probing.  His words and the way he
said them made a lump rise in her throat, and she swallowed it down
hard.  

"I'm not so young anymore," she replied, some bitterness coming in. 
"In many ways."  

"Hmm," Hosteen said again.  "Losing so much will do that to you. 
Seeing too much will do it.  Pain will do it."  

Something rose in her now at his words as she chafed. 

"What do you know about what I've lost or seen?"  she asked flatly. 
"Or about my pain?"  

He shifted in the chair.  "I know only what I see in front of me,"
he said obliquely.  "That's all any of us can know."  

He was turned toward her now, though his face -- and hers, she knew --
were lost in shadows.  

"What do you see in front of you, Agent Scully?" he asked softly. 
His voice had grown quieter still, now like a voice but like a
phantom of a voice.

She looked away, as though his eyes were penetrating her through the
darkness.  

"I don't know what you mean," she said, and recalled saying the same
words to Mulder the day before.  She realized what a lie they were as
she said them to Hosteen, a lie she'd hidden behind with Mulder and
that she was using again to hide from this man, as well.  

"I think you do," Hosteen countered, his voice gentle.  "I think you
see a lot in front of you, but you don't want to see it.  And I think
you want -- and need -- to see more, but you can't right now.  But
part
of that is because you don't know where to look."  

She said nothing for a long moment, emotions rising.  Sadness. 
Anger at the presumption of his words.  A strange feeling of exposure
and vulnerability at being so easily read.    

She bent to get her plate, stood suddenly.  

"Yes, well..." she said stiffly, turning toward him.  "Thank you for
dinner.  You're right.  It was excellent.  But I think I'm going to
go off to bed now."  

She saw the small rain of embers as he tapped out the pipe.  Then
the creak of the chair as he stood with his own plate.  His lean form
threw a thin shadow through the box of yellow on the ground from the
window.  She could see his face now, his kind smile, but she could
not hold his gaze.    

"If I think of a place where you can look, I'll let you know," he
said, not seeming to mind her brush off.  "I'll think on it."  

She looked away, a feeling of vulnerability coming over her.  "All
right," she said, awkward.  She didn't know what else to say to
that.  

He nodded, reached for the bag on the ground and placed both their
plates into it.  "You are welcome, " he replied.  "Sleep well, Agent
Scully."  

"You, too, Mr. Hosteen," she said, and watched him disappear toward
the dark shape of his horse, who had waited patiently in front of the
trailer just outside the light the entire time.  She'd almost
forgotten the animal was there. 

With a squeak of leather, he mounted, turned the horse around and
disappeared into the dark.  

Scully stood there for a long moment, staring up at the blanket of
stars.  Then, tired in more ways than she could name, she turned and
went back into the trailer, closing the door for the night.  


* * * * * 

END OF CHAPTER 11.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 12. 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 12.

*********

TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
MARCH 30 (FIVE DAYS LATER) 
8:24 a.m.


The sounds of a truck engine starting up, of sheep bleating in the
distance, the deep sound of horses, punctuated by an occasional high
call from one of the stallions. All these sounds had grown strangely
familiar to Mulder, his usual wake-up call here on Victor Hosteen's
land. 

He lay beneath the open window, clad only in green boxers, his lean
body lit by the gold morning light. Though they were a ways away from
him, he could still hear the Hosteen boys calling back and forth,
their rich laughter. They laughed a lot.

He rolled onto his side, his back to the window now, drawing his
knees up in the twin bed. It was the only way he could lay without
his feet dangling over the end, which made him feel like a man
sleeping in a child's bed. It didn't bother him too much, though.
After all, he'd spent the better part of the five days in this bed,
alternately sleeping and staring at the wall or the window, listening
to the men work in the distance in the pens and corrals. 

When he wasn't in the bed, he'd spent some time sitting on the
battered sofa in the living room area off the kitchen, watching the
lousy reception on the television, or, more often, out on the front
patio in a white plastic chair. The patio faced Victor's place,
several hundred yards away, and beyond that, the stable, which he
could always spot by the cloud of dust that seemed to linger over it
and the smell that wafted his way if the wind was right. He didn't
mind the dust or the smell. He wasn't up to minding much of anything. 

He drew in a deep breath, eased it out, reached up and ran a hand
over his chest. He was cold, the spring morning here in the desert
bright but chilly. Rather than pull the covers over himself, he sat
up instead, reached down onto the floor where his jeans were still
hunkered, right where he'd stepped out of them the night before. He
pulled them on as he stood, rubbing at his beard as he made his way
down the narrow corridor toward the kitchen. 

Water in the kettle, the squeak of the flimsy faucet as he turned it
off. The popping of the stove as it lit, the blue flame bursting
beneath the kettle's shining surface. He stretched, shivering, his
bare feet cold on the linoleum floor. 

He supposed he should get a shirt, he mused absently, then discarded
the thought. He stood before the stove until the kettle began its
slow whistle, then poured the water into a mug for the Taster's
Choice he'd found in the cabinet. The date on the stuff was two years
ago. He didn't think, wincing at the bitter taste, that it being more
fresh would make a difference. 

He shuffled through the living room, breathing in the smell of dust.
The place had been shut up for months before his arrival, the former
home of one of Albert Hosteen's brothers. The man had died of cancer,
and the trailer seemed to carry the melancholy of a long illness with
it. 

Outside on the patio, Mulder took his seat in the flimsy chair,
crossing his legs in front of him at the ankles, crossing his arm
across his ribs as he sipped the coffee. He watched the shapes of
horses, small at this distance, move around the corral, men milling
back and forth. 

He wondered how she was, what she was doing. If she was awake yet,
what she was thinking as she started her day. He'd seen nothing of
her or of Albert Hosteen since he'd left the house all those days
ago, doing his level best not to look behind as he'd driven away. 

He was still trying his best not to look behind. It hadn't worked in
the truck as he'd bumped after Victor down the road, and it wasn't
working now, either. 

He reached up and rubbed his eyes roughly, the beginnings of a
headache coming over him already. He was so tired and he felt useless
and ancient. 

He heard a soft noise off to his right and he jerked his head
around, instantly alert. When he saw the source of the sound, he
relaxed, however, simply stared. 

The dog was back. 

Mulder had first noticed it on the first morning he'd been there, a
charcoal-colored hound of some kind that skulked around the perimeter
of the property. It was so thin he could count its ribs even from a
distance, see the sores on its sides. It walked tentatively, each
step hesitant as it watched Mulder watching it. Its tail was firmly
curled between its legs, its ears and head down. It would linger for
a few minutes, and then scurry away, disappearing into the scrubby
brush behind the house. 

Mulder took another sip of the acrid coffee, watching the dog. It
had stopped as he'd turned toward it and was watching him with its
dark, frightened eyes. Mulder held still for a moment, then let his
free hand slowly drop over the arm of the chair. He snapped his
fingers. 

"Come here," Mulder said gently, and the dog took a step to one
side, then the other, seeming to grow smaller with the sound of his
voice, closer to the ground. 

"I won't hurt you," he continued softly, snapped his fingers again,
made a small whistling sound. The dog's ears pricked for a second at
the sound, as though it recognized something familiar in it. It took
a hesitant step forward.

"That's it," Mulder said, inordinately pleased for some reason.
"Come here." 

The dog licked its lips. A small chirp of a whine came from it. 

Moving slowly, Mulder put the coffee cup down on the ground in front
of him, rose and went into the trailer. He kept an eye on the dog,
which had taken a few steps back as he'd risen but did not run away. 

Inside, Mulder fished in the cabinets for a bowl, settling instead
on a silver pot. He filled it with water at the sink, then carefully
carried it back out the front door. 

The dog was still cowering a few dozen feet away, eyeing him warily.
Taking small, slow steps, Mulder moved toward it, the pot in front of
him.

"Want some water?" he asked softly, taking another step, then
another. The dog backed up a step. "I've got some water. I'm not
going to hurt you. I just have some water...." 

About 15 feet from the dog, Mulder squatted down and placed the pot
on the ground. Then he stood and began to back up, moving just as
slowly. 

The dog eyed him and the pot alternately, its ears flat against its
head in fear. It whined again faintly. 

When he'd returned to his chair, Mulder picked up his coffee cup and
crossed his arm over his chest again, shivering again. He took a sip,
pretending to ignore the dog now, though he was watching it out of
the corner of his eye. 

It got even closer to the ground now, licking its dry lips again,
and began to creep toward the pot, watching Mulder the whole time.
About five feet away, it was on its belly, crawling now. 

Mulder sipped his coffee, waiting, barely breathing. 

Finally the dog reached the pot, sniffed, pressing its nose over the
edge. Then, its eyes still on Mulder, it began to drink. 

And, for the first time in days, Mulder smiled. 

**

Albert Hosteen watched all this with interest from the back of his
horse, up on a rise beside the trailer, a small smile on his face, as
well. He gave the dog a few moments to drink and then started down
the rise toward the trailer, now visible to Mulder on the patio,
though Mulder was watching the dog. 

Suddenly, the animal stood upright, catching sight of Albert on his
horse. Instantly it shot off, running behind the trailer and into the
desert beyond. Mulder watched it go, then turned his head to see what
could have startled it and saw Hosteen. Albert couldn't miss the
hopeful look on the younger man's face as Mulder stood, walking to
the edge of the patio nearest him, his free hand jammed in his pocket
for warmth. 

Hosteen maneuvered the horse up in front of him, stopped. 

"Hello, Agent Mulder," Hosteen said softly. "I see you have met Bo." 

"Bo?" Mulder replied, clearly confused. "Oh, you mean the dog?" 

"Yes," Albert said. "My brother's dog. Nobody has been able to get
near him since Larry died. He just hangs around the house as though
he is waiting for Larry to return." 

"Ah," Mulder said. 

Albert dismounted now, stood before Mulder. "You look cold." 

"Yeah, I am a little, I guess," Mulder replied, embarrassed. "I just
woke up and was too lazy to find a shirt." 

"Huh," Hosteen replied. "Yes, I hear you do not do much with
yourself here. Victor said he rarely sees you and that you never go
anywhere." 

Mulder looked down. Around the fringe of his beard, Hosteen could
make out a faint glow as Mulder blushed. "I guess I don't, no," he
mumbled. He looked around, a sad expression on his face. "Where would
I go?" His voice sounded very far away as he said the last. 

"Not good for you," Albert replied. "You should get out. Busy
yourself with something." He gestured toward the corral and Victor's
house in the distance. "Victor can always use an extra hand with the
livestock. You should let him put you to work up there." 

Mulder shifted from foot to foot. "I'm afraid the closest I've come
to a sheep is a sweater," he said, and Albert laughed. "And I've
never ridden a horse." 

"Easy to learn. You will be good at it. I can feel it." He looked
down at the cup of coffee in Mulder's hand. "You have more water on?" 

Mulder seemed struck out of his somber mood. "Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I
should have offered. Please, come in." 

Albert followed him into the house, the screen door banging shut
behind them. Mulder put the kettle back on. 

"I'm just going to go get a shirt," Mulder said, awkward. "I'll be
right back." And he disappeared down the hall.

Hosteen sat on the couch, looking around. He hadn't been back in
this place since just after his brother's death. There just hadn't
been any need. He smiled looking at the beat-up recliner in front of
the television, remembering nights here with his brother over the
years. The place had always been filled with laughter, a warm place. 

He hoped some of that still remained for the man living in it now. 

The kettle was already whistling again when Mulder returned in a
dark blue sweatshirt, his boots on. Albert watched him pour another
mug of coffee and then come forward to the living room. Mulder handed
it to him and sat down in Larry's chair, perched on the edge, clearly
nervous. 

Hosteen sipped the coffee, made a face. "This is awful," he said,
bemused. 

"Yeah," Mulder said, a small embarrassed laugh coming from him.
"Yeah, it is. Sorry about that." 

"Tastes like ashes," Hosteen said, and took another sip. It wasn't
so terrible the second time around. 

Mulder was looking into his own cup, then around the room, glancing
at Hosteen every now and again. 

"You want to know how Agent Scully is doing," Albert said finally.
"I can see it on your face." 

Color rose around Mulder's beard again, but he tried to shrug, sound
nonchalant. "Yeah, I had wondered how she was holding up," he said,
took a draw from his mug. 

Hosteen smiled a bit at his attempt at lightness, when it was clear
from his body language he was more than anxious for news. 

"She is doing all right, I would say, considering," he replied.

Mulder looked up at him now. "Considering what?" he asked, his voice
edgy.

"Whatever it is she has been through," Albert replied, echoing
Mulder's previous casual tone. "She will not speak to me about it, of
course, but I know something must have happened." 

He did not say that he had already guessed what that something was,
choosing to keep that bit of information to himself. 

"How often do you see her?" Mulder asked, changing the subject --
which only confirmed Hosteen's suspicions further. Mulder was still
trying to sound casual, as though they were discussing the sheep or
the sagebrush or the weather. 

"A couple of times a day," he replied. "She comes in the morning to
shower and I see her briefly. Then I come to her with dinner every
night."

Mulder looked surprised. "And she *eats* it?" 

Hosteen smiled. "She is too polite to refuse, so yes. We sit and
have a little talk while we eat. She tells me things sometimes.
Sometimes she is quiet." 

Mulder gazed down at the floor, turning the mug in his palms. "I'm
glad she's talking to someone," he said, his voice tinged with
sadness. "Even if it's just 'sometimes.'" 

"Hm," Hosteen replied, taking another sip of the bitter coffee. "She
will talk more, I think, as time goes by. I think there is something
in her that wants to in a way. But her nature holds her back. She is
warring against her nature right now." He looked at the other man
deeply. "I believe you both are." 

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked guardedly. "How am I warring
against my nature?" 

Hosteen smiled faintly. "You are used to *doing.* You are looking
for something to *do* when this is not about doing. It is about
letting things happen." He cocked his head, watching as Mulder looked
away as though caught. 

"Do you know anything about geese, Agent Mulder?" he said after a
beat of silence.

Mulder turned back to him, his expression puzzled. "Geese? Um...I
think they mate for life. I remember hearing that somewhere. But
that's all I know." 

"You know how geese fly in formation? That 'V' across the sky?"

Mulder nodded. "Yes." 

"Well," Albert said, leaning back a bit on the sofa. "When a goose
becomes hurt in some way, sick or shot from the sky, it will fall out
of the formation. And when it falls, the goose in front of it and the
one behind break away from the group and follow the injured goose
down to the ground. Then they both stand in vigil over the injured
one, waiting for it to regain its strength or for it to die.
Sometimes it takes a long time for one of those two things to happen,
but the geese continue to wait, no matter now long it takes." 

"What do they do if it dies?" Mulder asked softly. 

Albert sipped his coffee. "If the injured one dies, the two geese
will take off again, finding another flock to fly with until they
catch up to the group they came from." He paused. "But if the goose
lives, they help it take off again, putting it in the middle of them
once again so that there is less wind for it to push through, making
the flying easier, until they find their own flock once again and
rejoin the formation."

Mulder stared into his coffee cup, and Hosteen could see him turning
it over in his head. 

"We are waiting, you and I," Albert said gently. "And healing takes
time."

The other man looked up at him and their eyes met. Hosteen nodded,
smiled kindly. Mulder nodded in return. 

"All right," he murmured. "I'll try. To be patient." 

Hosteen nodded. "I should go," he said, and stood now, placing the
mug on the table in front of him. Mulder stood, as well, and together
they walked out the door, out onto the patio where the grey horse was
waiting, its white tail swishing absently. Albert touched its soft
nose gently as he walked around, mounted slowly. 

"Hey," Mulder said from the ground. "How do you know that stuff
about the geese, anyway? There aren't any geese here, are there?" He
indicated the desert around them. 

Albert smiled. "'Animal Planet,'" he said, smiling wryly. "Eight
o'clock on Wednesdays. Victor got me satellite TV a few months ago." 

Mulder barked a laugh at that. 

"I will check back on you in a few days," Hosteen said, turning the
horse to the side. "In the meantime, go help Victor with the horses.
Always good to be around animals. And people, too." He winked and
Mulder smiled back. 

"Okay," Mulder said. "They might not like having me, as useless as
I'll be, but I'll give it a shot." 

Hosteen nodded. "Goodbye, Agent Mulder." 

"Goodbye, Mr. Hosteen." 

Then Albert nudged the horse in the side gently, turned and headed
back home. 


**********

PUERTO PEÑASCO, MEXICO 
9:02 a.m.


Mae Curran awoke slowly from the dream, a dream where she was
running through a field, Sean in front of her, laughing as he enjoyed
his game. She'd been trying to get him to stop for hours, it seemed,
watching him pull further and further away from her as he ran. 

The dream was so real that when she finally opened her eyes,
shielding them from the morning light coming through the open window,
she wondered if he'd really gotten away from her, and had an
irrational urge to rise and check on him in his small room just down
the short hallway. 

She looked at the other side of the bed, the pillow rumpled and the
covers turned back, the only evidence that Joe had been there the
night before. That and the fact that she was wearing his t-shirt,
loose on her, covering her otherwise nude body. 

And the faint musk smell of their lovemaking lingering. She breathed
it in, sighed it out. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, an
expression she was unaccustomed to but was finding came more
naturally these days. 

She was in love and was helpless against it. 

God help me, she thought, and closed her eyes, letting the smile
come now, felt it blooming over her. 

She lay in the sunshine for a long time, letting it warm her skin,
her arms thrown over her head languidly on the bed of her long thick
hair on the pillow. 

Then the dream came back to her, the memory of the panic she felt
running after Sean, pleading for him to stop as he pulled far out in
front of her, laughing...

It bothered her on some visceral level she couldn't quite put her
finger on. It was enough to strike her out of her morning ease and
she sat up, threw her legs over the side of the bed, and pulled on a
pair of sweatpants from the shabby dresser in the corner of the small
room. 

She padded into the hallway, down a few feet to Sean's room, its
door closed. She knocked. 

"Sean?" she called. She didn't like the silence from within one bit.
She pushed the door open without waiting for a response. 

Sean looked up from the floor where he was sitting, a piece of paper
on a wide book on his lap. Crayons and markers and pencils were
spread out around him, and he looked up, his hand stopping its
movement across the sheet where it had been leaving a trail of cobalt
blue across the surface.

"What's wrong, Aunt Mae?" he said softly, fear in his voice. 

She relaxed, realizing that her tone when she'd said his name had
been frightened, as well, and had triggered the response in him. "No,
no," she said hurriedly. "There's nothing wrong. I was just worried
when I didn't hear anything from you in the house." 

"I was coloring my picture," Sean replied, and his hand started
moving again, the faint dry sound of the crayon filling the room. 

She entered completely now, went to him, sitting beside him on the
floor. "What are you drawing then?" she asked with interest. "Do you
mind if I see?" 

He shook his head, moved the book over a bit to allow her a better
view. A red ship floating on a jagged blue ocean, dark vague shapes
in the water. There were several stick-like figures on the boat,
three at the bow, two tall and one short. One of the tall ones had
bright yellow hair, one long black, and the smaller figure had hair
done in a reddish brown. The burnt sienna crayon lay nearby next to
the yellow. Sean was coloring the ocean now, cerulean blue. 

"That looks like Joe's boat, doesn't it?" Mae said, scooting closer.
"Red on the sides like that." 

Sean nodded, seeming pleased that she'd guessed what the drawing
was. "Aye," he said softly. "It is Joe's boat."

"Who are all these people then?" She pointed first to the ones at
the back, all bunched together, their hair all dark. 

"Those are the other fishermen." 

She put her finger on the figure with the long dark hair. "And that
looks like me, eh?" 

He smiled and nodded, his small finger going to the yellow-haired
one. "That's Joe," he said, moved his finger to the smaller person.
"And that's me right there." 

"Mmmm, I like the thought of us all on the boat," Mae said. "That
would be fun. We should do that one day. Get up really early and go
out with Joe. Would you like that?" 

Sean smiled wider, but kept his eyes down. "Aye," he said softly. 

Mae moved behind him, smiling, reached over to tickle him, causing
him to pull his arms down to his sides to protect his ribs as he
laughed. 

She curled her arms around him, pulling his back against her front,
her legs bracketing his. He leaned his head back beneath her chin. 

"What are these dark things in the water?" she asked, pointing at
the vague shapes. "Maybe seals? Like the one we saw the other day?" 

He shook his head solemnly. "No, they're sharks," he said softly.
"Big sharks." 

Mae's brow furrowed at the thought of that. "Well, that's a scary
thing, isn't it?" she said, trying to stay light. The image bothered
her, though. The fact that he would come up with that in an otherwise
pleasant picture. 

Sean only nodded, went back to coloring his ocean. 

As he did so, Mae suddenly noticed the room seemed very hot and
sweat broke out on her forehead, a cold prickle. Then, just as
abruptly, her stomach lurched. 

"I'll be right back, Sean," she said quickly, scrambling to her feet
and going out the door, across the hall to the bathroom, barely
making it to the toilet before her stomach heaved again and she
vomited, the force of it sending her to her knees. It continued for a
few moments. 

"Jesus," she breathed when she was finally finished, laying her
forehead against the edge of the seat as the toilet flushed. She was
holding her stomach. She felt like she'd pulled every muscle in her
belly. 

"Aunt Mae? You all right?" Sean said from the door to the bathroom.
She turned her head to the side, her temple on the seat now, her
breathing heavy. 

"Aye, Sean, I'm all right," she said, trying to sound reassuring.
She pulled herself upright as she said it, going to the sink. 

"But you're sick," the boy said, unconvinced. 

"I'm okay," she said again, turning on the faucet and running cool
water into her cupped hands. She splashed water on her face, dabbed
with a cloth, then reached for her toothbrush. She turned to Sean
again, who was still watching her with worried eyes. 

"Go on back in and finish your picture, then get ready and we'll go
to the beach, all right?" 

"Okay," Sean said quietly, and went back into his room. 

Mae looked at herself in the mirror, color high on her cheeks. She
put her hand on her stomach again. The nausea seemed to have passed,
leaving her just feeling shaky and a bit overwarm. 

Must be a little bug, she thought, brushing her teeth. With some of
the things they ate around town, she was surprised this didn't happen
more often to both of them. 

She closed the door now, stepped out of her sweatpants and stripped
off Joe's t-shirt, breathing in his scent. Then she turned on the
shower and stepped into the steaming water, light pouring in through
the window and settling on her as she washed herself clean.

**

9:46 a.m.


Tom Lantham held the picture up again into the face of the bone
dealer, his nose wrinkling at the smells of bleach and rot around
him. He and Rudy Grey were standing next to a pile of cow skulls that
extended over his head, a cloud of huge black flies hanging over it
as the bone baked in the early morning sun. There were rattlesnakes
coiled to strike on the shelves behind the bone dealer's head.
Armadillos. Roadrunners. 

"You sure you haven't seen this woman and this boy?" he asked again,
this time more slowly. The man -- Paco, short with a dark moustache
that trailed down around his mouth -- seemed to have a grasp of
English, but he was so reticent Lantham was having a hard time
figuring out if he didn't understand him, or just didn't want to
respond. 

"No, nobody like that, no," Paco said stiffly. 

He's hiding something, Lantham thought. The man was too simple to be
a good liar, and Lantham had a lot of experience with people like
that in his line of work. 

"Uh huh," he said, putting the picture back in his shirt pocket.
God, he wished he still smoked. These people were driving him crazy. 

Grey was toeing the sharp nose of a skull on the bottom of the pile,
threatening to send half the stack down on them, and Lantham grabbed
his arm, pulling him away. 

"Let's go," he said gruffly, then turned to Paco. 

"Thank you, señor," he said with false graciousness. "You've been a
huge help." 

"Any time, gringo," Paco returned, a shit-eating smile on his face.
Lantham scowled and he and Grey walked away, into the crowd of the
marketplace. 

"What do we do now?" Grey asked, hurrying to keep up with Lantham.
Grey was sweating in his sportsjacket, which he wore to hide the
pistol at the small of his back. Lantham wore one, too, for the same
reason. "Nobody has seen them here at all." 

Lantham quickened his pace. "No, Rudy, they've *all* seen them.
Those two are here somewhere. I know it." He gestured toward the end
of the marketplace, where the view opened up onto the beach beyond. 

"Let's go to the beach and see if we see anyone. Maybe we can find
someone there who'll fess up." 

They wove their way through the marketplace, through the produce
carts, the fish market area smelling of fresh catch, the stands
selling firewood and fireworks for the beach. 

They'd been driving for days, following sparse leads as they went.
Down through Santa Ana and Bonacita, to the coast to Puerto de la
Libertad and then north. There had been a definite sighting of them
at a town called San Luisito, where an old man had told them that if
foreigners passed through that town, they were most likely on their
way to Puerto Peñasco, which he called "El Escondite," or "The Hiding
Place." 

Lantham had shown the picture of Curran's sister and the boy to half
the town, it seemed, and everyone had the same quick negative
response. Too quick. 

They made their way to the end of the market and climbed the dunes
that banked the shabby beach. There was trash blowing in the breeze
off the ocean, the smell of a dead fish wafting in the wind. A few
people had staked out spots on the sand, soaking up sun and listening
to Mexican music on portable radios. 

Lantham put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene, his face
dyspeptic. Grey was red-faced behind him, looking at the waves. 

Lantham checked out each knot of people, wondering which to approach
first. Then something caught his eye. 

A young boy at the edge of the ocean, squatted down, picking through
things on the sand. A woman stood next to him, long hair blowing in
the steady breeze. 

He reached back and slapped Rudy in the gut. "Come on," he said,
keeping his eyes on the pair on the beach as though they might
disappear if he looked away. 

Together, he and Grey made their way across the beach, heading for
the waves. They were walking parallel to the two, not directly toward
them. Lantham just wanted to get close enough to get a good look at
their faces. 

They stopped at the edge of the ocean, where the sand gave way to
lava-like rocky tidal pools. 

"Don't look at them," Lantham said below his breath as the woman
turned and started down the beach toward them, the boy in tow. Seeing
them, the woman headed off at an angle towards the center of the
beach to give them a wide berth. 

But she got close enough for Lantham to see her face. Hers and the
boy's, both. 

"It's them," Lantham said quietly, reaching down to pick up a shell,
which he skipped into the ocean, trying to appear as touristy and
easy as he could given his attire. Rudy obediently kept his eyes
forward, his hands in his pockets. 

Lantham watched them as they went up the beach, up toward the dunes
and the street beyond. It would arouse too much suspicion to follow
them until they reached the street. 

These things had to be handled delicately. Especially at this phase. 

He looked down, biding his time as Mae and Sean Curran climbed the
dunes, saw a tiny purple crab standing on the rocks, one small and
one huge claw upraised in warning, its black eyes shining like beads.
He toed at it absently until it scurried away into the nooks of the
rock and disappeared.


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

THE OVERLOOK MOTEL 
AFTON MOUNTAIN 
AFTON, VIRGINIA 
1:46 p.m.


Paul Granger pulled into the parking lot of The Overlook, a two-
story building perched on the edge of Afton Mountain, its windows
gleaming in the afternoon light. The place was mostly windows, he
noted, which didn't surprise him when he turned and looked at the
view the place afforded, a sprawling expanse of valley dotted with
farms and dense woods. 

It was a fairly warm day, even for the mountains, and he peeled out
of the jacket he'd put on when he left the house that morning,
tossing it into the back seat of his black Jetta and pushing up the
sleeves of the light, dark sweater he wore. He was in his typical
Saturday attire -- jeans, running shoes -- and it helped him feel a
little less conspicuous on his errand. Though he'd technically come
as a CIA agent, he didn't feel like anyone could tell that by looking
at him. Getting out of a suit did wonders for that. 

This had to be the place, he thought as he made his way across the
parking lot. His bad leg hampered him only slightly, the bone feeling
better as winter finally gave way into what he knew would be a short
spring. At this rate, he'd be back to light running in a matter of
weeks. 

He headed for the office, the bell tinkling as he opened the glass
door and went inside. A woman came out from the back room -- slight,
blonde hair and holding out well in her mid-50s -- and smiled to him
kindly as he approached the desk. 

"Can I help you?" she asked, her southern accent thick. She was from
further south than Virginia, Granger knew instantly. He smiled in
return, reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. 

"I hope you can," he said, flipping the cover open and showing it to
her. "I'm Paul Granger, with the CIA. I wondered if I might ask a few
questions." 

The woman looked a little bewildered. The place didn't exactly look
like a hotbed of legal activity, so he wasn't surprised. And "CIA"
always sounded so damn serious, a fact which pleased him and made him
want to roll his eyes at the same time. 

"Well, sure, Mr. Granger," the woman managed. "I'll answer anything
I can." 

He pulled out a small spiral pad from his other back pocket, reached
for one of the pens behind the desk, looking to her for approval. She
nodded, her eyes still wide. 

"What's your name, ma'am?" he asked gently in an attempt to put her
at ease. 

"Sue," she said. "Scheiber. My husband Ed and I own the motel." 

"Are the two of you the only ones who run the office?" he asked,
writing down her and her husband's names. 

"Yes, it's just us," she said, still nervous. "Has something
happened here that we don't know about?" 

"In a way," he replied, fingering a slot in his badge wallet. He
pulled out a wallet-sized photo of Mulder, his official FBI photo, a
copy of the one that had gone on his badge. He pushed it across the
counter toward her. 

"I'm wondering if you might recognize this man," he said. "He stayed
here on January 12-13, I'm told." 

The woman eyed the photo, holding it up to get a closer look at it.
"That was a long time ago," she said doubtfully.

"I know," Granger replied, trying to keep the anxiety out of his
voice. This *needed* to work. He needed someone to have seen Mulder
here. 

"Do you know around what time he would have checked in?" she asked,
returning her gaze to Granger's face. 

Granger thought back to the last time he'd seen Mulder that day.
They'd been with the task force through most of the day, and Mulder
had returned to the Marriott sometime around four or five that
afternoon, he recalled. Afton was about two hours from Richmond, so
that gave him some idea of his window. 

"I'm guessing early evening," he said finally. "Or later." 

"Then it would be Ed you want to talk to. I do the early morning and
afternoons here until around four. Ed takes the nights." She looked
at Mulder's picture again. "And I think I'd remember a face like
*that* one. What'd he do, anyway?" 

Granger saw her eyes gleam with the intrigue of all this. It was
clearly more excitement than the woman had had in some time. He would
have smiled had the situation been less dire. 

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that really," he said. "Nothing
illegal, though. I'm just trying to confirm he was here. Do you keep
a ledger of who stays here? A guest book or anything like that?" 

She nodded, placing the picture on the counter. "Yes, everyone signs
in in this here book," she said, and reached down for the thick
ledger, a battered green cover that had the word "Guests" embossed on
the front of it. "We thought we'd do that, you know, kind of like a
fancy hotel does." She blushed. 

Now Granger did smile. "I see," he said, and reached for the book.
He laid it on the counter and opened it, flipping through the pages,
checking dates until he'd found January 12. He ran his finger down
the list of names: Long... Selby... Schulz... Reynolds... Brown...
Kucinski... Jolly... 

Nothing there. His heart sank. 

Then he turned the page over to the thirteenth, and was rewarded
immediately. 

Hale. George Hale. The first entry of the day. And he recognized
Mulder's handwriting, as well, having seen so much of it scribbled on
files and legal pads as they'd profiled Curran together in Richmond.
He'd signed in at five in the morning on the thirteenth. Granger felt
a little jolt of adrenaline at the sight of the name. 

"You find his name?" Scheiber asked. She'd noticed his reaction
immediately.

"Yes," Granger replied. "I need for your husband to try to identify
him in this picture, if he was the one on duty at five." 

"Yes, it would be Ed," she said, excited herself over this little
bit of cloak and dagger at the Overlook. "I don't come on until six.
I'll go wake him up for you." 

Granger smiled again, both at her enthusiasm and her words. "I would
really appreciate that, Mrs. Scheiber. Thank you." 

Scheiber went around the desk. "Anyone comes to check in, tell them
I'll be right back," she said, and then she was out the door, the
bell chiming behind her. 

Granger stood there, his eyes on the name still, looking at the
picture of Mulder. He was glad that he'd found some proof he was
there (though it would have, of course, been even better if Mulder
had signed in using his own name), but he was still puzzled as to why
Mulder would be out this way at five in the morning, what he'd been
trying to do. 

Maybe he couldn't sleep and just needed a drive? He knew Mulder
didn't sleep well -- he'd caught him up too many late nights. But to
drive all the way out here? It seemed very strange. 

He was still turning that over in his head when Mrs. Scheiber
returned, a haggard- looking man with his shirt untucked and his hair
in disarray behind her. He was cleaning his glasses on his shirt tail
as he entered, then put them on and regarded Granger with sleepy
eyes. 

"Sue said you needed me to try to identify someone?" the man asked,
his voice gravelly. 

"Yes, I'm sorry to wake you, Mr. Scheiber," Granger said, and showed
the other man his badge just to be thorough. "I was wondering if you
remember seeing this man here in mid-January. The thirteenth, to be
exact." 

Scheiber took the picture, held it in front of him, looking down at
it through the bottom of his bifocals. 

"Hm...no, I don't think so..." he said almost to himself as he
continued to look. 

Granger's face fell. 

"No, wait," the other man said, pointing at the picture with his
other hand, touching Mulder's face softly, tapping. "I remember him.
He came in in the middle of the night, or close to dawn, I think? It
was snowing that morning. Pretty hard. I remember that because I
couldn't get a damn bit of sleep that morning with keep the walk
shoveled and the parking lot plowed. I actually checked him out while
Suey was making lunch. Him and that woman he was with, though she
didn't come into the office. I saw her as I was shovelling, before he
came in to give me back my key." 

Granger's brow knitted. "A woman?" he asked. "He was with a woman?" 

"Uh-yeah, pretty little thing," Scheiber said, looking over the rims
of his glasses. "Red head. Real pretty."

Beside him, Sue Scheiber rolled her eyes. "Figures he would remember
that," and she slapped him lightly on the arm.

Granger groaned inwardly. Oh great, he thought. Now I've got Mulder
leaving the task force without authorization, AND Scully leaving her
cover.

This is looking better all the time, he thought sardonically. 

He did, however, take heart in the fact that at least Mulder wasn't
here with Curran (not that he believed that for a moment), and that
someone was with him to vouch for his whereabouts. 

Though the two of them meeting like that....it didn't look good on
many levels. Scully's credibility as a witness for Mulder's
whereabouts was a bit compromised, with her own breach of protocol. 

And the likelihood that they met not as agents, but as lovers. 

And even if it wasn't true, everyone would see it that way. 

He had to ask, make one final attempt and making it look cleaner.
"One room or two? Do you remember?" 

Scheiber thought about it. "Just the one," he said, handed the
picture back to Granger. "I figured she was his wife, but I didn't
ask no questions. I mind my business about things like that." 

Granger nodded, placed the picture back in his badge wallet, then
reached back for the counter and picked up his small spiral pad. 

"Could you write down everything you just told me?" he asked,
proffering both the pad and a pen to him. "It would be a big help to
me in my...investigation." He smiled wanly. 

"Sure thing," Ed Scheiber said, taking the pen and the pad. He
placed it on the counter and began to write. 


Back in the car, Granger sat still for a long time, trying his best
to figure out what to do. He would have to tell Skinner about Mulder
and Scully being there together, and he dreaded even that. After all,
Skinner was their superior, and what they'd done by coming up there
together looked very bad, professionally speaking. 

The information solved one problem, but created a new one -- the
exposure of Mulder and Scully's relationship, which, though not
forbidden, was heavily frowned upon. 

And it was becoming clear that Mulder was going to really only have
Scully to vouch for his actions, and for what really happened in Mae
Curran's apartment. That was a bad thing, as well, as Padden was
already questioning her conduct since she'd gone on the run. 

The revelation that the two of them were lovers would make her
credibility even weaker -- Padden would say she was lying for Mulder
because they were together, that she would do and say anything to
protect him. 

He shook his head as he started the car. He'd start with Skinner
first. See how he reacted. Maybe Skinner would know what to do with
all this once he knew about the two of them, though Granger hated to
be the one to give even a small part of that secret away if Skinner
didn't know already. 

Sighing, he turned back onto the highway. He headed east, going back
toward Interstate 95, knowing he'd found the answer to one part of
this puzzle, but wishing he could feel better about what he'd found. 


********

GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE 
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA 
4:17 p.m.


The agent's heels echoed through the empty corridors leading to the
closed door of Robert Padden's office. 

He looked around as he walked, at the vacant offices, the closed
doors. It was Saturday, and there was no one in the building who
didn't have to be there, the usual skeleton crew of agents working
the weekends. 

And the task force he was himself a part of. The one that met every
weekend -- and only on the weekends -- to share their gathered
information and to make their plans for the following week's
activities. And to report to their superior everything they'd found. 

He reached the door, Padden's temporary office here at the CIA
headquarters. It was closed, as usual. Padden liked his privacy, even
when there was really no one around to disturb him. His office was
like a cocoon -- dark and insular and quiet. Not a sound came through
the heavy wooden door. 

Tucking the folder he carried under his arm, the agent paused
outside the door, preparing himself to have the unenviable task of
being the bearer of bad news. 

Unenviable particularly because it was to this man, and about this
subject. 

Finally, standing up straighter, he cleared his throat, knocked. 

"Come," came the faint response from inside the room. 

He opened the door and made his way across the dark carpet to the
desk, where a single bulb glowed on the desk, the only light in the
room besides what little managed to leak through the closed drapes
and blinds. 

Padden looked up from a file he was reading, dropped the pen he'd
been holding and took off his reading glasses. The agent stopped,
hesitated. 

"Well?" Padden said expectantly, already sounding a bit miffed. 

The agent cleared his throat again, gripped the folder in front of
him. Finally, he handed it over the desk to Padden, who did not take
his eyes off the other man as he took the folder. 

"We lost them," the agent said quietly. 

Padden pursed his lips, still for a moment, the folder held just
over the immaculate surface of the desk. 

"How?" The word seemed to echo in the office. 

"They got spooked in a town in Arizona," the agent said, choosing
his words with care. "Someone tried to grab her, and the two of them
took off. Our people couldn't keep up with them without looking too
conspicuous, so they hung back a bit. A bit too far, apparently." He
added the last apologetically. 

Padden shook his head, clearly frustrated, finally set the folder
down and opened it. 

It was filled with photographs. 

"Those are the most recent ones we have," the agent added, trying to
sound helpful. "They're from a week ago, and a little before." 

Padden fingered them, glancing over them one by one. Mulder and
Scully leaving a motel. Going into a restaurant. At a gas station,
Scully heading around the side of a building. 

His hand stopped on one, which he lifted away from the others and
studied, replacing his glasses as he did so. The agent stepped closer
to see which one it was, though he could pretty much guess without
seeing. 

Mulder and Scully sitting on a ledge, snow falling. Mulder behind
Scully and his arms around her, his head on her shoulder. The
intimacy in the picture was impossible to ignore or misconstrue.

"Well." Padden held the picture up a bit higher. "I guess there's
one thing we know for certain at this point, isn't there."

The agent nodded. "There is. And to think we thought they were just
sharing all those motel rooms for safety's sake." He smirked, hoping
the humor would lighten Padden's ire. 

"You'd think," Padden said almost absently. "that she would have had
enough of that after that business with Fagan." His lips curled. 

The agent forced a smile in return. "Yes, you would," he said,
though some dim part of him felt guilty for agreeing to that one. 

"Doesn't seem to be agreeing with her one bit," Padden continued,
setting the photo down and picking up the one of Scully going around
the building. "Post-Traumatic Stress seems to have set in nicely." 

The agent's smile faded. "Yes," he said, trying his best to sound
agreeable. "We've all noticed that, as well." 

"Makes for an easier target for Curran," Padden continued. "And
it'll keep Mulder shaken up, too. That will all work to our
advantage." 

"Yes." The agent shifted from one foot to another.

Finally, Padden dropped the photo. "Who tried to take her?" 

"We're not sure," the agent replied, glad for the change of subject.
"The people at the station said three men. They all drove away after
they'd shaken themselves off. They were a little worse for wear
apparently." 

Padden heaved out a put-upon breath. "Were our people close enough
to pursue if they'd gotten to her?" 

The other man nodded. "Yes. They were right there. They didn't want
to take off after Mulder and Scully when they ran, though, since they
were expecting to be followed and it would have blown our cover for
sure. They tried to follow a bit later, since there are only a few
roads out where they were and they thought it would be impossible to
lose them." He looked down at his feet, then back up again. "But they
were wrong, apparently." 

Padden leaned back, his face reddening. "How do we know that Curran
doesn't already have her? How the hell are we going to catch the bear
if we can't even keep an eye on the bait?" 

The agent looked down again. This was the dressing down he expected. 

"We'll find them. We're blanketing all the towns from southern Utah
to western New Mexico, all the way to Farmington. When they stop
again, we'll find them."

Padden scowled. "You tell our people I want them found
*immediately.* All this effort will have been for nothing if we're
not there when Curran gets to her. And I'm running out of things to
feed Granger's task force to keep them occupied. The fact that
someone tried to get her means Curran knows where she is and is
making his move. We'd sure as hell better be there when he does. If
he takes her out while we're not there, they'll be no way to get a
finger on him, nothing to follow to him."

"Yes, sir," the agent replied. "We're doing everything we can."

"Do more," Padden growled, and tossed his glasses back on the desk. 

"We still think this would be easier," the man said cautiously, "if
you let us take Mulder out of the equation. Bring him in." 

Padden shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "Leave him be.
Especially given this." He pushed the photo of the two of them on the
cliff toward the agent. "Curran's got someone working for him; that's
for certain now. And there's no better target than a man *in love*
willing to throw himself in front of a bullet." 

The agent watched that same wry smirk pass over the other man's face
again. He swallowed. 

"No, leave Mulder right where he is," Padden continued. "Knowing his
history, he has a way of taking care of himself. If there's a way to
get into trouble, he'll find it, and then he won't be our concern any
more." 

The agent looked down, uncertain for a moment. Then he took in a
deep breath. This was what he'd signed on to when he took this
assignment. This was about catching a terrorist, he reminded himself.
About two people operating outside the law. They knew the possible
consequences of the path they'd chosen. 

Sacrifices would have to be made, he reminded himself.

He comforted himself with that thought, and nodded to his superior. 

"We'll find them," he said firmly. 

"Good. I hope you'll pass on my...confidence...to the other agents?"
Padden sat still as he said it. 

"I will," the man said. "By next weekend. When we meet again." 

"I'm going to turn up the heat a bit," Padden said. "Redo the
posters and make them both wanted now. And I'll put a reward on it
this time, too." 

"That would probably help us, yes," the agent admitted. 

Padden nodded. "Very good," he said, and now went back to his files,
reaching for his glasses. "I'll leave you to your work. That will be
all." 

The agent nodded. "Yes, sir," he said faintly. 

Then he turned and headed back through the office, relieved to close
the door tight behind him. 


***********


END OF CHAPTER 12. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 13. 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 13.

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

TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
10:37 p.m.


"Another one!" 

Scully pointed up towards the far right quadrant of the sky, her
eyes wide as the streak of light shot a long trail across the dark
canvas of stars above her, the trail fading almost instantly, as
though the meteor she'd seen had never been there at all. 

"I saw it, yes," Albert Hosteen said from beside her. "A big one.
Burned for a long time for a falling star." 

Another puff of his pipe smoke reached her, lingering with the smoke
from the campfire they'd built in the firepit in front of the two
chairs. She found herself looking over at him in the flickering
firelight, his features thrown in black and gold relief, at his eyes
turned up toward the sky. They were glowing dark pools in his craggy
face as he scanned above. He looked content, and she borrowed some of
that feeling from him. 

At first, she'd thought it a silly thing to do, to watch a meteor
shower. After all, she thought, it was nothing but a shower of space
debris burning up on entry into the atmosphere. But Hosteen had said
that it might be pretty, that she might enjoy it, and she'd relented,
let him build the fire after they'd shared their nightly meal. 

She smiled at the memory of him coming down off Ghost -- his
obedient, almost silent, horse -- with the foil-covered pan. 

"Have you ever had Navajo lasagna?" he'd asked, meeting her as she
came down out of the trailer. 

"No, I haven't," she'd replied, already amused at the notion. 

"That's good." Albert was smiling as he said it. "Because there is
no such thing. This is Stouffer's." 

He had a knack for making her laugh like that. Easy laughter at easy
things. 

After she'd fetched the plastic plates, the flimsy silverware, from
the trailer and they'd eaten the meal, he'd told her about the shower
that night, suggested they watch it together. 

She had to admit, when he first started coming around with food
every night, there had been a part of her that had resented the
intrusion on her space, her grief. But as the nights had gone by,
she'd found herself welcoming his serene presence, a nightly respite
from her solitude. 

She spent the whole day thinking, turning events from her life over
in her head like stones she was lifting up and examining one by one.
She'd grown to realize it had been years since she'd truly had the
time alone to really consider the things that had happened to her, to
allow herself to feel the pain and anger she had over some of them. 

Her abduction. Her cancer. Her infertility. The deaths in her
family. Emily. Curran's manipulation of her with the drug. 

And then the rape.

But now, with the time alone in the trailer, the hours spent walking
in the desert behind it, she had begun to feel these things. It was
as if the attack by Fagan had finally driven her to a break. It had
somehow simultaneously closed one door and opened another -- closed
the door on her openness to people and possibilities in the present,
but opened the door to her feelings about her past. Opened old wounds
she'd thought long since scarred over. 

Apparently she'd been wrong about that. And she was seeping rage and
anguish like blood. 

But not when she was with Hosteen. He calmed her during his nightly
visits, always ready with a good meal and his pipe and his stories
and gentle questions. 

Another meteor streaked across the sky, this one fast as a wink, but
both of them saw it. Scully smiled, shifting back in her chair. So
child-like, this pleasure. So simple. 

As if reading her thoughts, Albert blew out a puff of smoke and
said: "Used to do this with my son Keel when he was a little boy. Sit
out here and watch the sky at night. He still loves to be out at
night. He even has a telescope now and sometimes he shows me things
through it." He turned to her. "You ever think about having children,
Agent Scully?" 

Her face flushed and she looked down, into the fire. 

"I am sorry if I pry too much," Hosteen said, regret in his voice as
he saw her reaction. "I was just wondering. You don't have to answer
if you do not want to." 

"No, it's fine," Scully said, her chin coming up. She wouldn't allow
herself to hide from the truth of that. To do so made her feel like a
coward, and she wanted to appear strong, particularly to this man she
respected. "I...I'm not able to have children."

"Hm," Hosteen said. "I am sorry." He looked into the fire. "It is
strange though. I see you with a child for some reason." 

Scully looked down again, this time at the ground. "I had a child
once," she said hesitantly. "I didn't carry her, but she was mine."

"The government project." He said it as a fact. She looked up at him
in surprise. She had forgotten that he knew about that, and wondered
to what extent he was familiar with it. At the same time, she was
relieved not to have to explain. 

"Yes," she said at last. "I was taken and left unable to conceive.
But Emily...she happened some time after that. I'm not sure how. I
only found out about her by accident. I was never meant to know." 

"But you did know. You found her." 

Scully studied her hands. "Yes. I took her away from them when I
found her, but she was very sick because of what they'd done to her."
She hesitated. "She died a few days later." Her voice had dropped to
just above a whisper. 

A log fell in the fire, sending up a rain of sparks that swirled in
the air and then blinked out. 

"You did the right thing to take her away from them," he said, and
for the first time she heard something hard in his voice, the
simmering of anger. "To try to give her a life away from all that.
From what those men do. It is evil." He looked over at her, his eyes
shining in the flames. "I hope you do not blame yourself for her
death. What you did was right." 

Scully looked back at him, nodded, hesitated. 

Should she tell him? She hadn't spoken of it to anyone -- not even
to Mulder, though he'd been a part of all of it...

But something about the quietness of the night, the cocoon of warmth
and light of the fire, and something about Hosteen himself, made it
seem safe to speak.

"I forgave myself for it because...she told me to," she said, now
unable to meet his eyes. 

Did she even believe it herself that it was more than a
hallucination or dream? How could she expect him to believe it was?

"Before she died, she told you?" he asked, pulling on the pipe.

Scully looked down. Shook her head. "No." 

Hosteen nodded. "Hm. Tell me the story." 

She pulled in a deep breath. "It was two years to the day after her
death. Mulder and I...we'd been in a terrible car accident and no one
could find us for a long time. We were both injured very badly.
Dying. That's when she came to me. Right into the car, in fact." She
looked down, embarassed. "I know how it sounds..."

"No, never apologize for the truth," he interrupted gently. "No
matter how it might sound to people who do not understand it. You
were close to death. It is a time when we can touch death, the world
of it. It makes sense, I think." He paused. "What did she say to
you?" 

Scully's gaze returned to his face with his acceptance of what she
had to say. It relieved her, made her believe herself. It opened her
a bit more. 

"She said that what happened wasn't my fault. For me to forgive
myself for her death." She balked. "And she told me...I didn't have
to be lonely anymore." 

Hosteen nodded. "A kind child," he said softly. "A good child, to
care for you that way." He pinned her with his eyes. "Though you
don't seem to have listened to what she had to say." 

"What do you mean?" she asked, confused. "I told you I've forgiven
myself for what happened to her." 

"You didn't listen to the last thing she said," Hosteen replied.
"You might have at first, but you are ignoring it now." 

Scully flushed, looked away. "Things are not the same as they were
then," she said quietly. A touch of defensiveness had crept in.

"Not the same in you, you mean," he said. He took another drag off
his pipe.

"No, I mean things are not the same," she insisted, more defensive
now. 

"Hm," he said softly, and she was irritated by the blitheness of his
response to her. 

"You don't believe me?" she said. 

He studied the end of his pipe. "I saw Agent Mulder this morning
after you left the house from your shower," he said. He put the pipe
back in his mouth, spoke around it. "Things seem the same to him." 

Angered and feeling invaded, she stood now suddenly, gathering her
dishes from the meal. "Mulder has nothing to do with this," she said
under her breath. "You have no idea what I've been through. But I
will tell you Mulder's not a part of it."

"You have to forgive him, too," Hosteen said as though she hadn't
spoken, and she shot him a look, grabbed up his plate from beside him
with her other hand. 

"What are you talking about?" she snapped. "There's nothing to
forgive him for. Mulder didn't *do* anything."

"And that is what you must forgive," Hosteen replied, unaffected by
her tone, the fire catching on his face, the even challenge of it. 

Scully pulled in a breath, stilled by his words. She looked at him,
her eyes wide with surprise. 

"As you must forgive yourself for this thing that has happened to
you," he continued. A puff of pipe smoke, but his eyes did not leave
hers. "Forgive yourself for not being able to keep it from
happening." 

She was stunned now, feeling the now-familiar burn of shame. But it
was more than that, this coming from him. It felt like something
tearing loose in her. Her eyes filled and she swallowed hard. 

"How...how do you know these things?" she said incredulously, hoarse
around the lump in her throat. She was still frozen in place in front
of him, a plate in each hand. The left shook so that the fork
chattered on the plastic surface faintly.

"There was a woman here a long time ago," Albert began, looking not
at her but into the fire again. "Went into Farmington one day and a
man took her, kept her for several days and then left her in a
parking lot. Once she got better she came home, back to her family
here. She could not go out. She would not eat. The man she was
supposed to marry waited a long time for her to come back to herself,
but she never did." He gnawed on his pipe end, took a puff. "He gave
up after some time, married another." 

Scully swallowed again, struggling to contain her emotions.
"What...what happened to her?" she asked faintly.

He looked back at her, away from the fire. "She stayed with her
family for the rest of her life, which was short. Something in her
had died and the rest of her, it was not far behind." 

He paused as she looked down, then back up at him again, desperate,
her eyes rimmed with tears.

"I hated to watch that," he said into the quiet. "We all did. It was
hard to lose someone like that." 

Scully looked away, and twin tears escaped as she clenched her eyes
closed, fighting for her badly taxed control. She did not have a hand
free to wipe them, so she let them fall, though they shamed her. 

Albert leaned forward. "It was a terrible thing, what was done to
your body," he said softly. "But you are still alive. Your body is
still alive. And what was done to you is not who you are or what you
must become." 

She shook her head. It was too much. 

"Please..." she whispered, bit her bottom lip, her face still turned
away. 

"You can be who you were again," he said with conviction. "You
*will* be her again. You just have to search out what you need to
find her." 

She was shaking now, a fine tremor, his words crashing through her.
Her brow knitted over her closed eyes, and she bit her lip so hard it
hurt. But she held on, riding it out. She still could not look at him
as she opened her eyes finally, heaved out a long, trembling breath. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him lean back in the
chair, set his pipe on the arm of it. Then he reached out and took
the plates from her hands, set them on the ground at his feet. 

His voice was supremely gentle when he spoke. "Why don't you sit
down and watch the shower and I will put another log on the fire? We
can sit quietly and watch together for a while."

She didn't know what else to do, every part of her feeling flayed.
Like she had lost a layer of skin, a hard dead layer like a shell. 

So she went back to her chair and sat, wiping her eyes quickly as
Hosteen rose and put a piece of wood on the fire. Flaming ashes rose
and winked out as he returned to the chair beside her. He refilled
and relit his pipe. 

For a long time she sat with him and watched the sky in a
companionable silence, the night cold but the fire warming her, stars
shooting across the sky's dark face like tears made of light. 


********** 

PUERTO PEÑASCO, MEXICO 
APRIL 3 (THREE DAYS LATER) 
6:37 a.m.


"Katherine, try to drink this." 

Joe Porter spoke softly, kneeling on the cracked tile floor of the
bathroom. He proferred Mae a glass of water with one hand, stroked
her back softly through the thin material of his own shirt she was
wearing with the other hand. She was on her knees, as well, panting,
her head over the toilet. 

"No..." she said between breaths, and she retched. He set the glass
down quickly and pulled back her long hair, holding it in a ponytail
as she vomited again. He winced. It sounded like it hurt this time. 

Sean appeared in the doorway, sleep still clinging to him, the
imprint of the sheets on the side of his face. "Joe?" he asked,
uncertain, his voice tinged with fear. 

"It's all right, buddy," Joe replied, doing his best to sound
calming. "She's just sick again. I'll tell you what I want you to do,
though. Go ahead and get dressed and put a few of your coloring books
and toys in your backpack, okay?"

"Are we going out?" Sean asked, rubbing at his eyes. 

"Yes, Sean, we're going to go to the doctor's," Joe replied, and saw
Sean's eyes widen. "But it's okay," he added hurriedly. "We're just
going to get your aunt checked out, that's all. Now go ahead and get
ready to go." 

"Okay, Joe," Sean said softly, and disappeared from the doorway. 

Mae's hand shot out to the side of the bathtub for support as she
leaned back slightly. He looked at her, worried at the paleness of
her face, and let go of her hair, his hand trailing over her
shoulder. 

"I don't need to go to the clinic," she said hoarsely, not looking
at him. "It's just a bug. It's nothing." 

"You've been sick like this for days," Joe insisted gently, and she
turned to him now, her eyes tired but surprised. "Yes, Sean told me
last night," he said. "Though I wish you would have told me yourself.
Now you're getting weak and dehydrated. It's time to go in and get
some antibiotics or something. This happens to a lot of tourists down
here and it's not serious as long as you get it treated. It won't
just go away." 

She sighed, leaned all the way back now, then swooned, her eyes
lolling. Joe moved forward quickly to catch her before her head could
knock against the wall behind her and held her gently, cradling her
against his chest. 

"Jesus, Katherine, you're going to be lucky to stand," he said,
stroking her hair. "Now don't argue with me for once, all right?" 

"All right..." she said faintly, turned her face into his chest, her
eyes closing. "I'll go then." 

**

LA CLÍNICA DE SANTA MARIA 
8:48 a.m.


Joe sat in the hard plastic chair at the end of the long hallway
that led to the examining rooms of the town's small clinic, and
realized suddenly that he was tapping his foot anxiously and he
stopped abruptly. 

He blew out a breath and checked his watch. Patience had never been
his strong suit, especially when he had worry piled on top of it. He
shifted in his seat, stretched his long legs out in front of him,
trying to appear nonchalant now for Sean's sake. 

Sean sat next to him, his hair still awry from sleep, his brow
knitted in concentration. He had drawn what Joe considered to be a
pretty good picture of a crab, and was now coloring its claws and
body a bright purple. 

Joe looked at the boy, at the seriousness of his face, and knew that
though Sean was quiet about it, he was worried, as well. In the time
that Joe had known him, Sean had shown himself to be a very sweet,
very sensitive child, often lost in introspection. Joe knew that
something like this was bound to affect him deeply, though the child
had inherited his aunt's ability to be silent about his thoughts most
of the time. 

It was a trait that worried Joe about both of them. 

He reached over and cupped the back of Sean's head in his calloused
hand, gave him a small shake. The corner of Sean's lip came up in a
tiny smile, then was gone. 

"How you holding up, buddy?" Joe asked softly. 

"I'm all right," Sean replied, but didn't look up from the picture,
his hand continuing to scratch the crayon over the paper. 

Joe rubbed absently at his hair, looking at the picture, as well.
"She's going to be all right, you know," he said, trying a different
tact in an attempt to get Sean to open up a bit more. "It's just a
little thing she picked up in town, I bet. They'll give her some
medicine and she'll be good as new." 

Sean seemed pensive for a moment. "But Aunt Mae hardly ever gets
sick," he said, still not looking up. "I can only remember a couple
times she's been sick like this." 

Joe's brow knitted in confusion and his hand stilled on the back of
Sean's head where he'd been stroking the boy's hair down. "'Mae'?" he
asked, and as he said the word, Sean's face shot toward his, flushing
deep red, clearly afraid. 

Tears were beginning in Sean's eyes as he searched Joe's face. "I
wasn't supposed to say that," he said, and his voice quivered.
"She'll be mad at me for telling." 

Joe let out a tired breath, nodded. A dull ache had lodged in his
chest. 

"It's okay, Sean," he said tenderly, stroking Sean's hair down again
to soothe him. "It's okay that you told me that." 

"No, I'm not supposed to." The tears were falling now. 

Joe reached down and cradled the side of Sean's face in his hand,
brushing at the tears with his thumb. "It's *okay.*" he said firmly.
"You can trust me, Sean. I would never do anything to hurt you or
your aunt. No matter what."

Sean searched his face for a few seconds, his lip trembling. 

"Come here," Joe said gently, and he leaned over, put his arms
around Sean and embraced him. Sean slowly brought his arms up, as
well, curled them around Joe's broad back, the purple crayon held
tightly in his fist. The picture slipped to the floor, disappeared
under the row of chairs. 

They stayed like that for a long moment while Sean's chest heaved,
his breath fast as he cried. Joe rested his cheek against the top of
Sean's head and let him cry. He wondered at the weight the small body
in his arms had been carrying all this time. He wanted to lift it all
away. 

A nurse appeared around the corner, coming from the hallway. She
stopped, met Joe's eyes and smiled kindly. 

"Señor Porter?" she asked, her voice gentle. 

"Sí," Joe replied, letting Sean lean away. The boy rubbed his face
on the short sleeves of his shirt, struggling for his control. 

"You can come back now," the woman said in Spanish. "But she only
wants to see you right now." She looked at Sean. "I'll sit with the
boy while you go." 

Joe's anxiety ratcheted up a few more notches and he struggled to
keep it off his face as Sean looked at him. 

"What did she say?" Sean asked, afraid.

Joe looked down at him. "She's going to sit with you for a minute
while I go back and see...Mae," he said. "I'll be out to get you in a
minute, all right?" 

"Okay," Sean said, and Joe stood, pushed his sandy hair back from
his face, nervous. 

"Examination room three," the nurse said, and bent down to retrieve
the picture that Sean had been working on that was near her feet,
then sat down next to him. Joe nodded and went down the corridor.

At room number three, he stopped, steeling himself, and knocked
faintly. Mae's shaky voice told him to come in. 

She was sitting on the examining table in a gown, her long bare legs
over the side of the table. She wiped at her eyes, which were rimmed
red and wet with tears. She did not smile as she looked at him.

"Where's Sean?" she asked without preamble. 

"He's with the nurse. The end of the hallway." He looked at her,
frightened by her state. "My God, what is it?" he asked, his heart
beating hard now. 

Mae rubbed her eyes once more, pushed her hair back, kept her hand
on her forehead as she closed her eyes and blew out a breath. 

"Joe, I'm pregnant," she said, her eyes still closed as she spoke. 

His heart, already running to catch up with his nerves, now nearly
screeched to a halt. His mouth hung open. "You're pregnant?" he
repeated, incredulous. 

She nodded, and now she did look at him, drew in another trembling
breath, let it out. 

"But I thought we--" he stammered. 

"Not even a diaphragm is a sure thing," she said, and her hand came
up to cover her face. She shook her head. "Jesus *Christ*...." 

He swallowed down his shock as he saw how upset she was. He couldn't
stand to see her this upset over this, over anything. 

So he came forward until he was standing almost against her knees.
Not knowing what else to do, he did as he'd done with Sean -- he
folded her in his arms, tucked her face beneath his chin, her fast
breath on his throat. 

"It's okay," he said softly into her hair. "Mae, it's okay. We'll
work with this. Work it out." 

She melted into him for a few seconds, then she stiffened, pulled
away quickly, looking into his eyes, the same frightened expression
on her face as Sean had worn at his mention of the name. Her tears
began again. 

"Yes," he said gently. "I know your real name. Sean slipped it out.
He didn't mean to. He was just upset." He cupped her face in his
large hands. "And it's all right," he said with conviction. "It's
*all* all right." 

She choked on a sob, and her arms came up and around him, pulling
him to her so tightly it almost hurt him. He returned the embrace
gently, rubbing her back in small circles. He turned his face and
kissed her cheek, lingering there. 

"Joe, I'm so afraid," she whispered against his shoulder. "You don't
understand. If you knew...God, I've done...terrible things--" She
stopped on another sob. 

"I know you're afraid," he said softly, holding her tighter. "But
we're going to work this out. I don't care who you're running from or
what you've done. I know who you are *now* and I love you." He pulled
her face away, looked into her eyes. "And you can trust me. You have
to believe that, all right?" 

She looked at him, and he could tell from the way her eyes ran over
his face that she wanted desperately to believe him, even if she
couldn't bring herself to do it yet. He knew it would probably take a
long time for her to trust him like that, but he was prepared to
wait. For as long as it took. 

Finally she nodded, accepting the gesture in what he'd said. He did,
as well, and leaned forward. Moving slowly, with a sort of reverence,
he kissed her forehead, then her cheek, and finally her lips.


********** 

UNKNOWN LOCATION 
NEAR ALDER CREEK, COLORADO 
2:23 p.m.


Larry Kingston, fresh off the plane from Tyner, Kentucky and rattled
by a five-hour drive from Pueblo, listened to the chains grate on the
snow as the jeep he was riding in crawled its way up the mountain
toward the town of Alder Creek. 

He knew they were getting close now. As the Grand Marshall of the
Sons of Liberty, he was familiar with this place, having chosen it
for his most secret base of operations himself on a hunting trip ten
years ago. So he knew the way like he knew the lines on his own hand. 

First the bend around the big tree at the top of the mountain; then
the slow downhill for a few hundred yards, and the turnoff into the
base, marked only by an orange cone and a sign that warned everyone
to keep out -- private property. 

The man driving the jeep, a resident of the compound who'd been
called upon to pick him up from the tiny airport in Pueblo, followed
the way just as he expected, and the snow was just beginning to fall
as he went down the mile-long driveway into the compound, the faint
cotton of smoke hanging in the trees the only sign that there was
life up ahead of them at all. 

The snow was coming down more now, heavy lazy flakes, as they pulled
up outside the mess hall and the jeep stopped. There was a knot of
people there to greet him. 

He stepped out of the jeep, immediately greeted by Jeff Haskell, the
leader of the compound. The two men shook hands, then embraced
quickly in the stiff way of country men in parkas. 

"How are you, Larry?" Haskell asked. "Good trip?" 

"Long trip," Kingston corrected. "But it was all right, I reckon.
Could use a pipe and cup of coffee, though." 

Haskell smiled. "You've got the pipe, I've got the coffee," he said.
"Want to come into the mess hall? We might be able to scare up
something from lunch, too." 

Kingston waved him off. "I will. I'll meet you in there. I want to
do my errand first." He looked around. "Where's he at?" 

The smile faded from Haskell's face. "He's in his bunk, getting
packed up. You're lucky to have caught him at all. He's leaving
today." 

"Huh," Kingston grunted. "We'll see about that. Take me to him, if
you would." 

They moved through the group of people, Kingston smiling and
greeting them as they reached out and touched his arm, shook his
hand. He'd forgotten that these people -- most of them up here to
hide out from some job that he himself had had them do -- needed to
see him to be reminded of what it was they were fighting for in the
first place. 

He needed to make more of an effort to get up more often, he told
himself as they made their way across the compound. And not because
that Irish sonofabitch was causing trouble. But because these people
needed him to lead them, even here. 

There might be another Bush in the White House who wore a cowboy hat
now, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

The bunkhouse was a small shack in the corner of the property, smoke
curling from the metal stovepipe chimney. Haskell took him to the
door, and then Kingston put his hand on the other man's shoulder. 

"I'll take it from here," he said. "Let me talk to him by myself." 

"No problem," Haskell replied. "We'll be in the mess hall for when
you're done." And Haskell walked through the faint curtain of snow
back the way they'd come. 

Kingston reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe and tobacco
pouch, filled the pipe with the sweet-smelling flakes. Then he lit
it, puffing out a cloud of aromatic smoke, gathering himself. Then he
knocked on the door. 

"What is it?" came the suspicious voice inside, and Kingston didn't
wait to be asked before he opened the door and walked inside. 

Owen Curran was at his locker, tossing a few things into an open
suitcase on the small cot. His eyes narrowed at Kingston as he
entered the space, clearly not liking the intrusion. Kingston put the
pipe in the corner of his mouth and held it there. 

"I hear you're going away, Mr. Curran," he said, pinning Curran with
his eyes and daring him to speak. 

Curran stood for a few seconds, the two men regarding each other
silently. Then Curran went back to the locker, reached in for
something else. "Aye," he said. "That I am. How did you hear about
that then, I wonder?" 

His voice was drippingly nice and tinged with sarcasm. Kingston
didn't like it one bit. 

"Mr. Curran, this may come as a shock to you, but those two men down
there in Mexico work for me. So they called *me* when they found your
sister and your boy down there. I'm just sorry they called you
first." 

"We had a talk, Lantham and I, about that. We have an agreement that
I'm to be there when he takes them." He looked at Kingston with
narrow eyes. "He did as he was told." 

Kingston pulled on the pipe, leaking smoke out the other corner of
his mouth. "What I'm wondering, Mr. Curran, is who the hell you think
you are that you can tell my people what to do like that." 

Curran stopped rummaging in the locker and squared off with Kingston
now, silent and clearly accepting the gauntlet thrown down. 

"Lantham said you threatened him with non-payment if he didn't call
you, as though those orders came from me, so that's why he called
you." Kingston's face iced over. "Who said you could do that?" 

Curran pulled in a slow breath, put his hands in his pockets almost
casually. "This is my show, Mr. Kingston," he said softly,
dangerously. "This is my family and my business. We do it my way. And
my way is that I'm there to make sure your men don't cock the thing
up on their way to doing it." 

"You need to stay here, Mr. Curran," Kingston said in a tone that
didn't want an argument. "You're under my protection, in my hiding
place, and I say you stay here and let those two men do their jobs
and bring your kin up here to you like you said you wanted in the
first place. I can't have you down there with them if they happen to
get caught. I don't want to be tied to you in any way with the police
should that happen. I don't want nothing to do with you or what
you're standing for." 

He puffed out another cloud of smoke into the cool air as Curran
looked at him.

"No offense intended, of course." He added this last with a crooked
smile. 

"Of course," Curran said, and returned the smile. 

"Apparently nobody wants much to do with you these days," Kingston
continued. "Not even your own people I hear. Not after what you did
in D.C." He shook his head. "I think you should stay up here with us
for a little while until we get these three in for you. Then I wash
my hands of you." 

"You've only got the two for me so far," Curran snapped, returning
to packing. He tossed a pistol in its holster into the suitcase
haphazardly. "The deal was for all three and the debt's paid,
remember?" 

Kingston nodded. "Almost got the other one, that woman, in Arizona a
few days back. Won't be long until we find her, as well. Got a lot of
people looking around for her now. We'll find her right quick." 

Curran froze now. "How did that get fucked up?" His chest was
heaving with emotions that Kingston couldn't quite name. Excitement?
Rage? He couldn't tell which it was. 

Kingston took the pipe out of his mouth, studied the end. "She's got
someone with her. A man who's armed. He got in the way. But don't
worry. We'll find her again and we'll be ready this time." 

"I should fucking hope so," Curran said angrily, then he turned and
pointed at Kingston, something wild in his eyes. "In the meantime,
I'm going to Mexico to get my sister and my boy. And you're not
stopping me. And if your men move before I get there, I'll be making
a call to the papers about this place and then you'll have the
trouble you're asking for." 

Kingston put the pipe back in his mouth. He could feel blood behind
his eyes as he looked at Curran but outwardly he stayed calm, puffed. 

Somewhere along the line, Kingston thought, swallowing his rage into
cold hate, this sonofabitch had gone completely crazy. 

Nothing worse than a cause gone personal, he thought bitterly. It
sickened him to see it.

"Just so we understand each other," Kingston began softly. "You
potato-eating sonofabitch. You breathe one word about this place
after my good faith in you and my hiding your sorry ass and I'll make
sure all the right people know just where to find *you*. And I ain't
talking about the FBI and the CIA who will treat you pretty, either." 

"Call them," Curran said. "I don't give a good fuck what you do.
I'll have what's mine soon enough and I'll be out of your way and
theirs. You won't know where to point them, you country fuck." 

Kingston went to the stove now, opened the door and tapped his pipe
into it. The flame hissed in return. 

"All right, Mr. Curran," he said evenly. "You go on there down to
Mexico. You call me with where you end up after that. Keep Lantham
and Grey with you until you're done, and I'll send the woman your way
when we get her. Then you and me will be done with each other and we
can just go our ways. How's that sound to you?" 

Curran nodded. "That sounds just fine, Mr. Kingston." He turned
toward his locker, dismissing him. Then he spoke, facing the locker. 

"You'd better fucking keep your word to me. You owe me, after all." 

"Yes, I do owe you," Kingston replied, and turned to go. "And I
always pay my debts. Not to worry. Have a safe trip." Then he was out
the door and in the snow, moving across the compound. 

Fury boiled in him. Nobody talked to him like that. And certainly
not some crazy foreign bastard like the man he'd just left behind. 

I need to do some phone calling, he thought to himself, calming down
as he made his way to the mess hall. 

And he knew just who -- and when -- to call. 


***********


END OF CHAPTER 13. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 14. 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 14. 

***********

TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
APRIL 4 
5:38 a.m.


"Hey Mulder! GET UP!" 

The heavy, fast thumping of a fist on plastic startled Mulder from
his dead sleep and he bolted upright in bed, his hand immediately
going for the gun he kept beside his pillow against the wall. His
chest was heaving, his eyes wide as they shot toward the window, only
to find Victor's smiling face peering in at him between his open
hands, which were pressed to the plexiglass. 

"*Christ,* Victor, don't scare me like that!" Mulder exclaimed,
laying the gun back down and cupping his forehead. 

"Sorry," Victor said, though his smile didn't fade. "I knocked on
the door, but you didn't hear me, I guess." 

Mulder shook his head, clearing it, noted it was just getting light
outside. "What time is it?" 

Victor's smile widened. "It's a little after 5:30. You're late." 

Mulder reached for his watch on the sill as though he didn't believe
the other man, shivering in the early morning cool, his bare legs
having slipped out from under the covers. He looked at the watch --
sure enough. The man was right. 

"Late for what?" he asked, cranky. 

"You said you wanted to help with the sheep and horses--" the young
man began firmly.

"Yeah, but for God's sake--"

"-- and this is when we start with them for the day," Victor
finished, ignoring him. "We've all already eaten. Time for you to get
at it." 

Mulder groaned, rubbed at his face and beard with both hands. 

"Come on," Victor cajoled. "You sleep too much as it is. Get
*moving,* man." He pattered on the window with his hands as though he
were drumming, making an enormous hollow racket. Mulder put his hand
up in defeat. 

"All right, all right," he said, throwing his legs over the side and
reaching for his jeans on the floor. They'd started living there when
they weren't on his body. 

"Hurry up and fix something to eat and come on," Victor said. "Meet
us at the corral. We're going to break horses this morning." 

"Sounds messy," Mulder quipped, putting one leg, then the other, in
the worn denim. He stood, pulling the jeans up over plaid flannel
boxers, then turned toward the window as he zipped up. "I'll be there
in a few. Let me burn some bacon and eggs." 

Victor grinned again. "Go for it," he said, and then he disappeared. 

Mulder reached for a t-shirt from his suitcase, which was tossed on
the floor and overflowing with unfolded clothes, dirty mixed with
clean. Scully would be horrified, he thought, at how his messy habits
had returned so quickly. Her sense of order had worn off in a matter
of days. 

He pulled on his socks and boots, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Thinking of her tugged at him, and he struggled to shove it off, only
half succeeding. He sighed and headed to the kitchen, scrubbing at
his mussed hair as he went. 

True to his word, the kitchen was soon filled with a faint layer of
whitish smoke, heavy with the smell of overdone bacon, dry eggs. He
picked at them straight from the pans with a fork, not even bothering
with pepper or salt. 

After only a few mouthfuls, he gave up. One thing that Scully *had*
managed to pass onto him now that the neatness was gone was her lack
of appetite. 

Tossing the eggs into the bacon's skillet, he went out the front
door, looked around the trailer for a long moment. He whistled
faintly. 

It took a minute or two, but Bo finally appeared from the side of
the trailer, low to the ground, as usual. His ears pricked up for a
second as he saw Mulder, his nose coming up to sniff the air. 

"Want to eat, Bo?" Mulder called, walking slowly to the edge of the
patio. About 15 feet away the silver pot sat, filled with fresh water
from the night before. Mulder was able to walk to the pot without Bo
spooking too much, the dog having become accustomed to getting water
from him there. Then he placed the heavy skillet next to the pot,
turned and headed back toward the patio. 

About five feet away, he stopped, considering. 

He'd been making progress with the dog slowly, baby steps every day.
He no longer ran when Mulder was out on the patio, even if Mulder was
moving about a good bit while out there. Bo only ran when other
people came around now. 

Trying to get Bo to trust him had become a sort of challenge to him,
something he used to mark the days. The dog was Mulder's only real
companion here in the desert. Earning his trust had become, for some
reason, important to Mulder. 

So today he thought he'd try adding something, pushing it a little
more. 

With that thought in mind, he turned slowly, squatted down on the
ground, his elbows on his knees, holding very still. Sure enough, Bo
had already started coming for the skillet, but he stopped suddenly
as Mulder added this bit of uncharacteristic behavior. The dog's ears
flattened more and he took a step backward. 

"It's okay," Mulder said softly. "Come on." He added a little
whistle, which the dog had always seemed to like. 

Bo took a step toward him again, two back. Then he began to come to
Mulder slowly, belly scraping the ground. The smell of the bacon and
eggs was quite an enticement for the emaciated dog, and Mulder
watched the black dog's black eyes dart back and forth from the
skillet to him as it approached. The now-familiar whine started in
the dog's throat. 

"Bo..." Mulder cooed. He reached his hand out, snapped his fingers
lightly. The dog whined again, but began to come forward, taking the
steps to the skillet in little jerks and stops until he was in front
of it, his nose coming over the side, his eyes still on Mulder. 

"That's it," Mulder murmured, his hand still out. He watched the dog
scarf down the food in huge mouthfuls, barely chewing. 

From here, Mulder got a good look at him -- patches of hair missing
on his sides, juts of vertebrae lining his back, large scabbed sores
here and there. His ribs were like long fingers gripping him beneath
his skin. But his head and face looked soft, long ears like black
velvet flaps leaned over the pan. 

Bo finished off every last morsel from the pan, looked up at Mulder,
licking his chops. 

"You still hungry?" Mulder asked, and a thought came to him. A can
of Spam in the cabinet he remembered seeing on one of his forages
through the ancient supplies Hosteen's brother had left behind. Since
he'd rather die than eat the stuff himself, he thought Bo might like
it. 

After all, the stuff was basically dog food anyway, wasn't it? he
mused. 

He rose slowly and Bo continued to look at him, crouched and
nervous, but did not run away. Then he returned to the trailer,
fetching the can and opening it as he walked back outside. The dog
was still waiting, sniffing the air again. 

Mulder squatted down as before, held the can out as far toward the
dog as he could. The can emitted the unmistakable odor of something
meat-like into the air, and Bo turned his attention to it
immediately. His ears came up again. 

"Come on..." 

It took several moments of the dog shifting from side to side, a few
faint whines. Then, slowly, he came forward, putting one foot in the
skillet as he walked over it toward Mulder, closing the space between
them. Mulder held so still his legs began to cramp up, but he ignored
them, unwilling to move. 

Bo reached the can, stretched his neck out toward it, gave it a
sniff, his eyes on Mulder's face. His long tongue came out and he
licked the flat surface of the meat, like someone testing his food
for poison. 

He must have found it all right, because once he'd finished off the
glistening layer of fat on the top and sides, he tried to fit his
mouth into the can. His teeth knocked against the sides, no matter
which way he tried to turn his head. 

"Here, hang on," Mulder said in his most gentle voice. Moving
slowly, he pulled the can toward his body, turned it upside down and
gave it shake. It didn't come out, and Mulder realized he probably
needed a can opener for the other end, or a knife to work it out. He
had neither handy. 

Sighing, he dug into it with his other hand, pulling out a mottled
pink chunk of meat. Then he reached his hand toward the dog. Bo's
ears went down again and he shied, and Mulder wondered immediately if
he'd gone too far, if this was too much to ask of the animal, too
soon to ask it. 

He mentally chided himself at the image he must present -- a nearly
40-year-old man squatting in front of a frightened dog, holding a
handful of Spam. He chided himself for feeling the hopeful feeling he
was, as if the dog eating from his hand meant something spectacular
to the world. 

He shook his head at himself, feeling foolish and pathetic. 

But then Bo took another step forward, pushed his face toward
Mulder's hand, sniffing again. There was a small sliver of meat
clinging to the end of one of Mulder's fingers, and Bo's tongue came
out, picking it off carefully. Mulder flattened his hand out a bit
more, offering the main hunk. 

With one final look at Mulder's face, the dog put his nose into
Mulder's hand, pulling the meat into his mouth. Mulder felt Bo's soft
muzzle rooting around on his palm as he ate and he found himself
smiling. When Bo was done, Mulder reached in, pulled out another
small handful, offered it again. Bo repeated his action, this time
without hesitating at all. 

This continued until Mulder was digging around in the rounded
corners of the can with his fingers. Bo licked Mulder's fingers in
earnest, his ears no longer flat against his head. His belly was even
off the ground a bit. 

As Mulder offered the last of the Spam to the dog, he set the can
down, moving slowly. Then he touched the top of Bo's head with his
fingers. 

The dog slumped immediately but Mulder kept his hand where it was,
since Bo did not run away. He cupped his palm around the dog's crown,
chanced a light stroke. The dog allowed it, though he whined again. 

"That's it," Mulder said quietly. "That's it..." He stroked his
head, reached around and smoothed the dog's ear back, his thumb on
Bo's cheek. "Good boy. That's a good boy..." 

Bo's eyes darted away from Mulder's face then back again, cowering a
bit under the touch still, but not moving away. He opened his mouth
and began to pant. Mulder scratched his neck, moving underneath the
frayed nylon collar that the dog still wore like some remnant of a
previous life. 

Mulder was still smiling at the simpleness of the gesture, though
his eyes stung for a few seconds. He had no idea why.

"Mulder!" Victor Hosteen yelled from behind his house. "Quit messing
around with that dog and come on! We're waiting for you!" 

Bo turned quickly at the sound and saw Hosteen, every muscle going
taut under Mulder's hand. Then he bolted for the land behind the
trailer once again. 

Mulder's hand was still poised in front of him for a few seconds, as
if the dog were still beneath it, as he watched him go. 

Then he stood from his crouch, raised his hand in defeat to Victor
for the second time that day. 

"All right," he called. "I'll be right there." And he turned to go
back into the trailer to get his denim jacket and clean himself up. 


*********


8:36 a.m.


Scully made her way down the dirt road that connected the trailer
where she was living to Albert Hosteen's house, her toiletries bag
tucked underneath her arm, a towel thrown over her shoulder. It was a
fairly long walk, and she took it slowly, looking at the barren
landscape around her as she went, soaking in the early morning sun,
her face turning up toward it as it peeked back from where it had
been hidden briefly behind a cloud. 

She'd felt some calmer the past few mornings, since her talk with
Hosteen the night of the meteor shower, four nights back. The
conversation had initially upset her in many ways. But since then it
had released something in her, like a clenched fist easing open. 

Hosteen knew about what she'd been through, but hadn't treated her
any differently. He continued to come nightly with some concoction
from his kitchen for them both, built fires, sat with her. 

They'd talked less since that night, seemingly by some unspoken
mutual understanding. It was as if he had said what he'd meant to say
to her that night, and since then, he was letting it simmer, not
pressing for any further information or offering any further advice.
He'd simply told stories about his children, stories from when they
were young or ones about what they were doing now. Sometimes he
talked about Eda, his wife. She'd listened with genuine interest,
though it was hard for her to engage with him much herself. Her mind
was always occupied, her feelings churned. 

Sometimes he seemed to sense this and would let the quiet stretch,
appearing to be deep in thought himself. He'd been that way last
night especially. She wondered about it as she walked, wondered what
might be concerning him. 

She made it to Albert's double-wide trailer, came around the side
and was immediately confronted by Ghost, who was standing, looking
half asleep, next to the patio. He was fully saddled and bridled,
several things secured to the saddle at the back. There was a tent, a
sleeping bag. A large full bag was situated behind them, sitting high
on the horse's gray rump. 

She put her hand on the horse's nose as she passed, then rubbed the
soft skin of his chin. The animal responded by nuzzling into her
hand, rooting around for a treat. The thought made her smile,
remembering holding sugar cubes flat on her palm up to the horses she
spent time with from time to time when she was growing up. 

She knocked, and was immediately told to come in from the kitchen.
Entering, she was aware of the smell of things cooking. Many
different things. She followed the smells to the kitchen, where
Hosteen stood, stirring in a big pot. 

"Good morning," she said, and he turned and smiled to her. She
smiled faintly back. 

"Good morning," he replied, returned his attention to the pot. 

"What are you making so early in the morning?" she asked, gestured
to the dirty bowls and pans laying around the room. There was a
skillet on the stove filled with cooling oil from fry bread, which
she'd grown to love the taste of. 

"Indian chili," he replied, reached over and picked up an empty
packet of seasoning. It said "Old El Paso" on it, and she smiled
wider, shook her head as he turned back and winked. 

"You're going somewhere on Ghost, I see," she said, lifting a paper
towel off a plate and revealing the pile of fry bread. 

"No," he said, finished stirring and tapped the wooden spoon on the
side of the pot, set it down on a napkin on the counter. 

Her brow creased in puzzlement. "But I saw him out front -- he's
loaded down with camping equipment and things." 

Hosteen was nodding now. "Yes," he said simply. "But I am not going
anywhere on him." He looked at her, a serious expression on his face.
"You are." 

She was so surprised she actually laughed. "I am?" she repeated, and
the smile came off her face as looked at his more closely. "You're
serious." 

He nodded, checked the oven, where heavy-topped blueberry muffins
were baking. "Yes. Remember I told you that I would tell you if I
thought of where you might look to find your answers?" 

She looked at him, confusion coming over her. "Yes, but I thought
you were speaking figuratively," she replied, and let the napkin drop
again on the fry bread. 

He shook his head and went to the other side of the table. He picked
up a map with a red line squiggled on its surface to a red "X,"
handed it to her. 

It was a topographical map, not a city. Nothing but land,
elevations, small lines all over it, the blue of a river or wash. And
then a red path that led from the only road visible on the map into
the desert beyond it.

"That place," he said, stepping closer to her and tapping on the
"X." "That is where you will find everything you need." 

Scully looked at the map, then up at him. "There's nothing there,"
she said. 

"It's not on the map, what's there," he replied. "You will see it." 

Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes dropped. "Mr. Hosteen, if it's a
hogan or a ceremonial place, I should tell you that I don't share
your faith, and I don't think--" 

"You can bring your own faith with you. It will be welcomed there."
His voice was gentle, but he was clearly not going to take much
argument from her. 

"Welcomed by whom?" she asked, getting baffled now. 

He smiled a touch. "By who you find there." 

She looked at him for a few seconds, cocked her head, trying to
figure him out. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to find
something to say. He was being so strange and cryptic. If she didn't
respect him so much, she might have gotten irritated by it. 

Then she looked down at the map, glanced at the legend, then at the
line again, which snaked along the thin river on the map. 

"That's got to be several days ride away," she protested. "And I
haven't ridden since--" 

"I know, since you were young," he said quietly. "You don't ride
Ghost -- you sit on him and he goes. Not to worry about that. It will
all come back to you. And this place is only one day and half of
another away from here, depending on how much you stop. You'll find
places where the boys and I have camped along the way. Fire pits,
that sort of thing." 

"But with these people looking for me...it wouldn't--"

"No one will find you out there," he said with conviction. "Anyone
looking for you will come in on the road to do it, not through the
desert. You will be safe, I promise you." 

He reached down and touched the spot again. "It's time for you to go
to this place." 

She looked at the map, at his face. "Why is it time?" 

He quirked that same tiny smile. "You are ready to go there. You
were not when you first got here. But I think you are now." He
shrugged. "Plus that, what good does it do you to sit around that
trailer all day? You might as well go out and see the land. And that
trail along the wash is the best way to do that."

When she hesitated again, shook her head, he continued. "It's bound
to be good for your spirit to get out some. And you will still be by
yourself, as you've wanted to be." He gestured to the kitchen. "I
have made food for you to take with you. Everything is taken care
of. "

She shook her head firmly this time, bristling at the cryptic
quality of what he was saying, at him doing so much. 

"No," she said quietly. "I'm sorry. I won't go." 

He looked at her for a moment as she lay the map on the table. She
could feel his eyes on her, probing her. She felt her cheeks flush
again under the intensity of his gaze. 

"What?" she asked finally, unable to bear the scrutiny or the
silence any longer. She was once again defensive with him. 

"Hm," he said, his face blank. "I was trying to understand what it
is you are so afraid of." 

Her mouth hung open for a second before she snapped it closed again.
"Afraid?" she repeated. "I'm not afraid." 

"I think you are," he said gently, and picked up the map, looked at
it and not at her now.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," she said, looking at the map,
too. The thought of him thinking of her that way made her more
indignant. 

He smiled at her. "Then go," he said, and handed her the map. 

She blew out a frustrated breath, then she looked around the room
for a long moment, at the bowls, the pans, the food all around her. 

She had to admit that besides being annoyed, she was also touched by
his efforts. This made her relent a bit, giving way to a new feeling
to replace the ire. 

It *was* fear. It coursed through her, low, like an undertow. 

She pushed it down fiercely. 

Then she looked at him, and nodded, folding the map as she did so. 

"All right," she said, composing herself. "I'll go." 

He smiled, and returned to the stove, nodding, stirred the chili.
Not knowing what else there was to say, she went down the hallway
toward the bathroom to shower before she got on her way. 


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

11:33 a.m.


The black and white Paint horse let out a cry, high and shrill in
the air, and its front legs came up as it reared suddenly, tossing
its head from side to side in a clear display of anger and sending up
a cloud of dust around it. 

Mulder held onto the horn of the saddle as hard as he could, but in
doing so he let go of the reins, leaving the horse's head slack. It
stomped down, then reared again, and this time there was no holding
on. Mulder went tumbling off the back, over the horse's pied rump and
onto the sandy ground of the corral in an undignified heap. 

The horse trotted off across the corral, still shaking its head
against the slack reins, its tail swishing. 

Mulder groaned as he rolled over, caking himself with dust, and he
pushed himself up slowly from the ground into a sitting position. All
around him, the sound of laughter and clapping.

He looked up at the corral fence where the other men were sitting,
like a bunch of birds on a wire, watching this bit of sport. His face
screwed up in pain. This was the fourth fall from the horse in the
past hour, and the laughter was starting to piss him off. 

He slapped hard at the sand on his knee, shaking his head. He could
feel a flush rising on his cheeks as anger rose in him. 

"Very funny," he growled, standing, tenderly stepping down on one
leg as his hip protested for a few steps. The laughter pealed again
at his comment. 

"Go get that horse, Mulder!" Victor called from his perch near the
gate. 

Mulder eyed him, then the horse at the other side of the corral.
"Are you sure this horse is actually one of the ones you've already
*broken,* Victor?" 

Another cloud of laughter. 

"Oh yeah, he's the one everyone learns to ride on."

Mulder looked at the horse, who was glaring back at him. "Does he
have a name, this wonderful animal I'm learning on?"

"Yes," Victor replied, and said an elegant word in Navajo. 

"What does that mean in English?" Mulder asked, dusting off his sore
ass. 

Victor flashed his thousand-watt grin. "'Killer.'" 

The men roared again. 

Mulder gaped. "You're teaching me to ride on a horse named
'Killer'?" he asked, indignant. 

"Yes," Victor replied. "He's the one to learn on, like I said. Kind
of like learning to drive stick-shift before you learn automatic. If
you can ride him, you can ride anything. You've just got to learn to
keep the right pressure on his mouth -- not too tight, not too loose -
- and not show any fear to him. Then you won't get thrown."

Mulder looked at the other horses saddled around the edge of the
corral outside the fence, pointed to a white horse with longish hair
that was standing with its eyes closed, gnawing absently on its bit. 

"What about that one? That one looks like a good one to learn on.
What's his name?" 

Victor said another word in Navajo. "It means something
like...'Wimpy.'" 

"That sounds better," Mulder grumbled. 

"Nope," Hosteen replied. "Get that horse, Mulder. You know what they
say about getting right back on. It's true, you know. You'll get it." 

Mulder sighed, pulling his dignity around himself as the men talked
amongst themselves, chewing their tobacco, still laughing now and
again to one another. He made his way across the corral to where the
horse stood, eyeing him suspiciously. 

"Show him who's boss!" one of the other men called. There were
general grunts of agreement from the others. 

Mulder slowed as he approached, thinking that approaching the horse
from the back might be better this time. Sort of sneaking up on him,
he thought. Maybe he could seem less threatening if he didn't
approach him head on?

With this thought in mind, he walked up to the horse from behind,
running his hand over the horse's flank as he did so. 

"Mulder! Don't!" Victor called. 

Mulder heard the warning, but it was too late. 

Killer kicked out hard with his back leg, catching Mulder in the gut
and nearly knocking him to the ground again. Instead, Mulder
staggered back a few steps, holding his stomach, gasping for breath
from the blow to his solar plexus. 

There was no laughter this time. Just winces and general sounds of
sympathy from the fence. He could barely hear them over the rasping
cough he let out and the roaring of blood in his ears.

Behind him, Mulder was vaguely aware of someone jumping down from
the fence, of footsteps coming nearer. Victor came up beside him,
leaned over with him so their faces were level, Victor's hand going
on Mulder's hunched back. 

Mulder coughed again, wheezed in another breath. 

"You okay, man?" he asked, and Mulder turned to look at him. His
face felt purple, his eyes suddenly too small for their sockets. He
jerked a nod. 

"Yeah," he managed, and stood straight slowly, his hand still on his
stomach. 

"You never come at a horse from behind," Victor chided. "Especially
not a nasty sonofabitch like this one." 

"I see that now," Mulder rasped. He looked down at his white t-shirt
and saw the perfect brownish print of a horse's hoof right beneath
his rib cage. 

Jesus...

He felt like an ass, and had a sudden wave of pity for himself. This
past couple of weeks had not been his best, and it didn't appear to
be getting any better...

Victor went around him, up to the horse, and took the animal by the
reins. "I think that's enough for you for one day," he said kindly.
"You can watch us break a few, pick up some things that way." 

Mulder watched him take hold of the reins, give the horse a tug, and
a part of him wanted nothing more to agree with Victor, to go sit it
out and lick his wounds. 

But something else in him balked at that, flaring in him. 

He'd spent the past two months without control over anything in his
life, treading carefully everywhere he stepped. Running. Walking on
ice with Scully, waiting for a crack to appear beneath his feet. He'd
lost his job, his credibility, his future as he'd envisioned it. He'd
lost Scully to the ghosts that haunted her. 

He was sick of losing things.

And the last thing he wanted to do now was lose himself, even in
small ways. Through resignation. Self-pity. And the sadness and
loneliness that clung to him now, coated him as finely as the dust.

So he drew himself up a little straighter, shook his head, reached
his hand out toward Victor and the horse. 

"No," he said, regaining his voice a bit. "No, I want to try again.
Just..." He blew out a still-painful breath. "Just keep telling me
what I'm doing wrong. I want to get this right." 

Victor stepped closer, put his hand on Mulder's arm. "Hey, I know
we're all laughing at you, but we don't mean anything by it. Everyone
gets laughed at when they're learning like this. You got nothing to
prove with us. Really." 

Mulder shook his head again, took the reins, pulled the horse toward
him. It came reluctantly, its neck stuck far out as it tried to hold
its ground. 

"I'll be fine," he said, and, holding the reins a bit tighter around
the horn, he put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself, weary,
back up into the saddle. 


***********

6:13 p.m.


For hours, nothing but the sound of Ghost's footsteps on the hard
trail, the creak of old saddle leather as her body rocked back and
forth with each step, the faint clatter of her supplies in the nylon
bag secured behind the saddle. The day waned into the blue and gold
of dusk, darkness coming soon. 

Scully had begun looking for a campsite a ways back, wanting to get
settled in somewhere before it got too dark, and she finally found
one, the obvious crater of a fire pit filled with black ash logs, a
pile of ragged wood next to it, a flat expanse around it surrounded
by sagebrush. 

The thin river in the wash, which she'd stopped beside several times
to give the horse drinks and to splash the heat and dust off herself,
was behind her, just down from the rise where the campsite was
situated. She could see it shining like glass in the fading light,
hear its soft whisper in the quiet. 

Satisfied with the spot, she dismounted, her legs and hips
complaining bitterly at the day's ride, and began to unpack the
equipment from Ghost, who stood lightly tied to the branches of a
small mesquite, looking as tired as she felt. When she'd taken all
the things off his back, she removed the saddle, the sweaty shape of
it still pressed to his gray sides. 

There was no need to remove his bridle, since he wore a simple
halter with reins attached, no bit in his mouth. Hosteen had been
right about riding the horse. You sat on him and he went. It had been
an easy day for her that way. 

Hosteen had given her several small blocks of chemically treated
pressed wood to start her fires, and it didn't take but a few moments
for her to have the dry wood flaming, sending up small bits of red
ash into the falling night that burned for a few seconds and then
went out. 

Beside its light and heat, she set up the small tent, tossed the
sleeping bag into it and then opened up the nylon bag. She pulled out
a blackened tin camping pot, poured some chili into it and set the
pot at the edge of the flames with a long stick through its thin
handle. 

While she waited for it to heat, she pulled out the feedbag for
Ghost, filled it with the small sack of oats Hosteen had sent along
on the back of the saddle. She put the feedbag on the horse and he
began chewing idly, seeming too tired to be bothered with eating. 

She understood the sentiment. She stretched, her back popping in
protest. 

Her hands on her hips, her jeans feeling thick with dust and the
tanktop and denim shirt she wore doing little to chase off the coming
chill of night, Scully stood beside the fire, staring into it. A
small wind came, rustling the flames and sending a soft note into the
air. 

She closed her eyes, let out a long slow breath. 

He was there, in the glow of the lamplight beside her bed, his chest
gold in the light, rising and falling in the shadows as he slept. She
was on her stomach beside him, nude, watching him sleep, her chin on
her folded arms. Then she rolled onto her side, languid, her hand
reaching out to touch the soft skin of his cheek, smoothing her thumb
over his lips to awaken him. The warmth of the desire she felt and
that came from him as he rolled over on top of her, her hips cradling
his, his hands cupped beneath her head. No words as they covered
themselves with the room's velvet shadows, becoming nothing but heat
and sweat and the rhythm of breath.

Her eyes stung with tears beneath her closed lids, her brow
furrowing. Her hand came up to cover her mouth. 

Her guard against the memories of him had been slowly weakening
since the night with Hosteen. God, she missed him. Not just his body
and what her body had with his. She missed all of him. 

The small smile he gave her in the basement office as she looked up
from her work and saw him watching her. Her smile in return... 

His hand in hers on a park bench, a story he told her, eyes she'd
seen darkened with sadness for years filled with laughter as he told
it... 

The tears fell now, slipping beneath her clenched lids. Her hand
shook against her mouth and she pulled it away, folding it into a
fist. 

Then Hosteen's words came back to her: 

You can be who you were again.

You *will* be her again. 

You just have to search out what you need to find her. 

She opened her eyes and looked out over the desert, wondering what
she was doing out here, wondering what it was she was searching for,
what she hoped to find. 

There's nothing out here, she thought sadly. Nothing out here at all.

The wind picked up a bit, ruffling the strands of hair not pulled
back from her face, pushing the flames back. 

Around her, outside the halo of light the fire threw, night had
completely fallen. She felt alone within it for a moment, the tears
still rimming her eyes. 

Then, way off in the distance, the lights of Farmington shone, a
patch of brightness, dots of color clustered together like fallen
stars still glowing on the earth. She looked at it and it comforted
her somehow in a way she couldn't name, even though it was dozens of
miles away. 

Around her, a silent world of darkness. 

But across the desert, a city perched on the rim of the horizon as
though waiting for her. 

A city like an unspoken promise. 

A city of light.


*********


END OF CHAPTER 14. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15. 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 15.

***********

FBI HEADQUARTERS 
WASHINGTON , D.C. 
APRIL 5 
9:14 a.m.


Walter Skinner sat, unmoving, at his desk, staring down at the piece
of paper in his hand while he rubbed his forehead with the other,
massaging hard enough to nearly leave a bruise across his brow. 

He'd been staring at the piece of paper for several minutes, since
Kimberly had crept in with it and lain it on the corner of his desk,
putting it far away from him and not answering when he asked what it
was. She'd waited for him to look at it first, given him time to scan
it. 

An official government "Wanted" flyer, this one from the NSA. Two
pictures. Mulder and Scully. Both pictures now equally sized across
the top. Beneath both the pictures, words in bold letters.
"Conspiracy." "Terrorism." "Murder." 

Not just referring to Mulder now. Referring to them both. 

"This was on the news last night at eleven, as well, sir," Kimberly
said softly, like an apology. "I saw it before I went to bed." 

He'd looked up at her in surprise, feeling like an ass that his own
secretary had found out about this recent development before he had
himself. And she knew it, too, judging from her reaction -- the
apologetic, worried expression on her face. 

Padden, the master of keeping things quiet when he wanted to (the
bastard, he thought bitterly) had done it again. Skinner had felt his
face redden as he looked at Kimberly. 

And now he was taking his little trick and going public with it on a
large scale for the first time. Turning up the heat on all this. 

It would get a huge reaction from the higher ups. More pressure for
the FBI to step up its own investigation, which it had been wary of
doing because of the task force, wary because it wanted this as quiet
as it could get. The FBI had taken enough hits lately. 

But that was all about to change. The FBI would have to act now if
the media were involved. 

He fingered the poster. "What are people saying." It came out flat,
a statement. 

Kimberly shook her head. "No one knows what to think exactly, sir,"
she said. "But from what I've overheard this morning, I think it's
harder for people to believe the charges about Agent Scully, and it's
casting doubt on the charges against Agent Mulder, as well." She met
his gaze. "I think it might be working against the task force to draw
her into this. Just from what I've overheard so far." 

Skinner nodded, returned his gaze to the flyer. He was pleased to
get this piece of news from the FBI gossip circle, in which Kimberly
was an enthusiastic participant. He'd come to rely on her to keep her
finger on the pulse of the Hoover Building. 

"How many calls from the press so far?" 

"Nine," she replied. "I'm telling them all you're unavailable for
comment." 

He nodded again. "Keep doing that," he said. "And refer them to the
Public Relations Office, if you're not already. I'm sure the Director
has come up with something to say by now. I'll let him do the talking
until I come up with something."

She'd nodded. "All right, sir." She turned to go. 

"And Kimberly?" he said softly.

She returned her gaze to him, and he met it solemnly.

"Thank you." 

She did not smile, the same concerned expression on her face.
"You're welcome." And then she did go out the door, closing it behind
her. 

Skinner had kept his eye on the poster ever since, staring at the
faces, the words that were underneath them that had no place there,
beneath these faces he knew so well. Anger simmered in him, but not
surprise. 

He knew this was Padden's doing. And *all* Padden's doing. The
clandestine meeting he'd had with Granger two days ago had told him
that. There had been no mention of it in their brief conversation in
the car ride from the Mall at 14th and Constitution where Skinner had
picked Granger up, the young agent camouflaging himself with the
tourists. 

But other things *had* come up. 

Complicated things. 

He sighed as he remembered it, now swiveling his chair toward the
window, the hand with the flyer in it falling into his lap as if it
were too heavy to hold up any longer. 

"I wish there were an easier way for us to meet during the week than
this," he'd said tightly to Granger, getting lost in the traffic
going down Constitution. "This still feels risky."

"Any way we meet, even on the weekends, is going to be risky,"
Granger'd replied, pulling the camera off over his head and laying it
on the seat between them. "And this was hard enough to manage, with
Padden watching my every move at the CIA." 

Granger had reached into his leather jacket pocket and drawn out his
spiral notebook, flipping the cover over. 

"I've got the task force combing the El Centro area, just as we'd
planned," he said, adjusting his small silver glasses, a habit
Skinner had come to associate with him. "They're still concentrating
their energy on Southern California, so they should be safe wherever
you've got them as long as it's not there." 

"It's not there," Skinner had replied. 

Granger had nodded. "I went to the motel in Afton this past
weekend," he'd said, and Skinner could hear some strange tone in his
voice that made him more nervous. Something was wrong there. 

"What did you find out? Something bad, I can tell that." 

"Well, it's bad and it's good," Granger had begun. "Mulder WAS
there, under the name 'George Hale,' just like he said. I've got a
positive ID from the motel owner who checked him in and out. That's
the good part." 

"Was he there by himself?" Skinner asked. He recalled snapping a
little in his impatience. 

Granger had hesitated. "No," he said at last. "That's the bad part." 

"Who was he with?" Again, he could remember the words coming out
clipped. 

Granger balked a bit, looking down at his notebook. 

"He was with Agent Scully." 

Skinner remembered the sinking feeling, the inward groan. 

He'd cleared his throat, glancing out the side window, trying to
appear casual. "It's strange that he would keep a meeting with her a
secret," he said as though he were discussing the mileage on the car. 

Granger looked at him. "I think if we're both honest with ourselves,
sir, we know the answer to why he would do that." He paused. "And
that's how everyone else is going to see it, even if it weren't
true." 

Well, no use trying to play dumb anymore, he remembered thinking
when he'd looked back at Granger's sympathetic expression. Not to
himself, not to Granger. Not now that there was proof of it for God
and all the world to see... 

Skinner rose, going to the window, his habit when he had a problem
to solve that didn't readily present a solution. He sighed, crossing
his arms, a finger coming up to cover his tightly closed lips. 

Of course he had always suspected there might be something going on
between the two of them. They were too dedicated to each other, too
much so in some way he couldn't quite name to just be partners. And
the way they looked at each other...hell, he envied it sometimes.
Envied Mulder especially (he had to admit) and envied them both for
what they appeared to have together. 

But if something *had* been going on, he thought they'd managed to
keep it out of the work, out of the way. 

Not anymore. 

It was in the way now, for certain. No one but Scully to vouch for
Mulder, and no way to do it without damning herself for
unprofessional conduct for violating undercover protocols in the
process. 

He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes as cars nosed around below
him on the street, a mass of early-morning traffic weaving for
positions. 

What they were doing wasn't forbidden. It wasn't that. It looked
like shit, he thought dejectedly, even in good times, though.
Unprofessional, at best. And given these circumstances, it looked
even worse. Their relationship could be used to bring them both down.
The task force and OPR could discount their cover stories for each
other, and blame their running on the basis of the relationship, two
lovers who would do anything and say anything to keep the other out
of trouble. 

"Dammit..." He rubbed his eyes harder as he mumbled the curse to
himself. He could vaguely hear Kimberly's phone ringing again and it
made his stomach ache. 

He stood for a long time looking out the window, his arms crossed.
He wondered how this could get any more fucked up for him. 

The answer came with the door bursting open. 

He spun at the sound, irritated at the intrusion, his mouth open to
say so. Then his mouth snapped closed. 

Margaret Scully. 

Kimberly was behind her, holding her arm, which she jerked away hard
enough that Skinner could hear the fabric whooshing from between
Kimberly's fingers. 

And if looks could kill...

Oh, shit.

"Mrs. Scully, please," Kimberly was saying, putting her hand out
again. Skinner put his own out. 

"No, Kimberly, it's all right," he said gently. "Thank you, though.
Hold my calls, if you would." 

Kimberly looked at him with concern, then nodded and closed the door
behind her again. 

For her part, Margaret Scully had stopped about five feet from the
desk, still as a statue. The only movement was the rising and falling
of her chest -- fast and shallow. He was almost afraid to speak
again. He jammed his hands in his pockets, the gesture's unconscious
attempt to guard his nuts not lost on him. He looked down at the
floor, then back up at her. She was still staring at him, accusation
shooting across the room like poison arrows. 

"Mrs. Scully," he said. "Why don't you sit down." 

She didn't sit. But she did move. She reached down into the purse
slung over her shoulder and pulled out a sloppily folded piece of
paper, unfolded it and held it toward him. 

"Mr. Skinner," she said, low and dangerous. "Would you mind telling
me what this is?" 

He winced as he saw the flyer, the same one on his desk. "Where did
you get that?" he asked gently. 

"From a reporter from the 'Washington Post,'" she snapped. "Who came
to my house this morning at seven a.m. He was in front of three
camera crews from the local television stations, by the way." 

He shook his head, looking away, his jaw clenching. "I'm so sorry,"
he said, looking into her face now, his voice soft. "I'm so sorry for
all of this." 

"How could you let this happen?" she asked, her voice rising in
volume now as she shook the flyer at him. "You *know* this isn't
true. About either one of them. But especially about my daughter! How
could you let this HAPPEN?!" 

Tears flooded her eyes as she said the last loud enough to rattle
the picture of Ashcroft over his shoulder. 

He looked at her, guilt smashing into him like a right cross. He
took a step toward her. "It's not coming from the FBI," he said,
though the words sounded hollow to him even as he said them. "I don't
have any control over what's being done. I can't stop it yet." 

"Well, what the hell ARE you good for then?" she said, her voice a
low, hard growl now, the tears racing down her cheeks. Her hand came
up to cover her mouth. It was shaking. She choked on a sob, her eyes
squeezing closed. 

What the hell am I good for *indeed,* he thought, cringing. She'd
said aloud a question he'd been asking himself for months. 

"Please..." he said as tenderly as he could, his hands coming out of
his pockets as he came toward her. He got close enough to put a hand
on her shoulder, and gestured to the chairs in front of his desk with
the other. "Please sit down." 

She let him guide her to the chair, and she sat stiffly, wiping at
her face, her hand still trembling. He angled the one next to her
toward her and sat himself. 

"Can I get you something?" he asked. "Some water, coffee..."

"No," she said, her voice hoarse, as though the yelling she'd just
done had ruined her voice. "No, nothing." She levelled her gaze at
him again, the look more pleading than venomous now. 

Her hand clenched around the flyer in her hand, crinkling it. 

"Who is this coming from?" she asked, her eyes shining with tears.
She was trying to pull her control back around her, straightening her
sweater. It was like watching someone try to cover themselves with a
dish towel. 

Skinner leaned close when he answered. He'd never quite trusted his
office, though he'd had it swept twice by the Gunmen and once by his
own people. He couldn't help his paranoia. Not with all the things
that were going on. 

"It's coming from the NSA," he said quietly. "A man named Padden who
is in charge of a task force that is investigating Owen Curran, the
man suspected of bombing the Irish Embassy a few months ago." 

"What does Dana have to do with that? Or Fox?" she asked sharply. 

Skinner bit his lip. "I can't tell you specifics, because it
involves classified things, but there are...circumstances that this
man Padden is using to try to implicate them both with Curran. He was
only after Mulder at first, but now he's going after your daughter,
as well, apparently. I just found out about this about a half an hour
ago myself."

She sniffed. "It's because she's running, isn't it? Running with
Fox." 

Skinner nodded. "I think that has a lot to do with it, yes," he
replied. 

She looked away as though deep in thought. A tender expression
crossed her face, though it was still tinged with sadness. 

"She won't leave him," she said softly, and gestured with the flyer.
"Even with this. She won't come in unless they come in together." 

"I know," he said, nodding. 

She cocked her head as she looked up at him, as though weighing his
response, its implications. 

"Yes," he said. "I *know.*" 

Her gaze softened, as did his. She nodded, looked down, almost
seeming... embarrassed?... to be speaking about this. He knew the
feeling. It felt intensely personal.

He cleared his throat. "Look, I'm trying to do a few things," he
said, and she looked back up at him expectantly. "I'm trying to find
some evidence for at least Mulder's whereabouts during some key
timeframes that are under suspicion. I've got information on one of
them that might help clear both of them because they were together."

Margaret nodded. "Good," she said faintly. "That sounds good." 

Skinner continued. "I'm working on one other lead I have for Mulder.
I'm going to see about that as soon as I can. Hopefully with those
two things in place, I'll be able to go to Padden and he'll call this
off and look where he *should* be looking. At Curran." 

Her eyes looked very young as she looked at him, though the rest of
her looked like it had aged 10 years since he'd seen her at the
Memorial. "You think that will convince him?" she asked. 

Skinner pursed his lips. "I'm not sure," he said. "I hope so. The
evidence against Mulder and your daughter is very circumstantial. It
shouldn't be that hard to undermine with a few solid facts." 

I hope, he thought, but he didn't say it out loud. 

She looked at her hands as they held the poster, her eyes on it
again. "What do I tell all these reporters?" she asked, sounding
lost. 

"Do what I assume you're already doing," he said firmly. "Deny that
she's involved. Call the charges false and tell them what she's like,
who she really is. And keep doing it. But don't mention any of what
I've told you today. It's better if no one knows I've told you about
this until I get things in place." 

She nodded. "All right," she said. To his surprise, one of her hands
came out and settled softly on his forearm. "I'm...I'm sorry about
what I said before. This isn't your fault. I just..."

"I understand," he said, and covered her hand with his own. "There's
no need to apologize. I know you're going through hell with this
right now. Between her being gone for so long and now this." 

She managed a tiny smile. "Thank you for your forgiveness," she
murmured, and he nodded, mustered a gentle look in return. 

With that, she stood, and he with her. 

"I'll be in touch with any information I can share," he said. 

She reached her hand out. "Thank you, Mr. Skinner. I know you'll do
your best. For both of them." 

"I will." He said it with conviction as he took her hand, gave it a
squeeze. "Try not to worry, if you can. They'll be all right. They've
always been lucky that way."

She nodded. "Luck's a funny thing, though, isn't it?" she murmured
sadly. "You never know when it's going to run out." 

He said nothing to that. They both knew she was right. 

He watched her go, watched the door close almost silently behind
her, a calmer, but almost resigned, sound. It was a stark
juxtaposition to the noise it had made when she came in. 


*********** 

ALONG DEAD MAN'S WASH 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
NEAR TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
2:39 p.m.


Scully was high on the trail beside the wash, a light rain falling
steadily, pattering the surface of the thin river that ran through it
into a million ripples, the sand beneath the horse's feet growing
darker as the rain continued to fall. 

Off in the distance she could see the heart of the storm
approaching, miles off. A dark canopy of cloud that seemed to reach
nearly to the ground, the occasional flare of lightning dancing off
the tops of the mesas. Thunder echoed, catching on the crags of rock
that climbed all around her. 

She wore an army surplus rain poncho that seemed to grow heavier
with the rain, draping down her sides to cover her legs, the musty
smelling garment keeping her dry. She did not wear the hood, though,
preferring to allow the rain to settle on her pulled-back hair, her
face. Wet strands of hair framed her cheeks from the earlier downpour
of the early edge of the storm. She pushed them back, curving them
behind her ears. 

Ghost sneezed, a ruffling sound, tossing his head down in the
process. She had the reins so slack that his tug on them with that
movement jolted her out of the introspection she'd been in for hours,
the nervous anticipation that had gripped her despite all her efforts
to hold it at bay. 

She pulled out the map from beneath the poncho, checked the
landmarks she could identify on the terrain around her, the sharp
bend of the wash the map showed visible in the distance. The area
marked by the "X" on the map was at that bend. She was getting close,
and felt herself tensing up more at the thought. 

What would she find there? 

She'd been asking herself that question for hours, since she'd risen
and awkwardly packed up the tent, the cooking supplies, rinsing the
metal dishes in the wash before she'd placed them in the nylon bag.
Since she'd mounted Ghost and gotten on her way, the sky already
darkened with wool-colored clouds, the color of the horse's soft back
and ears. 

She folded the map up, tucked it back under the poncho to protect it
from the rain. She really didn't need it at this point. The trail was
well-trodden, easy to follow and the only path in sight. Scrubby
plants squatted around it, the color of green ash. 

There it was -- the stinging in her eyes again. Her emotions were so
close to the surface today, and she pushed at them. It was like
pushing a spider web off herself. 

She reached up and wiped her eyes roughly, blew out a breath. The
emotion was without thought, nothing in her mind to anchor it to. The
memory she'd had last night of making love with Mulder had been the
only attachment to any feeling she could pinpoint. But these feelings
welling in her today were different from the bittersweet sadness she
felt over her thoughts of him. They were heavier, darker, and almost
desperate in their intensity. 

She needed to reach the clearing marked on that map. She needed to
know whom she would meet there, the person or persons that Hosteen
had referred to, what she would find at that place that would give
her all her answers as he'd promised. 

Unable to fully push the feelings down, she tapped Ghost with her
heels lightly, and he obediently picked up his pace, coming as close
to a trot as he could without breaking his gait. It made her feel
somewhat better to be moving more quickly now, though the emotions
still crackled in her. 

Up a large rise, down the other side. Another rise, the bend of the
river edging closer. She scanned the ground ahead of her, looking for
any sign of life. She wondered about anyone who could live this far
away from the knot of farms that made up the town of Two Grey Hills.
She wondered what kind of person would be out here at all. 

A rocky outcropping ahead, the trail curving around it. She followed
it around, the ground rising again in elevation. She pulled the map
out again, noted the rise in elevation on the USGS map at the "X." 

Then she found herself in a large clearing, a single mesquite tree
in front of her. She was on a cliff overlooking the river, a view of
a butte in the distance. And beyond that...

Nothing. 

The trail ended here at this precipice, the tree guarding the edge,
half its roots seeming to extend out into the air. A fire pit sat
like a small crater in the middle of the clearing, a small stack of
wood beside it. 

Ghost stopped on his own, bobbed his head again toward the ground,
sniffing. 

The rain began to fall harder, the storm coming closer from the west. 

Scully looked around, her chest beginning to rise and fall quickly.
She slid off the horse, her feet hitting the wet ground, the rain
setting off a patter on the slick material of the poncho. She made
her way to the cliff edge, looking at the river below. Then she did a
slow 360° turn, her hands going to her forehead to shield her eyes
from the rain. 

Ghost stood in the middle of the clearing, one of his back ankles
turned up as he stood in repose. He cocked his ear at her as she
looked at him, frustrated tears coming fast now as her chest heaved.
She bit down on her bottom lip, turned back toward the river, which
also just stared back, indifferent as the rain. 

"Son of a *bitch*..." she said, gripping the stray strands of hair
not caught in her pony tail with her fists and pulling, her face
screwing into a sob. She felt sick to her stomach, the sob wrenching
her. 

To have come all this way. And for what? 

For *nothing,* she thought, anguished. 

She thought of Hosteen back in his home, pictured him smiling at his
private joke at tricking her into getting out of the trailer. 

Fury surged in her. 

"You bastard," she said bitterly, and coughed out another sob,
covering her eyes as though afraid someone would see her tears.

She sank down, feeling beaten down by just the rain, until she sat
near the edge of the cliff. She pulled her knees up against her chest
and leaned forward, her forehead on them, her arms covering her head. 

Her sobs broke over her, one after another, like harsh waves. 

The lightning stayed off to the north, but the rain continued to
fall on her even harder, unforgiving. 

Gradually, the storm pushed eastward, darkening the sky in a palette
of grays. 


********

TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
4:50 p.m.


Despite the enormous pain in his side, like a stitch after running
too hard for too long, Mulder scampered after the lamb that had
broken away from the herd. 

He and the other men were rounding the sheep up, moving them through
an unfenced area to the pen where they spent the nights. All of them
carried long sticks to bump them into one moving mass, and dogs
darted in and out from the perimeters of the herd, nipping the
stragglers into line. 

This lamb didn't seem to take the hint and had taken off for the
house. Mulder caught him just as he was about to make the front yard.
Mulder reached down and picked him up, an arm behind the lamb's back
legs and the other around his front, hefting the animal against his
chest along with his stick. The lamb mewled in protest and fear.

"Good catch, Mulder!" one of the men called, tapping at the herd
with his stick. The front of the group was entering the pen,
bottlenecking through the gate. Mulder walked to the end of the clump
of animals, keeping the line moving. Once the last of the sheep had
entered the gate, he set the lamb down, gave its rump a pat as it
rushed into the pen on its pink hooves. 

Eric, Hosteen's other grandson, was there to close the gate, and
smiled up at Mulder. 

"You did that really well. You're a natural at this! The FBI is a
waste for you!" And he laughed, slapping Mulder's back. 

Mulder smiled tiredly. "Thanks," he said. "There have been people
saying *I* was actually a waste to the FBI for years now. So I've
never heard it put quite that way before." 

Eric smiled wider as Mulder brushed off his grey t-shirt, slapping
at the dust on his jeans. 

"Come on," Eric said. "They're almost done with the vet, and then
it's Miller Time." He winked at Mulder, and Mulder smiled at the
joke. None of the men drank. "Miller Time" would mean a strong cup of
coffee with whipping cream in it, if yesterday was any indication. 

"Sounds good to me," Mulder said, and meant it. 

They made their way across the yard toward the house, where a mobile
vet was checking three of the pregnant mares. Victor was standing at
the head of the horse currently being examined, looking for all the
world like a nervous father. He nodded to Mulder as he and Eric
approached. 

"Good day at work," he said simply, and Mulder nodded, acknowledging
the compliment. 

"Thanks," he said, a little embarrassed. 

Victor looked over his shoulder, nodded toward the area behind the
house. "Looks like your friend has come to see what you're up to," he
said, smiling. 

Mulder turned toward the house, in the direction of his own house,
and saw Bo sitting there, his mouth open on a pant, watching Mulder.
Mulder found himself smiling a bit at the dog's proximity to the
other men and the house he'd seemed so afraid of. 

"Must be hungry," Mulder said, dismissing the significance of the
dog's appearance. 

"First time he's come over here since Larry died," Victor replied.
"Hungry or not."

Mulder turned back to the dog, watching him. 

"I'm all done here," the vet announced, pulling off a rubber glove
that extended all the way to his upper arm. "Everything looks fine,"
he said to Victor, who nodded, clearly relieved now. The vet, John
Oxford (Mulder had read his name on the side of his truck), turned
and looked at the dog, as well. 

"Ah, I haven't seen Bo in a long time," he said warmly. "I'm glad to
see he's coming back around a little bit." 

"Just since our friend Tim got here," Victor said, slipping into
Mulder's cover name easily in the presence of this outsider. 

Oxford looked at the dog closely. "Looks like he's got mange or
something from here." 

"Yeah," Mulder said. "There's something on his sides. Scabs or sores
or something." 

Oxford looked at him. "You think you could get him and let me have a
look? Since I'm out here anyway." 

Mulder looked at Bo, considering. It seemed like a good idea. The
dog was clearly suffering with whatever he had. But he wondered if
hauling him over here would just traumatize Bo more, make him more
skittish and make him trust Mulder less. 

Still, it seemed important if the dog was sick with something. And
Victor was right -- there was no one but him to do it. Bo didn't
trust anyone else. 

"I'll try," Mulder said, and he started slowly across the yard
toward the dog. 

He got about ten feet away and Bo cowered, going belly-down on the
ground. 

But he did something else, as well. His tail began to beat the still-
damp ground hesitantly behind him, his eyes darting from Mulder as he
slowed his approach. 

"Hey Bo," he said gently, smiling and reaching his hand out. Bo
stayed still as Mulder closed the distance until he stood before him.
The dog's tail continued its hesitant shake, and Mulder reached down
and touched his head again, just as he'd been able to do for a second
time the night before. He stroked gently. 

"That's it," he murmured. Bo lifted his head into Mulder's hand now,
though he was still panting nervously. 

Moving carefully, Mulder reached down and took hold of the dog's
collar, gave it a tug. Bo rose, though his tail stayed wedged between
his legs. He didn't even try to dart though. With that, Mulder leaned
down and picked the dog up as he had done to the lamb, the scabs on
the animal's sides rough on his forearms. 

Bo was a fairly large dog, but he weighed about the same as the lamb
had, Mulder noted with chagrin. 

The dog was tense in his grasp, but allowed himself to be carried
over to the vet. Victor and Eric had led the mares over to the
corral, leaving Oxford there by himself. Mulder was glad that the
other two men had withdrawn, because the dog was nervous enough with
just the vet there. 

"Hey there, Bo," Oxford said, and stroked his back. Mulder didn't
move to put him down, knowing he would run. He also felt strangely
possessive and protective of the animal, which surprised him. 

Oxford began checking the patches of scabs on the dog's sides, the
areas missing hair. "Yeah, he's got mange," he said. "Sarcoptic from
the look of it. That's what those scabs are. Him biting at himself to
relieve the itch." 

Mulder nodded, not knowing what to say to that. He had never had a
dog, and had no concept of the implications of what the vet was
talking about. 

Oxford went over and began rooting around in his truck. He drew out
several vials of medication and a few syringes from the containers in
the back of the pickup. He came forward again, drawing the medication
into the syringes. 

"I'm going to go ahead and give him his shots," the vet said, and
scruffed what little skin he could from the dog's neck, jamming the
needle home. Bo whimpered, and Mulder instinctively squeezed him
tighter. 

"This is an antibiotic for the infection, and a steroid called
Ivermectin to kill the mites causing it. It'll also keep the itching
down." The vet drew and injected two more shots into the dog. On the
second shot, Bo began to struggle in Mulder's arms, who held him
fast. 

"You might as well let him down," Oxford said. "I'm done with him." 

Mulder leaned down and let Bo down on the ground, and the dog loped
away toward Mulder's own place. Mulder was relieved when he didn't
disappear into the desert beyond it, but rather stopped next to the
porch and sat again. 

"What do I owe you?" Mulder asked, returning his attention to
Oxford. "I've got my wallet in the house and --"

"You don't owe me anything," the vet said kindly. "I'm just glad
he's coming around. He was a good dog for Larry. I'm glad to help him
out." 

Mulder smiled, strangely pleased. "Thank you. I appreciate it." 

Oxford smiled, reached out and shook Mulder's hand. 

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Garrett," he said. "I'll be back in a couple
of weeks to check the mares and I'll check Bo again then, give him
another dose." 

If I'm still here, Mulder thought, but outwardly he nodded. "All
right," he said, and said goodbye, heading toward Victor's house now,
where the men were all gathered on the porch.

He stood still for a moment, feeling something lighter in him now as
he listened to the men talking back and forth. 

He couldn't help it. As always happened when his mind was calmer,
his thoughts turned to Scully, an image of her smiling at him, curled
in his bed on her side as he came forward carrying coffee. The
comforter was pulled up to her chin, but the light caught on the
creamy expanse of her bare back, almost seeming to make her glow in
the morning sun through the window...

Around him, the light was beginning to enter the gloaming of early
dusk, and he smiled at the memory. Then he went toward the men at the
house, toward the sound of their loud voices and their persistent,
welcome laughter. 


**********

BESIDE DEAD MAN'S WASH 
6:34 p.m.


Scully awoke to two sensations. 

The first was a chill that seemed to go straight into her bones,
most of her still damp from being caught in the rain. There was a
slight wind on her, and it raised her skin to gooseflesh, sending her
into a shiver. 

The second was a gentle nudging against her belly. 

She opened her eyes onto the sapphire of night falling, a thick blue
darkness surrounding her. But she could still make out a set of pale
hooves in front of her, and looked down slightly as Ghost nudged her
belly once again with his long nose, nearly pushing her over onto her
back from her side. 

She was curled like a question mark on the packed ground in the
center of the clearing, the sky and its dusting of the night's
newborn stars stretched out above her. 

She reached down and touched the horse's nose, cupping it gently. He
rooted around, blew a breath into her palm as he sniffed for
something to eat. 

"You hungry?" she said softly, groggy, and then pushed herself into
a sitting position, the heavy poncho still gathered around her. She
reached down and pulled it off over her head, leaving it in a heap.
The long-sleeved shirt she wore was nothing against the chilly wind,
and it was enough to wake her completely and move her to her feet. 

She'd been asleep for a long time, she realized. 

She remembered lying down after some time of crying in the rain,
feeling tiny there on the cliffside beneath the storm. She hadn't
even tried to cover her face as exhaustion had overtaken her -- the
exhaustion of the hours of riding and from the weight of the emotions
that had crashed into her with her arrival at the clearing. 

She brushed dirt off her face, her damp hair, her jeans. Then she
turned her attention to Ghost, still standing and watching her
expectantly. For a moment, she felt the fear over having left him
untethered, realized she could have been left here with no supplies
as the horse wandered off, probably back toward home.

But not this horse, she thought, and smiled faintly as she brushed
at his neck, smoothing down his silver mane. 

"Let's get you something to eat," she said, and she began to unload
the things from his back -- the nylon sack, the tent, the sleeping
bag, both of which had been covered by the bag and were still fairly
dry. Then she pulled down the sack of oats and fixed Ghost's feedbag
again, slipping it over his head. 

She led him to the mesquite, tying the reins to a branch that
extended far back from the edge. She removed the saddle and pad and
dropped the heavy leather and blanket onto the ground beside the
horse as he began to eat. 

Then she looked around at the clearing, at the fire pit with its
halo of damp wood. 

A fire first, she thought. She would need the heat. The light.


When Scully was a child, a nun had told her that if she stared long
enough into a fire she would see the Devil's face looking back at
her. The thought had terrified her at that age, and even at
Christmas, her mother popping corn in the fireplace with her sister
Melissa beside her, she had always averted her eyes from the flames,
afraid of what might be looking back at her. 

That had been when the Devil had seemed something not of this earth,
an entity that lived solely in the fires in the ground beneath her,
some realm that didn't quite touch her. It was a place that the right
amount of prayer and penitence could hold at bay, those two things
keeping her as safe and as warm as she'd felt in her bed when she was
young, her mother having tucked her and Melissa in for the night, her
father home from the sea. 

As she'd grown older, she had seen that this belief was false. That
evil could be found anywhere, in any form. Medical school and her
time in the morgues -- with bodies ripped apart in rages of violence
and misfortune -- had taught her these things first, hard lessons for
someone whose beliefs were as sheltered as hers has been. It was not
that she had been naive exactly -- she knew that evil existed around
her. It was that she believed it could not touch her in that way,
that there were no flames for her to stare into that would enable
those red eyes to find her and stare back. 

But her life since then had shown her otherwise. Her work with
Mulder on the X-Files had taught her about fire, about what could
look back. She'd seen more of the evil that existed in the world
through her dealings with that than she ever thought imaginable, felt
the loss and anguish it left in its wake when it punched a hole
through that mythical place of her childhood and reached out with its
hands of flame.

She was thinking this as she sat before the blazing fire in the
clearing, the chemically treated pressed wood Hosteen had given her
drying the wood enough to set it aflame. Once it had started, she'd
put on branch after branch, making the fire climb higher into the
night, leaving her in a circle of orange, flickering light. 

She sat cross-legged, her spine straight, her hands resting on her
knees, utterly still. And her eyes were on the fire, not wavering
from it, not looking away, daring whatever lived inside it to come to
her there in the quiet.

She'd resigned herself to her surroundings for the night, to
Hosteen's trick of leading her to this place more barren than the
place she'd left, and as devoid of answers. She didn't know what
she'd expected to find here, if she was really honest with herself.
There was nothing that could repair what had been done to her, no one
to repair it. What had happened to her simply was. 

Maybe that was what he had tried to show her by sending her here.
That there was nothing to help her after all. That she would have to
simply go on living with the charring and scars of what had happened
to her, and it was time she resigned herself to that, as bleak as
that was to contemplate.

She sighed, her brow creasing at the thought. 

Surely Hosteen, who had been so gentle with her to this point, would
not teach a lesson that harsh like this? Reinforcing her aloneness
with the solitude of this place?

She turned the thought over in her mind, weighing it and discarding
it, weighing it again. And as she did that, her eyes on the fire, her
mind began its own journey, as long and as barren as the one she'd
been on for the past days.

A drill coming toward her face, her body immobilized on a table, a
world washed in white and smelling of bottled air. Faces above her
wearing masks, Penny Northern's dry hand in hers, soothing her as her
abdomen bloated with a obscene imitation of new life that the
experiment also ensured would never be possible for her again. 

Then at her mother's house, going through a box of Melissa's things
after her death. She was still aching from the hour she'd spent
sitting by the empty hospital bed, too late to see her sister before
her death from a bullet meant for her. Only Mulder joining her had
softened the brittle grief that had threatened to shatter her there,
his arms around her. 

In the box, she'd found a braid of Melissa's hair, cut off from a
long strand when her sister had taken her hair from flowing down her
back to her shoulders in high school. Her mother had saved the braid
in a box, the yellow ribbon that secured it still in place, knotted
at the end. She remembered putting it to her face and inhaling
Melissa's scent from it, faint, like perfume and dust. 

But even then, the tears would not come.

The sound of machinary around her, the bob of a red light breaking a
line, her heartbeat filling the room. Her skin like paper, and pain
beneath her eye, the tumor growing, pushing against its confines,
taking her. 

She would lie awake in the hospital when her mother, when Mulder,
had gone home, and watch the streetlights flood in the window, a
puzzle of light and dark. Death with its leathery wings in the
shadows, waiting. The disease given to her to strike at Mulder, her
body -- her life -- a pawn in a game she'd never agreed to play. 

Then the small body beside her, a furnace of fever. Emily's still
form, her hair pressed around her face with sweat, her body dying
beneath Scully's hands, and her helpless to stop it. The glint of the
cross as she held it above the casket, dangling light on the chain.
Her fist had closed around it. Mulder's hand reaching out and closing
over her fist, the other tipping the lid of the snow white coffin
closed. 

The rose dropping down into the car between she and Mulder, Mulder
dying beside her, pink froth of blood on his face, Emily's knowing
smile as Scully looked up at her, terrified.

Snow falling in her room in Richmond, blue flakes like blue stars,
her hands catching them as Owen's drug took hold, sending her out
into the night and into her nightmares...

Then she remembered the final vision she'd had as the drug had
finally left her, in the cabin in Tennessee, Mulder holding her
tightly in his arms. The fire coming in off the lake toward the
island she stood on, the doe consumed by it, the wall approaching and
faces living within it. 

Fagan's face. 

The floor beneath her head. His face against her shoulder. Rasp of
breath. 

She remembered it now, the figure made of flame. She stared at it in
her memory, looking into the fire in front of her... 

The red eyes stared back, seering her, trying to turn her to ash.

The scream crawled up her throat as the tears burst from her eyes.
The sound tore from her into the night, Ghost shying from it, tossing
his head in distress at the far edge of the fire's light.

Her hands clamped down on the sides of her head as the sound
continued from her, mixed with unintelligible sounds like words, but
not words.

There was no language in the country she had been brought to. 

The sound spread out around her, echoing off the stones and
darkness. Above her, the stars watched in their silences, their eyes
wide and white and seeping light.


**********

END OF CHAPTER 15. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 16. 

Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 16.

********


PUERTO PEÑASCO, MEXICO 
APRIL 6 
3:35 a.m.


When Mae was a very little girl, she had felt safe in her father's
arms. 

He would hold her on his lap at the old wooden table in the kitchen,
holding her like a baby, even though she was five or six years old,
the rich smells of her mother's cooking surrounding them both, the
clatter of pot lids, wooden spoons on the sides of heavy pots. And he
would tell her stories while she gazed up into his face, her thick
curly hair trailing over his arm. 

If she concentrated very hard, she could remember the laughter the
stories would bring from her, each part of the story that was
intended to make her giggle punctuated with a tickle to her
midsection. Then he would bury his face at her throat, hugging her
almost too tightly as she laughed, and he would laugh right along
with her.

She didn't know why she was thinking about that now, lying naked in
Joe's arms, her face pressed beneath his chin, both of them still
breathing heavy, his breath fanning her hair as his hands smoothed
down her slick back. 

Perhaps this was the first time she'd felt truly safe since those
days. Before her father's arrest and imprisonment. Before her life
for the Cause began, a life with an enemy on every corner, possibly
lurking behind every face. 

She'd had lovers in the years since then, but none of them had ever
felt this way, this protected. It was as if when she was in Joe's
arms, the rest of the world couldn't touch her, the demons of her
past swept away. 

Joe leaned back and kissed her forehead, lingering there. His hands
continued their slow stroke along her back. 

"Was that all right?" he asked, just above a whisper.

She smiled against his skin, nodded. "More than all right," she said. 

"I didn't...hurt you or anything?" He kissed her forehead again,
just brushing her with his lips.

She shook her head. "I'm only pregnant, Joe," she replied, her tone
teasing but still quiet. "You're not going to break me, you know." 

She felt him smile, a soft chuff coming from him. "I'm sorry," he
murmured. "It's just...well, it's new to me. I'm not sure what's the
same and what's different, that's all." 

She leaned back slightly, looked into his eyes, her hand coming up
to push his hair from his forehead. "It's all the same," she said
gently.

He looked at her for a beat, then nodded, kissed her softly on the
mouth, then her cheek. She put her arms around his neck and pulled
him closer, holding him tightly. 

She hoped he could feel from her the words she couldn't bring
herself to say. Though she felt them. Completely. 

On the bedside table, the small travel alarm began to chirp, and Mae
released him reluctantly so he could roll away from her and turn it
off. Her hand smoothed down the sweat on his flat stomach, the covers
slipping to his hips. 

He turned back to her, leaned up on one elbow, pushed her hair
behind her ear, his eyes on her, his brow creased. She could see the
look on his face that she'd seen every morning since the day in the
hospital. 

He hated leaving her now. Even to go to work. 

"Go on then," she said, the teasing back in her voice to break the
intensity of his gaze. "Off with you, or the boat'll go without you." 

He hesitated, despite her playfulness. "I hate thinking of you back
here by yourself with Sean if you get so sick again," he replied. "I
could take the day off and stay with you." 

She shook her head. "No, I don't want that," she said, and reached
up to take his hand and hold it in front of her, putting some
distance between them that way. "I'll be fine for the few hours
you're gone. Not to worry. I'll probably sleep the whole time." 

He still looked uncertain, but he finally nodded. "All right," he
said, and brought her hand to his lips, kissed it. "I'm just going to
take a quick shower. Go to sleep. I'll try not to wake you while I'm
getting dressed." 

She nodded, smiled at him. "Go on then," she repeated, and he let go
of her hand and rose. He slipped into his boxers beside the bed in
case Sean should be up and about, then picked up his jeans and tossed
them over his shoulder. He padded almost silently to the bedroom door
and out into the hall. 

The night air coming through the open window chilled the sweat on
her skin almost instantly with his absence. Still on her side, she
pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. She heard the
shower come on, and began to drift in the hazy place between sleep
and wakefulness.

Her hand moved down to her belly beneath the covers, touching just
below her navel. As she did so often now, she thought of her baby. In
her mind the baby was a little girl, dark hair like hers and with
Joe's kind, bright eyes. She pictured Joe with her on his lap in a
warm kitchen, her child laughing in his arms, as well. 

This baby's life would end up differently, she vowed. It would not
be touched by the things Mae herself had been, would not lead the
life she had. 

All of it would stop with her, like a disease she refused to allow
to be passed down another generation. She had the same hope for Sean
now that he was away from Owen's life. Perhaps it wasn't too late for
him, either...

She hummed softly on an exhale, feeling sleep begin to take her, a
pleasant weight on her body. Sounds were muffled around her. The
shower going off. The door opening softly, footsteps in the room... 

She pushed it all away, going toward the gentle darkness...

A hand clamped down over her mouth.

She was jolted into consciousness, a sound like a scream coming up
from her throat as her eyes shot open. 

The silencer that pressed into her temple stopped the scream
instantly, leaving only the sound of her breathing, fast and
panicked. 

"Hello, Mae," Owen Curran said from right beside her ear, his voice
coming through clenched teeth. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, but I
had to wait for you to *finish.*" 

He hissed the last word, jerking her head back sharply. She
whimpered, closing her eyes, feeling tears stinging them.

"Some things never change I see," he continued, his breath hot on
her ear. "You still can't keep your bloody legs closed, can you?" 

She clenched her eyes closed more tightly and a tear slipped from
them, over the bridge of her nose. 

The baby was her first thought. Sean, she knew he wouldn't hurt. But--

Oh God. Joe. 

"Now I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth, all right?"
Owen said as though he was speaking to a five year old. "And when I
do, you're not going to make a sound or I'm going to blow your
fucking brains all over this bed." 

He leaned closer, whispered in her ear. "And don't think I won't do
it. You understand me?" 

She whimpered again, but managed to jerk a nod against the force of
his hand. He paused for a moment, and she opened her eyes to see him
leaning over her, looking into her face, his face awash in shadow.
Then he slowly withdrew his hand and stood. 

She didn't move. Her body began to tremble all over. 

"Sit up," he snapped. "And for fuck's sake keep yourself covered." 

She complied, easing her legs over the side of the bed, keeping the
blanket up at her throat. She stared at the pistol in his hand,
pointed at her forehead. Then she looked into his face. 

His ice blue eyes stared back at her in the streetlight coming
through the window. His face was thinner than it had been the last
time she'd seen him, more chiseled. Fury rose off him like steam. 

Their gazes hung as she pleaded with him with her eyes. He answered
her with his silence and the stillness of the gun pointed at her
head. 

A commotion from the hallway brought her attention away from his
face to the door, and she saw Joe come in, his jeans on, barefooted,
his hands on top of his dripping head. A man was behind him, a tall
solid man wearing a sports jacket and dress pants. He had a gun
pointed at Joe's back. 

Owen turned and regarded Joe coldly, looking him up and down. Then
he pulled back the hammer on the pistol, turned and pointed it at
Joe, whose eyes were large as dinner plates, his bare chest rising
and falling quickly. 

"Please...please don't hurt him," Mae said, and her voice shook
almost to the point of being unintelligible. 

"Look, whatever you want," Joe said, and Mae loved him for his
composure, "you can have. I've got some money in my wallet and--"

"Shut the fuck up," Owen snarled at him, then he spun on Mae. "And
YOU, I told you not to make a sound, didn't I?" 

His hand shot out, his palm catching Mae across the jaw and jerking
her face to the side. 

"For Christ's sake!" Joe said, anguished, the man behind him's hand
going out to his shoulder, halting his forward motion. "Don't hit
her! She's pregnant!" 

Oh God, Joe, Mae thought as blood trickled from her lip. Don't have
just told him that... 

Suddenly Owen had a handful of her hair, his face in hers. "You're
*what?* You're fucking WHAT?" Then he released her hair and hit her
again.

This time Joe did come forward, cursing, his hands going off his
head and reaching for Owen's throat. Owen spun on him, the gun coming
up and pressing against Joe's forehead, stopping him. Then the man
behind Joe pulled him back again, holding him still. Owen had yet to
move the gun, though, following Joe back. 

"Please don't hit her any more," Joe said softly, keeping his voice
steady. 

"So you're the sonofabitch who knocked up my sister then," Owen
said, cocking his head at Joe, his eyes narrowing. He turned the gun
sideways, as well, and Joe stiffened even more. "I'd be more worried
about myself if I were you." 

Owen's hand moved so fast it was like a blur of motion. He struck
Joe across the face with the butt of the gun, and his knee came up
into Joe's groin, sending him crashing to his knees, a hoarse cough
coming from him. One of Joe's hands went to his belly, the other to
his face. 

Mae could see blood dripping from between his fingers. She began to
cry in earnest now, frustrated tears of fear and helplessness.

More sounds from the hallway, and now Sean came in, another man
behind him. The man didn't have a gun out on Sean, and she was glad
for that. He did have a hand firmly on Sean's shoulder, though, as
though to ensure he wouldn't run. 

Sean gazed at Owen for a few seconds, his expression very afraid.
Then he looked at Mae and Joe. Mae swiped at the blood on her mouth
so he wouldn't see it, but it was too late. She could tell by how the
boy's eyes had widened even more and how his breathing had begun to
come fast and shallow. Then Sean returned his eyes to Joe, who was
still hunched over, blood seeping from his cheek. 

"Joe?" Sean said in a high, frightened voice.

"I'm all right, Sean," Joe managed, but it sounded like even words
hurt him.

Mae's eyes darted to Owen, whose face had twisted up in even more
rage. "You can't say hello to your own dad first, Sean?" he said, his
teeth clenched again. 

Sean looked up, backed a step into the odd-looking man behind him.
"Hello, Daddy," he said, his voice faint and terrified and his lip
trembling. His eyes brimmed with tears. 

Owen looked at him, and Mae could see the pain in his face from
Sean's reaction. Then Owen turned his attention back to Joe, pure
hatred in his eyes, and he kicked out again, pushing Joe onto his
side roughly. Joe lay there, still holding his abdomen. Mae saw the
huge gash in his face as he moved his other hand down to his belly,
as well.

"Owen, please...not in front of Sean, all right?" Mae said meekly. 

Owen glared at her, his hand going up to rub roughly at the scar
down his face, which he always did when he was agitated. Then he
seemed to relent a bit, to regain some measure of composure, though
Mae recognized it for the front it was. 

"Rudy, take Sean to his room and get him to pack up his things," he
said calmly, and the strange-looking man nodded, angled Sean toward
the door and guided him out. That done, Owen turned to Mae. 

"Now get up and get dressed," he said. "We're going for a little
ride, all of us." 

"Let Joe go," she begged. "He doesn't have any part of this. This is
between you and me." 

Owen seemed to consider for a few seconds, looking down at Joe, who
was watching him warily. 

"No," Owen said finally, almost conversationally. Mae found this
tone more chilling than the rage he'd spoken with before. "No, I
think Joe here will be coming with us, as well." 

Mae sucked in a breath. "But why?" 

Owen stared at her again, a faint smile on his face. "Because you
want me to let him go," he said. "And plus, he's *family* now, isn't
he? We should all stay together, don't you think?" 

He kicked Joe again, this time in the side. "Now get the fuck up and
find a shirt and some shoes," he snarled. 

Joe struggled into a sitting position, stood slowly, Owen's gun on
him the whole time. 

"All right," he said quietly, putting his hands up in a placating
gesture. "I'm not going to try anything." 

"That's good," Owen said. "Because the minute you try something, I
shoot *her.*" He jerked his head toward Mae. "And the minute you do,
I shoot *him.*" 

Mae swallowed, gauging Owen, tears still running down her face. 

He was serious, she thought. He would do it. 

She nodded to him then and stood, bringing the covers with her. She
wrapped herself in them as she went to the bureau, her back to the
men in the room, and silently began to dress. 


*********


NEAR DEAD MAN'S WASH 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
5:34 a.m.


The fire had long since gone to embers. Scully had sat in the
darkness the fire left behind for more than an hour before the sun
began to paint the horizon with a line of gold, high nimbus clouds
lighting up amidst the persistent starlight. 

She hadn't slept the whole night, watching Orion spin slowly across
the sky, her mind filled. She'd cried off and on, wrenched by her
feelings for the first time in years, bringing them out and casting
off their shadows in the light of the stars and fire. 

Somewhere around the time the fire had died, a calmness had settled
over her and the tears had ceased, leaving her still and silent, her
knees pulled up against her chest, the bunting top she wore pulled
out over them. She felt utterly spent, as though something in her
that had been impossibly heavy and full was now empty. 

Years of anguish she'd kept closed within her, anguish for herself,
now finally open, like a black flower that had finally bloomed,
showing her its terrible beauty and then withering away. 

She watched the sun come up, a half an eye at the edge of the world.
The sky turned pink, the red rocks glowing in it, a light wind
rustling the brush around the edge of the clearing, ruffling the
stiff dry leaves of the mesquite. Behind her, the thin river surged
with light. 

She glanced at Ghost, asleep, one hock turned up in the sand, and
thought again of Hosteen, replaying his words in the kitchen, the
room simmering with the smell of things cooking:

It's time for you to go to this place, he'd said. 

That is where you will find everything you need. 

It's not on the map, what's there. But you will see it. 

She looked around her, looking for it. The world was birthing this
new day, slowly lighting the desert, chasing away the chill. There
was a strength to it, a vastness. And it was as though, for the first
time in months, she looked around and saw things not as they were but
how they could be. 

As new. Like a child. So full of possibilities. 

A silver thread unwound in her. A faith she thought she had lost.
Faith in herself. In the simple yet inexplicable ways of things. 

Again her thoughts returned to Hosteen in his cluttered kitchen,
stirring with his worn wooden spoon. 

What was it he'd said about faith? He'd said her faith would be
welcomed by whomever she found in this place. 

But there was no one here, she thought. 

Then a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. 

*She* was here. And she did welcome it. 

She was here. And she did have everything she needed to find her
answers, and always had. Within herself. 

She shook her head, the smile blooming as she wiped at her tired
eyes. Her estimation of Hosteen, already very high, went up another
few notches. 

He couldn't have told her any of this. He knew she had to find it
out on her own, in her own time. It was a journey she had had to make
alone to reach the end of it, to the place she now walked inside
herself. 

To this quiet land that offered her, at last, some sense of peace.

She stood, walked to the edge of the cliff, watching the river run
slowly along its wide banks. Ghost awoke at the movement and turned
his head to regard her with his plum eyes. 

The thoughts of Mulder, which she'd tried for so long to keep
buried, came to the surface in a warm rush. She wished he could be
here to share this feeling with her. She wanted more than anything to
share it with him, to feel his arms around her as she watched the sun
climb, an eye of light wide open now, the stars retreating to
pinpoints and then to nothing at all. 

She would share this with him. She would give him this, offer it up
to him to try to make right what she had -- by necessity -- torn
apart between them. She wanted him to feel as whole as she did at
that moment. 

Whole except for one thing. 

Him.

Her eyes stung again, but this time she was smiling as the warm
feeling spread in her like water. The smile came easily, her eyes
closing and a breath leaving her in a long, slow exhale. 

Finally she opened her eyes, turned and went to the fire pit,
kicking sand into the embers, covering them until they finally faded
out. She hadn't even bothered to set up the tent the night before,
the sleeping bag still rolled up beside it. 

She ate quickly, a muffin, a swallow of water from the canteen she
carried with her. 

Then she saddled Ghost, loaded up her supplies and mounted him,
heading back down the rise on the trail that would lead her home. 


*********


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
7:28 a.m.


Mulder pressed his heels into the horse's sides, urging it a bit as
they headed toward a small hill on the outskirts of Victor Hosteen's
property, the sun just beginning to glare on him, though he welcomed
the way it warmed his skin. 

The horse, an even-tempered black mare named Chaco, took the hill in
stride, Mulder's grip on the reins reasonably sure but his pressure
on her mouth minimal, just as Victor (and Killer) had taught him. 

At the top of the rise, he stopped her, but not to enjoy the view,
though it was a nice one. 

He stopped because Bo had fallen behind again, the dog picking his
way along the trail, weaving in and out of bushes, panting, his head
down as he followed Mulder out into the desert. 

Once Bo had gotten to the top of the hill, as well, Mulder touched
his heels to Chaco's sides again and they went down the other side.
He leaned back in the saddle, bracing his feet in the stirrups, just
as he'd been taught, until they reached the bottom and continued on
down the trail. 

He'd been lost in his own thoughts all morning, his mind wandering
as he'd helped Victor and Eric and the others with the sheep and
horses. Finally, after Victor had caught him staring off into space
once again when he was supposed to be doing something else, Victor
had told him to take a horse and "get lost" for awhile until he could
get his mind back on his work. 

The friendly swat on the back he'd given Mulder as he urged him
toward the corral had taken any hint of reprimand out of the comment,
and Mulder had smiled to him as he went to saddle the horse. 

His hips had gotten used to the easy roll of the horse's long gait,
and he'd learned to handle the horse halfway decently, though the
activity still plagued him with nervousness, his side aching as a
reminder of what could happen if he did the wrong thing again. 

But he was at least beginning to understand why people enjoyed this,
though a few days ago he couldn't fathom feeling this way. He felt
very authentic in his worn jeans and his boots, the grey t-shirt he
wore not quite warm enough for the morning, but comfortable
nonetheless.

He looked around at the landscape, finding solace in the simplicity
of it, its clarity. Things were very cut and dried out here. There
were no shades of gray to confuse him, no middle ground. He liked
that a lot, and was beginning to align his feelings with the
starkness of his surroundings, and with the barren terrain of his own
heart. 

Maybe being alone wasn't such a bad thing, he thought, urging Chaco
up another small incline, keeping a watchful eye on Bo. 

But even as he said it, he knew he was lying to himself again, and
the contradiction of that sentiment and the worry and hurt he felt
over Scully made him feel lost again. 

Maybe Scully had been right when she'd told him that he loved her
too much, he thought sadly. That he was blinded by that love. Because
somewhere along the way he seemed to have misplaced something
important.

Himself. 

And he was just now getting himself back, getting to know how he
looked and felt without her again. 

He didn't know if it was a better or worse version of himself he was
looking at or not. It was just different. Solitary, like his life had
been before her. Familiar in that way and thus somehow comforting.
And he had to admit, begrudgingly, he liked that only he could alter
things about him now. He felt more in control than he had in a long
time, less accountable. 

He found an painful kind of peace in all of this, he realized, as
Chaco went around a bend, Bo padding along beside him. 

It was the feeling people settled on in grief, when they faced the
hard realization that they were going to have to rise every morning
and go about their lives without the person they'd lost, even though
they might be dying inside themselves. 

He'd come to this difficult conclusion. That his life would go on,
even without her in it, if that was what she continued to choose for
him. He couldn't fight her in this, though there was still a part of
him that wanted to. Badly. And in his pain he'd somehow become
resigned to this new life, though his memory of the one he'd had with
her, his love for her, still throbbed in him like the phantom of a
limb taken away. 

He would bear that pain and go on, he told himself harshly, his eyes
flinty as he watched the trail ahead of him. 

Even if it meant turning in on himself, pulling in like an animal
going into its shell. 

He could feel himself hardening inside even as he thought of it all,
and the feeling dulled the pain. 

Beside him, Bo whined and sat down on the trail, panting heavily.
Mulder pulled up the horse, looked down at him. The dog was tiring,
he could tell, though he hadn't exactly invited Bo along for this
ride in the first place. 

"You ready to head back, Bo?" he called down, and the dog looked up
at him, his long pink tongue wagging out of his mouth as his tail
thumped the ground, still a bit uncertainly. Bo whined again softly. 

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Mulder said, and smiled slightly, then
turned the horse around awkwardly and headed back towards Victor's
house, barely visible in the distance. 


********


2679 RANDOLPH AVENUE 
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA 
APRIL 7 
9:14 a.m.


Nancy Rand looked carefully at the picture of Mulder Skinner had
handed her, her other hand at her waist, toying with the black belt
she wore knotted there around her karate uniform, or gi. She was
shaking her head but had yet to speak, which Skinner was taking as a
promising sign. 

Around him, the karate class continued without her, another black
belt having taken over when he arrived to question her. Around him,
students went through drills, some off to the sides practicing forms,
other sparring wearing helmets and pads on their feet and hands. 

He'd come in casual clothes so as not to draw too much attention to
himself, trying to blend in with the students of various ages
peppered throughout the room. He could be a prospective student
himself, just in the dojo to sign up for classes. That was exactly
the way he'd wanted to look. 

He noticed, though, that he was still getting some odd, territorial
looks from the people around him. Clearly they weren't used to new
people coming in very often. It made him shift uncomfortably as he
waited for Rand's verdict. 

She started to hand the picture back to him, then looked at it one
more time. Skinner's stomach tightened. 

"He was waiting for a plane," she said, and now she nodded. "Yes, I
remember him now. My last week of work. We almost called Security on
him -- he was showing all the classic signs of someone up to
something." She looked at Skinner as he cocked an eyebrow in
confusion. "You know...standing around the gate with big carry-ons
and not boarding right away, watching everyone who got on the plane.
He looked really anxious about something."

"But you didn't call Security?" Skinner asked. He almost hoped she
had -- more witnesses. But she shook her head. 

"No, I went up to him right before we were about to close the doors
and asked him if he was getting on, and he said he wasn't. Picked up
the bags and left. We were all really relieved when he left." 

She handed the picture back now, her hands going to her trim hips
beneath the thick black fabric of the gi. She looked eager to get
back to what she was doing, restless. 

Skinner nodded, finally breathing normally again. It all jived.
Mulder with his things packed up waiting for Scully to board the
plane bound for Boston, for her to get clear of her cover. It was an
escape route she never got to take. 

Behind him, a woman was breaking boards held by other students, the
cracking startling him back into the present. 

He cleared his throat. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your
attention to this, Ms. Rand," he said, tucking the picture back in
his pocket. He pulled out a small notepad and a pen, proffering them
to her. "I wonder if you might take the time to write down everything
you just told me, for my records." 

Rand pushed her blonde hair back from her face where it had fallen a
bit from a loose French braid in the back. "What's he wanted for,
anyway?" she asked, though she took the pen and pad. "*Should* we
have called Security?" 

Skinner shook his head. "No, no. You did the right thing. I'm afraid
I'm not at liberty to say what the investigation is about, though."
He looked at her, forced a small smile. "But you've been a huge
help." 

She shrugged, smiling shyly. "No problem," she said, and went to the
counter at the front of the dojo to write down what she'd seen,
Skinner following behind her. 


Thirty minutes later, Skinner was back in traffic, his suit swinging
on its hanger in the back seat as he wove his way through the mass of
cars heading into the city. 

He hated that it was too late now to call Granger without getting
him at the CIA, which they'd decided was a bad idea. 

But they had proof now. Facts that disproved the two most damning
pieces of Padden's circumstantial evidence against Mulder. Between
that and Scully's testimony about what really happened in Mae
Curran's apartment (which he could take down over the phone from her
for now), they should be able to put enough doubt into these charges
to put footprints on Padden's head and go to Ashcroft. Then he and
Granger would put this thing to rest and get Mulder and Scully in --
and Scully into his OWN Protective Custody -- as soon as he could. 

Something in him unwound a bit as he drove back toward the city, as
he felt some kind of control over this for the first time. 

But he didn't let it go all the way. 

After all, this was Mulder, he reminded himself. 

And that meant nothing was as easy as it might seem. 


*********

LAKE OAHE 
NEAR FAITH, SOUTH DAKOTA 
2:25 p.m.


Jimmy Shea remembered the pub, the dark corner made of dark wood,
smoke from three or four pipes catching in the bowl of the light
above the table like aromatic webs. The faces around the circle of
light were grim, the pints in front of the men all, for the most
part, untouched. 

"What the bloody hell are we going to do about this then?" Pauly
Connell said, tapping his tobacco out into the large tray at the
table's center. He immediately reached into his pocket and loaded the
thing again, pressing it down with his thumb over and over, worrying
over it. 

"I don't know what can be done," Shea replied, his own pipe in his
mouth. It made him feel older than his 36 years in the crowd of older
men. "You all know James Curran as well as I do. He *will* keep this
hunger strike up. He'll starve himself to death without even thinking
about it if it'll draw attention to the work."

"Aye, that's so," Seamus agreed, nodding sagely. Shea watched him
carefully, looking to him for some sort of solution, since the man
was a Brigade Leader and could do something if anyone could. 

"And no chance of getting him out of there?" Paddy -- young and
stupid -- asked, and everyone shook their heads. 

"That would be daft," Pauly said. 

Seamus leaned forward, deep in thought. "We need to do something to
show that we're with him, though. We'll make them pay for how he's
paying." He turned to the other men. "I say a strike at the bastards
in every county. At the police. The ones who brought him in in the
first place." 

There were general nods of agreement around the table, though Shea
was, himself, a bit shocked at the notion. An operation of that scale
would take every man they had. And probably a few they didn't. 

"You sure that won't just make things worse for him?" Shea offered,
tapping out his own pipe. He said it casually, so as to appear to
assent but just be curious. 

"What more can the bastards do to him that he's not already doing to
himself?" Paddy asked, and the other men grunted their assent. "He
can't even lay down on his back anymore, I hear, because his bones
cut into his skin. And he should see that we're behind him, even if
this comes out for the worst." The men grunted again. 

"All right," Shea said, nodding now. 

Seamus looked around the table. "I'll get with the other Brigade
Leaders and we'll come up with a time for us to strike, ways in, then-
-"

"How can I help then?" a small voice piped up from in front of the
table. Everyone's eyes turned toward the sound, including Shea's. His
eyes widened.

Owen Curran, all of ten years old but dressed like a man, stood at
the head of the table, looking at the men solemnly. His eyes were
cold blue, staring. His voice had been flat as the dead calm sea. 

"Owen, you should be home with your mother," Paddy said gently. "And
what are you doing standing there listening to men's talk, eh?" 

"You're talking about my dad," the boy said. "What you're going to
do about my dad." 

"Go home, Owen," Seamus said softly. "This is work for men now, not
boys." 

Shea watched Owen chafe, his small chest rising and falling. "I know
how to make things. I can listen and know things without being
noticed because everyone thinks I'm just a boy. I can get into places
none of you can get in. I can help you." 

The table just stared for a long few seconds. They'd used children
before for small errands, but this... Shea wanted to shake his head
but didn't. After all, the boy was losing his father in this. There
would be no saving James Curran now, not with the hunger strike on
for this long and things having gone as far as they had. 

Maybe it would make James' death easier on the boy if he felt like
he was doing something about what was happening...

Shea looked to Seamus, who was looking at Owen. 

"All right, Owen," Seamus said finally. "You come back around to my
house tomorrow after you're done with school and I'll find something
for you to do for me. How's that then?" 

Owen nodded, meeting the eyes of the men around the table, unafraid. 

"Yes, sir," he said softly, and he pulled on his small cap and
turned and was gone. 


Jimmy Shea was thinking all this as he watched the tiny trout spin
in the sunlight from the almost invisible line, its tail curling a
bit, its gills flooded and crisp with blood. It was still struggling
now and again, though he had no idea how long he'd been looking at
it, lost in his thoughts. 

He'd hooked it through the eye, he realized, struck back into the
present, and he carefully worked the hook out of the foil orb, being
as careful as he could with the fish, which was too small to keep
even if he'd been inclined to do so. He wasn't catching to eat today,
the motel he'd found without a kitchen. He was just catching to
catch. 

There was a crackling as the hook popped loose and he worked it out
the gaping mouth, holding the fish by the lip. There was a trickle of
blood on his thumb, and he tossed the fish back into the water,
rinsed the blood quickly in the lake as though the blood had burned
him. 

From his pocket, his cell phone began to chirp, and he dried his
hands on his pants quickly as he reached for it, hit the talk button. 

"Aye," he grunted into it. 

"Mr. Shea?" came Conail Rutherford's voice, crackling with static
from a spotty signal in the middle of the vast lake. 

"Aye," Shea repeated. "What do you have for me then, Conail?" 

"I've gotten a phone call," Rutherford replied. "A strange phone
call. Someone who's been putting our friend up here and there. He
told me where he might be going to next, if you want to catch up with
him there."

The ambiguity had become part of their conversations. Always talking
about friends meeting up. It made Shea sad every time Rutherford said
it, though he knew, of course, why he did. 

"All right then, where is it?" he said, still rubbing his hand
absently on his pants. 

"Alder Creek, Colorado," Rutherford replied. "Where are you now, if
you don't mind me asking?" 

"I'm in South Dakota," Shea replied, looking at the lovely blue-
green fir trees lining the banks of the deep blue lake. "Not too far
away. I'll just finish up an hour of fishing here and then I'll be on
my way." 

"That's fine," the younger man replied. "Take your time. It looks
like this man who called...he's interested in the same thing we are,
it seems. Said he'd keep in touch." 

Shea nodded. "That's good then," he said quietly, distracted. "Call
me in a few days. I'll be there. Sooner if you know anything else." 

"Aye, that I'll do," Rutherford said. "Travel safe, Mr. Shea." 

"Will do," he replied, and hung up, tucking the phone back in his
pocket. 

He looked out over the lake, a sudden wind rippling the lake into
waves that turned the boat with its small hands. 

He should be happier with the news, he knew. But he couldn't muster
it. Only when he thought of Ruby, being back home with her, was he
cheered, though just a bit. 

Sighing, feeling all his sixty-plus years settling over him, he
turned to the outboard, pulled on it roughly and it coughed to life,
sputtering. Then he angled the boat against the wind, heading back up
the lake. 


**********


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
NAVAJO RESERVATION 
5:34 p.m.


The path to Albert Hosteen's house was going a burnished bronze as
the sun set over the desert, the clouds that had persisted all day
gathering on the horizon and surrounding the last of the sunlight
like hands. 

Scully was half asleep on Ghost's back, lulled by the horse's slow
gait as he made his way toward his home. Her head lolled forward and
she snapped awake just as they reached the back of the house. She
could see Hosteen looking at her through the back window, and raised
her hand in greeting, coming more awake. 

She came around the house, stopped Ghost at the front porch and
dismounted, landing on both feet in the dust, stretching her stiff
back. 

She was pulling the reins over Ghost's head to hitch him to the
porch post when the screen door creaked open and Hosteen came out,
his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, a flannel shirt hanging
on his thin frame. His long silver hair was in a ponytail at his
neck, and there was a small, knowing smile on his face. 

She finished tying the horse up and turned, regarding Hosteen and
returning the smile. 

"How was your trip, Agent Scully?" he asked, his voice quiet. She
could hear the television mumbling to itself inside the screen door,
and smelled fry bread cooking. It was a smell she knew she would
forever associate with this time in her life, this man. It comforted
her that much. 

"It was good," she replied, looking down shyly. "It was very good." 

"Hm," he said, nodding. "Did you find what you were looking for,
what you needed, while you were there?"

She hesitated, felt her eyes brimming with tears suddenly, fatigue
and the emotions of the past three days welling in her suddenly. She
looked away, her hands on her hips as she pulled in a calming breath.
Her head bobbed once. 

"Yes," she said, keeping her voice steady. "Yes. I found what I
needed." 

Now she did look at him, into his eyes, which caught the light from
the porch and held it like starlight. 

"All but one thing," she added just above a whisper. 

Hosteen walked to the edge of the porch, standing before her,
looking down into her face. She didn't flinch from his gaze, from the
way he studied her, smiling as though he was pleased with what he
found. She smiled back, reached out tentatively and touched his
forearm. 

"Hm," he said again. "Well, then come in and have some dinner, have
a shower." 

He paused, and his hand reached out to cover hers on his arm. 

"Then go to him." 

She nodded, and now the tears did come. She closed her eyes. 

"Thank you," she breathed, her voice escaping her. 

He only nodded in return, and, stepping back, he held the door for
her and led her into the house. 


**

6:48 p.m.


Mulder sat on one side of the ancient brown couch, the fuzzy
reception of "The Andy Griffith Show," the only show that would come
in, scattering the room with its flickering white. There was a lamp
on beside him, throwing light on the 1953 National Geographic he was
flipping through. He turned the pages slowly, looking at the pictures
and breathing in the smell of old books and dust. 

He turned to look at Bo beside him on the couch, who was sprawled on
the other cushion, his long legs crossed as they hung over the edge.
He was lying on a battered towel Mulder had found at the bottom of
the linen closet, his head resting on the arm of the couch's arm. The
dog's eyes were half-closed, his breathing slow. 

Mulder reached over and touched Bo's flank, gave him a pat. Ever
since the visit with the vet the other day, since the long walk in
the desert with him yesterday, Bo had seemed to be under the weather,
lethargic and not quite as interested in eating as he'd been before. 

Mulder was worried about him all day, and thought there'd be no harm
in letting him in the house since Bo had come to the door wanting in.
Mulder had had to lift him up onto the cushion, though, when he put
the towel down, afraid Bo's sores would stain the fabric. 

Not that it mattered, he thought ruefully. The couch was already
covered with cigarette burns, and must have been older than he was,
or close to it. But he was still mindful of being a guest in this
house, dilapidated as it was. 

It was beginning to feel homey in its disrepair and its relative
silence. 

He kept his hand on Bo's rump as he turned the page with his other
hand, put his ankle up on his knee as he sunk further into the
cushion. He sighed and looked at the picture on the next page.

Ah, the naked Pygmies from his youth... 

It almost teased a smile from him. Almost. 

There was a knock at the door, faint. Had the sound on the
television been up any higher, he probably wouldn't have heard it at
all. 

He glanced at his watch, wondering what Victor could want at this
time of night, the horses all in the corral for the evening, the
sheep in their pen. Wind creaked against the plexiglass windows,
signalling a storm coming up. 

Maybe Victor wanted help putting the horses in the stable, in case
the storm got too bad. The lightning out here was the fiercest he'd
ever seen. 

He rose, tossed the magazine onto the couch, retucking his white t-
shirt into his jeans in the back as he headed for the door. Bo opened
his eyes and followed Mulder with them, though he didn't move beyond
that, Mulder noted. Not even for the knock. 

He must really be feeling badly, Mulder thought as he watched Bo,
still going toward the door. The dog wasn't even spooked at the
prospect of someone outside coming in.

Mulder reached the door and flung it open, thinking to ask Victor
about Bo's state -- 

And was confronted by Scully standing there on the other side of the
screen door in the yellow porchlight. The light gleamed on her still-
wet hair, threw a gold glow on her long-sleeved shirt. She had her
hands on her thin hips and was looking at him uncertainly, her eyes
on his face. 

His heart finally started beating again after a few seconds and he
regained his composure from the gape he had frozen into on seeing
her. 

Now he found himself looking away. He could feel a flush rising
beneath his beard. 

"Hi." She said the word softly, sounding almost a little afraid. 

"Hi," he replied, and it came out stiff. He was looking down at her
booted feet, over her shoulder. Anywhere but her face and into those
eyes.

There was an awkward moment of silence. A dog barked somewhere off
in the distance. The screen door still separated them, and he made no
move to open it. 

He chanced a look at her face. She was still trying to get him to
meet her eyes. 

"Is there anything wrong?" he asked, unable to bear the silence any
longer. 

She shook her head. "No, no," she said, her voice still quiet.
"There's nothing wrong." 

"That's good," he replied hurriedly, nodding. He glanced at her face
again, this time for a few seconds longer. "You look tired." 

She smiled slightly. "I've been out...camping for a few days," she
said. "Not the most comfortable sleeping conditions." 

"Camping," he repeated, nodding again, looking down. "Good. That's
good. Did you have fun?"

She shook her head. "No." 

The word stilled him and he did look up into her face now. Her eyes
were sad and tender and pleading all at once, and he didn't know what
to do with any of it. 

"Oh," was all he could think to say. "I'm sorry." 

She shifted from one foot to the other, shaking her head. "No, don't
be sorry," she said, and he could hear frustration seeping into her
tone now. "I just...I was just wondering..."

She paused, and it was her turn to stare down. He watched her,
something in him growing inexplicably afraid as she struggled for
words. 

"You were wondering what?" he asked, trying to sound casual. He
failed. 

"I was wondering if I could talk to you," she said finally, and her
eyes met his again. He wondered if his expression gave away his
nervousness. 

She took a step closer to the door, put her hand on the screen, her
fingers brushing against it. He saw her swallow and realized she was
as nervous as he was. 

"Can I come in, Mulder?" 

He hesitated, taking a step away from the door, from her hand on the
screen. 

He tried to remember what he'd felt yesterday out in the desert, his
resolve at having himself back, at being all right with being alone
and unaccountable. Emotions tinged with bitterness and anger and a
strange sort of power. 

The feelings reared in him, very real, but even as they did so, he
recognized them as the defense that they were, thrown up to cover his
nervousness and his fear. 

Fear of her. Of being hurt by her. 

He didn't think he could bear it again. 

It was an admission to himself that made his eyes burn with tears,
which he blinked back. He hadn't realized he was still this raw. He'd
felt so numb for so long now, so closed.

But here she was, opening him with her small hands again.

He almost resented how easily she could do it.

"Mulder, please," she murmured, and the pleading was in her voice
and her eyes now. "Please let me just talk to you." 

He balked for another few seconds, waiting until the emotions were
back under some semblance of control. Then he met her eyes, nearly
getting lost in their familiar blue, and knew there was only one
thing he could do. 

He reached for the door handle, and she stepped back as he pushed it
open and held it for her. He could not bring himself to speak,
however, not trusting his words or his voice.

He could see the sadness come over her face at his silence. But she
nodded, angled her head in thanks, and walked through the doorway and
into the living room beyond. 

He stood still for a moment, his eyes down. Then he finally let go
of the door, turned, and closed the wooden one behind him. 


**********

END OF CHAPTER 16. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 17. 


Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 17. 

**********

6:58 p.m.


Scully stood in the space between the kitchen and the living room,
her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Her heart was pounding and she
drew in a deep breath, let it go, calming herself as best she could. 

It's still Mulder, she reminded herself. It's just Mulder.

The thought didn't comfort her much. She didn't know anything about
how he was, how he felt. She didn't know what he thought of her, or
how much anger he might have at the things she had done to drive him
away. 

She wondered just how far away he'd gone in the time since the fight
in the motel, since she'd struck him, cursed at him. 

The distance was definitely there. She could feel it. It was like
they were looking at each other from two islands, each stranded on
their separate shores.

"Can I get you something?" Mulder asked, coming up behind her and
then going for the kitchen. "I have some coffee that's still warm,
fairly fresh..." He trailed off as he lifted the percolator from the
stove, as if to prove he was telling the truth. 

She didn't want coffee, but she nodded nevertheless. "Sure. Coffee
would be nice. Thank you." 

He nodded, his eyes still darting away from her as fast as
frightened birds. It pained her to see that he could not look at her
for more than a few seconds before he had to turn away. 

She watched him for a moment as he went into the cabinet, pulling
down a dingy looking mug, its bone-white surface battered. He poured
the coffee, went to the fridge and took out the milk and a small bag
of Domino sugar. 

She took a small comfort in the fact that he remembered how she took
her coffee. A ghost of their previous life.

She looked around the living room, the television's picture barely
visible through the static, Andy playing the guitar and humming on
the porch through the hiss. There was only one light on, a lamp by
the couch that faced the television. There was a stack of National
Geographics on the coffee table, Mulder's own coffee mug beside it,
which didn't match the one he was presently filling for her. 

The place was warm and dark and cave-like. Neatly kept, which
surprised her. He rarely kept his own apartment clean. She wondered
why he did here. 

She took a step toward the back of the couch and saw legs splayed
out from one of the cushions. Leaning over the back, she found
herself looking into the face of a terribly thin black dog. She
winced as she looked at the sores on its visible side, the starkness
of its ribs. 

"Hey," she murmured, and reached down to pet its head, finding it
surprisingly soft considering the state of the rest of the dog's
body. The dog whined faintly as she did so, nervous eyes the color of
oil blinking up at her. 

"Where'd you get the dog?" she asked, continuing to stroke the
animal's head, smoothing back its ear. 

"He sort of found me," Mulder replied, and finished stirring her
coffee. "His name's Bo. This is his first night in the house. I don't
think he's feeling very well." 

Scully walked around the couch now, moved the coffee table back a
little so she could get to the dog more easily. She checked him over,
feeling his head and ears more carefully. The dog pushed further into
the couch, turning his head away from her.

"It's okay," she said softly, and the dog whined again. 

Mulder came forward from the kitchen, around the couch. He kept his
distance from her, though, she noticed. 

She pulled on the dog's neck, watched the skin slowly fall back into
place. 

"He's a little dehydrated, for starters," she said, then checked the
sores. They seemed to be all right, most of them closed over and
healing. "He needs a vet, though."

"He's seen one," Mulder replied, his voice still nervous. "A couple
of days ago. He got a bunch of shots."

Scully glanced at him, then down at the dog. "That's probably all it
is, then, if the vet didn't find anything serious," she said.
"Sometimes they can have a reaction to the medications. Especially if
they're already weak, and he clearly is." 

"That's good to know, that it's just the shots," Mulder said as she
stood, still regarding the dog, sprawled on his towel as though
someone had dropped him there. 

"He's got a bowl of water in the kitchen," he continued. "He's been
drinking some. Maybe he'll be okay in the morning." 

Scully nodded. "I'll check him tomorrow for you, if you'd like." 

Mulder looked uncomfortable, but nodded, as well. "Okay...thanks." 

Bo took one final look at her, still unmoving, then closed his eyes
and exhaled a deep breath, falling asleep. 

Mulder shifted from one foot to the other as she turned her
attention from the dog to him. He offered her the coffee and she took
it. 

"Thanks," she said quietly. Mulder picked up his own cup, and they
regarded each other for an awkward beat. 

"So..." Mulder said, gesturing to a chair beside the couch. She
moved toward it and sat, and he took the empty side of the couch,
sitting on the very edge. She did the same in the chair. "What did
you want to talk to me about?" 

She looked down into the milky surface of coffee, hesitated. Her bad
hand trembled it into ripples. Then she glanced up at him, and he was
looking at her solemnly. He took a sip of his coffee, half his face
lit by the lamp on the end table. 

She smiled, embarrassed, and shook her head. "I don't know where to
start," she admitted faintly, looking down. 

Silence hung between them again, wind pushing on the windows,
creaking the trailer. 

"Tell me...tell me how you are," she said quietly, returning her
gaze to his face. His expression was unreadable, as though he'd put
on a mask. 

"Me? I'm great for a guy that's been thrown off half the horses in
Victor Hosteen's corral." He turned the coffee mug around in his
hands, took a sip. Then he looked up at her again. "How are you
doing?" His voice sounded far away.

She cringed inwardly. He had shut himself off from her so much. It
hurt her to feel it, even though she knew that she was the one who
had caused him to do it. She hated knowing that. 

"I'm doing much better," she replied. "I've had a lot of time to
think."

He nodded. "I'm glad you're doing better," he said, and some warmth
leaked into his voice. He cleared his throat. "I've been...worried
about you. You know, wondering how you were." 

"I've been worried about you, too," she replied earnestly, sensing a
tiny space in his considerable armor. 

"I'm fine," he said flatly, sipping his coffee again. He said it
with a note of finality, as though he didn't want to talk about it
anymore. It verged on defensive.

"Mulder, I'm..." Emotion rose in her and she struggled to stifle it.
"I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. For what I did and said before.
I was just--"

"You don't need to apologize," he interrupted. "I understand." 

Again, that firm tone. Almost dismissive. 

"No, I *do* need to apologize," she persisted, treading carefully.
"I should never have treated you like that. Not given how much I--"

"It's okay, Scully," he interrupted again, and stood now, going into
the kitchen. 

She watched him go, feeling tears climbing behind her eyes. She
pushed them down. 

He poured some more coffee from the pot, draining it. He set it down
a little too hard on the burner, making a loud clap of metal on
metal. He stayed beside the kitchen sink, his eyes down. 

"Mulder, please don't walk away from me," she murmured into the
quiet. 

He turned his face to her and stared. She withered a bit under it.

"I know...I know you're angry with me," she stammered. "You'd have
to be."

"I'm not angry with you, Scully," he said, monotone. "You've been
through a lot. How could I be angry at you knowing that?" 

"What I've been through doesn't give me the right to do what I did
to you." She said it softly, meeting his eyes. 

She could see his jaw working from here, the tense line of his
mouth. He put the coffee cup down carefully, leaned against the sink,
facing her, his arms crossed. 

"What do you want from me, Scully?" he asked, and the question took
her off guard. 

"I..." She looked down, unable to meet his hard gaze. "I guess
that...even though I know why I did what I did to you, that it was
necessary on some level, that I want you to forgive me for it." She
shrugged as she said it, her voice growing very faint at the last. 

A flash of lightning popped at the window like a flashbulb going off. 

"You're forgiven," he said, unmoving. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

She looked at him. "And I came here to ask you to give me another
chance." 

"Another chance at what?" he snapped. It was there now. The anger
was coming. 

"To give *us* another chance," she said softly. 

"There is no *us* anymore, Scully," he said. "There's just me and
there's just you." 

"Please don't say that." She looked down at her hands, feeling the
frustrated tears rim her eyes at last.

"You know, I've had a lot of time to think, too, Scully," he
continued, the words coming hard from him, his volume rising. "And
I've realized something myself. You were right when you said I loved
you too much, that I was blinded by it. I *lost* myself when I was
with you. I forgot who I was. And I've finally gotten myself back and
I'm not going to go back to that again. Not for ANYTHING." 

His anger was so roiling now, his face like stone, his jaw pulsing.
He leaned away from the counter and had it not been his place, she
might have been afraid he would leave. 

"I said that to hurt you," she said, trying to keep her voice steady
in the face of his rage. "Mulder, you have to know that. I'm sorry I
did it, but that's why I did. And I didn't believe that was true when
I said it, and I don't believe it now. If you'll think about what we
had before all this happened, you'll know that it's not true, too." 

She paused, looking at him intensely. "I would have said anything to
drive you away because of the pain I was in. It was never really
about you, Mulder. Please try to understand that. But I hurt you
terribly, I know. I'm so sorry for that--" 

"Stop saying you're fucking sorry!" he roared, stunning her. 

Another flash of lightning, and Mulder spun, picking up the coffee
mug in a fist. Then it was out of his hand, flung at the wooden door
where it crashed, sending a dark splash across the door's white
surface as the pieces tumbled to the floor.

The dog bolted upright, his ears down. Then he jumped off the couch
and scurried, almost on his belly, behind the television, wedging
himself against the wall. Thunder rolled again, and rain began to
spatter the windows.

Scully looked at Mulder in surprise, covered her mouth with her
trembling hand. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen now, the
heels of his hands dug into his eyes. She could see his chest rising
and falling as though he'd been trapped in a box with no air and had
just now gotten out. 

"Mulder..." She rose, set her cup down, and went to him, anguished.
She bit her lip, tears coming fast now as she stood before him. She
murmured his name again. 

"Go away," he whispered. "Please get away from me."

"No," she replied, and her voice shook. "I'm not going to go away.
Not like this. I love you too much." 

"Don't say that," he pleaded, his hands still over his eyes. His
chest lurched on a sob. 

She reached up and gripped his wrists. He resisted her gentle tug,
and she drew them down more firmly until she revealed his eyes,
clenched closed, his long lashes wet with tears. 

"Don't..." he said, hoarse. "Leave me alone, Scully."

She took a step closer, let go of one of his hands so she could hold
the side of his face. Her hand trembled against him, her thumb
brushing at the tears. 

"I *am* sorry, Mulder," she murmured, her voice tender but sure. "I
was protecting myself. Protecting you, I thought. I was wrong. Let me
help you now..." 

She leaned forward, not knowing any other way to prove what she was
saying to him. So she pulled his face down gently and brushed her
lips to his cheek. When he didn't pull away, she went to his throat,
tracing his skin with her mouth. She pressed a kiss to his forehead,
feeling a tremor beginning to course through his tensed body. 

Finally, she moved to his lips, touching her open mouth to his. 

She felt something give in him with that, as though he'd been
carrying something impossibly heavy and had finally set it down. 

He pulled his arm away from her, shook his head against the emotions
she could feel storming from him, the last of his resistance falling
away. 

His arms opened and she was suddenly in them as he nearly crushed
her against his chest. 

Her arms went around his neck, pulling his face onto her shoulder.
He wept openly now, his body shaking with it. She cried with him, her
hands stroking his hair, her lips on the side of his throat. 

"Just let it go..." she murmured to him. 

She lost her sense of how long they stayed together like that, the
only sounds their hitched breathing and quiet cries. 

Then a crack of lightning, and this time the lamp and the television
went off, the room awash in darkness. The trailer creaked again in
the wind, rain clambering on the window beside them. 

There in the darkness he pulled back slowly from her, loosening his
grip, his hands going to either side of her head, sliding through her
damp hair. He rubbed his coarse cheek against hers, his lips grazing
her closed eyes and the tears there. She pulled in a breath as he
kissed her forehead, the skin beneath her eye, then finally her lips. 

The kiss was not careful or gentle. It had the pull of a drowning
man in it. She leaned her head back as he pressed into her, his mouth
opening and hers with it. She teased his tongue with hers, surprising
herself with her need to touch him like that. He responded
immediately, stroking the inside of her mouth. She made a soft sound
in her throat like a faint moan. 

Then she couldn't breathe, a panicky feeling passing over her. She
pulled back from his lips but held his face close to hers, their
labored breathing mingling, tears still coming from both of them. 

"You okay?" He held her face between his hands, his thumbs smoothing
her tears over her skin. 

She nodded. "We just need to slow down a little...we have to go slow."

"We don't have to do anything at all," he murmured, his voice still
shaking. He started to pull away. 

"No," she said, holding his forehead to hers. "I want to feel this.
I want to feel everything." She whispered the last word against his
mouth before she kissed him again, soft, searching. "Even the things
that make me afraid."

He shook his head. "I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you," she said with conviction, and she released
him, stepped back and took his hand.

"Show me the way," she said, and he hesitated. She saw the doubt in
him as a flash of lightning flickered, illuminating his face for a
few seconds. 

"Please," she said, giving his hand a squeeze. 

After a moment he squeezed back. She could hear him let out a slow
breath, and knew he was gathering himself, calming.

Then he turned and led her down the hallway through the darkness.

 

His voice is my voice.

She thinks this in this dream-like world where they are twined,
curled into each other. 

Breathless words, half spoken in the language of sheets:

Here?

His voice in her ear, then his mouth on hers, searching. Careful.

Yes there...

Kiss after kiss, soft as rain. 

His hands on her breasts, rough thumbs grazing her nipples. His
tongue, warm and smooth, on them, his beard teasing the soft skin. 

More...

Her voice stretches to a whisper with her need. His dark eyes answer
from above her, saying yes. 

Hands moving down her belly, between her legs. She opens herself to
him as best she can, a hand gripping his arm.

Beautiful...

She smiles at the word. Time holds still.

Then his body on hers, the slow slope of his back her hands follow
down, her leg pulled up to his waist. 

Press of weight. Her fingers curling. 

A gasp, her face turning away as he fills her, her body taut,
resisting. 

Shh...Relax...

His words like anchors, her, a small boat on a storm-tossed sea.

Please, Mulder...

Tell me...

No, don't stop...

Then the pleasure is there, beginning, mingled with tears she can't
stop. 

Shhh...it's all right. You're all right, Scully...

The quick rise and fall of his chest, her heart beating like a
bird's, a strand of hair catching in the corner of her mouth as she
turns her head, her eyes on his. 

His hands on either side of her, his body moving, rhythmic, growing
faster. His lip caught between his teeth, brow creasing, an
expression like pain. 

A pressure building in her, flush of heat, spreading like water
through her belly.

Mulder...coming...

Yes...

I can't...

Yes, you can...

And a burst of light, her eyes closing against it, her mouth on his
shoulder, teeth bearing down as wave after wave washes over her and
she struggles to breath beneath them. 

A moan wrenches from him.

He shudders in a rush of warmth. In a cry. 

Then he is beside her, their foreheads pressing together. They relax
into sweat. His fingers brush at her tears, gathering them. 

Her hands in his hair, smoothing the wet hair at his temples.

His body, a harbor of light.

....love...

Love you...

The rain outside continues to fall, the storm raging, all of it
feeling very far away. 

Their pleasure ebbs between them like a tide, his lips on her damp
hair, her face against his throat. 

She finally drifts into sleep against him, her last thought that,
despite everything...

We made this. 


*****

APRIL 7 
5:40 a.m.


Mulder lay awake on his side, propped on one elbow, the sky going
from black to a brighter blue-grey and beginning to illuminate the
room around him, the last of the night falling away. 

Scully lay beside him, facing him, deep in sleep. Her right hand
held the covers up close to her bare chest; the left reached across
the scant space between them, her fingers curled against his belly,
the hand and arm trembling faintly even in her sleep. 

Her hair spread out behind her, red across the pillow, her eyes
shifting beneath her closed lids as she journeyed in the midst of a
dream. 

He felt like a Christmas child looking at her in his bed again, a
small smile on his face, his head turning to get a better look at her
features. 

He reached out and fingered a strand of hair that had fallen across
her face, stroking it back, smoothing her hair down and brushing her
temple with his fingers. He worried about her dreaming, memories of
the nightmares overtaking her burned into his mind. 

Since he'd awoke, she'd made one small sound, a troubled sighing, so
he kept his vigil over her as the dawn spread out around them. 

Then, a knocking at the door, loud and insistent. 

Victor...

Mulder carefully climbed over her from his place against the wall,
trying to disturb her as little as possible as he made his way to the
floor. Scully moaned softly at the movement, but did not awaken. 

Once he got his feet over the side, Mulder nearly tripped over Bo,
who had taken up a place at the side of the bed in the night. Bo
opened his eyes and watched Mulder loot through the strewn clothes
for his grey boxers, the dog's tail thumping lightly on the floor.
Mulder smiled, stepped into his boxers and reached down to stroke
Bo's head gently, then headed for the hallway before Victor could
knock again. 

The screen door was opening as Victor prepared to bang another time,
and Mulder opened the door quickly, shards of the shattered mug
pushing with it on the floor. Victor was holding the screen door and
his hand was in the air in front of Mulder's chest in mid-knock. 

"You're late *again*!" he exclaimed, and Mulder cringed at his
volume. 

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Victor," he said quickly, keeping his own voice
quiet, hoping Victor would follow suit. 

Victor stared at him, at his hair, which Mulder knew must look a
sight after a night of alternately sweating and sleeping, and at his
red-rimmed eyes. And he was standing there in his underwear, as
well....

"What the hell happened to you, man?" Victor laughed, banging him on
the arm. "You look like you just got laid or something!" 

Mulder grimaced, and he blushed from his mid-chest up. He put a
finger over his lips, smiled an embarrassed smile. 

Victor stilled, glanced over Mulder's shoulder, then back at his
face. His smile melted away and he cringed. 

"Oh," he said, and the new look on his face matched Mulder's. "Guess
you get the day off, for sure," he said, and his voice was quiet now. 

"I'm sorry," Mulder said again. "I know with the storm you must need
some clean-up help, but I--"

"No, no," Victor said. "It's fine. It's all good. You can help me
later today if you get the chance." He grinned, winked. "Or not."

Mulder reached out and grabbed hold of the screen door, shaking his
head, but he was smiling. "Am-scray," he said softly, and Victor
chuckled, put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, and backed away
as Mulder closed both the doors. 

He turned and went back down the hallway to the spare bedroom where
Scully lay, the room with the full-sized bed Mulder had avoided all
this time because he couldn't stand to sleep in a bed with one side
empty. 

He turned the corner and stood in the doorway, stilled. 

Scully was on her back now, her arms thrown over her face to cover
her eyes, the sheet slipped down to her waist. A beam of light fell
through the gap in the curtains from over the bed, splashing onto her
breasts, the creamy white of her belly. 

Mulder stared for several long seconds, captivated. 

He smiled as he made his way to the bed, touching Bo's head again,
who was now sprawled in the pile of clothes. Then Mulder sat on the
edge of the bed slowly, carefully, put an arm over her, his hip
barely touching hers. 

He wanted to press a kiss between her breasts, wake her that way,
his mouth moving over her skin...

Then something caught his eye beside one of her breasts. 

A faint patch of red there, a chafe. He looked her over further and
noted another on her shoulder near her throat, a spot of red beneath
her jaw. 

He reached down and lifted the covers, saw more. A streak on her
smooth belly. Another half visible on the inside of her thigh. 

He cringed, shook his head ruefully. 

Oops.

He covered her up, and she turned fitfully, going back onto her
side, mumbling something. He touched her gently and stood, padding
silently out of the bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hall,
throwing on the light. 

His toiletries bag was there, gaping open like a mouth. A can of
shaving cream was on the counter, and he turned on the water,
splashed it onto his face, drenching his beard to the skin. Then,
taking a handful of foam, he worked it into the hair, rinsed his
hands and pulled out his razor and an entire pack of refill blades,
snug in their plastic holder. 

Wetting the blade, he lifted his chin and began to shave. 


A long time later, he was wiping his face with a towel, dabbing at
the dots of blood on his face. Around him on the sides of the sink,
the refill blades scattered, clogged with dark hair, whiskers all
over the porcelain surface. 

He wiped his face again, cleaning stray lines of white foam from
around his ears, his sideburns, the towel feeling almost too rough on
his overly sensitive skin. 

He looked at himself in the mirror.

A man he used to know stared back at him. 

A man he hadn't seen in a long long time. 

Mulder smiled to him. 

"Welcome back," he murmured to himself. "Welcome back." 


**

In the bedroom down the hallway, Scully dreamed.

She and Mulder at an airport, the gate crowded, choked with people,
all carrying tickets made of light. Mulder held one in his hand,
fumbling it as he pushed his black trench over his arm, lifting his
suitcase with his free hand. 

She looked at him, taking in his appearance as though she had never
seen him before and never would again. 

Black suit. Crisp white shirt. Black tie patterned with silk
outlines of birds in flight. His hair was shorter than she remembered
from the night before, no beard. The suit hung on him beautifully,
elegantly. 

A suit good enough to be buried in, some voice in her said darkly. 

She pushed the voice away, stared up Mulder, the crush of people all
around them. 

"Seats fifteen and higher may board," the attendant said, and Mulder
looked down at his ticket. 

"That's me," he said, and smiled at her. "Gotta move on, you know."

She looked down at herself. She was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt.
There was a gun on her hip and something warm in her hand. She looked
down at it.

A child stood there. A little girl holding her hand. At first she
thought it might be Emily, but this was not Emily. It was another
child. Dark hair, long and curled down her back. Eyes as blue as her
own, but deeper, almost navy, and shining. The girl smiled up at her. 

This is not my child, she thought in the dream, the part of her that
was trying to wake her from it reasoning with her, almost pleading. 

She looked back up at Mulder, who was still looking at her
expectantly. 

"Don't go," she said. She said it as warning. "We need to stay here,
Mulder. We need to go home."

"I have to go," he replied kindly. "You know that." He reached up
and touched her face with the hand that held the ticket. When he
touched her, his hand was colder than ice. The light from the ticket
all but blinded her.

She stepped back from him, terror coming over her, though at what
she couldn't say. As the ticket receded, her eyes widened, panicked
and disbelieving. 

"I'll see you," he said, and leaned in to kiss her quickly. He
gestured to the child. "Take care of her, all right?" 

She nodded mutely, frozen in place, and he took a step back, his
trench swinging as he turned and joined in with the line. 

Someone came forward and took his ticket, and he disappeared down
the dark tunnel of the gate. 


Her eyes shot open, her hand going out to the worn mattress beside
her. Sunlight beat in the window over the bed, and she shielded her
eyes, struggling to orient herself. 

"Mulder?" she called, the fear from the dream in her voice. 

She rolled over, sitting up, drawing the sheet up to cover her
chest. She looked around the room, at the battered dresser, its
drawers crooked as teeth, the cheap rug, the rumple of clothes on the
floor, on which the black dog from the night before was lying,
looking up at her warily. 

She leaned down and touched his head as if for reassurance that
something in the room was real. 

"Mulder?" she called again, and now she heard footsteps coming down
the hall toward her. 

He appeared in the doorway, a towel around his neck, his brow
creased. "I'm right here," he said quickly, coming toward the bed. 

She swallowed as he sat on the edge of it, looking into his face. 

"You...you shaved your beard," she murmured, her eyes still wide. 

He smiled, reached up to cradle the side of her throat, his thumb
rubbing on her cheek. 

"Yes," he said, his voice tender. "Some of us have sensitive skin." 

His hand dropped down, pushing the sheet down, a finger brushing
over the red spot beside her breast. Looking at the beard rash made
her smile, as well, though it was a nervous one. 

"You okay?" he asked, and she returned her eyes to his face. There
were a few dots of blood on his face, and she reached her hand out,
touching them with her fingers. 

She looked at her hand. At his blood on her hands. 

"Yeah," she said, trying her best to shake off the dream. "Yeah.
Just a bad dream. Nothing new about that." 

He nodded. "You want to talk about it?" he asked. 

Good enough to be buried in....

She shook her head, pulled in a deep breath. "No," she said. "Could
you...would you lie down with me again though?" She looked at him
almost shyly as she said it, feeling like the words were a great
concession. 

He simply smiled back at her. "Sure," he murmured, and tossed the
towel onto the floor, scooted over as she drew up her knees to give
him room. Then he slipped under the covers, lying back, pulling her
into his arms, urging her to curve her body against his. 

She put her cheek against his chest, an arm around his ribcage,
holding him tightly. Almost too tightly. 

He sensed it. "It's okay, Scully," he whispered gently. "It was a
dream." 

She nodded against him, turned her face into his chest and kissed
him there. He pressed his lips to the crown of her head, rubbing his
face in her hair, inhaling deeply. 

We need to go home...

Good enough to be buried in...

She thought about it, closing her eyes as she drew a calming breath.

"Mulder, I want to go home," she said finally, and felt him go
still. His breathing all but stopped for a long moment. 

"You must have an overwhelming desire to see me in a day-glo orange
jumpsuit behind three-inch glass," he quipped, stroking her hair. 

"No," she murmured, not rising to the joke. "I'm terrified of that,
in fact." 

He was quiet for a moment.

"Padden won't protect you, Scully," he said. "We've been over this.
Even Skinner says he won't. You're safer out here. We both are, until
Curran's caught or Skinner tells us otherwise." 

She leaned up, her chin on her forearm across his chest so she could
look into his face. "Mulder," she began quietly. "Do you
remember...when I had cancer...when I was in the hospital in
Pennsylvania." 

His face darkened, despite the dawn sun streaming on it. "Yes."

"Do you remember what you said to me in the hallway?" She didn't
wait for him to respond as he looked into her eyes. "You said: 'The
truth will save you. I think it will save both of us.'" 

"I remember." He swallowed. 

She pulled in a breath, let it out, gathering herself. 

"We're running from a lie," she said. "You and I know the truth. And
the truth will clear these charges against you. It will bring the
investigation out of Padden's control and allow Skinner to protect
me." 

She reached up, stroked his face, soft now, smooth. "It *will* save
both of us. And it's not out here where we are. It's back at home.
And that's where we should be, too." 

She inched forward, kissed his lips softly, bracing herself on her
hands on either side of his body. His hands went to her back, her
sides, his fingers brushing the sides of her breasts. 

"Just think about it," she whispered as they parted, and his hands
moved down her back, an urgency in his touch now that she recognized
as his warm, familiar desire.

"I will," he replied, and leaned up to kiss her again.


**********


END OF CHAPTER 17 AND PART 2. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 18 AND PART 3.