From: "Wintersong" <wintersong@animatrix.ns.ca>
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 01:52:43 -0400
Subject: Submission
Source: direct


Bill Scully's Residence 
Day 42
6:15 am


It was barely dawn. 

One more new day. More possibilities. More 
answers.

One more day lost to the sands she could 
feel slipping through her fingers.

"What are you doing?"

Tara's soft voice barely registered and 
Scully wrapped her hands more tightly around 
her mug, letting the warmth soak through her 
palms. She shivered with reflex as the heat 
failed to move past her wrists. It was 
almost, she thought idly, as if the cold 
radiated from the bones themselves. Six 
months of winter that the past few weeks had 
failed to erase. 

Except Mother Nature could not be blamed for 
this aspect of ice.

Scully's voice was contemplative as she 
answered her sister-in-law.

"Just remembering."

Remembering Tom Colton's excited look of 
pride as he presented his prize to his 
masters. Why had she never realized that his 
attitude had held all the enthusiastic tail 
wagging of a puppy who had just been a very 
good boy. She had laid her profile before 
agents twenty years her senior and had never 
thought to wonder why they were so pleased. 
Or why, frankly, they had even cared. But 
they had followed her advice. Nurtured her 
fragile, emerging agent's ego. 

Older agents might waste a minor murder case 
on the training of a young agent. They might 
even use it to give a boost to a rising 
young star. It said something that she had 
never realized that the star they were 
polishing had not been Colton's...it had 
been hers. 

It had felt like a test. Hell, she had known 
it was a test. And she had  passed with 
flying colors. She had been excited at the 
possibility that she had brought herself to 
their attention. And Tooms had not been a 
minor.

Ego, thy name is Scully.

Gibson had been right, and so wrong. So very 
wrong. She did care what other people 
thought. She simply did not allow their 
opinions to sway her from her course.  From 
what she felt was right. For so many 
reasons, the X-Files had been right. But 
there had always been that pride. That angry 
thrust of defiance born the day she looked 
into her father's eyes and seen doubt. 
Disbelief.

How could she allow herself to believe that 
those crude and graceless men in the 
concrete bunker could ever exceed her 
father. Ever reach beyond him in their 
confidence in her. In a woman in a man's 
world. Mulder was not the only child of his 
father's expectations.

Maybe she had just lived down to hers.

If she had dared to believe in their belief 
in her, would she have spent less time 
blaming ...who? The X-Files? The shadow men? 
Herself?

Mulder.

Would she have spent more time training this 
curse that Mulder thought she had? She had 
thought that she had had to prove herself to 
the good old boys of the FBI. She had 
resented every choice that forced her to 
appear as less than competent to authority. 
She had resented the part of herself that 
seemed unable to separate itself from Mulder 
even as she resented the steps that forced 
her to take. She had resented the early 
female conditioning she blamed for her 
inability to abandon the male in her care. 

She had resented Mulder.

Now, she just resented all that wasted time.

And the deaths that she might have 
prevented.

Mulder had said nothing about what she had 
done that night. He had held her, accepted 
her...and asked no questions she could not 
force herself to answer. But she had seen 
his eyes. The shock. The fear.

The resignation.

He should have been concerned.  He should 
have been demanding that she step away, take 
some time. Get some help. Instead, he had 
simply looked at her like he wanted to cry. 
As if something terrible had happened right 
in front of his eyes. Something that could 
never be undone.  

Something, that ultimately, did not surprise 
him at all.

"I'm glad that you are all here."

Momentarily reminded that she was not alone; 
surprised that she should have needed 
reminding, Scully turned a bland face to her 
brother's wife. Tara was looking at her 
steadily.

"No matter how upset I may seem 
sometimes...I really am glad that you are 
here. All of you." Tara hesitated, then 
smiled slightly, " It makes me feel safe."

Reflex started to answer, "Tara..."

Then she paused. She told herself to let it 
go. That this was not something that needed 
to be said. Not now. Maybe not ever. Except 
that Tara's trust was bought with the wrong 
coin...and Scully had learned several 
painful lessons that even allies could be 
enemies under the right circumstances. 
Circumstances that changed on Fate's fickle 
whim. She leaned forward and carefully took 
Tara's hand in her own. Tara froze at the 
unexpected contact, eyes wary as she reacted 
to the seriousness in the agent's eyes.

"Don't trust them, Tara. Not yet. Maybe not 
ever. Just use them. Let them keep you safe. 
Let them keep Mathew safe. But do not ever 
mistake their willingness to do the job for 
trustworthiness. We do not know what shape 
their commitment takes."

Tara's hands grew cold and Scully wondered 
if ice and snow were contagious. If the cold 
had seeped across the barrier of her own 
flesh and blood even as her words battered 
at the walls of Tara's ordinary world. But 
Tara did not pull away. Instead she met 
Scully's eyes, her own wide and frightened.

" I don't understand." Tara's voice was 
barely a whisper.

Scully's hands tightened further. " There 
are other games being played, Tara. Games 
where there are no rules about civilian 
casualties and collateral damage. Right 
now...on this stage...we can use them. We 
are in no danger because we are no threat. 
Not in this. But that may change. And if 
someday I tell you to take Mathew and run. 
Do it. Don't stop because you think you know 
them. Don't stop because once upon a time 
they sat at your table and ate your food."

Tara's eyes grew bright as the walls came 
tumbling down. Scully squeezed her fingers 
just to the point where she was almost 
causing pain, one last point to make.

"And if I hand you a gun...pull the goddamn 
trigger."

Scully watched as the tears slid down Tara's 
face and felt both devastating sorrow and 
unutterable relief. Sorrow for the 
collapsing sense of safety she had caused. 
For a moment, an ugly moment, she was almost 
glad. Anger she had not even realized she 
harbored for her brother and his wife's 
willful ignorance in the face of her own 
personal sacrifices flared and was 
vindicated. But only for a moment. The 
devastation in her sister-in-law's eyes was 
too familiar to be anything other than 
painful.

Because she saw belief.

"Why?"  

Tara's soft cry held all the raw anguish 
that Scully had never been able to share. By 
the time she had reached the point where she 
could share her agony with Mulder, fury had 
worn away the edges. But she remembered. Oh 
yes, she remembered. And she would not 
forget.

"Because if you make a mistake, someone 
dies."

She held Tara's eyes, the brutal truth held 
open on her face and in her eyes. "Melissa 
died because I made a mistake. Mulder almost 
died because I made a mistake."

She stared into Tara's eyes and saw almost 
understanding. Almost. But not quite.

" I stood by and let Mulder turn his back on 
a killer and I was careless. I knew ...I 
knew for a fact that one of them was a 
killer. And Mulder turned his back on them 
because he trusted in me. He trusted me. And 
I failed him. "

Scully felt her eyes go distant and she let 
Tara see the commitment she had made that 
day in Nome, Alaska. On the ice. In the 
cold.

"Never again."

Mulder would have understood the promise. 
Never again.  It was enough that Tara 
understood the threat. 

"Harris. Lewis. Maybe even Vickery and 
Mathews. They don't understand ...they 
haven't made their mistake yet. "

Blue eyes held shadows the early light could 
not touch and Tara shuddered at the things 
that voice hinted it would be willing to do. 
At things she had thought were limited to 
Hollywood.

"That mistake will NOT be Mulder."

For a split second Tara did not react. Then 
startled eyes looked into blue. Searching. 
Looking for the names she had forgotten to 
speak. Looking for the names Scully's 
presence in her home implied. And the agent 
saw her finally understand that it was not 
about love or family. It was about choices.

You can only take one bullet.

Scully had chosen hers.

Tara lowered her head and contemplated the 
floor instead of the stark reality being 
revealed by the shadows of the morning. Her 
words were a denial. A last gasp attempt to 
deny that the agent's reality was also her 
own. With no time to chose...with no time to 
decide...

Whose bullet would she take?

And what would happen if she ducked?

"We have normal lives, Dana. We are not 
police officers. Bill is not a police 
officer. I am not a police officer. 
Dana....your mother is not a police 
officer."

Scully just studied her, wondering how Tara 
could have missed the larger implications of 
all that Scully had told her family over the 
years. 

"No." The agent agreed.

Bill understood. Not consciously perhaps. 
But down where instinct ruled, he knew this 
truth.

"You're hostages."

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

Tara had fled the room and Scully had closed 
her eyes and wondered if she had really 
needed to be quite that honest. It was not 
like the remains of the Consortium were 
going to drag Bill or Mathew off into the 
night for no reason. 

They knew better. 
  
Shadow wars were hard to keep to the shadows 
when buildings started burning down. The 
Consortium had been nothing if not 
circumspect. In fact, Scully had begun to 
suspect that their numbers were actually 
quite low, relatively speaking. They were 
powerful because of their access to 
information, the types of the pawns they 
controlled and the utter ruthlessness with 
which they were willing to react. 

She was not totally certain why Mulder and 
she were still alive. 

Was it simply that, having given up his 
family, his enemies were all he had left? 
Nostalgia? A frightened attempt to hold onto 
the last remaining pieces of a diminishing 
power  base? Their value to him seemed to 
shift with the winds. 

And by the plans the shadow men were no 
longer around to make.

"Are you happy now?"

Scully turned wearily to face the angry 
expression stamped on her brother's face.

"You just couldn't leave it alone, could 
you? It's not enough that you've ruined your 
own life with this paranoid bullshit. Now 
you have to go after Tara. Who's next, Dana? 
Mathew? "

His anger should have sparked an answering 
temper. She would have welcomed it. But the 
feelings that roiled through her stomach 
were a twisting mass of heavy gray and ice 
cold. Fear wrapped formless fingers around 
her heart and the emotion that shifted 
within her was far too terrifying to ever be 
called rage. It hungered, but not hotly. It 
desired, but not cleanly. It held every 
alarm, every night terror that woke her 
screaming in the darkness. All compressed 
into a hard , seething mass of dread and 
desperation.

It forced a truth she had not planned to 
speak.

"We're almost out of time, Bill. You have to 
be ready. In case...in case they come for 
you."

Her voice was tight as she heard herself 
force words past numb lips. They clawed 
their way past the rocks in her throat, and 
she struggled to avoid the inevitable as it 
crashed towards her. Out of control, without 
a rope, she could not even duck her head and 
pray that the boulders would bounce 
harmlessly off her shoulders. Instead, she 
stared into the face of his disbelief and 
could only wait for it to tear her loose 
from her moorings and carry her screaming 
into the abyss waiting behind her.

"Do you even listen to yourself anymore? Do 
you hear what you are saying?"

Bill's anger boiled over , the heat of it 
slamming harmlessly off the practiced 
thickness of her icy walls. She stared at 
him, her own control beginning to shatter. 
They had come here to find a killer. But all 
she had found was a sense of disintegrating 
foundations and handfuls of sands trickling 
through the hourglass. She laughed wildly, 
not even pausing at the brief flash of 
uncertainty and fear that slid into the blue 
depths of her brother's eyes.

"Don't you get it? That's the whole point. 
The fact that I can say it. They are all 
dead, Bill. Consortium flambe. There is no 
one left running the train from hell and 
it's headed for it's final destination."

Bill just stood there with his mouth open, 
anger rapidly being swallowed by fear and 
she could see the pulse beating wildly in 
his neck.

"The old rules are over, Bill. Our enemies 
are coming out of the shadows and we don't 
know their faces anymore. Six months? Twelve 
months? Two years? We are running out of 
time. "

Scully turned back to the window with a 
bitter laugh that should have sliced her 
tongue bloody. "Mulder and I are going to 
have to take a stand. Someday, somewhere. 
We've already chosen sides. And someday soon 
they may come for you. You have to 
understand that. I can't quit and you can't 
live in ignorance. "

She thought she had finally reached him. He 
swallowed sharply. Once . Twice. Then he 
shattered her hope of understanding with his 
next words.

"Jesus Christ, you're as crazy as he is." 
The whispered words were weighted with 
horror and disbelief.

She stared at him soberly. "Melissa is dead. 
How much more proof do you need?"

"The police said it was a break-in."

He had the grace to flinch when she barked a 
painful laugh. His face twisted with his 
fear. His own desperation.

"You can't keep doing this, Dana. Leave. The 
X-Files. Mulder. The FBI. Leave before he 
destroys you."

Scully stared into earnest blue eyes and 
wondered how he could look at her, at 
everything that had been done to her...and 
not see the truth written across her face. 
Suddenly more exhausted than angry, she bit 
back a hundred things she could scream at 
him. A hundred monsters, a hundred tiny 
betrayals. Because he would not see them. 
Would never see them. Not until he had no 
choice. Until maybe it was too late. 

Funny how the whole morning seemed to be 
colored in shades of gray. 

"I can't."

Denial. Of her words. Of what she had 
become. She watched as he tried to fit her 
answer into something familiar. 

"Is it Mulder? Is that it? What hold does he 
have over you? Are you in love with him? Is 
that it? "

Anyone else and she would tell them to go to 
hell. Anyone else, but she owed Bill 
something. For the fact that her choices 
endangered them all. Made them potential 
pawns in a game they had not chosen to play. 
Maybe she did not owe him this, but it was 
all she had to offer.

And maybe if he could be made to understand 
this truth, he might start looking for the 
others.

"It's ...the wrong question Bill."

Her brother growled with frustration and his 
hand swept out in a gesture of rejection.

"Either you do or you don't."

Scully reached her hand up to press firmly 
on the bone at the bridge of her nose. How 
could she explain something that had taken 
eight years to evolve and as long for her to 
accept let alone define? She could simply 
say yes. Give him something he understood. 
Something that made sense in the context of 
his life, his values, his limits. But that 
devalued the reality of what she shared with 
her partner.

And that was something she refused to do.

"I'm committed to Mulder on so many levels I 
cannot even begin to explain them to you. Do 
you think I would stay with him simply 
because of a hearts and flowers emotion? 
That's disrespectful to him and it's 
insulting to me. I stay with him because 
what we are doing is right."

She recalled something her partner had said 
earlier and almost smiled.

"And together, we are hell on wheels."

Bill just looked at her, lost even as to the 
reasons she would try to laugh. She tried 
again, attempting to put things simply 
accepted into the context of words.

"As our society defines that emotion, as you 
define that emotion, the answer is no. I am 
not in love with Mulder. It's the wrong 
question, Bill."

Her brother turned away from the truth he 
did not understand. From the truth she was 
finally letting him see on her face.

"Then what's the right one?"

His voice was a whisper and she gave him a 
truth he could accept.

"Ask me what would happen if I had to 
choose. Daniel...then. Jack...then. Or 
Mulder."

"You'd chose Mulder."

It was not a question.

Her expression was a deadly promise. "In a 
heartbeat."

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

The guards might have stopped him if he was 
armed. Then again, no one seemed 
particularly disturbed by one angry male 
storming through the corridors of an FBI 
field office. His hands were on the lapels 
of Mulder's jacket and the lighter man was 
slammed up against the wall before anyone 
did more than glance at him curiously.

Yells and startled cries were so much 
background static as he glared into hazel 
eyes that flared initially with shocked 
outrage, then shifted into a flat gaze that 
held nothing more than watchful 
consideration. Bill growled at this 
unsatisfactory reaction and knocked Mulder 
against the wall once more.

"Just tell me why."

Frustration snapped and snarled and it was 
all he could do to spit the words into the 
other man's face instead of smacking him 
into the wall again. His grip tightened as 
the agent's eyes slid to something behind 
him and then Mulder shook his head slightly. 
Bill did not even bother to look for whoever 
the agent had warned off. The FBI could kiss 
his ass. He wanted answers and he was going 
to get them.

"No more vague hints. No more. You tell me. 
You tell me why she stays with you."

Empty eyes stared back at him with nothing. 
Like ever other answer he had gotten from 
them.  

"Ask your sister."

Bill snarled and leaned in with every ounce 
of intimidation he had ever learned during 
twenty years with the Navy. He let Mulder 
see the truth. That he was willing to take 
him apart right here. Right now. Fuck his 
career. Fuck the eagle...they could have it. 
Mulder was going to tell him what they were 
into that could threaten his wife and his 
son. The bastard wanted to believe.

He could start with this.

"I'm asking you."

Primitive impulses he had never realized he 
possessed roared through his body. Never had 
he wanted to cause the damage to another 
person that he wanted to do right now. A 
part of his mind knew he was letting his 
rage create something he might not be able 
to control. He could feel it. And part of 
his mind was gibbering in horror. But it was 
drowning in the screams of terror that wore 
Tara's face. The base of his spine was 
tingling and he was barely keeping his 
fingers from tightening around Mulder's 
throat.

Bill leaned in carefully, ignoring the 
instinct that was calling for caution as 
something flashed in the agent's eyes.

"She's not in love with you. She's admitted 
that."

The demon howling through his blood gnashed 
its teeth when the other man simply froze 
and stared at him with blank eyes. 
Disappointed with the lack of reaction, the 
creature prodded once more at what it had 
thought would be a telling wound. 

"She flat out told me that she was not in 
love with you Agent Mulder. So you tell 
me...you tell me what keeps her with you. 
What keeps dragging her under. And what is 
it that threatens my family."

The last words were hissed, hatred and red 
fury burning with every word.

It was only when the other man reached up to 
tear his hands from his stranglehold that 
Bill realized Mulder's hands had fallen to 
his sides. The agent opened his mouth to say 
something and despite his anger and his need 
to know, something in Bill cringed in  
anticipation of his answer.  Mulder blinked, 
something rising briefly, then sliding 
silently beneath a blue-green surface that 
reflected nothing. 

Then the agent turned away.

Bill did not even recognize the howl that 
was torn from his throat as he reached for 
the object of all his most recent daytime 
nightmares. But it was not the rage which 
short-circuited his later attempts to 
reconstruct  memory. It was simply that he 
had no idea what happened. One minute his 
hands were closing on Mulder's shoulder and 
the next, he was flying. He had the dim 
thought that the landing was going to hurt 
when he smacked into the floor. He was 
right.

It hurt.

Gasping for air, he had a vague impression 
of motion and was trying raise his hands to 
protect his face when his vision cleared 
enough for him to see Mulder staring down at 
him. Despite the fact that he knew the other 
man's eyes were shades of blue, in that 
moment they looked black. Bill struggled to 
meet them, his rage wailing in despair when 
it recognized the fact that he could not 
force an answer. 

He closed his eyes and swallowed. Then he 
swallowed again. His voice, when he found 
it, was a whisper. "Please. For Tara. For 
Mathew. Just tell me."

He stared up hopelessly.

"I can't protect them if I don't know what 
I'm looking for."

Mulder flinched at the sound of that broken 
plea. But his voice held none of the 
sympathy his face momentarily displayed.

"You already have the answers. You just 
refuse to believe them."

"Aliens." the word was bitter mockery.

Mulder bared his teeth in a tight smile. 
"See. Told you."

Another long look, then Mulder turned to go. 
Bill rolled painfully to his knees and 
called after him.

"Dana does not believe in aliens."

Mulder just snorted. "What she believes, 
what she's willing to consider and what she 
can prove are three very different things. 
Remember that. It might make your life 
easier."

He was partway to his feet and another fight 
when Mulder chirped. Bill stared blankly, 
then flushed as he connected the next chirp 
to the hand reaching into the inner pocket 
of a suit jacket. Bill finished regaining 
his feet only to pause cautiously when 
Mulder started to laugh. The sound held all 
the edges of broken glass and he almost took 
a step back when Mulder pinned him with an 
oddly shaded glance as he returned his cell 
phone to his jacket pocket..

"Where did you leave your car?"

Bill looked at the agent warily.

"Why?"

For a split second Bill thought he saw pity 
in the other man's eyes.

"Scully caught an intruder."


***************************************
Washington, DC
Day 42
2:30 am 

The man disembarking from a red-eye non-stop 
from Denver did not even look surprised to 
see an assistant director meeting him at 
2:30 in the DC morning. He looked, Skinner 
thought consideringly, like a healthy man 
who had just spent the last two days downing 
half a case of Pepto Bismol.

Raccoon rimmed eyes stared blearily around 
the nearly empty waiting room while 
shoulders tensed and flinched as weary 
business travelers shifted and flowed around 
the abruptly motionless agent. Skinner 
realized that he had been spotted and a sour 
feeling started to spiral its way into the 
pit of the AD's own stomach. Jesus. What the 
hell had Patterson done all those years ago?

Special Agent Gary Thatcher studied the man 
who had shattered the peaceful contentment 
of his rigidly ordinary existence with a 
single phone call. Haunted eyes testified to 
the fact that there were memories this man 
would never have willingly faced. Choices he 
would never have willingly made. 

But then, he had not been given an 
opportunity to volunteer.
 
After a disturbing fifteen minute long 
distance conversation instigated by Agent 
Mathews, Walter Skinner had started making 
phone calls and putting pieces together. An 
even more disturbing picture of Patterson's 
creative madness had begun to emerge and 
Skinner had wondered sickly just how many 
agents like Thatcher were out there. He knew 
of at least five...

And three more were dead.

Nothing official had ever been said. No one 
had ever claimed it was suicide. But Skinner 
had worked in the VCU long enough to 
interpret some of the sideways glances and 
bitter smiles. Patterson's rejects had all 
evidenced a recklessness and angry 
explosiveness that had almost certainly been 
the ultimate factor in their failure to 
survive.  Which brought him back to his 
original question.

What had Patterson done to these agents?

He watched silently as Thatcher took a long 
careful breath , shifted his carry-on more 
securely and started walking toward the man 
who, despite serious misgivings, was going 
to rip open the putrefying depths of a 
cancer that had never healed. It had simply 
crusted over. Nerves had deadened enough 
that the patient had been able to fool 
himself long enough to shove the wound deep 
enough that he could pretend it gone. 
Skinner wondered just how pervasive this 
particular psychic poison had proven to be.

One look at anguished eyes told him more 
than he wanted to know.

If there had been another choice. Any other 
choice. But there was none. Patterson had 
been a jealous monarch. Power, control and 
reasons had all been hoarded. All of his 
agents had been test subjects. Lab rats. 
Patterson had been the only one with the 
parameters of his horrifying of little 
nightmare and Skinner was left trying to 
deduce his intent from rumors, half-
remembered profiles and the broken wreckage 
he had left behind.

Three agents clinging to sanity. 

One lost to any form of law enforcement. 

Three agents dead. 

And one man shouting to the heavens and 
pissing in the wind.



Scully made nine.

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

San Diego Highway
Day 42
0954 am


"You taught your sister how to drive, didn't 
you?"

Mulder winced as they screeched through 
another yellow light. Bill just scowled at 
him in a very familiar fashion.

"Just what the hell does that mean?"

"Nothing. Turn left."

"What?"

"Left."

"Why?'

"It's a ...shit. Never mind."

The engine roared as Bill downshifted for a 
hill.

"I know how to get to my own damn house."

Mulder shrugged, "Whatever."
 
There was a long uncomfortable pause, then 
Bill scowled.

"The intersection on Elmsdale is a 
nightmare."

Mulder kept his eyes on the road ahead. 
"Yep."

"Then why  the fuck did you want me to turn 
left."

"Shift change at the BCT plant."

"That's all the way over on Broadbent. What 
the hell does that have to do with 
Elmsdale?"

Mulder twisted his head to stare out at the 
passing cars, hand tapping his knee 
restlessly. 

"The traffic from the plant blocks the 
second offramp access from the thoroughfare 
for about twenty minutes. That offramp is 
the primary feeder for Exeter Rd which 
routes into Rossi Ave. That's the main 
reason for the problem on Elmsdale. And that 
gap would have cleared the intersection 
right about..."

The agent glanced again at his watch just as 
Bill slammed on the brakes and glared over 
white-knuckled fingers at the traffic jam in 
front of them.

"...now."

Bill's harsh breathing sounded overloud in 
the conspicuously silent car interior.

"Patterns, Commander Scully."

Mulder's voice was quiet, mostly tired.

"Just patterns."

***********************************
Bill Scully Residence
Day 42
10:35 am


Bill pulled onto his street and strained his 
eyes for police cars and ambulances. His 
uneasiness grew as he got closer to his 
house and the only extra vehicle was a cable 
van parked in his driveway. One of the FBI 
fleet sedans assigned to the X-Files team 
was parked behind it, forcing Bill to park 
on the road.

The rest of the street was conspicuously 
normal. 

It was only when Mulder tuned to look at him 
curiously that he realized he was staring 
down the road like he had never seen it 
before. Had it always been so ...quiet? 
Where were the witnesses? The help. The ones 
with the cell phones who could call 911. 
Bill turned once in a searching circle 
trying to pinpoint inhabited households. 
Tara was not the only stay at home mom on 
this street for God's sake. Cindy was just 
down...except she was taking part-time 
classes now that the youngest was in pre-
school. Beverly was out of sight around the 
block and Shannon was working part-time 
these days. The others all had older 
children and both spouses worked.

Was it luck, or had the bastard known just 
when to strike?

He was half-running by the time he burst 
through the front doors. The panic racing 
through his bloodstream took several seconds 
to realize that everyone seated in the 
living room were turning startled eyes in 
his direction. Even Tara, quietly handing 
around servings of hot coffee and cookies 
looked surprised.

The first thing he truly saw after his wife 
was the blood on his sister's face. 
Horrified he could only stand there frozen 
as Mulder paced forward and placed a 
forefinger under her jaw and tipped her face 
into the light. The blood came from a split 
lower lip. A light blue bruise was darkening 
along one side of her jaw and the sleeve of 
her blouse was torn away from her body. 

Rage soared when Bill saw the ugly scrapes 
that bloodied her shoulder.

"Feel better?"

Bill stopped, shocked by the humor in 
Mulder's voice. Then the lunacy continued 
when, careful of her torn lip, Dana grinned 
back at him. Mathews just looked up from his 
position on the sofa and snorted. Lewis 
giggled and Vickery gave a barking laugh 
that bared mostly teeth. Only Tara  seemed 
more shocked than amused.

Was everyone insane?

Then he turned around.

"Holy shit."

They had killed somebody.

That was his first thought. Then eyes opened 
and glared at him and  Bill silently 
catalogued black eye, battle-bruising, 
broken nose and busted lips. Then he noted 
the hands handcuffed to the front and the 
careful way the man was holding his arms 
close to his ribs on the right side. Broken? 

Jesus.

How many of them had held him down?

Uneasily he transferred his gaze back to the 
smiling face of his sister. Acid twisted a 
slow painful coil in his gut and he turned 
back to look at the man on the sofa. He 
wanted so badly to pick up one of their guns 
and put a bullet in that man's head. If he 
was the killer. But this...

He was thinking about MP's taking that sense 
of power too far and swallowing back nausea 
at the thought of what his sister might have 
become when he saw the second man. Where the 
first man looked like he could not be more 
than 28 and wore his attitude like cheap 
cologne, this man was a quiet mystery. Late 
thirties, early 40's, there was not a mark 
on him. His handcuffed hands rested calmly 
in his lap and his dark eyes studied the FBI 
agents around him without a trace of the 
arrogance displayed by the younger man.

What...?

The door behind him opened suddenly and 
several hands flew to holstered weapons only 
to relax when Langly sauntered in. Byers and 
Frohike were arguing about a piece of 
equipment Byers was turning over in his 
hands. Langly grinned at Mulder and the 
poster child for a police brutality evidence 
trial lost his smug smile.

"Hey Mulder. Did your partner get a chance 
to tell you what she hooked this morning?"

The agent's lip quirked," Surveillance 
equipment?"

Frohike rubbed his hands together gleefully, 
"Enough hardware to take pictures of alien 
babes on Mars."

Bill could only describe the look his sister 
shot her partner as sly.

"Told you." she said.

Byers was holding a piece of yellow paper in 
his hand and Bill watched his own hand grab 
for it before his brain consciously decided 
that he wanted to see what it said. He had 
to read it twice before it made any sense. 
Then he groaned.

"You idiots just beat up the cable guy. Look 
it's a mistake. They just screwed up the 
numbers on the invoice. They were supposed 
to ..."

He looked up to find everyone in the room 
staring at him in astonishment...including 
the aforesaid cable guys. Then the younger 
one snickered around gasps of pain and Bill 
found the older man staring at him with a 
faintly puzzled air. Then he did something 
that rocked Bill Scully to the foundations 
of his world.

He exchanged glances with Dana.

Such a small gesture. Just one of a hundred 
glances. But this one held something she 
could read...and something he could not. In 
that fraction of a second, Bill Scully truly 
understood the meaning of alienation. He 
stood on the edge of his world and looked 
through soundproofed glass at a twisted 
alternate reality where his baby sister 
stood next to the bad guys...

And belonged.

Bill was not even aware that he had moved 
until he found himself sighting down the 
barrel of Lewis's stolen weapon and 
wondering desperately if he remembered 
enough basic training to fire an automatic 
pistol. He was faintly aware that the others 
were yelling at him. He could sense  Mathews 
and Vickery pulling their own weapons, but 
all he could see was the face of the enemy.

And then Dana was there, her hand on his 
arm.

"They were just doing their jobs, Bill."

An insane urge to howl with laughter almost 
overcame him. But he could not, would not 
give in to it. Because he would never stop. 
Did she think that statement made things 
better? Did she even understand why he 
wanted this man dead?

Did she understand that it had nothing to do 
with the marks on her face?

It was about the marks on her soul.

He wanted to take back that glance. He 
wanted to take back what this man had stolen 
from him. And if he could not do that...then 
he wanted him dead.   

"I don't understand." 

Was that his voice, so thick with tears?

"I know."

No. She did not. He studied her face. Stared 
at the bruises of which neither she nor her 
partner seemed to take note.

"Who are you?"

Was that finally the right question?

Her eyes stared back at him, clear and 
absolutely certain.

"Special Agent Dana Scully."

Yes.

He let her take the gun.

But who was that?

********************************************
*******
Her nerves had stopped jangling.

His partner looked up at him as he studied 
her with frustrated curiosity and pulled a 
wry face before going back to the papers she 
was studying. Agent Scully knew damn well 
why he was staring but thankfully did not 
seem disposed to hold it against him. He 
lasted another hour before giving up.

"That's it? That's all it took?"

Scully looked up in surprise, then grinned 
at him. Actually grinned. Her body language 
was so relaxed she almost looked stoned in 
comparison to her earlier tension. And there 
was no way all of that was because one 
arrogant surveillance guy thought he could 
take her in a bare knuckles fight. 

" I told you someone was following us."

Yes, she had. And much to his dismay he was 
discovering that perhaps he had not 
completely believed her. How ironic. Now, 
watching her relaxed posture...no, not 
relaxed. Normal. Slightly more alert 
perhaps, than before. Her eyes still tracked 
across the room in that same scanning motion 
she had acquired in the wilderness.

Mulder's mind paused, then took a leap.

As law enforcement they were already 
predisposed towards details and body 
language. But there was no denying the fact 
that they seemed to have a hell of a lot of 
people watching them that they never 
noticed. Was it really that high tech, or 
was it more simple than that? Had they 
simply not known what to look for, what to 
see?

There was no doubt that Scully was more 
sensitive to body language than she had been 
before Corman's little enforced vacation. 
Was it possible she had been seeing 
something afterall? He suddenly remembered 
her telling him how loud the people around 
them were being. Was it possible that she 
had been temporarily blinded and confused by 
the increased visual volume? Was today the 
day she simply recognized what she was 
already seeing?

Had she continued to catalogue her 
surroundings with the same attention to 
detail she had used to learn how to stalk 
deer...and finally learned  to stalk the 
stalkers? 

Mulder turned that thought over again in his 
mind.

That had some interesting implications.

He watched as his partner's eyes flicked 
momentarily to someone he heard moving 
around behind him before returning to the 
papers in her hands. Then those same eyes 
swung back to his face, caught but the feral 
smile spreading across his features.

"So...Scully. Tell me again how you caught 
the bad guys."


********************************************
*******
They let them go.

Bill was not even certain that what they had 
done was legal. They spent an hour making 
sure that their prisoners were not connected 
to the murders and then they simply let them 
go. Just like that. The older man had looked 
up in surprise when Mulder unlocked the 
handcuffs. The agent had just shrugged.

"So maybe I don't have time for the bullshit 
today. You still owe us one."

The younger man had sneered, but the older 
one had studied Mulder thoughtfully.

"You would never have made the arrest 
stick."

Mulder looked back with dark eyes. "And you 
might not have made it to the courtroom."

The man stared at the agent, and even Bill, 
sunk deep into a depressed funk could sense 
that he was searching for something. Scully 
stepped up beside her partner and the man 
transferred his searching gaze to her as she 
spoke.

"We're...making choices."

Something flashed in the man's eyes. "You 
would not even have seen us last year."

Dana returned his look with an unreadable 
one of her own. "We're both seeing alot of 
things differently."

The man's eyes drifted to his partner and 
Bill turned his head slightly, expecting to 
see more of the same arrogance. Instead, he 
was shocked to see something that looked 
like fear. And briefly...

Hope?

"You could not have taken him down last 
year."

Her teeth bared themselves in something that 
resembled a smile. "Remember that."

And then they let them go.

They let the bad guys go.

And went back to work as if nothing had 
happened.

Except it all seemed to be falling apart. 
Mulder grew increasingly snappish as the day 
wore on and Mathews took to studying him 
cautiously. Lewis and Harris were assigned 
to take Tara, Maggie and Mathew out to the 
movies and Vickery was downstairs watching 
the security monitors. He had no idea where 
Landers had gotten to.

Mulder did not even  notice they were gone. 
Instead, he stared at his partner. Uneasily, 
Bill remembered what he had thrown in 
Mulder's face when he had confronted him 
that morning. Dana seemed oblivious to her 
partner's increasingly dark looks and in a 
complete reversal of her earlier attempts to 
avoid him, now seemed determined to spend 
every minute glued to his side.

He snapped, she snarled and both worked 
themselves into a frenzy of investigation 
that led absolutely nowhere. By the time 
Maggie, Tara and their bodyguards returned 
for supper, dark anger seethed around the 
agent thick enough to touch. Bill was almost 
at the point of wishing something would 
break, when something finally did.

Vickery had volunteered to do something or 
other at the field office and Mulder's 
computer experts had taken one look at 
Mulder and said something about eating out. 
Even so, it was a tight fit around the table 
even with the extensions added. Tara and 
Maggie tried gamely to keep a conversation 
going, but it was a doomed attempt. Mathews 
was watching Lewis and Harris, the younger 
agents were watching Mulder and Mulder was 
watching Dana.

Bill abruptly looked up and found Mulder's 
dark eyes fixed on five year old Mathew. The 
hair on the back of his neck prickled and 
Bill found himself absolutely certain that 
he never wanted to see that look in another 
man's eyes while looking at his son. Then 
Mathew looked up and grinned and Mulder 
pushed back from the table so hard his chair 
smashed against the wall. 

Everybody froze and the sounds of someone 
getting sick came clearly from the bathroom. 
Then feet were pounding across hardwood 
floor and the front door slammed. Agent 
Mathews looked at Dana who had her gaze 
fixed on the uneaten portion of her plate. 
When she finally looked up, Bill was shocked 
to see silent tears running down her face. 
Bill would have grabbed her when she rose 
from her chair, except that Mathews suddenly 
had a hold of his wrist.

Ignoring the unspoken warning Bill yanked 
his wrist free and followed his sister.

He stepped out onto the porch just in time 
to see Dana reach her partner. He half 
expected Mulder to turn on her when she 
reached out and touched his shoulder. He did 
not expect Mulder to double over and fall to 
his knees, arms clutching his stomach and a 
half-strangled groan tearing itself from his 
throat. Bill had thought himself beyond 
shock after the events of the morning but 
found himself held spellbound as Dana 
collapsed beside her partner and wrapped her 
arms around him. Mulder's arms pulled her 
tight to his body and both agents seemed 
oblivious as they buried their faces against 
the other.  Mulder held her head tight to 
his chest even as he hid his tears against 
her hair.

A locked tableau, Bill stood on the porch 
and watched helplessly. No one else followed 
them out into the night. He had no idea of 
how long he stood there. All he knew was 
that one minute he was thinking that his 
feet were cold and the next a SDPD squad car 
was pulling up to the curb.

Blankly, Bill watched as SAC Larson and a 
uniformed driver climbed out of the car and 
ignored the agents on the ground as they 
stepped up to the porch. Then the SAC was 
stepping into the house and the expressions 
on the faces of the FBI agents staring at 
the door told him that they already knew 
what the SAC had come to say. They all knew.

How come it was a surprise to him?

The SAC looked at Mike. "We need you at the 
field office. Officer Thomlinson will watch 
the house. Can you go over the security 
features with him?"

Mathews just nodded . 

Tara was clutching Mathew and Maggie stood 
grim faced beside her. And that was when 
Bill finally understood. It had happened 
again. Another one for the Navy. While they 
had all been eating dinner and Mulder had 
stared at Mathew with darkness in his eyes, 
another family was being butchered.

And there had not been a damn thing they 
could do about it.

Well, now he knew why Mulder had thrown up.

Mathews and the others quietly headed for 
their car and Bill trailed after the SAC as 
he slipped back out onto the porch and sat 
down in one of the chairs. His eyes were 
fixed on the two agents still wrapped around 
each other. He turned his head suddenly and 
Bill found himself looking into sympathetic 
eyes.

"We had hoped the last murder would be 
enough to break the pattern. It was 
completely out of sequence. Guess the killer 
was just having a bad day."

Bill stared for a long moment, then asked 
flatly, "You knew this would happen today? 
You all knew?"

The SAC looked startled, "So did you. It's 
all in the profile."

Bill looked back at his sister who had her 
arms clenched around her partner so tightly 
they would probably have to break her 
fingers to get her to let go.

"I read it. I didn't know."

The SAC swore softly. Then Bill caught the 
man looking at him looking at the fallen 
agents.

"They'll be okay."

Bill did not have enough energy left to 
protest. He was finally beginning to realize 
that he was talking to people with a warped 
definition of okay. They were using the same 
words, but they sure as hell were not 
speaking the same language.

"They go too deep, both of them. He needs 
someone who can call him back from the abyss 
and she needs someone who can call her back 
to the living. And they both need someone 
they can trust to break down after it 
happens. " 

Bill just laughed bitterly, "And that makes 
it okay? You think this is healthy?"

The SAC was silent for a long moment. Then 
he answered quietly," We do what we have to, 
to survive, to get the job done. No one ever 
said it was healthy."

Bill just shook his head. "It was never just 
about the X-Files was it? I thought it was 
just Mulder. But it's all the rest of you 
too. When does it stop? When there's nothing 
left of her soul?"

When the SAC finally answered, his voice was 
clipped, "Your sister is a forensic 
pathologist. Just where do you think she 
would have ended up if she hadn't been 
assigned to Mulder? Bank fraud? She'd have 
ended up in Violent Crimes one way or 
another. She is too good not to have come to 
someone's attention somewhere, somehow."

Bill looked away.

"Do you honestly think that someone could 
have handed your sister a photo of a dead 
child , asked for her help and had her turn 
them down?

There was no answer to that question. Not 
the one he wanted to give anyway. 

Larson started to speak once more, 
hesitated, then lifted his head and met 
Bill's eyes in the darkness.

"The better you are, the more it hurts. The 
fact that their partnership allows them to 
go further and survive more, just pushes 
them to go places most of us can't or won't 
follow. The cost of that is one hell of a 
lot of pain, Commander Scully. I admire them 
more than I can say. I envy what they have...I 
envy what they can accomplish together...But I 
pray to God I'm never offered a similar 
partnership. Because I'll take it. I won't 
be able to stop myself. None of us would. 
I'll grab it with both hands and I'll kill 
anyone who tries to take it away from me. 

Do you understand the irony? I would kill to 
have what they have.

And every night, I pray to God it never 
happens."

He turned his head back to study the two 
agents on the ground before continuing. He 
spoke the next words as if they burned.

"They are a living example of what we could 
be. Do you have any idea what it's like to 
be so scared of something, yet envy it so 
much it literally makes you sick? They scare 
the hell out of us, Commander Scully. But 
we'll use them...and  let them use us 
because that's what it takes to get the job 
done."

"And is it worth it?"

Larson reached into his pocket and tossed a 
photograph into Bill's lap. A gap-toothed 
boy of about twelve grinned up from the worn 
paper. Bill felt something begin to hurt 
deep in his chest as he stared back at a 
child who would never laugh again. Who had 
died because he was in the right place at 
the wrong time and a killer was having a bad 
day.

"You tell me."

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

Flight 387, DC to San Diego
Day 42
1836 hours

"So what happened?"

Skinner had tried to be patient. he had let 
the man get settled into his seat. He had 
let the stewardess serve drinks and dinner. 
He had even given Thatcher a full hour to 
peruse Scully's Bureau file. 

Now he wanted answers.

"With us or with her?"

Skinner paused as he considered the fact 
that the two answers might not be the same.

"In order."

Thatcher gave a soundless laugh, then 
signaled the stewardess for another drink. 
Considering that the man had not had a drink 
since the year his marriage fell apart, 
Skinner had to wonder at the wisdom of 
allowing him too many now. He needed him 
sober.

Or at least coherent.

"Patterson used to joke about Mulder being 
his domesticated sociopath. It was his 
little joke. We knew the truth of course."

Skinner swallowed sharply at the grief and 
rage that suddenly etched themselves on 
Thatcher's face.

"It wasn't hard. We were all goddamn 
profilers after all." Thatcher eyed Skinner 
from beneath fallen bangs.

" You want to know why we hated Mulder?"

Thatcher grinned painfully.

"It wasn't because he was reflecting the 
serial killer in his soul. It was because 
every time we looked into those goddamn eyes 
we were seeing the serial killer hidden in 
ours."

Just like that. No preliminaries. No 
prevarication. Just a stark statement of 
fact and for a moment Skinner's heart bled 
for an impressionable young man who had gone 
hunting monsters only to find that the 
monster was himself. And Mulder. Jesus. What 
had it been like for him? Hated and reviled 
by those closest to the source of the 
problem. By those who should have 
understood.  

No wonder he made a religion of the truth.

He had already been sacrificed on its alter 
by those without the strength to face its 
light.

"It was supposed to be like acting. We were 
supposed to stay in control. Mulder hated 
that he could get into their heads...but 
God. Those heads were ours. The hatred was 
real And it just sucked us all under. We'd 
look at him and know he knew. Knew what 
lurked beneath all the pretty phrases and 
civilized behaviors. After a while, it just 
didn't work anymore. "

Skinner thought seriously about ordering a 
drink for himself. Then he considered 
walking off the plane when he got back to DC 
and putting a bullet in Patterson's head. 
All of these people who just wanted to do 
what was right.

"Ashton and Henley?"

Thatcher stared down at the hands wrapped 
tightly around his sweating hi-ball. Then he 
turned haunted eyes toward a man who had 
thought he had seen the worst of hell when 
he was nineteen.

He had not even come close.

"Ashton got in touch with the dark side of 
the Force and never came back."

It was moment before Skinner realized that 
was all that Thatcher was going to say on 
that subject. He hated himself for what he 
was doing, but he needed to know. He had to 
know how much of a danger this posed to his 
agents. 

How much danger they posed to themselves.

"Henley?"

"Henley." The voice was a bare hiss of 
tortured sound. " Patterson really had 
Mulder's number, you know. Knew exactly what 
he was doing when he brought her into the 
project. He knew Mulder would fascinate her 
and Mulder's reaction...well, that was a 
foregone conclusion."

Skinner winced, "He fell in love with her?"

The comment was enough to startle Thatcher 
out of self-absorbed misery and his sudden 
laughter sounded almost obscene. "Christ no. 
But they were going at it like rabbits by 
the end of the second day. Patterson was 
delighted. "

Skinner did not want to know the details. He 
really did not.

"What happened?"

"Too much victim, not enough steel."

Skinner must have looked as confused as he 
felt because Thatcher twisted his lips 
bitterly." She triggered Mulder alright. 
Except it went too far. He didn't know she 
wasn't acting and she sent him right over 
the edge."

There was a long pause as Thatcher revisited 
memories that left his hands shaking. He 
gulped the last of his drink. Then he made 
one last comment before signaling for 
another.

"I still think he would have killed her if 
we hadn't stopped him."

Then he sank into his seat and the only 
communication he engaged in further was the 
conversation he was holding with his memory 
and the liquid destruction in his hands.

Skinner just closed his eyes and prayed for 
tailwinds.

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

FBI San Diego Field Office
Day 43
3:24 am


Despite his anger, despite his pain, Bill 
had not been able to stay at home. Not when 
there was a chance he could help. So he 
carried donuts. He made coffee. He ferried 
boxes of folders and he wondered if the 
entire field office was going insane.

Or if he was just beginning to see the faces 
they normally hid from the outside world.

Doors slammed. Arguments broke out over 
nothing. Bill thought one man was going to 
have to be restrained from knocking his 
partner unconscious. Five minutes later he 
walked into the men's room and found the 
same man watching his partner take a 
baseball bat to the mirrors. The man had 
pinned Bill with a level stare until the 
Navy Commander backed quietly out into the 
hall.

The inmates were running the asylum.

What was beginning to worry him was the fact 
they did not seem to realize that he was not 
one of them. Previously polite investigators 
snarled at him when he got in their way and 
moved out of his if he snarled back. His 
Navy rank was forgotten as a haggard 
secretary sent him dashing two flights into 
the basement for toner and a goddamn 
security guard called him by name.

Bill ducked as a plastic garbage pail took 
flight and sailed over his head, launched by 
an angry foot. Reflex sent a command glare 
winging on its way and the chastened agent 
was picking up scattered debris when 
Assistant Director Walter Skinner stepped 
into the room. 

The man's flat gaze traveled around the room 
and came to rest on the extremely quiet 
agent picking papers up from the floor. The 
other agents were studiously reading files 
and Bill stepped instinctively into the 
space between the AD and the agent. He 
recognized the instinct. It was something he 
did countless times when he needed to cover 
his sailors with the brass. The protective 
instinct was well developed and familiar.

He just did not want to dwell on why he was 
feeling it now.

The non-committal expression on the AD's 
face faded into confusion as he continued to 
look around the room. 

"Where's Mulder and Agent Scully?"

Bill wondered if the security guard had 
gotten confused with the last names. He 
turned to the agent behind him to find the 
man shaking his head in ignorance. Skinner's 
face went blank for a second before he 
reached into his jacket for his cell phone. 
It was when he turned to speak into the 
phone that Bill noticed the man standing 
hidden in the shadows of the AD's shoulders.

The agent was staring at the walls with an 
obsessive fascination that sent shivers 
straight through Bill's spine. There was 
something lost and terrified and...hungry, 
about that look. Five uncomfortable minutes 
later, the room was getting crowded.  The 
other agents had ceased to even pretend they 
weren't listening to the AD question first 
Mathews, then Vickery and the rest of the X-
Files team.

That was when Bill realized that neither 
Mulder nor his sister were answering their 
cell phones. He was halfway to panic when 
Harris admitted to seeing them arguing in 
the hall almost six hours ago. Scully had 
stalked off leaving Mulder staring after 
her.

No one had seen them since.

Skinner was turning to call security and 
send out search parties when Lewis stepped 
forward.

"Wait."

Her voice was quiet and her face flushed a 
bright red that highlighted her miserable 
expression. Skinner's voice was equally 
quiet but it was shot through with a note of 
command the young agent could not help but 
hear. She twisted her fingers painfully and 
then she answered so softly that Bill, 
standing right next to her, had to strain to 
understand her.

"They left right after the argument. At 
least I think they did." she glanced at 
Landers and Vickery for a long silent 
moment, obviously feeling like she was 
betraying the two missing agents.

Skinner opened his mouth  and Bill 
recognized the need to take the young agent 
and shake her until the answers fell out. He 
also recognized the control he exercised 
when all that came out was a short, "Agent 
Lewis?"

The young woman finally sighed and closed 
her eyes in defeat.

"I overheard Mulder making reservations at 
the Snow Goose Lodge."

For a long moment  Bill was frozen along 
with everyone else, then he flushed as 
someone in the back of the room snickered. 
The Snow Goose was notorious for two things. 
Cabins that promised the illusion if not the 
reality of privacy. And a well established 
reputation of looking the other way. 

"Did he use his Bureau credit card?"

Bill just stared blankly at the twitchy 
bastard. What the hell did that have to do 
with anything? Then he wrinkled his nose as 
the  fumes hit him as the man walked closer. 
Christ, nobody light a match. He started to 
turn away only to see Skinner staring back 
at the man somberly, then he glanced at 
Lewis.

She nodded hesitantly.

The agent closed his eyes and Skinner had to 
reach out a hand to keep him from falling 
over when the man swayed dangerously. For a 
long moment no one spoke. No one moved. Then 
the man opened his eyes and Bill flinched at 
the bleakness living there.

"Find them."

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

The manager swore he did not have another 
key so they simply kicked the door down.

Armed agents spilled into the squalid little 
cabin only to come back out shaking their 
heads. Bill almost decked three of them as 
they chuckled lewdly, then he let it go as 
he tried to sneak into the room. He knew 
they were supposed to limit the number of 
people tromping through the cabin until the 
forensics unit finished going over the room. 
But he had to know. He had to see.

Skinner gave him one hard stare and then 
guilt moved over his features and he 
gestured for Bill to move three feet to the 
left and stay put. Not about to do anything 
that would get him evicted, Bill did as he 
was told.

Then he looked around in terrified 
anticipation of what he would discover.

The room looked as if the Allies had stormed 
it on V-Day. Cheaply made night tables were 
overturned and smashed to pieces. A broken 
lamp lay on the floor and god knows what had 
slammed into the wall hard enough to bring 
down that large a piece of paint and 
plaster. Bill knew his face was turning 
white. But even as he catalogued the 
horrors, he could not look away.

Fresh scoring marks on the wrought iron 
headboard drew his eye and Skinner pinched 
his lips tightly before muttering 
"Handcuffs". As if that answered his 
question. Finally, his inspection complete, 
he turned his head to stare at the two techs 
carefully extracting a videotape from a mess 
of plastic and metal that used to be a 
camcorder attached to a tripod.

Bill was praying that the equipment came 
standard with the room when he recognized 
the sticker on one of the pieces at the same 
time one of the techs looked over at Skinner 
and stated calmly, "Bureau issue."

As if it was something he saw everyday.

Then Bill realized that he probably did.

That was when he smelled the presence of the 
twitchy man Skinner had introduced as Agent 
Thatcher. Thatcher was staring at the camera 
in horrified fascination. The man looked 
dazed as he spoke. "He really did it. The 
stupid bastard actually did it."

Which sounded as if it should make sense, 
only Bill had no time to press the agent for 
answers. A muted shout from one of the 
agents searching the room drew all eyes to 
the fabric he was carefully lifting with 
latex covered hands from the garbage can in 
the bathroom. 

The shirt was Dana's. He recognized it. 
Skinner read the answer off his face and 
both men sucked in their breath as the agent 
shook it out and held it up.

The blouse looked like it had been cut from 
her body with a knife.

And it was covered in blood.


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

San Diego Field Office - Gymnasium
Day 43
5:23 am 

The silence was acutely painful.

Over one hundred FBI, SDPD and BATF officers 
and agents sat  in fixed attentiveness and 
waited to hear whether or not one of their 
own had lost her life at the hands of her 
partner. He had no idea what to tell them. 
He had watched the tape. 

He still did not know.

"For those of you coming to us from the 
MethBomber investigation, the Navy Arsonist 
has been responsible for 15 house fires all 
occurring in the San Diego area over the 
last eighteen months. Because the first 
three fires resulted in no fatalities, the 
FBI was originally unaware that these fires 
were related and the first profile was 
written from the point of view that we were 
looking for a serial killer potentially 
using the fires as either weapon or a method 
to try and remove forensic evidence from the 
scene of the crime. As the ritualistic 
nature of the setting of the fires became 
apparent, the profiles were amended to 
consider the possibility that the fire was 
an intrinsic part of the UNSUB's signature 
and not just MO."

Rumors had bred faster than rabbits.

Mulder had killed Scully. Scully had killed 
Mulder.  The two agents had been off 
engaging in some kinky stress relief when 
the killer got them. Considering the gossip 
that normally followed them, Skinner was 
surprised to find uneasy opinion coming down 
on the side of a messy profiling technique 
gone bad.

"Agent Mulder's recent profile suggested 
that we were primarily searching for an 
escalating arsonist either of the thrill-
seeking or the revenge-motivated variety. If 
the latter, the UNSUB potentially has a 
grievance against the government or the 
Navy. As a result of this profile, earlier 
fires were investigated and the initial 
three fires without fatalities were linked 
to the Navy Arsonist. Whether the UNSUB 
killed the first family accidentally has yet 
to be determined. It was Agent Mulder's 
preliminary contention that the cooling off 
period between the first fire involving 
fatalities and the second showed surprise on 
the part of the killer. However, Mulder was 
also of the opinion that the subsequent 
detail and unswerving dedication to method 
evidenced by the later fires suggests that 
the killer may have been heading in this 
direction by design and it was only the 
timing which threw him off."

He supposed it was a compliment of sorts.  
Most of their colleagues thought that paying 
for the motel using Mulder's Bureau credit 
card and taping themselves using Bureau 
equipment during an active investigation was 
too unprofessional even for a couple of 
agents with a reputation for oddity. It was 
also a fact that many of the agents were 
taking their cues from the rest of the X-
Files team.

He had been unprepared for the full effect 
of the monster he had created.

While they were far from drawing lines in 
blood with the ferocity of Mulder and 
Scully, there was no doubt they were bonding 
successfully. SAC Larson had taken one look 
at the five of them sprawled in black clad 
insouciance at a back table together and 
just snorted and shaken his head. That had 
prompted Skinner to take a second, more 
careful look and he had to admit they were 
doing a good job appearing self-contained 
and mysterious.

It was not the instinctive and unthinking 
loyalty of Mulder and Scully, but it was the 
embryonic beginnings of something cohesive. 
Perhaps it was only the initial scorn that 
had caused them to draw together. Maybe it 
was the natural result of breathing the same 
air for the past several weeks. Maybe it was 
that something that Mulder and Scully gave 
off just by virtue of being their passionate 
and committed selves. Whatever it was, 
wherever it was going...it was a start. Much 
more of it and he might start hearing rumors 
that the X-Files was some sort of top-
secret, elite department engaged in 
activities not normally considered to fall 
within the bailiwick of the FBI.

Oh wait. 

That part was true.

"Our UNSUB is cold, methodical and a true 
blue psychopath as opposed to a sociopath. 
His victim preference is two-parent naval 
families with at least one child. In all 
cases, the husband was a naval officer. 
Although some of the wives were employed by 
the DOD, none of them were commissioned 
officers. This has led to some speculation 
that the UNSUB is striking back at his 
father who is or was likely a Naval officer. 
Our UNSUB is a white male between the ages 
of 35 and 55 with a history of fire-setting 
in adolescence. He is functional, employed 
and may even be a member of the military 
himself. He is not married but he is 
socially adept and has no noticeable 
problems interacting with women. He may have 
a girlfriend, but she will not live with him 
or have a key to his apartment. "

They stole the damn tape.

Oh, he had a nice and official chain of 
evidence tag with their names on it, but the 
fact remained that they stole it and they 
had considered not giving it back. Skinner 
had just scowled at the equally disgruntled 
police detective who had remarked that "hand 
it over or we'll hurt you." was not exactly 
conducive to interagency warm and fuzzies.

He spent two hours soothing ruffled feathers 
as Harris and Vickery went off on a midnight 
equipment raid through the Forensics lab, 
while Lewis and Mathews insulted the entire 
Evidence Team by insisting on taking their 
own samples.

Then Landers disappeared with the goddamn 
tape. Vickery had  snarled something about 
preventing bullpen copies. It was all 
bullshit.

The Sabine part, not the copies.

"Agents Mulder and Scully were last seen 
checking into the Snow Goose Motel at 11:30 
pm yesterday night. They were subsequently 
found to be missing and the room appears to 
document an extremely violent and physical 
altercation. "

Skinner had debated the wisdom of letting 
Thatcher talk to the X-Files team members. 
In the end, however, he had decided that 
there had been too much secrecy about 
Patterson's work already. There was no need 
for the information to become common 
knowledge, but maybe if there had been a bit 
less rumor and a bit more fact, Mulder would 
not have felt it necessary to do whatever it 
was he had done in secret. 

If Mulder and Scully were going to use these 
techniques, their team needed to know what 
to expect. Hell, someone needed to know what 
was going on. Unfortunately, that idiot 
Thatcher had scared the crap out of them. By 
the time they listened to his drunken 
descriptions of self-induced madness and 
damned annoying cryptic warnings, they had 
probably thought they were going to see a 
reenactment of the rape of the Sabine women 
in digital Technicolor.  

Did everyone actually think Mulder could 
hurt her?

Skinner would be the first to say that 
Mulder could push the envelope. And damned 
if he could say for sure what the hell it 
was that Patterson had actually done to the 
agent. Given Mulder's empathy, IQ and 
memory, Skinner could see how a reenactment 
could get out of hand. Mulder was nothing if 
not single-minded. But to physically hurt 
his partner did not just run contrary to 
everything the Bureau knew about the agent, 
it ran contrary to everything Skinner knew 
about Mulder. 

"Circumstance and the contents of a video 
tape found at the scene suggest that Agents 
Mulder and Scully were attempting a 
controversial and experimental profiling 
technique in order to gain insight into the 
mind of the Navy Arsonist."

There was no ignoring the fact that 
Patterson had done something that had 
resulted in the mental deterioration of 
several agents. Had that been a result of 
the things that Patterson had done? Or a 
result of the type of people that he had 
chosen to do them. The man had been just 
arrogant enough to assume that he could have 
taken a damaged vessel and remake it into 
his desired image.

Mulder...Mulder was a lot of things. 
Headstrong and more than occasionally 
bullheaded and obsessive in his blind 
passion for truth, justice and care for the 
victim. But damaged? It had always seemed 
that any damage was caused by the self-
destructive bashing of his wings against the 
walls of ignorance he saw reining him in, 
holding him back. As if the disbelief he 
knew was coming just drove him further into 
frustrated and noisy opposition.

Some of that desperation had faded over the 
years. Skinner was certain that having 
Scully at his side was part of it. No doubt, 
after all they had seen, all they had done, 
Mulder was just too tired to keep fighting 
that battle. Especially when a larger 
battlefield was looming on the horizon. 

But after all he had experienced, after all 
he had done - after all that had been done 
to him - Mulder still cared. It was 
something Skinner admired both as an FBI 
agent and as a man. In many ways Mulder was 
much more empathetic than his partner. 
Scully wanted to punish the bad guys, Mulder 
wanted to fix what was broken. 

Empathy...not weakness.

Skinner drummed his fingers softly against 
his leg as he considered whether or not that 
empathy, when used as a tool to overwhelm 
the agent's own personality, could trap him 
in the mind of a killer. Up until yesterday 
Skinner would have said no. Absolutely not. 
Definitely not when it came to Scully. 
Mulder had to be pissed as hell to even 
threaten someone and he just was not that 
physical about it. 

Well, not unless Scully was involved.

But Thatcher was so certain. Hell, he was 
pissing in his pants scared of his memories. 
Everyone had hidden resentments and things 
best left out of the light of day. Was it 
possible that this technique of Patterson's 
set free the demons and left them free of 
the constraints normally imposed by the 
conscious mind? What if...

"Undocumented hearsay testimony has stated 
that the purpose of the technique was to 
temporarily submerge the profiler's 
personality under controlled conditions 
allowing a recreation of the killer's 
psyche. There is some evidence that this 
technique may leave the profiler vulnerable 
to acting out darker desires and fantasies  
under the guise of this artificial 
personality. "

He did not want to show them this tape. He 
did not want his agents exposed to the sort 
of speculation this was going to cause. 
Hell, he did not want Mulder getting shot by 
accident. But they needed to know. They 
needed to understand that the people they 
were dealing with may not actually be the 
people belonging to the faces their bodies 
were wearing.

He had to consider the very real fact that 
by making this tape in the first place, 
Mulder and Scully had been making it to 
leave behind. Assistant Director Skinner 
kept his face blank as a tape he had already 
seen several times played again for a room 
of grim-faced cops and FBI investigators.
 
Two hours earlier he had also waited as the 
door to the conference room opened and he 
had watched as Landers dragged in a TV and 
VCR combination. The other senior Task Force 
members - SAC Larson, SDPD Detective Burt 
Fielding, BATF Investigator Graham Wilson, 
Commander Bill Scully as well as Skinner 
himself, Wilson's hearing interpreter, 
Thatcher, Mathews and Vickery watched with 
undisguised impatience as she turned the 
equipment on and popped in the tape. Harris 
and Lewis were heads together at the back of 
the room but they looked up expectantly when 
the sound came on.

Thatcher had cursed aloud as Scully's 
battered face came into view. Skinner had 
almost joined him until he realized that the 
entire room was split right down the middle 
in their reactions to the opening scene. 
Larson, Wilson, Thatcher, Fielding all had 
various expressions of horror and worry on 
their faces - the X-Files team to an agent 
was still waiting.  Skinner felt his facial 
muscles pulling into a frown as he abruptly 
realized that Bill Scully was also tense and 
waiting.

Tense, but not surprised.

The assistant director had taken firm hold 
of his instinctive reactions and taken a 
closer look at the scene before him. The 
agent huddled on the floor,  against the 
wall of the cabin room, next to the bed. Her 
knees were drawn up protectively, and it was 
obvious that her hands were tied behind her 
back. Skinner's eyes were drawn again to the 
livid bruise spread across her jaw and then 
his breath sucked in sharply as realization 
struck him.

That bruise looked to be almost a day old.

It had to be. Yet only the X-Files team and 
her brother were aware of what had caused 
it. So...recent enough that she had been 
able to hide it with make-up and old enough 
to have darkened dramatically in the last 
few hours. Skinner had considered the fact 
that he and the team were going to be having 
a little chat in the near future.

The agent, meanwhile had been working to 
free her hands. Distant sounds from the tape 
suggested that someone else was in the room, 
but whoever it was had stayed out of range 
of the camera lens until Scully reached up 
and tore the gag from her mouth. Skinner had 
a quick sense of the sheer terror in her 
eyes as she looked up, then Mulder was 
stepping into the picture.

Scully launched herself screaming into 
flight, her shoulder catching her partner in 
the stomach. Then they were both going down 
and she was frantically trying to scramble 
free of his body in order to race for the 
door.  Mulder, his face eerily calm and 
expressionless, grappled with  the 
struggling woman  taking several weak hits 
against his chest and shoulders before his 
grip shifted and she managed to tear herself 
away.

Fielding had been cursing softly, Larson was 
just wide-eyed with shock and Thatcher had 
rocked back and forth in his chair, arms 
wrapped around himself. Bill Scully had worn 
a weird combination of anger and confusion 
on his face while the team...

Skinner flinched as he was yanked back to 
the present and he watched as over one 
hundred law enforcement officers watched a 
thirty foot projection screen showing a 
woman who was not Scully scream again in 
mortal terror and make a desperate break for 
life and freedom. She almost made it. Then 
Mulder wrapped one long arm around her waist 
and launched her toward the bed. 

Everyone in the room tensed as Mulder 
followed her down. Their bodies slammed the 
bed up against the wall with enough force 
that the camera shook. Instead of his 
earlier disbelief and discomfort,  Skinner 
found himself distantly considering the fact 
that it was good thing that the Snow Goose 
had log walls. 

Her right hand connected with the lamp and 
it shattered as it smashed against the wall. 
Mulder grabbed her left hand and efficiently 
handcuffed it to the headboard. Skinner 
paused as he realized for the first time 
that those were not standard handcuffs that 
Mulder was using. The hugely magnified image 
gave him access to details he had missed the 
first time around. His eyes widened as he 
realized that the cuffs appeared to be 
slightly wider than normal and the inside 
was coated in some sort of black protective 
layer. Neoprene? Rubber? 
 
Where the hell...no, scratch that.

The on-screen Mulder was in the process of 
cuffing her other hand when his entire body 
suddenly stilled. Scully continued to 
struggle ineffectively, but Mulder did not 
move. Skinner found himself wishing that 
there had been a second camera in the room. 
He wanted to see the agent's face. Was this 
who they were looking for? Were there clues 
here?

Mulder's head tipped as though he was 
holding an internal conversation with 
himself. Then he shocked everyone in the 
room when he twisted his head awkwardly and 
very precisely sank his teeth into his 
partner's exposed throat, marking her flesh 
without breaking the skin. She threw her 
head back and screamed.

This was not an act of love they were 
witnessing.

Then it was over. 

One minute Mulder had his teeth in the flesh 
of Scully's throat and the next he was 
flying backwards until his shoulders blocked 
the camera's view and the screen went black. 
In the split second before the end, Scully's 
legs bent at seeming impossible angles, one 
foot under her partner's hip and the other 
under his shoulder. Mulder did not even have 
time to unlock his jaws before her hips 
bucked with a tremendous upward surge of 
power and her knees straightened.

But what he had not seen before, what he 
thought he was seeing now, was the split 
second widening of her eyes as they focused 
on something above Mulder's  head.

It was an infinitesimal difference. If he 
had not been looking so closely, if the 
screen had been smaller, if he had not spent 
eight years trying to read the slight 
changes of expression on their faces, he 
might have missed it. Hell, maybe he was not 
seeing it now.

In the background he could hear SAC Larson 
informing the room that the lab had 
confirmed that the blood found at the scene 
belonged to Agent Scully. An APB had been 
issued for both agents, but local officers 
had been instructed not to approach the 
pair. Instead, every officer would be given 
a contact within the group gathered in this 
room and would contact that person. Officers 
would be given strict instructions not to 
interfere unless it appeared that someone's 
life was endangered. As soon as the 
contacted investigator arrived on-site and 
confirmed the identity of either of the 
agents, they were to be taken into custody.

Larson reminded the investigators that while 
Scully might appear to be a victim, that it 
was uncertain how she would react to a 
threat to her partner. If the agents were 
located together, both were to be considered 
equally armed and dangerous.  The agents 
were to be taken into custody as non-
violently as possible, but they WERE to be 
taken into custody.  As soon as either of 
the agents had been positively identified, 
AD Skinner was to be notified immediately.     

Twenty-four hours later Mulder was spotted 
on foot and led the SDPD on a merry chase 
through the streets of San Diego. He was 
finally surrounded in a tiny city park 
amidst the ducks and the startled joggers 
and ten minutes later an FBI helicopter 
dropped Assistant Director Skinner into a 
nearby parking lot. The cornered agent, 
wearing torn jeans and a grass-stained and 
sweat-soaked t-shirt, had settled into an 
uneasy back and forth pacing that tested the 
limits of the circle created by the ring of 
unhappy police officers who had caught up 
with him.

Mulder froze, eyes dark and fixed  intently 
on the AD when he moved into view. 

"Agent Mulder, where is Scully?"

The agent's mouth worked slowly, without 
sound.

"Where is your partner, Agent Mulder?"

Skinner flinched when the agent started to 
laugh hysterically. Surprisingly he did not 
resist, just kept his eyes fixed on 
Skinner's, as four police officers took him 
to his knees and cuffed his hands behind his 
back.  The officers were so rattled that 
several hands shook and one crossed himself 
as tears slipped down the agent's face.

Then Mulder threw back his head and 
screamed.

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

San Diego Hospital
Day 43
5:23 pm 


Bill Scully nodded to the agents guarding 
Mulder's hospital room, then looked down at 
the package clutched in his hands. He did 
not want to go into that room. He waited 
patiently as one of the agents took the 
package from him and checked it for weapons. 
Considering what they suspected Mulder of 
doing to his sister he supposed it was 
probably a good idea.

Still...

Words can lie.

That was the message scrawled on the inside 
of the photo album an extremely unhappy 
Badger had delivered to his office early 
this morning. The SEAL had grimly handed 
over the box an unidentified someone had 
handed him. Bill was still not sure why the 
mysterious contact had chosen to use the 
SEALs as a courier. There had been no note, 
no explanation. Just a verbal message Badger 
had dutifully passed along.

<We'll be watching.>

The implications of the fact that the 
contact had connected the  SEAL team to 
Mulder and Dana was still sinking in. Hell, 
the fact that someone out there thought he 
needed a kick in the ass  was something he 
did not even want to think about. Thoughts 
like those were not supposed to apply to 
people like him. Like Dana. And thinking 
those kinds of thoughts led to other 
thoughts.

Thoughts that got people killed.

Bill had simply sat there as the SEAL made 
his way out of the office. It had taken him 
almost fifteen minutes to screw up the 
courage to open the album and it was only 
after he did so that he realized that he 
probably should have had it x-rayed for 
explosives. Or something. The message, 
scrawled in black felt tip on the inside 
cover had immediately caught his eye.

Words can lie.

He had not known if it was warning or 
threat. His first reaction to the photos had 
been shock. The second had been outrage. The 
third had been fear. That was when he had 
settled on threat. He had raced through the 
album, terrified what he would see. Mulder. 
Dana. Mulder and Dana. Mulder and Dana. 
Mulder and Dana. He was halfway to calling 
out the MPs to stake out his house when he 
reached the last page and a second message 
scrawled on the inside back cover. A 
question.
 
<What does your heart say?>

Awfully poetic for a threat.

So he had taken hold of his fear and forced 
himself to look at the pictures. Really look 
at them. Some were in color. Many were in 
black and white. Most were obviously taken 
from hidden security cameras. Some were 
stills from video tape. From front cover to 
back it was an eight year record of covert 
intrusion and violation of privacy. He had 
wanted to shoot someone over  the obvious 
locations of some of those cameras.

And he had almost missed the point.

So here he was trying to follow the cryptic 
advice of men who were possibly assassins, 
shadows with an unknown agenda and with no 
idea whether he was beneficiary or tool. It 
was too bloody ironic. Not to mention 
annoying as hell.

Two shadow men had listened as he had asked 
who his sister was. 

Maybe this was the answer.

Retrieving his album before the FBI guard 
could look too closely at the pictures, he 
ignored their curious looks and stepped into 
Mulder's room, closing the door behind him. 
He knew it was an illusion of privacy at 
best. A security camera blinked at him from 
the far corner of the room. One violent move 
on his part and he would be knee-deep in 
agents. He was not concerned about the 
picture he made.

It was the words he had to hide.

Mulder lay in the darkness, apparently 
oblivious to the world around him. A 
psychotic break was how one doctor had put 
it. Complete disassociation. After 
collapsing in the park, Mulder had retreated 
somewhere in his mind and stayed there. He 
responded docily to direct commands but no 
further outbursts or verbal communication 
could be elicited on any subject. To all 
intents and purposes it appeared as if 
Mulder had gone right over the edge.

 But had he taken Dana with him?

Grief and terror threatened his composure 
for a split second and he found himself 
clutching the photo album like a talisman 
against the dark. His eyes grew accustomed 
to the shadows, but Mulder never moved. 
Never acknowledged that he even knew Bill 
was standing there. The improbability of his 
own suspicions struck him anew, but Bill 
found that he had discovered irony. When all 
the reasonable theories led to a conclusion 
too horrible to contemplate, belief in the 
unreasonable becomes the only sane response 
in an insane world. Mulder would believe in 
messages from the Almighty. His partner 
would believe in shapeshifters and things 
that go bump in the night.

And her brother would try to believe in a 
partnership he did not understand. 

"Everyone believes Dana is dead, you know."

He stepped closer to the bed, trying to see 
the agent's face clearly amid the shadows.

"Tara, Mom...they don't want to believe it. 
But it's easier than believing that a killer 
has her. Again. Hell of a choice, huh? "

No reaction. Bill reached the bed and 
carefully laid the photo album on Mulder's 
stomach and held it up and open so the agent 
had no choice but to look at the pictures. 
Assuming that those dark eyes saw anything 
at all.

"Someone gave this to me today. I thought at 
first it was a taunt. You'll see why when 
you get a look at some of the pictures. Then 
I realized that I was looking at it all 
wrong. Whoever sent this to me was trying to 
get me to see something. Is this the way 
they really see you? Or is it just what they 
want me to see?"

Bill slowly turned the pages. It was hard, 
looking at the agent's face and 
simultaneously looking for a reaction he was 
not sure he would recognize when he saw it.

"Come on, Mulder. You're the shit-hot 
profiler. You tell me what they wanted me to 
see. Tell me I'm seeing it correctly."

The first shots clearly had Mulder as the 
center of interest. Bill had been shocked at 
how young the agent had looked in those 
early photos. And Dana. He could have cried 
when he saw the sister he remembered 
captured forever by some distant watcher's 
lens. He saw passion and interest. 
Dedication. And then he saw them grow 
closer.

Literally.

They argued face to face, Dana toe-to -toe 
with her lanky partner, her head tipped back 
awkwardly despite the fact that it would 
have been easier to take a step backwards. 
He saw various expressions ranging from 
amusement to disdain on the faces of the 
cops watching, always watching. Always 
circling on the outside of the center that 
they created. 

And he saw his sister stepping into the 
dark.

Sometimes she was at her partner's heels, 
sometimes he was at hers. Sometimes there 
were monsters.  It had taken three trips 
through the album before Bill realized that 
he was never shown the moment the monster 
attacked - only the defeat. Mulder and 
Scully and the monster. He saw Dana crouched 
over the fallen body of her partner, gun out 
and a cold expression forever frozen on her 
face. Then there were the hospital shots. 
Dana arguing at the top of her lungs as she 
tried to push past two security guards twice 
her size. Dana asleep in a chair, her head 
next to Mulder's hand.  Dana smiling a high 
wattage smile he had never seen in his life. 
The closest he could come to it was the look 
on Tara's face the morning they handed her 
Mathew.

Then he saw a shot he did not think he would 
ever forget. 

Mulder sat in the darkness of a grainy black 
and white photograph that only emphasized 
the metallic shine of the gun in his hand as 
he held it to his own head. Bill was not 
even surprised when he realized that the 
date on the photo matched the day they had 
been told Dana's cancer had metastasized. 
The fact that the bastard had even thought 
about leaving her  to face those final days 
alone had made Bill see three kinds of red. 
Then he had swallowed sickly as he thought 
about the fact that Mulder had surely known 
about the surveillance. 

Had it been an offer?

Mulder's life for hers.

"I don't know what's going on, Mulder. I 
don't understand it, and I sure as hell 
don't like it. But I've got to believe that 
if you hurt her, you would not be here. And 
if the killer got her, somehow I think you'd 
be beside her. So here's the deal."

Bill sat down in the chair and leaned in 
carefully," I've got three SEAL teams on 
stand-by. This is unofficial. No one knows 
about it and there is no paperwork. Weapons, 
launches, helicopters, a jailbreak...you 
want it, you got it. At least one of the 
orderlies on this floor will be a SEAL. 
Leave a note under your pillow and we'll get 
it. Yell and there will be someone in this 
room in under a minute."

He stared hard at the agent and refused to 
be disappointed that there was no reaction. 
He had already been through this, had he 
not? If there was a further purpose to this, 
then this was a game the agents had chosen 
to play without him. All he could do was 
stay out of the way. 

He was halfway to the door ,  the 
incriminating photo album under his arm, 
when he thought of something else to say.

"I'm not sure what my heart has to say about 
you Mulder, so I'm going to try listening to 
hers."

Because hers was the only one that held any 
hope at all.

********************************************
**
San Diego Field Office
Day 43
8:55 pm


"There. See that."

"Yeah. So?"

"So...what the hell was she looking at?"

Skinner paused as the intent voices reached 
him. He recognized at least one of those 
voices.

"Maybe she wasn't looking at anything. Maybe 
she was just reacting to Mulder's teeth 
sinking into her throat."

"But..."

"Look, Thatcher said..."

"Thatcher is an idiot."

Skinner grinned at the acid in that voice. 
Trust Landers to cut right to the point.

"Agreed. But he was part of the program."

"Yeah...and he sees everything through the 
haze of his failure. You trust him?"

"No."

"Then rerun the tape."

Skinner edged up to the door and peered in 
to see all five of the sane and accounted 
for X-Files team members. They were huddled 
around a TV and VCR. Mathews had the remote 
and Lewis was taking notes.

Vickery grunted as the image of Scully 
sailed through the air and landed on the 
bed. She glared at the rest of her 
teammates. "That just isn't her. She fights 
better than that."

Mathews snorted, "My grandmother fights 
better than that. But she's supposed to be 
profiling. Maybe it's not her."

"That kick off the bed sure looked like 
her."

Mathews opened his mouth, then shut it and 
looked thoughtful.

Harris cleared his throat, "We found plaster 
dust mixed with the blood on the bed. Maybe 
that chunk of the wall hit her on the way 
down."

Landers tapped her lip slowly," So...what? 
They loosened it when the bed hit the wall 
and she saw it about to go?"

"And kicked Mulder out of the way before it 
hit him on the back of the head." Vickery 
added.

The ex-marine nodded," I like it."

So did the ex-marine standing in the hall. 
But that did  not explain the rest of the 
broken furniture.

"What about the rest of the furniture?"

That came from Lewis.

Mathews sighed and put a hand to his 
forehead, "That's a problem."

"Not if there was a third person in the room 
with them."

All five flinched and Skinner saw more than 
one hand move for a weapon. Despite the 
nightmare the rest of the day was turning 
out to be, he almost smiled. They were 
learning.

Now if they would only learn not to keep 
their backs to open doors.

As one they all turned back to the TV screen 
and Vickery's lips twisted unhappily.

"Unfortunately, that works too."

********************************************
**
Unknown Location
Day 43
Sometime after dark 


The last time he had heard someone puking so 
painfully, they had been three hours into a 
hurricane that had taken an unexpected right 
turn and had near black water sheeting over 
the bow. He had not expected to survive that 
time either. 

So where the hell was he and why was he 
still alive?

Stupid. So stupid. Give lip service to the 
possibility that Mulder and Dana had a 
reason for what they were doing and then let 
a killer into the god damn car. Speaking of 
cars, was Officer Wright with him? He hoped 
the kid was not dead. Somehow he doubted 
that the young officer had been any more 
prepared than he had been.

Next time he was assigned a police escort he 
was asking for a slightly older version.

He sucked in a deep breath before he thought 
better and nearly joined whoever was puking 
his guts out and moaning on the other side 
of the room. Lord Jesus God, what the hell 
was that. Panting through his mouth he tried 
to swallow past the nauseating taste shoving 
itself down his throat. 

"What the hell is that smell?"

His voice was raspy and he was not sure he 
wanted an answer. Dear god, please don't let 
that be what he thought it was. He was about 
to lift his head when a voice came out of 
the darkness.

"Turn your head toward me before you open 
your eyes."

Bill froze. He tried to place the voice. A 
little shiver of panic began to worm its way 
into his gut and he started to pant. He 
swallowed again.

"Why?"

"Just trust me."

Trust me. He had never really considered the 
cost of those words before. How could he 
trust this person he did not know and did 
not recognize. Suddenly fear clutched at his 
heart and he felt tears pricking at his 
closed eyelids. Oh God, please let it not be 
Dana. Not Dana. Please.

"Dana?"

"No, not her.  Keep your voice down and turn 
your head toward me. There's enough light..." 
The voice trailed off suddenly, then coughed 
and returned a little more raspy. "You'll be 
able to see."

But would he want to?

Was this it? The thing that would drive him 
out of his mind. The thing that would keep 
him from going home to Tara? He had if 
anything could do it, that it would be 
losing Mathew. He had thought that that 
would be the only thing that could keep him 
away. But now, with that smell in his 
nostrils, the smell that was sinking so far 
into his skin he did not think he would ever 
be able to wash it clean, now he was not so 
sure.

What if he took whatever it was home with 
him?

Then his mind whispered back. What if you 
are never offered the chance?

Finally, turning his head toward the voice, 
he opened his eyes. Weak light from a single 
dusty light bulb revealed what appeared to 
be an old stone cellar. He had barely 
started to focus on his surroundings when 
someone moved in his field of vision. He 
blinked and the features of Cap emerged as 
his eyes adjusted to the low level of light. 
What the hell...?

He heard the SEAL make a low-voiced protest 
but it was too late. He had already turned 
to look.

"Oh my Jesus God."

There were bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. 
Numbly he wondered why he was not screaming 
and then realized that it was really very 
simple.

If the MethBomber heard him, he might come 
back.

Officer Wright had stopped heaving and was 
panting shallowly. Bill really could  not 
blame him. He was lying right next to one of 
the older bodies. He had probably woken up 
staring at the thing. Bill felt his gorge 
rise and swallowed carefully. If he threw up 
now, he would be dry heaving until he 
coughed up blood.

He realized he was shaking when his teeth 
started chattering. About the same time, his 
mind actually had the audacity to tell him 
that the ground he was lying on was damp and 
cold and seeping through the thin cotton of 
his shirt. It struck him as almost 
blasphemous to feel cold when there were so 
many here who would never feel anything 
again. 

He did not want to know how they had died.

Badger and Wright were lying back to back 
and appeared to be handcuffed together. 
Devon also had his wrists handcuffed 
together although his arms were raised above 
his head and the cuffs appeared to be hooked 
through a metal ring set into the stone 
wall. He was conscious and seemed to be 
studying the layout of the ceiling.

Or listening for footsteps.

"Knock out drugs."

Bill blinked, then squinted over at Devon." 
What?"

"The reason we're in here with you. He said 
it was some kind of back up system to knock 
everybody out in the event someone got into 
the house." The SEAL grimaced, "I guess he 
didn't want anyone calling for help."

Bill stared at him in dawning horror. "They 
were kept alive down here?"

"Until they starved to death."

Bill closed his eyes. He did not know what 
to say. Prayers seem a little...inadequate. 

"So what? You set it off getting into the 
basement?"

Devon coughed and Cap sighed. Finally Wright 
answered, voice scratchy," I did."

Cap looked over at Bill and shrugged, "We 
were following you. We slipped into the 
basement to check for survivors and set up 
an ambush. Wright didn't see us. We think he 
tripped over a hidden wire. Or else your 
killer triggered it himself after he threw 
you down the stairs."

Bill vaguely remembered that part. 

"If you are here, who's watching Mulder?"

"Charlie."

For a split second Bill actually thought 
they meant his brother. Then his brain 
caught up with his ears and provided an 
answer. Phonetic alphabet. Alpha, bravo, 
charlie. Delta. Dana. Bill, Charlie, Dana. 
Shit. Melissa should have been named 
Annabelle. He almost giggled before he 
considered the drifting feeling he 
remembered from the day he had broken his 
arm falling out of a tree. 

Shock. That was it.

Was this how Mulder felt? Drifting away in a 
disassociative haze. 

As if thought conjured reality the door 
above suddenly rattled and Mulder was 
tumbling down the stairs to land in an 
untidy bundle of senseless limbs at the 
bottom. Bill stared with a mixture of shock 
and lost hope as he searched those empty 
eyes for any sign of self-awareness. An 
eternity later he had to admit the bitter 
truth. Nobody home.

His throat tightened with a painful clench 
as he thought what that probably meant for 
his sister. Devon, Badger and Cap were all 
staring at Mulder with surprise. Then Devon 
sighed.

"Well...shit." 

Yeah. 

What he said.

********************************************
***
Motel 6
Day 43
11:00 pm


"Would you hurry the hell up before we get 
caught."

"You think you can do better?"

"My grandmother could do better"

"Well my grandmother could - shii..ugar."

Mike and Lewis both looked up in alarm as 
Landers bit out the curse and glared at the 
door knob in disgust. She twisted her head 
and hissed at the woman crouching by her 
knees. Without a word, Vickery pulled out 
her laptop and started booting up several 
programs. Landers began pulling wires and 
leads from her pocket. Harris just craned 
his head back over his shoulder to look at 
them nervously before turning his attention 
back to the silent motel parking lot.

"Jesus. And I thought Mulder and Scully were 
paranoid. What the hell are they 
protecting?"

Vickery snorted, "Their sense of 
importance."

Mathews  gestured for them to hurry. Vickery 
just lifted the side of her lip 
contemptuously and continued her staccato 
keytapping as Landers kept a steady hand 
with the wires as she rerouted and bypassed. 
With a sudden motion Vickery pushed the door 
open and the other four agents froze. No 
alarms, no bullets. 

Landers peered around the edge of the door 
cautiously.

Mathews crowded up behind her as she let 
loose a low whistle and Vickery's eyes just 
glittered oddly as the dumbfounded agents 
contemplated the chaos inside. Computers 
littered every flat surface while wires and 
cables were strung in every direction. It 
took a minute and all five agents crowding 
into the room before part of the reason for 
the claustrophobic feeling emerged out of 
the confusion.

Harris peered around the shoulders blocking 
his view, "You think the Navy is missing 
some of its computers?"

The agents absorbed the details of the 
astonishingly complex lair the three 
computer gurus had created for themselves. 
Lack of room at the Scully residence and the 
Gunmen's instinctive wish to avoid official 
observation had led to the rental of  nearby 
hotel rooms on the Navy's dime. Bill had 
just shrugged as he signed off on the 
request. After everything else, who the hell 
was going to notice? Besides, the Navy had 
expected to pay for hotel rooms for Mulder 
and Scully in the first place.   

In all honesty, the agents had forgotten 
about them. After the initial security set-
up, the trio had more or less vanished, 
contacting Mulder and Scully as needed and 
pretty much ignoring the others. No one had 
even thought to call them until Skinner had 
quietly asked if the Gunmen had heard 
anything. Looking around them, the five 
agents considered that this might have been 
a costly mistake.

The furniture had been shoved away from the 
walls forming a narrow walkway running the 
circumference of the room. Two parallel 
lines of horizontal masking tape about two 
feet apart  trisected the wall into three 
rows, the center of the middle row placing 
about four feet from the floor. Vertical 
lines of tape were spaced about a foot apart 
and ran from floor to ceiling. Almost every 
center square held newspaper articles, 
copies of memos and email communiques to the 
two investigatory teams.

Lewis just stared at the wall, her face 
blank, "What the hell is this?"

"A timeline."

Mike's voice was distant and he moved down 
the wall slowly. As the rest of the agents 
trailed after him, a pattern emerged. Each 
column corresponded to a day. The center 
square held articles about the investigation 
printed that day. It did not take long to 
see that a disturbing number of the articles 
were about Agents Mulder and Scully. The top 
row held the a case file summary  and photos 
from the Navy Arsonist fires started on that 
day. The lower row held only three files but 
the photos and police reports for the 
MethBomber's victims were posted in the 
square corresponding to the day each victim 
disappeared.  

Lewis gravitated toward the stack of medical 
reports resting on a side table tucked in 
next to a sofa shoved up against a desk 
hidden beneath three computers and a 
printer. Vickery took up position near a 
computer humming quietly to itself and 
Landers eyed the room for booby traps. 
Mathews and Harris drifted apart as they 
each moved along the walls looking for the 
patterns beneath the paper. Then they all 
looked at each other, each hesitant to be 
the first one to disturb the clues lying in 
the clutter.

Mulder had done this for a purpose.

The Lone Gunmen may have helped him put it 
together, may have provided the space, but 
the driving force was pure profiler. Harris 
absently picked up a file folder left 
carelessly atop a stack of newspaper. He 
scanned it briefly, then almost dropped it 
when he realized what he held. Mathews 
turned at  his shocked intake of air and 
Harris held the file out, eyes wide. Mathews 
hesitated, then took it, flipping the folder 
open almost fearfully.

In the heavy silence the sound of turning 
pages rasped against too tight nerves and 
four pairs of eyes never moved from the 
profiler's face. Grooves etched themselves 
into Mike's forehead and his mouth tightened 
grimly. Harris jumped when Mathews shifted 
his gaze from paper to agent.

"Get the tape."

Harris did not  bother to ask which one. 
Silently he went to the duffel at Vickery's 
feet and dug it out. As everyone waited 
impatiently he popped it in a nearby VCR and 
turned everything on. Mathews gestured for a 
hold on the playback, carefully removed a 
page from the profile and handed the file to 
Landers. She just looked the question.

"It's an updated profile." His voice was 
grim. 

According to the date on the file and the 
dates on most of the printed material he 
could see, this had all been done after 
Mulder had done whatever he had done to 
Scully. Had he come here still in profiling 
mode? From what little he knew of Scully, 
the one thing that she would have asked her 
partner was that her death not be wasted. 
Had Mulder finished his profile as one last 
effort at apology before releasing his mind 
to the Abyss?

Expression shadowed, Landers read silently, 
handing off pages as she finished. Mathews 
and Harris waited silently , then Mathews 
nodded to Harris. The familiar scene was 
reexamined with the facts of the profile 
held closely in mind. They saw nothing they 
did not expect to see. They saw the Navy 
Arsonist. A killer carefully controlling the 
kill. They saw someone who reacted to 
resistance without anger. Mathews saw the 
minute they realized that Mulder had not 
only carefully considered just exactly where 
to sink his teeth - he needed to twist his 
head awkwardly to get exactly the effect he 
wanted. It was precise. It was scripted.

It was staged.

Their killer was not after the kill for its 
own sake. He was after the media, the 
attention, the glory. Everything he did was 
designed to titillate, to shock. To get 
attention. Mathews saw understanding and 
agreement crossing all of their faces. His 
own lips twisted without humor. If they 
liked this, they were going to love the 
punchline. They might not have a clue how 
Mulder had put it all together, but they 
were agreeing with his conclusions. The man 
in the profile and the man on the tape were 
the same person.

Just one problem.

Mathews held up the sheet he had taken from 
the folder and held it up. He saw their 
faces go blank as they absorbed the 
information printed on the sheet. Then he 
saw their eyes go to the back wall where the 
MethBomber cases shared space with those of 
the Navy Arsonist.

Wrong damn profile.

****************************************
San Diego Suburb - Basement
Day 44
1:35 am


He had thought it would be more climactic, 
somehow.

The moment he learned the name of the 
killer. Saw the face of the monster. 
Discovered the identity of the man who had 
held Bill and his family hostage to fear for 
weeks. He had thought that it would mean 
something, answer some questions.

At least tell him why.

He had never thought it would be the face of 
a friend.

As the killer stepped heavily down the same 
stairs he had just thrown Mulder, Bill 
Scully felt the same sense of surprised 
indignation he had felt the moment he 
realized that the man he had trusted, the 
man he had willingly allowed into his car 
and whom he had blindly followed into a 
modestly priced rural home on the outskirts 
of San Diego, was the bad guy. This was not 
the way it was supposed to happen.

The killer was supposed to be some demented 
monster capable of fiendishly horrible acts. 
A red-eyed, drooling madman frothing at the 
mouth. He was not supposed to be a fellow 
investigator. A man who had sympathized with 
Bill over the nightmares, who had brought 
him late night cups of coffee. Who had, Bill 
remembered sickly, sat at his own kitchen 
table and smiled at Mathew.

BATF investigator Graham Wilson stared down 
at his prisoners, face empty of rage, 
sorrow...regret. Then he smiled politely, 
"Surprised?" 

As the killer stepped carelessly over 
Mulder's collapsed and motionless body, Bill 
willed the agent to do something. Grab the 
man's ankles. Pounce on him from behind. 
When the only thing that happened was the 
killer arriving safely on the ground, Bill 
reminded himself bitterly that even in 
Hollywood the calvary arrived late. Mulder 
was mad, Dana was dead and Bill would never 
go home again.

"Epiphanies usually are. Surprising that is. 
Mine almost killed me." 

Wilson reached a hand up to touch one ear 
delicately and Bill considered sourly that 
at least Hollywood got this part right. The 
bad guys liked to brag. Must be hell knowing 
all the answers and not being able to tell 
any of the people quietly going mad around 
you.

"That was the day I saw the true work of a 
master and knew myself for the dabbler I had 
been. I had seen the face of greatness and 
it looked back at me. It learned my name 
that day and it chose to spare me."

"It took your hearing."

Wilson read Bill's response from his lips. 
He looked thoughtful for a moment, then 
shrugged.

"All great art demands a price."

Involuntarily Bill's eyes went to Mulder and 
he immediately regretted it. Wilson's face 
lost its eerie calm and friendly expression 
as rage boiled up from nowhere. The lack of 
warning and the sheer speed of the 
transformation was terrifying. As Wilson 
turned to grab the back of Mulder's jacket 
and hauled him one-handed to his feet, Bill 
realized that this was the true face of the 
monster. A man who looked rational...and was 
not.

Considering that Mulder would docilely 
follow direct orders, it was nothing more 
than gratuitous cruelty that had Wilson 
kicking him as the agent stumbled  over one 
of the corpses and was sent sprawling across 
the blood-soaked dirt floor. Cap and Devon 
dragged their feet out of the way and Mulder 
finally ended up on his knees under the 
filthy lightbulb. Wilson backhanded him 
savagely, dragged him back to his knees , 
then sank fingers into his hair and wrenched 
the agent's head back until his face was 
clearly visible in the poor lighting.

For a long moment Wilson stared down into 
Mulder's blank face, his own reluctantly 
fascinated. Then he murmured faintly, "What 
do you see?"

The odd tone in Wilson's voice confused him 
for a moment, until he identified it. Then 
he wanted to be sick. Arousal. The bastard 
was aroused at the thought that someone had 
a direct line into his head. Or maybe he was 
aroused at the thought that Mulder had a 
direct line into his head. 

He thought he had managed to stay quiet. 
Motionless. But something must have 
attracted Wilson's attention. Without 
warning, Bill suddenly found himself staring 
into the angry eyes of a madman. And that 
anger was directly fixated on him. Sheer 
terror shot through him and he found himself 
helpless to look away as Wilson slowly drew 
away from Mulder and stepped towards him. 

"This is your fault."

****************************************
Motel 6
Day 43
11:57 pm


"How the hell is this possible?"

Harris flinched as Landers stormed across 
the room. The words were a variation on a 
theme and she had been saying the same 
things for the past twenty minutes. It was 
not possible. It had to be wrong. It was 
just a fucking coincidence. Then they 
watched the tape three more times and Lewis 
started pulling autopsy reports.

"Because we were looking at the MO and not 
the signature."

"What fucking signature!"

Mathews grabbed onto the reins of his 
temper. He knew they were having trouble 
making the pieces fit. And if he was having 
this much trouble convincing his own team, 
how the hell was he going to convince 
everyone else on the strength of a tape made 
by an agent of questionable sanity. It was 
not hard to imagine the pitying expressions 
as the SACs and senior investigators started 
mumbling things like "profiling 
contamination" and "lack of substantiated 
data". 

"Look. Mulder said it himself. This guy is 
an arsonist. He's a freaking thrill seeking 
fire bug. He just happens to be a psychopath 
to boot."

Lewis chewed the inside of her cheek " 
So...what? Arsonist plus psychopath equals 
...?"

Harris sighed, "One fucked-up 
investigation."

 Mathews paced back and forth as he talked. " 
We kept asking why these people? Why here? 
Why now? What does his victim choice say 
about him? What do his kill methods say 
about him?"

Mathews stopped abruptly and met four sets 
of appalled eyes.

"We were asking the wrong damn questions."

Landers drifted over to lean one hip against 
the sofa.

His words came a bit more slowly, as if he 
were sorting through the reasons himself. 
"On the surface it looks similar. A psycho 
is a psycho after all. They both see their 
victims as a means to an end. But here's the 
big difference. Almost every serial killer 
roots his fantasies in psycho-sexual 
motivations. Someway, somehow, sex is 
involved. The kill is arousing. So much so 
that it gets to the point where nothing 
beats it."

Vickery looked up, "Sex is a primal human 
need. "

Mathews nodded," So the kill becomes 
necessary. But the arsonist aroused by fire 
is mostly Hollywood invention. He exists, 
but a true sexually motivated arsonist is 
rare. Sometimes it's greed, sometimes it's 
revenge-hell, half the time it's just 
covering up another crime. But a thrill-
seeker is the most dangerous of the pack. He 
does it for the rush. The excitement. The 
thrill of getting away with it. A lot of 
thrill-seekers volunteer as firefighters. 
They need the recognition. The accolades. 
Being treated as a hero. And when it's over,  
they set another fire to get it back again."

All five agents had drifted to the stand 
before the wall. Lewis reached out an 
touched a photograph. She started the ball 
rolling.

"The first explosion. Major case. Lots and 
lots of press and national headlines. Our 
hero finds himself caught up in the middle 
of the biggest case of his career. 
Investigator? Doctor? Firefighter?"

Harris drags his hand along the wall to 
where the first of the Methbomber's victims 
were taken." Months later and the case is 
off the front page. No more interviews. No 
more free drinks. No one remembers his name. 
So he brings the case back into the 
limelight." His finger taps the first of the 
recent MethBomber explosions. "Kaboom."

Mathews nods," Back on the front page. He's 
giving interviews. He's the guy in the know. 
Maybe it's not even the media. It's the 
attention of fellow investigators, the 
admiration for his tireless and thankless 
work trying to catch a monster."

Vickery grimaced as Mathews handed the ball 
to her, "So...what? He starts setting house 
fires. What for? The Navy piss in his 
Cornflakes? "

Harris chewed his lip, "To take the edge 
off?"

Mathews shrugged, "Maybe. Based on Mulder's 
profile I'd be inclined to think he was 
doing research. "

"And someone died."

Mathews sighed, "And someone died."

Lewis slide her hand down the wall, 
fingertips rustling clipped out newspaper 
articles. "Our boy discovers he's back in 
the game with something that doesn't take as 
much work even though it doesn't give as big 
a payoff as the MethBomber explosions. It 
satisfies the urge while he waits for the 
next house to fill with enough methane to 
explode. But he has to make sure no one 
suspects. So he manufactures a serial 
killer. Gives him a fake MO then sits back 
and watches the rest of us chase our tails. 
Jesus. He doesn't need to taunt us. As an 
investigator he's right in the goddamn thick 
of things getting exactly what he needs."

Vickery bared her teeth, "Until Bill called 
in Mulder and Scully."

Mathews stepped closer to a bunch of 
clippings circled in red. "Mulder and Scully 
start getting the press ink. He starts 
escalating quietly but we don't notice 
because it's split between the two cases. 
There's no gap any more between burning the 
Navy homes and going hunting for more 
victims for the MethBomber. All that work 
..."

Landers steps up as he places a finger 
square on a photo of Bill Scully, his sister 
and her partner.

"...and someone else gets the spotlight."

Harris stared at the photo, expression 
thoughtful. "That's gotta be one pissed off 
arsonist."

"It gets worse."

All four agents turned at the quiet horror 
in Vickery's voice and frowned. She looked 
at them for a moment then threw out her 
hands, "Who the hell do we tell?"

Federal features all went blank and Vickery 
laughed a touch hysterically," This guy has 
to be one of us. There's a hell of a lot of 
people in a position to get the attention 
this guy needs and every single one is 
higher on the local food chain than we are. 
You think we can start pulling files on 
these people without someone somewhere 
asking questions?  And if we tip him 
off...we threaten his position...what the 
hell do you think he's going to do?"

Besides go out with a very big bang.

********************************************
San Diego Field Office
Day 44
12:10 am


"Thank goodness. I've got some messages for 
you, Sir."

Skinner looked at his phone blankly, 
"Kimberly?" 

His attention was momentarily dragged off of 
the three newspapers he held in his hand. 
The lurid headlines blazed out speculations 
about a profiler who had gone over the edge 
and killed his partner. Skinner could have 
sighed. For a man who generally tried to 
avoid the media, Mulder had a way of showing 
up on the front pages a lot of the time. 
This was insane. He could not have gotten 
more media attention if he had planned for 
it.

"Yes Sir. Sorry Sir. I just discovered that 
your cell phone has been forwarding half 
your incoming calls to voicemail, Sir. You 
keep bouncing off an old analog tower so you 
may not have gotten an indicator. You have a 
ton of messages...ummm...including one from 
Agent Mulder, Sir."

His voice reflected none of the tension that 
whitened the tightening fingers threatening 
to turn his cell into so much shattered 
plastic and copper wiring.  "When?"

"About half an hour before they checked into 
the Snow Goose, Sir."

Before. Shit. He had been hoping for a 
coherent message that might explain what 
happened after. Crap. He wrote the number 
Kimberly read back to him on the back of one 
of his business cards, but he already 
recognized it. It was one of the phone lines 
he had authorized for Mulder's "computer 
consultants".  He had already tried to get 
them earlier. Still...

He almost dropped the phone when a female 
voice answered.

"Agent Scully?" He was too shocked to be 
embarrassed at the way his voice shot up a 
few registers.

"Er...may I ask who is calling?"

Shit.

"Sorry, Agent Lewis. I did not recognize 
your voice at first. "

There was a long pause.

"It's Assistant Director Skinner, Agent 
Lewis."

"Yes, Sir. Just a moment, Sir."

Skinner frowned slightly as several muffled 
voices argued briefly in the background. 
Then a male voice came on the line.

"Sir? Would it be possible for you to get 
over here? It's important."

Skinner's eyes went to the spectacle 
crowding itself into the hallway outside 
Mulder's empty hospital room. Between the 
FBI, the police and one very embarrassed 
SEAL team whose members had been extremely 
close-mouthed about what they were doing 
there in the first place, the place was a 
zoo. No one knew anything, no one saw 
anything and the video caught nothing out of 
the ordinary. But they were missing one 
zoned out profiler and no one seemed to be 
getting anything accomplished beyond adding 
to the confusion.

"What is it Agent Mathews?"

"We've got something you need to see."

********************************************
*
San Diego Suburb - Basement
Day 44
1:45 am


As he watched a killer walk toward him, for 
one awful moment Bill was certain he was 
going to piss himself. Twenty years of 
hurricanes, military alerts and raging seas 
and he was going to die in a filthy basement 
surrounded by rotting corpses. 
Almost...almost he begged the man not to go 
after Tara or Mathew. But at the last minute 
he was not certain whether or not it would 
be better to keep from mentioning their 
names.

"I heard what you said that day. How you 
told them all about Mulder and what he could 
do. You're the one responsible for this."

In that moment, Bill knew that Mulder and 
Dana had been right. That the killer had 
been stalking him. Not, as they had thought, 
because he fit the profile, but for simple 
revenge. Then a horrible thought struck him. 
The last house. The one that was out of 
sequence. Bill stared back at Wilson, fear 
momentarily held at bay by epiphany and 
understanding. He had no idea how he 
knew...and he would never have been able to 
prove it. But he knew. That last house was 
revenge. Because Mulder and Scully had moved 
in with an army and the killer had not been 
able to touch him.

In an odd sort of way, the horror displaced 
the fear. 

Bill just stared at Wilson and wondered if 
there was any way he could take him with 
him. Maybe his suicidal thought were written 
across his face because Wilson stopped 
several feet away and turned his attention 
to the SEALs.

"You were carrying a lot of equipment for 
FBI agents. "

Cap, Devon and Badger just stared back, 
silent. It struck Bill that the quality of 
their silence held more of the captured 
predator and nothing of the victim. Was it 
training? Experience? Or had they simply 
made their peace with the thought of death? 
Wilson wandered closer, but not, Bill 
noticed, too close.

"Not FBI agents, then. Military? " Wilson's 
eyes slide dangerously back toward Bill. 
"Navy?"

Cap's voice was calm when he answered," Navy 
SEALs."

He was co-operating? Was he insane? Did he 
have any idea what this lunatic might do to 
them now that he knew what they were? Just 
to prove that he could. Then he met Badger's 
eyes. Old eyes in a too-young face and he 
realized they knew exactly what would 
probably happen. And no one set themselves 
up for torture without a damn good reason.

Wilson's voice was extremely polite, "Who 
sent you?"

Bill was seeing the last five minutes of his 
life written in that answer when the SEAL 
shocked the hell out of him. Cap's eyes 
rested lightly on Bill's face for a moment 
and he saw real regret in the man's gaze. 
Then Cap looked back at Wilson.

"Mulder."

Bill's whole body stiffened. 

"He asked us to watch out for his partner's 
family."

His eyes burned as he accepted the nature of 
that request. He did not need to hear the 
SEAL's next words confirming that Mulder had 
called them after whatever had happened at 
the Snow Goose. Dana was dead. His sister 
was dead and her partner had asked the SEALs 
to do what he had known would have been her 
last request. Tears broke free and slipped 
unchecked down his face. In them he felt 
grief and anger and loss. But amazingly he 
also felt hope. Because CJ and Doc were 
missing...and that meant they were watching 
Tara, his mother and Mathew.

His family was safe.

No matter what happened from here on out, 
the last of his family was safe. Mulder had 
managed to do that much. As much as he 
wanted to hate the man for what he had done, 
he could almost forgive him for that fact 
alone. Now, in the darkness, his own death 
assured, he somehow thought that Agent 
Scully had known the risk she was taking. 
Bill looked at the rotting bodies stacked 
like forgotten dolls along the walls of a 
house about to become a charnel house.

He could not even say the price was not 
worth it.

The look on Cap's face said he thought Bill 
was about to make a mistake. The SEAL had 
not given up Mulder in cooperation, but as a 
tactical sacrifice. Whatever else he might 
not know, Bill had no doubts that Mulder's 
life was over. Career and partner gone in 
one insane moment. What did he have left? 
Directing Wilson's anger back to the lost 
agent was simple strategy. But Bill was 
tired of being protected.

Wilson was about to step three feet too 
close.    

He almost howled in angry frustration when 
Mulder suddenly moved.

Every living head turned as the agent 
climbed to his feet and swayed slightly. 
Back and forth. Back and forth. A living 
metronome in counterpoint to the shadows 
created by the lightbulb the brush of a 
careless hand put into motion. Wilson was 
armed, but he seemed mesmerized by the 
darkness emanating from the agent. A 
darkness more dangerous than Wilson could 
ever hope to be.

But that was, Bill suddenly realized, 
exactly who Wilson thought he was seeing.

Wilson was a man you could pass on the 
street and never remember you had met him. 
Even now, Bill could barely see the monster. 
Surrounded by corpses his mind still wanted 
to see an ordinary man with an affable 
smile. On Mulder's features, Wilson's smile 
was edged with anger. The agent's eyes were 
dark pits filled with nightmares and the joy 
on his face as he looked at his handiwork 
felt like exultation. The SEALs shifted 
uneasily as Mulder moved among the shadows 
with a predatory grace Wilson lacked. Hands, 
limbs and feet mimicked Wilson's mannerisms, 
transforming on Mulder's frame to a dark 
nightmare that inspired an instinctive fear 
reaction that Wilson did not command. Menace 
and rage cloaked the agent like black smoke 
and for a moment Bill could almost imagine 
he smelled the sulphurous stench that would 
accompany the demons from the lower rings of 
Hell.

Wilson was fixated. His entire universe 
narrowed to this vision of himself that 
Mulder was portraying. Wilson as he imagined 
himself to be. A demon among lambs. His gun 
stayed at his side as he visibly bathed in 
the ecstasy of this truth of himself Wilson 
had always believed to be true.

Then Mulder took it away.

Motion lost its grace. Movement turned jerky 
and haphazard. Menace became fear. 

Wilson jerked as if he had been slapped. 
"No." His voice was a angry command.

Mulder seemed to shrink. He became a gawky, 
skinny man with frightened eyes and a high-
pitched nervous laugh. Neither vision 
reflected  the full truth, but Wilson 
believed.

"Stop it."

The command was weak.

Tears ran from eyes that contained only the 
fires of pathetic insanity.

"Stop it!"

Wilson's voice was a scream of anger and 
loss. Rage and hatred.

Mulder froze, eyes suddenly distant. He sank 
back to his knees. Wilson's angry pants were 
the only sounds audible and no one moved. 
Every eye was fixed on the gun Wilson was 
pointing directly at Mulder's heart. The 
agent did nothing for a long moment. Then 
his head raised slowly and Bill found 
himself holding his breath as awareness 
flooded vacant eyes and white teeth flashed 
in a feral grin.

"Woof, asshole."

Then the shadows grew substance and Wilson's 
astonished face was falling, falling 
forward, and Bill was staring into cold blue 
eyes twin to his own. The SEALs were equally 
frozen and everyone waited for Wilson to get 
back up. Scully absently wiped the blood 
from her knife and looked over at her 
partner. Mulder winced as he climbed to his 
feet. 

"He threw me down the stairs, Scully."

She looked at the disgusting substances 
decorating her partner's clothing.

"Don't even think of asking me to kiss it 
better." she warned.

Then both agents winced and raised hands to 
their left ears. 

Mulder rolled his eyes,"Sounds like the 
calvary arrived. Late as usual."

Scully sighed, "Skinner sounds pissed."

"Guess we better go rescue the guys."

Mulder leaned down and calmly unlocked the 
handcuffs holding the SEALs. Bill was not 
sure what they were feeling. Hell, he had no 
idea what he was feeling. He had just 
accepted the reality of his sister's death 
and  as hard as that had been, it was 
something he understood. The dead man at her 
feet was something he was not even sure he 
could accept.

She met his eyes and he suddenly realized 
that this was the first time she had looked 
at him since that first glance. His 
attention went to the long ugly scratch 
along her forehead and he realized that 
Harris had probably been right after all. 
Just a  piece of plaster. Her eyes held 
nothing. He looked for something he 
recognized and whatever she was searching 
for in his, he did not think she found it 
before she turned away. 

He did not move to hold her back.

Running footsteps were suddenly thundering 
above and everyone flinched as the door 
above opened and powerful flashlights 
blinded them. The first man down the stairs 
was Agent Mathews,  Landers close on his 
heels. Assistant Director Skinner followed 
and the rest of the X-Files team blockaded 
the door. Bill could see hurt and reproach  
rapidly replace concern on five faces. Then 
Skinner was striding across the floor.

Bill was not sure what he expected. The 
burly AD let his eyes study the room 
carefully but hesitated no more than a 
second on the body lying on the ground. His 
features were hard as they looked at Mulder.

"Agent Mulder, I would like an explanation 
as to just why you and your hacker friends 
interfered with a protective detail and 
aided a killer with removing you from the 
hospital."

Which was really a dumb question. They did 
it to flush out the killer and locate the 
next ticking time bomb. Even Bill knew the 
answer to that one. A muscle twitched in 
Skinner's jaw.

"What the hell did you think you were 
doing?"

Mulder glanced at his partner and whatever 
answer he found there was one he chose not 
to share. Agent Scully turned blue eyes on 
her boss and answered calmly.

"Hunting."


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

excerpt Diary - Dana Katherine Scully


I like the way things are. What does that 
say about me?

No more lies. No more prevarication. The 
time for that is over. I've made choices. 
I've had choices made for me. Every one 
brought me closer to this point. Finally 
brought me here.

To you.

I'm okay with that.

There are those who would say that we have 
made sacrifices for what we have. Chosen 
paths that have cost us dearly even as we 
fight to find the truth beneath the lies. 
Made ourselves into images outside the norm. 
You choosing to exist outside the rules 
because you are too damaged to exist within 
them, me because duty and loyalty have 
pulled me too far under to escape.

They are blind and will not see.

We have always made our own rules. That is 
the point. We've made choices outside the 
accepted paths, and in doing so, we have 
uncovered truth. The rules are illusions 
that have power only because we accept them.  

Belief can be a terrible thing.

We try not to lie to ourselves. The only 
conviction without doubts is that of 
madness. And neither of us is mad. Yet, how 
is the vision of ourselves reflected back to 
us by the eyes around us any less distorted? 
If our visions are warped by our fears, then 
theirs are twisted by their preconceptions. 

They do however, have the strength of 
numbers. A lone voice shouting into the 
wind, unsupported, no matter how committed, 
must eventually tire and give in. After all, 
that many people cannot all be wrong. Thus 
is society shaped and controlled. Thus are 
prophets born or destroyed.

And we are not prophets.

Would you have had the strength to start 
this journey without Samantha to lead you, 
to guide you ... to blame? Was she a 
talisman...or an excuse?  Did you need the 
camouflage of obsession to find the strength 
to continue a search for the truths that 
most people don't really want to find? Was 
she the reward, the goal you never really 
thought you would achieve, a substitute for 
the gratitude that no one else would offer?

Did you follow her, the way I followed you?

You always saw me first. Did I ever thank 
you for that? You looked at me and saw the 
person I wanted to be...and the person it was 
so hard to believe that I was. You saw 
strength, so for you I was strong. 

Do you know how weak that made me feel?

Yet if I saved you, truly made you a whole 
person, then you have done the same for me.  
Countless times, in a dozen ways, simply by 
being you. Do you have any idea how 
beautiful your courage is? For someone with 
as many doubts as you about the state of 
your soul, I have never seen you falter when 
it comes to your convictions. Without rules, 
without a net, you hurl your conclusions 
into the winds of disbelief and dare them to 
break themselves against the truth you raise 
like battlements around you.

If my science freed you to explore the 
limits of your beliefs without toppling over 
the edge of rationality, then you have freed 
me to take the chances I could never take 
alone.  I was as trapped in my world as you 
were in yours. Yet, I would never have known 
that, because I would never have ventured 
beyond the walls. 

Worse, I would never have known that those 
walls were there.

We crossed a line today. You and I. Perhaps 
it was inevitable that we reach this point. 
We chase the things that cannot be held, 
cannot be brought to justice. The same 
things which prey upon those whom we have 
sworn to protect. In the service of our 
duty, we are now forced to break the very 
oaths which bind us to it.

We can say the pretty words. Self-defense. 
But you know as well as I that that was not 
what we did. We played him as easily as you 
said that we would. We brought him to that 
point, to a place where we could do what 
needed to be done and still give it a veneer 
of legitimacy. But the spirit was not within 
the letter of the law.

I am okay with that, too.

There is no guilt in me today. No shame. 
only, perhaps, a kernel of fear. It was 
sobering how easy it was to mislead the 
people who should have known us. Who should 
have known better. It is ironic that the 
cruelty of his choices gave Bill the ability 
to believe where love could not. Because 
here is part of his truth. 

I have never stayed because of love.  

It is not enough.

Love can choose to trust. To throw caution 
to the winds and gamble that faith will be 
rewarded. And sometimes...sometimes it is 
worth the roll of the dice. But here is 
painful reality. Lacking knowledge, lacking 
precedent, love can choose disbelief and be 
forgiven.

We cannot.

Do you think I did not see the look in your 
eyes? The day the gargoyles failed to scare 
away the demons and I pointed a gun at you 
thinking it was my responsibility to protect 
the others from what I thought you had 
become. The day I truly began to understand 
that I was no longer free. 

You forgave me...but you made me pay for it. 
The sideways looks, the thoughtful glances. 
The ones that echoed the fear growing in my 
own soul. The ones with only one thing to 
say.

Is this the day I betray you for your own 
good?
 
It did not matter that you were not the 
killer. It did not matter that in any other 
capacity I would have been right to doubt 
you. Was it a test? Or was that simply the 
point you were making? Friendship, love, 
both are free to act on their doubts. Both 
have that right and that obligation. But I 
am your partner. I do not have that luxury.

My job is to watch your back.

I have to believe in you, even when I do not 
believe you. I have to act as though every 
possibility could become true, even when I 
do not believe it myself. Because it could 
be. Because there is literally no one else 
to catch you if I fumble the ball.

And the cost of being wrong is too high. 

There have been times I have faltered. Lost 
the partner within the shadow of the agent 
or the friend. It is a delicate balance. 
There have been times when I have declared 
my emancipation on the wings of common sense 
and logic. When a flaring sense of 
claustrophobia and resentment took aim with 
dogmatic pragmatism and stubborn 
rationalism. And you? How did you bruise 
yourself on the walls our partnership 
creates?  

So much power. So much loss of control. So 
many choices taken away in return for the 
strengths we have gained. And yet...

...I am not afraid anymore.

I have mapped the edges of the many that I 
am now.

You asked me if I was okay and I said yes. 

I meant it.

You used me as a weapon and I let you.  Who 
we are demanded it of you.  You looked into 
my eyes after it was over, saw the dark 
things living in my soul and did not look 
away. This is the truth we were always 
headed towards. 

We cannot take it back. 

We will not walk away.

One more step upon the soldier's road. A 
road that for every step forward, leaves 
something behind. But we'll take that step. 
A step in the direction of the inevitable. 
Toward the enemies we have been fighting all 
along. But maybe...maybe we are one step 
closer to who we need to be in order to win. 
And we are taking those steps as they need 
to be taken.

Together.