PART IV


*******

THE TRAILER
ALBERT HOSTEEN'S PROPERTY
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 3
6:32 p.m.


If she thought about it hard enough, she could remember exactly the way the sky looked 
the first night Hosteen had shown up, looking for all the world like an apparition coming 
through the near-dark, his horse named after an apparition walking almost silent in the 
space between the trailer and the house. If she tried to remember, she could feel the 
depth of the emptiness that had been in her then as she'd watched him come toward her, 
the bag of freshly cooked lasagna in an aluminum pan swinging from the horn of the 
saddle, the light in his eyes. 

That emptiness she'd felt in her then, as cold and complete as a cave's, was so different 
from the fullness she felt now, and it helped her not pursue the memories too hard this 
night. 

The sky was burning at the horizon, but it was turning that cobalt blue specked with stars 
she'd always associated with this place. That familiarity, Bo's warm chin and the feeling 
of Rose's foot pushing against her hand through the soft material of her shirt gave her a 
measure of comfort, something she'd been in short supply of as of late. 

As though knowing she would seek solace here, someone - probably Hosteen himself - 
had left a full stack of small logs and the fire pit full of kindling soaked in oil. She'd been 
able to build the pit up to a lovely, warm fire in a matter of a few minutes, the metal chair 
creaking as she leaned back in the chair, her hands folded between the mound of her belly 
and her fuller breasts for added warmth. Tiny dots of sparks climbed up toward the sky, 
and she followed them with her eyes. 

There it was again. The quiet pressure in her mind. Something pressing, a familiar and 
warm sensation. She closed her eyes and felt for a moment as though she could hear a 
voice in her mind. She could smell something, the scent of a hairline. She would know 
the smell anywhere. 

Something uncomfortable for a beat, a burst of distress--

She drew in a breath, her hand tightening on the bump of the foot beneath it.

The baby rolled inside her, and instantly the feeling ebbed, as though she'd been hearing a 
soft noise in the distance and it had drifted away.

She knew what she had felt, but she wouldn't even put it into order in her mind. She 
couldn't. She wouldn't. Not yet.

Bo looked up, sensing movement. A log fell in the fire pit, sending up the flurry of 
sparks, but it wasn't that he had heard. Somewhere she could hear footsteps. 

"Dana?" 

She relaxed immediately. She felt safe here at the Hosteen's, safer than she'd felt 
anywhere. She felt safer here with her back against this trailer, its hulking quiet shape, 
than she did anywhere on the property. But too much had happened not to be too careful. 

"I'm here, Mae," she called back, and then Mae emerged from the shadows that were 
gathering around the fire as the sun began to finally give way to the night. She was 
tucked into a barn jacket, brown, and jeans. Her long hair fell in its wild dark curls down 
over her shoulders and back, and looked as if the wind had been tussling with it as she'd 
walked. She was smoothing it down with her fingers as she came around the fire pit to 
the other chair on Scully's left. 

"I'm not intruding?" she asked, and Scully gave her a faint smile, appreciating the 
gesture. 

"No, of course not," she said, and nodded to the chair. Mae sat in it, leaned forward and 
held her hands out toward the fire, her palms reflecting the light.

"Cold," she said. "I still can't get over the fact that it's so bloody cold here." 

"It won't be soon," Scully said, knowing the fact well. She could still remember the heat 
of the Bronco for those months, the swelter of sleeping in the back, hidden off some 
highway. She wondered what Mae and Joe had done with it...

She remembered cleaning Mulder's blood from the backseat with Granger. Grim 
scrubbing in the hospital lot.

"Let's hope we're not here when it gets that hot either," Mae said sourly. "No place for an 
Irish girl to be in summer, I can tell that already." 

Scully laughed. "You don't have to tell me," she said, bemused. 

"Yea, we're the two sides of it, aren't we? The redhead and the curly black with the blue 
blue eyes and skin like paper..." Mae said, rubbing her hands together. She reached 
down and rubbed at Bo's neck, though Scully couldn't tell if she was doing to comfort the 
dog or further warm her hands. Scully didn't answer. 

"Where's Katherine?" she asked after a beat of silence had fallen. 

"Sarah's staying in the house with her," Mae replied. "I needed a break. A walk to clear 
my head. And since Mr. Hosteen's got Sean I thought I'd take advantage."

"She doesn't mind," Scully replied, her ear picking up the self-reproach in the final word. 
"Sarah. She'd say if she did." 

"She'd bloody well say anything, I'd venture," Mae said, sounding baffled. "I mean, no 
offense if you're fond of her, but that woman's a bit...off."

"No offense taken," Scully said. "And no argument either. But I guess I'm just used to it 
by now."

"Used to which part of it?"

The edge in her friend's tone brought her out of the sleepy, easy tenor they'd been 
speaking in and took her gaze from the fire to Mae's face. 

Which part of it, indeed. 

"Just...the way the people here talk sometimes," she stumbled. 

"Uh huh," Mae said doubtfully. 

"What?" Scully said, feeling her hackles rise. She didn't want to be venturing into this 
territory at all, and to do it with the near-tease or near-challenge that Mae was using...no. 

"Come on, Dana," Mae said. "You don't have to hide it from me. You can stop trying. I 
know." 

"No, you don't," she said, her voice hardening even further, a patina of defense. 

"That drug has never stopped, has it?" Mae said, her tone quieting, most likely from guilt 
or regret. "It's changing you. Still. Doing things to you. Making you see things." 

It was more blunt than Mulder would have said it. But then, Scully realized, Mae 
probably understood more, having been part of the whole thing. She'd tried to forget that 
part, as well. 

She thought about denying it. She even tried to form the words. But what came out was 
the single quiet syllable of "yes." 

Mae nodded. "About fucking time," she said under her breath, and gave Scully a wry 
smile. 

Scully looked at her, the sky seeming suddenly very dark and the fire very bright. She 
smiled a faint smile, something in her opening and glad to be doing it. 

"What was it you saw the other day?" Mae asked. "When you were with me down and 
Victor's and you left in such a hurry?" 

(The little girl in her mind, standing in the doorway. Pajamas. The smell of her and 
Mulder in the bed.)

"I saw...Rose. My daughter."

Mae nodded. "So when you see these things, what are they like? I figure you can tell 
things that are going to happen. Because you knew Katherine was going to tip the frying 
pan that time. The day we got here."

Scully returned her gaze to the fire. "Yes. They're things that will happen, I think." She 
paused, a log dropping and the fire hissing for an instant. "It's hard to explain. It's like 
I'm watching myself but I'm also there while it's happening. It's like a memory but it's 
also like it's happening that moment because I don't know how what I'm seeing will end."

"Like it's happened already but is happening?" Mae tried, her brow creased. 

Scully nodded. "Yes," she said. 

"Which is why they're so upsetting to see," Mae continued, understanding. "Because you 
can't tell where you are in them - remembering or seeing what's to come. Like Katherine 
and the pan."

Scully nodded again. "Yes. To some part of me...she was already burned. I could see it. 
Smell it." 

"Christ Almighty," Mae said. "I don't think I could handle seeing any of that."

Scully shook her head. "That's not the part that bothers me the most," she said. "The 
worst part for me is that when I come out of whatever I've seen, I realize that what I've 
seen *will* happen. When it's its time to. And I know."

"But it doesn't always," Mae said. "You knew that Katherine would tip the pan and you 
stopped it. You knew that bomb was outside the hotel in Washington. Doesn't that mean 
you can change what you see?"

Scully shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I think only if I can stop...the dream, if that 
makes sense?...before it's allowed to finish itself. They're like dreams. Very real 
dreams. But if they get to their end...I lose the control to do anything about what 
happens within them. They become real or true...inevitable."

"So it's like waking yourself up before you hit the ground when you're falling in a 
nightmare." Mae picked up another log from beside her and tossed it into the fire in a 
hail of sparks that made Bo jump. 

"I suppose," Scully said, her mind turning it over. "I don't know. I don't really 
understand it." She quirked a smile. "And to think I had the audacity to rewrite 
Einstein's theories when I was 21. To take issue with his idea that things weren't linear or 
absolute in their place in time. I'm the proof that ruins the entire theory I designed. I just 
didn't know it at the time."

"You rewrote Einstein?" Mae laughed. "What a rebel," she said. 

Bo laid his head down on Scully's foot again, breathed out, and went to sleep.
 
"I had my moments," Scully parried mildly, a smile she hoped appeared Sphinxian on her 
lips. 

"Oh yes, yes," Mae said, laughing. "Let's hear of the wildness of Dana Scully. What'd 
you do? Change your saddle shoes before the bell rang? Break fast before Communion? 
Come in at 12:01 for the midnight curfew?" 

Scully blushed. "I *did* smoke a cigarette once," she said, choosing the most innocuous 
of her sins on purpose to play along. 

"Ohhhh..." 

"Yes, I did," Scully said, mock-somber. "I snuck downstairs and smoked a cigarette 
outside in the dark." 

"How old were you?" Mae said. "Twenty-two?" She laughed.

Scully looked at her, and realized that buried beneath her amusement at the whole thing, 
she was a bit...hurt? 

"Is that what you really think of me?" she asked. 

Mae grew more serious, considering. Scully realized that Mae knew she'd trodden a bit 
hard on her ground. 

"The person you are now? No. Not at all. You've risked too much and you've done too 
much and you've taken too many knocks along the way. That's clear to me about you." 

Scully regarded her, her eyes grateful for the words, the understanding. 

"But you at 15 or 16? I imagine smoking a cigarette was the worst thing you could 
manage." 

Scully closed her eyes, the fire dancing on her lids. She saw her mother. Melissa. 
Charlie. Bill. 

Her father's stern and kind face she would rather die than have look on her with anything 
but pride.

"Yes," she said, opening her eyes to the firelight. "It was."

Mae was quiet, and they sat in a companionable and comfortable silence for a long 
moment that Scully drank in like water. 

Mae was her friend. A friend as worn and old as a favorite book, and growing as familiar 
now, too. She couldn't remember another woman ever having that place with her, and 
she was grateful to have it, even at its price. 

"The worst thing I ever did...well, you might find other things worse..." Mae hesitated, 
and Scully could hear the regret. She could only imagine of what. 

"Tell me," she said gently. 

Mae must have heard the lack of judgment. "Well," she said, and she looked past the fire, 
as though someone might be listening. "I...I was friends with a Protestant."

She couldn't help it. A choked laugh burst from Scully's throat. "Oh my..." she said. 

"Well, bloody well think of it!" Mae exclaimed. "James Curran's daughter? Sitting 
behind the old farmhouse on the Greaves property with Bridget and learning a *hymn*?" 

"I imagine your father wouldn't have approved, no." She'd stopped laughing now that 
she thought about it. For a man who symbolized the Cause, it would not have looked 
good at all. 

"He'd have beaten me half to death," Mae said grimly. "Or to death. Singing 'Be Thou 
My Vision' with a Protestant girl. But I couldn't help it. I liked the song. Bloody 
Protestants. Everyone knew they got to really *sing*!"

Scully burst out again, and Mae joined her. 

"Do you still know it? The song?" Scully asked as they grew serious, the stars brighter 
now, the sky less dark. 

"Do you still remember the taste of that cigarette?" Mae asked. "Of course I do."

"Sing it for me," Scully said. 

"I can't carry a tune in a pail, Dana."

"I don't care," Scully said. "Sing it for me." 

Mae looked around again, and then, only slightly more on-pitch as Scully could have 
managed herself, she began:

"Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light..."

The words hung in the air, in the firelight. Scully smiled. "It's really beautiful. Not just 
the words but the tune."

"It's from the 7th century," Mae said. "An Irish folk tune."

Scully thought about it, turning the words over in her mind. The tune seemed to hang in 
the air like the smoke trickling up from the fire, disappearing into the sky and its starlight.

"I know why you think that was the worst thing you did as a child now that I hear it," she 
said, and looked at Mae. 

"You do, eh?" Mae asked. "Why's that then?"

Scully nodded. "Because you realized you and Bridget believed the same thing."

Mae looked down, an exposed expression on her face. Scully reached across and laid a 
hand on her friend's arm, her fingers resting there as Mae's eyes brimmed with tears.


*******

THE DESERT
NAVAJO RESERVATION
9:03 p.m.


Albert Hosteen couldn't see the fire in front of the trailer from where he was, but when he 
looked east toward where he knew his house sat, its television on and talking to no one, 
he knew that the fire was burning nonetheless. He'd moved around Agent Scully all day, 
sensing something growing in her like a fire, something set and building, and knew she 
would seek solace in the desert. 

The desert's quiet was its greatest gift. That and its ability to take on whatever was inside 
a person. Sometimes barren landscapes were what people needed to see most around 
them because it was what was within them. Barren spaces and wide skies. 

Hosteen smiled at the thought, firelight dancing on his own face. He hoped Agent Scully 
saw sky this night, the sky and its stars. Just as Sean Curran was seeing before him, his 
eyes wide as stars as he gazed upward, his small mouth open.

"They're looking at you," Hosteen said in a quiet voice. "Watching you." 

Sean was across the campfire from him, the bandana around his forehead and the dingy 
feather sticking up from its back like a gray finger pointing upward. Since they'd settled 
in around the fire, Cloud and Ghost tethered to a small tree off to the side and nearly out 
of the fire's corona, Sean had reached up to touch the feather, as though worried it would 
disappear. 

At Hosteen's words, Sean looked from the stars to Hosteen's face, seeming vaguely 
afraid. 

"Nothing to worry about," Hosteen replied. "Stars are the best ones to watch us. Some of 
my people believe they are our ancestors looking down on us, guiding us, making sure 
we stay out of harm's way." 

Sean's eyes returned to the sky, and this time when he looked up, he didn't look quite as 
pleased. Albert saw him swallow, and realized what the young boy saw. 

His father's face in the dots of light. His father's eyes.

"Hmm," he said. He picked up the pipe he'd left beside him, already stuffed with 
tobacco. There was a dry stick beside him from the pile of kindling and he touched it 
into the fire and lit the pipe with it, breathing out sweet smoke. 

"Sometimes we surprise them with what we do," he said as Sean continued to look up, as 
though trying to decide which of the stars he should hide his face from, which one was 
glinting at him. "Sometimes we do not turn out the way they wish we would have, and 
often that is the best thing for us. Even if it is not for them." 

Sean looked at him again, the boy's eyes large and wet. His mouth was a line, thin as a 
cut. He said nothing, but he nodded. 

Hosteen nodded back, his eyes squinting a bit as he drew his long legs up so that he could 
wrap his arms around his knees, the pipe held lightly in his hand. A breeze fanned the 
fire gently for a few seconds, the light growing brighter and the stream of smoke and tiny 
sparks turning east for a beat. 

Sean reached up and touched the feather again. It made Hosteen smile faintly. The boy 
thought the feather contained some magic. 

And perhaps it would.

"Are you ready for your Trial?" he said, and Sean looked at him again, his hand still on 
the feather. He looked both terribly young and terribly old at the same time. He also 
looked both determined and afraid. 

Hosteen gave a nod, reached beside him and picked up a large black feather, the flight 
wing from a raven that drove Victor crazy at the ranch. The thing hung around picking at 
pieces of tinfoil from the fire pits, feathering its nest with the stuff and making a racket. 
Victor had been trying to drive it off for months. 

Hosteen was glad he hadn't now. The feather glinted with its faint, oily sheen in the 
firelight. 

"To become a Crow, you will have to go to a place I tell you to go," Hosteen said in his 
best somber voice. 

Sean nodded, and started to rise from the Indian-style position he sat in, his Arizona 
Cardinals jacket gathered around him.

"Wait," Hosteen said, putting up a hand, and Sean froze, settled back down again, 
looking contrite. 

"This is not an easy task I give you to do," he said. "That is why it is a Trial. And you 
must also remember that the place I send you to is a special place. It is a secret place. It 
is a place that only the Navajo know of, so my sending you there is a special privilege for 
you. A special honor. Because of that you must keep the place and the task I give you to 
do there a secret, as well. Do you understand?"

Sean looked at him, his head turning slightly. Hosteen smiled at the curious and excited 
look the boy wore. He looked, for once, like a little boy. Sean nodded.

"I have your word?" Hosteen asked, speaking around his pipe. The mock Chief voice 
was gone, because he did, indeed, need Sean's word.

Sean nodded again. 

"Then give it to me." Hosteen said. "I will not let you go until I have your word. Your 
promise." He held the feather before him, his long fingers on its thick quill. 

Sean looked at it, nodded. His mouth opened from its line. 

"Promise," he said, and Hosteen was surprised again by the lightness of his voice. 

"Hmm," Hosteen grunted, and set the pipe down at the edge of the fire pit. "Then come 
with me," he said, and he rose, Sean coming up with him. 

There was a hill behind them, behind the horse and pony, out beyond the light of the 
campfire. The moon was out, big and white as an opal, and it turned everything a vague 
shade of blue, just enough light to find the way. 

Not that he needed it - he could find his way on this trail by memory - but behind him, 
Sean's fast breathing told him the light was good to have. 

Even with it, Sean stumbled on the occasional rock. Hosteen didn't help him or turn. 
They walked, up the long incline heading toward the top.

Finally, Hosteen felt the ground give way to a flat place, and he looked in front of him, 
felt Sean pull up short, his breath drawing in awe.

Before them, a few hundred feet away, the pueblo stood, silent and gray, set into the side 
the mountain. Its neat windows were like eyes. Ladders led up to them, hewn in the 
traditional way with rope and branches, as the building had been made, with attention to 
every detail. His grandfather and his contemporaries had begun it here, in the cleft of a 
rock face, at the mouth of a cave, with bricks made of sand and straw. They'd molded 
them, stacked them. Made room on room, each connected. No separate houses. No 
separate rooms. 

They'd made it, brick by brick, by hand, in the Old Way. 

And they'd kept it secret, in the Old Way, as well, adding to all the other Secrets. 

Sean was standing, agape. Albert looked down at him, and there was enough light to see 
Sean's eyes.

"You will go into the doorway on the left," he said to the boy. "The large main door 
between the ladders going to the second floor. Inside, there is a flashlight and a bowl I 
placed there for you. The bowl is filled with red paint. Put your hand in the bowl and 
make a print of your palm on the inside wall. You will see many other marks, but do not 
touch anyone else's mark."

Sean swallowed, looking at the dark expanse between him and the pueblo. He looked 
back up at Hosteen. 

"Put your hand among the marks and come back to me here and I will make you a Crow." 
He showed Sean the feather again, held it before the boy's face so that when he looked 
down it was bisecting Sean's face with a long black stroke.

Sean looked out again, and for an instant Hosteen didn't think he would do it. 

But then he nodded, and started, clumsy, down the trail.

Hosteen could hear his small feet slipping, the overturning of small rocks. As Sean's 
form moved through the darkness, he squatted down, the feather light between his 
fingers, and settled down to wait. 

Ten minutes. Fifteen. He could no longer hear the sound of the boy's feet. 

Twenty. 

He rubbed the feather's blade, rough one way, smooth the other. He worried it between 
his fingers. 

Then he saw the tiny light come on in the doorway, a penlight, like a candle being lit in 
pueblo's vast insides. 

Five minutes more. The light went out. 

Hosteen smiled. 

Ten more minutes and Sean was stumbling up to him, winded. Hosteen looked down at 
him as Sean stopped in front of him, drawing in huge lungfuls of air.

"Hmm," Hosteen said, stern and self-important. "Show me your hand."

Sean did as he was told, and even in the cornflower moonlight, his hand looked like it 
wore a glove of blood. 

"Good," Hosteen said, and laid the black feather down on the red, watching Sean's face 
transform from tired fear to something else. Something new behind his smile that looked 
like pride.


*******

DERG INN
TIEVEMORE
NEAR ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY AND LOUGH DERG
NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM
9:38 p.m. 


"Let's have a look at this pretty little thing then," the man Christie knew only as "Pierce" 
said almost fondly, taking the silver-white iBook into his hands from Seamus. Christie's 
room at the Inn was small, but the desk in the corner was old and large, big enough for 
Pierce to have spread his tool kit and a second laptop, already humming fully booted, on 
it with enough room for the Apple to spare. 

Two tools and he had the casing off, the sleek laptop looking exposed and vulnerable 
beneath the lights. 

"Jesus will you look at what's gone into this little hummer?" Pierce said, pointing to a 
piece of equipment that Christie didn't recognize. 

"What's that then?" Christie asked.

"Bloody satellite modem. Lord only knows where it's sending signals to, but that looks 
like some sort of Chinese thing. No one's supposed to have that." He put a magnifying 
glass over it, breathing out so that he steamed the lens a touch. "Aye, Chinese all right. 
Somebody's got a secret about how they got that thing, that's for sure."

"You can keep it once we get anything we need off the thing," Seamus said sourly, and 
Christie appreciated his hurrying Pierce along. The man stunk of cigars and too many 
days in the same clothes and Christie'd just as soon have not had him around.

"All right, all right, Jesus..." Pierce said, and uncoiled a long black cord that plugged 
from his own laptop into a port on the back of the naked iBook. "Give me a minute..."

He turned on the Apple without opening it, which hummed to life, not on its own screen 
 - which Pierce hadn't opened up at all - but on Pierce's. It immediately asked for a 
password before it would allow the desktop to come up. 

"Pain the bloody arse..." Pierce hit a few buttons, his computer launching a program that 
immediately began scrolling numbers in a column, too fast for Christie to watch them. It 
narrowed the password down to eight digits then began to fill them in one at a time. 

Pierce had clearly brought the right tools, just as Seamus said he would. 

28131002. A numeric code that meant nothing to him at all. The desktop appeared and 
Seamus and Pierce leaned close.

"Almost nothing on it," Pierce pronounced. "Microsoft Word. An ISP and an email 
program. That's it."

"Damn," Seamus said softly. "Get whatever's in the Word program to open," he said. 
"Maybe they're keeping notes or they brought some things along."

Christie sipped his tea from the white pot on the bedside table. The television, its sound 
turned down, kept showing an American western. Clint Eastwood...

"There we go," Pierce said, though Christie ignored him, intent on the film, Clint at a 
cemetery. "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly..."

"Christie."

Seamus' voice brought him back and he took the two steps back to the table, leaned in.

The screen was lit up with text:

"I'm thinking about you. Too much, probably. Wondering how you are, what you're 
doing with yourself. Thinking about the baby, and what you're feeling. I didn't think it 
would hit me this hard, this soon, but knowing you're so far away...it's just hard. I'm glad 
we have this, though. We've never really written letters before, and who knows?..." 

"Look at the date on the file," Seamus snapped. Christie gaped, his hand squeezing on 
the handle of his teacup to the point that he could have snapped it off.

"The eighteenth of March," Pierce said, not understanding the two men's reaction. 

"She's not fucking dead," Seamus spat, and turned away, his hand on his hips. "Son of a 
fucking *bitch.*"

Christie said nothing. He simply put the cup down and went to the wardrobe, drawing 
out his duffel. Again. 

Scully alive...

Something in him lived. Another part of him, however, started to die. Again.

"Get into that bloody email program," Seamus said to Pierce, though he was reaching into 
his pocket for his cell phone. "I want to know where she is. NOW." 

"Satellite modem will take a bit of time. More if it's scrambled, which I'm guessing it is." 
Pierce looked apologetic and bit afraid at Seamus' anger. Christie watched his face as he 
packed up his shaving kit, just opened, on the foot of the bed.

"Then get going!" Seamus roared, dialing. "As soon as Mulder figures out we've got that, 
it's not going to work anymore now is it?! So hurry the fuck up!"

"All right, all right...an hour..." Pierce started hitting keys, his hands flying.

Behind him, Seamus lowered his voice immediately, growing still as his cell phone line 
picked up. 

"Sorry to trouble you," he said, quiet. Respectful. 

Afraid. 

"I've got a bit of bad news..."


*******

OUTSIDE BALLYCASTLE
NORTHERN COAST OF NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
APRIL 3
9:37 p.m.


Mulder as almost relieved to see the lights of Ballycastle dotting the distance, despite the 
fact that every town they'd visited had not been what any of them, even, apparently, Neill, 
had seemed to expect. The kidnapping in Omagh. The strange reception in Cookstown 
where it was clear everyone knew they were coming and who they were. Even Belfast 
had not been what he'd expected, coming in after St. Patrick's Day, the festivities of 
America replaced with people filing in and out of Catholic masses. 

Neill hadn't been what he'd thought, and he was both sorry and glad for that. What he'd 
expected would have somehow been easier to deal with. And harder.

The only constant in the universe right now seemed to be Renahan, snoring against the 
back window, uncaring. Or seeming not to care. So perhaps he was wrong about him, as 
well. 

What *had* he expected? His arm against the door frame on the left, sleep gathering 
beneath his eyes in dark pockets, he asked himself this. What had sent him out of the bar 
in Cookstown, furious at...what? A man's unwillingness to speak? Silence seemed to be 
the indigenous language in this place. 

Perhaps, he mused bitterly, he should learn to speak it himself. 

It would be better than the ranting he'd done at Renahan and Skinner on the street, trucks 
and small dull cars milling by them on the street, the drivers' faces turned toward him in 
some variety of bored interest. He hadn't stopped until a man and a woman in what 
looked like a battered Mini had literally stopped to listen to him, the crazed American 
ranting at a Brit - ready to punch him in his laughing face, in fact - and using language 
that would make a sailor ashamed. 

He wiped at his face, his eyes, as though he meant to wipe the memory away, to smooth 
it off his mind with his rough palm. His hair was hanging a bit over his forehead and he 
smoothed it back.

"You need a haircut," he heard in his mind, Scully's face swimming before the lens of his 
memory. 

She was naked, on her side, propped on an elbow, her longer red hair touching the white 
cotton sheets. Their house. He was on his back, replete after making love for what felt 
like hours and could have been since its slow beginnings as they'd done dishes after 
dinner. 

Her side where the light from the night table was washing over it was specked with 
sweat, the dip of her waist, the small, just-burgeoning round of their child. December or 
January. A fire in the fireplace in the bedroom. 

"I was thinking of going all 'A Farewell to Arms' on you and growing a beard while 
you're pregnant," he'd replied, a wry smile on his face. He'd reached out and traced her 
breast with his finger, touching the pink of her nipple, which was going darker as the 
baby grew. "You know, let the hair go. Maybe grow a ponytail." 

He loved how she looked when she laughed, especially that laugh that was startled out of 
her like finches lifting off, the one that made her sound so young, despite everything that 
had happened to them. 

"I think that's a great idea," she replied. "I'll be sure and bring the baby by for her 
weekend visitations after she's born, too."

"At the music store where I'll be working," he laughed, warming to the image. "The one 
in Dupont Circle that still sells vinyl. I'll be behind the counter wearing a Dead Kennedy's 
T-shirt and smoking a Camel Unfiltered."

"Right," she said, giggling so that she shook. "Langley will walk in and pretend he 
doesn't know you." 

They both roared at that, a burst of lovely sound. 

Then he'd leaned up and drank in her laughter from her lips until the sound died down to 
a small, pleasured moan in her throat. He remembered the feel of his own weight on his 
hands as he'd held his body over her, his mouth on hers, then her throat, her shoulder, the 
pale soft plain between full breasts. 

He'd shaved every day but he hadn't cut the unruly curve of hair over his forehead. In 
everything that had happened, he'd simply forgotten.

Neill turned the car right at a crossroads, a sign pointing them to Ballycastle. From the 
crack in the window, he could smell sea salt and he found it vaguely comforting. This 
road wasn't as well maintained as the larger road they'd been traveling on, the pavement 
taking on the pale speckled gray of something worn. The tires ground on it a bit more 
loudly, and the car rattled faintly.

The lights of the town were growing closer, farms on the outskirts. They passed a place 
that advertised Fresh Catch, the sign older than Mulder was. He imagined what was sold 
there was quite good, though. Hooked fish and things drawn from the sea's dark floor.

"Just up a ways now," Neill said, his voice having to rise above the car's dull noises. 

Mulder nodded. Skinner was behind him, and Mulder heard him shift, anxious.

"Do you think we're going to get the same reception here as we did in Cookstown?" 
Skinner asked.

"What sort of reception are you referring to?" Neill said blandly, arcing the car to avoid a 
pothole the size of a tire. 

"The fact that everyone in the whole goddamn town knew who we were and why we 
were there," Skinner replied, biting it out, a touch of sarcasm peppering it.

Mulder looked to his right and saw Neill's lip curl. 

"Mr. Skinner, everyone in this area knows who you are and pretty close to why you're 
here. If you were looking to travel anonymously, you should have picked either different 
company or a different country. And it's not you they know, exactly. It's Renahan. And 
it's me." He smiled a bit more. "Sorry to spoil that American expectation you've got there, 
but it's not all about you this time." 

He looked at Mulder and winked. Mulder chuffed. So true.

"And the fact that Mr. Renahan and I are seen sitting together anywhere without gunfire 
is getting a lot of attention." 

The smile melted off Mulder's face, and he regarded Neill seriously now. He looked at 
him for a long beat, the road's noise all the he heard. He could tell Skinner was thinking 
the same thing.

"What will happen?" he asked finally, a half thought.

"To what?" Neill said, his eyes forward.

"To you," Mulder said, finishing the thought. "After we've gone."

Neill shrugged. "Don't know," he said blandly. "Figure I'll manage that when it comes." 

"They'll kill you," Skinner said from the back. His voice had lost its sarcasm. It was the 
quiet tone Mulder knew from Skinner, one he rarely used but when he did, it spoke much 
more than his words. 

Neill said nothing, but he was clearly considering it, and not for the first time. The car 
bumped hard on its lousy shocks on a hole in the pavement, the first of two loud noises. 
The second was the trunk swinging up and hitting the back window hard enough to crack 
the glass.

"What the fuck--" Renahan startled awake. He turned in unison with Skinner and 
Mulder, wiping sleep from his face. "Boot's open." 

*

Five minutes later, beneath a dim, buzzing streetlight outside the town, Mulder stared 
mutely at the single bag in the trunk - Neill's, unopened and pressed against the back.

"Son of a BITCH..." he breathed, turning away, his hands on his hips.

"Looks like we'll be washing knickers in the sink," Renahan said. "Hope they enjoy the 
dirty ones when they get to where they're going." 

Mulder felt his heart turn painfully in his chest as he looked at the space where his bag 
had been.

"My laptop," he said, spinning to face Skinner. "They've got the laptop." 

Skinner's eyes widened, but Neill cut into his reply. 

"Who's 'they,' Mr. Mulder?" he said. "The IRA wouldn't steal your suitcases. They're not 
petty thieves, for starters, and besides, Cookstown's famous for having things nicked 
from cars."

Mulder shook his head, not believing. Too convenient...

"And you can be damn sure if it was IRA," Neill continued. "they wouldn't have done 
such a messy job on the lock. They'd have picked it and closed it up tight as a tomb again 
to make sure it took a longer while to find the things gone." He pointed to the cored lock. 
"That's a teenager looking for something to peddle." 

"Then why's your suitcase still there??" Mulder asked, his voice rising. He pointed to 
Neill's suitcase like it held some sort of proof. 

Like Neill was suspect in some way. In collusion. 

He could tell Neill saw that in the question, and it brought a smile to his face.

"First," he said in that calm voice of his. "because it doesn't have any airline tags on it 
like yours. Nothing to show it's from out of the country, especially not the *rich* United 
States." 

A twinge of anger flared in his eyes, like sparks from a fire. Mulder saw it, and then it 
was gone. Neill's gaze flicked to Renahan.

"And a Brit's suitcase they would take on principle, to be frank, especially one stupid 
enough to put a Union Jack on its side."

Renahan laughed. "Right!" he said. "Stupid fucking Brit! I hope they threw it in the 
lake!" 

Neill smiled at that. Then he leaned over and grabbed the handle of his bag, pulled it 
forward. He unzipped it and showed Mulder the contents. 

"And there's nothing in mine to take. Certainly not a shiny laptop like you've got, Mr. 
Mulder. Or interesting bits like Mr. Skinner. Cell phones. Extra clips for that Sig he's got 
at his belt." 

 He pulled a belt from the bottom of the suitcase, brown leather. Mulder looked at him, 
caught somewhere between believing and wanting to believe.

"Come on," Neill said, pulling him back from where he was going. "Help me rig a way to 
close this so we can settle in and get some sleep. It's been a hard day."

Mulder took the belt, saw Neill's face grow dark in the light as he turned.

"I'd like," he mumbled. "for it to end."


******

ALBERT HOSTEEN'S HOUSE
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 4
5:55 a.m.

White feet on a cold floor. Legs looking small in sweatpants, too long and gathered at her 
ankles, faded red. A nightgown's skirt draped around her knees. The baby seemed to be 
sitting on her lap now, Mulder's sweatshirt pulled over the nightgown and over their 
daughter. A pale hand curling into the fabric.

Scully turned her face to the strange light of morning pushing its way through the 
windows. Her breathing was returning to normal, but her face was slicked with sweat.

A dream, she told herself. 

(Blood on a linoleum floor. A little girl screaming. Her hand pressed against a child's 
face, covering her eyes...)

Mulder...

She shook it off, the baby turning inside her as she turned the thoughts away. 

A dream, she repeated. Nothing more. 

She stood, pushing herself slowly up to her feet, her hand on her lower back, which had 
begun to ache dully. She decided to forego a shower and began to undress. 

Nude, she stood in the center of the floor where a square of light had pushed through the 
glass, the sun coming up the colors of a peach. She let it settle on her skin, warming her 
and turning her skin bright amber and white. She held a white shirt in one hand like 
shroud, looking down at herself, saw blue veins beneath her skin woven around the baby 
like a net.

If the baby could cry, she would cry. She didn't know how she knew this, but she did. She 
put her hand on her belly's side, frustrated - not for the first time - by the distance 
between the baby and her hand.

Frustrated, there in the bar of light, with all kinds of distance. 

She shouldered and stepped into her clothes, taking time as she closed the white buttons 
of the shirt around her belly. 

She would spend this day alone. She would go where no one could find her, taking Bo 
with her like some shadow of Mulder he had always been.

She would hide from what she saw behind her eyes.
 

******

OVER THE ATLANTIC
BRITISH AIRWAYS, FLIGHT 318
(BELFAST INTERNATIONAL TO LA GUARDIA)
APRIL 4
9:30 p.m.

I see new things now. They're still of you and of Rose, but there's something 
hanging in what I see now, like shadow. There's a man somewhere, and there's 
screaming, and something like a gunshot. Something terrible is going to happen, 
and not only that but I feel it as though it's happening now, my body feels it 
now, and I'm afraid.

"What do you think it means?" Bridget asked from the seat beside him. 

First Class was quiet, the lights dimmed. It was almost all men, ice cubes tapping in high-
ball glasses as laptops scrolled spreadsheets and a movie played with no sound from 
video screens on each seat. 

Christie looked to the seat beside him, the stuffed leather, the night sky outside. The 
plane sounded like air. 

He looked at her, her blue eyes. They were changing again, the pupils gone now. Nothing 
but blue like water. The scar on her face seemed to be moving down her face.

He shrugged. He didn't want to speak. The few words he'd said to her in the cab on the 
way to the airport in Belfast had gotten the driver's eye on him the rear-view mirror in a 
way he didn't like. 

He adjusted the laptop on the tray in front of him, reached for his Coke and took a sip 
from the glass. The silver and white of the iBook gleamed and he considered the email 
again, looking for any clue of where Agent Scully might be from the words. 

Nothing there. Nothing at all. She was careful about what she said, never even calling her 
husband by name.

Seamus and Pierce were trying to trace it, track down the IP and hone down his search, 
but had found nothing yet. The computer used a satellite modem, they knew, and it was 
making things hard. 

He was to go to New York and wait with Conail Rutherford for further word. His 
grandmother had had someone else deliver the plane ticket and instructions. She hadn't 
spoken to him at all. 

Bridget curled up against the window and went to sleep, disappearing as she did so, as 
Christie turned the text over in his mind. Someone turned off their overhead light, the 
light from the monitor seeming to grow too bright.

Christie ran his finger over the touchpad, reconnected the modem to whatever spot in 
space it was linked to, tilting the monitor down a bit as a flight attendant drifted by. He 
doubted the pilot or anyone else would pick up the strange signal reaching out, but he 
didn't want them to know it was him if they did.

He touched "reply" on the window of the email, typed four simple words:

"I'm on my way." 

He hit "send," disconnected the modem again and shut the computer down, then leaned 
his head back and closed his eyes to the sudden wash of dark. 

******


ALBERT HOSTEEN'S HOUSE
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 5
5:13 a.m.


It was the time of morning when the sun was coming over the sparse, silent expanse of 
Two Grey Hills, the strange hours when both the sun and the moon could be seen in the 
sky, the moon a faint outline of creamy white surrounded by the specks of stars, their 
lights fading as the yellow globe rose between the crags of the mountains. Light lodged in 
the juts of the peaks, bled its dry and sodium gold across the floor of Scully's bedroom, 
dust dancing in the still, still-cool air. 

The patchwork quilt - frayed, faded - had half-slid onto the floor beside the bed, Scully's 
hand alongside it, almost touching the floor. Were she awake, she might have been 
reminded of the first corpse brought in for her, its arm trailing from beneath the too-white 
sheet. Though that hand had been a man's.

In her dream, she could hear the rolling of the wheels against the linoleum floor, the 
squeak of the stretcher caused by the body's weight. She could see the light, harsh, a 
corona of silver around a too-bright bulb of fluorescence. Glint of instruments lined on a 
tray beside her. Scalpel and probe and saw and knife. Tubing. The scale hanging next to 
her, numbers blurred to zero as she looked at them through the vague distortion of her 
protective glasses.

(Subject: Male, Caucasian...)

(...Rose beside her, long dark hair in a braid, thick as rope but soft, soft as Scully ran her 
hand down her daughter's back, smoothing down the red wool of the slight yarn sweater. 
Rose in front of clear glass. Scully watched her reflection in its surface, her and her 
daughter frozen there like ghosts. 

"Can we?" Rose said, pointing. 

Scully studied her, the upturned face. The blue of her own eyes in a nine-year old face, 
her own small nose, and all the rest of her daughter's face Mulder. Pure Mulder. 
Including the half smile that made her wonder if Rose were laughing at some joke only 
her father might possibly understand. Mulder with a slide projector remote in his hand. 
Years ago.

 "Can we what?" she heard herself ask. The sound of blues coming through a cheap 
speaker. A lottery machine biting out tickets. The vague smell of cold but spoiled milk. It 
all worked its way into her awareness and she looked around.

"Hey Scully," she heard Mulder's voice from behind her, and she swiveled. Mulder stood 
a few aisles over, a blue bag in one hand and a red in the other, high enough to be seen 
over the convenience store's aisles. 

"Cool ranch or Taco?" he called. He wore a suit, FBI standard, his tie slightly askew. 
Black and white. The strap of a shoulder holster showed as he raised an arm.

"Mom, please?" Rose insisted again. "Can we?"

"Can we what, sweetie?" she heard herself say again, but she was looking into the glass, 
into her own face, the reflection of her body. Her eyes widened. Her hand smoothed over 
the small round of her belly, tight mound beneath a loose white shirt.

(Four months. Four or five months...)

"Ice cream, Mom," Rose said, opening the glass door to the case, pushing their 
reflections away. Blast of cold air. Pints frosted with ice.

"C'mon, Scully," Mulder called again. "Ranch or Taco? Taco...Ranch...Taco...Ranch." 
His arms moved up and down with each word like the two sides of a scale, eyes 
mischievous. 

She looked back at him. Frost of gray beginning at his temples. It made her smile. 

"Ranch," she said to him, and he returned her smile. She turned to Rose. "Chocolate." 

Rose slapped her hands together and scrambled onto the edge of the freezer case, 
reaching for the mottled bodies of Haagen-Das. 

Slapped her hands together. The door jingled open, electric chime. Scully turned, sensing 
something. A bitter taste in her mouth as though she'd bitten her tongue. 

A man stood there, blues coming through the speaker. The woman behind the counter 
asked him if he'd bought gas. 

Her eyes scanned the store. Dark outside. Two cars in the parking lot. Theirs and a dark 
pickup, a man behind the wheel, his eyes on the inside of the store, on the man going to 
the counter in brown pants and a ratty brown sweatshirt. Shaggy hair, dirty. A beard...)

Even in her sleep she knew what would come next. She had heard it already, the vague 
echo of it the first time she'd seen this man's face. 

The child's screaming. Her child's screaming...

("FBI!" she shouted, reaching to the waist of her black pants, the small of her back, 
where her Sig was snug in its holster beneath the loose shirt. 

"DON'T MOVE!" 

The words seemed to echo around her, everything slowed. A movement at a time, like 
film a frame at a time, slides of a shutter. 

She saw Mulder's eyes go wide, the clerk's go wide. She took a step to the side and 
blocked Rose - (red sweater, pants covered with flowers) -- who was still standing on the 
bottom edge of the freezer case, reaching, though her face had spun toward Scully at the 
sound of her mother's voice. 

The man turned, a gun coming up from beneath his shirt. .357 Magnum, black metal 
shining. His arm came up, the black eye of the muzzle trained on her.

Mulder was moving, a display going down as he rounded the corner. She could hear him 
screaming as though he were trapped beneath meters of water, his gun already out. The 
man was turning at the motion, the sound.

She held her breath. She could hear the breath draw in with a sound like wings. Rose 
called for her father, high and shrill as a sparrow. The little girl moved -

Scully lurched forward, grabbed, touched her daughter's arm, brush of fingers on soft 
hair, soft as yarn -

Mulder fired and the man staggered, a bloom of blood on his shoulder - 

Rose was moving toward her father, Scully scrambling after her. A wild shot, a spider 
web opening on the front door to the store -

The ragged man's gun lit up at the end, bright as a flashbulb, the sound tearing around the 
room as the gun kicked the man's arm back - 

And Mulder tumbling back as though he'd reached the end of a tether, jerked back from a 
cloud, a mist of red appearing like a clot of flies.

She screamed, got hold of Rose, who had stopped, her mouth an O, no sound. 

No sound --

Scully shoved her down, falling on her daughter's body, feeling the smallness of her 
daughter, the small weight of what she carried as she hit the floor, her breath knocked out 
but her arm up, the gun pointed. She saw skin wreathed with hair framed in the line of the 
sight and fired.

The man fell, the gun clattering. The clerk screamed from behind the counter into a 
phone, something about Cumberland and Broad. Something about blood. Something 
about *fuck* and something about *fast.* 

Too late, she knew, feeling Rose lurch beneath her, a sob. Blood was trailing already 
toward her, running. She had a bizarre memory of playing with mercury, the way it ran...

"Mulder..." she called into her daughter's hair. Her hand crept around Rose's face and 
covered the girl's eyes, holding on so tight Scully felt as though she were branding her. 

She cocked her head to the side, red hair falling in front of her eyes. Through the curve of 
the sides she saw him, legs akimbo. Arms thrown back. A hole the size of a saucer just 
below his throat. 

Rose moved, or tried to. Scully held. Scully stared. 

Mulder's eyes caught the light, held it in their stillness. His mouth was closed. No 
surprise. Nothing. The gun was still in his hand, his finger through the ring of the trigger 
guard.

She felt the air pull in so hard it burned her throat and felt something move inside her, 
beneath her. 

Rose began to scream.)


She heard nothing, not the sound of the chair beside the bed tipping as she struggled to 
stand, not the door as it hit the wall as she swung it open. Not the slap of her bare feet on 
the floor as she moved along the narrow hallway into the Hosteen's living room, the 
white nightgown she wore brushing her knees and then pressing against them as she burst 
out the front door, the screen door slamming against the house. 

A road, sand. The sun a yellow eye just over the hills, half asleep and half awake. She felt 
the tears on her face, color in her cheeks like fire. She looked one way, then the other, 
down the road and turned right, staggering. A sharp rock sliced into her arch. Off-
balance, she fell onto her hands and knees.

She couldn't breathe. Air was hissing between her teeth. Her hand cupped her daughter, 
her hand pressing down. 

(Move. Movemovemove...)

She skinned her knees as she crawled a few feet and then pushed herself up and rose. Her 
white gown was now covered with dust the consistency of ash. 

Way off in the distance, a spiral of white smoke. Someone cooking. The far off sound of 
a horse like a cry. Over the hill would be the barn, the house. Mae. Granger...

(Movemovemovemovemove

RUN.)


*******

5:33 a.m.


Albert Hosteen sat up in his twin bed, the cold seeping in beneath his woolen blankets, 
through the cotton shirt he wore, its sleeves snapped at the wrists. He turned his face 
toward the window, a sound...

A sparrow on the windowsill, its body brown and shot with black stripes. Around its 
throat, a slice of white. He watched it for a long moment, sensing...something. He'd 
heard a sound, he knew. 

The bird sang. Six notes. Sadness at its center. Two notes like the syllables of a name. 
Then, with a flick of its wings, it was gone.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. 

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he let his feet hit the floor, cool still from the 
night. He reached for his jeans, his heavy boots, dressed in the morning light. Far off, he 
could hear the sparrow, the six notes. 

Out in the hallway, he saw Bo standing at the screen door, the wooden door open against 
the wall. The dog's ears were against his head, his eyes uncertain as he turned to Hosteen, 
who touched his soft black back, murmured to the dog that it was all right. Whish-te. All 
right.

He opened the door and the dog trotted out, headed off the patio and turned to the right, 
toward Victor's house, down the long dirt road that stretched the mile and some between 
Albert's house and Victor's ranch. 

"Hmm," he said to himself, reached for a battered cowboy hat, his long hair around his 
shoulders. The lines of his face cragged as he squinted against the light and headed out 
into the morning, his footsteps leaving puffs of dust. He followed Bo, knowing that to 
follow Bo was to follow Agent Scully.

At the center of the road, nothing but sky and sand around him, he kept his eye on the dot 
of the dog as it crested the first rise and disappeared down the other side. 

******


5:44 a.m.


Scully staggered past the quiet of Victor's house, her hair wet and stuck to her face with 
sweat, a strand of it trailing from the corner of her lip. She was freezing, her teeth 
chattering, despite the coming heat of the desert. Blood crept down from the cuts in her 
knees, occasionally catching the hem of the nightgown, sticking the fine cotton cloth to 
her legs. She could tell from her breathing, the cold, that she was in the early stages of 
shock. The baby knew, as well. She could sense her daughter's distress, the baby rolling 
within her. She kept her hand on her abdomen, her eyes wild, looking for anywhere to 
hide, any shelter. 

The barn. The barn door was open and the dark looked inviting. She could smell the hay 
and oat and hear the plaintive bleating of sheep. It was dark there. Safe...

Was there such a thing? some dim part of her mind thought. How could she ever be safe 
from things that hadn't happened yet, things that were to come? 

Don't think, she told herself. Go. Go.

She pushed open the gate to the corral, her arms shaking with the effort, light just 
beginning to bleed into the area around the worn barn, the color of old leather. The desert 
around her was turning red, light stabbing through a thin line of cloud. 

The door was cracked open and she went in, almost overpowered by the smells and the 
thick layer of dust, bits of it dancing in front of her as she moved. Horses arched their 
necks over their stall doors on her left to look at her, their eyes oily and wide. To her 
right, a clutter of sheep in a low pen, fat with their unshorn and dirty wool, lambs stitched 
in among them standing on pink, uncertain hooves. Chickens dotted the floor, pecking 
absently at the hay and scurrying to get out of her way.

There was a cleared area past them, a few meters from the back wall, on which were 
arranged Victor's hand-held farming tools - old rakes with cracked wooden handles, 
shovels, pitchforks. A table saw sat in the corner and its array of blades were hanging on 
nails on the wall, bright silver circles with teeth. Shearing tools, rolling carts made of 
canvas for transporting wool. 

There were small breaks in the roof and sunlight came through in bars of various sizes. 
Scully, more aware of the cold in the darkness surrounding the doorway, sought out the 
light, a circle of it on the floor just past the sheep's pen. Feeling the warmth on her face, 
she fell to her knees, then to her hands and knees, pulling in huge lungfuls of the musty 
air. 

A cramp in her belly, Rose rolling again. The feeling hitched her breathing, her hand 
clamping down on the curve of the baby. She had to calm down. She knew this. For both 
her sake and for the sake of her daughter, who could sense her terror and grief. She tried 
to push the images from her mind - the man's face behind the huge muzzle of the gun, 
Rose's body as she broke away, running towards Mulder as if her daughter could sense 
what was going to happen, knew her father was moving around the corner and turning to 
face not just the man but Eternity...

"No..." she said, squeezing her eyes shut and tears raced down her cheeks. She rocked 
back on her knees, hay clutched in each of her hands. "NO!" 

At the sound of the cry, shrill and high and filled with tears, the horses threw their heads 
back, their eyes wide with fright, hoarse cries coming from their throats. She could hear 
the sounds of their hoofs against the stall doors, loud thumps. One of them, a white and 
black paint, turned in the stall and kicked with his back legs, sending the rickety door 
flying. It shot toward the sheep pen, over the low rail and smashed onto the hapless 
animals inside it. 

(Mulder pulled back as if connected to a string, Mulder's blood bursting in a cloud, the 
ragged hole opening...)

The paint came out of the stall, its ears back, huge and angry. It ran at her there in the 
center of the stable, there in the light. 

She scrabbled a foot or so on her knees, her eyes now in new terror, the animal towering 
over, rising on its hind legs, front hooves fluttering the air in front of her, its eyes trained 
on her, its mouth open on a hoarse and furious cry. 

Scully opened her mouth and screamed, something inside her seeming to rend open, as 
though her chest had split open and something had shot out. She felt suddenly too hot, as 
though she were on fire, the fire rising in her with the sound of her voice, her hands, still 
clenching the straw, going to cover her eyes as though she meant to hold them in her 
face. 

She did not know what happened next. She heard and saw nothing. For an instant, she 
could do nothing but feel, and it was these feelings that broke out of her and became, for 
a moment...

Real. 


****

Albert Hosteen heard the sound of the scream as he approached the turnoff to the barn, 
Bo trotting along beside him, whining with his ears down. From Victor's house, Granger 
emerged, tucking his shirt into his jeans with one hand while he held his gun in the other, 
moving fast toward the barn, looking alarmed. Victor was behind him, a shotgun clutched 
in his hand. 

"Grandfather!" Victor called in Navajo. "What is it? What's wrong?" 

From the barn, Scully's scream, the sound of 20 horses trying to break down their stalls 
and their high, terrified cries. And underneath it all, the racket of sheep. Chickens were 
spilling out of the crack in the barn door, their wings flapping as they tumbled over each 
other. 

"Fire!" Granger shouted. "It must be on fire!" Robin and Sarah were coming out from the 
house behind them, both looking bleary and bewildered.

But Hosteen knew better. He quickened his pace. 

Pushing open the barn door enough to get through, stepping over the terrified hens, he 
stepped in...

And immediately dropped to the ground as a saw blade flew toward the door, whizzing in 
the air and embedding itself into the barn door, its teeth glinting. 

"Jesus Christ!" Granger cried behind him, following Hosteen's lead and dropping to a 
crouch, his eyes huge in his face as he took in the scene in the barn. 

Scully in the center, bloody nightgown, her back arched, bow-like, and a scream coming 
out of her mouth so long and so loud it seemed to be coming from the walls around her, 
not from her slight body itself. 

In front of her, the body of a horse, handles of tools protruding from its still form, blood 
everywhere. To the right, the pen of sheep bounding over one another, crushing each 
other, the heavy door of one of the stalls in the center, cocked, bodies of animals beneath 
it. A lamb was standing on its hind legs trying to climb the railing of the pen. 

"Oh my God!" Victor cried and ran forward, ducking as a shovel sailed through the air 
and clattered against the far wall. He knelt, fumbling with the latch to the pen and opened 
it, herding them, the white and gray bodies of the sheep now tumbling out as they tore for 
the door, past Albert and Granger and out. Victor followed them out, yelling to his hired 
hands for help. 

"Scully!" Granger called, loud enough to be heard over the unearthly sound coming from 
the center of the room, coming from everywhere. "Scully, stop!" 

Hosteen put a hand on Granger's arm. "Stay," he said simply. 

"No--"

"STAY," he said, more firmly, and Granger relented, reluctantly, but nodded. Robin and 
Sarah had crawled up beside him in the doorway, though neither woman said a word, 
their eyes on Scully. Robin was crying.

And Hosteen moved. 

Hunched over, as low to the ground as his over-six-foot frame could manage without 
crawling, Hosteen moved across the darkness of the narrow space between the stalls and 
the pen, now empty of everything but bodies, ruined sheep scattered on the floor as if 
they'd been dropped from some great height.

Which, Hosteen realized, they may have been. 

"Whish-te..." he murmured to the horses as he passed. "Whish-te..." Then he turned his 
attention to Scully as he edged closer. The screaming had stopped now, replaced by 
heaving sobs. Scully was shaking all over, her fists still covering her eyes. 

"Agent Scully," he called, his voice pitched low, creeping forward. 

Her hands dropped, the straw feathering down. She opened her eyes, grime caked around 
them and down her face. She drew in a breath, a deep breath as though she had forgotten 
to breathe at all for some time. Then her eyes fell on the horse in front of her, its head 
closest to Hosteen, the round of its belly in front of her. 

"Oh God..." she murmured, her voice scraped raw, choking. "Oh my God..." She 
crawled forward, ignoring Hosteen, and her hand, still shaking, reached out and touched 
the horse's still, soft neck, traced up to its ear, over its face to its still-open eye. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered, to it and to Hosteen and to the air. "I'm so sorry." 

She hunched in pain, curling in on herself, her hand on her abdomen. A low moan came 
from her throat, her hand clenching the dead horse's mane. 

"Scully!" Granger called from the doorway, and despite Hosteen's directive, he started to 
come forward. 

"Paul!" Robin called, grabbing at his pants leg, but he got away. She started forward, but 
Sarah grabbed her.

The horses were calmer now, just the sound of uneasy shuffling in the stalls. Bo, low to 
the ground, ears flat in fear, followed Granger in. 

Hosteen reached Scully, curved himself over her, moving slowly, his hand on her back, 
then her waist. 

"Lie down," he instructed softly. "Just rest." 

He pulled gently and she came over, going limp. She looked and felt small, her 
nightgown pressed to her body with sweat. 

"Get me a blanket," Hosteen said to Granger as Granger knelt next to Scully, his hand on 
her forehead, her shoulder, her side. Bo stopped a foot away, advanced a step, retreated, 
advanced and retreated again. Finally he sat, whined. 

Victor came back in, panting, blood smeared across his pants. Robin and Sarah had come 
forward, Robin fetching a blanket draped near the saddles. Red and black and covered 
with dust. She handed it to Granger, still beside Scully. He laid it across her body. 
Hosteen noticed she was trembling so hard now her teeth were chattering. 

Her only movement was her chest rising and falling, her eyes closed now, her fists 
against her face. 

"Whish-te..." Hosteen murmured to her. "Over. It is over now."

Scully said nothing. Her face looked white in the sunlight. 

Granger stroked her forehead, his hand finally cupping the wet hair at the crown of her 
skull.

Albert turned to Victor and Sarah, Victor drenched in blood. 

"Call for help," he said softly in Navajo. "And hurry." 


*****

(Something warm against her face, warm as a hand. 

Trickle of something salt and the taste of iron over her lips. Light was pressing in through 
two slits at her feet and she was moving, a sound like screaming. Electric voices speaking 
and everything hollow and distant as noises underwater.

The air she breathed was cold, too rich. She drank it in like water.

Mulder ...

The name came out on a puff of mist, everything going dark and silent.

A strobe of lights, square on square of brightness, hands moving her. The stark silver of 
an overhead lamp looking down on her like an eye. She felt cold air on her belly, a prick 
in her arm.

Then:

"Dana."

She could see him. He looked ancient, wrapped in a black overcoat, a bowtie at his throat. 
His elbows were propped on the arms of his silver wheelchair, a blanket across his legs.

"Dana. Come with me."

She stared up into the light's eye. Something was pressing into her belly, pressing into 
her ...

"Where?" she breathed, unblinking. "Tell me ..."

calm down dana calm down now breathe

"Heliwell," the man said, and his mouth formed a warm smile. "The cliffs at Heliwell. A 
dark house with stained glass windows. Do you see?"

She saw it, though she didn't know how. She felt bile in her mouth, bitter and burning. 
She wanted to be there. Now.

"Help me ..." she said, her eyes lolling.

we're helping you just calm down try to stay calm

"I'm waiting, Dana," the man said, still smiling. 

She pulled in a frozen breath. Everything changed to black.)

**

ST. FRANCIS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 5
8:02 a.m.

"You must tell him."

Albert Hosteen's face was grim as he said the four words he and the three others in the 
room had been dancing around since they'd arrived. Despite the things they'd said - 
Mae's insistence that Mulder would be closely watched, and his abrupt departure would 
arouse suspicion, Granger's quiet compromise that they wait to find out what the doctors 
said - he knew they were the right words to say.

"Mr. Hosteen," Mae snapped, crossing her arms across her chest, her face looking pale 
over the black turtleneck tucked against her chin. "With all due respect, you have no idea 
where Mulder is or the people he's dealing with."

"Hmm," Hosteen agreed, and disagreed. "That is not my worry. And it would not be 
Mulder's either, if he knew what was happening here."

"We don't know if Scully or the baby is in danger," Granger offered, but Hosteen could 
tell the rebuttal was half-hearted. His eyes still had shock in them. It was as stark as the 
small dots of sheep's blood on this dark face.

"That's not what he's talking about," Robin said, turning and going toward a window, 
looking out on dark clouds that had brought more light rain. "And you know it, Paul. You 
were there. You saw what she did. What she can do."

Hosteen looked at Robin's back, the trail of braids she'd tucked into a ponytail against her 
back by tying one of them around the rest. She wore silver earrings set with a blood red 
stone, and her gaze looked bewildered and tired and more than a little afraid. 

Hosteen admired the straight set of her back, though, the determined set of her face. He 
admired that she had clearly never seen anything like what she had seen in the barn but 
accepted it just the same.

"He's right," she said to the rain. "You have to contact him. He would want you to tell 
him." 

Hosteen looked at Mae, who had gone silent. Her eyes flicked onto him, her mouth a thin 
line. But he knew she couldn't argue with Robin's words about Mulder. 

"Then use the computer," she said quietly to Granger. "Don't have anyone in Washington 
call him. Every place he's going will be tapped. And Mr. Skinner's, too. The computer is 
the only way to be sure he's the only one listening."

Hosteen considered this, remembering Scully on the porch after she'd last written Mulder, 
the look on her face. Something lost. 

He remembered the pictures of the aftermath of the explosion outside the hotel in 
Washington he'd first seen, watching her make-believe funeral. The same look on 
Mulder's face.

"All right," Granger said, nodding, his hands going into his pockets. "I'll write him."

"How do you know where to send it to?" Mae said.

"I'll find a way," Granger replied softly.

A doctor came out of the ER's double doors, a man in his early 30s from the looks of him 
that Hosteen recognized. Ena Kitman's eldest son, Thomas. He had cut his hair since he'd 
gone away to medical school in Arizona and finally grown into his glasses.

"Mr. Hosteen," he said, and angled his head in a sign of respect. 

"Thomas," Hosteen replied, and returned the gesture. "You have been working with my 
friend?"

They had told the admitting staff there were to be no names on the records. Granger had 
shown his badge to ensure both that and the presence of two vigilant if soft looking 
guards at the doors to the back. 

"Yes," Thomas replied as the other three gathered around them. He lowered his voice. 
"She was very shocky when you brought her in, but she's out of danger now. We've 
stabilized her."

"Is the baby all right?" Mae asked, jumping in the moment he took a breath.

"The baby was showing signs of distress when she got here, but she's showing signs of 
improvement. We are seeing some spotting, though, which concerns us. The OB on call 
is looking at her now. She just got in." 

"She's had spotting before," Robin said. "Do they know that? Has she told you?"

Thomas shook his head. "No, she hasn't. I've had to give her a good bit of sedation to 
calm her down. She was pretty ...upset ...when she got here and was getting herself more 
and more agitated. I thought it best to sedate her once the baby had stabilized a bit." He 
shook his head, looking hard at Hosteen. 

"The blood on her -- where did that come from? Was someone trying to hurt her? What 
caused all this? "

Hosteen looked at Thomas and their gazes hung for a long moment. None of the others 
spoke. 

"Nothing I can say," Hosteen said in Navajo. He said with finality, and Thomas heard it.

The young doctor nodded. "Well," he said, looking at the others' concerned faces. "As I 
say, we've stabilized her, but we'd like to keep her for a day or so. Just to be sure 
everything's all right. You all might as well go on back the Hills - I've made sure she 
sleeps for a long while. Probably until tomorrow morning. I'll stay here all day today to 
be sure she's out of any danger." 

Granger and Robin began gathering their jackets, Mae following suit. Hosteen watched 
them. 

"Thank you, Thomas," Hosteen said softly, and he allowed a small smile.

Thomas angled his head, wished Hosteen his respect in quiet Navajo as a white nurse 
passed them by.

"If you would ..." Thomas said quietly, continuing in their private language, "please tell 
Victor I will be there." 

Hosteen glanced at Granger, who was slowly shouldering into his denim jacket, his face 
gone more pale. 

"You have my thanks," he said in English, now angling his head at the young man, as 
well. 

 
*****

BALLYCASTLE
NORTHERN COAST OF NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
APRIL 5
7:39 a.m.


The rain persisted, Mulder on his back in one of Neill's sweaters, the blue heavy cotton 
pushed up to his chest and his belly exposed in an attempt to cool himself off. The inn 
they were staying in - a small B&B with only five rooms - was heated with radiators, 
their metal bodies grumbling like empty stomachs and hissing as the rain had moved in 
off the sea, chilling everything. The sweater had felt fine until then. Now he was boiling 
hot. 

He and Skinner were sharing a room since two of the inn's rooms were taken up with a 
family of Swiss tourists, necessitating a double-up. Mulder had, in fact, spent much of the 
previous day in the inn, as Neill had said he wanted to go out into the town alone for the 
day to find this mysterious man they sought. Renahan drew too much attention for his 
manners and his accent and his face, and he and Skinner could hardly blend in as 
residents themselves. The town was small enough that everyone would know every new 
face. 

Skinner, seeming impatient with the day's delay in their work toward God Only Knew 
What, had hired a boat for fishing for the day, needing something to do with his hands, 
he'd said.

"You fish?" Mulder had quipped over the breakfast table, the Swiss family long-gone on 
a ferryboat to one of the lighthouses. They'd been polite and a bit too happy about 
everything. 

"Of course I fish," Skinner growled in response, dipping into the clod of oatmeal that 
weighed more than the bowl it was in. Mulder had the same in front of him, and it was 
warm and rich and delicious. The way he said it made Mulder chuff.

"It's just hard to picture," he said. 

"All right, goddamnit, I don't fish," Skinner relented, his voice more sour. Their usual 
banter. "But I've hunted and it's got to be less boring than that."

"Don't count on it," Renahan said as he'd settled into the chair at the end of the table, 
waving at the innkeeper's wife as though she were a maid. "And I hope you've still got 
some sea legs there, Mr. Semper Fucking Fi or you'll be feeding more fish than you 
catch." 

Skinner ignored him. "You want to join me?" he asked, flicking his eyes on Renahan, as 
though reminding him of the alternative. 

"No," Mulder said, finishing off his tea. Real cream. Sugar lumps. He started to say 
something else, what he'd be doing, but he had no idea. "No," he said again. "Thanks." 
And he'd retreated upstairs.

He'd found a book on the shelves in the room and spent the day reading it, some history 
book on the Second World War. He'd lingered on a chapter on the Battle of Bulge, 
listening to the rolling of a storm brewing and staring at the same page for an hour before 
ending up sleeping much of the afternoon away. He'd been thinking about Scully while 
looking at the pictures of bar-like trees and snow, and he dreamed a troubling dream 
where he'd been reaching through them toward her in the clearing, her hair red as blood 
or fire. 

He'd stayed in the room so long, and been so silent, the innkeeper's wife had come to see 
if he was feeling all right. 

A shared dinner with Skinner and Neill - Renahan had stayed in to watch soccer on his 
room's small TV - and he'd returned to bed, listening to Skinner toss in the narrow twin 
bed across the room and bitch about the rainstorm buffeting the inn's sides and it being 
too cold to sleep.

Not too cold now, Mulder said, pushing the sweater up a bit more so that his chest was 
bare now. He'd kicked the heavy quilt off, too, his sweatpants feeling woolen on him. 
Sighing, he exhaled and stood, going to the window that overlooked the bay. He'd spent a 
good deal of time at it the day before, looking out at the waves. 

A couple of bangs on the old frame and the window shifted open halfway. It was large 
window, and the gust into the opening was cool and salt. He heard the wind as he felt it. 

He heard ...

Singing?

"Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies ..." 

Renahan's voice, seeming to come from the air. They were a full story up but Renahan 
was close.

Mulder had noticed a railing before but thought it decoration. Now, leaning out the 
window, his face touched with cold rain, he realized it guarded a small wooden ledge 
around the inn's second story, only wide enough for one person to walk along, if that.

And outside his window, his back against the inn's white, was Renahan, wearing black 
cords and the vaguely dirty thermal long-sleeved shirt he'd had on beneath his sweater 
and jacket. He'd been out for awhile, because he was soaking wet. His hair hung around 
his face, his beard for once tamed against his face.

"Farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain ..." His voice rose dramatically on the last word. 
"For we've received word to sail out from ...somewhere ...yeah, Boston! ...and never more 
will we see you again ..."

He turned, noticing Mulder's head sticking out of the window now, a wry smile on his 
face. "You know that movie, Mr. Mulder?" 

Mulder looked at him, wondering if he had a bottle tucked against his hip, unseen, on his 
other side. He almost always did, and his behavior seemed to indicate being slightly out 
of his mind. The rain was freezing. 

"'Jaws'?" he asked. Someone was walking by with a dog, a man wearing a fishing cap and 
an overcoat, along the small lawn behind the house. He looked up at them, shook his 
head, mumbled something and was on his way again.

Renahan barked a laugh. "I knew if anyone would know the thing it would be you," he 
said, sounding satisfied, as though he's won a bet with himself. "Yeah, that's the one. 
Fucking Quint and his quest for his very own white whale."

Mulder couldn't help but smile, though it pained him a bit. He and Scully and Big Blue, 
five feet from the shore in the darkness and him talking about hell being an undigested 
apple dumpling ...

"Everyone's got their own giant white whale, eh, Mr. Mulder?" Renahan said softly. 

"This isn't a white whale we're looking for, Renahan," Mulder said. He wished the man 
would come inside. He was shivering, and he was getting wet. 

"Aye, that's the truth," Renahan said, looking out over the sea. "It's a big fucking shark 
with great giant teeth." He looked at Mulder, his face deadly serious. 

"'You're gonna need a bigger boat,'" he said.

Mulder didn't know if he should laugh or not. It was funny, the movie's famous quote, but 
in a way it wasn't. Not how he said it. Not one bit. 

Their gazes hung for a long beat, and something passed between them, lodging in 
Mulder's throat.

Seeing this, Renahan grinned. "Don't be a poof, Mulder!" he exclaimed, his eyes losing 
their grim tinge. "Come out and enjoy the weather and the view!" 

Mulder looked at him, unable to shake the look Renahan had worn before. A bigger 
boat ...

It was enough to get him out the window and onto the ledge in his bare feet. He wedged 
them against the bottom of the rail as he settled in next to Renahan, rain dotting his face.

"Look us out here now, Captain Ahab and Mr. Quint out on the bridge," Renahan said, 
that same grin on this face. 

Mulder wiped his face with the back of his hand. "My wife once called me that," he said. 
"Ahab, not Quint."

"Smart woman," Renahan smiled. "Up to the moment she married you knowing that." 

Mulder laughed. "Well, by then it wasn't true anymore." 

"Gave up on that sister of yours, did you now?" 

Mulder's head snapped over to face the other man, but Renahan was looking straight 
ahead, a small smile on his face.

"What do you know about that?" Mulder said. He managed to keep any inflection out of 
his voice, though it was an effort to sound as neutral as he did. Something in him had 
startled, though, as though caught in some act.

Renahan gave a mirthless laugh. "I was one of the top investigators at Scotland Yard, Mr. 
Mulder," he said. "And I've been watching you for a long time. Back when your wife got 
mixed up with the Currans, though she was ...*just* ...your partner then." He waggled an 
eyebrow for effect. "I wanted to see what Owen had coming his way."

Something about it made Mulder angry, like he'd come home to find Renahan sitting on 
the couch. He could feel the muscles in his jaw tighten.

"Aye, I know all about you, Fox William Mulder, son of William Mulder who was mixed 
up in shite no one understands or gives a fuck about anymore, even you. I know all about 
a little girl carried off by flying monkeys or that little gray peanut-butter-eating bastard 
who walked on his dick." 

Mulder wiped the now-wet hair from his forehead. "You don't know what you're talking 
about," he said. 

"All right," Renahan relented. "Maybe he didn't walk on his dick." He bumped his elbow 
into Mulder's upper arm, too hard, giggling.

"Laugh it up," he said, and he was angry now. Defensive and angry. 

Renahan's laughter subsided as he squeezed rain from his ragged beard. "Eh, maybe ou're 
right ...you're right ...maybe you're not Ahab anymore. Maybe you gave up on your whale 
for a place in the country and changing nappies ..."

"Maybe I did," Mulder said, looking out onto the ocean. The rain was picking up, the 
wind pushing against his sweater so that it touched his skin like ice. 

He pushed himself to his feet, squared his shoulders. Then he looked at Renahan, his 
expression grim. 

"Maybe you should give yours up, too, Mr. Quint."

Renahan looked up at him, his face pale in the morning light. "Some things are worth 
giving your life for, Mr. Mulder," he said.

Mulder nodded. "Yes," he said. "And some things aren't."

Renahan looked out over the ocean. He said nothing.

"I'm going down for breakfast," Mulder said finally. "Come join me when you've finished 
with your ...view." 

He turned and walked inside.


*****

VICTOR HOSTEEN'S RANCH
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 5 
10:01 a.m.


The Hotmail account hadn't been opened so long Granger'd discovered it was about to be 
deleted. Tucked in among the Viagra and Oxycontin, right near the bottom above 
Ukranian women with unnaturally close relationships with livestock or their fathers, and 
above two emails promising to make his penis larger overnight was the email he'd been 
looking for, its return email address blank as he opened it, the small window glimmering 
in the Farmington Community Library's main room. Four ancient computers. No waiting. 

The email had consisted of one line: an email address. Robin over his shoulder to 
surreptitiously shield the screen from the four other people in there as the library had 
opened, Granger wasted no time copying the address into a new window and tapping out 
the message he and Robin had decided on in the car on the way:

M.,

You've got a sick friend. I know you're busy, but if you can, find your way home.

G.

He hit "send" without even re-reading it and closed the account down once again, this 
time for good. The Gunmen had sent the address to him the day he'd left for New 
Mexico.

"In case something happens," Byers had said hesitantly, unwilling to be more detailed 
than that. 

And something, Granger thought, lying on his back with Robin curled against his good 
shoulder, had definitely happened.

Though he would be hard pressed to say what. 

As though reading his thoughts, Robin spoke quietly against his shirt. "What's happening 
to her, Paul?" 

He was quiet for a long moment, stroking the braids trailing on his shoulder. She smelled 
like spice and he breathed her in, a deep breath that gave him pain.

"I don't know," he said. "But it's been coming for a long time whatever it is." 

She shook her head, burying her face against his chest. "What I saw ..." she whispered, 
trailed off. He knew she had something more to say but wouldn't say it. 

He looked up at the ceiling, hearing vehicles coming down the road. The men were late 
this morning. The ranch had been quiet, no calls to horses, no dust of men and animals 
working. Only the lingering smoke of the sheep's carcasses, the horse, that Victor's 
brother Keel had burned in the desert behind the house.

"You don't believe it," he finished for her. He was cold, as he often was when he was 
lying down. He was glad to have left his boots on in the bed. 

She shook her head again. "No," she replied. "You can't see that and not believe. You 
can't deny what you see right in front of your eyes." 

Someone was coming in the house, cars still coming in to park around the house. 
Footsteps coming down the hallway.

She leaned up enough to look into his face, something in her eyes afraid. 

"But I don't want to," she whispered. "I don't want to believe." 

There was small tap on the door, and Granger nodded to Robin, soothing her with a hand 
on her back, and called for whomever it was to come in. 

Victor stood there, Sarah with him. She was wearing a broad-brimmed ranch hand's 
cowboy hat that looked like a horse had been dragging it around. She did not smile, and 
Victor didn't either.

"No work today, Victor," Granger said softly. He'd said it the morning before, too, and 
Victor had left him alone. 

"No, none today," Victor agreed. "But I want you to come outside." 

Robin looked up, and Granger took in the gravity of Victor's expression. The man was 
usually amiable and light in a way that Granger frankly envied. But not today. Likewise, 
Whistler looked grim herself. Not quite grim, but ...serious in a way he hadn't seen. As 
though someone had died or was about to.

"Is it Scully?" he asked immediately, he and Robin sitting up. 

Victor shook his head. "Outside," he said again, and for an instant he looked and sounded 
like his grandfather when things were dire. 

Robin looked at him uncertainly, but Granger put a hand on her arm. 

"It's okay," he said softly. He trusted Victor implicitly, though he'd never seen him act 
this way. Maybe the events of the morning had taken some toll on him Granger didn't 
know. Maybe Victor had had enough of these people in his ranch and the trouble they 
brought him. Maybe the death of the livestock at Scully's hands had been enough.

He swallowed at the prospect of being put off the ranch. He didn't know where he would 
take Scully if this were the case, where she would be safe. 

The Hosteen's had done enough, he thought, and nodded to Victor, and followed him out. 
Robin went behind him and said nothing. 

Down the narrow hallway to the living room, he could see through the windows to the 
front that the area around the house was crowded with pickups. The men hadn't parked in 
front of the barn as they usually did, but in front of the house. He could see a few of them 
standing in a semicircle, their hands in their pockets, none of them speaking. The sun beat 
down on them making everything too bright. 

Granger opened the door, pushed open the screen, and stepped out into the light.

They were all there, every man he'd seen on the ranch and many he hadn't. Thirty or forty 
total, all Navajo. They were all silent, their faces as heavy as Victor's had been in the 
bedroom. 

Robin stood behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He could hear her breathing in 
the quiet as Victor came out with Sarah and took up a place in front of him. He raised his 
chin and looked Granger hard in the face.

Granger stood his ground, looking from face to face. He didn't know what this all meant. 
He was afraid of their silence, these men who had been so jovial, who loved to laugh and 
had let him join in what they had with each other. He hadn't understood how they could 
be so welcoming to an outsider, but he understood this change in them even less. 

"What is it you want from me?" he asked finally, no challenge in his voice. Whatever 
they asked, he would give it if he could. Victor would surely know that by now.

"Your trust," Victor said. He ventured a glimpse of a smile that the men couldn't see. 

Granger nodded, looking around. "All right," he said. 

Victor's smile vanished. "And your belief." 

Granger met his gaze, the word hanging in the air between them. "They're the same 
thing," he said finally, and Victor nodded. 

"We'll see," he said, and called out something in Navajo, the men returning to their 
trucks, engines firing to life. 

Victor gestured to his pickup and Granger started forward, Robin following. 

"Stay," Sarah barked to Robin, clearly an order, and Robin stopped, pinned by Whistler's 
outstretched finger. 

"Paul--" she began, grabbing his arm. He stopped, as well. 

"Robin," Granger said, turning to her and taking her hand. "It's all right. Stay here in case 
Scully needs you, in case Mulder contacts us. I'll be all right." 

She looked doubtful, tears welling in her dark eyes. Granger cupped her cheek in his 
hand and she embraced him, her fingers curling into his back as though she were afraid 
he'd be torn away. 

"I'll be all right," he whispered into her neck, then pulled back enough to kiss her, his 
mouth memorizing the feel and taste of hers. 

He could still feel her arms around him as he climbed into the truck. He could still taste 
the tears he'd kissed from her face as the truck pulled away.


*****


19 CATHERINE STREET
HIGHBRIDGE, THE BRONX 
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
APRIL 5
11:40 a.m.

Conail Rutherford's mother was still wearing black, and like a good son, Rutherford wore 
a black armband, as well, a picture of his father, Samuel, looking stern from a silver 
frame where his supper plate would be. 

Rutherford, his mother Gracie and Christie ate their Friday lunch of tuna fish on Wonder 
in near-silence among them, a radio broadcast of Big Band love songs lilting from the 
kitchen, which smelled like something had been frying in it since 1945. 

Christie had long ago finished his sandwich and was staring at Bridget, who was sitting in 
Samuel's chair, her finger tracing over the top of the silver frame. Conail and his mother 
didn't seem to mind, and he was glad for that. Her eyes were still the strange blue from 
the plane, her pupils gone. She seemed very pale beneath her red hair and her mouth 
looked like a slash.

He preferred the closed mouth to the smile she'd had when he'd logged onto Mulder's 
computer before lunch and found the email from this person called "G." Christie had 
hurriedly forwarded the mail to Pierce for tracking, and shut down the machine, hiding it 
from Bridget in his suitcase before she began her jarring, eerie laugh. 

It was only a matter of time now. And not much of it. Find "G" and Christie would have a 
way to find Scully, even if the person wasn't with her. Things were urgent enough now 
that Christie would find what he wanted from the sender of the mail. 

"You ready to go then?" Conail asked, interrupting Christie's thoughts. Conail spoke 
barely loud enough to hear, the manners of an old-fashioned table. Gracie didn't look up, 
her eyes on her plate and her mouth barely moving as it chewed.

"Aye," Christie said, putting his napkin on his empty plate. He had that strange slow 
feeling of jetlag, his eyes feeling sandbagged. He wiped his face with his hand and Conail 
turned to his mother.

"Leaving the table, Mum," he said, and his chair raked against the old wood floor as he 
stood. Christie followed suit.

"All right then," she replied. "Where you two off to?" She still didn't look up, and 
Christie wondered for a moment if she even knew her son wasn't 14 and going off to play 
in the streets.

"We've got a bit of work," Conail said. "Won't be long. An hour or so."

"All right then," she said again, lifting up her sandwich for another bite, her eyes on her 
plate.

"Come on," Rutherford said to him, and they headed for the front door, their jackets 
hanging on a rack beside it. 

"Taking Dad being gone a bit hard," Rutherford said, almost as apology, and Christie 
nodded. "She'll come around in a bit, I think."

"Aye," Christie said, not believing it. He turned to see Bridget standing there and wanted 
to tell her to go back and talk to Gracie Rutherford, though he didn't know what she 
might say. 

"Let's go. They'll be waiting." And Rutherford headed out the door, Christie and Bridget 
following him out into the New York City street.

Though the sun was out in the too-bright clear of early spring, it was still cold, colder 
than Ireland had been, in fact. This disappointed Christie, since he'd been hoping for 
some warmth. For some reason, when he thought of the States he always imagined it 
warm, but that was likely from watching films of the American West. He pushed his chin 
a bit lower into his jacket, his still-short crewcut making him wish for a hat.

"Aye, it's still bloody cold," Rutherford said as they wove down the street, yellow cabs 
streaming by as they passed a schoolyard, children in Catholic uniforms at play on the 
blacktop inside the fence. "You'd think this close to Easter we'd get a bit of relief. It's not 
far, though. St. Matthew's. A few blocks up."

"No trouble," Christie said, glancing over his shoulder and noting that Bridget was still 
there, a few steps behind them. She was smiling a strange smile that unnerved him, and 
he realized, for the first time, that he wished they'd lost her on the street.

"Something wrong?" Rutherford asked, his voice fast and a little urgent. He stopped and 
Christie stopped with him, Conail shooting a look over his shoulder, as well.

"No, no," Christie said quickly. "Nothing at all. Just looking around a bit." 

Rutherford seemed unconvinced, and Christie forced a smile. "I don't get out country 
much and like to look at what I can see," he added, though it sounded weak, even to his 
ears. The children's voices sounded vaguely like screams. He wanted to move on. He 
nodded down the direction they'd been going to let Conail know that.

"Ah," the other man said, a puzzled expression on his face, and they walked on. 

"I hear you just got out of the Army," Conail said after a few steps. 

Christie nodded. "Been awhile back, but aye."

"Special Forces and all that?"

Christie nodded again. "Aye. Since I was of age." He was glad to have the school out of 
earshot. A car backfired as it started on the street, and he welcomed the sound.

"Do you miss it?" Rutherford asked. His voice sounded strange, something hesitant and 
quieter in it.

"Army?" he replied, just to be sure that's what he meant.

"Yea," Conail said, sinking his hands into his pockets. "That whole...life."

Christie heard the question beneath the question. He knew the tired look on Conail's face. 
He'd been seeing it in the mirror since he'd returned from the Rangers, though he'd tried 
to keep it away.

"Aye," he said, speaking softly now. 

"I would miss it," Rutherford said. "Something that...clear, if you take my meaning. Out 
in the open and...in the right."

It was a huge risk to say it and Christie knew it. He wondered with some part of his mind 
if he should answer, if his grandmother had told Rutherford to say it to see what Christie 
would say in response. His botching of the job so far might drive her to it in a search for 
an explanation for his mistakes.

The tears welling in Rutherford's eyes told him otherwise.

"We're in the right," he offered, more to make Rutherford feel better than because he 
believed it was so. Behind him, he could hear Bridget laugh.

Rutherford shook his head. "I used to believe that," he said. "When my Dad was alive, I 
tried to believe it because he did, you know. I believed it when Shea got here from 
Antrim to go after Owen Curran even. Every time I'd pick up a package from Belfast with 
a piece of that rifle of his I believed it. When I handed it to him before he left to go after 
Curran, I believed it. I never stopped."

His pale face was going red, as though his cheeks had been smeared with rouge. He 
wiped at the tears on his face. 

"But this sickens me," he said. "I'm sorry. I know you're doing it and I mean nothing 
against you for the job you've picked, but it makes me sick." 

Christie looked down at the sidewalk, sniffed. "Didn't pick it," he said, still nearly 
whispering. "It's not mine."

"None of us picked this, did we?" Rutherford said, frustration seeping from his voice. 
"Not the ones our age. When they signed in '98, I didn't know they didn't sign for you and 
me." 

"They signed for the country's peace," Christie said. "And you can make a country 
change the way they do things, I reckon. Heal some things. But you can't change the 
what's in people's hearts."

"Aye," Conail replied. "That's so." 

Christie saw a church before them, gothic and dark. "Some things can't be healed like 
that."

Conail stopped. "Would you walk away from it?" he asked, pinning Christie with his 
eyes. "Would you ever just throw it off and take back your life and walk away?" His eyes 
were bright, touched with something. Desperation, or hope.

Christie looked at him, his gaze settling on Conail's arm, a smile curling on his face. 
"Would you take that band off your arm before the proper time to put it up?" he asked. 
"Or move your father's picture from his dinner plate?"

Conail looked down at his arm, his expression falling. "No," he said, touching the band's 
soft black. "I suppose not. My family...Ireland...it's all I am."

Christie reached out and touched the band. "The Ireland we live in - the one our families 
live in that has nothing to with the earth our houses are built on or the grass or the sea 
around it -- is lost, Conail," he said quietly. "And because we're there with them in that 
place, you and I...we're lost, as well. Two lost men from a lost land."

Conail looked at him and a beat of silence passed between them. Bridget stood behind 
Christie. He could feel her icy hand on his shoulder.

"Come on," Christie said finally. "They're waiting on me. We need to get me my things." 


****

VICTOR HOSTEEN'S RANCH
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
12:08 p.m.


Albert Hosteen took the dirt road from his house to Victor's on Ghost's back, riding 
without a saddle and with only a bridle and two thin ropes attached to steer the gray horse 
as he rode. Ghost hadn't needed a bridle for years, especially not with Hosteen, who had 
been able to tell the horse what needed it to do since the horse was a yearling. 

As Hosteen went down the road, he tried not to look at the evidence of Agent Scully's 
desperate walk to the barn. He tried not to think about the body of the horse, Scully in her 
blood-stained gown in the middle of the circle of light. 

Still, when he happened on an upset area in the tire tracks where he could see the print of 
one of her hands, a small bare footprint beside it, he couldn't help but see it all again 
behind his eyes.

Something in his face went a bit harder. He could feel his eyes, the corners of his mouth, 
fall a bit. So many things had risen in Scully, taking over her and moving out, flocking 
out of her on their black, frightening wings.

Time for other things to rise, as well, he thought, looking up at the noon sky, traces of 
clouds moving high above.

He rode past Victor's house, as empty as he expected it to be, past the barn and its quiet, 
even the animals silent. Only a few chickens were milling around the outside, and they 
fussed away from him back toward the doorway as he passed. 

He heard a sound, laughter, from far off to his left, and followed it until he saw Mae 
Porter and Frank Music sitting at a makeshift table way off behind her house. Their backs 
were to him, but he could see Katherine standing on the tabletop, her hands in her 
mother's as she swayed. The baby was the one laughing, Music and Porter sitting so close 
together their shoulders were nearly touching. 

To his right he heard the screen door to Mae's back door open and shut. He turned his 
gaze to Sean, who'd come out in his too-big jeans and a white T-shirt, his hair catching on 
the breeze. 

The boy's eyes were on Mae and Music, his arms crossed over his chest. As Hosteen 
watched him, Sean didn't move or even blink.

"Hm," he said to himself, looking from the two adults and the baby to the boy and back 
again.

Yes, he decided. Tonight he would see things rise. Up and out. He would see them for 
what - and who -- they were.

He guided Ghost toward the house.

Sean didn't take his eyes off Mae and Frank as Hosteen stopped Ghost a few feet from 
him. Hosteen could see that Sean's face was growing red.

"We go into the desert tonight for your final trial," Hosteen said with requisite gravity. 
"Tonight, you will become an Eagle. Tonight you meet the one who will take your 
suffering away."

At that, Sean's face snapped toward him, his eyes showing the question that he would not 
allow himself to ask.

"Yes," Hosteen said with gravity. "He has been waiting for you in the desert since you 
came here. He knows all that you have been through and..." He glanced at Mae and 
Frank as Katherine laughed, "...and what troubles you now. It is time for you to meet."

Sean dropped his arms to his sides, his fists clenching and unclenching.

"Gather your things for a night in the desert, " Hosteen said. "I will prepare war paint and 
magical things. We will ride out from my house to the place where this man lives and 
waits for you."

Sean nodded, Mae and Frank and Katherine forgotten. Hosteen could see the excitement 
- and the desperation - on the boy's face. 

"Tell no one where you are going," Hosteen said. "We leave at dusk." 

And with that, he tapped Ghost with his right heel to turn him back toward the barn and 
the road to the house. 


*****

THE RUE INN
BALLYCASTLE
NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
6:03 p.m.



Walter Skinner had never been one for the cold, or for the ocean for that matter. Thus, the 
combination of the North Sea, the cloudless night and the wind coming off the water as 
night began to fall were not exactly to his liking. 

Something about the night, the cold and the sky so clear it seemed unreal made Skinner 
think of Cambodia, up around Song Tra Bong, though he would be loathe to admit that to 
anyone. The stars were different here, out of place for him, and he thought of the nights 
he'd spent in Vietnam lying outside beneath clear skies, how he'd learn to grow wary of 
starlight. Something about being able to open his eyes and look at the stars, close them 
again and then look again and him have not moved a muscle but the stars having changed 
their positions bothered him immensely. 

He didn't like to be reminded that his world was in constant motion, no matter how true 
the fact.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of the fisherman's coat he'd borrowed from the 
innkeeper, the collar flap catching a gust of wind. 

Off to his left, the town of Ballycastle proper, not far in the distance, a few lights on as 
night eased in over the ocean. Somewhere past it, he knew, was this man Neill had said 
would have their answers, ones that he wanted. 

But before him, there on the side of the cliff, were other answers he wanted, as well.

He could see Mulder's outline in the moonlight, as though he were not the man Skinner 
had known all this time but rather the shadow of him, left there overlooking the sea. He'd 
seen Mulder from the window of the room they shared, waited for him to come in as 
night came, and when Mulder didn't, Skinner went out to him instead.

He pushed his collar up against his throat and started toward Mulder, who was standing 
stone-still out there on the edge.

Given the sound of waves crashing against the jagged coastline down below, he figured 
Mulder didn't hear him there, since the younger man didn't move as he approached him.
 
He was wrong.

"What is it." 

It didn't even sound like Mulder's voice. Even though what he'd said was a question, it 
didn't sound like one. It was flat as a field, and it made Skinner slightly uncomfortable 
and more concerned.

"Nothing," he said, trying his best for his usual gruff. "Just wondered what you were 
doing out here, freezing your ass off. You should come in."

Mulder didn't turn, didn't move. The moon was rising, and it and the lingering dusk were 
enough so that Skinner could see Mulder's outline a bit more clearly. Like him, he'd 
turned the collar of his borrowed peacoat up against his chin.

"Mulder?" He spoke into the silence. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he said. "I guess I was just thinking about something." He was trying to come 
back from wherever he'd been, and his voice was forced and only vaguely normal. He 
tried to laugh.

Skinner only nodded, and they dissolved into a silence, both of them listening to the 
waves.

"We're close now," Skinner said finally, nodding toward the few lights of the town, miles 
away. 

Mulder nodded. "I know," he said. "I just hope...I hope Neill is right about this man."

"He is," Skinner said, and he actually was sure. "I don't know a lot these days, Mulder," 
he continued, "But I do know that I believe Neill and what he's said he knows."

Mulder nodded. "Yeah," he said noncommittedly. 

"I mean, hell, even Renahan seems to believe him, and Renahan doesn't believe much of 
anything anymore." He grunted, an attempt at a sardonic laugh. Mulder's lip quirked as he 
seemed to appreciate Skinner's effort.

A ship's horn sounded far off in the distance, and both men's eyes were drawn to the 
lights on the ship far off shore. It was moving slowly, moving away, and the sight of it 
made Skinner somehow sad. He returned his gaze to Mulder, though Mulder was still 
looking away. 

Finally, he came up to stand beside him, their shoulders close.

"What really got you out here anyway?" he asked. "Scully?"

Mulder shook his head, the wind catching the collar of his coat again. "No," he said. 
"Samantha."

Skinner looked at him in surprise. "There's a name I haven't heard in awhile," he replied. 
"What the hell got you thinking about her all the way out here in the middle of all this?"

"Because I hadn't heard the name in a long time myself until today," Mulder replied. He 
nodded toward Ballycastle. "And in the middle of this, I realized that I haven't really 
thought about Sam a whole lot in the past couple of years. And I was trying to decide 
why." 

Skinner shivered, nodded, considering himself.

"Things change," he said, as if to placate Mulder, who sounded a bit...guilty?...at the 
admission. "You've got a wife now. Baby on the way."

"Do you remember me when you met me?" Mulder asked quietly, a hint of 
incredulousness.

"I try not to think about that, Mulder," Skinner deadpanned, though he was only half-
joking. Mulder chuffed.

"Yeah, I know. Single-minded nearly to a fault. A little selfish."

"'A little'?" 

"All right, a lot," Mulder amended. "Or I guess it appeared that way."

Skinner nodded. "I know a lot of it was because nobody took you seriously. That tends to 
make people bite other people on the ass." 

"That was a lot of it, yeah," Mulder agreed. "But I look back at myself now and I think 
that a lot of that was also that I was trying to keep from facing what I was starting to 
realize about Samantha, what happened to her."

"Which was what?" Skinner asked quietly. He didn't want to say it himself.

Mulder heaved in a breath. "That she's dead," he said. 

The word hung in the air for a long moment. Skinner said nothing, but something in him 
and his friendship with Mulder, an old knot, loosened. 

"It was easier to give my whole life to looking for her than to admit to myself that she 
was gone," Mulder said.

Skinner felt a smile tug at his lips and looked up at the stars. "Jesus," he said softly. "Do 
you know how many years I've been waiting for you to say that?" 

"About as long as I have," Mulder replied, chuffing. "It took coming here for me to be 
able to do it." 

"Why?"

Mulder drew in a breath, let it out. The ship was moving far off now and they both 
followed it with their eyes. 

"What these people do for their families and this Cause..." He paused. "There's 
something about their loyalty to it, their willingness to do anything to stay loyal to it, that 
feels familiar. They'll do anything for that, for that and a sense that they belong to 
something bigger than themselves. Anything. Including destroying themselves." 

Skinner nodded. "Like you. When I met you." 

He nodded. "Yes," he replied simply. 

Skinner considered this in the space of quiet that followed the word. They stood still, 
huddled together like two men on the deck of a ship, the waves moving below them.

"Are you saying that belonging to something larger than yourself stopped mattering?" 
Skinner asked, breaking the silence. "And that's what changed?
 
Mulder shook his head. "No, it's not that. It's that I realized along the way that what I was 
looking for *was* that sense of belonging to something, and I thought Sam was the 
answer to that. And she wasn't."

Skinner nodded. "But Scully was."

He caught a bittersweet smile on the other man's face. 

"Yes," Mulder said softly. "And when I realized I'd found what I was looking for - not 
Sam but what Sam represented for me - it was easier to accept what I knew was true. I'd 
never find her. The best I could do was find the truth of what happened, and though that 
gives me closure, it doesn't give me what was missing."

Skinner nodded. "Makes sense," he said. He looked at Mulder now, facing him. "So you 
stop looking?" he asked. "Stop looking for the conspiracy and little green men?"

Mulder laughed. "No," he said. "I *start* looking for those things and not for a person 
who's not there. I start looking for what happened to her, but not at the expense of 
everything I have and everything I am." 

He paused. 

"The people here taught me that laying yourself on an altar for someone doesn't bring 
them back from the dead. It just puts you in the grave next to them, and while some might 
think that's noble...it simply compounds the grief and the waste." 

Skinner smiled, looked down. The knot unwound in him, straightened out. He cleared his 
throat. 

"It's cold as shit out here," he said.

"Yeah," Mulder said. "It is." He was smiling faintly. 

"Come on," Skinner said, turning his back on the ocean. "I'll buy you a drink."


***

"THE OLD BAKEHOUSE"
4 MILLER ROAD
BALLYCASTLE
NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
8:32 p.m.


Ruby Belle had always been a beautiful woman, from the moment James had set eyes on 
her outside St. Jude's in Derry. It was Easter, 1947, and she wore flowers in her hair like 
a crown, and her eyes had been like jewels set into the porcelain of her face, jewels just 
like her name.

Her face, lit by the light over the stove as she washed up the heavy dishes, was lined now, 
but her eyes were just as bright. Jimmy smiled as he watched her, smiled through the pain 
the medicine couldn't hold away.

"Time for another dose, Jimmy?" she asked, not looking up. Her voice was quiet over the 
warm sound of water running into the sink. 

He was at the table, his medication gathered in a small group at the center of the table 
beneath the dim light above them.

"No," he said, keeping the pain from his voice. "Don't need one." 

He saw her smile. "Don't you lie to me, Jimmy Shea," she replied softly. "Take one, and 
I'll make you sorry you ever taught me to play backgammon."

"You're going to beat me again are you then, woman?" he asked. His white moustache 
framed the fond smile he gave her. 

"Of course," she said, putting a plate into the drainer and reaching for a dish towel to dry 
her worn, lovely hands.

A knock on the heavy, 200-year old door. 

"At this hour?" Ruby asked, looking at the clock on the wall. "Who would that be?"

Jimmy Shea looked at the clock, as well. 

Only one thing would bring people out this time of night. He'd had knocks like this 
hundreds of times, and he knew the meaning of the quiet sound.

"Don't know," he said, pushing himself to his feet slowly. "But you set up the board and 
I'll be back. And this time let me be white." 

He walked through the house and its darkness, only one light on in every room throwing 
its light up onto the dark-beamed ceiling. The house had been around so long it was 
known only by what it was when it was first built among this outpost of Ballycastle - 
"The Old Bakehouse." It would never change its name.

Before he opened the door, he took in a breath. He was tired. In more ways than he could 
name.

The man he knew as Seamus - still - stood in the porchlight. He removed his fishing cap 
before he spoke.

"Mr. Shea, you'll forgive the hour," he said softly. "But I wanted to let you know some 
news that might concern you, sir."

Shea nodded. "No trouble," he said. He did not invite Seamus in.

"The Americans you had some dealings with before...that man Fox Mulder, the Fibbie 
whose wife was mixed up in the Curran business...he's here in Ballycastle."

"Oh?" Shea said, his voice flat.

"Aye," Seamus continued. "He's got Neill with him. And Renahan. They're looking for 
the Collin's, I should think."

Shea nodded. "I should think." The same neutral tone.

Seamus nodded. "Just wanted you to know to stay away from town for a bit."

Shea nodded again. "Aye, I'll mind who's about." 

Seamus nodded again, Shea's flatness doing its work and stiff-arming him away. "I'll be 
on my way then," he said quietly, and replaced his hat, turning to leave.

"No trouble," Shea said again. "Thank you, Seamus." 

The other man nodded, then turned to face him again. "Oh, and Jimmy?"

Shea met his gaze. "Yes?"

"The wife - that woman Scully? She's alive. We found her today from an email someone 
sent to Mulder about her."

Shea felt his eyes open wider. He grew very still. "Alive?" 

"Aye," Seamus said. "She's in the States. Hiding out somewhere. Some place in New 
Mexico. Some little town called Farmington. Christie's on his way. So stay low for a bit 
longer and it'll be done with at last." 

Shea met his gaze. "Good," he said softly. "That's good. Thank you for the news." 

"No trouble," Seamus said, smiled, and disappeared into the darkness.


*****


ST. FRANCIS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 5
6:01 p.m.


Heliwell.

Scully kept running the word over and over in her mind as she lay in the hospital bed, 
holding onto the word like a rope, seeing the man in the wheelchair as though she were 
remembering a particularly fond and vivid dream. 

He'd told her where to find him, a dark house with stained glass windows at a place 
called Heliwell. She could still see the house when she closed her eyes, her lids lit from 
the overhead reading light in the small, private room, its window facing the lot filled with 
lamplight in the dusk and pickups from the Ford administration. 

Looking at the house, at the trees surrounding it that looked like pines, the windows with 
some design she couldn't name or place, made the sound of her own heartbeat on the 
monitor easier to take, the sound of Rose's skitting along on its separate machine. She 
was wearing a nasal canula, as well, and the machine hissing when she breathed. 

Something had happened, though she couldn't remember what. She only remembered the 
nightmare and leaving the house. Everything else was washed in darkness, her memories 
packed in with cotton and grief.

She sighed, giving up again on remembering, turned her face back toward the window 
and watched cars milling. A woman got out with her child.

Heliwell... 

When Granger returned from the Hosteen's, she would ask him to find out how to find 
this house, this old man, and his promise of something that felt to her like peace. 

A soft tap on the heavy wooden door, and she turned, expecting to see Granger come 
through the doorway. 

Mae entered instead.

"Hey," she said softly. Her mouth felt dry, the holdover from some medication. Mae 
heard the dryness of her throat, her voice like paper, and reached for a pitcher of ice 
water on the bedside table, pouring it into a plastic cup.

"Hey," Mae replied, smiling faintly as she poured. "How are you? You all right?" 

Scully nodded, taking the cup. She was cold, the hospital gown gaping around her neck. 
"Yeah," she said, just above a whisper. "I'm all right." 

She took a sip, the water making her even colder. Mae pressed a button and lowered the 
railing on that side of the bed and sat on the edge, her hip touching Scully's leg. 

"The bleeding's stopped?" Mae sounded nervous, though Scully could not name why. 
Something more than her concern for her and baby. Something almost afraid.

Scully nodded. "It seems so," she replied. She handed Mae the cup, and the other woman 
placed it on the bedside table.

"You don't remember," Mae asked, not looking at her. "Do you?"

The words confirmed that something lay behind the Forget, that the gauzy haze that 
followed the memory of the morning air on her face after leaving the house occluded 
something she didn't want to remember. 

Looking at Mae's face, she was uncertain if she wanted to.

"I left the house," she replied, deflecting Mae, her gaze darting away. She put her hand on 
her belly, stroking the woven blanket with the palm of her hand. "I do remember that."

"What sent you out?" Mae asked. Her voice was gentle, but her face was still creased 
with concern.

The blood along the floor, mercurial, flashed in her mind, the feel of her daughter's face, 
her eyes clenching shut, beneath her palm. 

"Nothing," Scully said, pushing the memory away. "I had a bad dream. That's all it was."

Mae reached out and put a hand on hers, stilling its worrying of the fabric. Her fingers 
squeezed lightly. She shook her head.

"I know what you saw," Mae whispered, as though someone might hear them. "And it 
wasn't a dream. You knew it then, and you know it now."

Scully looked away, toward the window again, the moon high and far off in the distance 
and looking like a shred of nail. 

"It was a dream," she said again. She hated the tone of her voice, petulant and verging on 
desperation. She hated the tears welling in her eyes that said she knew she lied.

"Granger's contacted him," Mae said. "Told him to come." 

"No," Scully said, shaking her head. "I don't want him here. I don't want him to see this." 
A sob caught in her throat, the tears going down her face. "I don't want him to know--"

"Dana," Mae interrupted, squeezing her hand and leaning forward, her voice urgent. "You 
*need* him right now. No matter what you know or what you've seen."

"No," Scully said, turning away. She tried to pull her hand away but Mae held it tight. 

"For pity's sake, he's your husband," Mae said softly. "He's the father of your child. 
You're allowed to want him with you. You're allowed to need him." 

Her quiet tone allayed the accusation, softened it. 

"I want..." Scully trailed off. There was something she wanted to say but she lost it, the 
vision's images rising in her, too clear to be a dream, the sound of the gunshot too loud 
and too final, like a gavel falling or a door slammed shut. 

Mae leaned forward, her temple against Scully's, her hand gripping down. She made a 
long soft shushing noise, rocking against Scully's hip to rock her, soothing.

"I know," Mae whispered. "God help me, I do." 

The grief crested, and Scully closed her eyes against it, against Rose's screaming, against 
the image of Mulder's eyes catching the light as bright and as lifeless as glass. 


******


THE PUEBLO
NAVAJO RESERVATION
OUTSIDE TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
6:15 p.m.


They'd blindfolded him when they left the Hosteen's property, and for the first time since 
he'd come to Two Grey Hills, Paul Granger was afraid. 

"Cover your eyes with this," Victor had said from beside him. He held out a bandana, a 
worn blue one that Victor often kept in his back pocket. It was large enough to drape 
around the horses' faces as they moved them from corral to trailer for sale, and Granger 
took it, trying as best he could to shake the image of himself as one of the dark horses 
being tussled off down the dirt road of the reservation. 

Granger looked hard at Victor's face, his heart aching in his chest as it sped up a notch, 
faltering a bit. He could feel sweat beginning to glaze his face. 

"Victor?" he ventured, holding the bandana in one hand. 

Victor looked over at him, and he didn't smile. 

"You can't know where we're going, Granger," he said softly. "I need you to do as I say." 

Granger swallowed. They hadn't even passed Albert Hosteen's house and he already 
knew that "trust" and "belief" were not the same thing. 

He tied the bandana around his head, pulled a tight knot in the back, leaned against the 
seat, pushing out a breath.

"Just lean back and relax," Victor's voice floated to him. "We've got a bit of a trip. And 
it's going to get bumpy, so don't bother falling asleep."
 
It was hours ago now that they'd arrived wherever they were. Granger could tell there was 
a fire where he was because even through the bandana's thick cloth he could see 
flickering light, and he could smell the wood as it burned, wood and something else that 
was vaguely like too-heavy incense mixed with grease. 

They'd helped him remove his shirt and shoes before he'd gone through a doorway, which 
he recognized as one by bumping into its frame. Bits of it had powdered off as he'd done 
so, two people gently righting him and guiding him through. The room he'd entered, his 
eyes growing darker, was cool and smelled of smoke mixed with dust and earth.

He'd seen just enough cowboy movies to expect drumming or the sound of dancing feet. 
He'd seen "Dances With Wolves" more times than he wanted to admit, and as he sat on 
the ground in his jeans, he was starting to get embarrassed at how he thought these people 
should act. 

Truth be known, he realized, he really understood their tribal ways very little. To think 
otherwise was prejudicial and arrogant, especially given that he's always been tacitly 
aware of himself as an Outsider among them, aware that their tribal identity was 
something he, even as a black man, could only partly understand.

They'd propped him up against what felt like a flat stone which acted like a chairback, 
and he'd listened to the sounds of men moving in and out for a long time, none of them 
speaking, no rattles or drums or high-pitched sounds. Just the sound of wood being 
stacked, that strange greasy, sweet smell. 
He'd dozed off, his chest aching, after an hour of their silence, lulled by the quiet and 
darkness before his eyes.

He was awake now, though, roused with a hand on his bare shoulder and a feeling that 
was a circle of men around him. He didn't know how he knew they were there, but he did.

"Granger," someone said to him. It was Keel, Victor's brother, a man as squat and thickly 
built as his father was tall and thin. He rarely spoke.

"Keel?" Granger said, feeling heavy, as though he'd been filled with sand. He felt like 
he'd been breathing smoke for too long.

"Yeah," Keel said, and someone else put a hand on his shoulder, then someone else. 
"Let's get you up. Things are prepared now. It's time to begin."

As he nodded, the men were lifting him up, his bare feet touching something that felt like 
cloth beneath them, but hard stones beneath. As he got his feet under him, he felt his legs 
go rubbery, his knees beginning to cave. Were in not for the men around him - who 
seemed to be expecting this development - he would have fallen to the ground.

"I'm all right," he said out of habit, but the hands stayed where they were. They began to 
guide him along the cloth path. He was moving away from the fire toward fresher air and 
what he knew to be cold night air. 

"Where are you taking me?" Granger said as they stepped outside. 

"Quiet." Victor's voice. "Everything will be clear to you in a few minutes." Victor took 
him now from two other men, Keel's hands still on him, as well. They hustled him 
forward.

His chest's ache was growing with his fear, feeling like he'd swallowed a fist. Sweat was 
cold on him, made colder by the night air on his bare chest. As they drew him forward he 
could feel an updraft, more wind, and sensed he was nearing some edge, wind free to 
move below him. 

They stopped. "Can you stand?" Victor asked. "Nod your head if you can." 

Granger felt his heartbeat falter again, his head growing light. He shook his head "no."

"All right," Victor said, then spoke quickly in Navajo. The other men's hands vanished 
and he heard them withdraw, their feet sound soft on the cloth-covered path. 

He and Victor stood alone. For a long moment he could hear only his breathing, the 
sound of his heart roaring in his ears, and the night wind.

Then, from beneath those noises, a strange sound. Something pitched high and animal-
like, something beating the air. 

He wanted to ask what it was that was coming. He wanted to ask what would happen to 
him when it got there.

Victor's hands closed around him, the sound growing. A foul smell drifted in on the wind 
now, sharp and not unlike ammonia. Granger turned his face away.

"No," Victor said, grabbing him by the back of the neck and turning his face forward, 
toward the growing sound and the terrible smell. 

The high-pitched screaming grew louder, a racket of it, too loud and coming too fast.

"Trust," Victor said above the sound. 

Granger's heart was racing too fast, the pain intensifying. He began to buckle, but Victor 
held him.

Whatever was before him engulfed him, sharp things tearing at his skin. He heard Victor 
grunt as something hit him, a thousand somethings crashing into them, all around them. 
Granger felt something soft like hair, something like leather slapping his face.

He cried out, his hands going up to protect his face. His glasses were knocked off. 

Inside his chest, his heart seemed to roll over inside him, the pain too much now, breath 
leaving him. It rolled inside him as though it had been sleeping and was waking again. 

The last thing he heard was his own scream - terror and pain. The last thing he felt was 
the ground as his knees gave way, Victor's hands gone, and the earth striking his lifeless 
face.


*****

THE DESERT, FURTHER NORTH
NAVAJO RESERVATION
OUTSIDE TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
6:35 p.m.


Though Albert Hosteen hadn't been there when Dana Scully had reached the end of the 
trail that overlooked the expanse of the desert around Two Grey Hills, his horse Ghost 
seemed to recall the incident well. 

Hosteen smiled as the reins slipped through his hands, Ghost pushing his long neck, the 
color of ash, down to the ground. The horse's nostrils ruffled the sand as he touched his 
nose to the ground, as if he were searching for some familiar scent at the edge of the 
clearing. Beside him, Sean's pony Cloud merely looked bored, as though the dead-end at 
this end of this, a different trail, were something the animal expected. Sean looked as 
confused as Hosteen had known Scully had when confronted with the drop way off in the 
desert, also guarded by a scraggled tree poised on the edge of Nothing. 

Hosteen waited. The anger wouldn't be long behind, and he knew it. It began to bloom on 
the boy's face, the sun just there enough on the horizon to illuminate the two of them, up 
high over the riverbed. The rage hung there as Sean looked at him, caught in the boy's 
pupils like golden dots of light. 

He let the smile vanish from his face, his lips drawing down. His back straightened, and 
as he shifted Ghost's neck came up, the horse cocking an ear. 

"You want to say something to me," he said, not breaking Sean's gaze. 

The boy didn't blink, but his lips thinned. His reddish hair, too long now for a boy his 
age, was shot across his forehead like slashes above his eyes. The crow's feather that 
Hosteen had banded in his hair stood at an angle, glistening black, cocked like a banner 
or a sail. 

"You want to know where the Medicine Man is," Hosteen continued, and he looked out 
over the expanse of the land before him, though he could still feel Sean's eyes on him. 
"Where the one is who will take away your suffering. As I've promised you."

From the desert, and from Sean, only silence. 

If Hosteen looked hard enough out over the white band of the riverbed, out toward the 
mountains wearing their cloaks of shadows, he could see himself out on the desolate 
landscape, one as stark as the terrain within when, just back from the war, he'd fled the 
reservation from this spot and headed out into the wilderness. What he'd seen in Poland, 
Russia, was burned behind his eyes and he'd gone from this place, from the clearing with 
its one tree standing like a ghost, its limbs thin as arms, its bark white as bone. What he'd 
heard, speaking into a cone-shaped mouthpiece, muttering of CodeTalk about the end of 
the world...

He'd thought to find the end of his own out here among the mountains. That's what he 
came out here to do that day in the winter of 1945. Just as the water had appeared and 
disappeared from the riverbed, just as the men he'd worked for and appeared and 
disappeared as quickly as smoke, he'd planned to vanish himself.

But what he'd found out here among the brush, the trails for wild things moving up and 
down the mountains, and within the fire, had stopped him from doing so. Out here, he'd 
decided to live in a different way. Instead of Vanishing, he had returned instead. 

The dot of him out in the desert that he saw in his mind as he looked at the landscape, 
which never seemed to change here and never would, was replaced by the sight of Sean 
beside him as he turned his face. The boy was seething, heat seeming to rise off him as 
Hosteen looked at him and did not smile. 

"The one who will take away your suffering is here," he said, and his voice seemed to 
echo in the stillness. "We will wait."

With that, he swung his leg over the worn saddle and stepped down hard onto the packed, 
dry earth. 

 
****

9:13 p.m.


One thing that Sean could never become accustomed to was how cold the desert was at 
night, or how much the stars out here, away from any light, looked so much like eyes. 

He was a thin small boy, small even for his age. His arms were too pale, his skin too 
white, even after all this time in the desert. He hated the way he looked, catching a 
glimpse of his milky skin in the orange of the firelight. He thought, looking at the 
shadows across his bare chest, light catching in the ridges of his ribcage, that he was the 
most pathetic creature on earth. 

As if to prove him right, his jeans - bought for a dollar at the Salvation Army Thrift in 
town - slipped on his hips as he shifted, the tattered band of his briefs peeking out. Even 
Cloud seemed to be rolling his eyes as the pony glanced over at him, tucked into Ghost's 
side in the shadows on the fire's right. 

He was freezing, and the lines Hosteen had drawn on his chest looked maudlin, lines of 
red and black. He could feel the stinking paint crusting on his cheeks, across his forehead. 
He wore a scratchy band of what felt like sackcloth, and the crow's feather was pricking 
at the back of his head and tugging his hair.

Little baby, he heard John Fagan's voice say, as it had a thousand times before. Little 
baby go and cry some more...

He'd hated Fagan. Looking into the fire he wanted to say it aloud. 

He hated him almost as much as he hated Hosteen across from him, the old man sitting 
there with paint on his face and his hands on his knees. The Indian was even sitting 
Indian-Style. It was like a giant joke, all of this, and Sean was the punch line or the butt 
of it. 

Liar, he wanted to say, looking at Hosteen through the flames. Above him even the pale 
moon, looking too small and too far away, seemed to laugh. 

You're just another bloody liar.

"Say it," Hosteen said over the angry sound of the burning wood. Hosteen had sprinkled 
some hocus-pocus powder on the wood before he'd lit it and the wood was burning blue-
green flame. It crackled in the fire as though it was arguing with itself.

It's just a bunch of shite, he thought. His mouth was a thin line and the words wouldn't 
come out. 

You're just a bunch of shite, you stupid, lying old man. 

"Say it," Hosteen said again. Only his mouth moved when he spoke. His eyes, black as 
oil, were as dark as space.

The paint had begun to itch on Sean's face. He wanted to wipe it away, but his hands, 
cupping the balls of his kneecaps, wouldn't move. His nails were digging into the soft 
white skin there, and he could feel the crescent shapes of them pressing in.

The feather in his hair, the hours spent in the desert. The journey he was on to meet the 
mysterious Medicine Man who would take away his pain...lies. Everything had been a -

"Lie," he said aloud, meaning to shout it. It came out as a puff of air.

"Hmm," Hosteen said, his face the same mask. Sean thought he might be made of wood, 
he sat so still across from him, his darker skin thin against the old rigging of his ribs. 

"Fucking cigar store. Fucking Indian piece of shite."

Not his voice. His father's voice.

Hosteen smiled, then a laugh bubbled up from deep within his chest. 

Sean heard it, the moon above him laughing, as well, and hated even more. It felt like 
electricity was running through his veins, hot and fast and almost painful beneath his 
bread-colored skin.

"I wondered when you would let me meet your father," Hosteen said, his hands sliding 
from his knees to the too-thin waist above his pants. 

He reached in front of him to the small wooden bowls of paint. The black, the red, were 
dripping at the edges, almost dried. A bowl of yellow in the center was untouched. 
Hosteen touched the surface, and his finger seemed to glow with the brightness of it.

"No one's coming." Sean's voice, soft, as though tinged with feathers.

Hosteen's mouth quirked. "Might be surprised," he said.

"There's no one out here at all, is there?" Owen's voice.

Hosteen chuffed. "Only who we bring with us," he replied, looking bemused. He touched 
the yellow paint to the crags beneath his eyes. Two swipes and his eyes glowed. 

Sean felt himself rise, as though a hand had reached down and hauled him up, dragging 
him.

"There's no such thing as magic!" His father's voice roared from his throat. "A bunch of 
silly powder made of horse shite and you and your fucking face paint, you bloody stupid 
old FUCK!"

Hosteen threw back his head and laughed full out now. His teeth looked like headstones 
and his eyes glowed. He looked at Sean and said something in Navajo. Sean heard the 
word for "close." Or "closer." Then his father's name.

"THERE'S NO SUCH THING!" 

The words filled the air, over the bluish flames, the blue stars shining. 

Hosteen laughed again, and the sound surrounded Sean there, a cold wind coming up off 
the cliff.

"No," Hosteen said, shaking his head slowly, still smiling cryptically. "Not the kind of 
magic you have been thinking of. No Medicine Man to take away your pain. Or your 
rage."

"Then you lied," Sean spat, his own voice gaining. He sounded like a boy to his ears. A 
little boy.

Little baby cry some more...

Hosteen shook his head again. 

"No," he said. "I did not." 

Sean felt the current rising in him, his arms rising, his hands - as though not his hands - 
reaching for the band around his head, the black feather. His chest felt like it was 
swelling, as though he were growing right before Hosteen's eyes. In a few seconds, he 
thought, he'd be able touch the sky. 

He opened his mouth and raged.

He heard the sound of something beating the air, a high-pitched chitter, a cry. He felt 
something nick his cheek as it blurred by in a cloud of sound and motion, the smell of 
ammonia hovering with the scream around his face.


*****
 

Hosteen had smelled the animals coming, heard the sound of their wings. He'd seen the 
light rising from the flames, the fire's fingers reaching higher as the wind rushing ahead 
of the mass of bodies pushed across the clearing. 

Across the firelight, Sean Curran's neck was taut, tendons standing out stark through his 
thin skin, the boy's hands crumpled into tight fists and his arms over his head, his legs 
spread out so that the child's body formed an X against the blanket of sky behind him.

And all around his body, black shapes were moving, slapping the air with their leathery 
wings. Hosteen saw, glinting with the light of the fire, eyes on eyes, mouths open, tiny 
teeth. The bats were thumping against Sean's back, glancing off his arms, battering him 
with their wings. They tumbled around his feet, slapping the sand. One glanced off the 
boy's shoulder and spun into the fire, knocking a small piece of wood off in a hail of 
sparks as it fled with a screech.

Seeing the sparks, the wood rolling in its sleeve of fire, Sean ran to it, the bats still 
streaming, and picked up the end of the wood, a burned-out place, swung the piece up, 
brandishing it. Hosteen watched the boy turn to him, his mouth still open, his teeth bared, 
a tumble of obscenities filling the air. 

Hosteen didn't move as Sean stood, the fire over him. The red paint on his face caught 
the light, a smear like blood beneath his eyes. 

"WHY???" 

It was long, the single syllable seeming to stretch forever, over the blue fire, past Hosteen 
as though it were following the bats away into the darkness, the last of the creatures 
righting themselves on the ground and taking flight. 

Sean moved, fast. 

He went to the campfire, its flames high, his small legs kicking out. Hosteen watched him 
disappear into a cloud of sparks, the single word repeating, Sean swinging with his arms 
at the ash, dots of fire dancing around him. The neat pile of wood scattered, flames 
snuffing out, sand and smoke and cinders flying. Hosteen watched tiny specks of heat 
cling to Sean's bare skin - his face, his chest. 

When the boy hit the ground on his knees, the sword of wood falling, Hosteen rose at 
last. 

"Wish-te..." he murmured softly, coming slowly to his feet. 

Sean was sobbing, an arm holding his belly, his hand crawling up his throat to cover his 
mouth. His small fingers were trembling and he retched. 

"God..." Sean choked. "Oh God..."

"Wish-te," Hosteen said, going to stand behind him, the moon shining down on them, 
tiny bits of fire on bits of wood the only other light. He knelt down and touched the boy's 
shoulder. He felt muscle there.

"I'm burned," Sean gasped out, coughing as the heaving passed. "Mr. Hosteen, I'm 
burned." He wiped his face with a dirty hand. 

Sean's voice, Hosteen noted, was his own. Hoarse, strained. But his own.

"You are all right now," Hosteen said softly, his fingers pressing into Sean's shoulder. 

As he did so, Sean straightened his back, heaving in breath. 

"I'm sorry," Sean said softly. "I'm--"

"Hmm," Hosteen interrupted, the last of the fire winking out. "It is the past."

After a moment, Sean drew in a deep breath, his hand going to Hosteen's on his shoulder. 
He nodded. 

"Yes."

The moon and stars looked down on at the clearing, Hosteen and Sean still and warm and 
quiet. 

Hosteen smiled as Sean's face came up to look above them, the young man safe - at last -
- in the cool blue light.


******


THE HOGAN
NAVAJO RESERVATION
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 6


"Hey boy."

Granger heard the voice close by, but the darkness around him was so complete he didn't 
know where to find its source. There was something light to his left, though; he could see 
it behind his lids, a swimming of light as though Christmas lights were dancing in front 
of the drapes of his eyes. 

He pulled himself up from the darkness, one rung at a time. He felt impossibly heavy as 
he turned his face toward the light. 

"Who's there?" he said, though it came out as barely a whisper, his mouth too dry and his 
throat feeling parched. 

"You open your eyes and look at me when I'm talking to you," the voice said again. 
There was some unmistakable tenor of authority to the voice, and something familiar 
about it, as well, though Granger had never heard the voice before.

He did as he was told, his eyes opening to slits, and took in his surroundings, his eyes 
widening as he looked around. 

A wooded area, a canopy of trees so dense that the sunlight barely came through to where 
he lay on the ground, covered in fallen leaves. He was naked, but was covered from the 
waist down by the orange and rust-brown leaves. More were falling around him, making 
lazy circles down toward the forest's floor. He could hear birds singing off in the 
distance, and the air smelled loamy, cool like the days of fall just before it would turn to 
winter. 

And beside him, in a Baltimore City Police uniform, his blue hat in his hand, was the man 
he'd seen in the photos on his mother's mantle his whole life. 

His father.

Thomas Granger was worrying the brim of his hat between his meaty fingers, turning the 
hat around in a slow circle in his hands. He was a huge man, taller than Granger and 
heavily muscled, a paunch beginning to show above his belt. His dress uniform's breast 
was dotted with citations. His hair was beginning to gray.

"Sweet Jesus, boy, you look like a dog came by and buried you right there in them 
leaves," Thomas said, gesturing to the leaves with his hat. 

Granger smiled faintly. "I'd imagine so," he said, his voice finding a bit of strength. 

"You know where you're at?" his father asked him, and Granger glanced around, barely 
moving his head as his eyes took in the canopy, the leaves, the thin bars of sunlight that 
were pushing their ways through the trees.

"Heaven?" Granger asked, and Thomas Granger started laughing, deep chuckles that 
seemed to come from the bottom of his belly.

"No, this ain't heaven," he said, still laughing. "You see any wings on me?"

Granger smiled again, feeling foolish in front of his father, a man who had died when he 
was a baby, a man whose face he knew only from grim photographs and the vague, gauzy 
memories of infancy.

"No, sir," he said. He'd always imagined he'd call his father "sir," and he tried it on for 
size. It felt right. 

"Then where...?" he trailed off. He wanted to lift his hand to reach toward his father, to 
see if the other man was real, but he couldn't move. 

"You're in a bad way, son," Thomas said. "I reckon you know that, though. You've 
known for a long time." 

Granger nodded. 

Thomas looked up at the trees. "There's some folks down there helping you, you know," 
he said. "Good folks. Not the kind of folks I would have paid much mind to back in my 
day, but I've learned a few things in my time. Quite a few things. I come to believe some 
things I wouldn't have believed before. I come to know you in a way I don't think I could 
have known you if I'd been with you when you was growing up."

He paused, looked down at Granger, and Granger wondered, in a moment like the ones 
he'd had his whole life if his father was proud of the man he'd become. How many nights 
had he lain awake - especially as a young man - and thought that? It had haunted him as 
surely as any ghost. 

"Of course I'm proud of you," Thomas said. "How couldn't I be?" He smiled, and Granger 
met his eyes, surprised. His father's eyes were shining. 

"You ain't got no secrets here, son," Thomas said softly, looking down at the brim of his 
hat. There was something shy about the gesture and the older man's smile.

Granger simultaneously liked and disliked the sound of that. He only wished it went both 
ways. He would have liked to know his father that way, what he felt and what he thought.

"Remember when you was a boy and you used to stand outside the Senator at night?" 
Thomas said, returning his gaze to Granger's face.

Granger smiled. He remembered the small boy he was, too-big jeans and striped shirts 
and glasses already on his face, his eyes on the running electric bulbs of the old theatre, 
the thing lit up impossibly bright, and posters of beautiful people in the frames, a cashier 
lazing in the single glass ticket sale box.

"Yes," he said. "I remember." 

"That theatre is like me, I reckon," the elder Granger said, sounding tired. "You have to 
stand on that sidewalk, son, and you ain't old enough to come in. I guess that was our 
agreement when you were born, though I didn't know that when I first looked at you. I 
figure it's that way with all fathers and sons, though, now that I think on it more." 

Granger studied his father's hands, the glint on the dark barrel of his service revolver, a 
six-shooter Granger remembered finding in a drawer when he was a boy. 

"What I do remember, though," Thomas continued, "was looking at you right after you 
were born and thinking: 'that's my boy.' I remember putting my hand in the middle of 
your chest and thinking: 'that's my heart beating inside there,' and looking at your face 
and thinking that those were my eyes looking back at me." 

"I'm sorry," Granger said softly to his father. 

"For what?" Thomas asked, seeming almost amused by Granger's words. "For getting 
shot? You can't do nothing about that, boy. You can't do no more good for that than I 
could for what happened to me."

"I've failed you, sir," Granger replied, his eyes filling. He hated that he couldn't move his 
hand to wipe them away.

"By doing what?" 

"Dying," Granger said flatly. 

Thomas Granger smiled again at that. "You ain't dying, son," he said. He set his hat on 
the ground in front of him with care, then reached up to the silver badge on his chest. It 
was that, Granger realized, that had been giving off the shine he'd seen before waking, the 
twinkle like Christmas tree lights. 

"What's in you might have give out, boy," Thomas said, freeing the badge at last. He held 
it in his hand, and it glowed there from some otherworldly light. "But I'm your father now 
as much as I was that first time I held you, and what I got inside me...well, I'm reckon I'll 
give that to you again." 

Granger watched the badge as his father leaned forward, the silver shining like starlight. 
He watched as his father laid the badge in the center of his bare chest, the metal feeling 
either impossibly cold or impossibly hot. 

Granger felt his head going light, his eyes lolling.

"I've got to get on my way," Thomas said, picking up his hat. He brushed at it, cleaning 
off the already-immaculate insignia on the front with his thumb. Granger watched him, 
his father's image going hazy, the canopy seeming to give way to a onslaught of light that 
spread out behind his father like wings. 

"You take care of yourself, Paul," he heard his father say, the first time he'd heard his 
father call him by his name. 

Granger nodded. "You, too, Dad," he whispered, his lids closing, his face going slack. 

Things began to dim around him, as though a candle had faltered and was about to wink 
out.

"Oh, and son?"

Granger couldn't open his eyes, the birdsong gone, the cool autumn replaced with the 
smell of wood burning, and something sweet. He could hear people talking around him, 
their voices far away and in some language that was familiar but which he didn't 
understand. 

"Sir?" he whispered to the darkness.

"Marry that girl, will you? It's giving your momma a fit..."

Granger could sense light in front of him, getting brighter. He went toward it, a laugh 
rising in his chest.


*****

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 759
OVER THE WESTERN WEST VIRGINIA BORDER
4:32 a.m.


Christie Collin liked the look of West Virginia as the sun began to rise, the land below 
him the first true mountains he'd seen in a long time. He knew that by the standards of 
most mountains the Appalachians weren't the most impressive one could find, with their 
soft-topped mountains covered in trees, all just getting their darker green, but he found 
them beautiful to look at, there in seat 16A, his window just missing the silver and white 
wing.

There was something comforting about old mountains, he thought. Their lack of dramatic 
peaks showed an area that had stopped changing so long ago there were barely words to 
describe their age, a place devoid of upset or change. A million years of wearing down 
below him, but mountains just the same.

"How much longer do we have to sit on this bloody plane?" Bridget snapped from beside 
him. Her voice was changed again, a slight hiss beneath the words. 

Christie turned his face toward her. He'd grown used to the way she looked now, her face 
like a drowned thing, her eyes gone from icy blue to fish-belly white. Her red hair was as 
wild as a mass of snakes. 

"We haven't been flying that long," he said softly, trying to placate her, though he knew 
she'd have none of that. 

"How much longer?" she snapped. Her breath was as fetid as old cheese.

"About four hours," Christie replied, glancing at his watch. "We'll get a car once we're 
there and be on our way." 

She said something under her breath he didn't hear, turning to face a man across the aisle 
who was looking at them strangely. Christie followed her gaze to the man's bewildered 
and accusing face.

"Son?" the man asked. He was wearing boots made out of hide with business slacks, an 
open white shirt of expensive brand.

"Sir?" he replied.

"You all right?" the man asked, pure Texas drawl. "Who the hell you talking to over 
there?"

Christie smiled. "Did I say that out loud?" he asked, aw-shucksing himself into his best 
Southern American accent. "Sorry, mister. I think I'm still half asleep." He laughed.

The man smiled a congenial smile, looking a little relieved. "You should get you some 
coffee when they come by," he replied. "Shake yourself awake. Keep talking like that and 
somebody might think your cheese had slipped off your cracker." He winked a fatherly 
wink.

Christie laughed nervously. "Heaven forbid," he drawled, reaching for the in-flight 
magazine. "Sorry to bother you." 

The man smiled, went back to his laptop, tapping away. 

Christie was looking at a picture of Monaco when he heard Bridget's derisive laugh, and 
he looked back toward the window, the ground tilting as they banked.

"Wanker," she hissed, settling down to rest beside him, the word carried on a rancid puff 
of breath.


******

THE RUE INN
BALLYCASTLE
NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
7:15 a.m.


Ever since the time in the rain he'd spent out on the ledge with Renahan, Mulder had 
found he liked the privacy of the space outside the window. He liked the smell of the 
ocean and the view, the way the waves came up on the shore below the inn as though 
there were a perpetual storm somewhere off the shore that he couldn't see but that was 
always raging.

The waves were hitting the shoreline like fists. Mulder watched them in the morning 
light, one that had not seemed to come with a sunrise but rather with a bleeding of light. 
He shivered in his blue sweatshirt, his jeans feeling too thin against his legs as the breeze 
pressed against the cloth. 

Inside, he heard Skinner return from the shower down the hall, the tumble of his kitbag as 
it hit the mattress of his narrow twin bed. 

"What's it today?" Mulder called from the balcony. "Leprechaun hunting?" 

He heard Skinner give a derisive chuff. "No, I thought I'd just go all out and kiss the 
fucking Blarney Stone today." 

"Leave me out of your personal life, sir," Mulder quipped, leaning up from where he'd 
been pressed against the railing. 

"You wish," Skinner growled back. 

"Where *are* you going?" Mulder said as he re-entered the room, grateful for the 
creaking radiator's heat. Skinner was there in his jeans, no shirt, sniffing the shirt he'd 
worn the day before. 

"I'm going with Neill to the dock today," he said sourly. "He said something about you 
and Renahan taking the car and going to some pub in town, seeing if anyone would talk 
to you."

"Great," Mulder replied. "I'll sit there and get to enjoy that special thrill of being stared at 
while Renahan goes eight sheets to the wind. It'll be great." He tossed Skinner the shirt 
he'd worn the day before, another of Neill's. "Try this one."

Skinner caught it in mid-air, gave it a sniff, and started shouldering into it. "Bitch to him 
when he gets out of the shower if you want," he said.

There was a soft knock at the door. 

"All the good that'll do," Mulder said, matching Skinner's previous sour tone as he went 
for the door. "I just bet--"

He stopped speaking at the sight of a strange man in the now-open doorway, an elderly 
man with the bluest eyes Mulder had ever seen, light, the color sky. He was holding an 
Irish Poor Boy cap in his hands, his white hair pressed against his head in its shape. He 
wore a dark green coat, too heavy for the chill outside, and black cords that had gone 
slightly gray. 

He was glancing down the hallway, not quite nervously, but clearly concerned that he 
might be seen. 

"Can I help you?" Mulder asked. Part of him wondered where his gun was, and part of 
him wondered why he was wondering. The man didn't look threatening at all, certainly 
not with his face turned slightly down and his lips turned slightly up. 

Skinner had taken up a place behind him. Mulder could feel his quiet presence just over 
his right shoulder.

"I wondered if I might come in and have a word," the man said softly. He glanced at 
Skinner. "With you both, that is." 

Mulder gnawed his lower lip, turned and looked at Skinner, who, though he didn't move, 
seemed to give his assent as he flicked his eyes from Mulder to the man and back again. 

"Sure," Mulder said, pushing the door further open and standing aside to let the man 
enter. Though the man moved from the hallway with some haste, he was stiff, as though 
he were in a great deal of pain. Mulder closed the door behind him with a soft snitch of 
sound. 

Mulder gestured to the chair in the corner, a gold tweed chair with arms that ended in 
scrolls. "Have a seat, Mister...?"

"Shea," the man said quietly, settling into the chair. "James Shea." He lay his cap on his 
knee, anchoring it there. 

Mulder and Skinner stood before him, Mulder crossing his arms over his chest. He felt 
uncertain as the man looked up at him, over him. He heaved out a sigh, a pained look on 
his face as he touched his side.

"Can we get you something, Mr. Shea?" Skinner said from Mulder's right. 
 
"No, nothing," Shea said, peering up at Mulder again. "There's not a thing to do about it 
at this point, I'm afraid." 

Mulder waited, and Skinner grew silent. 

"I'm sorry," Mulder offered. It seemed the polite thing to say. 

Shea simply looked down, seeming to be searching for something in the woven rug with 
his eyes.

"What can we do for you, sir?" Mulder asked as the silence grew. 

"Not a thing," Shea said again. "But I think I can do a bit for you, Mr. Mulder."

Mulder stood very still, but Skinner took a step forward, so that he was standing next to 
Mulder now, peering down at the old man.

Mulder, for his part, was studying the man's face. What was it Neill had said? About the 
man they were looking for? 

His eyes. That his eyes were the sharpest Neill had ever seen. 

Like the eyes of the man in front of him, their clear almost eerie blue gaze settled on 
Mulder's face. 

"You're the man we've been looking for," Mulder said. The room seemed terrible quiet, 
and Mulder wished he'd not only closed the door but locked it, as well. 

"Aye," Shea said. "That's me. And I know why you're looking for me, as well. You think 
I've got a name for you. The name of the person who's been after your wife." 

"Do you?" Skinner snapped. Mulder could almost feel Skinner coiling for a strike, the 
weeks of inaction wearing on Skinner in a single instant as he prepared to act. 

Shea looked up at Skinner, but it was Mulder's face he settled on as he spoke. "Aye. Anna 
Simms Collin is the name you want." 

Mulder didn't know what name he was expecting, but that wasn't it. A man, for starters. A 
man with a name he knew already, like Curran or Fagan.

"Why?" Among the maelstrom of emotions that began to whirl in him, that word was the 
only one he could get out. "What did my wife ever do to her?" The anger was in his voice 
now.

Shea looked up. "Your wife killed her son," he said simply. 


Mulder felt his jaw working. "John Fagan?" he bit out. "He was Anna Simms Collin's 
son?"

The old man nodded. "Aye. That's the name he went by. To protect the family. His real 
name's Samuel John Collin, though only a few people ever knew him by that name. And 
even fewer ever knew hers. One of the oldest families in Northern Ireland, and probably 
the most wealthy, most well-connected. She's got access to people everywhere - militias, 
government at every stage. Sinn Fein. IRA. Even dirty Brits, I've heard said. She's the 
one who's been after your wife." 

As he saw Mulder begin to speak, he amended: "Well, not her, per se, but Christie. John's 
brother Aidan's son." 

"My wife didn't kill John Fagan," Mulder said. "Though I wish to Christ she had. Mae 
Curran killed him."

Shea looked up, surprised. "...Mae?" His voice was faint. 

"Yes, MAE," Mulder said, furious. He could feel fire behind his eyes. 

"I can't believe she'd do that," Shea said, shaking his head. "I can't think of anything that 
would make her. Leaving her brother when he went 'round is one thing, but killing 
someone she'd known since she was a girl? No. I can't think of a thing that would make 
her do such a thing."

That was it. Mulder felt something in him draw thinner and thinner and then snap.

"How about walking into an apartment and finding Fagan about to rape my wife?" 
Mulder roared. "Rape her AGAIN, I should say!"

He felt like he'd just breathed flame into Shea's face. He saw Shea blanche, and Mulder 
felt, vaguely, Skinner's hand close around his forearm.

Too late. The fury was already rushing out of him in a seething wave.

"Scully could barely fucking STAND when he was done with her, Mr. Shea, and I thank 
GOD Mae Curran found it in herself to break your goddamn 'code of honor'
and send that son-of-a-bitch straight to Hell." 

"Mulder," Skinner said through grit teeth. "Lower your voice, for Christ's sake." 

Shea had paled visibly under the onslaught of Mulder's words, and as Skinner silenced 
them, Shea's fingers worried his hat. They were shaking faintly.

"You have my apologies," Shea said. "I misspoke and I regret it."

Mulder jerked his arm away from Skinner, composing himself. 

Don't drive him away, he said to himself. This is it. There won't be any more chances for 
this.

"No, I'm sorry," he said, breathing out a calming breath. "What Fagan did...it's not your 
fault. I have no right to take that out on you."

Mulder watched Shea's face as his eyes returned their gaze to the rug, the window, 
anywhere but Mulder's face. 

"Things got out of hand," he said, as though to himself. "Everyone knew they were out of 
hand. We didn't know how much until Washington, though. Until the Embassy. And the 
deaths in Richmond. Even then I couldn't believe it. Until I saw what Owen was willing 
to do to Mae in that canyon. Then I knew he was too far gone to save."

Mulder gaped, understanding flooding him. 

"It was you," he said quietly. 

Shea looked up as though caught. 

"Aye," he said just as softly. He nodded toward Mulder's torso. "And I'm frankly 
surprised you survived that shot to the belly, Mr. Mulder. You're sturdier than me." 

Mulder touched his stomach, the crescent of scar there beneath his shirt. He looked at 
Shea with a new, and grateful, respect.
 
"Where?" Skinner snapped before Mulder could reply. "Where are they? The Collinses."

Shea met Skinner's eyes, hesitating. Then he seemed to come to his final decision, his 
voice tired as he spoke. 

"I know exactly where Anna Simms is," he said. "In Antrim. I'll draw you a map to show 
you the way."

"I'll go get Neill and Renahan," Skinner said, grabbing his pistol and its holster from the 
foot of the bed.

"Don't go alone," Shea said, pinning Skinner with his eyes. "Trust me on that. Take a 
bloody crowd with you if you're going that way." 

Skinner nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Shea," he said. "We owe you a great debt. This must be 
dangerous for you, being here and telling us these things." 

Shea shrugged. "They'll let me be," he said, his voice unreadable. 

"I hope you're right," Skinner said, and he went out the door, closing it hard behind him. 

Mulder turned to gather his gun from the dressing table by the wall, but Shea's voice 
behind him stopped him.

"Mr. Mulder."

Mulder turned to look at him, not liking the sound of his name.

"Christie Collin," Shea said, looking grim, "is, from what I understand, on his way to 
New Mexico. Someplace called Farmington."

Mulder's heart went into free-fall in his chest. 

"Nearly there by now, I'd guess," Shea continued into Mulder's shocked silence. "And 
this time, he'll be sure not to make any mistakes." 


*****


ST. FRANCIS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO
10:05 a.m.


She'd dreamed of horses.

Black horses, white horses, the horses the color of buckskin. She'd dreamed of them 
running across an open field of flowers, then dreamed of herself standing in the middle of 
a tightly gathered herd on a wide expanse of snow, all of them white except a lone, ink-
black mare on which she'd sat, the white horses with their backs facing a stiff wind while 
she and the black mare faced it. She remembered the tickle of the horse's long mane 
against her hands. 

She'd dreamed of riding a paint horse through a river of what looked like blood. She 
remembered drowning in it. 

Scully sat on the edge of her hospital bed, dressed now in the clothes that Mae had 
brought the night before for her discharge this morning. She wore her clothes like armor: 
Mulder's sweatshirt, maternity jeans that were growing a bit too small around her belly, 
her brown boots with heavy socks so that the boots felt almost too tight. 

She'd come in with nothing, and she would be leaving with only a small plastic bag of the 
hospital's toiletries, a smaller bag inside with sedatives and vitamins, the phone number 
of Dr. Kitman and the medical center's emergency line. 

Inside herself she carried a larger load - terrible memories that were too clear of Mulder's 
body sprawled out on a scuffed convenience store floor and her daughter's anguish, and 
beyond that some recollection of the Hosteen's barn and blood on her face and on her 
hands.

She clutched the bag closer to her, pushed a long strand of hair behind her ear, forcing 
herself into some semblance of composure. Hosteen was on his way to take her back to 
the reservation, and she would not let him see her unraveled or as heavily burdened as 
she felt inside. 

Mulder was on his way, she imagined, and she wanted him to see even less of it. At least 
until she figured out the best way to tell him about the things she'd seen, and what she 
thought they could mean.

 
"Dr. Scully?" a voice called from the crack in the doorway, knuckles rapping softly on 
the door's thick wood. 

"Yes?" she called, and a head popped through the door, a friendly smile on the young 
man's face. He wore scrubs and a stethoscope and a lab coat sewn with his name and the 
words "Internal Medicine." He wore the exhausted pallor and carriage of a resident that 
she could recognize from a mile away. She smiled at that.

"Hi, Dr. Scully," he said, coming forward with a chart and his hand outstretched. She 
took it and he squeezed. "I'm Dr. Ames. Dr. Kitman asked me to check and make sure 
you were clear on your discharge instructions before you left us." He gave a shy smile. 
His face, beneath his short-cropped hair, was flushed. "I know for a physician such as 
yourself that probably sounds silly, but...procedures, you know." 

Scully smiled. "I understand, Doctor," she said, bemused. "I understand everything he left 
in the discharge instructions."

Dr. Ames looked down at the bag beside her on the bed. "And you've got everything you 
need from us?"

She nodded. "Yes. Medications...a few things..." She trailed off. 

He nodded, crossing his arms over the chart and pressing it against his chest. "How do 
you feel?" His voice was pitched low and gentle, and it renewed the vulnerable feeling 
she'd been fighting with all morning. Kindness had a way of doing that.

She looked down, away from his knit brows, his concerned face. 

"I'm all right," she said. "Much better than last night."

"You sure you're ready to leave us?" he asked. He reached out and touched her hand. "Dr. 
Kitman told me where you're staying and I worry about that, to be honest."

Scully smiled. "The Hosteens are more than attentive," she replied. "Trust me. From what 
I understand I made record time getting here from the reservation. I'm just glad I was 
unconscious for the ride." 

Ames laughed. "I can imagine," he said, amused. He looked at his watch, a huge, battered 
piece on his thin wrist. "I've got to continue on with my rounds. But I did want to make 
sure you had everything you need before you left us." 

He reached out his hand and she took it, the smile still on his face. 

"Be well, and good luck to you, Doctor," he said softly, his eyes going over her face. 

"Thank you, Doctor," she said softly, quirking a smile at their shared title.

"To you both, that is," he added, and his hand left hers and touched her belly lightly 
before he turned and left.

Scully sat there as the intercom called for a doctor to pick up a line, as the staff moved 
the cart down the hall that would take her untouched breakfast away. She smoothed her 
hand over her belly, her eyes down as the baby turned beneath her palm.

"Agent Scully?" 

It was a tiny, faintly familiar voice. A child's voice. She jerked her head up in surprise.

Sean Curran stood there in the doorway, his hair still damp from a shower. He wore a 
Cardinals sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that actually seemed to fit. 

"Sean?" she said, staring at him. Had he actually spoken? Part of her wondered if she'd 
imagined hearing her name.

"Aye," Sean replied. "Mr. Hosteen told me to come up and tell you he's got the truck out 
front and someone was on the way to fetch you. He's keeping it running so that it won't 
be so cold when you get in."

Scully looked at Sean, at the redness of his eyes, the tiny pocks of what looked like burns 
dotting his face. 

Thank God, she thought as a smile spread on her face. 

"Thank you, Sean," she replied. "And it's good to see you again." 

Sean gave her a shy smile, his eyes going down. "Thanks," he said in his small, lovely 
voice, and he turned and walked away.

**

Outside, the back lot, Christie Collin was out the glass doors and moving through the 
parking lot, the white lab coat he'd stolen flapping behind him, his shoes - encased in 
surgical covers - making no sound as he walked. 

The scrubs fit him nicely. He would keep them when he stopped to change his clothes, 
when he tossed everything else away.

He reached his rental, picked up at Four Corners Regional not an hour before, his bags 
tucked safely in the back. 

The Yellow Pages were open on the seat, a map of Farmington he got from Avis beside 
it. The page was open to "Home Repair and Lawn," an address circled in a large red loop.

A stop at Home Depot. 

At the library for Internet White Page access. 

A drive into the desert.

He was almost there. 


*****


OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN 
BOUND FOR ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE
11:09 a.m.


It was something like flying in a packing crate, though the cargo transport plane had been 
fitted with some seats against the walls that approximated the skeletons of airline seats, 
their seats retracting into the walls, and the seatbelts fitted over the shoulder as well as 
the waist. It was the noise that was the most striking difference, the plane's huge engines 
coming through the steel walls much more clearly than they did through a passenger jet's 
and making Mulder feel like his brain was vibrating in a pan.

He was far from complaining, though. Rosen had given the Royal Air Force a call after 
he'd received Skinner's update on the information from James Shea, and the R.A.F. had 
been good enough to oblige with a seat on the first plane leaving Belfast for the States. 

The plane's innards were filled with crates, pieces of airplanes. A few soldiers lounged or 
slept, all wearing headphones, in the seats around him. For his part, Mulder sat in the 
clothes he'd been wearing plus a flight jacket loaned from the military on the ground, 
Belfast soaked with rain as the helicopter that had fetched him from Ballycastle had 
touched down on the tarmac, wind from the chopper sending Mulder into a crouch as he 
scrambled with the M-1 Liaison who'd met him on the ground.

"Agent Mulder," the man had shouted as they moved through the rain. "Director Rosen 
said he's waiting on the other end for you and doing what he can." 

"'Doing what he can'?" Mulder yelled back as the plane's pilot draped the leather and 
wool jacket across his back. "What the hell does that mean?"

The M-1 man shrugged. "Something about tribal jurisdictions or some lot. I didn't get it 
all, to be frank. He had to get off to handle some rot with M-1 and the blokes heading to 
Antrim. Sounded a bit upset about the whole thing, I'd say."

Mulder shook his head remembering it, blew out a breath, leaned his head against the 
chair's uncomfortable rest. This was the part he was worst at - things requiring a level 
head, patience, and acceptance of things outside of anyone's control, things like time and 
distances.

He'd like to meet a person who could handle them, he thought, turning his head to peer 
out the tiny window by the cargo bay door and seeing nothing but water beneath. He'd 
punch that person right in the teeth.

He saw a man coming down the narrow corridor between him and the crates, stepping 
over the sleeping soldiers' outstretched legs. He was wearing his flight gear, a pair of 
sunglasses in his hand.

"Agent Mulder," he said, his voice sounding too quiet to Mulder's noise-acclimated ears. 
The man leaned toward Mulder's face as he spoke again. "If you'll come to the cockpit, 
we've got a line for you. Director Rosen is waiting to speak to you."

Mulder nodded, unbuckled, and followed the man toward the front. As they reached an 
area where they could stand side-by-side, the plane hit a patch of turbulence that nearly 
knocked both men off their feet. Mulder ended up catching himself against a crate.

"All right?" the pilot called.

Mulder nodded, pushing himself off the crate. "What is all this stuff?" Mulder called, 
indicating the crate. "I didn't know Great Britain had a base in the U.S." 

The man laughed. "Not since 1775, if I recall," he replied. "Jet parts. Some yours and 
some ours. The RAF does a lot of cargo flights for the Yanks."

"I'm sure glad of that," Mulder continued as they kept moving toward the plane's front. 

The plane bucked again and the man steadied Mulder again. "That's one of us," he said as 
the plane narrowed into a small corridor, the cockpit's entrance open and a few feet from 
where they stopped.

"Here," the airman said, reaching for a set of fat headphones on a hook. They had a mike 
attached with a bulbous foam end. "You should be able to hear him fine, but you'll have 
to shout for him to hear you, all right?"

Mulder's voice was getting hoarse as it was, so he simply nodded and took the 
headphones, setting them tightly on his head. The airman threw a switch and the earpads 
stuttered to life.

"Director Rosen?" Mulder asked.

"I can hear you, Agent Mulder," Rosen's jowly voice came back. They didn't call him 
"The Godfather" for nothing. "But just barely." 

"I'm sorry, sir, but this was the best they could do. I appreciate you contacting me." At 
another pocket of turbulence, Mulder braced himself against the wall again. "Are agents 
on the reservation yet?"

A puff of static, then: "No, not yet."

"Why not?" Mulder called back. He could feel anger pricking in his chest. 

"Let me start by telling you we've been trying to contact both Albert Hosteen and Victor 
Hosteen, but we've gotten a voicemail at one and nothing but ringing at the other. We're 
continuing to try to get through to either of them and to Agent Music, though we're 
hampered by a cell phone dead-zone on the reservation, which I think Mr. Granger told 
you about."

"Yeah," Mulder said. "He told me. What about the F.B.I. there in New Mexico?" The 
plane rumbled around him.

"There are only seven agents in Albuquerque, Agent Mulder, and five of them are in 
Phoenix at the moment helping on a serial murder and immigration case. The two left I've 
told to stay put there while I scramble agents from Arizona. They're on their way, but I 
can't let them or any other federal or state authorities enter the reservation without tribal 
consent."

"What?!" Mulder shouted. He was glad he had to shout to be heard because he would 
have been doing it anyway. "That's ridiculous! Don't they know--"

"We've contacted the tribal council but they won't do anything until they speak to Albert 
Hosteen, whom, as I've said, we've been unable to reach. We've put in a request for the 
tribal police to go out to the ranch themselves and try to contact him, but they're still 
considering the proper course of action to take."

"'The proper course of action'?" Mulder shouted. His fury, for the second time that day, 
reached his boiling point. "For Christ's sake, do you think someone could climb in a 
covered fucking wagon and head over there--"

"Agent Mulder," Rosen interrupted, his tone dangerous. "I don't know if you were 
sleeping that day in school, but you *do* know that the Federal Government was 
*generous* enough to give the Navajos that land."

Mulder rolled his eyes. "Yes, sir, I'm aware--"

"And maybe you were also sleeping when they were teaching you about the Federal gaffe 
at Wounded Knee at the Academy."

"No, sir, I know all about that," he said sourly. "But I would think under the 
circumstances--"

"Agent Mulder," Rosen interrupted again. "I know this is hard for you, but there are a few 
things to remember here. The first is that the Navajo Tribal authorities don't have the 
slightest idea what 'the circumstances' are at the Hosteen ranch. This was not done with 
their approval, if you'll recall, in order to keep Agent Scully's whereabouts as confidential 
as possible, and they're frankly a little suspicious, which I can't blame them for."

"Sir, I--" Mulder tried, but Rosen was rolling.

"The second is that though you've spent much of your career with the F.B.I. trying your 
best to circumvent proper procedure, I didn't get to be the Director of it by doing that. 
And some of the procedure I'm dealing with right now is completely new ground, for the 
Bureau and for the various outside organizations involved. I've been on the phone this 
morning with Scotland Yard, M-1, the Navajo Tribal Council, the New Mexico State 
Patrol and Counter-Terrorism in Northern Ireland. So you'll forgive me if this isn't going 
at your preferred pace." 

"And while you go forth and part the Red Tape," Mulder spat, "Christie Collin is going to 
waltz right onto the Hosteen ranch and get a clear shot at Scully. And begging your 
pardon, but considering how much he escalated the second time, I think their luck is 
about to run out." 

"Two officers from the Navajo Tribal Police are on their way out there to take Agent 
Scully and Mrs. Porter into custody," Rosen said. "Does that satisfy you?"

"No, it doesn't," Mulder said. "This man's killed how many people? And you're sending 
two officers with no experience in terrorist--"

"I'm not sending anyone except the agents from Phoenix and the State Police, all of 
whom I *do* have jurisdiction over," Rosen jumped in again. "The two-man team was 
the decision of the Tribal Council. They want both Agent Scully and Mae Porter off the 
reservation at this juncture. They don't want a Federal presence of any kind on their land. 
They don't want to be involved in this."

"Well that's fucking *great,*" Mulder replied, his cap finally popped. "What the fuck--"

"This conversation's over, Agent Mulder," Rosen said, and the tone was enough to cut 
short Mulder's tirade. "I don't have time for your emotionalism or your inability to 
maintain professional distance from this. And I'm warning you that when you land at 
Andrews and you see me standing there that you'd better have gotten more control of 
your temper and your tone."

"Or what?" Mulder shot back. "I'll wake up one morning with a fucking horse head in my 
bed?"

The line snicked off, static filling his ears.

Mulder took the headphones off and hung them hard on their hook, his jaw working as 
the plastic set swung back and forth.

"Fuck..." he said again, closing his eyes and drawing in what he hoped was a calming 
breath.

Rosen was right. His emotions were nothing but in the way, in his and Rosen's and 
Scully's. 

He knew Rosen was right about all of it. And that's what pissed him off the most.


*****

THE HOME OF ANNA SIMMS COLLIN
ANTRIM, NORTHERN IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
11:12 a.m.


"You're bringing new meaning to the saying 'the wearing o' the green,' Mr. Skinner," 
Renahan said softly, a fit of chuckles taking him.

Skinner looked down at his knees and thighs, his soaking wet jeans smeared with enough 
chlorophyll for him to be able to make his own food for a month. He'd just scrabbled, 
crab-like, down from where the head of the Irish Counter-Terrorism Unit called in by 
Rosen was busy talking on a walkie-talkie, Skinner finally having procured one of the 
devices after much teeth-baring and beating of his chest. 

Now he was leaning up against a stone wall that was older than any structure in the 
United States, a symbolic barrier between the Collin's property and the neighbor's land. 
As near as Skinner could figure, the Collin property took up most of this half of the town. 
The round, white stones had tumbled in a few places, leaving ragged openings in the 
view toward the house. 

"Very funny, Ed," he replied, looking through one of the gaps to look at the stately Collin 
mansion, a slight wisp of smoke coming from one of the house's five chimneys. 

Neill was next to him in a windbreaker whose waterproof qualities had long since given 
in to the rain. The small Scotland Yard group had seen fit to give Renahan one of their 
jackets, one very much like the one Skinner would typically wear, with the Scotland Yard 
insignia hidden in a rip-away back flap. As it was, his suitcase floating in some Lough 
across the countryside, Skinner was left with the long-sleeved green shirt Mulder had 
worn the day before and a shitty light jacket of Neill's, his F.B.I. badge hanging from a 
dog-tag chain around his neck. 

The rain continued, pattering on Renahan's jacket, on the wall, dotting his glasses. He 
kept his eyes on the house.

From his right, Neill was moving along behind the wall, crouched down so that his 
movements were hidden from anyone who might be looking from the house. He'd been 
looking at the structure from a dozen yards down, looking to see if there were any 
entrances in the back. 

Skinner had said he was a townsman who'd been helping him on the case. He hadn't told 
Manny Greaves, the head of the Scotland Yard contingent, Neill's name. Renahan hadn't 
breathed a word about it, either.

"What did you see?" Skinner asked. He kept his voice low, though they were far enough 
from the house that it would take a gunshot for anyone to know there anyone - much less 
40 Anyones - there.

"There's a back door all right, and a stable set far off the back. Some gardens on the 
grounds, it looks like." Neill licked his lips. He looked as nervous as Skinner felt. 

Skinner nodded and relayed the information into the walkie-talkie, Greaves giving a 
bored "affirmative" to the news. 

"What are you planning?" Neill asked. 

Skinner scowled. "Well, Greaves wants to be a fucking hero and get people up on the 
roof. I think he's been watching too many movies where the SWAT team heads into 
everyone's bedrooms with their nuts tied up with rope and glass breaking everywhere."

Renahan snickered. "Too right."

Skinner continued. "But I told him I don't see any sign of weapons or anything overtly 
threatening. From what they could find on her at M-1, Anna Simms Collin is nothing but 
an 89-year-old widow who has a shitload of money and enough property to start her own 
country. The medical information they found on her from NHS says she's wheelchair-
bound. I don't see any reason to go swinging in there like a bunch of apes." 

"Is that all she is?" Neill said, his eyebrows climbing into his short bangs. "A little old 
lady who's driven to Mass on Sundays? Let's not lose our heads, Mr. Skinner." 

"And let's not turn into a bunch of fucking paranoids either," Skinner shot back, talking 
through his teeth. "The one who's been doing all this in the States flying the Friendly 
Skies over South Buttfuck, Arkansas as we speak. I'm thinking this is the person signing 
the checks. I'm not going in there with my gun blazing like we're in an Arnold 
Schwarzenegger movie."

"I have to agree with Mr. Neill," Renahan said, leaning up. "This isn't any time for 
looking like we're prancing around like a bunch of poofs. We don't know who or what 
could be in that house, Mr. Skinner. But I wager that Mrs. Collins isn't as innocent or 
unprotected as that old house makes her look. I'd wager everything I've got." 

Skinner watched Neill look over at Renahan with a cross between gratitude and surprise, 
this being, in Skinner's memory, the first time the two had agreed on anything yet. 

"What do you two recommend then?" he asked. "Whatever it is, I want to do it, and 
quick. Between the way the underground rumor mill runs around here and this 
goddamned rain, I'd rather go soon than late." 

Renahan looked at Neill. "The three of us up front. The armed force behind."

Neill nodded, the two seeming to come to some understanding.

"The front of what?" Skinner asked. His trigger finger was itching. "The front of the 
house?"

"Aye," Neill said, looking from Renahan to Skinner's face.

"You mean go up and ring the fucking doorbell?" Skinner asked. 

"Yep," Renahan said, smiling. He seemed pleased.

"And say what exactly?" Skinner asked. 

Renahan chuffed. "We don't say much of anything. We tell her she's under arrest and we 
get her out of there. As fast and as gently as we can manage it. The way we do this is 
going to determine how many of us live long enough to take afternoon tea." 

"Now you *are* being paranoid," Skinner scoffed.

"I don't think so, Mr. Skinner," Neill said, looking toward the house. "The majority of the 
worst things I saw in the IRA, the Path...Curran and Fagan and that whole lot...it all 
started in this house from what Shea said. The worst of it, the personal things...it all 
came from here. If it were John Fagan in that house, how would you proceed?" 

Skinner thought about that, relented. "With armor plating on my ass," he admitted. 

Neill nodded, and Renahan pushed himself up a bit from the wall, his feet under him. 

"Let's do it, Mr. Skinner," he said, looking at Skinner. "I've been waiting my whole 
bloody life for this." He turned to Neill. 

"Let's get it done."

**

11:35 a.m.


Skinner wondered what the three of them must look, Renahan looking for all the world 
like he'd been sleeping under a bridge, his face up toward the rain; Neill walking a couple 
of steps behind them like a ghost who'd rather be haunting anywhere else; and Skinner 
himself leading them up the circular drive to the house with his gun drawn, his badge out, 
and enough mud and grass on him to make it look like he'd tumbled end-over-end 
through the archway at the road and right up the place. 

He was watching the windows, their gauzy white curtains still and closed as eyelids. He'd 
seen no movement from the house, no sound, as they approached, no sound around them, 
in fact, but the rain. 

Even the Scotland Yard tactical officers, the Irish C-T, didn't make a sound as they 
pressed against the gates and trees behind them, moving up a bit as the three of them 
neared the stone steps. Skinner heard the occasional tussle of feet on the gravel, the sound 
of Kevlar pressing quick against something being used for cover, and that was it.

"Spooky," he said under his breath. 

"Aye," Neill agreed. Renahan said nothing, and Skinner quickened his pace, going up the 
steps two at a time. 

The door was immense, a Celtic cross carved into its face. The doorbell was a ornate gold 
button as large as a fist. 

Skinner looked at the other two, who nodded, and reached out, pressing the bell with his 
thumb. 

They heard the heavy sound of the chime inside, and waited. 

And waited some more.

"She knows we've come," Neill said softly.

"How do you know?" Skinner said. His heart had started playing Zepplin in his chest. 
"There might just not be anyone home."

"No, he's right," Renahan said, his voice just above a whisper. "There'd be a butler or 
maid, even if Collin wasn't home. A house like this never has nobody at home." 

Skinner looked at the door. "So you think she's on the run?"

He watched the two look at each other, and Neill shook his head. 

"Try the door."

Skinner did as Neill said, reaching for the enormous knob, and as he touched it the door 
pushed open with an ancient creak. 

The door wasn't closed at all, Skinner realized. 

"Come on in and take off your skin and rattle around in your bones," Renahan said under 
his breath, and Skinner shushed him, his gun raised. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for 
the small walkie-talkie, pressed the button on the side.

"It looks like we were expected," he said into the mouthpiece, barely audible, addressing 
all the men in their headsets. "We're going in." 

As he released the button, and a tiny voice leaked from the speaker. "Right behind," 
Greaves said, and an "aye" followed the sound -- it was Sheen, the commander of the 
Irish C-T.

Skinner nodded toward the door and stepped inside, Renahan and Neill following. 

They stepped into a giant entrance foyer of stone as old as the barrier walls, a huge stone 
staircase in front of him going up to a landing for a second floor, and a third above that. 
The walls were hung with what looked like medieval tapestries, red and gold, and 
paintings that were big as picture windows themselves. 

He wanted to make some snide comment about it all, but frankly he was impressed. The 
people who lived in this house knew something about history. The family had clearly 
lived through most of it inside the walls of this house.

"Lovely," Neill whispered beside him, echoing his thoughts. It was hard not to be both 
intimidated and impressed. 

The house was silent, except...

Music. There was music playing from one of the upper floors. Skinner could hear the 
sound of a fiddle in it, a guitar beneath. 

He pointed toward the staircase with the barrel of his gun, nodding, and started up the 
steps. 

On the second floor landing he noticed that the places where oil lamps had set in the wall 
in some previous age were still there, now set in with dim electric lights. On the third 
floor landing, on which started a thick, beautiful rug, he saw more of them, the lights' 
wires running along the stone just above his feet. 

He could hear the teams' boots squeaking far below them now, the clamor of equipment. 
He hesitated a moment with Neill and Renahan until he heard his walkie-talkie hiss that 
the first floor was secure, no one there.

The music was coming from the end of the hallway, a large door cracked open, a fire - 
the source of the smoke they'd seen outside - crackling in the fireplace in the room 
beyond. 

"Fucking "Danny Boy," Renahan whispered from beside him, and Skinner listened for a 
beat. 

Renahan was right, and Skinner's lip quirked. It had to be a joke. 

"Careful," Neill breathed. "Careful now." 

The walkie-talkie buzzed again. Second floor secure. No one home.

The three of them started down the hall, the rug making the approach soundless, the 
whole place - save the music - quiet as a grave. 

They'd reached the door when a woman's voice reached through the door:

"Come in, gentlemen." 

Skinner's heart was somewhere in the region of his Adam's apple at the sound. The 
woman's voice sounded like a parrot's, cracked and somehow inhuman and too frail. 
Neill's face looked like Skinner imagined his own did, and even Renahan's eyes were 
wide as moons. 

He pushed the door and the three of them stepped inside the too-hot room. 

Antique furniture gathered around a fireplace six feet high. Chairs hunkered around the 
room with no one in them. A silver tea service on a cart.

And beside the cart, a woman in a black dress, her hair a shock of white, in an electric 
wheelchair. It whined as she turned to face them at the opening of the door.

She looked at them, her face a pleasant, almost welcoming smile. Were it not for the fact 
that she looked like she'd been in a tomb for 10 years, Skinner might have been tempted 
to smile back.

"Mrs. Collin?" he said. He didn't lower his gun as he stopped a few feet from the woman, 
Neill and Renahan taking up places on either side of him. 

"Yes," the woman said, nodding. She had a teacup in one hand, and the other had moved 
from the control stick for the chair to a black box covered with buttons beside it. She was 
stroking the buttons like cat.

"Anna Simms Collin?" 

The woman nodded again patiently. 

"Yes," she said more slowly, as though Skinner wouldn't understand. 

Skinner looked around the room. "Are you alone here, Mrs. Collin?" he asked, and the 
woman nodded again.

"Yes."

The entire bleacher section of Skinner's head that was assigned to wave red flags started 
up en masse now, the hair coming up on the back of his neck. 

"Mrs. Collin, my name is--"

"Walter Skinner," she interrupted, putting the teacup down on the cart beside the sugar 
dish. "Federal Bureau of Investigation. And Mr. Renahan, formerly of Scotland Yard." 

Her smile vanished as she looked to Skinner's right. 

"And you have no idea how it disappoints me to see you here, Eamon Neill." 

Neill had grown very still. 

The music was coming from a record player twirling a '45. As it reached the paper of its 
label the arm rose and jerked itself backward, settled down on the edge of the vinyl with a 
scrape again. 

"Mr. Neill can tell you, Mr. Skinner," Collin wheezed, "that it's not our way to go into 
custody. Especially not a woman of my stature and advanced age." 

The music was whirring out of the four-inch speaker, the song maddeningly scratched 
and sentimental. 

"We're not going to make it out of here," Neill said. 

Skinner turned to look at him, at the look on his face. His arm came up and he was 
pointing, and Skinner followed his finger to Anna Simms Collin's hand, the row of 
buttons, her finger choosing one as Skinner looked.

Skinner's eyes bulged. Everything he'd eaten for a week was suddenly surrounded with 
water and rushing South.

He fumbled for his walkie-talkie. 

"Get everyone out of the house!" he called into it. "Get everyone out!" He was moving 
back as he said it, following Neill, who had already started toward the door, tripping over 
a chair as he ran. 

"Too late," Collin said, and her finger pressed down with a "snick."

The electric lights all buzzed, growing too bright. The bulb in the lamp by the door blew 
apart with a crash. 

Something like thunder started rolling from below them, and Skinner grabbed Neill by 
the collar, hauled him up.

"Get out!" he screamed above the growing noise. "Go on! Get out!"

But Neill had stopped, looking back the way they'd come.

At Renahan. Standing not five feet from Anna Simms Collin, the two of them looking at 
each other like statues, frozen in their place.

"Renahan!" Skinner shouted. "What the fuck--?"

The house shook around them, another sound rocking from the lower floors. He could 
hear glass breaking, men shouting beneath him. Someone was yelling "fire," and 
someone else screamed. The floor bucked and Skinner was knocked off his feet, plaster 
and stone coming from the ceiling in a cloud of dust.

"RENAHAN!" 

It was Neill who'd shouted it, Neill who moved through the debris as it fell, Neill who 
grabbed Renahan by the arm and jerked him out of the way as the chimney above the 
fireplace gave way, an explosion rocking them all again and the floor falling away, flame 
shooting from the fireplace, flame reaching out like a hand and pulling Anna Simms 
Collin down into the chasm the explosion left. 

Then Neill and Renahan were moving, hauling Skinner up. He felt their hands on his 
shoulders, though he couldn't take his eyes off the woman - her dress and hair on fire - as 
she tumbled away. 

"MOVE MOVE!" Skinner shouted.

The floor was disappearing as the three of them sped down the hallway, rounding the 
corner to the steps, giant segments of the ceiling crashing down around them. Skinner 
pushed Neill in front of him, Neill's hand on Renahan, all three of them falling onto the 
second landing. 

The next explosion was so loud that if he'd hadn't been gasping for breath the shock 
would have cracked out his clenched teeth. The ceiling began to fall.

Skinner felt himself falling down the second flight, sliding down. He heard a scream and 
looked up just in time to see a stone the size of a chair hit Neill, pinning his leg.

Renahan had just managed to roll out of the way beside him, though he was rolling, his 
jacket on fire. He was peeling out of it with inhuman speed. 

Seeing this, Skinner halted his slide and tried to climb, though fire was coming from the 
hallways beside the two men now, surging out.

"I'm coming!" he shouted, coughing as the landing choked with heat and smoke.

"No, go!" Renahan yelled back. "Go!" And he reached over, grabbed Neill and dragged 
him from beneath the stone. He pushed Neill down the landing toward Skinner, who 
caught him enough to halt his slide. Then Renahan was beside him, the two of them 
hauling Neill up. Skinner was vaguely aware of blood on his own face.

"Move move move..."

Skinner chanted it, the door in sight, men running toward it, men on fire, men dragging 
other men. The three of them hit the stone landing, the tapestries aflame, and Skinner 
threw himself toward the doorway, hearing the house coming down all around him. He 
threw himself toward the light...

Someone grabbed him, a man in black and Kevlar. He heard the word "fuck." 

Then he felt rain on his face. He felt the ground hard on his face, heard a sound like the 
heavens coming down. 

He heard Renahan laughing, and after a moment, Neill joining in.

Then he heard nothing. Nothing at all. 

******

ON APPROACH TO ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE
MARYLAND
2:30 p.m.


The skies had been clear since the cargo plane had broken below the cloud cover, and as 
he craned his neck to look through the portal-shaped window next to the cargo door, 
Mulder looked, for the first time in what felt like too long, down on the Capitol Beltway's 
Inner and Outer Loops teaming with traffic, at the plane's shadow moving below on the 
ground, and at the beginning of Spring beginning to touch the city's fringes with green.

By the time he felt the landing gear groan down, his heart had picked up speed and his 
heel was bouncing off the floor in a staccato rhythm indicative of stress. He needed to 
move and move quickly, the flight having seemed interminable. His ears were ringing 
from the engine sound.

By the time the plane touched down without a jolt onto the runway, he was taking off the 
shoulder strap, his hands squeezing his kneecaps. 

As the cargo door opened, he was taking the steps before the gangway had touched the 
blacktop.

Rosen was waiting with a couple of agents in a dress shirt and black pants and a tie blown 
back. His usually impeccably neat hair was a wind disaster. 

"Agent Mulder," he called, and he did not extend his hand toward Mulder but rather 
toward a ragtop Jeep with extra seats. Mulder met his eyes and then looked away, tucking 
his tall frame into the vehicle as Rosen set himself in the passenger seat with his usual 
efficient ease. The other agents folded in next to Mulder, their faces shielded from the 
mid-day light with glasses the color of oil.

"Go," Mulder heard him call over the cargo plane's engines powering down, the Jeep 
bolting across the tarmac. Mulder could see where they were headed - a fairly small jet 
with the words "United States of America" on the side in a bold, all-cap Serif font.

"We're getting no word from the Hosteen property," Rosen called. Somehow the man 
could still sound official and formal when he was yelling over jet engine noise. "We think 
the lines have been cut."

"Jesus H. Christ," Mulder spat, shaking his head.

Rosen continued as though he didn't hear. "The agents from Phoenix are holding at the 
airport in Farmington while we await tribal consent to enter the grounds."

Mulder clenched his jaw, looking away. 

"It's a delicate situation, Agent Mulder, as I've said." 

Mulder didn't say what came into his head, but the look he gave Rosen swore for him just 
as effectively. He saw a vein come up in Rosen's temple. 

"The two Tribal Police?" he snapped as the Jeep stopped with a jolt, the agents piling out 
and Mulder and Rosen bending at the waist as the jet's engines started their shrill prep. 

"Nothing from them yet. They're coming up from Tohatchi, a town to the south..."

Mulder stopped listening. He pulled a few steps ahead and went up the gangway, taking 
the steps two at a time, ducking to clear the doorway into the cool cabin lined with 
agents. He moved away from Rosen, who was still speaking, toward an empty seat in the 
back. 

Another space to cross, he thought, looking out the window. More hours to pass.

"Agent Mulder," Rosen said, standing in the aisle next to his seat. Mulder turned his eyes 
from where they'd been burning a hole in the tarmac and up toward Rosen's angry face.

"Sir?" he said. He'd said "fuck" with less venom in his time.

"I just told you Walter Skinner's been taken to a hospital in Belfast," he said. "Or does 
that not matter to you at all?" 

Mulder blanched. "What...?"

"He and Eamon Neill and Ed Renahan took a contingent of agents to Antrim to the Collin 
Estate. They found Anna Simms Collin there - alone, it would seem - and the place 
wired up through its electrical system with enough TNT to blow the place to the Pearly 
Gates. Five agents - Irish and British - were killed when the house went up. And Anna 
Simms Collin is dead."

Mulder closed his eyes. Five more. Five more families with someone ripped away.

"Skinner and the others?" he said, opening them again. The plane was taxiing, Rosen 
holding onto the bulkhead above Mulder's seat. 

"Neill lost a leg below the knee. Renahan, his spleen. Skinner's banged up pretty badly 
but he'll be all right in a couple of days." 

Mulder nodded as the plane stopped, angled its nose toward the quickening and started to 
move. 

Rosen moved slowly toward a seat, his voice carrying over the engines as they built and 
built. 

"A great many of us are putting ourselves on the line here as we think of Agent Scully 
and your baby, Agent Mulder," he said. "I don't think it's too much to ask that you think 
of us, as well."

Mulder looked out the window, avoiding the glances from the agents around him. 
Something in him relented, though it was hard to swallow the ire. 

"I will," Mulder said, the agents looking away. 

Rosen nodded, sat down beside Gil Jackson from ATF, and the plane left the ground. 


*****

NEAR THE CROSSROADS TO THE HOSTEEN PROPERTY
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
2:50 p.m.


Kyle Jenks looked at Toya Millston from the passenger seat of their patrol car, the bladed 
fan whirring on the dash, the radio buzzing with a private conversation between the 
dispatcher in Shiprock, a woman named Bess, and Ella, the one in Sanostee, they'd been 
listening to since lunch.

"I like her voice," Toya said, smiling beneath his mirrored glasses, the ones their 
lieutenant made fun of for looking too stereotypical and white.

"You like every woman's voice," Jenks replied, but he smiled as he said it so that Toya 
smiled back. 

"What do you know, eh?" the big man replied. "Toya" meant "Bull" and Millston more 
than earned the name. "Twenty-two years old and you don't nothin' about women, do you 
then? You can tell a lot by a voice." 

"Oh yeah?" Jenks said. "What's this one like? This Bess?"

Toya pursed his lips, turning the final turn at the sign toward Two Grey Hills. "Hmm..." 
he said. "I'm thinking she's tall and has dark hair and eyes, and skin the color of 
pecans..."

Jenks laughed. "Man, you should go on television. Start your own show. The Psychic 
Indian Network. Next thing you know you'll tell me it might rain." He pointed to the 
gathering clouds on the horizon, and Toya roared his big laugh. 

They drove a bit more, and finally reached a crossroads. "Looks like we're coming up on 
the place," Toya said, indicating the dead-end off in the distance, a choice to turn left or 
right.

"What do you reckon these women have done?" Jenks asked. 

"Hell if I know," Millston replied, slowing the patrol car as they approached. "Though 
what two white women are doing staying in an Elder's place..."

Lieutenant Hopps hadn't said much when he'd sent them on the milk run north, up to Two 
Grey Hills where, as near as they could figure, nothing had ever happened to anyone and 
no cops hung out. Go pick up two white women staying at the Hosteen place. 

"What for?" Toya had asked. His gut was getting a little big for his chocolate-brown 
uniform shirt, and his arms looked like tree trunks. 

"I don't know," Hopps replied sourly. "It's come from the Tribal Leadership, but they 
won't tell me what it's all about. Watch yourself just in case. Whole thing's strange."

Toya, the ranking officer of the two of them, made a show of looking wide-eyed and 
going for the buck knife he carried in front of his service revolver at his belt. 

"Oh yeah. Two Grey Hills...we'll watch ourselves, right Jenk?"

Now they were stopping at the turning place, looking at a billboard off to the right for 
Smiley's Gas, "Three miles to the left" and never closed. 

Beneath the billboard's chintzy supports, Jenks could see the black half-circles of a small 
car's tires.

"Someone's hid their car back behind there," he said, pointing, and Toya leaned forward 
to look. 

"Yea," he said. "Looks like that." He seemed to consider, leaning back. 

"Let's have a look," he said, and pulled the car across the T of the adjoining road, over 
onto the scrubby brush and sand beyond. 

He stopped the car behind the American mid-size from Ugly Duck Rentals in 
Farmington, and the two of them got out. 

"Nobody home," Jenks said, looking at the car's driver's seat. 

Toya was moving slowly toward the car, and Jenks reached down and unsnapped the 
strap from the butt of his revolver, even though Toya wasn't moving slow like he did 
when he thought something felt out of sorts. He walked all the way up the car's back 
window, peered inside, moved around the driver's side, looking in the windows.

Jenks came up to the trunk, looking around. 

"Smells like ammonia," he said, leaning close to the trunk. "You smell it?" 

Toya was looking down at his feet at something brown at his feet.

"Cow shit," he said, sniffing. 

Now Toya was unsnapping the strap on his gun, looking around at the desert. 

"Odd," he said, and Jenks nodded, looking around, as well. He caught sight of a shape 
moving off in the distance, coming from the direction they had been heading when they 
stopped. From where the Hosteen place was supposed to be, a mile or so away. 

"Maybe he can tell us what's what," Toya said, and they waited as the figure approached. 

He was a smiling young man with a colored backpack, yellow and green, and big enough 
to have him out for a week. His face was red and he waved as he got closer, jeans and 
black boots like jumpboots, a T-shirt stained with sweat. 

"Hi, officers," he said as he came close to the car. "I'm sorry. Was I not supposed to park 
there?"

His accent was bumpkinish, Jenks thought, the guy's smile open and vaguely dense. He 
guessed the guy wasn't the sharpest stick in the fire from the look on his face.

"No, not really," Toya said. He usually did all the talking and Jenks let him at this. 
" You know you're on private land?"

The man came up to the car, shouldering out of the huge backpack. It was crushed in in 
some places, clearly nearly empty. Jenks could tell by the way he swung it with such ease 
that it hardly weighed a thing. The man went to fumbling with his keys in the pack's top 
flap, pulled out the rental key.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'll just go ahead and be on my way then. I didn't mean any harm. 
It's just really pretty out here."

Jenks looked around, and Toya did, as well. Nothing for miles but scrub-brush and tan 
sand. Flat. Nothing to see.

 
"Most people like Chaco or Shiprock," Toya said, glancing at Jenks. "But yeah, this is... 
nice." 

Something was screwy, Jenks thought. Screwy on screwy, and Toya knew it, too. He let 
Millston take the lead on what to do next.

The man had the door open and he was putting the backpack inside. Toya was coming 
around the hood slowly, casually, and Jenks stayed near the back. 

"Can I see some ID from you, sir?" Toya said, a few feet away now, and the man finished 
settling his things and stood, looking perplexed. 

"What for?" he said, and he did look genuinely confused now, like he didn't know what 
an ID was.

"Well, I'm just wondering what you're doing out here with nothing but private houses 
around, going around on foot carrying an empty frame pack." Toya took a couple more 
steps, and Jenks closed in, his hand on his belt. 

"And your car smells like fertilizer and chemicals," Jenks added to get the man to look 
his way. "What can you tell us about that?" 

The man did look his way now, and Jenks felt his mouth go dry.

Gone was the vacant look in the blue eyes, gone the gaping mouth and blank face. The 
man looking back at him now was someone else entirely, someone he didn't want to face.

In an instant the man had turned and had the buck knife out of its sheath, the blade 
flashing as it whipped up toward Toya's throat. Jenks saw the slash like a huge, obscene 
smile open up at his friend's neck. 

As Toya fell, Jenks drew his weapon, but he knew it was too late. 

He only saw the man's arm move in an arc, impossibly hard and just as fast. He heard 
something whistling in air as he aimed his weapon, then something cold and final thump 
into his chest. 

**

VICTOR HOSTEEN'S RANCH
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
3:16 p.m.


Though Paul Granger loved the feeling of the sun coming through the windows, slanting 
in that way light only seemed to be able to in the desert and falling on his bare back, and 
though he loved the quiet of the ranch - Victor and Sarah asleep and all the men gone, 
resting from their night - right now he could really only concentrate on Robin beneath 
him, on the pleasure of their lovemaking that was ebbing inside him and ebbing across 
her face. 

He could only concentrate on the way his heart was surging against the cage of his chest, 
how the pain was gone, how he somehow felt more alive than he'd felt in so long he 
could barely remember what it felt like to feel alive, and to not be in grief or afraid.

"Oh God," Robin breathed against the side of his face, sweat slicking both of them. He 
was balancing on his arms on either side of her head, her braids splayed out on the worn 
pillowcase, and she was crying. 

She breathed something that sounded like "I love you," and something like "praise be."

When he'd returned with Victor, both of them covered with sore scratches and stinking of 
the bat's black bodies that reeked of ammonia, he'd told Robin what he could recall of 
what had happened, what Victor had told him, the name.

"The Blessing Way," he said, and Robin looked at him as though he was insane. 

"What I want to know," she said, dabbing at a cut across his face, a series of claws' grazes 
that stung as she touched. "Is why the hell I couldn't come with you? If it's because I'm a 
woman, I--"

Granger shook his head. "You wouldn't have believed it if they'd brought you," he 
interrupted.

"What is this? Indian Tinkerbell?" Robin snapped, and he shied away as her hand slipped. 
"I have to believe or--"

"No," he said, looking at her seriously. "You didn't. But I did." 

She stopped, meeting his dark eyes with hers. "And do you, Paul? Do you believe?" Her 
bravado had vanished like smoke. There was something desperate in her face.

He nodded. "Yes. I can't begin to explain it, but I know that it's right." 

And he'd moved to show her how he knew. 

Now, he rolled off of her, taking up his place beside her on the bed. She curled into the 
crook of his arm, her hand pillowed on his shoulder, the shoulder where the scars - like a 
map showing high relief - had been, and where they weren't anymore. 

"Sleep," he said, kissing her forehead. "You can sleep..."

She nodded, drowsing already. His chest heaved an even, deep breath, his eyes beginning 
to close.

"Paul," she whispered. 

"Yes?" he replied, just as soft.

"I do believe," she breathed, and he smiled and fell asleep.

**

3:35 p.m.


In Mae's house, Frank Music was looking domestic as Scully entered the house, standing 
at the stove warming up something that smelled like apples while Katherine banged on 
her high chair tray at his back.

Albert Hosteen had driven her and Bo down after coming to her bedroom where she'd 
been laying since they'd returned from the hospital. He'd been sitting in the den watching 
Animal Planet, some show on osprey on the Chesapeake Bay, and she'd lain there 
listening to it, pretending, as he drifted down the hall and back to look in on her, that she 
was asleep.

Finally, she heard his recliner creak again and his footsteps, closed her eyes against the 
light that was forcing its way through the closed curtains, and his gaze. 

"I know you are not asleep," he said quietly.

"No," she whispered, hoarse. She had a blanket up to her chin and she turned her head so 
that it covered her lips. She felt impossibly small beneath the blanket, as though she were 
vanishing into the blanket's folds. 

"You should talk to your friend," he said. "To Mae down at Victor's. That makes me feel 
better sometimes. Makes both of you feel better." He paused. "Did Agent Mulder write 
you back?" 

She nodded, but she didn't want to talk about the email she'd received. Something about it 
had troubled her, the curtness of it, its tone.

(I'm on my way.)

She opened her eyes and blinked. 

"He's on his way," she parroted to Hosteen, and he seemed to sense something bothering 
her. 

"Hmm." He pushed the door open a bit more and came in, kneeling down beside her 
mattress to find her boots beneath the bed's swaybacked frame. Bo, curled into a comma 
on the rope rug by the window, raised his head and whined. 

"My telephone is out," Hosteen said. "It happens often in the spring after too much rain. I 
need to speak to Victor. Come. You and Bo should ride along."

There was no arguing with him. She pushed the cover back and put her legs over the side 
as though the movement caused her pain. 

Now Mr. Hosteen had taken Bo and gone to see Victor, and Scully was smiling at Agent 
Music, holding Katherine's warm, soft hand, glad that she'd come.

"You look at home, Agent Music," she said, and her voice cracked from fatigue. 

He turned his head and smiled, pointed to the pot with the wooden spoon. "Home on the 
range," he replied, and winked. She rolled her eyes.

"Where's Mae?" she asked. "And tell me quickly before you feel the urge to pun again." 

He laughed, and she welcomed the sound. 

"She's in the back with Sean," he said, and he sounded pleased. "Go back and see." 

Scully looked toward the back and she could hear soft noises coming from the second 
bedroom, the small one Mulder had slept in alone for all those weeks. A few steps down 
the bare hallway and she peeked around the doorway. 

Mae was on the floor, sitting leaned against Sean's bed, and Sean was sitting between her 
legs, using her body as a chair back, a book in his hands. He was reading, and as Mae 
looked up at Scully, she smiled. Her eyes were rimmed with red. 

Happy tears, Scully realized. Finally someone had something good to cry about...

"'Suddenly, one day, they came upon a stranger,'" Sean read, the words stilted, as though 
he were trying on a new voice. "'At first Crow and Weasel didn't know who it was, 
though they thought it might be Mouse...'"

Scully smiled as she listened to him, as she looked at the shine of cream on the burns on 
his face. His voice was familiar and so lovely to listen to. Something about it gave her 
hope and respite and something like relief. She closed her eyes and listened to him speak. 

"'We come in peace,' said Weasel. 'Good!' said Mouse. 'I'm a peaceful man.' 'We are 
traveling north through these woods,' said Crow. 'I am going west,' said Mouse. 'I am on a 
vision quest...'" 

Listened...listened...

Then it began.

(A man...a young man in a backpack moving behind the barn...)

(Mae and Frank running...Mae and Frank and Katherine running...Mae on 
fire...everything behind them on fire...the horses were screaming...)

She gasped and opened her eyes. Bile rose in her throat.

"Dana?" she heard Mae say. "What is it?"

(Albert Hosteen pushing her from the house..."Go!" he was shouting. She looked at him 
and everything behind him on fire...)

"Dana?!"

She staggered down the hallway toward the bedroom, choking in air. She was going to 
throw up. The smell of burning hair...

She felt hands close around her upper arms like vises, and a huge, too-hard shake. 

"STOP IT!" Mae was shouting. "You have to stop it before it's too late. Come on, Dana, 
stop what you're seeing--"

Scully's eyes snapped from the flames, from the vision and its screaming, its smell and its 
pain.

"What?" Mae was saying, her face inches from Scully's. She was holding Scully up with 
her arms. "Tell me. What? What?"

Scully's chest was heaving. "Everything was on fire," she whispered. She could see Sean 
in the doorway. He didn't look afraid, but she lowered her voice just the same. "The 
ranch...the barn..." She looked at Mae. "You. Mr. Hosteen." 

Mae's eyes widened. "Here? Was it here that was on fire?"

Scully nodded. "There was a man," she said. She had lost her voice. "I saw him moving 
around the barn in my mind. Then everything was on fire... Mae, he's here. He's here."

Mae kept a hand on Scully as she went into the bedroom, pulling her along. She reached 
for the phone on the nightstand, put it to her ear. 

Her face turned white. 

"It's dead," she said, and Scully looked to the window, the hall. 

"Mae--" 

But Mae was dragging her back to the hallway where Sean was standing, his small fists 
balled.

"Sean," she said. "Go get Victor and Mr. Granger," she said, and Sean took off like a 
shot. "Frank!" she yelled down the hallway toward the kitchen. 

Scully could hear Music drop the spoon and his footsteps coming near.

"We've got to get out of here," Scully rasped, and Mae was nodding. 

"Yes," she said.

"Now, Mae," Scully said, tears coming. "We've got to run."


**

THE DESERT
4:12 p.m.


Albert Hosteen had stopped the caravan of the two pickups about a mile from the ranch, 
up over a rise where the road had taken them to a place overlooking the ranch. He was 
standing there with Victor, their shoulders nearly touching, their hands in their pockets, a 
dozen feet from the pickups, both looking out over their land. 

Scully looked at them from the passenger window of Hosteen's pickup. Granger had 
gotten out of the truck's bed, half-shielding Scully from the edge, holding tight to her 
hand. Her face trailed tears, but she didn't make a sound.

In the truckbed, Robin sat, her face a mask of anger, Sara Whistler at her side. They were 
both looking at the tiny shapes of the buildings of Victor Hosteen's ranch, Sara worrying 
Bo's black ear as the dog began to pant.

Beside them, in Victor's truck, Mae held onto Sean. Frank Music was holding Katherine, 
the baby squalling faintly at the bumpy, fast ride. He bounced her absently, his eyes on 
the edge. 

"Forgive me," Scully whispered.

Far below them, all of the horses were free, run off by the men. They'd driven them and 
the sheep and the rest of the animals away as quickly as they could manage, the Hosteen's 
entire life and livelihood scattered on the open desert like seeds.

They waited. Two minutes, then three. 

Scully pulled in a breath, her eyes seeing something down below the others could not yet 
see, and Granger gripped down on her hand.

Far below them, the deafening sound. 

The ranch lit up in plumes of orange and yellow with a tearing that flew off the 
mountains' craggy faces, the echo carried all around. The flames and debris went up 
toward the sky in columns of black smoke that billowed like storm clouds in the air. 

A few seconds behind, another explosion rocked through the mountains, Albert Hosteen's 
house disappearing into ruin and flame.

Victor turned away from it, his face toward the ground. 

"Son of a bitch..." he breathed. "Son of a *bitch*..."

Albert Hosteen turned to face them all. No one, save Katherine, had made a sound. 

"Now," he said, determination - and anger - in his voice. "Follow me."


*****

OVER TULSA, OKLAHOMA
4:45 p.m.


He'd fought it all the way across the pond from Belfast, his body jangled and wired and 
his worry laying on him like a too-heavy cloak for a hot season. But somewhere over 
Arkansas, Fox Mulder had finally fallen asleep, his forehead against the window where 
the cold air of altitude had painted the window on the plane's side with delicate shapes of 
ice. 

He didn't hear the three cell phones begin ringing simultaneously - Rosen's, Jackson's 
and Agent Fulstein from the Anti-Terrorism Special Task. 

He didn't hear Jackson talking to Washington about reports on CNN about a massive 
explosion in New Mexico, with every regional agent on the way. He didn't hear Fulstein 
telling the folks at D.C. to go ahead and fax - the plane - the information on Christopher 
Collin they'd just received from the Irish Special Forces. 

He didn't hear the conversation between Rosen and Ashkii Hok'ee, the head of the Navajo 
Tribal Council giving blanket permission for agents to enter the reservation and go to the 
site of the blasts as fast as they could manage, or the apology and acceptance of 
responsibility the old man offered at the "regrettable delay." 

He didn't see Rosen come down the aisle toward him with his face ashen and gray, the 
usually unflappable Director gnawing on his lip, his hands gripping the seat at the end of 
Mulder's row with enough force to rip. 

He didn't see Rosen turn and head back to his seat, having decided to let the man have a 
couple more hours of sleep before he exploded with anguish and grief there in the plane 
where he could do nothing. 

 A few more hours of a life where his wife and baby were still alive. 


*******

THE KNIGHT'S INN
FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 7
4:45 a.m.

Christie Collin sat on the edge of the bed smoking a Marlboro Red, the cheap mattress 
sagging under his slight weight, the corners of the flat sheet tucked under the mattress' 
corners pulling up. The mattress was covered in plastic. He'd listened to it crumple all 
night.

He was naked, his legs splayed and his elbows on his thin knees. Smoke curled up from 
the cigarette in a gray line that spread into the air, caught the window unit's fan and 
disappeared like a ghost. 

"Fuck me," Bridget said from behind him. She'd made no sound on the bed since the light 
had started to seer the thick drapes, the room taking on a bluish light. 

"No," he said, not looking at her. He was looking at the huge suitcase he'd brought from 
New York, the compounds inside packed with coffee grounds that he could smell from 
the bed. 

"Why not?" she asked. Her voice had taken on its hiss. "You don't think I'm pretty 
enough anymore, do you now?" He could hear her lips slide across teeth as she grinned.

"Just not in the mood," he offered, and listened to her laugh. 

The box from Radio Shack was at his feet, the receipt with yesterday afternoon's time and 
date taped to its side. "In case you need to return it," the clerk had said, and smiled. 

On the night table, the small police scanner's lights ran from one edge to the other, a row 
of fast-moving light. The small speaker had been crackling all night, local police talking 
to State Police, State Police talking to ATF. Helicopters were buzzing all over 
Farmington, and he'd listened the entire night to the sounds of sirens echoing down the 
empty streets, heading southwest to Two Grey Hills. 

It had been quieter since around 2:00 a.m. on the scanner, mostly troopers talking back 
and forth about personal things. One trooper who'd been in the Gulf had talked for a bit 
about what he imagined was used on the ranch. 

The man had a good nose and a good eye, Christie'd thought, lying there. He'd been right. 

Christie knew Mulder was there. A trooper had talked about "some Fed storming around 
screaming at everyone," "some man there looking for his wife." 

"Ain't gonna find her in that mess," crackled out a trooper going off duty in response. 
"Not unless he's got a pair of tweezers. He'd have to bury her in a matchbox." 

"But I want it," Bridget said from behind him, and he reached up and touched the signal 
dial, something to do with his hands. He didn't reply.

"Don't you want me, Christie?" 

His cigarette had gone to ash, the cinder burning into the filter and giving off a stink. He 
stubbed it out in the ashtray, and finally turned to look at Bridget's face.

Her white eyes started back at him, her skin gone rotted and flaking off. Her head showed 
through her hair, most it fallen out. He could see the greenish skin around her breasts, her 
nipples black as tar. She pushed the blanket down and he could see the fetid rot of her 
sex. 

"No," he said softly, shaking his head. "No, I don't." 

The phone rang its shrill, chintzy ring. Two rings. Outside call. 

"Yeah," he said, holding up a finger to Bridget, who'd begun to speak. 

"Christie, we're in a bad way." 

Seamus. Not her. 

Why not? Why not a call that things were finally finished? Why not a promise of a plane 
ticket to come back home? 

"Yeah?" was all he could think to say. 

"Aye," Seamus said. "The Feds found the house in Antrim, lad." He paused. "I'm afraid 
your grandmother's dead." 

He didn't move, didn't breathe. He looked around the room and nothing seemed quite 
right. 

Bridget began to laugh behind him, sounding nothing like a woman. Nothing like 
anything on earth. 

"You there, Christie?" Seamus asked. "We're doing what we can to get you out, but they 
know who you--" 

Christie heard the voice faintly as his arm, seeming independent of the rest of him, 
reached out to hang up the phone with a click. 

The scanner puffed out static and an excited man's voice came through.

"Jessie?" it called. 

"Here, Ray," the dispatcher replied.

"You're not going to believe this, but there was no one home when the Hosteen place 
went up. The cadaver dogs, the Feds, Forensics...a few livestock but that's it. No bodies. 
Repeat, no bodies. They're getting choppers and planes out in the desert looking. They 
think they're hiding somewhere east..."

They couldn't have known, he thought. His chest began to heave in faster breaths. He'd 
seen Scully asleep through the window, the old man watching some show on TV. He'd 
seen Mae Curran and some agent with a gun on his belt laughing with a baby and a boy 
he'd tried not to see. He'd seen the darkie agent and his girl fucking through a crack in the 
curtains, and the younger Indian and his girl asleep. 

"They were there," he insisted. "I saw them. They were there." 

"Time to get you dressed," Bridget said from behind him, her reeking hand on his bare 
back. "Let's get you dressed in something special, my love."

She cooed it, sounding sweet. He turned to look at her, quirked a smile at the one on her 
face. 

All I have left...he thought. All I have...

"Come on, love," Bridget whispered. "I know just what you should wear for going out 
again." And she leaned forward to give him a deep and frozen kiss.


*****

THE DESERT
NAVAJO RESERVATION
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
5:55 a.m.


Like Hosteen, Ghost had always moved slowly and like an old man when Mulder had 
seen him. The horse never seemed in a particular hurry to get anywhere, as though he 
were deep in some sort of moving meditation as he put one hoof in front of the other with 
Hosteen on his back. Mulder had always imagined him too old to move quickly, an 
elderly horse that the elderly Hosteen kept out of fondness and habit.

But as he'd long suspected about Albert Hosteen, Ghost was proving to not quite be as he 
seemed. 

The sun was rising as one giant eye, deep orange, the color of fire, the light bleeding 
across the horizon and finally lighting up the deep tracks Mulder'd been following with a 
flashlight and desperate instinct. The walkie-talkie he'd clipped to the waist of his jeans 
was crackling with voices, barely audible as he kept his eyes on the tracks.

Beneath him, Ghost was running, his hard gallup so smooth he barely seemed to touch 
the ground. They were skimming along one side of the deep ruts of pickup tires that dug 
into the sand, the ranch far behind them, and only Rosen's voice at his waist to remind 
him of it, that and the persistent smell of charred wood and ruin clinging to him like 
hands. 

Mulder pressed his feet more firmly in the stirrups, squeezed the horse's gray sides as 
Ghost angled around a small cluster of sagebrush, darting left then returning right. 
Mulder could hear the animal's breath moving in and out like an engine, his hooves 
tapping out a sure, steady beat. 

"Come on," Mulder said to him. "Good boy...keep going...come on..."

The horse's ears flicked back to listen, and though Mulder figured it his imagination, the 
horse's pace seemed to quickened just the same. 

The tracks led off in a direction he'd never been in, and he'd already gone much deeper 
into the desert than he'd ever been, into the foothills of the mountains, up inclines more 
steep than he felt entirely comfortable climbing on a horse going at such a speed. The 
tracks had angled down again and they were heading for a flatter section, and Mulder was 
happy for the change. 

"Goddamnit, Agent Mulder, I want you to answer me..." 

Rosen's voice broke through the sounds of Ghost's running, and Mulder ignored Rosen 
again.

He'd ignored him first when Rosen had told him about a "cataclysmic" explosion at the 
Hosteen property but said it was "no guarantee" Scully and the others had been caught in 
the blast. Rosen had waited to tell him until he'd woken up as they touched the ground at 
Four Corners Regional Airport in Farmington. As the plane taxied to a stop, Rosen had 
said this to him, only a few seconds before they could deplane and get on their way. 

"cataclysmic...no guarantee..."

Mulder had gotten off the plane without saying a word, grief riding the too-large back of 
rage as he began to shake. He stood off to the side as the other agents disappeared behind 
doorslams into Government cars, their engines already running, the tears burning, his 
heart feeling as though his chest had been hollowed out.

He closed his eyes. "Scully, please..." he whispered. He turned his back on all of them, 
his trembling hand covering his mouth. 

"Agent Mulder," Rosen had said from behind him on the tarmac. "Let's try not to 
overreact. We don't know anything yet, and whether you believe it or not, the way this 
has been handled is perfectly correct. It would help everyone if you wouldn't follow your 
usual M.O. here and do or say something you'll later regret." 

Mulder dropped his hand to his side, it and its pair forming a fist. 

"Fuck you," he said, and before Rosen knew what was happening, Mulder had swung and 
punched him in the face. 

"Come on..." Mulder said, leaning up over the saddle's horn, his chest nearly touching 
Ghost's muscular neck. They'd hit the flat between two foothills and it was bright enough 
to see everything now in a dim, reddish light. 

"Come on," he said to Ghost. It was time for speed. 
 
When he'd seen Albert Hosteen's house - what was left of it - still burning in a 
chemically spurred rage, he could only think of he and Scully's lovemaking the morning 
he'd left, how the baby's shape curved beneath the blankets as though Scully were hiding 
a gift. He'd ignored Rosen the second time when Rosen had told everyone to keep back, 
the firemen from Farmington working with chemical foam to put the fire out, and Mulder 
had taken off toward something at the center of the rubble that looked like a burning 
human shape.

The firemen had stopped him, not Rosen, who knew enough now to keep away. 

He'd ignored him again as, after they'd worked through the night at Victor's ranch, when, 
standing at the edge of the crime scene teeming with agents, he'd shone a light and seen 
Ghost standing there in the circle of his Maglite's beam, a pony pressed against his side.

Ghost was wearing a saddle, a multicolored wool blanket beneath, the reins of his bitless 
bridle tied to the horn. The pony's back was bare, only a halter on its face. 

Mulder, covered in soot and ash, looked from Ghost and his saddle and bridle to the 
crime scene flooded with lights behind him. 

Everything was gone. Everything that had been on the ranch.

Mulder studied the horse again. Albert Hosteen rarely put a saddle on Ghost, and when 
he did, Mulder knew he never left it on him for long. The horse didn't care for it, and 
Hosteen said he didn't need it when he rode the horse, the same way he didn't need a bit.

Mulder looked from the ruin, his eyes narrowing, to Ghost again.

The horse stood very still, looking back. 

"Ghost," he called to the horse, and the horse came forward, stepping over rubble. The 
pony following like a child.

Mulder glanced at Rosen, who was in a knot of agents giving him the report of what 
they'd found at Mae's place. He looked over with his fat lip and his scowl.

Ghost stopped in front of Mulder and put his charcoal nose under Mulder's outstretched 
hand. Then Mulder looked at the saddle, at the saddlebags on its back. He opened a flap 
and reached inside.

There was a canteen full of water that he felt first. He pushed it aside, digging.

And drew out a long strip of leather, its tag glinting in the searchlights there in the dark 
like a star. 

"Bo. Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, 7912 Laurel Street, Arlington..."

He squeezed it, turned the Maglite toward where Ghost had been standing, the open 
desert beyond. 

Tracks. Going east. 

He grinned.

A foot in the stirrup and he swung his long leg over the saddle's cracked letter, the collar 
still in his hand. 

"Agent Mulder!" Rosen yelled as Mulder angled the horse toward the tracks and jammed 
his heels home. "Don't you dare--"

Ghost shot off into the darkness, picking up surprising speed. 

For a long time the pony tried to keep pace with them. He could hear the staccato tapping 
of its hooves close, then further, then further until the sound disappeared.

"Agent Mulder," Rosen's voice crackled from the speaker. "I know you can hear me."

"Right again," Mulder said, Ghost's mane windblown and brushing his face. 

"There were no bodies at the Hosteen place. Repeat. No human remains..."

Mulder smiled again. 

"We've got an surveillance plane up with heat-sensing equipment to see if we can find 
where they're hiding, but I wanted to warn you - they've seen a vehicle 12 miles east of 
the ranch. Ragtop Jeep. Driver only. And moving out. They've spotted you, too, and 
you're running parallel to him. Turn north...we're scrambling four-wheel-drive and 
choppers--"

Mulder's vision turned to flame.

He leaned back enough on the saddle to fumble with the walkie-talkie on his waist and 
press it to his face.

"He's mine," Mulder said into the mouthpiece. "Stay the fuck away." 

 
******


THE PUEBLO
NAVAJO RESERVATION
OUTSIDE TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
6:15 a.m.


Scully had not believed the sight of the pueblo when they'd reached it just before dark the previous night, 
the entire structure looking like something that had risen from a dream. She imagined, as they'd pulled the 
trucks off to the side where the vehicles would get a bit of camouflage from some squat, stubborn pines, 
that by the time the sun came up to show the place with its stark light, the place would vanish back into the 
rock, a temporary projection of Hosteen's memory or a desert mirage.

It had seemed even more surreal when she'd walked � bookended by Granger and Victor � into an open 
doorway on the ground level at the structure's left hand side and entered a room with its walls covered in 
names in red and black paint.

Kai.

Mansi.

Nantan.

Keel.

Victor.

Ata'halae.

Sean.

Scully looked at the names again. They were all written in children's handwriting, many of the letters 
inverted, others written with that care and awkwardness of kindergarteners with fat pencils in tiny hands. 

The place smelled of a firepit, and indeed, there was one in the middle of the floor that looked recently 
used. Logs cluttered around it in a circle for people to sit. 

"What is this place?" she asked, slowing even more than her already-unsteady, exhausted gait. 

"It's holy ground," Victor said. "A sacred place. We'll be safe here."  He and Granger were exchanging 
glances, and Granger nodded. 

"Yes," Granger replied softly. "We will." 

Frank came in carrying a sleeping Sean, Mae a sleeping Katherine, the baby's crying finally spent. Sara 
Whistler came in behind with Robin, whose eyes were wide and her mouth open as she looked at the place. 
Albert Hosteen came in last with Bo, and Hosteen pulled down a blanket that had been caught on a nail 
above the doorway so that the red and black cloth covered the doorway. 

Scully was feeling the strain of the time in the truck, the bumping and twisting through the desert choking 
on dust. She felt as exhausted as she had when she'd first woken in the hospital, her back aching and her 
head too light. 

"I need to sit," she said quietly to Granger. Her head was swimming. "Let me sit�" 

"Okay," he said, and he tightened his grip on her arm, Victor moving with them as they moved toward the 
logs around the firepit. 

"No," Albert Hosteen said from behind them, and the three of them stopped, looked back.  Hosteen was 
gesturing toward the far wall and speaking in Navajo to Sara and Victor, who nodded.  

"Just a little bit more, Dana," Victor said, nodding toward the back. "Grandfather wants us to go further, 
just to be safe." 

Scully nodded, but her legs weren't quite up for a lot more steps. She leaned heavily on Granger and Victor 
as they walked to the wall, lined with blankets the buckskin color of the sandstone wall. Scully could feel 
cool air � much cooler than even the room she was in � pushing through the blankets' sides. Sara came 
forward and lifted up the corner, pulled it back. 

There was an opening there and seemed to extend infinitely, back into a dark, cool space. There were steps 
cut into the ground going down from where Scully stood looking wide-eyed at the place. 

"Where�?" she said, and trailed off as the word echoed in open air. She looked up to see the cave's roof, 
but only darkness lay above. 

Victor had picked up a rag torch dipped in something that smelled faintly of grease and was lighting it with 
a Zippo from his jeans. As the flame flared to life, Scully could see the stairs going down into a cavernous 
space. There were benches below them, fire pits. What looked like wooden barrels and chests. 

Bo worked his way between their legs, looked up at Scully and whined. He padded down the stairs ahead of 
them as though he knew what lay behind them was something that he should be afraid of.

Granger and Victor were nearly carrying Scully by the time they reached the bottom, the two of them and 
Robin and Sara settling her down onto a pile of blankets where she'd almost instantly fallen asleep in the 
cave's perpetual night. 

She did not know if it was morning as she roused, the flames from a well-tended fire dancing in front of her 
eyes. She was on her side, a blanket between her knees, facing the firepit, Bo on the edge of the blanket at 
her feet. She could see the lumps of the others sleeping -- Robin was tucked in against Granger's chest. 
Frank Music was closest to the stairs with his gun beside him, just a few feet from Victor, who had Sara 
beneath his arm. Only the top of Sean's head was visible from beneath the blanket over Mae's shoulder, his 
face tucked against her chest. She couldn't see Katherine, but figured her behind Mae, further from the fire. 

The only person she didn't see clustered around the fire was Albert Hosteen, and she leaned up slowly to 
look for him in the circle of the fire's light. 

There. She could make out his silhouette far on the cave's other side. He was sitting in front of a small fire 
of his own, his shirt off, his legs tucked beneath him. In the quiet she could hear a small sound like a low 
hum coming from his throat. 

She thought to rise and go to him, since the sound seemed vaguely distressed. She began to move, her hand 
on the baby's heel that was pressing above her navel. 

"Roll over, little girl," she whispered. "Roll--"

("Roll it with your hands," Mulder was saying. "See? That way you don't have to put so much flour on the 
roller. You can just get it all over your hands�"
 
"Dad," a woman's voice said from Scully's left. "Don't encourage him. He's already a master at making a 
mess."

Scully was at the counter across from them and turned her attention to the turkey, its insides stuffed with 
walnuts and bread crumbs, cranberries and chives. Something was burning in the oven. 

"I told you he reminded me of your father," Scully said mischievously, reaching into the bowl again.

"Hey," Mulder said, mock wounded, and she turned to look at him. "Me and the little man are making 
masterpieces here! A mess? Scully, help me out here�"

Mulder's hair neatly cut but gone mostly grey. Mulder's face lined, glasses on his face. 

He looked distinguished, and the lines around his eyes showed much more laughter than age. 

The little dark-haired boy � four or five -- beside Mulder with his back to Scully, laughed and planted a 
flour handprint on his grandfather's thigh. 

She gaped.

"Mom? You all right?")

The heel disappeared from beneath her hand, Rose moving inside. Scully swallowed, sweat slicking her 
face. She felt sick. Too hot... 

What she'd seen wasn't possible, she thought. Not possible�

Across the cave she looked at Hosteen's still form, the fire dancing before him, the fire going white as it 
grew even more hot. 

The noise grew in his throat, a sound that seemed to surround her, make her even more dizzy, her head 
more light.

Was it�? 

She lay her head back down on the blankets, closing her eyes against the tunnel forming in front of them, 
the only thing she could see.

Not possible�she thought again, shaking her head as tears crested.

Or could it be?  


*****


THE DESERT NEAR THE PUEBLO
NAVAJO RESERVATION
6:40 a.m.


Christie had seen the spotter plane moving low overhead, the unmistakable look of a government plane in 
any country. He'd heard the plane's engines above him even over the sound of the stolen Jeep's engine, and 
when he'd hung his head out the side to look over the rag top, the plane had banked sharply and veered 
away. 

In the seat beside him, Bridget hung onto the metal handles welded onto the Jeep's roll cage, her eyes 
staring forward, her hair stringing out in the breeze coming around the windscreen. 

"That's it then," he said to himself, biting his lip. He listened to the words, how they came out in that same 
polite way his father had taught him, how they betrayed what was in him the same as most of his life in this 
had � the fear, the anger. Something that, like his grandmother's kisses, filled with revulsion and shame.

"Such a good boy," Bridget cooed, and then laughed her phlegmy laugh.  

They were out in open desert, heading toward an incline that would switchback up over a small mountain's 
rise. He checked the compass he carried from the time in the Rangers, the one inscribed in Gaelic from his 
sergeant with the words "Always True." 

"Shut the fuck up," he said. 

"What?" 

"You heard me," he said, taking the first of the rise, the Jeep going hard over something that would have 
unseated him if he hadn't been strapped in. The suspension groaned as they climbed. 

"You can't talk to me like that," Bridget said, something dangerous in her voice. 

"I can," Christie said, looking over at her again. Her jaw had dropped off, her upper teeth a horseshoe at the 
bottom of her face. 

He sensed she was looking past him, though, off the edge of a cliff side. Christie turned and followed her 
white eyes. 

A cloud of dust coming up behind a lone rider, coming fast on a horse the color of pale smoke. He could 
see the dark hair, the way the horse was angled toward the makeshift road the Jeep had taken up to cliff. 

"Mulder," he said.

"Kill him," Bridget replied, her voice coming without half her face. "There are tracks up here, fresh tracks. 
You'll find them. Find them and let him follow. Kill them all and we can go." 

But Christie took his foot off the gas, the Jeep slowing. 

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Bridget shrieked. 

He reached over and unclicked her seatbelt. 

"What I want to do," he said. "At last." 

He cut the wheel a hard left, going toward the cliff, and slammed down hard on the brakes, his right arm 
shoving her as hard as the Jeep nearly flipped. He wrenched the wheel and got it to a stop.  

One instant she was there and the next she wasn't. He heard her screaming all the way over the ledge. 

He unbuckled his seatbelt as the dust settled around the Jeep, stepped out into the bright morning light, 
stood for a long time looking up at it, his eyes closed, loving the warmth on his face. 

Warm enough to unzip the windbreaker he'd been wearing, the thin fabric pulled tight, though he did not 
wear a shirt beneath.

All around his torso, attached with duct tape, cylinders of explosives in two-inch plumbing pipe. They 
covered him in a vertical line in a ring from back to front. 

Christie reached into his pocket for the detonator � a modified doorbell � that was attached to the center 
canister with black and white wire. 

He could hear the horse coming closer now, the drumbeat of its gait. 

Slipping the doorbell into his hand, its button glowing from a huge detonation battery taped to his back, he 
stood looking at the desert below the cliff to wait. 


**


In the cave's darkness, Albert Hosteen sat, his eyes on the flames. 

He hummed a low sound in his throat, his eyes unblinking. 

Wait�

Wait�


**


By the time Mulder reached the steep road up to the cliff, Ghost's sides were covered with lather, white 
foam coming from the corners of the horse's mouth. 

"Just a little more, old man," he urged. "Come on�" 

Ghost stumbled a bit as he made it to the top of the rise, sharp rocks and brush cutting into his legs. Mulder 
winced as he was nearly toppled off the horse's back on one particularly bad stumble, not because he 
worried about the hitting the ground but because the horse seemed like he could be hurt. 

He'd lost sight of the Jeep and its dust trail, and he was worried the horse might not have enough left in him 
to catch up again. 

As he topped the rise to a cliff he'd seen from far in the distance, he pulled Ghost's frenetic gait up short, his 
eyes widening, his hand going for the Sig tucked in the back of his pants. 

The Jeep was there, stopped near the edge. And there was Christopher Collin, as his military records had 
called him, with his back to Mulder, though he had to have heard his approach. 

"Whoa," Mulder said, gave the reins a tug. Ghost threw back his head, skidding to a stop a few feet from 
the Jeep. 

Mulder sat for a moment in uncertainty, staring at Collin's still back. The younger man didn't turn, didn't 
speak, didn't acknowledge his presence at all.

Something was wrong. 

A trap?

Christopher Collins was a decorated veteran with the Irish Rangers, an explosives specialist of the highest 
degree. Black Ops, the equivalent of SEAL training, the whole nine yards. He'd been quiet and well liked, 
if a bit of a loner on his off-duty nights. The "perfect soldier," his records said. Mulder remembered staring 
at his picture � the firm set of the young man's face -- military haircut trimmed to an inch. Serious eyes that 
looked sharp and clear and sane. 

"Christie," he called, and received no response.  He climbed down off Ghost's back, his gun in front of him, 
pointing at Christie's back. 

**

The hum in Hosteen's throat grew louder, and he'd begun to sweat. 

Wait�

Wait�
**


"Mr. Mulder," Christie said, still not turning from the view on the cliff. He said it as greeting, though his 
voice was flat.

Mulder took a step toward him, then two, and stopped. 

The picture of the young, intelligent face from the fax was replaced with other pictures now, other sounds. 

Scully's birthday, the Thai restaurant exploding around them. The open, smiling face of the young valet 
who'd taken his key. 

The picture of Joe Porter Mae had shown him in their house in Arlington, a man holding his daughter in her 
sunflower hat.

The woman he'd watched run from the Willard Hotel, her body in flame.

Scully in the hospital. Again and again and again�

"Turn around and face me, you pathetic, cowardly son-of-a-bitch." He held the gun up, the sight on the 
back of Christie's hand, and pulled back the hammer with a click. 

Christie didn't move. 

"COME ON!" Mulder roared, his voice tearing around the mountain like a clap of thunder.  "What's the 
matter? Too much to face someone? Better to sneak around in the fucking shadows and wire up your toys 
than to look someone in the FACE? Do you know what you've done to Scully? What you've done to her 
LIFE?" 

The words that he heard in response were the last he'd ever thought he would hear. 

"I'm sorry." 

It threw him for a beat. 

"You sure as fuck are," Mulder spat, tightening his grip on the pistol.  

"What do you want to do with me?" Christie asked. He still had that same strange, flat voice. 

Mulder was thrown again for a beat. He'd expected Christie to resist. He'd expected to kill him in the midst 
of him fleeing or in self-defense. 

"Mr. Mulder, are you going to shoot me in the back?" 

Mulder hesitated, his eyes going from Collin to his gun and back. 

After a moment, he lowered the gun a bit. 

"No," Mulder said. "No, I'm not like you. I can't do something like that." 


**

Albert Hosteen's brow squinted down, his hand going to a clay bowl in front of him full of mustard-colored 
powder. He reached in and took a pinch of it and tossed it into the fire.

"Now�" he said in Navajo, the fire flaring red. 

"DOWN." 

**

Mulder reached into the pocket of his jacket, the FBI windbreaker he'd been given when he entered the 
Hosteen ranch. There were zip-ties in the pocket, large enough to cuff a man. 

"Turn around," he said, his fury waning though it hadn't been quenched. 

Christie put up his hands, the windbreaker he was wearing spreading out like wings. He put his hands on 
the back of his head, and said nothing. 

Something was wrong�wrong�

Now�

His head snapped around for the source of the sound. He could have heard it in his mind, but it seemed too 
real and too loud. 

"What the f�"

DOWN.

Something hit him from behind, like a giant hand pressing him to the ground. His mouth filled with sand.

He looked up just in time to see Christie Collin's hand move, a subtle movement of his finger and thumb, 
the rest of him still.

Still until he dissolved into a blossom of fire and smoke, blood and flesh and bone and sound.

Mulder covered his head with his arms as the heat wave washed over him, bits of things raining down. 

It grew eerily quiet after the last had settled, smoke blowing over Mulder with a strange, high note. 

Behind him he heard Ghost make a low sound in his throat and toe at the ground with his hoof. Mulder 
looked back him, the horse's body dotted with blood and debris, then back at the ground again, spitting out 
grit. 

"Christ Almighty�" he breathed to no one, looking at the spot where Christie Collin had stood, seeing only 
a black hole in the ground and the desert off the cliff instead. 
 
**

7:22 a.m.

"Hey." 

Scully roused herself again from the darkness, trying to place the voice.

The man in the wheelchair? 

Hosteen�

She opened her eyes. 

And looked straight into Mulder's eyes, his hand on her face. 

Her eyes widened, blinked, looking for evidence this was vision or dream, some nightmare of what would 
or would not be. 
 
It wasn't until she saw, over his shoulder, Albert Hosteen, Granger and Robin and Mae that she began to 
trust in what she saw. She looked further and saw the covering over the cave's mouth pulled back, and faint 
light coming through, the sound of chopper blades beating air not far away.

His hand went to her belly, cupping the baby, his thumb stroking her skin where his sweatshirt had slipped 
up in her sleep.

"I'm taking you home, Scully," he whispered, smiling, her name from him as real as a caress.

As sure as the hand moving through her hair as his tears brimmed.

As gentle as his hand on their daughter, his thumb circling the baby's fist. 

As warm and welcoming as his mouth as she leaned up, sobbing, for a desperate, grateful kiss. 


****

CONTINUED IN PART V.