Title: Shadows of Winter

Author: Jaime Lyn

Email:  Leiaj21@hotmail.com or UCFGuardgirl@aol.com

Spoilers: All of everything through season 9 " this includes
everything that has to do with the baby, the adoption, and the
myth-arc.  And references to the story that came before this, Light
Moves.  If you dont know it, you might be wondering why Mulder and
Scully call each other by seemingly odd nicknames from time to time. 
You wont be lost, but youll wonder.

Rating: PG-13 towards the beginning, R towards the middle, and an
NC-17 section towards the end.  (Syb " this smuts for you.)

Feedback:  Um, yes.  Feed me, Seymour. 

Archive: Trying to post the story in its entirety, but its long and
the newsgroup is a pain in the neck. Once all the parts are up, and
out of beta, you may archive wherever you wish.  Just drop me a line
and let me know.

Small note about this story:  The story has been niggling at me ever
since the finale aired. And since The X-Files (the actual show and not
the fanfic) left the characters, the mytharc, and the entire William
saga out to pasture, this author decided that she needed to reel them
back in. If Chris Carter wasnt going to close out the mythology or
the question of Williams safety, well, someone had to, right?  If you
havent read the story before this, Light Moves, then you might not
understand the nicknames, but you wont have any problems with the
plotline.  Please be patient as I post this entire thing, as google
groups and plain-text documents arent my friends.  Plus, I might take
a nap and have a piece of chocolate cake.

Lots of love goes out to my Super-Betas, Mish and Sybil.  They defend
the universe against bad characterization, unneeded ellipses,
comma-splices, and extra words.

----- 
Shadows of Winter
By Jaime Lyn
----


"It was this moment of love, this fleeting victory over themselves,
which had kept them from atrophy and extinction, which, in her, had
reached out to him in every struggle against the influence of her
surroundings, and in him, had kept alive the faith that now drew him
penitent and reconciled at her side."
-- The House of Mirth


---


The two of them, swept under the carpet, drowning underwater, trapped
by the updrafts of limbo like dandelion wisps in a snowstorm.  
Nameless for a time, they clung to a precarious balance between past
and future; the people they'd become versus the people they had once
been.   To outsiders, they were an anonymous married couple, relocated
to Canada but originally from the United States, unfailingly content
with their no pet, no children lifestyle.  If anyone asked them, they
had moved from the Eastern United States to the Lake Ontario area for
a change of scenery and a chance to get away from the smog of
over-crowded cities.  But nobody ever asked them, and so the topic
never came up.

Of who they were, who they'd been. 
 
In reality, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were former FBI Agents,
long-time partners, and fugitives from a law that had ousted them from
its bevy of untruths and deceptions.  Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were
friends, and, up until nine months ago, only the most marginal of
lovers.

Now, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were officially un-people: un-married,
un-employed, and un-existing, they were un-parents to an un-child, a
baby with soft, piercing blue eyes had been given up for adoption
months ago.  Little William Mulder was their crux, the unhealed
flesh-wound for both of them; his absence reflected in the crevices of
dead silences and broken promises. The sadness over his un-presence
was un-spoken.  Everything about them was un-defined.  Had Fox Mulder
and Dana Scully been characters in an Alice in Wonderland book, they
would have celebrated their un-birthdays and had their own un-mushroom
to sit on.

And then one night, as Scully and Mulder sat amongst a scattering of
new furniture and a scant congregation of utilitarian belongings,
staring into a thick, orange-gold fire, Scully announced to Mulder
that they could no longer be who they were.   She planned to apply for
a job at the hospital downtown, all other methods and options for
employment having been considered and discarded, and she couldn't very
well go out and introduce herself to personnel as Dana Scully,
fugitive from the United States.  Their previous passports and papers,
stamped with fake names and fake histories, had been burned to cover
their tracks, and new identities would necessarily have to be created.

 Mulder had considerately suggested that she select the names, just as
he had once promised her a millennia ago that the next time they got
pretend-married, she could have identity control.  The silence that
followed this release of control to her was interminable and strange. 
She'd gone on to bed that night, silent, and the next day, had emptied
a box of books below the shelf in the living room, scattering them
over the carpet.  The books weren't really theirs, though; each book
was an un-book that belonged the house's former occupants.

"You want this crap, you keep it," the realtor had said, handing
Mulder a tarnished key to a storage closet before relinquishing the
rental agreement to them.  Nothing in the house physically belonged to
them.  Old possessions from the old owners were either thrown out or
adopted.   Mulder and Scully owned little more than the clothes they
wore, and even the clothes had begun to fade.

For days, dog-eared, faded books littered the floor of Mulder and
Scully's new residence.  Scully read by the fireplace, read in the
bathtub, highlighted random passages and even ripped out certain
pages.  Her selection process was excruciating and drawn-out, and
whenever Mulder had thrown out a name as a suggestion, she had merely
hummed at him and gone on reading.  Identity was not a concept she
considered lightly.

Finally, on an evening secured in shadow, him trapped, cross-legged,
between two oversized couch pillows, and she on her side facing the
fire, her back to his front, a decision was made.  There was no
electricity that night, not since the fuse had popped during dinner;
the fifth of six blizzards in a two week period had obscured the
comforts of civilization and tossed them about seventy years back in
time. Flames from the fireplace burned brightly from behind a mesh
screen, and the living room was a flashdance of black and yellow.

"I think I'll call you Paul," Scully whispered.  "In keeping with your
tradition of ridiculous pop-culture references.  Don't say I never did
anything for you."  She breathed slowly, in and out, like a trumpet
player counting the measures between each breath, her back arching
with the effort.

"Paul," said Mulder, testing the name.  He recalled suggesting a few
names from television, and others from old conversations they'd once
had.  He hadn't thought she'd even been listening, but perhaps she had
been.

"And you?" he asked, kissing the inside of her neck, his lips and
tongue reveling in her warmth. He imagined her nude, hot with sweat,
and squirming beneath him.  He wanted to make love to her, right there
and then, whether to make himself forget the past or make her forget,
he wasn't quite sure.  He didn't care so much about particulars
anymore.

She hummed with pleasure, seeming to forget what she'd been saying
until he prodded, "Scully?"

Her head shifted.  "Oh, sorry.  I decided on Lily. Like the flower."

Mulder sighed into her neck, considering the name.  "My partner the
flower," he murmured.  "There's something I never would have imagined
myself saying."

"It's from a book," she answered, her voice sleepy.  She exhaled as if
trying to expell the remnants of their professional history from her
body.  "Last name Selden," she went on, "From the same book."

Mulder nodded into her soap scrubbed skin, breathing in the fragrance
of coconut and desperation.  "Selden," he repeated, "Kind of like
Seldom, but not as often..."

Scully groaned, nudging him with her elbow.  She sighed.  "Which puts
us on a first name basis, I suppose, although I...I've never called
you anything but Mulder.   And now...it's like I'm living someone
else's life."

He nodded, rubbing her back, his head tilted in thoughtful repose. 
"That's actually...exactly what it's like."

He hummed and then pressed harder, shifting, as he made his way to her
chin, and then to her cheek, dancing a circle around the dark heart of
her mouth. Her pulse beat a fast, hard rhythm in the jugular of her
neck, and she asked him to undress her. Not slowly, but furiously. 
"Undress me now," she demanded.  Do it fast, hard, and now. Right now.
Time was slipping past, escaping them, and her bra needed undoing, her
underwear was an obstacle...
  
"Make me feel something," she whispered.  "Make me real..."  

A deep ravine of hurt stretched between them, and he tasted her skin
to ground himself, sucking in deep breaths, long and slow.

When they made love that night, right there on the floor of their new
living room, both of them kept their eyes tightly closed.  It was hard
to see past what had been, and what existed right now, and the future
was little more a blank document, a white screen with a blinking
cursor.  Neither would ever give voice to their greatest fear:

We can never again be who we were.  

---

Verona, Canada, was a small, tucked away community north of Lake
Ontario and west of Sydenham.  Stretching between Verona and Kingston
- the city to the south - was a bog that sloshed for acres.  Cameron
Bog, as it was called, while formerly an obstacle separating Verona
from the rest of civilization, was now nothing more than olive-green
sludge underscored with mud, a watery depression beneath the highway
that led from Sharbot Lake in the north to Kingston in the south. The
village of Verona itself was tightly-contained, close-knit, and nearly
cut-off from larger Canadian cities.

While driving without destination on a highway out of Winnipeg, Paul
had singled out Verona after reading a tourist blurb on the history of
Cameron Bog.  Thought to be inhabited by the infamous Kelpie Sea
Serpent of Lake Ontario, residents of the area had set up numerous
lodges, and fish-and-wildlife shops dedicated to folklore surrounding
the monster and the history of the village.  Paul had grinned, held
out the map for Lily to see. He circled the legend in bold, black
sharpie. He told her he'd buy them a camera, and first chance they
got, he'd take the both of them out to Cameron Bog by the highway to
investigate the mystery of Cam-Kelpie, the Sea Serpent.  While Lily
had not been of the Kelpie-camp, and had instead ordered her husband
to "shut up and eat his hamburger," she had agreed to the choice of
Verona for the location of their new home.  She had based her
acceptance on its secluded atmosphere, for one, and for its
Elizabethan name, Verona, for two.  Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of
Verona had been one of her favorite early European plays back in
college.

After a few days of searching, they ended up at the end of a pocketed
cul-de-sac, on a road that twisted like gnarled shoelaces off the main
highway.  The house was two-story, all brick and stucco and solid
wood, and flanked by three large oak trees and several old,
needle-less pines.  Lily had liked the tented circle of trees; she
said they protected the house, the way the branches twisted towards to
the bedroom windows like hands.  One maple-like creature pressed right
up against the second story, its trunk bent wide in an arc at the
base.  Paul noted that its bark was white, sickly. Positive the tree
was diseased, he'd wanted to cut it down after signing the rental
agreement, but Lily asked him not to.  Its so unnecessary, she
said, going to all that trouble just to cut down a tree. Paul, of
course, suspected the truth; Lily felt bad for the maple and couldn't
bear to kill it.  Not that she'd ever admit to such irrationalism
painting her judgment.

The tree stayed.

Paul had liked the space between the houses; only four, tiny,
Canadian-style cottages sat on their block, and all inhabited by
elderly neighbors who had been gracious enough to bring by cakes and
bread and lasagna during Paul and Lily's first week at home.  Since
neither of them cooked and the nearest Chinese food restaurant was one
town over, both Paul and Lily had been grateful for the meals; they
stretched everything out until there was nothing left but empty
casserole dishes and scraped tin plates.  Only then had they gone food
shopping, and at the grocery store, had disagreed on nearly every item
that went into the cart.  Paul refused to buy any food item that
looked or smelled remotely like Tofu, and Lily insisted that
Mallowmars were not a food group.

Their third week in Verona, Paul had taken a trip down highway 401.  A
light brown package had been delivered to a post office box in
Kingston, post-marked from A.D Walter Skinner of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, United States of America.  Inside the package were
credit reports, birth certificates, social security cards,
secondary-school, college, medical, and graduate school reports,
references from previous places of employment, references from
friends, contacts, names that never existed and never would again. 
All of it un-real, and Paul never asked how the papers had been
obtained so quickly.  Or at all.  He didn't want to know.  And if he
tried to call the man and ask, he'd never get a straight answer.  But
he called Skinner that day anyhow, from a payphone outside the
post-office.  He expressed his thanks, insisted that they'd "be in
touch," and drove home to his wife. That was the last time he
attempted to contact A.D Walter Skinner of the FBI.

Four months passed, and while Summer eroded on the deep bite of
Autumn, Paul noted that he and Lily had not been followed.  Or, at
least, all signs pointed towards evasion. Even still, his and Lily's
real names remained distant memories locked behind closed doors.  And
Lily still prowled the hallways at night, checking each room and every
lock before she crept into bed.  Paul kept their weapons in his
nightstand drawer, ready and loaded if ever the time came for he and
Lily to recapture the pieces of themselves that time and domesticity
had chipped away.

Forced familiarity created a sense of daily habit, and Paul slowly but
grudgingly grew used to the icy snow that insisted on killing his
grass and making everything crunch beneath his feet.  He hated it, but
he accepted it. Washington D.C, it seemed, made much better use of
their snow-plow, road safety system than Verona did.  This Paul
complained about every morning when he watched the weather report.

Lily dropped hints about perhaps buying an actual, real-live turkey
for Thanksgiving and cooking it in the actual oven.  Paul dropped
hints that he'd be buying new fire-extinguishers and leaving them by
the refrigerator.

Lily's impressive, albeit fake, medical background proved useful in
obtaining a job at University Medical Center, which sat on a hill two
blocks from the main highway. UMC was a small but lovely facility,
with an on-staff roster of about twenty doctors (who worked solely out
of the Emergency Room) and four nurses, who worked wherever anyone
needed them.  Since Lily's specialty was listed as pediatric medicine,
and since her bedside manner with children was as impressive as it had
always been, she easily fit into the daily grind as a pediatric
specialist in the emergency room. Her work tired her out, and rare was
the day she worked less than ten hours. But the smile on her face was
palpable and real when she talked about her patients.

"Benjamin had a broken finger, and he was so upset," she'd say, "but I
asked him to tell me all about his new tree-house, and by the time he
was finished telling me about the swing he made with his father's old
Firestones, I had splintered his finger. I gave him a purple dinosaur
sticker, and he was so happy, P.I - you should have seen the look on
his face."

The purple dinosaur stickers she bought herself.  She kept them in a
green Rubbermaid container that she brought with her to work.  Paul's
contribution to the container was a roll of red and yellow alien
stickers with googly eyes. Lily stuck one of them on the wall, along
with his goldenrod portion of the Private Investigative Practice Loan
Application. Beneath the sticker, a post-it note stuck to the
contract. In Lily's neat cursive read, "I want to believe."

Lily loved children, which made the fact that she could never have any
of her own all the more tragic.  Once, Paul had offered to buy them a
dog - a Pomeranian, perhaps, just as she'd owned during her life
before - but Lily had refused.  Besides stating the obvious, that Paul
hated yippy little dogs more than he hated rush hour traffic during a
blizzard - neither of them truly wanted a dog anyhow.  What they truly
wanted was captured forever in a photograph, a tiny child with big
blue eyes and a round, tiny nose.   The hole he'd left was sizeable,
pronounced.

The things he and Lily wanted but could never have were unspoken but
real, so real the absence left black spots in the stretches of silence
between them.
  
In the end, they settled for only each other, and their tiny house in
Verona, Lake Ontario, and they went on as they knew life should.

---

Paul Selden glanced at his watch, perused the wavering sea of white
coats, blue scrubs, and pastel-checkered candy-stripers.  His wife's
lunch break would be coming up any minute now, and he'd braved
sub-zero temperatures and concrete roads filled with slush and black
ice just to have bad sandwiches with her for lunch.  He had hoped that
his 'despite-the-ice-sheet zeal,' coupled with his irresistible boyish
charm, would earn him a broom-closet-medical check-up of the
afternoon-quickie kind.  Not that his wife was generally predisposed
to afternoon quickies, but more than any other despicable
meteorological condition, Paul hated the cold.  He especially hated
driving in the cold, and his wife knew this.  But more than that, of
course, Paul loved his wife.

Not that Paul Selden's afternoon routine was anything much to start
parades over, despite his unannounced foray into the cold.  Today he'd
picked up a box of office supplies, on nothing more than a whim,
really --he didn't even have any office space to put the supplies in,
yet-- and he'd dumped the box in the backseat beneath a half-inflated
basketball and a Ziplock bag of floppy disks.  The computer monitor he
rested on a blanket below the seat, its black screen smudged with his
thumbprints. In the trunk was an HP hard-drive buried amongst a pile
of unwashed towels, and Paul had hoped to butter his wife up with
quirky conversation and a cup of coffee before telling her about his
latest afternoon purchases.

More likely than not, she would first admonish him for his
transport-position choices; It's five-below, she'd say, and you should
have put the box in the trunk and set the hard-drive in the backseat,
because the electrical equipment will certainly freeze up, and what
good will it be to you then?  But when it finally hit her, what he had
done with their money, her eyes would go all round and over-sized, and
she'd demand to know what business he had buying a new hard-drive when
they hadn't even been approved for a loan yet.  His plan was actually
to stuff her full of Jell-o before she could finish him off with her
inevitable, Do you enjoy wasting what little money we have before we
even have it? speech.

And then he'd never get laid.  

"I'm so sorry, sir," said one of the nurses, jarring him from thought.
 She slid past Paul and through the flip-doors of the nurses' station,
pulling herself up to the desk.  Half a dozen files sat unopened and
splayed about the messy station like forgotten UNO cards, and one file
slipped off the edge and fell to the floor.

"Fucking receptionist," muttered the harried nurse.  She ran
stick-thin fingers through frizzy black hair, barely contained by a
pink scrunchie, and frowned at the state of her desk-blotter.  The
phone rang and she picked up the receiver with one hand, tossing a
brown clipboard at him with the other.  "Just fill this out and have a
seat, and when you're done leave it in the box--" She pointed to the
far wall, "And then someone will call you into triage."

Paul took the clipboard and set it back down.  His nose was still red
and cold from the wind, and the air in the waiting room felt familiar,
but in a strange way.   Paul had almost forgotten that he'd never
actually been to this hospital, and that nobody his wife worked with
actually knew who he was.  He wondered if she'd even told her
colleagues she was married.  He knew Lily wasn't much for personal
conversation, at least not with random coworkers, but he was pretty
sure she wore her wedding ring to work.

"Ah, no, I'm not here as a patient," said Paul, forcing a smile.  The
nurse glanced up with an un-amused glint in her eyes, as if she had a
weapon behind the desk she planned on using against him, and Paul
shrugged in explanation.  "I'm actually looking for... for my wife..."
 The word still sounded strange coming off his lips, and he clucked
his tongue a few times, swishing saliva around in his mouth to get
used to the sensation.  "She's a doctor here.  Ah, somewhere, here,
that is...Lily?  Lily Selden?"

The nurse paused for a moment, and seemed to run the name against her
mental rolodex.  After a few seconds she nodded, brown eyes scanning
him up and down in unconcealed, unimpressed appraisal.  "You're Dr.
Selden's husband?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow.  The nurse looked
wholly unconvinced.

Paul smiled half-heartedly.  "Guilty as charged."  

The nurse turned back to the phone and smacked a few buttons on the
keypad, pressing the receiver to her right shoulder, waving him
through the station doors with the air of one who had been on her feet
for five days straight.  "Whatever floats your canoe, I guess," she
said, pointing.  "Never would have guessed Dr. Selden for marrying a
tall guy.  You can wait in there."  And she swiveled in her chair, not
giving him a second thought.

Paul smiled in silent thanks, and pushed his way through the
flip-doors to the left of the not-so-happy-nurse.  A familiar melody
floated from the speakers and lodged in his ears; the musak version of
Muskrat Love.  Shuddering, Paul glanced at his watch again;
one-oh-five.  An awfully long one-oh-five, for that matter.

Paul tapped his watch and held it to his ear.  He was about to remove
it and check the battery, when he felt a slender hand wrap around his
shoulder.

"Paul?" asked a familiar, befuddled voice.  

Paul turned and found himself face-to-face with his wife's wide,
sleekly eye-lined, blue-green eyes.  One auburn eyebrow raised in
silent question, and Paul brushed a chunky lock of hair out of her
face in response.  Paul's wife, Dr. Lily Selden, while almost an
entire foot shorter than he, had a firm, no-nonsense manner that made
her appear taller than her actual size of five-foot-three.  She was
beautiful in an unassuming manner; with pale, summery-freckled skin,
dark red hair, a small, arched nose, and aquamarine eyes, she stood
out not as a dazzling example of perfection and symmetry, but as the
type of woman that once might have been an impressionist's daydream. 
For Paul, she was practically perfect in her imperfection.

"What?" he asked, leaning down and pressing a kiss to the underside of
her chin.  "I can't join my wife for lunch?"

Lily eyed him warily as he pulled himself back to his full height.  

"You broke something," she said, searching him for an explanation that
wasn't bullshit.

Paul chuckled and shook his head.  In his peripheral vision, he caught
the exhausted looking, front-desk nurse eyeing them.  Resolving not to
appear as guilty as he felt, Paul cleared his throat and put his hand
on his wife's shoulder, guiding her a few steps out of earshot.  "What
makes you think I broke something?" he asked.

"You're here, aren't you?" Lily cocked her head to one side and
brushed lint affectionately off the shoulders of his overcoat.  "Oh
no..." Her eyes widened.  "You're not actually hurt, are you?"  She
scanned him for a moment, concerned. Warm fingers brushed his
half-frozen forehead.  "You don't feel warm....  Cough?  Sore throat? 
Misplaced bullet?"

Paul shot her a wry grin.  "You're funny, Criminal," he said, using
her nickname to dispel her wary thoughts.  She let her hands fell back
into her pockets.  He shook his head.  "No, no, and no."

Lily studied him again, but this time, both eyebrows sunk in towards
her nose and her mouth screwed into a thinned line.  "Oh God," she
said, pressing a palm to his chest.  "It's the heater, isn't it?  You
finally set the house on fire and now we have to live out of the car."

The nurse at the desk snorted, and Paul groaned, pulling Lily farther
away from the triage area.  "Good grief," he admonished.  "When did
you become so negative?" He exhaled through his lips.  "Can't I just
come in and meet my lovely wife for a plate of macaroni surprise and
steal her away for--" He stole a glance at his watch.  "An hour or so,
before I go back to brave the Arctic Circle?"

Lily folded her arms and shot him what he'd always referred to as her
"wary-look-of-death." Lily had that odd look about her, that
squinted-eye, silent accusation stare, when she could tell by his
expression whether he'd done something incredibly stupid or was simply
holding back information.  Her shiny lips stretched taut into a
patronizing smile.  "Alright," she said, extending a you-go-first hand
towards the hallway leading to the cafeteria. "All right, that's fine.
 Don't tell me."

Paul shrugged.  Lily stood, waiting for Paul to take the lead.  When
he didn't, she nodded to herself, scratched the bridge of her nose,
and pushed ahead of him.

"'There isn't anything to tell," said Paul, pressing a hand to the
center of her back and leading her down the hallway.
 
"Sure there isn't," answered Lily, glancing back at him as they stole
down the shiny stretch of linoleum.  The pungent odor of bleach and
antiseptic hung stiffly in the air, stealing into his nose, and Paul
remembered suddenly why he had always hated these places.  Ironic, he
thought, that Lily would want to work in an ER after years of being a
patient in one ER or another.

Lily pulled the black stethoscope from around her neck and stuffed it
into one of her front pockets.  The upper right hand corner of her
white lab coat read, "Selden, M.D," and an ID badge hung loosely from
around her neck. The first time Lily had showed him her official ID,
the laminated card dangling off her index finger and thumb from a
bright, orange lanyard, hed read her official information out loud
and curled his lips awkwardly around her full name: Dr. Lily Selden, 
ER physician and wife of Paul Selden.
 
"There isn't anything to tell," Paul insisted, thinking back to the
computer and the box of office supplies that might, in all honesty,
set them back at least a month in expenses.

"Uh huh," she said, righting her under-turned ID badge.  "Just do me a
favor, P.I."  She glanced at him over her right shoulder, and smiled a
smile that stretched the ivory expanse of her smooth cheeks.   "Don't
ever again refer to me as 'your lovely wife,'  okay?  It sounds
insulting."

Paul opened his mouth to wittily retort, when she finished, "Or your
Sweetie Pie, or your Poopsie Woopsie, or your Bunny-Hunny--"

"Or what, Bunny-Hunny?" he challenged.  "You'll bop me over the head
for scooping up the field mice?"

Lily stopped a foot short of the pale brown cafeteria doors, turning
to him with her hands on her hips. Her blue eyes sparkled like heat
from a butane lighter.  "I'm a doctor, Hubby-Wubby.  Don't think I
wouldn't know what poison to use to finish you off."  Paul pressed a
palm to his chest as if wounded, and then raised the other hand clear
over her head, pushing open the doors.  "Or where to hide the body,"
she finished.   "I still know my way around a morgue, you know."

"Really," he said. "Then would you mind cutting my mystery meat for me
this afternoon, Dr. Slice-and-Dice?"

Lily fought back a smile.  "Just walk, darling husband."  

"As you wish, Mrs. Selden," answered Paul, leaning closer to whisper
in her ear, "Not that I would ever underestimate you, Sugar Lips."

Lily snorted, and Paul tried to hide the yelp that escaped him when
Lily "accidentally" stepped backwards in her heels and landed on his
foot.


--

Lily picked at her sandwich with the edge of her thumbnail, while Paul
bit down with relish into his apple and nearly swallowed the whole
thing in one chew.  Lily frowned at the ravenous way in which he ate,
as if his grand show of starvation was somehow a reflection on her
poor cooking skills.  Paul remembered the way she'd burned a steak the
night before and nodded at his apple, while Lily shook her head at his
silent question.  The red ones weren't nearly as good as the green
ones, he thought, but they were juicy enough, and beggars couldn't be
choosers.

"So, seriously," said Lily, pushing half of her sandwich onto his
plate.  It was an unasked for but appreciated gesture.  Paul's stomach
was twice the size of his wife's.  "Why did you stop by?  I don't
think you've ever stopped by during one of my shifts.   Or at all, for
that matter."

Paul shrugged.  "I told you," he said. "I was in the neighborhood."

"It's November," said Lily, rubbing the corner of her eye with her
pinkie, "And you hate the cold.  The only way you'd be in the
neighborhood now was if a snowdrift crashed through the windows and
dumped you here."

"You make me sound ridiculous," he said.

"I don't.  I just know you."

Paul grabbed her sandwich and took a bite - turkey and cheese - a
favorite of his, but not of hers.  "Were you even going to eat this?"
he accused around a mouthful of food, knowing full well why she'd
bought it, and that, in fact, she hadn't planned on eating it.

Lily shrugged. "I haven't been feeling all that great lately."  

While Paul knew his wife wouldn't deprive herself of the proper
nutrients, not as a doctor who worked nine to ten hour shifts at a
time, he wondered for a moment why she'd suddenly lose her appetite
for no reason.  Something was on her mind. Either something was
bothering her, or his presence had disrupted her individual balance
more than she let on, and he wasn't sure which option he found more
appealing. Or less appealing, as the case was.

"So." She folded her hands on the table. "You going to talk or do I
have to beat an explanation out of you?"  Her eyes twinkled, the color
an alluring shade of sapphire.

"Mysterious, mid-afternoon beatings.  A woman after my own heart," he
said, chewing.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," she advised. "You'll choke."  With
a quirk of her eyebrow, she reached over and stole a piece of bread
crust, popping it into her mouth.  In all honesty, she did look
slightly green.

Paul shot her a glare, shielded his sandwich with his arms, and nodded
silently for her to 'get her own'.  Lily chuckled, and a stream of red
hair slipped over the left side of her face.

"I was looking for some office space in the area," Paul finally
admitted, choosing to omit certain details and relay others.  "And
while I was out, I thought I'd stop by and see you.  And, you know,
scope out the possibility of some help-- a partner, maybe.  Or two.  I
thought I'd scatter some fliers for the firm up around the ER. See who
came-a-calling.  Hospital's a good place.  I could always hire someone
medically trained and teach them the investigative ropes later on."

Lily glanced at him from the corner of her eye.  "A partner," she
said, as if she didn't really care at all, but was only asking to be
nice.  "Funny, I thought I was your partner."  Her tone was flippant,
her gaze almost completely hidden beneath a curtain of red hair.

Paul frowned and glanced up at her from behind his sandwich.  He
hadn't planned on exactly what he'd say when he finally told her -
that he thought she might be happier continuing to practice medicine,
instead of coming to work with him at his as-of-yet unnamed P.I firm -
and he was unsure, right now, of how to explain himself
satisfactorily.  Certainly, they'd both need Lily's moderate salary as
an ER medic to help cover expenses, especially since any kind of
investigative practice wouldn't generate nearly enough money to live
off of, at least not at first.  And anyway, he thought that she liked
her job. She seemed to like it.

 But still, she had a point.  Lily was his partner, had always been
his partner, and Paul had never wanted or needed any other.

"Well...you know what I mean," he said, dropping the sandwich back to
his plate.  "I won't deny you're the best of anything anyone's got to
offer.  But we both know you can't quit your job to come work with
me."  She opened her mouth to protest, and he added, "Not just yet,
anyway.  Give it some time.  You're doing good work here, aren't you? 
You're happy?"

Lily nodded, looking thoughtful.  She was silent for a moment before
answering, "In that case, considering expenses, perhaps you should
just wait on a partner until you've got the loan secured, and an
actual office space to put the practice in."  She stole a potato chip
off his plate and popped it into her mouth.  "You can't very well
interview people from our living room, and we haven't got enough money
to pay someone else's salary.  Get the loan, buy some office
equipment, and find yourself a building, and then we'll discuss
possible partners."

He pursed his lips, taken aback by the non-argument. "We?" he asked.
"You mean you don't mind me working with someone else?"

"Annoyed I'm not jealous?" 

She shrugged, licking the tips of her fingers. "Seriously, if it's not
going to be me, it has to be someone, right?  You'll get yourself
killed otherwise."

He smiled, rolling his eyes.  "Thanks for the vote of confidence,
Criminal."

"What can I say? I know you."

"Nah."  Paul smiled with a waggle of his head.  "You only think you
do."  He popped a potato chip into his mouth, pleased thus far with
the friendly exchange.

Suddenly, Lily paused in mid-chew.  She seemed to consider him, as if
rolling the conversation around in her head for plot-holes.  Another
moment passed and her eyes narrowed, and she leaned back against the
seat, her palms on the table.  "Oh no," she said. "Please tell me you
didn't."

Paul's head tilted to one side, alarm bells going off in his eardrums.
 "Didn't what?"

"You did," she said, her tongue in cheek.  "You already bought
something, didn't you?  Is that why you're here?"

Trying to force all traces of guilt from his face, Paul scooped up the
sandwich once again and bit off an especially hard slab of turkey.  He
worked the meat around in his mouth and licked potato-chip salt off
the fingers of his free hand.  He'd forgotten how good Lily was at
deciphering him.  "Good sandwich," was what he said.

"How much?" she asked. 

Paul swallowed, and the lump of turkey stung as it went down.  "So,"
he sidestepped, waving around the hand with the sandwich, "Tell me
about your day..."  He waggled his eyebrows and added, "Snuggle
Bunny."

"How much?" Lily repeated, tight lipped.  

"Anything exciting?  Any amputations, lethal contagions, babies with
tails...." he trailed off, his elbow smacking the table.  Paul winced,
nose scrunched, and shook out his arm.

"How much?"

Paul bit his lip.  Lily had that shoot-it-and-be-done-with-it look on
her face, and the last time he had seen someone on the end of that
look, she'd actually gone and shot the poor bastard.  At first glance,
Lily Selden had the delicate loveliness of the flower she'd named
herself after, but in the same breath, she wouldn't hesitate to put
her husband through a wall if she thought the action best suited his
interests.

"Seven hundred," he said, trying to flash her his best sheepish smile.

"Seven hundred dollars!" 

Lily slammed her hands on the table, rattling the plates and glasses.

Several nearby doctors turned to stare at them, and Lily's shoulders
sagged as she lowered her voice and bent her head towards her husband
in thinly veiled annoyance. "Mu--" she caught herself quickly, took a
breath, and went on, "Paul, just where the hell do you think seven
hundred dollars is supposed to come from?  I've been working myself to
death just to cover our tracks on past expenses. For crying out loud,
we have expenses for expenses!  We--we've got a rent payment on the
house, grocery charges on the Visa, electric bills...Whatever we had
before we came here is gone. You promised you'd wait for the loan, and
once the loan came in - "

"Could you not talk to me like I don't know," he interrupted, his
voice a hiss. His eyes were deadly serious, and the weight of his
stare seemed to stop her cold.  "I'm not your dependent."

Their eyes connected and held, searching, wondering at the other. 
Paul had to ponder, in the span of that moment, if Lily had ever
considered what it was like for him.  To sit at home and do nothing,
like a useless house pet.  He and Lily had made a list of
possibilities, of things he could do to pass time while he waited for
the loan, but none of the choices seemed to fit right. He tried to
write, but, nauseous, could somehow never make it past the first
paragraph.  He thought about applying to teach as an adjunct, but
found he had no patience for a classroom full of inexperience.  He
entertained the notion of getting a job at the local precinct, but
being a cop and a fugitive, Lily pointed out, teetered the line of
danger.

He could kid himself into infinity, but what Paul really wanted was
the hunt, the investigation.  And the bank seemed to be killing him
with the hold up.

For almost four months now he'd sat in their quiet, Lake Ontario
cottage, turning the heat up and down, answering emails, surfing the
net, and watching snow collect in lazy drifts outside their living
room window.  He ran around the block in his overcoat.  He watched
Oprah, the Canadian BBC, reruns of Monty Python, and read enough
novels and mythology volumes to fill several bookshelves.  While Lily
went to work, Paul Selden stayed at home, pacing the floor, waiting
for truths that could never come to him while standing so still. After
years of constant running, of chasing after shadows, reality and
circumstance had finally dictated that his truth-seeking legs be
cut-off beneath him, and what was left was agonizing in its emptiness.

"I needed to get out," he finally said, annoyed at himself for
snapping at her.  "Even if just to buy some damned office supplies. 
If I could pull some money out of my ass, I would, but I can't.  I
can't do anything.  We dont spend all that much.  Seven hundred
dollars we can put back."

Lily nodded slowly, as if forcing herself to understand something she
almost, but really didn't, understand, and she raised a smooth, warm
hand to his cheek.  Her fingers brushed over his stubbled skin as if
in a whispered kiss, and she breathed a sigh through dark pink lips. 
"Do what you need to do," she said, lowering her index finger to his
upper lip.  "Just..."  She shook her head.  "Seven hundred dollars?"  
His mouth found the inside of her palm and he opened his lips over her
skin, tasting her.  Lily closed her eyes and exhaled.  "Couldn't you
just have gotten some printer paper?"

"I did," he said, clutching the inside of her hand to his lips.  "And
I got you an eraser that looks like Buzz Lightyear. Don't say I never
think of you.  But if you don't want it, you can return it."

Lily finally smiled.  "Eighty-five cents out of two seven hundred
dollars we don't have," she said, shaking her head.  "That's great,
just great."

--


"Hey Criminal, did I ever tell you the story of Loch Ness?"  

Paul patted the bed beside him, waggled his eyebrows. Lily blinked,
expressionless, toothbrush in her mouth, her lips creased with white
foam. She wore the blue pajamas, the silk ones that clung to her
breasts in all the right places, and buttoned with little pearly
circles that caught the light.  She frowned, padded back into the
bathroom, unimpressed.  The sink ran for a moment, and Paul could hear
rustling.

"Oh come on," he said, gathering up the remnants of the day's
newspaper and depositing the pages on her night-table.  "It's a good
one, I swear."

Lily poked her head out from the bathroom, locks of russet hair
dangling in freshly brushed waves over her shoulder. She wiped her
mouth with the back of her hand.  "If this story ends in 'we leave for
Europe tomorrow at seven am,' I don't want to hear it."

Her head disappeared again.  

Paul clucked his tongue, folded his arms.  "Do you really have to suck
all the joy out of my life?" he asked.

The bathroom went dark and Lily re-emerged, brushed, washed, and
exhausted.  Her eyes were rimmed with slight creases of purple.  She'd
worked eleven hours that day, ten the day before, and had been called
in during the middle of the previous night to perform an emergency
something-or-other on an eight year old who'd been injured in a
serious car accident.  There were occasions that Paul thought her
using work to avoid him - or perhaps just the idea of him - and then
there were other times when Paul understood the distraction and
decided to simply not ask her; he needed his investigative practice
just as badly as she needed her middle of the night surgeries.  After
years of non-stop movement, of saving the world before lunchtime, they
were now stranded at the door of monotony and neither had been built
for such a life.

Lily sighed, crawled into bed and leaned against the headboard, knees
drawn into her chest.  "Is there a particular reason you're suddenly
so interested in Loch Ness?"

"Didn't I tell you I'd take you out to the bog so we could take
pictures of the Kelpie?"

Lily groaned, rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm. "Again with
the Kelpie?"

Paul grinned.  "Think of it as a romantic weekend getaway. Just you,
me, the bog, a couple of sandwiches - "

"And mud, and snow, and, before the day is over, a hefty fine, a
ruined pair of clothes, a cold, a headache, and a lot of pissed off
locals."

"Is that a no?"

Lily shot him an exasperated look, settled back into her pillows and
fiddled with the alarm clock on her nightstand. With a backwards
motion, she scooped up the newspaper and pressed the crumpled
international section into his chest.   Paul pretended to cough in the
defensive, and fell back onto the bed.

Lily wanted to go out to the bog - he knew she did.  She just didn't
know it yet.  After all, with her occasional weekend freed up from
work and hours of nothing that stretched on like an endless string of
melted mozzarella, he'd have plenty of time to either charm her or
confuse her into a drive.   When in doubt, he could simply pretend he
was lost on highway 38.

"All right," she said, clicking away at her alarm clock, her back to
him.

"All right, let's go hunt sea monsters?" 

Lily turned, her blue eyes alive with amusement.  "Alright, I'll
listen to your Loch Ness mythology."

Paul pressed a hand to his chest as if struck.  He folded his arms
behind his head, gazed up at the ceiling.  In another moment, Lily was
beside him, her chin atop his ribcage, her fingers tracing swirls over
the planes of his biceps. Her breaths were warm, her lips wet and
soft.  The arcs of her hair lilted with the scent of banana - Lily
owned about fifty bottles of shampoo, each with a different scent. 
She had arranged each bottle just-so on the tiled alcove in the
shower.

Paul cleared his throat.  "Back in the mists and greenlands of
Scotland, there was a benevolent community of people living off the
land, tilling the soil, fashioning their lives under the fair rule of
a Druid priest. They had a sweet water well from which they collected
the entire village's drinking water, but The Druid, far wiser than the
commoners he ruled, had devised a strict rule that the well must
always be covered after drawing water."

Lily snorted. "You really do admire the sound of your own voice, don't
you?"

"You are positively killing the mood, here."

With a chuckle, she pressed a kiss to the underside of Paul's
shoulder.  "Go on," she said.

"The rule was followed by all who lived in the village, for not one of
the villagers dared disobey the words of a holy man.  But one day, a
young woman was in the middle of drawing her waters when she heard her
baby screaming from the house. Frantic, she rushed off to see what was
wrong and left the capping stone off the well."

Lily drew a breath.  "Was the well cursed?"

Paul laughed, and Lily's hair drifted over his chest, her cheek
bobbing along his ribs.  "You've been hanging around me for too long,"
he said. "You know that?"

"I should have it written on my forehead," Lily muttered, elbowing him
with one arm.  Paul took a final breath, exhaling on a sigh.  Lily
yawned into the springy hairs on his skin.

"So, what happened?" 

"Well," said Paul, "The well was deep, almost bottomless.  The water
was said to be ancient, springing forth from the core of the Earth
itself.  The pressure from beneath was great, and had been building
for years and years.  The Druid who founded the village had studied
the area, and he knew of the water's purity, its propensity for
bringing luck and prosperity.  But he also knew of the danger that
existed if the villagers left the well uncapped.

"When the woman dropped her bucket to tend her to her child, she had
freed the well from its bindings.  Within a few short minutes the
water had risen up and overflowed, bursting forth from the ground
below.  The Druid, upon hearing the explosion, ran outside to see, and
realized immediately what had happened. And even though the naive
young woman had caused the catastrophe, the priest rushed to her cabin
to save her.  Soon, the valley began to flood and the villagers had to
flee to the hills.  From that very flood Loch Ness was birthed, and
it's said that the ancient sea monster is the result of a spell cast
by the Druid, who wished nobody else to claim his waters."

Lily hummed, and her arm draped across Paul's abdomen, her palm on his
hip.

"The sea monster was actually not a serpent, but a water horse," Paul
went on, plucking a page of the newspaper off Lily's side of the bed.
"Complete with saddle and bridle.  When the weary off-roaders paused
for a drink from the Loch's clear waters, the horse would appear to
him, natural and real.  But when the unsuspecting rider got into the
saddle, the horse would revert into its monstrous self, and drag its
victim down into the depths of Loch Ness and devour him whole."

Paul paused, folding down the corners of the newspaper. The pratfalls
of being an insomniac and having a wife who was exhausted by ten pm
meant long nights staring at the ceiling, or re-reading the newspaper,
or folding the classified ads into Origami hats, or else brushing up
on every volume of 'Outer Signs' that he'd purchased from the occult
store off Main Street.

"So, of course, the villagers were terrified of the Loch," he said,
waving the newspaper in explanation. "But then, years later, Saint
Columba caught the beast attacking a swimmer who had gone to fetch a
boat for the day's activities. The saint raised the sign of the cross
and told the beast to turn and go back with all speed - and of course,
the beast complied, which is why tourists can go visit the Loch
unscathed every year. Although, if it were me, I would have left a
clause in the agreement for eating tourists..."

Paul frowned, folded the newspaper in half, and then in fourths, and
brought the smudged newsprint closer to his face.   He hadn't read
this section, had actually been saving it for when Lily fell asleep
and the inevitable boredom would chew at him.  He ran his finger over
one of the articles:

"Four U.S CIA Operatives Missing in the latest string of U.S
government disappearances."

Paul lowered his fingers to his wife's hair, brushing his thumb and
index finger through the smooth, silk strands.  A strange tingling
began at the back of his brain, sprung forward and then down, catching
him square in the chest.

"Hey Lily," he whispered, squinting at the headline, "Have you seen
this yet?"

There was no answer.  

Nothing but the low, evened sounds of breathing, of hot air pulsing
into his skin.

Paul frowned, and then yawned.  Perhaps he was more exhausted than
he'd first imagined.  He felt tattered, paranoid.  Lily often called
him restless.  With a shake of his head, he folded the newspaper and
dropped it onto the wooden nightstand beside the bed.

The white-shaded lamp cast a long oval of light across the mattress,
and over the carpet.  His brain turned the headline over again, and
for a moment he considered calling Agent John Doggett over at The
X-Files, just out of curiosity, just to see who had been put on the
case, and what the exact circumstances of the disappearances had been.

Paul's lids lowered like heavy drapes begging closure, and he decided
that calling anybody over in D.C was a bad idea wrapped in what his
wife would insist were misguided intentions.  Even if nobody had
followed them out to Canada, calling The X Files office over in D.C
would certainly be a mistake. Chances were high that it was nothing;
another series of murders in the heartland of false federal prosperity
and hidden, governmental conspiracies.  They could burn for all Paul
cared.

He flicked off the light with his fist, and the room was thrust into
darkness.


---

One half of the bed was empty, the simple gray comforter and ivory
sheets tossed over to Paul's side of the mattress with careless
abandon.

It wasn't unusual for Paul to awaken like this in the middle of the
night; nightmares were frequent, chaotic as they had always been:
jumbled slices of reality that twisted his wife's face into bizarre
forms of untruth.  He called out for her in his sleep, called another
name from a lifetime ago, and awoke to hollow discomfort; he could
smell her scent on the pillows.

Lily wasn't always there when he searched for her.  Sometimes, she lay
just on the other side of the bed, her soft body curled next to him
but her thoughts, her dreams, eons away.  Other times, she sat upon
the mattress' edge, her bare back to his front, her skin bluish from
rays of moon-shine.

Tonight, Lily was gone from the room altogether.  And while Paul
wasn't sure she necessarily wanted to be found, he missed her in a way
that constricted air-flow to his lungs.

After having once been yanked from Lily like a bandage, ripped clean
away for months, and then reunited with her in a dark, pungent jail
cell, Paul often felt an overwhelming sense of possession when it came
to his wife's whereabouts.  Certainly, Dr. Lily Selden would contest
that she belonged to no one except herself, but Paul Selden had no
qualms about belonging only to her.

Often, in the low belly of night, Paul recalled the months he'd spent
alone, collecting his thoughts on a dusty cot in New Mexico, the air
thick with straw and bramble.  He'd dreamed about the sound of her
voice, the way her heels clicked when she walked into a room, the way
she drove rental cars like a lawless mercenary.  How he could have
loved her without ever telling her; the idea was unthinkable.

Rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, Paul slipped from
the master bedroom and crept down the stairs,  feet following the
faint glow of yellow-auburn that glittered the steps.  The house was
'S'more-Toasty,' as Paul liked to describe it, perhaps even warm
enough to lay out in and perfect a tan.  But Lily's
piece-de-resistance was her fireplace, her prized, brick and marble
fireplace, which she dusted at least three times a day (to keep the
finish shiny, she insisted,) and which, despite the warmth of their
home, was a favored spot of hers to think.

Lily once told Paul that her father had always required, of each house
that her family had ever lived in, an old fashioned hearth to bloom
smoke from the chimney.  Captain Scully liked the bellow of gray
clouds puffing from his roof - a familiar signal to greet him when
returning home from the sea.  A symbol of life ambling forward, she'd
explained, as life had and always should.  "Keep them home-fires
burning, Starbuck," was what Lily often quoted.

The auburn glow got stronger at the bottom of the steps, deeper,
warmer, as if alighting the path directly into the sun.

Sure enough, in front of the fireplace his wife stood like a back-lit
garnet statue, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, her russet
hair a burnt ochre against her pale skin.

"Hey," he said, his voice smoky from sleep.  

She turned to gaze at him over her left shoulder, nodded in return. 
"Hey yourself."

He took a few steps closer, but stayed a good foot and a half behind
her.  Paul had known his wife long enough to know when she didn't mind
conversation, but preferred not to be touched.

"Can't sleep, Criminal?" 

She waved her hand as an afterthought.  "Restless.  A little nauseous,
actually."

"Sick?" he asked.  

"No," she said.  "Just overtired."      

"Okay, I know what this is about - if I giggle like a girl in my
sleep, just roll me over and poke me. You don't have to come down here
to get away."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said.

Paul pursed his lips and straightened the waistband of his sweatpants.
 "Is it the cold?" He smiled lopsided and gestured towards the
thermostat.  "I could turn up the heat, maybe play some Hawaiian
music, get a luau going..."

Lily shook her head.  "Bad dream," she explained, distracted, turning
back to the fire.  Her posture gave away nothing but silent resolve,
and Paul took the opportunity to press.

"Ah," he said, nodding. "I had one, too."  This time, Paul took a few
more steps forward until they stood side by side, not touching, but
individually gazing into a fire that burned from behind a wire-mesh
screen.

"What about?" she asked, not breaking her gaze from the flames.  

 "I was tied to a board and forced to watch Full House reruns." 

That one finally got through.  Lily laughed in a way that was more
breathy exhale than chuckle.  Silence blanketed them in the wake of
his joke, and the crackle-snaps from Lily's fire seemed to applaud
their ability to stand side by side and discuss the 'personal' without
spontaneously combusting.

"I'm alright," she said, answering his unspoken question.  She sighed
to herself, and when he turned to face her, her eyes were framed by
heavy lids, and gently upturned, auburn lashes.

Paul nodded, but said nothing.  

"I was in a car," Lily finally admitted.  "In the backseat.  I don't
know where I was going, but I think it was important that we got
there.  The roads were slick. It...We were driving fast."

"You and I?" he asked.  

She shook her head.  "No.  Not you and I.  I don't know who was
driving."

"Ah," he said, scratching spiky wisps of brown hair behind his ear. 
"But you were going fast?"

"Too fast," she replied.  Her fingers pressed tightly over her sides,
and her pajama top crinkled beneath her fingertips.  "I remember a
tree...." she squinted. "Yes, there was a tree.  And tires squealing. 
I... I was afraid we  would crash, and I think I was going to scream,
but..."  She turned to him with a forced smile, tears jabbing at the
corners of her luminous eyes; Dr. Lily Selden wasn't always as brave
as she liked to think she was.  "It was so dark and cold and I... I
couldn't scream."  She inhaled through her nose, and the sniffle
echoed.  "I tried, but I couldn't get it out."

"And then you woke up?" he asked.

"Yes."

Paul frowned.  Briefly, he tried to remember back to his psychological
profile training days, and what had been said about the phenomena of
REM sleep, about nightmares pertaining to real life.  Paul had, of
course, been of the camp that believed dreams were simply a form of
truth, a baser form of it too disturbing for waking reality. 
Generally speaking, dreaming about one's own death usually pointed
towards either a morbid curiosity with the phenomena of death, extreme
dread or apprehension garnered from everyday stress, or a deeper, more
subconscious depression.   If Paul had to guess, he would hazard to
say that a cross between the latter two was the problem, although he
wouldn't rule out a subconscious longing to return to the post-mortem
work Lily had engaged in before relocating to Verona.

Not that he was trying to profile his own wife, of course.  

Forcing back a sob, Lily twined a lock of hair back over her ear, and
her age molted off her like overused skin. If his wife was actually
thirty-eight years old, as Paul knew her to be, then her brain had
somehow forgotten to relay this important information to the rest of
her body.  With her un-styled red-hair and her unmasked freckles, she
was eighteen, perhaps, maybe twenty-one, but definitely not
thirty-eight.  So very far removed from the version of Lily Selden
that had once made police officers cry.

Lily smoothed down some fly-away strands, her hands working a little
too quickly.  "What are you thinking?" she asked.

Paul took a deep breath.  His arms folded over his chest.  "I'm
thinking..." He squinted into the fire; the deep tangerine flames
licked ribbons of smoke up through the fireplace.  "I'm thinking...
Full House is worse."  His eyes darted back to her, and then to the
fire, and then back to her.  He smiled with a tilt of his head.  "Much
worse."

Lily nodded with a soft "hmm" sound, smiling a ghost of a smile
through half-shed tears.  "That Bob Saget can be scary," she said.

"You stand in front of him, then," Paul returned, "Be my hero, scare
him away."

"When have I not?"

He directed an outstretched hand to an invisible audience: "The lady
has a point."

Lily's eyes glistened through heavy lashes; adoration peeked from
behind abject exhaustion.  When they turned back to the fire for the
last time, Paul felt the tips of her fingers nudging his.  Her palm
pressed over his knuckles, angling, seeking, and her index finger
grazed his folded arm.  He squeezed her hand with two of his fingers,
and together they stood in the companionable silence of their darkened
living room.

Together but separate, as always.


----


Sun squinted through the windows with the autumn scarlets, oranges,
and violets of sunset.  At the very least, thought Paul, there wasn't
any snow tonight - which was always a plus- even though it was cold
enough to freeze-dry pork chops on the front stoop. And at the very
most, Lily was home for dinner, a rare occurrence in her
nine-ten-twelve hour shift existence.

Paul rushed into the kitchen waving a piece of paper and nearly slid
to his death on a puddle of warm liquid.  His arms pinwheeled
backwards and he flailed forward, one leg kicking up towards his
chest, the other scarcely holding grip with the floor.  Paul gasped
and struggled for hold of the kitchen counter.  He hissed furiously,
bit his lip, and skidded about a foot and a half until the pantry
broke his fall.  "Holy shi--"

"I spilled some water," said Lily, and when Paul glanced up from his
twisted-limbed position at the counter, he saw she wasn't even facing
him.  She was bent over the sink, and the answering splash of liquid
informed him that she'd either been drinking something or cooking
something.  And the latter worried Paul enough to consider calling the
fire department for reinforcements.

"You don't say," said Paul, untwining his legs to stand fully upright.

Lily nodded without turning.  "I was going to make some spaghetti,"
she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She sounded vaguely
annoyed. "Anyway, you might want to look in the drawer for an Italian
menu.  I think I picked up all the noodles but I haven't yet wiped the
floor, so watch your step."

Grimacing, Paul reached down and grasped his ankle to massage away the
'ow.'  For a woman who had once boasted a ninety-eight percent
accuracy average on the bureau shooting range, she was an unbelievable
disaster with a pot and a spatula.  "Maybe you should just, um... not
cook from now on?" he suggested.  He pulled himself to his feet and
straightened the wrinkled sheet of paper.

"I can cook," his wife grumbled, and she finally turned to him,
slipping past with a large dish-rag to mop up the floor.  She bent
down in front of him and ran the towel in circles along the tile,
scooping up smudges of water and several remains of cork-screw pasta. 
She muttered something he didn't quite catch and slapped the floor,
glancing back up at him with a dangerous glint in her eyes.  "Did you
need directions to the menu drawer or something?"

Paul cleared his throat, confused.  "What?" She raised an eyebrow at
him and he remembered her request: Italian food.  "Oh, no," he said. 
"That's not what I wanted to ask you."

She frowned.  "What you wanted to ask me?"

Paul nodded.  He grinned and waved his crumpled holy grail in front of
her, waggling his eyebrows.  "What are you doing tonight, Doctor
Lady?"

Lily squinted and tilted her head, as if waiting for him to drop a
heavy object on her.

"I've got my first case," Paul explained, smoothing the piece of paper
clean enough to skim and paraphrase the information.  "Invisible man
breaking into a garage."

"Come again?" 

"Invisible man breaking into a garage," he clarified, slower this
time.

Lily sat back on the kitchen tile with her arms folded beneath her
breasts.  She opened her mouth once, closed it, and then started over
with a deep breath.  "First of all, all invisible men aside, you don't
even have a base of operations, nor do you have any proper equipment."

When Paul opened his mouth to protest, Lily went on, "Buzz Lightyear
erasers don't count as equipment, P.I."

Paul closed his mouth.

 "Second of all, you don't even have a license to practice private
investigation yet.  The paperwork hasn't gone through.  How - "

"Office supply store," said Paul, quite satisfied with himself.  "You
always told me my communication skills could use some work, and I
think I made a breakthrough today.  Done my little woman proud, I
did."

Lily narrowed her eyes.  Paul licked his lips, swallowing back the
urge to continue drawling in his bad rendition of a southern accent.
While Lily's expression was completely unreadable, he could've sworn
she was twisting the towel in her fists in order to strangle him with
it.

Finally, she sighed. "Go on."

He cleared his throat.  "Like I was saying, I made friends with this
guy in the manila envelope aisle. Nice guy, a mechanic, works
somewhere around here.  Anyhow, we got to talking, and the
conversation shifted to what he did for a living, what I did... You
get the idea.  I mentioned what I specialized in, and he mentioned
that something strange had happened in his garage.  Someone broke in
and screwed around, killed the cat -- maybe poisoned the cat -- he's
not sure, but he didn't see anything, and he couldn't find any sign of
a break in."

Lily said nothing, simply squinted her eyes as if trying to process
this, and so he went on, "And since I said I was a private
investigator, and that my practice specialized in strange phenomena, I
guess he felt comfortable enough to ask about emailing me with the
details.  In case I wanted to look into it..."

Sill nothing from his wife.  

"And, um... I, I do... want to look into it, that is..."  

Lily blinked and tilted her head to her left shoulder, and then to her
right.

"So it's actually... it's a good thing that I went to the supply store
today and bought that computer."

She nodded and cracked her neck.  For the life of him, Paul couldn't
make her out.

"Are you even conscious?" he bit out, finally.  

Lily worked her tongue around in her mouth, shooting him a dark look.

"So what you're saying," She waved a hand, "Because I want to get this
perfectly square, is that some guy just asked you to come and
investigate his garage for him?"  Lily's eyebrow raised upwards into
full-attack-mode.  "A man you don't know, who doesn't know you, asked
you to come by and poke around his private property without requesting
any proof that you're even qualified to do so?"

 "Anyone ever tell you you're a real buzzkill, Criminal?"

Lily's answering silence told him that she either wasn't bothering to
hear that, or else she was just considering the pros and cons of
busting a kitchen chair over his head.

"Look, I insinuated that I was an ex-cop," Paul tried to rationalize. 
I didnt specify anything in particular " but I gave off an LAPD sort
of connection. Or maybe I sounded more NYPD. Im not sure - one of
those big city jurisdictions, with the haughty types. I think I gave
off the right amount of arrogance.

And at the sight of her stunned expression, Paul immediately regretted
opening his mouth.

"You told him what?" 

Paul swallowed and cursed himself, realizing he could have worded that
better.

Ever since leaving Washington D.C, Lilys preoccupation with being
followed had grown from understandable fear, to compulsive paranoia,
to an almost all-consuming obsession.  She chewed her cuticles raw
with worry, and some nights, couldnt even sleep. For the house, shed
bought three sets of locks for the doors, installed them herself, and
re-locked each one over and over, every night.

Paul, meanwhile, although paranoid as hed ever been, had grown wary
of feeling well, wary.

Threats of being found existed, just as they always had, and all he
and Lily could do now was turn tail and hide.  And thus far, nobody
had come looking, not then and not now, and after months and months of
peering over his shoulder and finding only his shadow, Paul refused to
run anymore.  Before, in an effort to thwart both the government and
the supersoldiers, both he and Lily had backtracked all over the
United States, twisted down side-streets and dirt-roads, switched
cars, stockpiled cash, utilized aliases, and spent months covering
their footprints.  Theyd burned all their old IDs and passports. They
never uttered their real names.  He swept the house for bugs at least
four times a week.  There wasnt anything else he could do, and
surrendering back to the road was unfathomable.

Paul put up his hands, and Lily stood and advanced on him slowly, dish
towel stretched between shaky fingers.

At least in Washington, thought Paul, theyd been able to fight.  Paul
and Lily could defy their adversaries in plain sight, could tilt their
chins to the wind and scream, If you want me, come and get me, you
motherfuckers.    But all the lost months and running made Paul feel
like a coward.  He was sick, and Lilys nightmares had grown worse. 
He wanted one place, one destination. He wanted a base of operations,
a home.  They deserved that much.
  
Paul shrugged, tried to win her over with a coy smile, but backed away
from her until his hip jabbed the dishwasher.

"Are you crazy?"  She went on.  "Are you completely out of your
fucking mind?"

"Not any more than usual," Paul tried, waving his hands to somehow
pull his drowning argument to the surface.  "Come on, Lily.  I didn't
incriminate anyone.  I only insinuated that I once worked for some
as-of-yet unnamed police department.  So, in essence, Ive actually
cemented a phony background for us -"

Her eyes were wide and dead serious.  "Is that supposed to make me
feel better?  She swatted the dishtowel at him and missed by half an
inch. "This isnt funny.  You " you keep doing these things, taking
these obscene risks to get at the truth.  Youve done it for years. 
But now its not just you anymore.  Its us " you and me.  When are
you going to realize that?  What is and isnt worth dying for - "

He grabbed her shoulders to still her, and came dangerously close to
getting punched in the face.  She pushed against his stomach in an
effort to free herself, and he clenched her biceps harder, pressing
her arms to her sides to keep her from injuring both of them.  Their
eyes met and clashed over her thrashing arms, and when she quieted
enough to hold his stare, Paul searched her watery gaze for answers. 
He still feared she'd knee him in the groin for grabbing her, despite
her body having gone still, her mouth half-opened with breath. He
needed to know what was going on inside that head of hers.

In the back of his mind, Paul recalled driving cross-country with Lily
in their tiny, battered car, flooring the gas when she ordered him to
go faster, propelling the both of them through miles upon miles of
cornfield and ruddy earth until she finally okayed him to stop.  She'd
gripped the back of her seat and gazed into the rear windshield, her
eyes a mix of contorted emotions.  He'd just kept his mouth shut and
driven them faster, winced at the sound of green-plant hitting metal,
of tires squealing off-road, her voice, commanding him forward, words
filled with apprehension and intense paranoia:  "They're behind us,
Mulder - faster."
 
"Im not stupid," said Paul slowly, waiting for a reaction.  I
wouldnt have said anything if I thought I would endanger us.  Im not
going to get us killed.  You believe me, dont you?  She looked away,
and he prodded on, taking a dangerous risk. "Scully?"

Lily's face snapped to his in rubber-band quickness, her breathing
still uneven, and she regarded him maliciously.

The uttering of their real names, he knew, was strictly forbidden.  

Safety was a priority, and real names might be un-safe, but he had to
get through to her somehow.  His wife had a great many unspoken rules,
and while Paul could only guess that following these rules kept her
from losing her tenuous hook on normalcy and sanity, he was starting
to lose his.  Somewhere, someplace in between facsimile and reality, a
fine line needed to be drawn in the sand.

"There are things I need to do in this life, parts of me that arent
going away," he said, pushing an escaped strand of red hair from her
eyes.  "I've spent my life looking for the truth and I want to keep
looking for it.  I need to.  You taught me that."

At this, Lily's gaze met her husband's, and her expression steeled. 
She gave the appearance of a woman scorned, of a baseball coach
annoyed at taking pot-shots from the worst player on the team.  She
said, "I know youre restless. That you cant take the waiting around
anymore. But we need to be careful."

"I know."

"Do you?" 

Her gaze darted about the room as if searching for eyes and ears
embedded in the wall.  Her voice lowered to a whisper.  "Because that
man in the supply store doesn't know, and he doesn't give a rat's ass
one way or the other about how dangerous it could be if he finds out. 
And do you honestly think he couldn't do it?" Her eyes watered with
purpose. "Let's say that he decided to check up on your claim. Let's
say he got lucky and stumbled on the right branch of law enforcement,
or just on our pictures on some federal web site."  She shook her
head.  "There are still people looking to arrest both of us.  It's not
just these shadow men or these supersoldiers Im afraid of.  The
unknown has been after us for years.  It's the FBI.  It's the US
justice department.  It's not paranoia if everyone really is after
you, is it?"

Paul stilled.  Much as it hurt for him to replay her words in his
head, he knew she had a point.

"All right," he said, releasing her from his grip.  "You're..." He
fought to say the word 'right,' but found that his ego had problems
releasing such words to his mouth.  "You're not completely wrong."

That last part earned him another raised eyebrow.

Exhausted from honesty, Paul tilted back into the counter.  Lily
rubbed her arms to revive the circulation, and she breathed as if
trying to deflate herself.  Paul's wife never broke, but she certainly
cracked from time to time, and he couldn't blame her for that. Whose
fault was it that they'd been forced to run in the first place?  Who'd
broken into Mt. Weather, who got thrown in jail, and who couldn't
leave well enough alone? Lily had long ago adopted his ideals, had
searched relentlessly with him for his answers, but he searched
harder, like a man on a suicide mission.  Even now, he wouldn't stop. 
Even if he risked endangering both of them.   He was who he was, and
whose fault was that?

Paul took a deep breath, feeling suddenly foolish.  "Look," he said,
"I'm sorry that I - "

"You know..."  Lily rubbed the back of her neck, avoiding his eyes. 
"Much as how you went about this bothers me, I cant say that you're
completely wrong, either."

Paul cocked his head to one side, scratching the side of his temple
for understanding.  "Wow."  He pursed his lips and gazed, with raised
eyebrows, at a point just above her head.  "That's so strange.  I
think my hearing aid's going out on me.  I just heard --"

"Look, P.I, daylight's burning and I don't feel like standing around. 
Are we going to just sit here or go or what?"

Paul bent his head to meet her expression, venturing for whatever
truths she was willing to give.

"Seriously?" he asked.  Youre okay with this?  

"Seriously," she said, with a jut of her chin.  

Paul grinned, and felt a definite surge of adrenaline, a pumping of
energy that he hadn't felt in months.  "Then let's make tracks,
Bunny-Hunny," he said, extending an arm for her to lead the way.


--


The house was a brown, two story cottage not unlike Paul and Lily's
own rented property, and it had a slanted wrap around porch that
blistered in spots where inclement weather had gnawed away the wood. 
Two large trees stood like proud pillars out front, guarding a black
and gray stoned walkway leading to the front steps.  A Gibbous moon
cast undulating shadows on the pavement leading from the gutter: long
rays of inky black that danced over the grass and flower beds.  The
flowers were dead, and they had been, if looks were any indication,
for a long time. There was never a lack of cold weather in the Verona
area, and the bite of consistent winter seemed to suffocate anything
straining for warmth and sunlight.

Paul pulled open an outer screen door and knocked on the heavy wooden
one with the heel of his palm.  Lily stood a few feet away, her back
to him, studying the outlines of houses across the street.  She ran
her hand along the framework of a rusted porch swing, and bent over
the railing to search the side of the house.  She turned to Paul and
inquired, "Garage on that side?"

Paul nodded, and the door opened before him with a creak of hinges and
a flood of light.

"Paul Selden," exclaimed a gray-haired man at the door, who smiled as
if inviting in the warmth of summer.  He extended a hand to Paul like
they'd been old friends, and shook heartily, shivering at the cold
with a seizure of his shoulders.  "So you found it okay, did you? 
It's good to see you again - glad you could come by on such short
notice, I know it's not that early anymore... Goddamn, but it's cold
out here--come in, come in, this shit's deadly."

"No arguments there, Jake."  Paul nodded and reached out a hand to
Lily, who had crept up behind him and stood with her hands clutching
the collar of her overcoat.  "Jake Walker, This is Dr. Selden, my
partner in crime for this sort of thing."

Lily reached out a gloved hand to Jake and smiled thinly.  "Lily
Selden," she said.  "How do you do?"

"Ah yes," said Jake, standing sideways in the doorway to allow them
entrance.  Lily shivered the remnants of night from her shoulders, and
Paul guided her into the entryway.  Jake grinned at them with his
hands clasped in front of him.  "Sister, wife, or coincidence?"

"Wife," said Paul, shooting a grin at Lily, who seemed only mildly
interested in grinning back.  While Lily had no problem playing the
part of dedicated spouse, he couldn't imagine her ever feeling
comfortable with being introduced to others that way.  Especially not
in a professional setting.

Paul took a deep breath, sucking in the warm air of a heated foyer,
and waited for Jake to close the heavy wooden door behind them.  The
house blossomed with a eucalyptus fragrance, and a large brown pot by
the door held several tall green stems with tiny buds exploding from
each side.

Jake nodded and extended an arm towards the living room, leading them
both through a wide, dimly-lit corridor splashed with mismatched
family portraits and framed Crayola drawings, each one signed in
scratchy block letters with a different name: Annabelle, Joshua,
Lucas.  Paul glanced back at Lily and caught her running gloved
fingers over one of the encasements, a red stick person standing with
a green cat outside a brown house. The sky had been scribbled in light
purple, and the clouds were orange; a child's version of life.

When Lily caught him watching her, she ducked her gaze and focused on
playing with her gloves, her posture giving away nothing but stoic
focus.  Paul lingered a bit on the play of light over her red hair,
and for only a moment, he wondered whether his son's hair was that
same color.

"So what kind of law enforcement were you two involved in?" Jake
asked, craning his head to regard them as he guided them through the
house.

Paul swallowed, and he felt his wife bristling behind him.  

"I'm a medical doctor, and I was involved in forensics for a time,"
said Lily, forgoing a real explanation in lieu of vague generalities.
"And Paul was..." She paused, thoughtful.  "Paul is... a behavioral
psychologist."

"You mean like a profiler?" Jake asked, intrigued.  

"Something like that, yeah," answered Paul, and the look that Lily
shot him while pretending to study the photographs on the wall told
him that if he let too much slip, she would kill him in his sleep.

"Anyway, I really appreciate the two of you coming by like this," said
Jake, thankfully putting an end to the background check.  He turned at
the end of the hallway and lead them into a wide, sweet smelling,
carpeted living room.  A wooden entertainment center sat against one
wall, the embedded television flashing rays of light over the floors
and ceiling.  A VCR beneath the television blinked out the hour in
short bursts of digital red, and several Disney movies lay unopened on
a side shelf.

"Oh, we do this all the time," said Paul, turning to face to Jake so
that the two men and Lily formed a triangle in the middle of the
living room.

To the right of Paul, two green armchairs bookend-ed a faded, brown
couch, and the couch aligned a wall opposite the entertainment center,
where more family snapshots were arranged in a pyramid.  Adjacent to
the wall of photos was a wooden door, and, to the right of the door, a
kitchen.

"Really?" asked Jake. "Just the weird stuff?"

Lily and Paul exchanged glances, Lily's eyebrow raising just a hair.  

"We only like the weird stuff," explained Paul, and he winked - more
at his wife than at Jake.  Lily caught the gesture, and Paul warmed at
the sight of her lips twitching to conceal a smile.

"So you mentioned something about ghosts?" Paul asked, fighting back
the urge to tap dance around the living room in celebration of his and
Lily's return to the field.

"Well, I don't - I mean, I'm a religious man and all, and I believe in
the afterlife, but I don't know what the hell is going on around here
and I..." Jake cleared his throat uncomfortably. "See, my wife's out
of town visiting her mother, took the kids with her, you know? But
since I have to work, pay the bills and all, I stayed at home to take
care of things.  And I've been here by myself for, oh, about a week
now."

"And something strange happened?" 

"Yeah, something.  I think it's the ghost of a dead football rival,"
said Jake, eyes wide with apprehension.  He shook his head as if
embarrassed and shrugged.  "Or someone.  I don't know what live person
could have done this."

"You're thinking someone broke in," Lily said, changing the direction
of the conversation.

Paul grinned at her, and Lily pretended to ignore him.  Some things
just never changed.

Jake nodded.  "It was the damndest thing.  I was sitting in bed and
getting ready to turn the lights out, when I heard this ridiculous
crash--" He raised his arms and pressed them downwards, mimicking. 
"And I thought it was the cat, you know, because the cat's always
getting into shit and making trouble.  The garage's kind of my office,
see, and I let Aluiscious--the cat--I let him out there at night
because the garage is heated. It's also closed off--door's sealed good
and shut.  Nobody parks the car in my office, know what I'm saying?"

Paul exchanged a glance with his wife, and Jake went on. "So I went
out there to go yell at the cat...drove me crazy, that cat did.  One
of my kids brought him home one day and I let her keep him, but I made
him sleep out there at night.  Anyway, thing didn't deserve the end it
got."

The man sighed, ran a hand through his wavy gray hair.  "So, ah, I go
out there and I open the door, and I see all my oil cans lying all
over the place.  Just everywhere.  But no oil on the ground.  Whoever
broke in took the oil and left the cans.  And whatever was blocking
the cans was on the ground, and the damn cat wasn't anywhere."

"And how long had you been in bed?" asked Lily.  "Away from the main
part of the house, before you heard the crash?"

"Oh, I don't know..." Jake squinted.  "An hour, maybe?  Maybe more?"

Lily nodded, and Jake began walking again, until all three of them
stopped simultaneously at the wooden door next to the kitchen.  Jake
unfastened the brass deadbolt at the top, and went on, "So I start
calling the cat, I said, 'Aluiscious, Aluiscious.' And there was
nothing.  Usually, he meows.  So I went looking, and that's when I saw
him.  He was in the corner, dead as a post. Don't have any idea what
the hell could have killed him."

Jake opened the door, and motioned for Paul and Lily to step through. 
"So I didn't want to call the cops because the whole thing sounds
crazy - at least it does to me.  And besides that, my wife's good
friends with some of the detectives, and I don't know how I'm going to
explain thinking that a ghost screwed with my office.  Besides that, I
have to do something about the cat.  My kids are gonna be heartbroken.
 And I know I don't know you folks all that well, but this is a nice
area with nice folks, and since you live around here too, I thought...
well, if you want to come take a look, be my guest, you know?"

Lily nodded, and stepped past both men into the garage.  

There was the faint smell of rotted garbage, of decimation of skin and
decay...something not quite living.  Lily glanced back to her husband
as if to confirm her suspicions, and Paul nodded that he smelled it,
too.

"Gotta get rid of that cat," said Jake, and he pressed two fingers
over his nose, coughing.

Lily stood in the center of the room, perusing the space with her
eyes, and Paul stepped past her, a hand pausing on her shoulder as he
went.

The walls were gray, splotchy, and dented in dirtied, water spots. One
gray wall was lined with brown shelves, each brown shelf containing
various boxes of car-parts or cans of motor-oil, or else metal tubes
filled with some sort of liquid. Some of the boxes and cans had been
knocked to the floor, ripped from their symmetrical piles, while
others had been overturned, or scattered like candy to the far edge of
the garage.

The retractable garage door was sealed shut to the ground (as per
Jake's explanation) with some type of grout, or else some type of
cement, and a white wipe-away board was posted over the door; customer
names were written over the board with check marks and 'X's, and
awkward lines divided into vertical rows.

An L shaped, wooden desk sat front and center in the room, and its
mottled surface was littered with files and papers and office
supplies, and tiny, jeweled picture frames protecting the likenesses
of children dressed as lions and baseballs players and princesses for
Halloween.  An I-Mac computer sat off to one side, and a box of
printer paper sat next to the desk.  Three metal filing cabinets stood
like stout skyscrapers protecting the shelves above them, and a fourth
lay on its side beneath one of the shelves, dented, bruised.

"Were they all upright before?" asked Paul, pointing towards the
cabinets.

Jake nodded.  "Everything was ship-shape in here when I went to bed. 
I like to keep the office organized. The crash must've been that
cabinet falling."

Paul squinted, and then turned back to the cabinets.  "Someone looking
for information?" He glanced at Lily.  "Files, maybe?"

"I don't have anything interesting," said Jake.

"Perhaps someone else feels differently," said Paul.

"No, I don't think so." Lily stepped forward and pressed a hand to the
metal, running her fingers along an oblong, blackened dent.  "They
weren't looking for something. More like standing, trying to get
leverage."  She smoothed her hand around the outside of an uneven
depression.  "See this, right here?  This looks like the indentation
of a foot. Someone using the cabinet as a footstool."

"Does that mean something?" Jake asked, furrowing his brows.  

Lily rose to her full height and motioned at the splay of discarded
cans and boxes. "It means, more likely than not, that we're looking at
someone shorter than I am, if the intruder wasn't tall enough to reach
those shelves."

"But how'd he do it so fast?" asked Jake.  "I swear I was out here
right after I heard that crash."

Paul clasped his hands together and rubbed, still feeling slivers of
winter slice through him.  "That... I don't know yet."

"Oh."  Jake nodded, but seemed wholly unconvinced.  

Paul returned his gaze to the floor, searching the disarray for
answers.

Clues. 

Signs.  

Overturned cans of oil lay everywhere, dozens of them, lids pried
loose, but there were no stains on the concrete, not a drop of oil
anywhere.

Paul bent forward and scooped up one of the cans with gloved fingers. 
"Were these originally empty?" he asked, peering into the can as if it
was a kaleidoscope.

"Nah," said Jake. "Those are stock from work.  I take them back here
at the end of the night.  None of them ever been used.  The oil's
just...gone."  Jake shivered, and scrunched his nose at the dull,
lingering scent of barely set-in rigor mortis.

"Was anything other than the oil stolen?" asked Lily, circling the
room and eyeing Jake with the precision of a trained investigator.

"No, just the oil.  That's the other thing." 

"The other thing?" 

"Yeah."  Jake scratched his head and pointed towards the computer.
"Nothing's smashed or broken.  That computer's worth about a thousand
bucks, but it's still here.  And all the doors were locked, so I don't
know how anyone even got in."

"Could it be you forgot to lock the door?" asked Lily, always one to
look for the most logical answer.  She bent to the desk and examined
one of the files.

Jake shook his head.  "No, I remember locking it.  I was on the phone
with my wife and she told me specifically to lock the front door. 
She's always reminding me to do that stuff."  He shrugged
good-naturedly at Paul as if searching for confirmation of this type
of wifely behavior.

Paul granted an answering smile at Jake and dropped the oil can to the
ground in favor of another.  Each one he looked at had been licked
clean. The oil completely gone, with not a single trace left behind. 
There was something niggling him about that, about the oil going
missing without the cans. It was as if the oil just...walked right
out.

Paul shivered, his imagination whipping him quickly through a mental
stamp of a telltale checklist.  Missing oil, missing oil...

The black oil virus had that type of signature, but was more or less
contained only in certain oil rigs, in certain parts of the country
where prehistoric caves had been dug up.  It didn't survive long
without a host, and if it needed a host, Paul was reasonably sure that
Jake Walker would not have been left standing. Besides that, there
weren't any digs in this area, and the air was too cold for the virus
to awaken and survive. It just wasn't possible.

Or was it?  

"Any irate customers, Mr. Walker?" asked Lily.  "Disgruntled
neighbors, perhaps someone looking to set you back in funds?"  She
glanced up from the desk, where she'd been rifling through papers, and
finished, "Or perhaps someone with a key to the house?  Maybe a friend
or a relative playing a prank, looking to scare you?"

Paul bent down again and reached back behind one of the file cabinets
as far as his arms would let him.  The oil cans in the middle of the
room were too clean, too perfect.  Something was not right about that,
something important.  There had to be a can with residual traces of
oil still left inside.  Especially since the time-frame between the
crash and when Jake got to the door didn't seem to mesh with the
compulsive neatness required for this professional type of job. 
Either someone was looking for something in the oil... or else the oil
itself was looking to get out.

And that last part was unacceptable. 

"Can't think of anyone," said Jake, answering Lily's question. 
"Especially not someone who would want to kill my cat."

"Right, the cat," Lily murmured, as if to herself.  She paused.  "The
cat's still out here.   Can you show me where?"

Finally, Paul's fingers closed around the rim of a can, and he
wriggled around between the cabinets and the opposing wall in order to
yank the object free.  Sitting back on his folded legs, Paul turned
the can over and over in his hands  and examined the inside.

Unlike the others, the shadowed depths of this can were most
definitely not clean, and the color of the liquid left clutching to
the sides was most definitely not black.  Paul's jaw moved stiffly,
compulsively, as he considered the familiar color of this liquid:
deep, emerald green.  Congealed. Speckled with black and yellow in
certain places, but mostly green, and hugging the circular tin can in
thick, soupy blobs.  A dusty ray of yellow light poured through one
side of the can, where a rusted, jagged hole had eaten the metal clean
away.

"Cat's crumpled up behind one of those boxes," said Jake.  "I'll go
move them for you."

Paul cleared his throat and tried to push back an encroaching wave of
unease. "Lily," he said, gazing into the can with disbelief.  "I think
you'd better take a look at this."

Lily frowned, and her questioning gaze was accompanied by a raised,
russet eyebrow.  Paul said nothing further, and long accustomed to the
way that he worked, Lily was at his side an instant later, with Jake
standing not far behind her, both of them peering over Paul's shoulder
to get a good look at the evidence.

"What does this look like to you?" Paul asked, tipping the can so she
could better examine the inside.

The room fell silent, and his wife's breath caught dead in her throat.

Paul glanced backwards and saw that she'd gone almost completely
white, her dark pink lips and blue eyes no more than angry streaks of
color across otherwise colorless skin.  Her mouth opened as if to
postulate a theory, but no sound came out, and only Jake's voice was
audible in the silent garage.

"What in the hell is that?" he asked.  "Doesn't look like oil to me."

"No," said Paul, unable to break his gaze with his wife, his stomach
churning into twisted knots.  "It doesn't, does it?"

Lily finally cleared her throat, but her cracked tone was unsteady
when she spoke. "It's an acid solution," she lied, her gaze never
wavering from the green substance in the can.  "Not a highly volatile
one, but acid nonetheless. The solution's corroded part of the metal
right there--" She pointed to a gap in the metal and made a circling
motion with her index finger.  Only Paul noticed that her hand
trembled as she explained. "Which means that the user most likely was
forced to wear gloves.  Further, I'd say that the compound was
homemade, amateur, because you certainly don't have a mess on your
hands here. Chances are you won't find any fingerprints, but I can
assure you that this was in no way supernatural.  Unless ghosts have
started utilizing chemical compounds to haunt houses. Do you have an
alarm system, Mr. Walker?"

Too fast, she was talking too fast.  She barely breathed in between
sentences. Paul caught her nervousness like a quick moving contagion,
but said nothing.

Jake shook his head but seemed relieved, nonetheless.  "Not a ghost,
then," he said, clasping his hands together.  "Well, this makes more
sense."

Lily swallowed, and her throat bobbed. "I'd recommend checking the
locks on your windows," she said.  "If an acid solution was used, it's
possible that the intruder melted the window locks and crept in
without using force."    She took a few deep breaths, as if she stood
two inches short of tilting her head back and screaming up at the sky.
 Her voice filtered in and out. "The cat?  You said it was around
here?"

"Oh... right, right." Jake stood back and allowed Lily to sidestep
him.  He turned and made for the opposite wall, and Lily finally met
the gaze of her husband, her eyes naked with fear, filled to the
lashes with abject horror.

Lily's breathing was ragged, uneven, and if Paul hadn't been so
assured of her not-so-easily-forgotten professional comportment, he
would have insisted on removing both of them from the house until they
could safely figure out just what the hell all of this meant.

Lily's brows furrowed, and suddenly she looked like she wanted to curl
up into the floor and melt into nothingness, disappear like hot,
sticky wax from a birthday candle.

Paul removed a key-chain and a small plastic bag from his pocket, and
flipped up a retractable Swiss army knife. With careful precision, he
scraped along the inside of the tin and gathered a thin film of green
liquid on the tip.  The liquid bubbled for a moment, and shone like
olive juice, splotched with ugly pebbles of forest green and black.

Paul held the knife in front of his face, tilted it from side to side,
and waited.  When the liquid didn't eat through his knife, he nodded
to himself and smudged the coagulated substance into the inside of the
bag, his hands surprisingly calm and controlled.  His eyes watered but
didn't sting, and he assumed that any and all poisonous effects wore
off in increments, as the actual substance met with oxygen and died.

Lily watched all of this with that pasty, numb expression on her face,
her blue eyes darting about the room as if looking for hidden cameras,
or waiting for Jake Walker to shape-shift into something else
entirely. Something terrible. Something she'd seen in her nightmares,
perhaps. Her voice echoed in Paul's skull: "Walls are listening."

"Cat's over here if you're interested," called Jake, and his voice
startled both of them.

Paul blew out a breath, and Lily raised a palm to her throat and
closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

When her lids fluttered open, Paul nodded at her and she broke their
silent connection.

Paul stood and placed a guiding hand on her back as she made her way
through the sea of overturned oil cans. Ribbed and dented tin
reflected prism-ed shards of light, scattering rays of white-yellow
across the walls; a disco ball gone insane.  Lily didn't turn back to
him, but Paul was positive she was aware of his thumb, tracing rough
circles over her spine.  Touching Lily made him feel grounded, tied to
this world, as if she alone could keep him secured to Earth.

"Here we go," said Jake, his eyes watering as he shoved aside some
empty boxes.  "Holy Jesus, that's rancid."

Lily paused at the foot of a molehill of boxes and gasped, and Paul
peered over her shoulder.  The stench of life-ebbing-away was heavy
and floating, and it stilled both of them in their tracks. Paul had to
turn his head so that he could cover his nose and keep out the stink. 
The irrational feeling that he'd be swept away again, taken from her
again, just because he'd breathed in the odor of that dead animal, was
nearly paralyzing in its totality.

"It's the damndest thing," said Jake, holding his sweater over his
nose to eradicate the smell.  "When I found him I thought he'd been
poisoned, but.... look at his eyes."

Lily's back had gone stiff, and Paul didn't need to see her to know
what she was thinking.

The cat's small, sunken eyes had been welded shut, and mucus seeped
from the edges with congealed blobs of dried, brown blood. The gray
and white fur of its torso was slicked back, damp with a foggy,
grayish film, its legs frozen in a deranged pantomime of broken
movement; the cat had been running, clawing for its life when it died.

Only one known substance could have done that kind of specific damage
in so short a time, and the idea made Paul literally sick.

"You think someone sprayed the cat with that acid you were telling me
about?" asked Jake, and his voice was muffled by his sweater.

"I, ah...Yeah.... It's possible," said Lily, but her voice was far
away.

Paul swallowed back the taste of lunch rising in his throat.  He felt
dizzy, disoriented, like he would drop through the floor and keep
going until he reached the core of the Earth.

At her sides, Lily's fists balled as she clenched and unclenched her
slender fingers.  Had she taken off her gloves, Paul was positive her
knuckles would be three shades lighter than the rest of her.

The air was thick with unspoken horror:

They had been found. 

--- 

*********************
Shadows of Winter 
Part II
by Jaime Lyn 
*********************

--- 


Lily Selden refused to stand still.  

And Paul Selden had no idea how to help her.  

It had been a half hour since they'd returned from Jake Walker's
ransacked garage, and Lily's hands still skittered with restless
distraction, her fingers shivering and scratching over her palms as if
looking for release in rubbing herself raw.

When they first returned home, she paced back and forth in the
entryway, her chest expanding and contracting in evened breaths, her
nostrils flared, her back straight, her eyes fraught with purpose: ten
steps forward, eleven steps back, repeat.

And when that wasn't enough, she went into the kitchen and poured
herself a glass of ice-water.  And after two sips of water, she
entered the living room with a dust rag and dusted the fireplace as if
trying to choke it.

 Finally, with no other rooms left downstairs to pace or clean, she
climbed the steps and disappeared down the small hallway leading to
the master bedroom.  Paul heard their bedroom door creak open and slam
back against the wall, and then he heard a thud, and then drawers
slamming open and shut.

With a sigh, he followed her up the steps, fist gripping the banister
with world-weary purpose. Truth be told, he had no idea what to make
of the evening's disturbing discoveries.  He didn't know what to tell
himself about the irrefutable evidence they'd found at the Walker
home, and he certainly didn't know what to tell his wife.  "They're
here" most definitely was not going to suffice, and anything less than
that would be a lie.  Lily Selden was no idiot, and she didn't
appreciate being patronized.  Her experience in the area of the
paranormal equaled his own, and she'd seen firsthand what happened to
those who didn't get away from danger quick enough.  And she knew what
would happen, what could happen, if she and Paul were found.

Either the walls truly did have ears, or else a rag-tag gang of alien
hybrids or supersoldiers had just gotten extraordinarily lucky.

Paul took a deep breath and pushed wide the door to their bedroom. 
Lily stood at the foot of the bed with a dangling precipice of shirts,
pants, and undergarments captured in her arms.  Some items were hers,
others were his, and she didn't seem to care one way or the other.

On the bedspread lay an opened suitcase - familiar and worn, the
leather handle cracked from its many adventures secluded in the trunk
of their tiny, used car.  Inside the suitcase sat half a dozen pairs
of socks, a few neatly folded shirts, a few pairs of shorts, a couple
of bras, and a few pairs of underwear. Lily was nothing if not the
most practical and efficient packer that Paul had ever met; she had to
be, after all, as necessity dictated they live their life without
permanent destination.

Paul sighed, and wondered how in the world he'd ever repair these new,
invisible stab wounds to their flimsy cocoon of safety; the silk was
beginning to tear.

"Lily," he said, pausing in the doorway.  

Lily glanced up at him; she blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes
from the corner of her lips.   A pair of black-lace underwear escaped
from her grip, and she dumped the rest of the clothing beside the
suitcase, busying herself with the act of refolding everything.  Each
shirt she finished folding she color-coded and laid in clean,
symmetrical piles next to the suitcase.  Paul cursed at this relapse
of obsessive compulsive behavior, and he prayed to God that there
weren't more than two or three shampoo bottles secreted in the cabinet
over the sink.

"Hey, Criminal.  You with me?"

Lily favored him with an impatient up-quirk of her eyes.  "With you
for what?"

"I, ah..." Paul stepped further into the room and sat at the edge of
the bed, opposite his wife's growing tower of neatly folded shirts. 
"I didn't realize we were taking a vacation."

Lily's eyebrow raised, and she straightened out the wrinkles of one of
his crisp white t-shirts.  If she had been any other woman so
diligently folding clothes, she would have looked for all the world
like a regular married person putting away her husband's clean
laundry.  The truth of it, however, was much more dry and deadly:
suffocating in its coldness.

They had been found.    

"I'm so glad that you feel the need to be cavalier about all of this,"
said Lily, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand and pausing long
enough to stretch her muscles.  "You know what we saw back there.  You
know what we're dealing with."

Paul took a breath and nodded.  The only way he knew how to argue a
point with a stubborn Lily Selden was to fight her with her own
arsenal.

"I won't argue with you that the situation looks damning," he said,
forcing calm into his voice.  "But for a woman who once prided herself
on gathering irrefutable, scientific proof before moving forward, you
sure are ready to pull up stakes based on nothing more than
circumstantial evidence."

And thus, fire came head to head with fire; he on one side of the bed,
she on the other, both radiating like hot coals.

Lily dropped one of his shirts and turned to him, her eyes glazed with
frustration.  "What in the hell is that supposed to mean?"
 
Paul simply stood and held up his palms, backing towards the bathroom
in his stocking-ed feet.  "I'm not trying to say anything.  I just... 
I don't think we should freak out and leave in the middle of the night
without first examining the situation.  There's no need."

"You think there's no need for concern."  Lily blinked at him, her
expression unreadable.  "Amazing. I'm in the twilight zone.  Here you
are, arguing what would have otherwise been my side of this argument
-- "

"Otherwise?"  Paul shook his head.  "No, there is no otherwise right
now. Otherwise has left the building.  It's better if we keep this in
perspective. We need to step back.  We need to examine this without
making assumptions. We'll develop Paranoid Schizophrenia and - and
start talking to our shoelaces if we jump to hasty conclusions."

Lily's eyes widened as if absolutely astounded by him.  "Thats your
whole argument? After years of leaping towards your hasty conclusions,
you're now insinuating that I'm somehow out of line here?"  Lily waved
a hand at him as if the waving kept her from yanking out her own hair.
 "No, Paul. I'm not jumping to conclusions.  I'm drawing a logical
inference - "  She took a breath.  "My conclusion is based on
observation.  On past experience, both yours and mine.   That cat - 
Its eyes -"

"Displayed all the symptoms of being exposed to a - " He paused, chose
his words carefully, "To a known toxin.  Yeah, I got that.  I know it
looks bad, and it probably is what it seems to be, but we can't be
sure.  We need to investigate this."

Lily groaned, a hand at her temple.  "All right, I can't believe I'm
about to say this, but maybe we need to err on the side of instinct
here."

Paul grinned. "While I think I just got hard at the words 'maybe we
should err on the side of instinct' coming from your mouth, I think I
actually have to disagree."  Paul tried on a shrug, but his heart
wasn't in it.  "We could be overreacting."

Lily shook her head, pressing her knuckles to the bridge of her nose. 
"Normally, I would agree with you, P.I.  My head... my head tells me
that we should just take the sample you bagged and send it anonymously
to a trusted source, maybe even sneak it into the toxicology lab at
the hospital to get it analyzed.  And then...and then I'd suggest that
we go back to Mr. Walker's garage and do a follow up.  Hell, I'd even
autopsy the cat myself and run the exam results against the results of
the compound analysis.  At least that would give us something
concrete, something solid for me to put my back up against.  But this
- "

Lily's shoulders drooped.  Her carefully sculpted eyebrows furrowed,
her fists clenched, and all at once, she was a detailed portrait of
desperation and malice and fight versus flight, wrapped in a fragile
skin.

"My gut," she finished.  "My gut tells me there isn't time for
science.  And if I have to forgo that safety net, if I have to
relinquish my need for practical methodology in order to, to - "  She
took a few breaths, circling with her hands, "To get a head start on
whatever this is -  to keep you safe, to keep us safe, then, well,
that's what I'm going to do.  I refuse to be caught with my eyes
closed.  Not again."  She folded her arms.  "Obviously, we don't have
a lot of luxuries here."

And as if lowered by a string, Lily Selden bowed her head; the idea of
losing her science, such a valued part of her existence, was likely
the most abhorrent thing she could ever think of. But she'd said it
now, and it was out there on the table for dissection.

"We don't necessarily have to pack up and leave," Paul insisted. 
"There are other ways."

"What other ways?"

"We could do that compound analysis thing.  I could investigate this
as a side-case and maybe... maybe call in some favors from Skinner? 
Nobody has to know that it's me."

Lily frowned.  "I dont understand you, P.I.  You hate Canada.  Why do
you want to stay so badly?"

Paul shook his head, unsure of how to answer.  How could he say,
"Because I really want to uncover the truth" without diminishing her
importance to him?

He didnt want to put them in any more danger, but he didnt want to
run, either. And if the truth was waiting for them here, then Verona,
Lake Ontario was where Paul wanted to stay until he discovered it.  He
wanted to reclaim his life, and this was as close as hed ever get. 
And if he could have his fight for the truth, and the woman he loved
in bed beside him, and a place to hook up his cable, well, then darn
it, hed be a happy man.

Lily used to be like that.  She used to live for the fight.  But now
she was running scared and Paul had no idea why.

"There isnt a good reason," Lily answered for him.  "And I'm done
pretending I can win the game when I can't even move fast enough to
keep up with the rules." She took a shallow breath.  "I won't lose
you.  Not again."

Paul spread his arms wide, at a loss for much else.  "I don't know how
else to assure you that I'm not going anywhere.  Because I'm not, you
know."

Lily just gazed at him, her blue eyes clear with disbelief.  A hollow
laugh erupted from her throat, and she gathered another of his shirts
in her hands, crumpling the material to her chest.  "And how many
times have you promised me that very thing?" she asked. "And how many
more times will you insist on patronizing both of us with it?"

Silence exploded between them with a rush of tension.  

Suddenly, Paul had a brief flash of lying on a metal table, watching
helplessly as steel saws rushed down at him and sawed open the skin of
his chest, splitting apart the springy brown hairs and splashing his
own blood onto his cheeks like water from a Dixie Cup.  Drills ripping
open the roof of his mouth, pulling apart the cartilage inside his
nose.

He'd dreamt of this woman in fits of insane delirium, imagined her
soft hands healing his wounds, her lips kissing away the bruised
splotches on his temples.  Lily was his anchor, his Plymouth Rock;
he'd tried to escape his captors, to come home to her. He hadn't
wanted to leave her in the first place, for crying out loud.  He'd
thought he was protecting her by leaving, keeping her safe with his
absence.  He wouldn't have gone if he hadn't thought that.  Each and
every time he left -

His hands shook with the venom of unspoken grievances. 

"Good job, Criminal.  After all these years, you've finally figured me
out."  His voice was low, and laced with anger, and he took a step
towards her to better direct his rampage.  "I live to promise you
false truths, break them, and then thrust myself right into the pyre
of danger to toy with your emotions.  It's all about misdirection."

Lily's eyes narrowed at his sarcasm, and she shook her head, shoving
him aside in order to gain access to their clothing. 
"Congratulations," she muttered, folding his shirt as if she was
trying to kill it.  "Now get out of my way so I can pack."

Heart pounding, Paul saw red spots dance in his vision.  His nostrils
flared.  He pictured again and again the metal table, the vision of
her that floated to him, that kept him from bleeding to death out of
jagged holes in his abdomen.

That Lily could believe he'd willingly lie to her, or that perhaps
he'd lied to her in the past - for no other reason than to ditch her
in lieu of a more direct path to the truth... What could she possibly
be thinking?  That he was jealous of her file history? That, after
having fallen one abduction short in the race to see which of them
could get abducted and tortured the most, he'd only abandoned her in
order to finally break even?

No. He didn't keep score.  He really didn't.  They'd both been
abducted once and that was it.

Not that he was counting. 

 "No," said Paul.   "Oh no, no, no."  He grasped her upper arm and
whirled her around, pulling her upright.  Her head snapped to his, her
expression furious.

"I tried like hell to protect this partnership," he hissed.  "Every. 
Single.  Time.  So don't you tell me what I did or didn't promise,
because if I ever promised you anything, it was that I wouldn't let
you die."  When she opened her mouth to respond, he bit out more: "I
may have gone off in search of my truth and God knows I've made some
mistakes, but whatever I did, I did for us.  For you.  Any promise I
ever made was with your best interests in mind."

Lily yanked her arm free and tilted her head back to stare frankly and
boldly into his eyes.  She looked unafraid of him.  "First off," she
said, "Let's not kid ourselves that anything was more important to you
than your truth.  Even now.  Thats why you want to stay here, isnt
it?  What, do you think I dont know you?"

Paul opened his mouth to object, and Lily cut him off with a
searing-hot glare.

"Second of all, who the hell died and made you hub of the universe?"

Paul tilted his head, wavering between disbelief and rage.  "What?"

"Who asked you to martyr yourself for me?" Her palm fluttered to her
chest, her eyes alit like glinting shards of sea glass.  "Who made you
head of this operation?  And who put you in charge of my life?"

Her voice grew louder, eating up strength like a hurricane in the warm
waters of the Atlantic.

"That kind of self-referential egomaniacism didn't fly with me ten
years ago and it doesn't fly now."  She jabbed a finger in his
direction.

 From the south-side of stunned, Paul managed only to get out a single
syllable, before she all but severed his comeback with a short, quiet,
"I'm not finished."

Paul glared at her, heat rising in his face, but he shut up, all the
same.

"I may love you beyond all good psychiatric health, but I am your
partner first and foremost, and I thought the deal was that we protect
each other.  Quid-pro-quo.  Not you protect the little wife by
guarding the homestead with a shotgun, while I wait in the bedroom for
someone to come and kill all of us - that kind of procrastination and
stupidity is what's going to get all of us killed now. I don't need
you promising things you can't promise, or... or sacrificing yourself
at the altar of your convictions like some self-serving, egotistical
Romeo."

"All of us?" Confused, Paul turned to gaze about the room.  As far as
he knew, it was just the two of them. Had he missed something?  "I
dont even understand what youre trying to get at, now.  Who is all
of us?"

Lily reddened, folded her arms. "Youre still in my way," she hedged.

Paul swallowed back stomach acid.  His head was two seconds away from
imploding. "Well, this is great," he said. "Now that you've lectured
me on proper fugitive etiquette, does this mean you're going to file
for pretend divorce from our pretend marriage?"

Lily pressed towards him like a wild creature, and her mouth opened
hotly over his earlobe, a slithery caress.  "Don't make me fucking hit
you, Mulder."

Paul stilled at the sound of his real name, tried to pretend he wasn't
startled by it. "Or what?"

"You really want to know?"  

He stood his ground, and tried to act like an angry Lily Selden didn't
scare the shit out of him.

She jabbed him and nearly punctured his lung.  "You act like I'm
broken, like I need protection from myself, or like I don't know
what's important to you anymore.  Trust me when I say I know.  I make
an informed decision concerning our safety and instead of considering
it, you tell me I need to calm down."  Her fingers curled into a fist.
 "You used to trust me. You used to trust my judgment.  Or did that
all end when I told you I enjoyed fucking you? You're not the only one
who's been forced to make sacrifices, and I don't need to calm down. 
I'm perfectly fucking calm.  I've made harder decisions in my life and
I won't make the same mistakes twice and I know - I know, damn it,
what we have to do to stay afloat."

Paul gaped.  Hed never before seen Lily this unhinged.  He had no
idea how to respond, but he needed to say something before his wife
got out her gun and blew his head off.

"Well, at least we both know you enjoy fucking me," he muttered. 
 
Hed meant it as a leavening tactic.

Granted, he should have come up with something better.  

"Youre not taking me seriously," she said. 

 "Look. Just - " Paul scratched his head.  "Back the train up.  When
do I not take you seriously?  And " and - when did I ever say you were
broken?  I never said that."

Exhausted, Lily teetered backwards towards the edge of the mattress,
her shoulders hitching.  She dropped onto the bed and slammed her fist
into one of the shirt piles; another minute passed, and she pushed all
of her handiwork clean off the comforter, spraying the floor with
their clothing.

When she turned back to him she looked nauseous, literally nauseous,
and she whispered hoarsely. "Paul, I...  I just can't do this anymore.
 This constant rage against the light.  It's not like I want to give
up, but it's just..."

"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me." Paul frowned. 
"What can't you do?  And what's this about Dylan Thomas?"

She sighed, patting his shoulder, as if unsure how to explain.  "What
if I think it's me holding us back?"

Numbed, Paul said nothing.  Out of all the things she might have said,
this was not on the list.

At his silence, Lily shook her head at some invisible evil, and went
on, "You trusted me to be there that first time, and I lost you."  She
fought for control through ripples of breaths, her neck bobbing as she
swallowed.  "I tried but I couldn't - couldn't do it.  I was the one
who couldn't cut it, who couldn't keep you safe.  When you left for -
" She stopped, re-chose her words, and went on, "When you said you
were going back, I just, I let you do it.  I fucking, I let you go,
when I knew, I knew something wasn't right.  But I was so arrogant and
I...  I convinced myself you'd be okay, that you could handle
yourself, that I should let you handle yourself.  I thought, we had
plenty of time to sort out particulars when you returned."

Paul deflated, losing air quickly, his chest collapsing like a dying
balloon.  "You can't really think that what happened was your fault. 
You're not psychic.  How could you have known?"

"I let you go so that you could find your truth, but I shouldn't have
let you do it without me.  I dropped my guard -" She punched the
mattress again, her knuckles a pale ivory.  "And that was my fault,
because I'm better than that.  And then when the baby..."  Her throat
seemed to close around the word baby, and after a moment she
continued, "When the baby was born, I told you to leave.  I divided us
and I was wrong. God, I was so wrong to do it.  The thought of turning
my back, even if only for a second, and finding you gone because I let
you stay when secret intelligence said you should go..."

Paul reached for her hand and she wriggled it away, trembling. Her
eyes communicated to him her distress; much too vulnerable still to be
touched.

"I gave you up.  I gave my child up. I was positive I couldn't protect
him because I couldn't even protect you.  Because I couldn't even
protect myself.  I was angry and frightened and, and now here we are
again, and they've found us again, and all I know is that I won't make
the same mistakes twice, even if it means we run forever.  We can't
protect each other by separating, and I won't have you bargaining
yourself for my safety again.  I refuse to wear your sacrifices around
my neck."  Her eyes glistened; a watery film over blue sea glass. 
"But I keep thinking, that's exactly what I've done to our child."

"What?  Sacrificed yourself?"

"No." She shook her head.  "Well, yes.  Yes and No.  I keep thinking,
that what I did for him - that he'll be forced to carry the burden of
this, this sacrificial legacy."

Paul closed his eyes, dropped to the bed beside her, and leaned back
on his hands.  "You made the right decision," he said.  He didn't know
what else to say to her. "And even if you could take that back, would
you have wanted this?  This life of uncertainty? For him?"

Lily opened her mouth, but said nothing.  Her fingers closed around a
clump of the comforter, squeezing.

"We've always made decisions based on the knowledge that what we were
doing was right," he continued.  "Hindsight fucks with your
confidence, but you can't possibly think that this is a situation
either of us could have changed or predicted.  Or wanted."

"No, I don't," she said, wiping away a smudge of brown eyeliner from
her cheeks. "Don't misunderstand me.  I've always felt confident that
the life I chose was just and good.  That someday I would look back on
all of the difficult choices and compounded losses, and understand the
greater truth in them.  But I'd also like to think I'm not at the
complete mercy of circumstance.  That I could have made different
decisions.  I could have made better ones. Because I'm better than
that.  Not every path is the right one just because we chose it."

Paul gazed at her and thought, for the umpteenth time in his life, how
beautiful and amazing this woman was, for all her infinite
imperfections and complications.   And he was wholly unable to
remember a time when he hadn't loved her. Her cheeks were red, her
eyes swollen, but her gaze was as steady as ever.  She was a foot
shorter than he, and painfully slender, but she was made of much
stronger stuff than anyone gave her credit for.

"Maybe you're right," he said, "And maybe there are an infinite number
of opposing universes mirroring this one, each universe representing
the choices we never made, right or wrong. But 'what if's' can't
change the past.  They can't reinvent the present.  Thinking about it
will only make your head spin."

Her eyes searched his, her skin glistening with tracks of saline. "But
what if I was wrong to do it?  And what if I can fix that wrong, now?"

Paul frowned.  "Wrong about William, you mean?"    

Lily opened her mouth to answer, but was abruptly cut off.

A deafening crash, like the sound of a hundred pianos being dropped on
a hardwood floor, interrupted the safety between them, startling the
air, destroying the moment; the walls rumbled their disapproval. The
ruckus was sickening in intensity and painfully short, like a gunshot.
  Lily gasped in an 'Oh' of surprise and gripped the tucked-comforter
of the bed with both hands, her shoulders going utterly rigid. Paul
grasped her knee with one hand and shot the other out like a
propeller, balancing himself as if waiting for the floor to open up
and swallow them.

The silence that blanketed them in the wake of such a noise seemed to
be choking off oxygen.

Lily's gaze met her husband's, and neither of them dared breathe for a
full ten seconds.  The house was still, electricity pumping light
through all the dark corners, and the only sound now was that of the
heater blowing warmth from a vent in the ceiling.

"Was that them?" Lily whispered, either unwilling or unable to move.  

"I don't know," said Paul, his heart beating erratic symphonies inside
his ribcage.

Refusing to take any chances this time, Paul swiftly decided that they
had no other choice but to utilize the road his wife had argued only
minutes earlier; act first, ask questions later.  No science, no
waiting, no thinking.

Lily's exhalations thrumming in his ears, Paul turned to the right
side of the bed and bent over, reaching beneath the mattress to pull
out a tiny, rusty key.  With surprisingly stable fingers, he pressed
the key into the lock of Lily's nightstand drawer, and slowly turned,
positive that at any moment, the entire house would explode or
collapse or start bleeding from the walls if he took too long.

The drawer seemed to unlock and creak open in agonizing slow-motion,
and when Paul reached for his wife's  nine-millimeter, he could swear
he was barely moving at all.

He handed the gun to Lily without introduction, and he could hear her
click the safety off behind him.  The mattress dipped with each of her
movements.  She didn't argue and she didn't ask questions; Lily had
always been, and would always be, a professional hard-ass first and a
mere mortal second.

Behind the gun, in an old necklace box in the back of the drawer, was
another weapon Paul had hoped he would never have to use again.  Long
and sleek, and glinting silver like a stainless steel socket-wrench,
only the two of them knew the amount of damage that this tiny, iron
weapon could cause.  As a matter of fact, they counted on it.

The deadly truth was that Mr. and Mrs. Paul Selden were wanted by
everyone: by the FBI, who sought Paul as an escaped fugitive of the
law, and Lily, because she had aided and abetted and disappeared along
with him. Within that structure of power, they were also wanted by men
who weren't really men at all, by men who were un-killable and
unstoppable, by men who had no names and needed no reasons for their
actions.  It was an uphill, relentless battle for survival, for
everyone's survival, and December 22, 2012, was the payoff date; in
reality, it wasn't all that far off.

Paul picked up the iron weapon and clutched it tight.  He nodded at
Lily, who stood up behind him and held her gun to her shoulder with
both hands.

"We're getting out of here," he said.  "But if someone's down there, I
might need a distraction.  You go down first and I'll be right behind
you.  Lights off.  If you think you see something, shoot.  But shoot
wide.  You saw what happened to that cat.  I need you to attract
attention without giving away our exact position, but I need to be
close  to do any serious damage, okay?"

Lily swallowed, nodding, her chin jutted in defiant resolution. "Stay
close then, and if you're going to move, let me know," she ordered,
making her way to the door.  "I could be shooting at nothing.  Or I
could be shooting at you."

Paul flipped off the light-switch and thrust them into darkness. 
"You're my partner," he whispered, his hand on her shoulder,
remembering her earlier concerns. "I trust you."

Lily turned, the soft smile on her lips communicating that she
understood him, that she understood all of him. "Stay close," she
warned a final time.

There was a fuse-box upstairs, embedded in the wall alongside the
master bedroom, which had been a crucial selling point when Paul and
Lily first looked at the house.  Killing the electricity in a hurry
was a necessary evil when you were on the run from everybody.

Paul peeked out from the doorway and crept down the hall, flipping
over every switch he saw, killing every light in the house quickly and
efficiently.  The heater shut down as well, and the walls rocked with
the sounds of breathing, of branches slapping the windows, and of the
hiss of wind rocking through trees.  Lily slid carefully in front of
Paul and he touched a palm to her back, eyes searching for her outline
in swallowing darkness.

Quiet and slow, they made their way downstairs along the wall opposite
the banister, and at the foot of the steps, Lily motioned for Paul to
take up a crouching side position, just in case there were alcoves and
hiding places she could potentially miss in her initial sweep of the
room.

 The walls were opaque black in the dark, nearly indistinguishable
from the open areas, and each piece of furniture was a possible
target, each shadow a menace.   Paul knew that Lily was near to him
because he could smell her hair and hear her breathing.  Otherwise, he
could barely make out anything.  The house was a black-hole of
suspicious movement and sound, and the air seemed to constrict on
them, threatening.

Lily turned to face him in the darkness, and he only knew she did this
because her hair whipped his cheeks.

"We need to stay in a central location," she whispered, grasping his
shirt so he could follow her.  The logic was sound enough; they'd not
searched the living room or the kitchen yet, and it was just as well,
because the entire floor-plan was swarming with pitch black
uncertainties. If something lurked in waiting, they had a better shot
of standing still and surprising it, rather than walking out into the
open and exposing themselves to possible danger.  They didn't want to
fight this thing - not here and not now- they just wanted to get away.

When they finally hit something hard, Lily pulled Paul up alongside of
her and patted a hand to his shoulder; she was alright.  A sliver of
light peeked through the wall behind her hand, and Paul realized that
they weren't standing in front of the wall at all, but rather, in
front of the doorway windows; he could make out the outline of his
wife's body, bending towards the heavy blinds that kept out unwanted
visitors.  A faint glow from the front-lawn streetlamp invaded the
darkness.

Lily nodded for him to keep watch while she peered outside, gun
secured against her right shoulder.  Paul nodded back.

When she gasped a second later, Paul darted his eyes to regard her
without taking his sights off the negative space in front of him.  His
head throbbed with a swarm of possible outcomes, none of them good. 
"What is it?" he asked.

She didn't turn, but touched a hand to his shoulder.  "I have to get
out there," she whispered.  "There's a car that must've crashed into
the tree out front.  I can see... Jesus, there are people still
inside."

"They might not be people," Paul warned, tugging on her arm to read
her expression.

Lily turned to him and nodded that she understood this, looking from
the gun, to the window, and then to the gun, and then to the window
again: the doctor in her at war with the nervous fugitive.  "You might
be right," she agreed.  "But I can't take the chance that you're not."

Fiddling around with her opposite arm, she groped for invisible
objects on the barely visible entryway table.  Silent for a moment,
she rummaged around until she finally pulled back with a flashlight.

When she flipped on the switch, a single beam of dusty, thread-y light
flooded the hallway.  Her gun still in hand, she directed the beam at
the table and grasped two more items as she found them: a cell phone
and a sparsely populated key-chain. Thrusting them at his chest, she
said, "The crash was what we heard.  I'm going out there to see if
anyone's been injured and you're coming with me.  If it's nothing, we
call 911.  If it's suspicious... then we get in the car and go.  No
arguments."

The flashlight beam hit Paul square in the chest, bouncing dim shards
of light back at his wife's face.  The lines of her cheeks undulated
in shadow, and her eyes were dark, determined.  The planes of her skin
reflected the stark contrast of black and yellow shading like a
silhouette portrait.

"Agreed," said Paul, his hand on the front door, his back against it.

Lily guided the flashlight beam to the coat-hooks by the door, and
Paul grabbed their trench-coats with his left hand.  Undoing the lock,
his eyes darting from the open blackness to the brass knob, he pushed
open the front door to a blast of icy wind, and thrust his wife's coat
over her left shoulder.  She handed her gun off to him and grabbed the
coat with practiced, skilled fingers, and was out the door in a
sprint.  He followed behind her, his head darting back to the house to
make sure nobody came at them from behind.

Pausing to yank his coat over his freezing shoulders, Paul held both
the gun and the iron weapon in one hand, and gazed out into the
sweeping landscape of night.  The grass in front of the house was
crunchy and brown, and the sprawl of it stretched for about fifteen
feet.  Beyond the grass lay a jutted, concrete sidewalk, and then
another stretch of grass that lined the gutter up and down the block,
until the street intersected with another street.  Each house along
this street was dark and silent, hidden to the world as if asleep. 
Winter, with all its frozen breaths and icy promises, had come to
claim the country of Canada with cold fingers, and most of the
neighbors here, a good deal older than Paul and Lily and long retired,
had left for warmer destinations.

Paul took measured steps towards the edge of the lawn, and Lily turned
back to him, stilling him with an upturned palm.  "Wait there," she
mouthed, and then she disappeared for a moment into the shadows.

Paul groaned to himself and yanked his coat as closed as he could get
it; this kind of cold had to be outlawed somewhere.

The towering oak tree in front of Paul and Lily's house was where Lily
had run off to. At the base of the trunk rested a gnarled, twisted
wreck of a car, the metal buckled and folded in like tissue paper
crumpled at the foot of a trash bin.  The hood, or what was left of
the hood, swam in wisps of feathery smoke, and one of the front wheels
hung nearly dismembered from its mortars, dangling like a loose tooth.

From the front lawn, Paul could make out a woman's head pushed clear
through the front passenger's side window, splatters of dark, almost
black blood staining the shards of glass left inside the pane. Her arm
dangled listlessly over the mangled passenger's side door. On the
opposite side, the driver appeared to have impacted his window in a
similar manner.  Both individuals were slumped, unmoving.  The car
looked old - 80's model Honda Civic, perhaps - and there had been no
airbag protection for either of them.  The windshield was completely
destroyed, glass chunks lying pell-mell about the grass and sidewalk,
and the amount of blood seemed to indicate that neither of them had
survived the crash.

Lily reappeared next to the woman hanging over the passenger's side,
and she shone her flashlight at an odd angle on the woman's neck to
check for a pulse. When Lily looked back over her shoulder and shook
her head, Paul breathed a bizarre sigh of relief; the crash was a
fluke. The people inside were human, only human.  Thank God.

Not that he had wanted anyone to die, but....

The victims were only human.  After the night they'd already had, and
with the threat of their enemies having found them again, this was
really all anyone could ask for.

Shoulders slumped, Paul unearthed the cell phone from his pocket and
activated it.

"Paul!"

He looked back up to see her tugging hard at one of the back doors,
utterly frantic.  Air escaped from her lips in quick, smoky puffs, and
when she yelled it was with a terrified waver, a high pitched shriek
piercing the blanket of frozen silence.

"Help me!  Paul!  Get over here and help me!"  

She tugged harder, wilder, her hair flying with effort.  And when that
didn't work, she struggled to unlock the door by thrusting her hand
through the shattered driver's side window.  Jesus, she was going to
slice her arm open like that.

Without question, Paul sprinted forward as she shrieked again.  "It's
stuck!  Oh God, it's stuck!"

She was hysterical.  

His heart pumping, Paul scrambled to the edge of the lawn and nearly
slid down a patch of ice.  He tripped over the sidewalk, rushing
forward. Closer now, he could make out the muffled sobs of a child;
Good God, there was a child still alive in that car?

By the time he pulled up beside the crumpled heap of vehicle, Lily had
already somehow tugged the backseat door free, and her upper body was
buried in the car's interior.  The back windows had been cracked down
the sides, but had somehow managed to remain intact despite what must
have been heavy impact.  The glass was tinted, and Paul couldn't see
inside the car to gauge the amount of damage done to the backseat, or
even where the child was located.

Lily was in there with the child, and she was saying something, but he
couldn't make out what it was.  Sounded like whispery, motherly
shushing noises.  If that kid was hurt, she would at least know how to
help him.

Circling the back of the car, Paul pulled up short beside his wife as
she emerged with a small, trembling bundle of  terrified child in her
arms.  The child's wails were louder now, almost deafening, and the
eerie, unfamiliar sound echoed down the street.

"Jesus," Paul managed.  "Is he okay?  Is he hurt at all?"
  
There were tears in his wife's eyes as she clutched the child to her
shoulder, ignoring Paul almost completely.  She rocked the child back
and forth with trembling arms, rubbing its back, assuring it that
everything would be alright. She cooed and gasped, and interspersed
hiccoughs with barely controlled sobs, and breathy exclamations of "oh
my God, oh my God."

Paul frowned and crept closer, his palm on the child's back as he
sought to make eye contact with his wife.  The wind froze tears on her
pale skin, and Lily pressed a kiss to the side of the child's warmly
bundled head.  She didn't even seem to realize anyone was addressing
her.

"It's okay," she whispered. "Shh, it's okay.  I'm right here.  Right
here..."

The first tendrils of dread rose in Paul's throat, and he ventured,
"You want me to call the hospital?"

Finally, Lily gazed up at her husband and turned so that he could see
for himself.  It was dark, but Paul could make out a child's face
beneath a fur-lined, heavy hood: a pair of tiny eyes screwed shut in
terror, a button nose scrunched, dark lips twisted in sob, cheeks
blushed with cold. Lily rocked the child harder, held him tighter, and
her ministrations seemed to calm him, if only slightly.

The child's eyes finally opened, and from the ray of flashlight beam
that shot up from the concrete, Paul could decipher the eye color:
deep, pacific blue, and framed by long, brown lashes.

Paul and the child gazed solemnly at one another, both sets of eyes
searching, probing, and a stab of inexplicable familiarity cut through
Paul with laser sharpness.

He didn't know what to say, and he thought he might be sick if he
tried.

"Don't call the hospital," Lily ordered.  "Not yet. We have to get him
in the house.  We have to get his things out of the car.  Oh my God,
the police will be by - he might be in danger.  We have to protect
him.  I don't believe that he - is this really happening?  I think it
has to be some twist of fate or it has to be - I don't know.  He just,
he came back to us." She was rambling and barely breathing between
sentences, and clutching the child to her chest as if she thought Paul
might snatch him away.  "Help me get him inside," she whispered.  "Oh
God, my baby. We have to get him inside before the police get here. 
Or God knows what else gets here."

Paul swallowed over the basketball sized lump in his throat, unable to
move or speak at this. If there was a word that encompassed the exact
opposite of fortunate, a word that somehow surpassed unfortunate in
passion and brevity, then that's what Paul would have used to describe
this freeze-framed moment of his life.

What were the chances of this baby returning to them so
coincidentally? Of his and Lily's biological child just so happening
to be in a car that just so happened to crash into the tree outside of
their house?

Paul shook his head, trying to gauge this strange turn of events
objectively.

The scene of the accident presented little to no clues.  

The car had hit the tree head-on at a high, undetermined speed,
although there didn't seem to be any indications that it had been
forced off the road.  The back of the car was practically untouched,
free of the usual dents or marks that indicated foul play.  Paul
hadn't heard tires squealing after the crash, or even seen a second
set of marks on the road or the grass, but that meant very little. 
The people who had once locked him up and tried to brainwash him, who
had gone after the X-Files, were also good at covering their tracks.

Not that the possibility of coincidences didn't exist; everything, at
the moment, was an open possibility.  From the looks of things,
chances were great that reckless driving had most likely been the
cause of this accident, but that conclusion did nothing to satisfy the
acidic unease in the bottom of Paul's stomach.

Either someone was trying to orchestrate their destruction - his and
Lily's and the child's - by luring the parents and he and Lily out
into a trap, or else the parents themselves had been untrustworthy as
adoptive candidates.  And while Paul wasn't so sure the latter was
entirely true, neither was he under the erroneous assumption that this
car accident was a lucky stroke of fate, or a sign from God that he
and Lily were destined to raise their child.  Coincidences rarely
ended up being less than contrived, and divine intervention didn't
mesh well with him.  Dangerous forces were still looking to wipe he
and his wife off the map, and Paul shuddered to think what they would
do to this child, if ever they got their hands on him.

"Mulder," came his wife's voice, and Paul nearly jumped at the sound
of his real name coming so loudly from her lips.  The syllables
sounded...foreign.  Strange.  And even her voice seemed hoarse,
battered, unconvinced that the name should be spoken aloud.

While it was true that his wife had first forbid any utterances of Fox
Mulder and Dana Scully, of their names or their lives, Paul had
willingly played along.  More than willingly, even.  It wasn't truly
fear of being overheard that drove them to such lengths; it was regret
and sorrow, and a need to shed their wounded skins to try and forget
the past.

But the truth was unforgiving, and the past could never be forgotten.

Paul obediently looked towards his wife, searching for her familiar
eyes like a lost hiker searching for the direction of the setting sun.
 He shivered and pulled his coat closer.  He wished he could somehow
erase all of their fear and unhappiness, just wipe the slate clean and
start over with new chalk.

"It's him?" Paul managed, his feet too heavy to move.  "Are you -
you're sure?"

Lily's familiar gaze sparked with conviction - completion, a
glittering of happiness, a light that he imagined had long ago been
snuffed out. She smiled through her tears, her lips grazing the hood
of the baby's winter coat.  "I haven't seen him in such a long time,
but I knew when I first saw him.  He's bigger now, but he's still my
baby."   She swallowed, her tentative smile setting off its own
illumination.  The child sniffled, but otherwise didn't cry.  "Look at
him, Mulder.  He has your smile. And the shape of his eyes - he's so
much like you."

And thus, all tenuous control over objectivity he'd previously felt
was abruptly lost.  Paul's lower lip trembled, and he felt suddenly
afraid to speak.  He had never before considered that their child
could look anything like him; her pregnancy had been hard and strange,
and he'd always partially viewed this baby as her baby, and not his -
well, yes of course it was his, but only his in the most marginal,
biological sense.  Besides that, the last time Paul had seen this
baby, he'd looked....well, like a baby.  Any baby.  Like her baby,
perhaps, but not his baby.

But now that Paul really looked...

No longer a tiny infant, this child was approaching the threshold of
toddler-hood, and while his face was shaped and shaded like Lily's, he
had big blue eyes that reminded Paul of his mother's eyes.  Of
Samantha's eyes. Come to think of it, the shade of this baby's eyes
were more like Samantha's violet-blue than Scully's aqua-blue.

Or Lily's.   Lily's aqua-blue. 

Or whoever she was.  

 "Oh my God," Paul breathed. 

Awe-struck, he touched the child's nose with a trembling index finger,
all at once nervous that William would somehow pop and disappear if he
pressed too hard.   Breaking his own son right after being reunited
with him was probably not a smart idea.

William merely blinked, still unconvinced that this big tall guy was
friendly, and he burrowed his face into Scully's heavy overcoat.  The
air was unbearably thick with cold, with biting wind whisking about
their flushed cheeks; tears dried quickly on his partner's skin. They
were together again, just the three of them, suspended in time,
trapped in this icicle of circumstance, drifting without purpose
through the heart of winter.

"It's okay," Scully soothed, her throat bobbing in uncontrollable
hiccough, and Mulder was unsure whether she meant him or William.  She
nodded at Mulder for clarification and ordered, "Breathe, Mulder."

And, noticing for the first time that his lungs hurt, Mulder complied.
 He drew in a large breath, and felt suddenly as if he'd been drowning
for much too long.

"Deep breaths, in and out, there you go," Scully said. Her grin was
lopsided and peppered with lingering sniffles. "You can say something,
you know.  I promise, you won't hurt him."

Mulder nodded, utterly unconvinced, and drew in a second, heavy
breath.

"William," he whispered, for lack of better things to say.  He kept
his distance, but smiled in a way that he hoped wouldn't frighten
anyone. "Hey - um... Let's say we do what we need to do and go inside.
 It's cold out here, isn't it?"

---

The house wasn't warm enough.  

That was all Mulder could think of as he opened the door and ushered
them across the threshold; damn house was swimming with stowaway wisps
of iced uncertainty, unwanted winter reminders trickling up the
stairs, through the kitchen, up into the fireplace.  It was always too
cold outside, snowing all the damned time, freezing up the roads,
suffocating the grass, and now the house was just as bad.

Mulder guided them up the steps with a soft, slender beam from
Scully's flashlight.  He shivered into his overcoat but couldn't shake
the tendrils of winter from his skin.

He'd slipped the gun and the iron weapon into his overcoat pocket,
worried that such dangerous items would scare (or perhaps somehow
injure) his already disoriented son.  In the hand opposite the
flashlight, Mulder lugged a small, rather utilitarian plastic child's
seat up into the swirling, stairway darkness. Because there didn't
seem to be anything else of William's in the car, removing all traces
of the child from the scene of the accident had been easier than
Mulder would have thought possible.

About three steps ahead of him, Scully clutched William to her chest
with the practiced care of not-so-forgotten motherhood.  She whispered
indecipherable utterances into the baby's soft, delicate ears,
occasionally humming to him, and she glanced backwards every once in
awhile to make sure Mulder was right behind her.

Mulder swallowed and winced at the sight of Scully so content; William
had been returned to them, but that didn't make everything alright. 
Danger still hovered over them like cumulonimbus cloud-tops gathering
for a downpour, and if William had been brought back to them for a
specific purpose, chances were great that this purpose involved either
abduction, torture, death, or all of the above.  Fox Mulder and Dana
Scully had a bad track record with that sort of thing, and dying for
the truth wasn't anything they hadn't already considered or planned
for; it wasn't terribly uplifting, but it was acceptable.  Their son
meeting a similar end, however, was simply unthinkable.

"I'm putting him in our bed," Scully whispered down to Mulder. "We'll
have to stay on the floor tonight."

Mulder nodded, angling the flashlight beam at a point above her head. 
"Are you sure that's safe for him?" he asked, although he wasn't
really talking about the bed.

"Should be alright," said Scully.  She sounded far away.  "I'll just
have to put some pillows down and watch him."

"Okay," said Mulder.  He didn't know what the hell else to say to her,
or to himself.

Questions and worried musings roiled around in his head like mush; Did
he love his son?  Yes, of course he did.  Did he know how to be a
father to him? Well, no, not really, but lack of parenting skills
wasn't really the issue.  The issue was safety, stability.  And even
if William's return hadn't been orchestrated, if the car accident
truly had been a bizarre coincidence, then the danger the child faced
still stood.  Except now, the danger arose not from without, but from
within.  From his mere proximity to the two people that were, by
default, supposed to promise him safety.

Except they honestly couldn't ever promise William that, could they?
Nothing had changed in the uncertainty department.

"I think we should call Skinner," said Mulder, directing the yellow
flashlight beam up the stairs like a grip wielding a spotlight.  The
night was dark and sucked away - everything but the outline of Dana
Scully and his child, stretching before him in hues of yellow and
orange.

"We're not calling Skinner," Scully answered, her voice soft and
melodic, but resolute.  Either William had fallen asleep in her arms
or else she was just afraid of frightening him into crying.

"Scully..."  Mulder shook his head and paused on the steps behind her.
 The flashlight beam wavered on the wall at the top of the stairway,
and its jerky expansion stilled.  Taking note of this, Scully turned
in mid step to face him, bracing their son on her left hip.   Her
lightly chiseled features glowed yellow and black, shadowed, and the
line of her lips thinned.

"We need help," said Mulder. "A form of backup.  If our cover hasn't
been completely blown already, it will be."

"We don't know what's happened to bring William here," Scully argued. 
"If we attempt to contact Skinner, we might give away our location. 
And that's not acceptable for anyone, not for William, you or I.  If
the people in that car were running from something - "

"But what if they weren't?  What if this is a trap?"  

"A trap?"  Scully shook her head.  "The people in that car are dead,
Mulder.  Their heads went right through the windshield - I highly
doubt they planned that part."

"Maybe not, but how do you know?  How can you know?"  

Scully pursed her lips and nodded as if in agreement.  "You're right,"
she said, wistful.  "I suppose I can't."

Her head tilted, and her dark eyes found the sleeping face of their
little boy, his flushed cheeks slumped into her chest.  Seemingly
exhausted from crying, he'd fallen asleep quickly, and he clutched her
shirt with both fists as if afraid she would evaporate.  "I feel that
this is right," she said.  "Our protecting him is right.  And while
following my gut over my head isn't something that comes easily to me,
I am his mother, and I can't explain how or why that makes this
instinct better, or more accurate than any other.  It may not be.  I
don't know."

Mulder breathed slowly, trying to digest these words for what they
were.  Dana Scully relying on instinct was a sight to behold.  It was
almost too good to be true, and it would have been reason for song and
dance, if not for the precarious nature of the situation.  And the
fact that he wholly disagreed with her.

"We could be putting him in danger," Mulder said lowly, mindful of the
sleeping child.  "You yourself said you didn't want to take risks
anymore, and this is the grand high pumbah of risks."

"I know that," she said, "But this is different.  And I've faced
greater danger before - I've faced this kind of danger before.  I've
killed for my convictions, and for you, and I'd kill for my child.  I
don't want to take unnecessary risks, but after pulling William out
from a twisted car-wreck, I can't help but think...he could have been
killed."  She kissed the top of William's head.  "Why?  Because I let
someone else take care of him?  I told you before; I'm not the type to
make the same mistake twice."

Mulder shook his head.  In the sallow stream of light, his partner and
his son looked more like apparitions, like afterimages of memory, like
the shadows left behind from bright flashes.

"But how can we protect him?" he asked, swallowing against the answer
he wasn't sure he wanted to hear, despite his arguing the point.  "How
can we promise him any kind of safety here?  We can't even promise
ourselves safety.  You - you were ready to pack up and leave not half
an hour ago because you were positive we had been found. What's
changed?"

The stairs were suddenly silent, and the quiet somehow seemed louder
than the crash that had rattled them not too long ago. The sound of
nothing was definite and pronounced, like ringing in the ears.

Scully's gaze fixed on William's tiny mouth, and she brushed his cheek
with the pad of her thumb. "Maybe nothing's changed. Maybe
everything's changed.  I don't know. All I can tell you is that I've
found something I've lost."  Her eyes met his, clouded but fierce, and
she finished, "A reason to fight back."

Mulder sighed. "You can still fight back, Scully."  

"But you won't fight with me - not if I want my son with us.  Is this
what you're telling me?"

Scully breathed slowly, waiting for an answer.  

"No, that's not what I'm saying."  Mulder waved the hand with the
flashlight, and its beam followed his motions, jutting wildly on the
steps and throwing Scully in and out of darkness.  "I'm saying... what
happens when the police show up in front of our house and want to know
what happened to the car out front?  What happens when the authorities
come looking for a missing boy?  We're already in enough damned
trouble, and we can't afford any more. There are so many goddamned
federal agents already looking to throw us in jail they're probably
holding telethons to raise money for the cause."  He held up both
hands now, and the baby carrier dangled, the handle cut into his right
hand, the flashlight beam sparking madly off the walls.  "But why
don't we add kidnapping to the list?  Just for fun. Lily, we can't
raise a child from prison.  Not that they'll let me live long enough
for that."

Scully took a strangled breath.  "We could move someplace else," she
offered.  "Nobody has to know -"

"What?" he demanded.  "That we illegally took custody of our son? 
That we don't even know what happened to the people taking care of him
- if those people in the car were the people taking care of him? 
Let's say his adopted parents were murdered, and that couple in the
car did the murdering? - who do you think the authorities will blame?"

"No," said Scully, backing up the stairs a step, and she leaned
against the banister as if weighted with heavy boards. Her eyes
sparked with desperation.  "Nobody finds out about us.  Nobody has to.
 We disappear.  We've done it before, we can do it again -"

"And then how could we ever enroll William in school?  We couldn't. 
How could we ever stay in one place?  We couldn't. How - how could we
ever know that those... those things from the Walker garage wouldn't
come after him because of us?  How do we know they're not already
after us?  How do we know that we won't end up dead, or that William
won't end up dead, and all because we thought we could do this when we
couldn't?"

"I can do this!" Scully's brows wrinkled the bridge of her nose with
frustration.  "I have a responsibility to ensure his safety.   He's my
child!"

And thus, the heart of it from months past, the white elephant lodged
between them; that all the time he'd been searching for the truth ,
she'd been forced to raise William, and she'd been forced to give him
away, and that agony, that wrenching, all-consuming agony William had
left behind, that was somehow her pain and her pain only, because the
decision she'd made was hers, and she'd been alone in making it, and
she was his mother, his mother, and damn that Mulder for knocking her
up and ditching her.  It didn't matter any longer who had asked him to
go; it just mattered that he had gone.

Mulder closed his eyes, forcing air out through his nostrils.   He
wanted to hit something.  "He's my child, too, Scully."

Scully looked away, her cheeks flushed.  "I know that."

"Do you really?"  

"What are you suggesting?"  Scully's voice was defensive, and she
switched William from one hip to the other, and if Mulder hadn't known
better, he would have sworn she was unconsciously trying to shield the
baby from him.  The intent behind the gesture stung him with its quiet
intensity.

"I told you once before," he tried, his watery focus resting on the
sleeping baby.  The sleeping baby who had his imperfect mouth, and
whose eyes were shaped like his.  "I know it wasn't easy.  You made
the decision you had to make considering the circumstances.  I didn't
like it, but I understand it. And it took me a long goddamned time to
come to terms with that."

Scully's expression softened, but she still held William like she'd
hold her gun-side away from a suspect.  "And now?"

Mulder sighed.  "And now I realize what it is to be on the other end
of that stick.  We live a hard life, Scully, a hard, dangerous life. 
There are people trying to kill us - people who will never relent, who
would probably not mind killing William as an added bonus just because
he's with us.  And as much as I care about that child -" Mulder's
breath caught in his throat; there was William Mulder, asleep and
healthy, chest rising and sinking with air, his fingers clutching
Scully's shirt. "And I do care about that child - we need to do what's
right to ensure his safety. It's the only way to give him..."   He
paused, swallowing.  "To give him a good life.  And that's what I want
for him.  It's all I want for him."

"He's safe here," Scully argued. 

"He's not," whispered Mulder, distrustful now of his own voice.  The
steel cord around his heart twisted, and all at once he thought he
might burst.

"You're not calling Skinner," she repeated, her cheek resting on
William's forehead.  The red gold of her hair twisted at her shoulders
in inky shadow.  "I tried that route already, I chose that path, I
gave him away, Mulder, and I'm telling you, if it was the right choice
then - and maybe it was - it's the wrong choice now.  I was alone,
and...and fighting for the work, and for the truth, and for him, and
for you, and for myself, and it was all too goddamn much.  I couldn't
do it alone.  I shouldn't have had to.  But that was my mistake.  And
I paid for that.  But now..."  Her voice wavered with conviction, and
her hand moved up and down the child's back; her grip was trembling,
but unrelenting.   "Now I'm not alone. This child doesn't need some
heroic, undue sacrfice from us. We're damned if we do and damned if we
don't, but at least if he's here, we have some measure of control. I
want that control back."

Mulder clutched the base of Scully's flashlight with chilled fingers,
shining the beam up towards the ceiling, marvelling how the cone of
light looked almost like a faded tractor beam.  Another spaceship come
to claim him, to take his child, his partner, and steal them away
forever.

On the verge of either laughing or crying, Mulder fought the instinct
to just grab Scully and William and board them up downstairs in the
basement, just keep them locked away forever like crystal figurines in
a glass case.  All this running and crying and looking over his
shoulder was going to crack him down the center like an egg, like an
old decanter, like a piece of paper.  He'd lose his mind completely;
they'd find him on the stairs three days from now, babbling nonsense
about his baby and his wife, and then they'd kill him or throw him in
jail, and Scully and William would be long gone.

Mulder cleared his throat, trying to shrug off insanity.  "He needs to
be free from all of this, Scully.  You said so yourself.  Our son
should be able to live his life, unattached to this quest, this search
for the truth. This legacy of - of... of loss."  He felt sick, manic. 
"He needs stability."

"He needs his parents to keep him alive."  Scully closed her eyes and
breathed in William's feathery soft hair. "It's up to us now, Mulder. 
It always has been."

"But what if we're not enough?" 

Scully took a deep breath and then exhaled in dignified tatters of
air.   "We're going to have to be," she said.

And with that, she turned and finished making her way up to the top of
the steps with the baby, her shadow wriggling and dancing in the
flashlight beam on the wall: Case closed, goodnight moon.  Mulder just
blinked and watched her go.  A second later, there was a series of
loud clicks, and the hallway flooded with pure, white light. The
heater whirred restlessly from the vents, agitated at having been
awakened.  Mulder simply stood on the stairway, baby carrier in hand. 
The great and powerful OZ had spoken.

-----

***************
Shadows of Winter
Part III
By Jaime Lyn
****************

We encounter a bit of 'R' in this section and an edge of 'NC-17.'  Not
full blown NC-17, though.  You have to wait for that. Heh.  ;-)

---

Silence and darkness smothered the house, and Mulder felt like
breaking something heavy to shatter the monotony.  He needed to prove
that his life was still his, and he could still do what he wanted, and
that despite a global conspiracy out to get him, nobody could take
away his freedom to piss and moan and argue with his hard-headed
partner.  He was part of this outfit, wasn't he?  His opinion still
mattered, didn't it?

A steady stream of light escaped from the end of the hall and Mulder
followed it.  He paused at the door to the bedroom and peeked inside;
a nightlight shaped like an Oyster shell had been plugged in, and the
carpet alit in ribbons of light.

"I just thought you would want to know, I was ah, I was looking out
the living room window." Mulder stood in the bedroom doorway, leaning
against the frame, his legs crossed right over left. "And I think the
Carvers just got back from Hawaii.  They're standing out there talking
to the cops and the tow-truck guy. No knocks on the door yet, though,
so I'm thinking that's a good sign. Nobody in here but us chickens,
you get my meaning?"

"Good, that's good," murmured Scully, her back to the doorway, her
knees cushioned beneath her.  She sat on the floor amongst a
conglomeration of gray couch pillows, her arms folded on the edge of
the mattress in un-spoken prayer.  Her shoulders were rounded, her
hair spilling about her neck in soft, red waves that seemed much
darker by nightlight.  She wasn't enraged with him, at least, he
didn't think she was, but he wasn't entirely sure she was happy with
him, either.   Mulder himself wasn't exactly getting ready to throw
any parties in Scully's honor.

The baby, all night-scented and soft skin and dream-kissed cheeks, lay
asleep in the center of the bed, fenced in on all sides like a
bumper-secured bowling lane.  Scully must have gone and dug up some
old pillows out of the closet.  His arms lay flat on the sheets, his
red sweater crunched up like an accordion.  His delicate chest rose
and fell evenly, almost rhythmic; it was the breathing that made him
real.

"Mind if I sit?" asked Mulder.  "It's like the crypt from an Indiana
Jones movie down there."

Scully waved a hand to the empty space beside her, but otherwise said
nothing.  Her cheek snuggled into the mattress, and she gazed sideways
at William.  Mulder nodded to himself and crept forward, wondering how
long this would continue on: Scully's unwavering bedside vigil.  This
animosity between them over what to do about the baby.

"How is he?" Mulder asked, bending his knees until he slid down the
base of the bed and landed on his backside.

"He seems alright," Scully whispered, turning.   Her skin was amber
soft in the void between darkness and light, tomorrow and yesterday.
"A little scared, but I can't say I blame him.  Not that - we're all
scared, but he's just a baby.  He doesn't understand what happened in
that car or what's happening now, and he doesn't - He can't possibly
remember who we are."    She shook her head at herself, brushed away
moisture from her cheek.  "Mulder, I... I know you mean well and I
understand you - maybe better than you do - but its different this
time."

Mulder reached across the comforter for her hand.  "Its a shitty
situation," he said.  "And I feel the same way you do.  Really.  And
I've been downstairs for two hours thinking about it, struggling to
figure out which is the lesser of the two evils.  And the only
conclusion I've come to is that it really fucking blows to have no
idea what to do."
 
Scully forced a smile.   "I know," she said.  "But lets say, maybe
for right now, just right now, that we can pretend this is safe?"  She
gazed at him with pleading, blue eyes.  "He's here. He's ours. 
Whatever happens tomorrow, he's ours right now."  She turned, touched
the tips of her fingers to the baby's flushed, round cheek.  "I just
wish I could make this better for him.  Maybe if he wasn't so
frightened - if he knew who we were."

"Hey, we're lucky we even know who we are," Mulder joked. "I think
I've actually lost track."

"Oh."  Scully reddened, took a deep breath, closing her eyes.  "Oh my
God. I was just standing there holding William and then I looked at
you and I saw you looking at him, and I realized that he needed to
connect with you - " She paused.  "That is, with 'you' you and not -"

"It's okay."  Mulder waved her off, tickling the inside of her hand
with his thumb. He knew what she meant, and he understood why she
wanted to apologize for the indiscretion, but at this point, it made
no difference.

"What's done is done.  I'm not even sure it matters anymore."  He
gazed about the room as if expecting someone with a gun or a knife or
just a lot of green, acidic blood, to pop out of the shadows and prove
his point, because at least that would put a face to an invisible
enemy.

Scully yawned, watching him with an indecipherable look.  

"Besides," he waved his hand in circles between them.  "I kind of
missed us."

"I missed us, too."    

"Not that we were never still us..." He frowned at his logic.  

"No, of course not."    

Mulder tilted his head to one side, trying to understand himself.  It
was much too late for heavy philosophy.  The blanketing warmth of the
late hour pressed tightly to them, and silence came dancing in the air
above their heads.

Scully's voice finally cracked the darkness.  "I just keep
thinking..." She frowned as if trying to gather her thoughts.  "I keep
thinking that we could run forever, you know?  If we really had to? 
Just go from place to place without identities or even a destination
in mind, and wander, live for ourselves, moment by moment.  Or we
could go buy some boat in the middle of the ocean where there'd be no
chance of intrusion - "

"Criminal, I get seasick when I take a bath."

Scully smiled, and her eyelids drifted shut.  "But William complicates
the equation."

"So what do you propose?"

"I don't know."

Mulder nodded, breathing oxygen into his aching lungs.  They were
talking in circles, repeating the same worries, the same fears, going
around and around again and again, and if they didn't stop soon, he
was going to get dizzy and throw up.

"Are you ever afraid, Criminal?"

Scully frowned at the change of subject.  

"Afraid of what?"

He shrugged.  "I don't know. Dying, not dying, never knowing - all of
it.  Everything."

She tilted her head, considering.  She seemed to think about it for an
interminable amount of time before answering, "I used to be, yes."

Mulder tilted his head to one side. "You used to be?"

With her free hand, Scully patted his knee.  "There was a time, back
when I had my cancer, that I used to think to myself, there isn't
anything.  No God.  No higher purpose.  Nothing.  And then I'd
think... what happens to me, then?  What happens when my body goes out
on me?  My organs would shut down I suppose, and then I would die, and
nothing would come from that.  The world would just go black one day,
and I would die.  The thought terrified me."

Mulder let his hand roam to her leg, and then her hip; Whatever
happened, he wanted to be near her.  He couldn't fathom not being near
her.  He nodded her on, "And then?"

"And then I came close to death - so close to it - and I felt
this...tugging.  Kind of the way I used to feel when I went to sunday
school as a girl, and I imagined that God was in the sun, keeping
everything warm. I felt that my sister was close to me, and my father,
and I - I felt as if they were telling me not to be afraid."  Her eyes
glazed in silent memory, and she took a breath.  "So now I think
that...Much as death seems a certain, biological end, I don't believe
I have anything to fear from it.  Perhaps this life is not the only
life.  Maybe there's something more.  Something better, waiting where
we can't see it."

Mulder smiled, eyeing her cross.  "How very religious of you, Agent
Scully."

"It's honest," Scully countered, her whisper secure and haughty.  "I
can't vouch for it, or validate it, but I believe in it.  In something
greater than myself." She squeezed his hand a second time.  "Letting
go of logic in order to make a sociopoetic leap... isn't that the kind
of nonsense you're always blathering about?"

"Blathering?" Mulder scrunched his nose in distaste, leaning down to
press a kiss to her fingertips.  Her skin was warm.
  
Scully raised an eyebrow, watching his mouth move across the plane of
her knuckles. "I believe there is usually a good amount of blathering
involved, yes."

Mulder released a melodramatic groan.

"So let me get this straight."  He pulled back to a seated position,
leaving her knuckles pink and wet, and eyebrowed her.  "You won't
believe in Big-Blue, but you'll believe in an invisible afterlife that
collects all the dead people."

Scully rolled her tongue in her cheek. "If I told you I believed in
Big-Blue, would you quit blathering about death?"

"If I quit teasing you about the afterlife, would you quit using the
word blathering?"

"I don't know.  Now what are you blathering about?"  

Scully smiled a wide, adoring smile at him, her cheek muscles
stretching attractively until her entire face alit with all the things
she must have felt, but never said.  Mulder sat, amused by this
unexpected playfulness, and gazed at her until the smile faded into an
exhale.

"So you think..."  Mulder found himself stumbling over what he wanted
to say next.  "So you think - heaven, angels, the whole nine yards -
that's what saves us?  That it's God who has the final say?"

"Could be," she said. "I don't know if I believe it's necessarily
'God.'  But for me it's not even about God anymore. It's...It's
wanting to defy the unknown.  After years of searching and sacrificing
for it, needing to take back control of my life and just...live.  Just
be. I'd rather die having really lived, and not live waiting for the
sky to fall."

"Okay, so what then - you want to go skydiving and jump naked into
European fountains?"

Scully took a breath, her lips twitching in revolt against a smile,
and she extended her free arm in explanation.  "It's like this."  She
paused for a moment, stilled in contemplation, and went on, "Maybe we
die tomorrow or maybe it never ends for us, or maybe the world really
is doomed and nothing else means anything.  No matter the outcome, I'd
rather be here with you and my son than running from invisible men
until I'm blue, or - or waiting for you and the truth at the foot of a
mountain somewhere, wondering if anybody's hurt my child because I
made a terrible mistake."

Mulder pursed his lips, understanding.  "So then - you really believe
we could protect him?"

"Yes."  

He exhaled about a year's worth of misfortune, unsure of whether he
himself could believe so blindly.  When in the world had Scully turned
into him and he into Scully?

"Well, I don't know how I feel about that," he said honestly.  In his
mind he kept replaying the conversation from the stairs.

"I can't tell you what to feel, P.I," she answered. Her eyes searched
him with quiet askance, her arms pillowing her cheek.  She blinked,
took a breath, and whispered, "Do you love him?"

Mulder stilled. "What?"

"Do you love him, Mulder?"

Mulder glanced over at the bumpered-in baby, so susceptible to any
type of mundane or paranormal danger that the human brain couldn't
even comprehend every possibility:

There were supersoldiers and alien hybrids, corrupt murderers within
the FBI mainframe and pissed off CIA operatives with consortium
contacts.

There were sharp objects in the kitchen and household poisons under
the sink.

There was a hairdryer in the bathroom that the baby could knock into
the bathtub and get electrocuted by.

And then the electrical outlets... a fuse in the bedroom could short
out and the entire house could catch on fire, burning them all to ash.

Towering stairs, guns, knives, small ingestible parts, plastic bags,
beds that were too high -

For the first time since William was born, Mulder felt the first pangs
of fatherhood.  He wasn't just afraid of the unknown, he was afraid of
everything.

"Yes," he said, gazing from Scully to the baby.  "Yes, I do."  

Scully smiled in half-measure, her thumb pressing gently over his
thumb.  "Okay then.  Do you love me?"

Taken aback by her bluntness, Mulder frowned, but was unable to speak.

Scully looked away as if utterly embarrassed by asking such a
question, and her cheeks pinkened below her eyelashes.  Mulder gazed
down at their intertwined fingers and turned her palm over.  With
careful concentration, he ran his index finger along each indentation
in her skin, up across the outlines of her fingernails and back to her
wrist.  He traced her hand over and over, brushing, caressing, marking
her as his, until he was sure he'd reached every crevice and
imperfection. Then he looked back up into her eyes to see if she
understood him.

She had.  

"Do you trust me?" she breathed.  

Mulder tilted her chin with his thumb, studying her.  "You know I do."

"About this?"

"About everything."

Scully nodded. She tugged their hands to her lap, entwining her
fingers throughout his and raising the mesh of them together so that
their hands were eyelevel.  "So then we have this," she whispered,
pressing his knuckles to her lips.  She tilted her head towards the
sleeping baby.  "And we have that."  Her eyes opened and closed in
lazy, measured rhythm.  "It may not be the secret of the Universe, but
it's something.  Mulder, Scully, and William two points, Everyone else
a-million, but we have time to catch up."

Mulder shrugged, grinning.  Her presence made his ears ring and his
hands sweat.  "Oh, I don't know."  He leaned in closer to her, heart
thrumming.  "I think you're skimming on the point scale."  He wanted
to touch her and he felt as if it had been ages since he had.  She
smiled at him mischievously, unmoving, teasing, waiting for his next
move.

"For instance," he said, his chin tilting sideways, "I'd say the sex
alone earns us a good twenty points."  She chuckled in short, breathy
exhalations, and he added, "Per orgasm, per encounter."

That, for whatever reason, flushed her cheeks a bright scarlet-red,
but left her undeterred, with that ever-present raised eyebrow.

"So if you think about it," he finished, "We're at least
half-a-million points ahead of the curve."

"Are we now?"

"Mm hmm."  

And he bent down in agonizing slow-motion, nudging her cheek with his
nose. Unmoving and silent, she seemed to close her eyes only at the
last possible second, her watchful gaze trailing his movements as if
unsure of herself, or of him, or of anything she ever wanted.

Her lashes fluttered shut over the side of his face, her lips tickling
his jaw.  His mouth edged over hers in reverent delight, kissing her
first with tender licks and presses, and then with harder, more
insistent pressure, while she pressed back, her palm at his chest,
fingers over his heart.  Her neck tipped to allow him a better angle,
and he caught the base of her head in his hands.  She was soft and
warm, and she tasted like a dozen unspoken truths and promises.

His fingers played with the buttons on her shirt, flicking at them
until a few finally came undone, and the silk parted to reveal pale,
freckled skin above her breastbone.  She was so warm, and tasted so
good, and somehow she was everything at once - or more than
everything, if there was a word for more than everything - and he
couldn't let go, couldn't stop touching, couldn't ever be without her,
without this, not ever.

His mouth trailed a wet line down her neck, and then to the opening of
her blouse, and her fingers found the top of his head, massaging,
pressing, skirting through the dark strands.  Her eyes were closed,
her head tilted back, her spine arched.  She was incredible.

The wisp of a moan escaped her through a heavy breath, and he touched
his palm over one breast, smoothing his fingers over the outline of a
nipple through the silk, as he kissed his way back up to her mouth.

He undid some more buttons and pushed open her shirt, and realized
suddenly that beautiful women wore black lace bras for evil, nefarious
purposes.

Scully shifted in his arms, lolled her head back, and then forward,
her eyes foggy.  "Oh..." She exhaled darkly.  "Mulder?"

Needed her, needed this, only this, only her, only... only now,  he
needed it now.  Yes, he definitely needed it now. Some parts of him
downright hurt.

Her hands gripping his shoulders, her eyes closed, her mouth opened,
she pushed out breaths like she was drowning, and he trailed his mouth
down across her chin, up over her cheek, up to her earlobe, up over
the soft flesh.  Her hair was thick and soft behind her ear and
dizzying with, what was that smell?  Coconut?

"Mulder?"

But enough of the ear, he wanted her mouth again.  And he wanted her
naked.

"Mulder," she bit more forcefully, and then she pushed hard at his
chest, panting as if she might hyperventilate or burst into flame.

"Scully?"  Mulder frowned, clouded to the point of pain with arousal,
and trying like hell to focus.

Her hands were braced on the floor on either side of her and her head
was tilted towards her chest, her ribcage  heaving quickly and
heavily.  Too heavily.  Much too heavily.  Mulder's eyes widened in
horror.  Something was definitely beyond wrong with his partner.  She
was going to pass out if she kept breathing like that.

"Scully, what is it?  Talk to me - tell me what's wrong."  His hands
moved helplessly over her, trying to calm her, to still her, to do
anything, but her breathing didn't slow.  His arousal died in a hard
moment, and he realized with a bite of frustration that she was the
one with the medical training and he was the one with the psychology
degree, and at the very most, this meant he could help her work
through anger management over her weird breathing.  Or give her a
Band-aid.

"What's wrong?" he whispered, lifting her hair out of her face with
his thumbs.

"I don't know... what's wrong," she gasped, her shoulders angled
towards her chest in a painful looking hunch. Between breaths she
heaved, "I just...I feel...dizzy...need to stop...for a minute..."

"Dizzy?"  Mulder leaned forward to search her face, and he pressed his
palm to her forehead, feeling for fever.  "God, you're shaking,
Scully.  Are you sick?"

Her head lifted slightly then, the space between breaths growing more
and more even, and she blinked cautiously, looking for her bearings
and finding some of them still missing.  She reached for Mulder with
one hand and he took the hint, grasping her arm, steadying her as she
blew out a few test breaths through her mouth, inhaled through her
nose.  She looked up at him, into him, and nodded.  "Yeah, I'm okay,"
she whispered.  "I'm sorry, I just... I got a little dizzy for a
minute."

A little dizzy? That was a little dizzy?  Mulder was positive he'd
seen steadier looking drunks.  "Not exactly the kind of ticker tape
parade you want to throw a guy," he joked, hoping to God she got the
meaning behind the unspoken question.

"Seriously, I'm okay."  She shook her head as if trying to get out the
cobwebs.  "Just a bit of vertigo.  It's just been a stressful day and
I wasn't...wasn't feeling great earlier and I haven't eaten all that
much today.  It's nothing."  She gazed up at him with stark apology in
her eyes, and, as if to reassure him, leaned in and slanted her mouth
over his.  The resulting kiss was deep and powerful, but short, and
when she pulled away, Mulder searched her expression for anything she
might not be telling him.  It was damn hard to read her and worry
about her when all he wanted was to fuck her.

"Are you sure?" he asked.  "Do you - do you need something to eat?  A
glass of water?  Some, um, ice or - or a cold compress or asprin?  I
think there are Band-aids somewhere..."

Scully shook her head, an amused smile stretching the corners of her
lips.  "Everything I need is right here in this room," she whispered,
and then she tugged on him with one hand until he followed her down to
the floor.

---
   

In his lifetime, Fox Mulder had faced and conquered the crown-royalty
of all monstrosities; murderers, vampires, mutated animals, mutated
humans, aliens, alien-human hybrids, conspirators hell-bent on taking
over the world, and a particularly nasty bunch of FBI auditors.  Any
of which would have sent a normal man screaming and running for the
hills with his nether regions shrunken into unmentionable size.  But
Fox Mulder, he was a man's man, an unafraid, purpose-filled man, and
Fox Mulder never backed down from an injury, a monster, or a
challenge.  Nothing would break him; nothing had or ever could.

Until his partner set a squirming child at his feet, slipped on her
overcoat, and announced that she had a midday shift at the hospital
and would be leaving Mulder to entertain their son for the day.

And Fox Mulder, man's man, abduction survivor, went almost catatonic
with panic.  He froze in mid-step, his mouth open, his hand
white-knuckled around a glass of orange juice, and found he had
forgotten how to form complete sentences without his voice cracking.

"Good grief," Scully muttered, kissing the top of the baby's head, and
then the top of Mulder's head, before she crossed the living room for
the front door.  "Do you need some smelling salts, Mulder?"

Mulder blinked.  Not only was he terrified of his own son, he was also
operating on an hour's worth of sleep.  Plus, the house was still
freezing from lack of electricity the night before.

"I don't think - "  Mulder looked down and found William sitting on
the tile under his feet, gazing up the length of his father's legs as
if considering the urge to scream. "I don't think he likes me, Lily."

Scully paused in the foyer, rummaging through coats on the side-rack,
turning over magazines and opening drawers, flipping through some
extra memo-pads and pens and slips of paper. She shut the drawer and
patted down her overcoat, frowning.   "He doesn't even know you."

Mulder made a face.  "He doesn't know you and he likes you."

Distracted, Scully bent down to search beneath the end table by the
door, and her arm disappeared under the bottom shelf. "That's because
when I pick him up, I don't hold him like I'm about to pull the pin
and throw the grenade.  He's not a biological toxin, he's a child,
Paul -" She paused and glanced up.  "Have you seen my car keys?"

Mulder sighed.  "Second drawer on the left."

"Thank you."  

She pulled open the drawer, fiddled under a few items, and extracted a
tiny gold keyring. "You know,  you might want to take this afternoon
as an opportunity.  I think your son is about as stubborn as you are,
but you won't make any headway if you act like you're afraid of him. 
Why don't you just play with him?"

"We um, we don't have any toys," was all Mulder could think of to say.

"Then why don't you get out your baseball volumes and read him the box
scores?"  Scully shot him a lopsided grin.  "At least that way you
could put him to sleep all afternoon."

"Funny," he muttered.    

William crawled into the living room and tugged at Scully's pant hem,
extending his short arms and wriggling his oatmeal-sticky fingers in
'baby-up-speak.' The plea was stark in his big blue eyes.   With an
exhale of defeat, Scully scooped up William and rocked him in her
arms, whispering to him that she would be back soon.  She stroked his
soft brown hair with the tips of her fingers and tickled his ear.
Apparently, Dana Scully, former FBI Agent and forensic pathologist,
was just as good a parent as she was a medical doctor. And Mulder
found the ease with which she slipped into motherhood something of a
wonder, if not the slightest bit infuriating.

While Scully had garnered nothing but clingy affection from William,
Mulder had only incited tears and shrieks of horror any time he
stepped within three feet of William's personal space.  The lack of
any headway he'd made as far as bonding went was appalling.

With a sigh, Mulder stood in the kitchen doorway like the picture of
rumpled sleep, glass of orange juice still untouched in one hand,
wrinkled sweatpants lodged in odd places. Behind every movement either
of them made with the baby, there were a hundred unsteady variables
pushing at their heels. William was either safe here or he wasn't safe
here, just as the three of them either would end up dead or they
wouldn't.  Mulder couldn't help but feel as if he'd been playing poker
with the wrong in-crowd, and now his debts had mounted and it was
payback time.

"I'm emailing Agent Doggett this afternoon," Mulder said.  He didn't
say why, and he hoped Scully wouldn't ask him.

But her expression darkened, and her hold on the baby tightened, and
Mulder knew immediately what she was thinking.

"Just be careful about it," she answered, pressing her lips to
William's ear.  She gazed up at Mulder, and her resolute blue eyes
communicated all that she refused to say: Despite whatever love she
felt, if Mulder requested special care or protection from Agent
Doggett, if he tried going against her wishes concerning William, she
would make sure he lived to regret it.

"I know what I'm doing," said Mulder, feeling suddenly as chilled as
his glass of orange juice.  "I can handle the situation.  I can handle
an afternoon alone with a baby."

Scully pursed her lips, switching the baby to her opposite hip.  "I
never suggested you couldn't."

A long silence crept up upon them, and Mulder stared into the swirls
of his juice.  Many unspoken problems still laid between them like a
puddle of gasoline waiting for a match.

Scully cleared her throat.  "Are you going to drink that or just stand
there with it?"  She motioned with two fingers to Mulder's orange
juice.

Mulder shrugged.  "I don't know.   You didn't drink yours.  You also
passed on the coffee.  You sure you're feeling alright?"

Scully softened slightly, but her shoulders didn't relax.  "I'm fine,"
she said, not offering much else.

Mulder finally took a sip of his juice and the taste was bitter, with
bits of pulp sticking to his teeth and lodging in the crevices between
his gums.

While the previous evening had been ethereal and lazy, and while
they'd spent the bulk of it lying naked, pressing and sating and
kissing each other into blessed, pristine ignorance, Mulder was still
unable to get the image of Scully's sudden spell out of his mind. 
Every time he closed his eyes there she was, hyperventilating with
panic, trembling with vertigo.  He'd meant to question her about it,
but was unable to find the right moment.  Between her using William as
a buffer to avoid interrogation, and the excuse that she was getting
ready for work, Scully had grown quite skilled at not letting a free
moment slip.

Scully rubbed William's back, her cheek pressed to his pale forehead. 
"Maybe I should just stay home with him. With both of you."

And now she was changing the subject again.

William pressed his small palms to Scully's cheeks, giggling his
delight at her texture, and Scully smiled a toothy grin, tickling the
baby's chin with her index finger.   "He needs some new clothes and
another bag of diapers - I don't think the one I picked up this
morning's going to make it through the day.  And I think -"

Mulder just stood there with his orange juice in hand and a blank
stare on his face.  "You can't just play hooky, Dr. Selden," he said.

Scully nodded despite herself; she knew Mulder was right, and Mulder
knew Mulder was right, but William, on the other hand, he was a hard
temptation to resist, with his little button nose and his big blue
eyes, and - Mulder wasn't the least bit conceited about this - his
father's infamous, 'Scully, do this because you love me' smile.  If
Mulder hadn't already been annoyed over Scully's pick-and-choose
method of disconnecting from him, he might have found her inability to
resist second-generation-Mulder-charm quite amusing.

"I'll see you both when I get home then," Scully finally said - loud
enough for both William and Mulder to hear - and she set the baby on
the floor beside the couch, eyeing Mulder with a thin cross between
love and mistrust.  "I'm taking that green toxin to the lab to be
analyzed - I'll do it at lunch and call you with the results.
Just...Don't go anywhere with him."  Pulling on her gloves, she added,
as an afterthought, "I know you hate the cold. It's ah, supposed to be
miserable out there today anyway."

But their gazes caught and held, and Mulder understood her real
meaning with stinging accuracy; Don't you dare take my child out of
this house, Mulder.

"We'll be okay," he said, forcing neutrality into his voice.  

"Good," she said.

And then she was out the door, and nothing more could be said.   

--

Four hours, six glasses of orange juice, three children's programs,
three Advil later, and there Mulder sat, bone-tired and cross legged
on his living room carpet, making paper airplanes out of the sports'
section with a one and a half year old.

Since neither he nor Scully had any toys lying around, and since
William seemed to be rather content with wailing and shrieking his
displeasure over Scully's absence, Mulder had tried everything he
could think of to amuse the child or, at the very least, preoccupy
him.  Nothing, however, had worked until he'd unearthed last week's
newspaper and begun compulsively folding the local sections into paper
fans; William was fussy as hell, but he seemed thoroughly enraptured
by crumpling paper.

Not that William smiled for Mulder the way he had for Scully, despite
a newfound common interest in crushing the personal ads. At this
non-development, Mulder had first been resigned, and then annoyed, and
now he careened wildly towards frustration.  Fox Mulder seemed to have
a singular genius for being unable to bond with the one person left in
the world still genetically related to him.

"Hey, check this out - " Mulder wiggled a paper swan at William,
pulling on its base to make the wings flap.  "You like birds?  We
could give this one to Mommy."

William took the swan from Mulder as if he expected Mulder's fist to
close in on him like a sea anemone upon a crab.  Mulder grinned at the
improvement - William not being afraid to touch him, that is - and set
to work on another swan.  William turned the first swan over, examined
it carefully, and set it on the floor. Then he pounded the swan with
his fist until the swan looked as if it had gotten caught swimming in
between the Titanic and the iceberg.

Mulder sighed.  "Everyone's a critic," he said, ripping another page
out of the newspaper.  With a yawn, he glanced at his watch:
five-twenty-two.  He shivered and tried shaking off his unease; the
house was still not warm enough for his liking, and he'd have to turn
up the heat or clean out the air vents or...something.

Scully called him every hour on the hour, and she emailed him every
half hour, and while she insisted to no end that she trusted him but
distrusted everyone else, Mulder couldn't help but think that Scully
didn't actually trust him at all. Or - that is, she trusted him with
her life, but not with the child she had raised from birth.

And that knowledge stabbed at Mulder harder than any gunshot or knife
wound he'd ever received.

Maybe Scully was terrified he would make good on his argument to call
Skinner, just completely disregard her wishes, and give William away
during the break between his lunch and his afternoon snack.  Not that
Mulder would ever do such a thing without her expressed consent, but
the fact that Scully actually considered he might sent a sliver of
anger up the base of his spine.  If Scully didn't trust him enough to
accept her judgment, and if he couldn't trust her to be honest with
him...

Well, then perhaps the real motivation behind William's return to them
was simply a psychological ploy: confuse he and Scully into such a
state of un-trust that they killed one another.

"Ow!"

William reached over and repeatedly jabbed the tip of a Classified-Ad
paper airplane into Mulder's knee, and Mulder yelped as the edges dug
into his skin.  William jumped in surprise, obviously unprepared for
such a reaction, and he skittered away towards the couch on his hands
and knees, his tiny nose scrunched as if he wanted to wail at the
heavens again.  Again, for the fiftieth time in one afternoon.

Cursing silently to himself for erasing hours of father-son progress
in the span it took to inhale, Mulder tried on a wary smile.  "Hey,"
said, still testing out this never-before-used 'Daddy voice' of his. 
"Hey, no more - none of that, okay?  It's not a big deal, Will.  Look
-" He grabbed one of the airplanes and jabbed it into his other knee,
wincing at the sharpness of the airplane's tip.  "See?  I do it, too. 
Daddy's just a big... a big dumb airplane man.  Look -" He jabbed the
airplane down again and tossed the crumpled leftovers into the air,
arms akimbo.

William, seemingly unconvinced by any of these antics, sat huddled by
the couch, eyebrow raised, thumb in his mouth.

Mulder sighed.  "Yeah, your mother wouldn't buy it, either."  

Pushing down onto his hands, Mulder crawled closer to the child, all
the while making goofy faces to try and distract the baby from his
encroachment.  William watched Mulder with wary blue-violet eyes, his
thumb securely stuffed in his mouth, his free hand wrapped around the
first hand.   He looked for all the world like Scully, after being
forced to sit through one of Mulder's paranormal slideshow-fests.  The
lack of confidence was stunning.

Finally, Mulder's backside hit the couch, and, unable to go any
farther, he sidled up next to his son.  Both little Mulder and big
Mulder gazed at one another with uncertainty.  If William had no idea
what to make of this weird, goofy guy claiming to be his father, then
the weird goofy guy had less of an idea what to make of William. 
William didn't utter a sound, but he didn't look reassured either, and
he didn't take his eyes off Mulder, as if waiting for the other shoe
to drop.

"Okay, kiddo, here's the deal," said Mulder, "I'm going to pick you up
again and take you into the office upstairs so I can check my email,
so that your mother's head doesn't explode, but I need you to not cry
this time. I know I'm not Mommy and you're intent on reminding me of
this fact over and over, but I think I've exceeded my dosage of Advil
for the day."

William blinked, his tiny mouth squeezed around his thumb.  On the one
hand, silence wasn't the best answer, but on the other, it wasn't a
high pitched scream.

"Okay," said Mulder, nodding to himself.  There wasn't any reason why
he couldn't do this without scarring or injuring both of them.

William froze in mid-thumb-suck as Mulder reached out with nervous
hands and touched William's back, and then his side, trying to figure
out the best angle to hold the kid.  He certainly couldn't throw
William over his shoulder in a fireman's grip, or hold the kid like a
dirty towel, but every time he tried picking William up any other way,
screaming erupted as if Mulder was poking him with dinner forks.

William's lower lip jutted in a pout, just a slight waver that
stretched all the way to his eyes.  In a moment of panic, Mulder
reached under William's arms and quickly pulled the child up, settling
him onto the side of his hip as he'd seen Scully do earlier. William
seemed to like that position whenever she held him that way, and
Mulder supposed it didn't seem all that uncomfortable or impossible to
execute.

"You doing okay?" Mulder asked, practically on the verge of crying
himself. "You ah, you like the weather up here?" When there was no
protest from his son, Mulder breathed a sigh of relief. "See?  Look
how good I am at this."

William, thumb still stuffed in his mouth, cocked his head to one side
and examined Mulder like an agent examining a suspect.  Mulder cocked
his head to the other side and did the same.  The tentative look on
the child's face still seemed to indicate unshed tears, and Mulder
realized that lack of shrieking did not necessarily translate into
winning the war.

Frowning, Mulder glanced about the room for a distraction.  Four Advil
would definitely be pushing the envelope of decency, and he refused to
call Scully.  There were no toys lying around, no dolls or games or
shiny objects, nothing but crumpled newspaper and -

"Aha!"  Quite pleased with his own brilliance, Mulder bent at the
knees and scooped up a framed photo from the coffee table.

It was a Polariod picture of he and Scully from a rest stop somewhere
in the Pacific Northwest.   Mulder had been sucking on a ketchup
drenched french fry, and Scully rummaging around through the miniature
backpack she occasionally carried in those days.  Mulder bent over to
whisper something in her ear, and whatever he'd said must have made
her laugh, because Scully's head was tilted towards his in suspended
amusement.  It was one of the only pictures he and Scully had ever
taken together, mostly because it had been completely unexpected; a
young girl somehow snuck up behind them and froze the moment on kodak
paper.

"Look," said Mulder, holding up the picture for William to see. 
"Who's this lady?  I think you know her."

William blinked a few times, glanced back up at Mulder, and seemed to
consider this peace offering.  Mulder held his breath; negotiating
peaceful coexistence with his son was like negotiating a peace treaty
between two children fighting over the same animal cracker.

Curious, William patted the cool glass over the photo, examining the
texture of the frame.  His heart-shaped mouth screwed up on one side,
and then his tiny brows furrowed, and finally, he giggled for the
first time all afternoon.

"Yeah."  Mulder smiled.  "Pretty cool, huh?"

Seemingly delighted by his new discovery, William clasped his hands
together, and the musical vibration of the child's giggle carried like
fresh air to Mulder.  The secret moment between father and son warmed
the still frozen places inside Mulder's muscles, and both little
Mulder and big Mulder laughed as they shared in the one thing they
undisputably had in common: uncensored adoration for Dana Katherine
Scully.

"Let's say we take Mommy upstairs," Mulder offered, gripping William
from underneath with one hand, and keeping both the child's body and
the photo secure with the other.

William gurgled at this, and Mulder translated drooling as a 'yes.'  

***************
Shadows of Winter
Part IV
By Jaime Lyn
***************

This part settles into PG land for awhile.  You know what they say,
though? Smut comes to those who wait.  (Or maybe that's just me.)


---


While Scully had set up a makeshift office downstairs, fully equipped
with a desk, a computer, a printer, and a set of resource volumes that
could put the surgeon general to shame, Mulder had never been able to
make the neat little space "his." For one thing, Scully seemed to have
a secret affinity for girly office supplies, like pastel-colored
post-it notes and purple gel pens - these items littered the drawers -
and for another, her files and paperwork and medical journals often
took up so much room that Mulder felt claustrophobic even sitting in
her swivel-chair.

So Mulder had commandeered the spare room upstairs and set up camp,
justifying to Scully that separating their work space would be
beneficial for both of them.  First off, Mulder was often miserly and
comfortably set in his odd ways; he was piggish with his work area and
protective of his files.  And Scully, organized, color-coded,
alphabetized file cabinet that she was, would go and sweep up his
post-it-note numbering system with the Dust-buster whenever she sat
down to check her email.  And as a matter of fact, she'd vacuumed up
his notes so frequently that, after two weeks of sharing an office
space with her, Mulder had been forced to hide the dust-buster
someplace covert that he was sure Scully wouldn't ever look: the
broiler.

Besides that, Scully was his partner and she deserved her own space. 
After eight years of never owning her own desk in the basement office,
Scully now not only claimed ownership to an antique wooden-work desk,
but an entire corner of the room that fairly dripped with her
presence.  A desk, a bookshelf, a corkboard, a game of miniature
battleship - she even had the better stapler.

Mulder's office, however, was not so well-equipped.  His desk was a
long white shelf stacked on a set of milk-crates, and his desk chair
was a feeble metal folding chair from the garage.  The computer was
brand new, and the printer lay on the floor amidst a puddle of wires. 
A box of office supplies sat in one corner, (made a rather nice table,
actually) and there was a hot-chocolate stain on the rug from where
Scully had come up behind him and made breakfast of his neck while he
was trying to figure out how to work his new modem.  Needless to say,
the burn on his foot was healing quite nicely.

"So, Tater-Tot." Mulder set William down on the carpet and extended
his arms in a grand sweep of the room.  "What do you think of Daddy's
private practice so far?  I know it's not much to look at right now,
but you have to imagine actual furniture, and some pictures of weird
crap and - and less boxes.  Oh, and some resolve stain remover to
clean up the chocolate."

William, still clutching the framed photo of his mother to his chest,
gazed at Mulder with a cross between confusion and dismissal. 
Certainly, his son and he had made a bit of headway in the bonding
department, but that didn't mean by default that William bought every
word spewing forth from Mulder's mouth.  Truth be told, Mulder didn't
even buy every word coming out of his own mouth.

Realistically, Mulder had to wonder whether he and Scully would even
be living here long enough for him to acquire new office furniture.
And whether, in a struggle to do what was right, William would once
again be sacrificed to adoptive care.  They couldn't, after all, run
towards the setting sun forever, live out of motels and backwater
towns, at the same time raising a child off a diet of stale pizza and
gunpowder residue.

Mulder powered up his new computer and leaned back in his desk chair. 
Wobbly metal legs protested his audacity to exert pressure.  William
crawled closer to Mulder's feet, dragging the picture frame across the
ground.  Grabbing Mulder's calf, William pulled himself to half-crouch
on unsteady legs and bobbed up and down as if trying to jump.

Mulder grinned and wondered whether his jaw might crack from
stretching too far. An unfamiliar wash of pride flitted over him, and
he had the strange urge to reach for a camera and document this moment
even though he hadn't owned a camera in years.

"Hey Tater-Tot," he said in awe, brushing the light skin of William's
cheek.  "You can stand up, can you?  I had no idea. Why didn't you say
something sooner?  We could have gone for a spin around the living
room."

Mulder's brush turned into a light tweak of the baby's nose, and
William gurgled something unintelligible and smacked Mulder's knees.
"What's that?" asked Mulder, unable to keep the idiotic grin off his
face.  "What is it? What do you need?  Cheeseburger with fries?  I'm
afraid we might have to wait for Mommy."

William oustretched his arms and wriggled his fingers, giving Mulder
that big-blue-eyed 'pick-me-up' look he had earlier given Scully. 
Mulder's eyes widened.  "You - you want up?  You want me to pick you
up?"

William waved his hands impatiently, seemingly annoyed Mulder was so
slow in understanding this.

All the air escaped from Mulder's lungs, and he could do nothing but
nod his agreement.  Pick the baby up - yes, he could do that. He could
pick the baby up. Because... because William wanted Mulder to pick him
up.  William actually wanted Mulder to pick him up.  William wanted
his daddy.  He - Jesus - he wanted his daddy.  Mulder was William's
daddy.  Mulder was somebody's daddy.  Good God, someone had let Mulder
become someone's daddy?

Just as he had done before, Mulder reached under William's armpits and
scooped him up.  He deposited the baby onto his lap and settled him on
one knee.   William squirmed onto the other knee to get better
leverage, fisting the folds of Mulder's t-shirt, and then he cuddled
into Mulder's chest and yawned with his nose in Mulder's ribcage.
Five-thirty obviously meant nap-time in baby speak, and who was Mulder
to argue with this?  William had actually decided to use his father as
a bed and Mulder, being said-father, was so stunned beyond
intelligible language by this that he could only sit and hope his
breathing wasn't too loud or discomfiting.  Mulder was positive that
any sudden movements would somehow break the moment in half and
shatter in desperate shrieks for Scully.

But William remained curled into Mulder's chest, tiny and soft like a
kitten, and Scully remained gone, and Mulder was still breathing. 
Somehow, he hadn't stopped breathing.  The room hadn't exploded and
nobody's head had popped off, and this had to be a good sign.

The computer dinged that Mulder had mail, and Mulder shook his head,
freeing himself of the strange ticklings of fatherhood - the feeling
that at any moment, a sleeping bag made of cement would drop on his
head.
 
The first few emails in his inbox were junk, and he quickly deleted
all of them.  The next email was from runawayfridge@yahoo.com, and the
subject header read "Information Regarding Inquiry."  Swallowing,
Mulder clicked on the link, knowing full well who the email was from. 
While Special Agent John Doggett frequently changed the contacting
address Mulder could reach him at, as did Mulder - for his safety and
Mulder's as well - Doggett usually chose something easily recognizable
from past cases.  The disappearing fridge from Doggett's last X-File
had become a frequent source of amusement for both of them.

There was no flowery introduction in this email, and it started with a
simple statement: "I pulled some strings and got the information you
asked for."

Mulder took a breath and read on.  

"The gunmen had a friend I'm not sure you knew of - Jimmy - who's
something of a fellow traveler.  Jimmy didn't tell me how he did it,
but he managed to get into the sealed records database for the
Georgetown clerk of court.  According to these records, the baby was
given to a couple by the last name of Van De Kamp on May 19th, 2002. 
There was a phone number and an out of state address.  All would seem
to check out with this, except that when I called the couple and
questioned them, they told me that social services returned the day
after the adoption papers were signed to take the child back.  The
social workers apologized for the inconvenience and explained to Mr.
and Mrs. Van De Kamp that they had been given the wrong baby - that
the baby had an incurable condition and would therefore require
extensive care.  The Van De Kamps protested, but were unable to deter
social services.  They were then given another child - a girl by the
name of Moira - and the first baby was taken away. As of this morning,
baby Moira is still living with the Van De Kamps, but their first
adopted child has apparently disappeared from state record."  And at
the bottom was another note, this one much more emotionally fervent: 
"Monica and I have discussed this, and we promise you we'll find him. 
Just send us the word, and we'll do whatever it takes.  J.D."

Frowning, Mulder sat back in his chair, trying to consider this.  So
the couple who had crashed into the tree in front of his house weren't
William's adoptive parents, after all.  The real adoptive parents were
still alive, still none the wiser about William's whereabouts, and the
state of Maryland was definitely not the culprit.

And things got stranger and stranger.    

This couldn't have been the work of supersoldiers; The Van De Kamps
were still alive.  It wasn't supersoldier style to let everyone
standing in the way of what they wanted live.  It also wasn't their
style to enlist the help of unnecessary humans to cart a baby across
the country. And the couple who had gotten their heads bashed in by
the windshield were most definitely human.

Turning over the files in his mental cabinet, Mulder recalled Scully
telling him of the alien-worship cults that had surfaced around the
time of William's birth.  These cults zeroed in on the impending
colonization of the planet, and the myth of "a special child being
born to save humanity."   As a result, these cults had centered their
sights on Mulder's and Scully's only son, and had even tried to kidnap
him once, convinced as they were that William would be the savior of
the human race.

But while most of them had died not long after William's abduction, in
a bonfire of burnt flesh and unidentifiable rubble - according to
Scully, Mulder had no doubt some cult-members still lived somewhere.
It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for the cult to resurrect
itself.  Perhaps the surviving members had disguised themselves as
social workers to take William for their own bizarre agendas.

But if that was true, then who was baby Moira and where had she come
from?  Was she another baby born under questionable circumstances? And
just how the couple in the car managed to find their way out to
Canada, right to Mulder's very doorstep, was a mystery. If this was
all part of some sort of master plan, Mulder was at a loss to
understand its purpose.

With an exhausted sigh, Mulder rubbed with his free hand over
William's powder-scented back.  It seemed to him that the danger would
never be over, and that William would never be safe.  If anybody could
get to him anywhere, as Scully seemed to claim they could, then where
could he and Scully possibly take William to keep him safe?
 
The little white arrow on the computer screen hovered over the reply
button, and Mulder clicked on it, utterly confused as to how he should
respond to this.  He'd promised Scully he wouldn't reveal to anyone -
not even Agent Doggett, Agent Reyes, or A.D Skinner - or perhaps
especially not to those people, that William had been returned to
them.  But how else could Mulder answer Doggett's fervent reply
without leading them off on a wild-goose-chase?  Lies were unfair but
the truth was even more so.  Mulder squinted his eyes and gazed at the
keyboard.

His mind drifted, and he recalled, in a haze of dark exhaustion, the
time that he and Scully had put down a suspect named Donnie Pfaster, a
fetishist with an inclination towards hair and fingernails.  Donnie
Pfaster was a sweater-vest devil, a study of ordinary evil, and he had
come after Scully with a vengeance.  Angry with having lost her one
time over, Pfaster tried a second time to kill Scully in her own home.
 Scully, in Pfaster's mind, was the 'one who got away.'  She was the
one who'd sent him to jail, who'd kept him from his severed, rotted
remains, from his skulking and murdering and bathtub-drowning in the
fogged cold of night.

Mulder recalled how Scully agonized over shooting Pfaster in the end -
Mulder claimed self-defense, and Scully insisted that they both knew
the truth.  She shot him because she wanted to, because she needed to,
because some unfocused rage within her had ordered her to do it, and
not because her actions had been justified by some carefully written
code of FBI protocol.  They debated it that night on his couch, her
with a throw blanket tucked under her knees and he with a steaming mug
of tea in his hands; Was Scully's pull of the trigger divine
intervention, or was the silent tickling of revenge, however
justified, a calling card left by subtle demons?  Or perhaps Scully
had just snapped, and any other symbolism they fished for was merely
justification for temporary insanity.

Neither of them would ever know.  

Scully believed that God existed, and that all things in the Universe
somehow fell within this rubric of an endless, divinely created
tapestry. Mulder, however, wasn't so sure.  At the very least, he
wanted to believe in something, in some higher power watching over
him, leading him somewhere, leading him to do the right thing, but he
didn't feel he had the strength to believe anything else as blindly as
he'd believed in The X-Files.  And look what that had gotten him after
years of childlike faith.

Finally coming to a decision, Mulder typed out the simple phrase,
"Don't look any further," and hit the 'send' button. It wasn't
necessarily the truth, but it wasn't a lie either.

The next email was postmarked from LSelden@Universitymedical.com, and
Mulder's heart calmed just at the sight of it.  LSelden - Lily Selden.
His wife.  She had that slow, molasses-like comforting effect on him,
sort of like coming home -

Mulder frowned as he realized that he hadn't called or thought of her
as his wife since William was returned to them, as if William's return
marked an invisible line of demarcation separating this life from the
one previous.

Life now versus life before.  Which would emerge victorious?

For four months Dana Scully had been Lily Selden, wife of Paul Selden,
and now in the span of one day she had gone back to being Dana Scully
again, partner of Fox Mulder.  And he was again Fox Mulder, not Paul
Selden, and he had absolutely no idea what any of that meant.  They
shared a bed, ate dinner together when possible, argued over the
remote, left dirty towels on the floor of the bathroom. They'd gone
from close friends to married in under sixty seconds, and neither of
them had any idea how to live in the gray areas.

Mulder clicked on the email, whose subject line read 'Results are in,'
and shook his head.  Too much thinking about his relationship with
Scully was bound to give him a migraine.

"I just performed the analysis work-up on your evidence," read the
first line.  Then: "The substance is, for the most part, not composed
of any known organic material.  Not a surprise.  The only recognizable
compound I was able to extract was an excess amount of iron magnetite,
but from my understanding, this is the same material that, in large
quantities, is lethal to the type of being we're dealing with.  The
presence of iron, in this case, would seem to indicate either
inadvertent poisoning or some sort of mutation.  In short, this is not
the same type of material we've previously come into contact with. 
Could it have degenerated into a more primal form?  Perhaps that
explains the displacement of oil.  Don't email back.  I'd prefer we
talk about this in person."

Mulder scrolled down to the second paragraph, and read on, "I
accidentally got lost on the way to exam room two and found myself in
the morgue. Cause of death on the deceased couple in the car has been
listed as reckless driving.  Toxicology report indicates inebriation
high above the legal limit.  What do you make of this? - Me.  P.S - I
hope both of you are getting along alright.  I'll be home soon, but
I'll call first.  Don't burn the house down."

Mulder paused over the keyboard, considering this newest batch of
unexpected unpleasantness.

So the green goo that they'd found in those cans had been some sort of
alien fluid.

Well.  

Mulder had automatically assumed the substance was alien blood, but
that didn't make the idea gospel.  And the fact that there was a high
amount of iron concentration in the substance pointed more towards
self-destruction of the creature than towards escape.  Scully had once
before insinuated these creatures knew what killed them, and they knew
to stay away from it.

Mulder narrowed his eyes, and the words on the screen swam across the
white email background.   The most obvious assumption had, of course,
been that these beings - these supersoldiers or hybrids or whatever
they were - had come looking for he and Scully for the intent purpose
of murdering them.  Then again, his experience investigating the
paranormal had long ago taught Mulder things were rarely what they
first seemed to be.  So what then? Was it possible that whatever had
been poking around in Jake Walker's garage was not looking for revenge
at all, but instead looking to save itself?  Could it have been dying?
Something about the stolen oil seemed to indicate -

A sharp, loud ringing disrupted Mulder's thoughts, and his muscles
spasmed in a quick, violent shudder.  The jump of his legs
inadvertently startled the baby, who, jolted from sleep, raked his
fingers unhappily across Mulder's chest, gurgled, coughed, tilted back
his head, and let out a long, hard wail that could have doubled as an
air-raid siren.

 "Shit!" Mulder hissed, stomping his foot in frustration - 

Which only incited louder wails from the baby, and flailing hands.  

Mulder gazed helplessly from his crying son to the phone and then back
to his son, unsure of what the correct protocol in this situation was.
 He had one of two options: It could be Scully trying to get through
to the house, in which case he should definitely reach for the phone
and put the baby down. But if it turned out to be a telemarketer and
not Scully, then putting the baby down and getting the phone would
only end up erasing a good amount of parent-child-bonding.

The phone rang a second time.  The baby shrieked louder.  Baby, phone,
baby, phone...

Just as with driving cross-country on a case, chances were great that
Mulder would choose the wrong path and end up sputtering out of gas in
Son-Hates-Me-Againsville. He felt suddenly like a teenager babysitting
for the first time, and he imagined himself in a ridiculous t-shirt
with the words 'What Would Scully Do?' embroidered on the front.

"Oh hell."  

In the end, he held the screaming baby to his chest with one hand and
reached for the phone with the other...

Only to find it not there.  Of course.  

Where had the portable phone been last?  Mulder frowned, trying to
think over the ringing and the screaming and the baby's fists smacking
him in the ribs.

"Bedroom," said Mulder, and he desperately tried righting the angry
baby as he exited the office and headed off towards the bedroom. 
William pounded Mulder's chest like an excited gorilla-cub and he
wailed even harder than he pounded.  Advil number four, it seemed, was
not that far off.

To quell William's panic, Mulder could only wince and press a quick
kiss to the top of his son's head, holding the baby to his chest as he
rushed towards the bedroom like a linebacker making for the end-zone. 
The last thing he needed was Scully thinking that he'd actually burned
the house down.

Mulder entered the bedroom on the fourth ring and paused in the
doorway, catching his breath and rocking William  as the answering
machine got to the ringing first: too late now, Mulder mused. He
pressed his lips to William's temple - just as he'd seen Scully do it
- and tried a calming technique of his own making.

"Come on, Tater-Tot. Why don't we try and be friends again, okay?  I
know I'm not real good at this yet, but I'm getting better, don't you
think?"

The answering machine beeped, and William's cries died down into
unhappy sniffles.  Sniffles were at least better than shrieks of
bloody murder, and Mulder took a deep breath, swearing off Advil. 
"There," he said, and he craned back slightly to gaze into his son's
wary, tired face.  "You know, you're a lot like your mother when she
wakes up in the morning.  She's just as grumpy, but you're a much
better screamer."  Mulder grinned, about to say something else, when a
woman's voice floated to him from the answering machine.

"Paul Selden?  This is Dr. Kathy Carmichael from University Medical -
I'm a colleague of your wife's.   I'm not sure if you have a cell
phone, but this is the number on your wife's contact sheet so I hope
you're just busy and not out for the afternoon. Ah, I just wanted to
inform you that your wife had a bit of an episode this afternoon - "

Mulder's eyes went wide with fear and he rushed towards the dresser,
William bouncing none-too-happily against his hip.  Swallowing back
the taste of a late lunch, he reached for the cordless phone and
jabbed the talk button.  "This is Paul," he said breathlessly, his
voice pounding like a hammer in his ears.  "Lily's husband.  What
happened?  Where is she?  Did you take her anywhere?"

"Mr. Selden," the doctor said, "Before you grow alarmed, let me say
that Lily's just fine."

Mulder blinked in slow motion; time must have stopped without telling
him.  He knew he should have pressed harder about Scully's dizziness. 
He knew something wasn't okay.  Why was this idiot doctor saying
everything was fine when everything was so obviously not fine?

"Just tell me about Lily," he said, unsure of what else to say.  "Is
she alright?  What happened?  Just tell me what happened."

The doctor took a breath.  She sounded so annoyingly calm Mulder
wanted to strangle her.

"Like I said, Lily's just fine," the doctor said.  "She had a bit of a
fainting spell a little while ago, that's all, and a few of us
suggested that she lie down and take it easy.  We wanted to run some
blood workup on her just to make sure nothing was wrong, but she
refused.  She asked for her husband.  Perhaps you could talk to her
and convince her - "

"I'm on my way," Mulder said, only half-hearing, and he hung up the
phone.

His pulse thready, Mulder ran cool lips along William's forehead to
try and calm himself. Skin like Scully's skin, eyes a color so similar
to hers.  He couldn't look at this child and not think of Dana Scully.
 His Scully.  His partner, his wife, the mother of his child -

Like a lightning bolt to his chest, Mulder realized what Scully saw
every time she gazed at this baby, and why she so desperately wanted
to cling to that truth.

William was a living incarnation of the two of them: two wandering
spirits fused by passion in a burst of light, driven by hope from
opposite ends of the Universe.  William was their compass in the dead
of night, the glow of a lighthouse guiding them to the passageway
beneath rocky cliffs, urging them forward. Keep looking, keep
fighting, keep searching - together.  William's existence proved they
could do it.  Loving William wasn't just about love; loving him went
so much deeper than anything love could define.

William was truth's end; he was wherever the light moved.

"Guess we're taking a little trip," Mulder told William, his voice
shaky.  "Mommy's not feeling well, but she's going to be alright."  He
kissed the baby again, willing this to be true.  "Mommy's going to be
just fine.  We'll go pay her a visit and kidnap her and bring her
home.  Then we're all going to sit and have dinner.  Just the three of
us.  I promise."

--

The hospital waiting room was empty, and its white walls were awash
with ribbons of purple and scarlet urging the evening's entrance
through horizontal blinds. In the far corner, a TV perched on a high
shelf, and flashes of blue interspersed with the sunset: the local
meteorologist was predicting a doozy of a storm to roll through during
the late hours of tonight and on into tomorrow.  Outside, swirls of
freezing air smelled like rain, but rain wasn't the problem at this
latitude.

Mulder held William suspended on one hip as he bypassed several
couches and approached the nurses' station. William flitted with his
hood until he finally shoved it off his head, and as a victory meal,
he pushed both shoe-string hood-ties into his mouth.

William had, ironically enough, enjoyed the car-ride to the hospital,
despite Mulder's interspersed cursing at Canadian drivers and at the
state of the highways when people thought it was going to snow;
traffic slowed to an excruciating halt in order to anticipate the
first flake falling.  And of course, roads were only blocked when he
had to get to Scully.  That was the nature and inherent cruelty of
Murphy's Law.  What should have been a fifteen minute drive had taken
half an hour, even with Mulder's use of bureau tactical maneuvers to
try and manhandle his way through a rush hour mess of automobiles.

All he could think about was Scully.  

He needed to see for himself that she was alright.  If, for no other
reason, than to blast her about keeping the status of her health to
herself.  While honesty was something both of them had always valued,
Mulder assumed that, at the very least, seeing her naked on a daily
basis now meant he had a right to the really important details.

"Well, well, well," said the nurse at the front desk.  "If it isn't
'Guilty as Charged.' "  She pressed her chin into her palm and slid
the triage clipboard down into her lap.  "And 'Guilty as Charged
Junior.' " A lock of black, corkscrew-curled hair skipped over her
arm.  Her glasses had sloped down the tip of her nose, the corners of
her lips turned up, and one black eyebrow raised in question.  She
still wasn't the most hospitable of nurses, but at least today she
looked less likely to kill somebody than she had the day before.

"Lily Selden," said Mulder, swallowing back what felt like several
vital organs.  He juggled William closer to his chest; the nurse's
stapler was way too shiny and appealing for its own good.

The nurse winked at William, who curled like a rolly-bug into Mulder's
neck.  How nice it was that his son trusted Mulder only marginally
more than the scary nurse.  Real progress there.  Or else it would
have been - might have been - if only the hospital hadn't called at
the worst possible moment.  Mulder wondered briefly how much time had
passed between Scully emailing him and Scully fainting.  How long had
the hospital waited before calling him?

And then he forced out a few shaky breaths of air, unable to think
about it any further.

"Three doors down on your right," said the nurse, and her voice had
the hoarse pitch of a practiced smoker.   "Look for the staff lounge. 
She's lying down in there."

Mulder nodded his thanks and took off down the hallway, so zealous he
nearly tripped over his own shoelaces and slammed headfirst into a
'caution, wet floor' sign.  He groaned and righted himself, and
William giggled at the unexpected ride; that would certainly be
something, wouldn't it?  All three of them laid up in the hospital.

Heading further down the hallway, Mulder coughed. That disinfectant
hospital stench always did him in.  The odor of bleach reminded him of
formaldehyde, like the kind of liquid his science teachers had used to
preserve frog carcasses for dissection in the ninth grade. He'd only
tried dissection once, and unfortunately was the only kid in the
classroom without a partner to help him out.  He opened the lid of the
jar, coughed, turned to his immediate left, and puked all over his
shoes.  That was the first and last dissection he'd ever performed. 
In hindsight, it was a wonder he could even stand in Scully's exam
rooms when she had a body on the table.  Thank God his partner's
delicate features and soft voice were a good enough distraction.

The nameplate above the third door read "Staff only" and Mulder turned
the knob, pushing it open.  He breathed a stomach-gurgling sigh of
relief at the odor of freshly brewed coffee. Coffee was better than
formaldehyde.  Heck, burnt hair was better than formaldehyde.

In the middle of the room stood a wooden table, and a set of
wood-and-metal chairs that had the ambiance of dorm-room furniture. 
Along the wall perpendicular to the door was a set of scratched, blue
lockers. Along the other was a set of candy machines and a half
counter set into the stucco.  A sink hollowed out the counter, and
next to the sink, a coffee maker bubbled new coffee and a dirty
microwave waited for food.

The wall parallel to the door supported a light blue couch, and on
that couch sat Dana Scully, her ivory hands folded in her lap.  
Mulder's breath caught at the sight of her, as his breath often did. 
Her shoulder length red waves had been pushed out of her face with a
blue surgical cap, and her eyes focused on the TV, on the same
meteorologist from the waiting room who predicted severe
precipitation.  She gazed at her hands every few seconds, picking at
some invisible skin around her cuticles.  Realization that she was,
indeed, just fine, flitted through Mulder's veins, and he allowed
himself to begin breathing normally again.

William caught sight of Scully almost immediately, and he squirmed in
Mulder's arms to get to her.  He made several impatient "uh-uh" noises
and wriggled his fingers towards the woman who had, just this morning,
fed him spoonfuls of oatmeal while trying to make him laugh by
crossing her eyes.  Mulder had to agree with his son on this one; that
Scully was a nice, nice lady.

Upon William's gurgling, Scully turned towards the door.  Her eyes met
Mulder's face and then William's, and her lips broke out into a warm,
dazzling smile - and then, almost as soon as the smile appeared, it
dissolved into a thin line of alarm.  She gazed about the lounge as if
expecting fellow doctors to pop out from under the table with machetes
and black claws.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her gaze squared on William. 

Mulder dragged a chair from the center of the room and set it beside
the couch.

"Deep regression hypnosis," said Mulder.  "What does it look like?" 
He passed the squirming child along to Scully, who captured him in a
loose embrace and pressed a kiss to his forehead.  "I'm imagining back
to a past life as a bullfrog.  If I start hopping around the room,
it's not my fault."

Scullys eyebrow rose.  William turned sideways in her grip and began
rubbing the hairs on her arms, thoroughly enraptured.

"You know," said Mulder.  "That kid's going to give you rug burn."

"He shouldn't be here," Scully whispered, as if the baby could somehow
turn invisible.  "You shouldn't be here with him.  If somebody sees -
"

"I know." Mulder rubbed an itch at the corner of his eye.  "But its
fine. Trust me.  Nobody saw me bring the kid in but old man winter and
one angry looking nurse at the front desk."  He tried to keep the
impatience and hurt out of his tone; the situation with William kept
coming back to a matter of trust, and the lack of it on Scully's part
was alarming.

"Even still."  She shifted to accommodate the baby, and William's head
tilted back as he waved hello to the ceiling.

"What would you prefer I do, then?  Lock him in a closet?"

"Why?  You could have just stayed home this afternoon."  The skin at
the bridge of her nose pinched.  "Why are you here, anyway?"

Mulder rubbed the back of his neck and felt as if his muscles had
frozen solid.  "Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm not.  Why are you here?"

"You mean you don't remember?"  Mulder's eyebrows rose.  "The doctor
didn't mention any lapses of disorientation. Maybe we should just get
you home, discuss this later."

"No, we'll discuss this now.  Why are you here?"

Mulder gestured an open palm towards her.  "You fainted," he said.  

The frown turned into a look of intense disbelief. Scully's cheeks
flushed the color of plum.  "Well... yes... I know that, but how do
you know that?"

"Because you asked for me." 

Scully frowned.  "I asked for you?"

"Yes."

"And they called you?"

"Yes."

"But I didn't - I never asked for you."

"Yes, you did."  Mulder tapped her knuckles with his index finger,
concerned.  "You asked one of the doctors for your husband.  Maybe you
mumbled it and don't remember, but someone heard you.  And if memory
serves, 'your husband' would be me - unless you've got some other
husbands stashed away in one of those lockers..."  Mulder frowned.
"You don't, do you?"

"No, one is enough.  Believe me."  Scully's lips rested atop the
baby's soft, downy head. "Look, I'm sorry you felt the need to rush
down here.  I'm fine.  Really."

"No, seriously." Mulder traced his fingers over hers, settling his
hand into the warmth of her skin. "You going to tell me, lady, or do I
have to beat it out of you?"

Scully opened her palm and allowed his fingers to trace her lines. 
"Mysterious evening beatings," she mused, echoing an earlier exchange
in what seemed an attempt at leavening.  "A man after my own heart."

Mulder shook his head.  He gazed up at the television, where the
meteorologist had transformed into the anchor. The screen flipped
angles again, and a list of provisions appeared for those unaccustomed
to handling blizzards.  Flashlights, bottled water, batteries, radios,
space heaters - keep away from flammable objects, safety first -
canned goods, matches, candles... Mulder ran a mental checklist of
their own provisions in his mind, trying hard not to picture Scully
sprawled on the floor of their bathroom, nose dripping with blood. 
Hefty federal training and a good medical background had seen to it
that Dana Scully never went down.  Never.  The only time Mulder could
recall her ever blacking out was when -

"I'm not exactly sure what's wrong," said Scully.  Mulder turned to
her, and her gaze skirted the floor.  "I wasn't feeling well the other
day, but I, ah, I didn't think much of it.  I haven't been really
hungry lately, so I guess I haven't eaten - not properly, at any rate,
and I thought, maybe I just malnourished myself.  And then last night
I didn't - I thought, maybe because of William and having skipped
dinner and all the stress..." She took a breath.  "I had a muffin when
I came in this morning, but I couldn't keep it down. Maybe it is
stress, or maybe... I don't know. Maybe it's something else."

Mulder's face whitened. His heartbeat strained like a bowling ball
stressing against his ribs.  "You don't think it's -"

"No."  Scully squeezed his fingertips.  "I know what you're thinking
of, but that's not it.  I haven't had any problems or nosebleeds since
the chip..."  She cleared her throat.  "Since the chip."

Mulder nodded slowly.  "You think it's the stomach flu?"  

"I -"  Scully paused, her cheeks that same pink.  There was a strange,
nervous tugging at the corners of her lips that Mulder couldn't
decipher.  "I think it might...might be something else."

"Well, whatever you think it might be - "  He gestured around the
room.  "You've got all this medical equipment just lying around here
at your disposal.  You might as well get things checked out."

Scully ran her fingers in circles through William's baby-fine hair,
seemingly fascinated with straightening each light brown strand.  She
was avoiding direct eye-contact with him and he had no idea why.  
"You know why I didn't want anyone checking things out," she
whispered.

"I know," he agreed, releasing her free hand back into her lap.  "But
you're a doctor, Criminal.  You understand why these things are
important and you can probably do them yourself."  At Scully's non
reply, Mulder continued, "Look.  At the very least, I need you to be
of some use to me, right?  And if you're puking and passing out all
over the place there's no way I can take care of both you and the
Tater-Tot."

"The Tater-Tot?"   Scully's eyebrow shot up.  

"Yeah."  Mulder pressed a palm to William's back and brushed his
fingers over the soft, downy coat.  "You wouldn't understand,
Criminal.  See - me and the Tater had a thing going this afternoon.
Real manly man, father-son stuff.  He's almost ready to kill his first
wild animal."

"Really."

Mulder touched William's cheek and grinned.  "Yeah, well...I wouldn't
want to bore you with the logistics of male-bonding, and neither does
the Tater.  Right, Tater?"

William turned his head and smiled up at his father.  

"Exactly," said Mulder.

"Shit," answered William, clapping his hands together in delight.  

Scully's eyes widened.  Mulder blanched. 

"Shit," William repeated, utterly amused with himself.

Mulder's face flushed red and when he opened his mouth to explain
himself, nothing came out but a squeak.  He waited patiently for the
trapdoor beneath the chair to open up and suck him through.  Of
course, his son's first word couldn't be Mommy or Daddy, or even UFO. 
It had to be shit.  'Shit' was right.

With an amused crinkle between her eyes, Scully shifted her son around
in her lap so that he faced her, and she touched an index finger to
the dimple in his tiny chin.  "Excuse me, young man?" she said,
glancing at Mulder out of her peripheral vision.  "What did you just
say?"

William giggled drooly bubbles from the side of his mouth, and
repeated the word, "shit."  He flapped his arms against Scully's chest
and kept going.  "Shit, shit, shit, shit."

Scully blinked at her son and nodded.  "Male bonding indeed," she
said, gazing back up at Mulder.

Mulder shrugged, smiling a lopsided grin.  

"Unbelievable, P.I."  There was a glint of mischief in her sea-blue
eyes.  "I leave you alone with him for one afternoon.  One afternoon,
dear husband.  You couldn't have held off with the moral corruption?"

"Oh, come on.  There's always room for moral corruption."  

The sound of a throat clearing interrupted the moment, and Mulder
turned to see a light-haired nurse standing in the doorway to the
lounge.

"Dr. Selden?" the woman asked, clipboard in hand.  

Scully straightened at the sound of her pseudonym, jutted her chin,
and tightened her grip on the baby.  She looked embarrassed at having
been caught so off guard, so unprofessional. Suddenly, she was the
epitome of Special Agent Dana Scully, not Mrs. Lily Seden, and she
shielded the baby with her upper arms - as if she considered anything
with legs a threat. It was Mulder-Paranoia run amok in Dana Scully,
and Mulder could only be thankful that their guns were locked in a
drawer by the bed.

"Yes, Amy?"  

"There's someone outside to see you."  The nurse named Amy gestured
towards the hallway.

Scully and Mulder exchanged glances, both communicating with their
eyes a degree of suspicion: They had no friends, no family, nobody who
knew them out here besides Scully's coworkers.  The only person they'd
actually met since moving to Canada was Jake Walker, and Mulder
couldn't recall giving Jake access to Scully's work address.

Scully's eyes narrowed, and she turned towards the nurse in the
doorway.  "Did this person happen to mention a name?"

The nurse named Amy nodded, and she glanced at her clipboard, tapping
out a mindless rhythm with her fingers.  "She said her name was
Marita.  She said specifically that you would know who she was."

Mulder's breath caught, and he turned to Scully, who seemed unable to
speak.  Amy shifted her weight in the doorway, tap-tapping her
fingernails away on the clipboard.

"What did she look like?" asked Mulder.  He ground his knuckles into
the wooden chair, tenuously clawing at the hope that his partner
somehow had a patient whose mother's sister's aunt just so happened to
be named Marita.

Amy squinted and scratched the side of her neck.  "Ah... Not too tall,
blonde, nice suit..."

Oxygen drained from the air, leaving emptiness in its wake; Mulder
felt like a space-shuttle astronaut in the first six minutes of
flight.

Scully's hands trembled around the baby's middle, but otherwise she
gave no indication of faltering.  "Can you give us a minute, Amy?" she
said, her voice a key higher than normal.

Amy nodded and turned in the doorway, shutting the door behind her.  

A panicked, sick feeling came over Mulder, numbing all else but
thoughts of his family.  His family - he needed to protect his wife
and child.   Above all else, he needed to keep them safe.

Recalling the missing oil, and the green inorganic ooze, and the
letter from Agent Doggett, he reached over and grasped Scully's upper
elbows. "Look at me," he said, forcing a steadiness in his voice that
he didn't quite feel. Scully's gaze met his, but her pupils darted,
searching, nervous.  "I want you to go get your car right now and take
William home."  Scully's brows converged in the center above her nose,
but before she could protest, Mulder continued, "If this is who we
think it is, then we don't know what she wants.  If she wants William,
then we have to get him out of here.  You fainted this afternoon and
we don't know why, and if something were to happen I don't want to
risk -"

"No."

Mulder gritted his teeth.  "Damn it, Criminal.  You need to listen - "

"No."  Scully touched his cheek.  "You need to listen. I told you once
already, you're not leaving me behind.  I won't stand at the base of
some mountain waiting for you."

"I'm not leaving you behind.   I'm trying to do the right thing.  This
isn't a hypothetical situation anymore.  This is real. It's not - "

"It is exactly - " Mulder's gaze darted, unable to focus clearly on
anything, and Scully tilted a finger beneath his chin to pull him
back.  "Look at me, Mulder.  It is exactly what I was talking about. 
We do this together or we don't do it.  I'm not going anywhere without
you.  I made that mistake once and I'll be damned if I make it again. 
If that woman out there is Marita Covarrubias then we will face her
together.  This hospital is a public place - if she's going to pull
something it won't be here.  I can tell Amy that we'll meet her in the
cafeteria."

Mulder sighed, and Scully's finger fell back to her lap.  "Are you
sure?" he asked.

"Yes."  Her eyes glinted, her chin resting on William's head.  "We're
facing this together. Whatever this is, I'm ready for it."
  
*************
Shadows of Winter
Part V
by Jaime Lyn 
*************

Another PG section.  Welcome to mytharc land.  

---

The hospital cafeteria was wasn't exactly a dead-of-night ghost town,
but it wasn't the hubbub of the town square, either.  Corner tables
and side booths were dotted with mingling diners wearing visitors'
badges, and hospital personnel sporting dangling ID lanyards.  The
servers and janitorial staff behind the counter stood in a cluster
around an old, black and white Zenith, loudly debating whether or not
the predicted storm would bring in as much snowfall as the news
suggested.  Apparently, when nothing-much was the norm, the buzz was
always the weather.

Scully had forgone her lab coat in favor of walking the halls in her
pantsuit, but her ID badge still hung around her neck as a bold
proclamation of the professional she would forever be.  The baby
fidgeted on her hip, grabbing at anything that darted out towards him:
the corners of walls and the edges of opened doors, the bars from food
carts and the ID badges of other doctors.  He babbled incessantly to
passers-by in the language of Gobbledygook, and occasionally he
interspersed a "shit" or two when he especially liked someone.  If
Mulder hadn't been so on edge about why they were going to the
cafeteria, Scully's stuttered explanations about their child's newly
established grasp of English swear-words would probably have amused
Mulder to no end.

As it went, Mulder had no concrete explanations for Scully, or for
himself, on why their Universe had suddenly been turned on its head. 
They'd been living in Canada without incident for four months now, and
had managed to maintain anonymity ever since Mulder's break out of
jail back in May. Nobody - not even Skinner, Doggett, or Reyes, knew
of their whereabouts.  But now with William returned, and Marita
somehow in town, and evidence that pointed towards alien involvement,
perhaps their false sense of anonymity had been just that: false,
fabricated; it was the lie that he and Scully chose to believe.

These men in power, the men who continued to propagate a plan to
colonize the planet, they certainly had demonstrated a proficiency in
keeping tabs on whoever pleased them.  If their technology was still
being utilized, then someone still had an agenda.  But Mulder had
assumed most of the original conspirators had died, or if they weren't
already dead, they'd at least gone into hiding across the globe;
grains of sand were always harder to mobilize when scattered over a
stadium sized surface.

But even the alien threat had diminished considerably since William's
adoption and Mulder's trial, and ever since New Mexico Mulder had
thought they were safe.  Relatively safe, that is.  The human threat
was still a threat, but it was considerably easier to deal with. 
Humans had frailties - they were expendable.  Supersoldiers
essentially had no frailties, and they had a sickening adeptness at
smoking out what they wanted, when they wanted it.

And then there was this newest development: Marita Covarrubias,
Mulder's former contact, and a Special Representative to the United
Nations.  While Marita had never presented herself as a threat, nor
had she stood specifically on either side of the fence, she was a
hard-assed mercenary as much as Alex Krycek had been.  She worked for
nobody but herself.  Her duplicity was wrapped in a prettier package,
but it existed, nonetheless. If Marita was here to warn him and
Scully, then she was here for her own reasons.  And if it was William
she had come to claim, she wasn't going to get him.  Not so long as
Mulder moved and breathed.

"Paul - " 

Mulder paused as Scully pressed a hand to his back. He turned to her
and caught a glimpse of another woman standing to her left, smiling
and shaking hands with William.  The unfamiliar brunette had a
hospital ID lanyard hanging from her neck and an uneaten green apple
in her free hand; William seemed to be fascinated with taking the
apple from her.

"What is it?"

"Dr. Carmichael," Scully answered, nodding to the brown-haired woman
at her side.   "Kathy Carmichael.  She's a colleague of mine.  Kathy,
this is my husband, Paul."

"We've met," said Kathy, pushing a long, dark strand of hair back over
her ear.  She extended a hand to Mulder, and Mulder shook it.  "Well,
not officially."  Dr. Carmichael waved a hand in explanation.  "Your
husband hung up on me."

"He does that," said Scully.

Mulder pursed his lips and shrugged, distracted.  He hadn't meant to
be rude on the phone, and he certainly didn't mean to be now, but
there were other concerns.  If Scully was stalling for time by
striking up conversation with her colleagues, then she was only
putting off the inevitable.

"Kathy's going to watch William for a little while," Scully explained,
handing off the child to her co-worker.  Her hands lingered on
William's back for a moment, her blue eyes stark with concern.  She
brushed the back of William's head and her lower lip quivered as she
kissed his tiny fingers.

Mulder watched the exchange with a degree of apprehension, unsure that
he wanted anyone other than Scully touching his child.  If he'd wanted
before to give William back to his adoptive parents, he now wanted
nothing more than to lock the baby in a room with Scully and board up
the door with steel bars.

"We'll hang out here for a little while," said Kathy, smiling and
brushing noses with William, who squealed with excitement.  "You two
go do whatever it is you need to do."

Scully nodded at Kathy, and then steeled her gaze with Mulder.  

"Oh, and Lily?"

At the sound of her name, Scully turned one last time to her
colleague, who bounced William on her hip.  "Do me a favor?  Eat
something, okay?  Before you leave for the day?  Have some toast or
orange juice. You're in the cafeteria, you might as well.  Your
glucose levels can't be great."

Scully nodded almost imperceptibly, her breathing hard, long, and
deep, her nostrils flared, her eyes clouded with concentration. 
Mulder recognized this exercise; Scully was trying to regain her
composure.  She wasn't going to pass out again, but she just might
burst into tears.

"She'll eat something," said Mulder, and he touched the top of
William's head with his palm.  "If it was me, she'd never let me get
away with it."

"I can imagine," said Kathy, and she settled the baby more firmly onto
her hip. In response, William scooped up the doctor's laminated ID
badge and stuffed it into his mouth. "Okay then.  We'll be right over
there." She chucked a thumb in the direction of a nearby booth.

Scully forced a smile that seemed dangerously close to tearful
resignation.  "Thank you," she said, trailing her fingers down
William's back.   Kathy nodded and turned, making her way towards the
booth.

Mulder touched Scully's arm as she watched them go.  "Good call," he
said.

Scully took a breath, pivoting on her heels.  "Let's just get this
over with."

Mulder nodded.  Both turned and searched the wooden sea of tables and
hard-backed plastic chairs.

At a table in the center of the cafeteria sat the woman they'd come to
see; it was indeed Marita Covarrubias, her blonde hair pulled back in
a tight bun, her blue eyes straight ahead, her hands folded on the
table.  She tilted her chin in silent acknowledgement of Mulder and
Scully's presence, and then nodded to the two chairs set in front of
her. On the table beside her was a black bag, and next to the bag, a
black overcoat.

"Well, well," she said, her face expressionless as they approached.
"If it isn't Agents Eighty-Six and Ninety-Nine. I thought for a minute
that I might have the wrong hospital."

Scully sat to the left of Mulder, and both exchanged silent glances.  

"I see my parcel made it to you safe and sound.  That's good."  Marita
tilted her chin towards the back booth, where Kathy Carmichael sat
entertaining William.

"Your parcel," said Scully, and her ice-blue eyes refused to give away
her hand.  "So this was your doing?"

"Let's just say I had a vested interest in his safety, yes."  Marita
re-directed her gaze at Mulder.  "I believe in returning a courtesy."

Scully's eyes narrowed, and a tinge of something unrecognizable rested
in the glint of her sapphire irises.  "What do you mean, returning a
courtesy?"

"I mean exactly what I said.  Agent Mulder saved my life and I'm
returning the courtesy."  Marita seemed to work her jaw before
choosing her next words. "There are numerous examples I could give
you, Agent Scully, but I'll choose the most obvious.  When he was on
trial for murder, Agent Mulder could have used my knowledge of the
alien plot to his advantage.  That he didn't act selfishly is a
testament to his good character.  He chose my life over his, which is
a show of faith other associates would never have afforded me.  Like I
said, I believe in returning a courtesy."

Mulder avoided Scully's glance in his direction, his eyes focused on
Marita, and then on the table.  Fuzzy details were starting to twist
into focus now, and if this situation hadn't already been bad enough,
then it was about to get a whole lot worse.

Somehow, he had the distinct feeling that the 'courtesy' Marita
claimed she was repaying had nothing to do with the trial, and
everything to do with her stay with him in a double-wide trailer in
the middle of Southern New Mexico.

"You stole our son from his foster parents," said Mulder, cringing. 
"You were the one who orchestrated the baby switch, and it was your
people who crashed into the tree out front, wasn't it?  Let's not kid
ourselves and pretend that you did this purely to repay a courtesy. 
You knew something, something you still won't say."

Scully frowned and turned to him.  "Mulder?"

Mulder and Marita just stared at each other, searching the silence for
answers.

"Mulder?" Scully repeated, touching his elbow with one finger. 
"What's this about a baby switch?"

And like a rubber band, Mulder snapped back to her.  

"I got an email from Agent Doggett this afternoon," Mulder explained. 
"William Mulder was given up for adoption on May 13th, 2002. On May
19th, he was taken to a home in the mid-west and given to a couple by
the name of Van De Kamp.  He was returned to social services a day
later, and another baby was given to the Van De Kamps in his place,
although the state currently has no record of this exchange.  Nor do
they have any federal records of the baby who took William's place.  A
child around the same age, by the name of Moira."

Scully was silent, her mouth half opened, her pupils darting as if
trying to process this.  At both womens silence, Mulder leaned
forward so that his knuckles were mere centimeters from Marita's. "Who
is baby Moira?" he demanded in a low voice.  "And don't bullshit me
that you don't know, because I think we both know that you do."

Scully's gaze darted from Mulder to Marita.  Marita gazed at her
hands, for a moment unwilling to look up, and her hard facade crumbled
just slightly, as if Mulder had swung a jackhammer right into the
brick wall of her one weakness.

"Moira was my child," Marita finally admitted, raising a gaze as hard
as stone.  If there was a chip in the wall now, she made damn sure no
one could see it.

"I didn't plan to have her, I couldn't take care of her, and turning
her over to someone else was preferable to leaving her on the side of
the road.  There is no place in my life for a child, Agent Mulder, and
there never will be.  Her parentage and origin really aren't any of
your concern or your business, but she's safe where she is.  She's not
like William was. For awhile I thought she might be..."  Marita
paused, jutted her chin in defiance. "But she's not. And now she's
gone and it doesn't matter any longer.  Your son didn't belong in
adoptive care any more than my daughter belonged in mine."

"You had a child," Scully said, her eyes dangerous.  

"Yes."

"And you gave that child up.  Switched it with mine."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Marita's eyes narrowed.  "I told you why."  

"Oh, right.  I forgot.  Repaying a courtesy."  Scully's voice was
laced with bitterness. "So, what then? You're saying you
single-handedly 'fixed' things?  You righted my wrong?"

"I gave Agent Mulder his son back," Marita snapped.  

Scully visibly bristled.  Her fist clenched beneath the table. He
reached over and squeezed her knee, reminded her he was there, right
there beside her.

"You have no way of knowing whether what you did put my son in even
more danger," Scully said, although her voice seemed to soften a hair.
 Regardless of circumstances, Scully still understood what it meant to
give up a child, and she was too good hearted to not consider that
information.

"Your son is in no greater danger now than he was nine months ago,"
Marita argued.

Scully's leg muscles tensed beneath his fingertips.  "Tell me how you
seem to have more information on the subject than I do."

Again, Marita focused on Mulder, and her gaze was so absolute it
seemed to disinclude Scully entirely. Mulder shifted at the unwavering
attention, unsure of where to rest his hands or how to keep his legs
from trembling.  There were some strange waves radiating from the
former representative of the UN, and he wasn't sure he liked the
direction of the tide.

 If Scully picked up on any of what Mulder did, her gaze never wavered
an inch.

"As you know, Jeffrey Spender admitted he had an axe to grind with his
father.  He was determined to put an end to his father's work, just as
his father had tried to put an end to him.  During one of the
experiments - experiments orchestrated not by supersoldiers, but by
scientists working within our own government - Jeffrey was able to get
his hands on a concentrated form of iron magnetite.  It was originally
derived as a vaccine for counteracting the effects of
molecular-reconfigured water. Chloramine water.  The same water Agent
Scully was exposed to in the early months of her pregnancy. In large
doses, this form of magnetite is lethal to anything with alien DNA."

"We know all of this," Scully asserted.  

Marita turned, and finally acknowledged his partner's existence at the
table.  "Yes, most of it you do," she agreed.  "But what you don't
know is that Jeffrey Spender withheld valuable information from you
regarding the side-effects of the vaccine."

Mulder's breathing shallowed.  Scully shifted uncomfortably.   

"Side effects," said Mulder, darting his gaze to the booth in the back
of the cafeteria.  Kathy Carmichael caught him staring and held one of
William's tiny hands up in a wave.  Mulder waved back, forcing a
smile, and turned to Marita.

"What side effects?" Scully demanded.  

"Unless it was never made clear to you," Marita continued, "Your son
is not the result of a government experiment.  Nor was he, as far as
anyone can tell, a direct result of exposure to chloramine water,
either.  Obviously, Agent Scully was less than infertile, since she
became pregnant by her own means.  And whatever dormant genetic makeup
lies in yours and Agent Scully's DNA, it transferred to your son, and
his abilities - his ties to alien life - to all alien life on this
planet - were derived from that end.  I'm sure you know how to work a
pun-nit square, Agent Scully, and that you know how active and
recessive genes combine."

Scully remained silent, but the fist in her lap clenched and
unclenched.

Marita went on, talking solely to Mulder.  "Recessive genes in one of
the chromosomal pairs caused a normally dormant trait to surface; a
fifth base pair containing trace properties of iron. It's what's
otherwise known as 'branched DNA' - not dissimilar to what occurred
with Agent Scully's DNA following her abduction. "

Scully squinted, her eyes focused on the wall above Marita's head. 
"The implication, then, is that Mulder and I somehow have altered
biology, that we were tampered with at the cellular level, and this
has affected our very makeup, mutated our genomes in a manner similar
to what might occur following exposure to high levels of radiation. 
And you're saying we passed this cellular mutation down in our
chromosomes - to William."

Mulder turned to Scully, feeling suddenly left behind.  "Fifth base
pair?"

Scully afforded him a sideways glance. "All human DNA is made up of
four base pairs," she explained, touching an index finger to her
bottom lip: a familiar nervous habit.  "Adenine and Thiamine, Cytosine
and Guanine.  All four nucleotides can be broken down at the molecular
level into nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Not one of these
nucleotides, however, contains iron, and a fifth base pair has never
been known to occur naturally.   The presence of an additional pair
would upset the very structure of DNA.  It would prevent pair bonding
with Deoxyribose - the backbone sugar.  It would be, at the very
least, a biological abomination.  It could never survive past
conception."

"In a normal human being, no," agreed Marita.  "But in an evolved
human, yes."

"An evolved human," echoed Scully, jutting her chin. If her jaw were
screwed on any tighter, Mulder was positive it would break off the
bottom of her face.  "So you're saying that my son is one of these -
these evolved humans.  That he has branched DNA."

"When he was born, yes, he did."  

Mulder rubbed his temple, trying to process this.  "But he doesn't
anymore."

"No."  

Scully pursed her lips.  "How is what you're saying even possible?"

Marita turned to Agent Mulder once again, and again, Mulder felt that
indecipherable prickling, that there was a subtext going on here he
wasn't picking up on.

"When Jeffrey Spender injected your son with a pure form of magnetite,
he in essence destroyed William's fifth base pair by overloading it
with iron.  It's a junk sequence - inactive in modern humans because
we don't require any of its inherent characteristics, but intrinsic
for alien survival. In William, the broken strands were interpreted by
his immune system as little more than biological waste.  The protein
sequence then began to exit his system en masse, in the form of a
toxin - the same type of toxin that exited Agent Scully's system
following her abduction and return. Except with William's advanced
biological makeup, it's not just poison; it's a means of destruction,
Agent Mulder.  For them. "

"Them," echoed Mulder.  "You mean the supersoldiers."

"I mean all of them."

Scully's brow furrowed, and she exchanged a quick glance with Mulder. 

"If this is true," Scully said, and her voice crouched to a whisper. 
"Then why didn't Jeffrey Spender tell me?  Why would he keep that kind
of information from me when he explained everything else?"

Mulder nodded in agreement.  

And for the first time since they'd sat down, Marita actually smiled,
her pink lips urging up a dimple in her left cheek. With her fair skin
and blue eyes, perfectly formed lips and light blonde hair, she would
have been beautiful once - to somebody else, in some life long
forgotten.  But too much had been done to her, too many atrocities had
hardened her spirit, made her cold.  And her heart wasn't and never
would be like Scully's.  Marita Covarrubias was lovely, indeed, but
she was little more than a pretty shell for a lonely soul.  She was
beauty's broken potential - the personification of an empty shore that
never saw visitors.

"Did it never occur to you," said Marita, focusing her cold eyes
directly on Scully, "That Jeffrey Spender's motivations were not all
that they appeared?"

 "Then why don't you tell me what his real motivations were?"

"Gladly."

Mulder glanced from one woman to the other, and it appeared as if he
had been completely excluded from this part of the conversation. 
Whereas before Marita had directed her comments solely at him, as if
Scully was little more than window dressing, she now gazed at Scully
in totality, in unspoken showdown.

"Jeffrey Spender was the forgotten son, Agent Scully.  For years he
wondered about the father he never met, only to discover in the end
the man he'd sought was little more than a monster, and a coward. A
man who had abandoned Jeffrey and his mother for aliens and power and
corruption...and the arms of another woman. I'm sure you've met her -
Teena Mulder?"

Mulder's teeth sunk down into his bottom lip at the sound of his
mother's name, deceased now, lost to this hideous truth.

"But you already know this," Marita said, her voice like poisoned
honey.  "Jeffrey never suspected. And when his mother was abducted one
final time, Jeffrey realized that not only was he the forgotten son in
his father's eyes, he was the forgotten son in his mother's as well. 
Agent Mulder was the man Cassandra Spender sought upon her return from
the ship.  Agent Mulder was the one she confided in.  And in the end,
Agent Mulder couldn't even save her.  The experiments performed on
Jeffrey Spender following his shooting were merely the final straws in
a long series of last straws.  His hatred for his family ran much
deeper than his hatred for The Cancerman."

"So Spender was jealous," said Scully, and this time it was her hand
on Mulder's knee, offering comfort.  She squeezed him tight, and
continued, "And he hated me because of my connection to Mulder."

"It wasn't about you, Agent Scully.  It was never about you."  

"Then he came to me seeking revenge." Scully's fingers pressed over
Mulder's lower leg in hard, warm circles. Faster, harder, more
insistent.  "That's what you're saying."

Marita's silence was frightening.  In her eyes was contempt - not for
Mulder, but for the woman on the other side of the table.

"And you played right into his hand, didn't you, Agent Scully?" 

Scully swallowed.  "Meaning what?" 

Mulder's chest deflated in painful slowness, and he felt as if someone
had punched him directly in the ribs. Suddenly, Jeffrey Spender's
motives all made sense - why he would go to Scully, why he would
conceal his identity, why he would inject William with iron magnetite
and then imply William would never be safe.  He hadn't done it to save
William - he had done it to hurt Mulder.  Spender must have agreed to
testify at the trial only because he believed Mulder would die anyway.

"He knew you would give William up for adoption," whispered Mulder,
his eyes glazed, unfocused.  He saw it all in his head, every
despicable image, word, and motivation.  He felt the anguish, the
hatred behind such an act, and it nearly made him sick.  He turned to
Scully, and felt incredibly guilty.  "He knew that if he twisted the
truth enough, if he made it sound like nothing you could do would keep
William safe, that you would give him up.  That you would sever all
ties for the sake of the baby.  Then I would never know my son.  He
wanted to destroy the project, but he wanted to destroy me just as
badly.  He thought never knowing my own child would destroy me - same
as he believes it destroyed my real father."

Scully's eyes watered at this, as if she couldn't take any more
revelation for one afternoon, and she swallowed, turning her gaze to
the table.  The hand on his leg slid to his knee, and then back up and
over the outside of his thigh, before it released to her lap.

"So they're dying," managed Mulder, redirecting the subject and his
focus to Marita.  His brain flicked with sudden understanding, and he
replayed the old headline from the newspaper article he'd left in the
bedroom: Four U.S CIA Operatives Missing in the Latest String of U.S
Government Disappearances.

"My God," he said.  "All the men in power who aren't human - they're
not just disappearing.  They're dying.  The hybrids, the supersoldiers
- just one massive, going-out-of-business sale. Is this what you're
trying to tell me?"

"Yes."

"And that's how you knew it was safe - that they wouldn't come after
William," added Scully, as if air had just been re-inflated into her. 
 "Because they're afraid of him now, of his biology."

"For the most part."  Marita nudged her chin in the general direction
of the baby.  "The aliens are de-evolving, reverting to their most
primitive forms.  The toxin released from William's bloodstream has
been killing them slowly, but it has been killing them.  It's been
months now. Soon, anything on this planet with alien properties will
die, or it will be sucked back into the Earth in a primitive form."

Scully glanced up and touched Mulder's arm.  "Oh my God, Mulder."  A
light seemed to sparkle in her eyes.  "I think I see the connection -
the missing oil..." Her fingers tickled his elbow.  "Whatever broke
into that garage, it was inorganic, unidentifiable except for a scant
concentration of iron magnetite.  The substance that killed the cat
was a byproduct of this material.  It had to be."  She seemed amazed
at her own logic. "Mulder... what we found must have been residue. 
The decomposition stage of what once must have been an entity looking
for a viable host."

"But it wasn't trying to kill us; it was trying to get away, trying to
survive," Mulder finished for her.  "It was looking for a means to an
end."

Marita nodded.  "Oil's disappearing all over the globe.  I'm thinking
the prices of petroleum are going to skyrocket in the coming months."

Scully's mouth opened, and she took a few deep breaths.  Her fingers
tightened over Mulder's arm.  "Then that means William - he's safe.
It's over."  She seemed to be willing herself to this, and her eyes
were pleading.  "It's all over."

"Not yet."  Marita's gaze returned to Mulder, and Scully disappeared
from the table again.

"There is still the human threat, and there are those out there who
have discovered what I've done, returning William to you.  They'll
come to kill me, and then to kill him - to kill both of you.  In their
eyes, you've destroyed their one hope for the second coming.  Whereas
once they revered William and his abilities, now the situation has
changed.  William is useless to them without his abilities.  Granted,
there aren't many of them left, but they do have a leader, and they
have a weapon - the last living supersoldier."  For the first time
since the conversation began, Marita touched the black bag on the
table, running her fingers along the creases.  "Perhaps you know him? 
Knowle Rhorer?"

Mulder swallowed.  Knowle Rhorer. Of course, it had to be Knowle
Rhorer.  It couldn't be anyone besides Knowle Rhorer.  A headache
gripped him, and he felt as if there would be no end to this upside
down Universe. Stuck forever in a time warp, Mulder would never get
away from the battle long enough to sit by the fire with his partner
and his son, and just be normal.  Drink hot chocolate, read a book,
decorate a Christmas tree.  He'd never before understood what Scully
meant by wanting to stop the endless drive to get out of the car, but
he did now.

"Knowle Rhorer wants to destroy William before William can destroy
him," Mulder explained, turning to Scully.  "But with other resources
either dead or dying, he'll have to use the members of this cult to
get to us, and then he'll kill all of us - us and whoever helped him."

Scully nodded, and this time a tear did escape from the corners of
both red-rimmed eyes.  She paid the moisture no mind and turned a
pained gaze toward Marita.  "How can we stop them?"

Marita nodded towards the unopened black bag.  "Destroy Knowle Rhorer
and you destroy the movement."

Mulder shook his head, confused.  "I'm not following now - how the
hell am I supposed to kill something that won't die?  And how will
destroying him keep these sects or cults or whatever the hell they are
- how will it keep anyone from coming after William, or after Scully
and I?"

"First of all, Knowle Rhorer isn't an identity, it's a prototype,"
Marita explained, her hard blue eyes softening when she focused on
Mulder.  "Half alien, half government created, there were at least
twenty Knowle Rhorers patrolling the experiments last year.  Now there
is only one.  And he's dying.  The hybrids, the bounty hunters, the
clones " theyre all dead. But supersoldiers were able to sustain the
most amount of iron in their biology, and now Knowle Rhorer is the
last.

"As for human involvement, the cults have been around for years, since
Roswell in '47.  They've always stayed away from you, from your work,
because they were afraid of you.  And then your son was born, and the
myth they'd for years held as little more than biblical miracle came
true.  The true savior was born, and you had become some sort of
heretic.  Your opposition to the project became widely known, and they
considered you dangerous.  The problem was that they were no longer
afraid of you."

Marita finally passed the black bag along to the center of the table,
and into Mulder's fingers.  The bag was soft, and velvet, and Mulder
crumpled it in his hands, turning to Scully for confirmation.  Scully
nodded at him to open it, communicating with her eyes that there would
be further discussion later, and Mulder followed her silent
instruction.

Inside was a syringe, and a tiny glass vial filled with amber liquid.

"Make them afraid again, Agent Mulder.  It's the only way to stop
them."

For a moment, Marita's expressionless mask fell, and there was
something else swimming behind her cold, blue eyes.  If Mulder didn't
know better, he'd say it was suspiciously close to what he saw in
Scully's eyes right after having kissed her.

"It's for Agent Scully," Marita added, dipping her gaze in what seemed
an attempt at regaining her composure.  "If the time ever comes for
her to need it again."

"Need what again?"  Mulder frowned - sure that he'd missed something
important.  Marita remained silent, and when he turned a questioning
glace towards Scully, her focus averted and her cheeks warmed.  A deep
thudding erupted in Mulder's stomach; So Scully was hiding something
from him.  Something important.

"How do you know all of this?" Scully asked, her nostrils flared, her
eyes watery. "Why should we believe you?"

"You're right," said Marita, and she pushed back in her chair and rose
to her feet.  "You have no reason to believe me.  I shouldn't know any
of this.  About Spender, about the project.  Unless I was there. 
Unless I saw what they did.  Unless I overheard what was said.  And
like I already told you, I'm simply repaying a courtesy."

"And how did you know how to find us?" 

Marita smiled a second time, but there was little mirth in her
expression.  She pulled her coat over her shoulders and yanked a
folded piece of paper out of her pocket.  The creases were stiff,
almost torn, as if she'd gazed at the paper for a good long while
before re-folding it and un-folding it and refolding it again.

She tossed the paper onto the table and shrugged. 

"I intercepted an email to Assistant Director Skinner and found out
which way you'd likely be headed.  I had no exact coordinates, but I
had operatives head up this way in search of you.  A few of them
weren't so bright, and they skidded off the road after a night at the
bar.  That they ended up on your street is not my doing.  I came to
the hospital to look... to find out where they'd taken William, and I
came across this - " She gestured to the paper.  "I read between the
lines and took a wild guess."

Mulder unfolded the paper and dropped it to the table for Scully to
read with him:  "Starting up Private Investigative Practice and
looking for available help.  If you have any special skills, medical,
law enforcement or otherwise, and have a strong desire to seek the
truth, email Paul Selden at PIseek1@yahoo.com."

Scully turned to him with a raised eyebrow.  "I don't believe it," she
said, a note of incredulity in her voice.  "This is your flier?  Then
Marita really couldn't have known...  And the crash, you finding us -
it was a coincidence..."

"Sometimes, coincidences happen for a reason, Agent Scully, but that
doesn't make them contrived," Marita answered, and she cast one last,
long look at Mulder.  Their gazes held and something sharp passed from
her to him.
 
"Understood," said Mulder.  

And just like that, the connection disappeared.  

"Like I said - " Maritas gaze flitted over Scully's head, across the
room to where William sat with Kathy in a tiny booth.  She sighed, and
straightened her coat over her shoulders.  "Just repaying a courtesy."

----

************
Shadows of Winter 
Part 6 
By Jaime Lyn 
**************

Rated PG-13, for your pleasure.  

----


The house was dim and cool, and dusted with the scent of early
evening.

"Scully?"

Mulder flipped on the hall light and dropped his keys on the entryway
table.  The living room lamp cast a soft glow that painted the floor
at his feet, tickling the edges of the carpet.  Scully had gotten at
least six car lengths ahead of him on the freeway, and he'd lost sight
of her car just as the first flakes dripped from the sky.  He'd
thought for sure she had made it home first, but the fireplace wasn't
lit, and lighting the fireplace was generally the first thing Scully
did whenever she walked into the house.  If there was no fire going,
something had to be bothering her.

"I'm in here," came her voice.

 Or maybe he was just overreacting to nothing.  It had been known to
happen.

Mulder stuffed his hands into his pockets and headed into the living
room.  His arms were freezing, goose-bumps raising the flesh beneath
his shirt and overcoat.  He'd thought that perhaps he turned up the
heat high before he left, but in hindsight he should have just stuffed
a space-heater down his pants.

William sat on the floor beside the couch, pounding a small, under
stuffed, blue bunny into the carpet.  The bunny had fur missing from
one ear and its stomach was clumpy, lopsided; this was the same bunny
Mulder had accidentally pulled from Scully's bag in the middle of the
southwest.  She must have been fishing through the closets, rooting
through their old clothes and worn shoes and unused bath products -
re-surfacing memories they'd long ago stuffed under a shelf and locked
behind a heavy wooden door.

Scully was silent, perched on the couch with her hands folded in her
lap.  The blue surgical cap had been removed, and her red hair spilled
onto her shoulders in waves.  She gazed with hypnotic silence into the
empty fireplace, her face expressionless, her head tilted to one side.
 She looked like the model for a still-life, a study of beauty trapped
by the weight of the universe.

Mulder sat on the floor beside the baby, flicking at
little-blue-bunny's ears with his thumb and forefinger.  Seemingly
pleased to have a new playmate, even if it wasn't Scully, William held
up the bunny for Mulder to see and gurgled a few words of
gobbledygook.  He pounded the bunny into Mulder's kneecaps and flapped
his free arm, bouncing up and down on his padded bottom.

Venturing, Mulder touched Scully's knee with his fingertips.  She
didn't move.

"Hey," he whispered, nudging her.  "What are you thinking?"  

She'd been quiet for awhile now - ever since leaving the hospital,
actually.

After Marita had slipped from the cafeteria, neither he nor Scully
knew what to say. Scully rose from her chair and retrieved William
from Dr. Carmichael, politely thanked the other woman for her trouble.
 Then she turned to Mulder and suggested that they head home, the
whites of her eyes a shade of light plum. Mulder suggested Scully have
some juice or a piece of fruit or a sandwich first - if she was
malnourished, she needed to eat before she got behind the wheel of a
car.

Either too tired or too stricken to argue, Scully dutifully got
herself an apple, ate it with the baby on her lap, tossed the core
into the garbage, and headed for the door, trancelike.  "I just need
to pick up some baby supplies out of my locker," she mumbled, "and
stuff them in the trunk.  Leave the car seat by the rear exit and I'll
meet you at home."  She didn't offer any insight into her thoughts,
nor did she let him take the baby off her hands.  She clutched William
to her chest like a blanket.  She barely even afforded Mulder a second
glance before she took off down the hallway with the baby on her hip,
and left him standing outside the doorway to the cafeteria.  Alone.

"Scully?"  He scratched the center of her knee. 

"Hm?"  Scully blinked, but her eyes didn't waver from their focus on
the darkened fireplace.

"You with me?"

Scully nodded, worrying her fingers in her lap.  "Did I ever tell
you...What Agent Doggett said to me when we first met?"

Brows furrowed, Mulder leaned into the couch.  "No," he said, flicking
again at blue-bunny's ears.  "You never told me."

Finally, Scully met his gaze. "It was a week after you had gone
missing -" She stammered, picked at her cuticles.  "And Agent Doggett
was sitting next to me on the couch outside the Deputy Director's
office.  He didn't know me and I didn't know him. I didn't want to
know anyone.  He said that he'd heard these rumors -about you, about
people you had spoken to and things you had done - none of which I
believed.  He said you didn't trust me.  That you never trusted me.
Looking back, I think he was just trying to gauge my reaction at being
provoked. I was live wire at the time; I wasn't someone you wanted to
know."

Mulder was silent, unsure of where she was going with this.  While
Mulder had known Scully for the better part of nine and a half years,
he still often puzzled over the way her mind worked.  Her cogs and
wheels didn't turn the way his did, and that had always made her
something of an enigma.  Sometimes, what came out of her mouth was so
far removed from what he thought she might actually be thinking, that
he himself had to wonder whether he knew her at all.

She sighed.  "I was angry - at myself, at circumstances, at everyone. 
Because as far as I was concerned, everyone was a liar.  Everyone but
you.  I knew you, and I knew the work, and I knew that despite my not
knowing where you were, you would come back to me.  Because... because
it was me.  And because you always came back.  And then Agent Doggett
said, 'Maybe you don't know Agent Mulder as well as you think you do,'
and it made me terrified to think - "  There were no tears in her
eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was thready, dark.  "Maybe I
don't."

"Scully - " Worried that she might be having some sort of anxiety
attack, Mulder rose to his feet and sunk down on the couch beside her.
 "Scully, I don't see where you're going with this, but I always
thought you knew - or you need to know - I trust you.  I've never
trusted anyone but you."

"I do know that."  She shook her head at some invisible evil.  "But
there are other things I don't know about you. There were months we
spent apart, and I can't say that I knew you then because I didn't
know you then.  You were gone.  I don't know where you went or what
you did. "She touched a palm to his cheek.  "I can't ever know what it
was like for you.  You cry out in your sleep and I don't know how to
help you.  You look at William and I think you want to connect with
him, but something's holding you back. There's something you need that
I can't give you."

Mulder took a breath, felt a sudden, inexplicable paranoia Scully was
about to say she wanted to leave him.  He searched her eyes and took
her hand in his, held it up to his lips.  Her mouth twitched, dimpled
her cheeks; a struggle against letting go of whatever it was that
haunted her.

"What I need is you," he insisted.  

She shook her head. "I'm part of it, but I'm not all of it.  You need
the hunt, the chase, The X-Files.  I can't give those things back to
you.  I can't even be your wife without first being your partner, and
at this point, I don't know which identity is mine.  I don't know who
we are."

Mulder frowned. "We are who we are, Scully."

That was a stupid answer and they both knew it.

Acceptance of almost-domestication had crept up on them slowly, like
trickling honey through a strainer.  But Mr. and Mrs. Blissfully
Ignorant weren't really who they were, and both of them knew it.
Beneath a thick skin of love so intense the edges blinded reality,
there were silences and unspoken nightmares.  There were desperate
whispers in the dark and scathing orgasms with their eyes closed.  The
truth was difficult and unforgiving, and neither of them cared to dip
their toes into the pool of post-traumatic stress.  The months they'd
spent apart were forbidden, shadowed memories.

"But what does that mean?" she asked.  "What does any of this mean? 
We haven't moved forward at all.  We've only avoided... everything."

Mulder clasped her palm to his chest and pressed her fingers between
both of his hands; whatever she wanted to hear, whatever she needed to
hear, he wanted to say it.  He just didn't know how, or even if he
could. Perhaps that made him more selfish than he cared to admit.

"I still, I don't - " He sighed, frustrated, and gazed at her trapped
hand above his ribcage.  "I don't understand what you're trying to say
to me."

"I think you do know," she said.  "If we're going to get through this,
I need to know the truth."

"About what?"

"About everything." Scully broke eye contact with him and took a
breath as if she'd been kicked in the stomach.  "About all the things
you think but never say.  I need to know what happened during those
months we spent apart."  She blew out a slow, long breath, and their
eyes met again.  "Marita Covarrubias is in love with you, Mulder."

All the color drained from Mulder's cheeks.  His stomach dropped into
his feet.  "Scully, that's not - "

"She's in love with you," Scully insisted.  "It wasn't the trial she
was repaying you for, because the dates don't match up.  She brought
William back to you - not to me, to you.  And I think you know why she
would do that.  I think you know.  And I need to know, too.  I need
the truth.  All of it."

"Criminal -" He felt sick, and tried to push the dark images from the
New Mexico desert from his mind. "I don't see what this has to do with
anything - "

"It has to do with everything."  This time her voice hardened, and she
looked him square in the eyes: no secrets, not this time.  "Did you
sleep with her, Mulder?"

 "What?"   Tendrils of dread closed around his lungs.

"Did you sleep with her?"  

He didn't quite know what to make of such an accusation; not that it
was technically an accusation.  Technically, it was just a question,
but it was a question laced with accusation like a warm broth laced
with arsenic.

 It occurred to Mulder suddenly that he had become that guy - that guy
from the sitcom whose wife asked him whether or not he thought she was
fat, and he had to figure out the best way to answer her without
getting his head bashed in.  Any abrupt movement to the right or left
would mean certain catastrophe, and at the same time, he couldn't
stand still.  If he was a TV character, the credits would roll and he
would see his name in lights: Fox Mulder starring as the
clumsy-mouthed husband.

The ludicrousness built, and Mulder began to laugh - softly at first,
and then harder, nervous, like a manic-schizophrenic at a funeral.

"Mulder?"  Scully's tone was high-pitched, annoyed.  "Oh Jesus,
Mulder, hysteria isn't exactly what I was asking you for.  Please tell
me you didn't - "

"Of course I didn't," he choked, and at this point he was laughing so
hard he almost couldn't breathe.  Scully regarded him as if trying to
see him through a stinging cloud of smoke.  She pulled her hand back
into her lap.

"How is this funny, Mulder?"  She sounded genuinely distressed.  "How
is it even remotely funny?  Do you think I'm crazy? That I was
imagining the way that woman - "

"Being on the receiving end doesn't make the act reciprocated,
Scully."

"Excuse me?"

Mulder's laughter faded to a soft chuckle and he brushed moisture from
his cheek, amazed at his ability to laugh at himself.   "I would never
have slept with her, or with anyone, because she wasn't you.  Jesus,
Scully, I spent years not sleeping with women because they weren't
you."

At that, Scully's lips parted even though she seemed not to know what
to say.  Mulder shook his head.

"Yes, I was... lonely," he explained.  "And when you're lonely and you
talk to yourself in the middle of the desert, you get a lot of fucked
up, crazy-ass answers.  And when another person finally answers back,
it's like an ice-cream man in the middle of August.  But I wasn't that
lonely."

Scully's cheeks reddened, and she nodded, looking down at her hands;
"I'm sorry."

And Mulder realized that the truth was much uglier when coated in a
lie.

He sighed.  "Well, no, that's not entirely true."  

Her gaze snapped to his.  

"Which - what - what - which part?"  She stammered, pushing a thin
strand of hair back behind her ear, fingers shaking.  "What are you -
are you -did you lie - is - what -"

"The truth.  The unabridged version, 2.0.  Is that what you want?"

She fell silent.  

"It was right after I tried to return home. I had no way of contacting
you and I'd been..."  He paused, and at her blank expression, started
over.  "The gunmen had been wiring money to an anonymous account for
weeks, but the money never lasted long.  I was essentially lost. 
After I jumped off the train and hid out in that quarry, I had to
hitch part of the way out west, and to be honest, I had no idea what
the hell I was doing.  I didn't know where to even start looking for
clues, for information, for anything useful that might save me - might
bring me back to you.  I think I passed out near a rest stop - right
outside a phone booth.  I was toying with the idea of calling you and
begging you... I wanted to hear your voice.  But it was goddamned hot
and I dropped before I even dialed.  That's where Gibson found me.  I
don't know how.  It was either ESP or a goddamned lucky miracle.  I
stayed with him after that, in a trailer in southern New Mexico.  And
like I said, it was lonely.  And hot.  Fucking unbearable."

"But you weren't alone."  Scully's face was virtually expressionless.

"No.  Gibson was out there with me."

"That's not what I meant."  Scully swallowed.  "She went out there, to
New Mexico, didn't she?"

Mulder nodded. "I was outside, building this campfire that I really
didn't need to build - lack of better things to do out in the desert,
what can I say?  And I saw this woman approaching with a baby.  And -
" He closed his eyes, recalling the spill of scarlet sunset, the dark
outline of a woman's figure walking towards him, backlit by a
blinding, setting sun.

"For a minute, I thought it was you.  I had this wild fantasy that
lasted all of five seconds, where you had quit the FBI and taken the
baby and come after me. You know something?  I'd searched for truths
before - for my sister, for my parents.  And I'd wanted those truths
so badly that I could taste them, and I didn't think anything could be
more painful than not finding them."  He opened his eyes and gazed at
her, touched her knuckles.  "But I was wrong.  The most painful truth
was when Marita walked up to me and I realized she wasn't you. I felt
like I'd been shot.  But worse than that.  I felt like - "

"You'd been shot over and over," she finished.  

She smiled and turned her hand palm-up, squeezed his fingers.  "When I
watched your train sail through the platform, I had just been witness
to a shoot-out.  One of the supersoldiers was involved; he killed a
man who had promised to help me find you.   I - I stood over his body
- this man who had died trying to uncover the truth, and I knew he
wasn't you, but at the same time I knew he could have been.  So
easily.  And if something ever happened to you, I would never know
about it, and I could never protect you.  And then my son would never
know his father."  She swallowed, shrugged as if brushing the memory
from her shoulders.   "It was like being shot.  Repeatedly shot. 
Except I couldn't lie down and die and there wasn't anything I could
do to get away from that kind of pain."

Mulder leaned back against the couch.  This was more than Scully had
ever before revealed to him about her time spent alone, and he reveled
in listening to her speak.  Her voice was an anchor, a safety net. 
For a moment he wondered how much he could reveal to her without
breaking down, and how far he could push before she finally gave up
what she was asking of him; the whole truth.  No secrets.

"Then you know," he said.  "You know what I'm talking about."

Scully nodded, silent.  

"Well, that was the feeling, at seeing this woman, knowing who she
wasn't .  It was like being shot.  And then Marita, she... She looked
desperate.  She was dirty and emaciated.  She was carrying a baby but
she had no clothing for it, no diapers.  She said she needed a place
to sleep and she needed food for the baby, and I saw something in her
that mirrored something in me... and so I helped her, because I knew
that's what you would have done.  And she ate with me, and she slept
in the trailer, and she told me all sorts of things about the men in
power, and the experiments.  She didn't tell me the baby was hers, but
I had my theories."  He sighed, and considered ending it there.

But ending a story with a half-truth wasn't fair to anyone.  

"She mentioned a place called Mount Weather. She said experiments had
been performed there, but she refused to elaborate.  I didn't press
the issue and it took me another month to figure out how to find the
place, but the important thing was her trust in me - she gave me a
jumping off point.  And besides that, she was someone else to talk to
- someone who couldn't read minds, and who wasn't sixteen.  The second
night of her... her stay...she fell asleep on the cot next to mine. 
The baby was on the floor."

Mulder paused, and Scully remained silent.  Her thumb worked over the
top of his hand, kneading him on with soft but persistent pressure. 
He took a deep breath.  "I watched her sleep and I listened to her cry
out - she sounded so angry.  I wanted to help her but I couldn't.  I
didn't know how. And then I imagined she was you - I spent a long time
imagining she was you.  I thought that if I helped her, I would
somehow be helping you."

His voice cut off, and he realized he was dangerously close to tears. 
"You want the truth, Scully?"

Scully nodded, but the nod was slight, like a twitch of her neck.

"For the first time since being with you, I felt a kinship in someone.
Marita was looking for answers, and when we sat around the campfire
exchanging information, I realized she was looking for the same truth
I was.  She talked about William, and the project, and something about
a summer she spent in California when she was eight - her father was
gunned down.  She fell asleep when the fire died and I...I wanted to
sleep with her.  I thought if I closed my eyes and imagined she was
you, and that the baby at the foot of the bed was really William..." 
He swallowed, but Scully's grip remained firm, steady on his hand.  "I
didn't sleep with her, Scully. I promise you, I didn't.  But I wanted
to."

Scully's gaze darted away, and Mulder reached forward with his free
hand and tilted her chin to his.  He was afraid that if she didn't
look him in the eyes right away, she would never be able to again.  
"In the end, she wasn't Dana Scully.  She was Marita Covarrubias.  It
didn't make a goddamn bit of difference who she was, because the
important thing is that she could never have been you."

When Mulder released her chin, Scully turned away from him.  She
seemed to be fascinated with her hands, with the exact texture of her
fingernails.  Her lips opened and closed in a soft 'O' shape and she
breathed deeply.  She had the delicate stature of lily, wilted from
lack of sunlight but unwilling to die.

Mulder shifted uncomfortably.  He didn't know what was left to say.  
He wasn't exactly sure where the line of fidelity left him.  It had
been over ten years since Mulder had been involved in a romantic
relationship with another person, and despite any romantic
inclinations towards Scully - feelings that had driven him for more
years than he cared to admit - he had never before felt guilty about
wanting to sleep with other women.  And he felt damned fucking guilty
now.

During the course of their partnership, Mulder had found a good amount
of women sexually attractive.  He only slept with perhaps one or two
of those women, but since he and Scully had done little more than
dance around the big white boulder of their emotions, there was never
a reason to feel guilty about being sexual with someone else.  He'd
done it, and he was sure Scully had as well.  But as the years passed
and the work took over, and as Mulder found that other women faded
from view, the desire for passionate encounters diminished almost
entirely.  Passion meant work, not love, and sexual desire was as good
as porn, and porn seemed to coincide nicely with his left hand.

But now Mulder was married.  Real married, fake married, potay-toh -
potah-toh.  He loved Dana Scully and official documentation seemed
little more than window decoration.  This was his wife, his partner,
his lover, his pain in the ass, for now or twenty years from now. 
Scully, Lily, whoever she was, she was his wife.  Long ago he chose to
bake this particular cake with her and no matter how he tried to slice
it, the flavor was still chocolate.

"Lily," he said, his voice hoarse.  "It wasn't... I - "

Her face went completely white.  

Mulder paused.   "Are you all right?"

No answer.  Scully's eyes widened and she shoved a hand into his
chest, pushing him down so hard he bounced back up like a punching
bag.  Mulder sputtered for purchase while Scully climbed the armrest
and vaulted the back of the couch like a gymnast, running from him,
her palm cupped over her mouth.

Mulder froze in horror.  At his feet, William giggled at his mother's
silly behavior; blue-bunny pounded at Mulder's ankles.  Air left
Mulder's lungs in a low whoosh; his mouth went dry.  He had finally
gone and done it.  He had made Scully sick at the sight of him.

"Scully?"

Nothing.  

Nervousness etched grooves in Mulder's forehead until a needle could
have played 'Twist and Shout' in his skin.  Mulder bent from the couch
and hoisted the Tater-Tot and the blue bunny up on one hip.  William
pressed the bunny into Mulder's chest, seemingly unconcerned about
having his playtime interrupted by an inconvenient marital spat - one
that would not have been all that dissimilar to a professional spat,
had Scully not gotten violently ill at the sound of Mulder's voice.

Then again, his voice had probably made her ill more often than she
let on.

Mulder crept into the kitchen, baby suspended on his left side. 
Against the sounds of silence floated a stifled gag, and then another
gag, and then a strangled cough, and then yet another gag.  The carpet
darkened in shadow at the foot of the kitchen; a star of illumination
dripped in golden rays from a nightlight plugged into the outlet above
the sink.  The crown of Scully's dark head silhouetted against faint,
reddish-yellow ribbons, and her elbows jutted in slanted pieces of
darkness out from either side of the basin; she looked as if she was
trying to keep herself from getting sucked into the garbage disposal.

One last cough and Scully heaved violently, pulling air into her lungs
as if oxygen might somehow disappear into the emptiness, into the
black hole left by a tilted universe.  Another second and she switched
on the faucet, cupping her fingers and forcing water into her mouth. 
Her back arched with each gulp.

When Scully finally turned off the faucet, Mulder could've sworn a
good hundred or so years had passed.

The emotional mess was partly his rendering - a chalk outline of
disaster with his initials emboldened in the lower right hand corner.
While Scully had been alone and fighting for his return, while she'd
been forced to make agonizing decisions over the future of their only
child, he'd been standing over a cot in New Mexico, fantasizing in
splendid, pornographic Technicolor.  Scully had merely asked him
whether he'd physically slept with Marita. A simple yes or no would
have sufficed.

Scully turned to him slowly, her hand still hovering near her mouth,
fingers trembling - poised for another attack. Her cheeks were
flushed, her forehead beaded with perspiration.  Her lip quivered, and
her eyes were hard to read in flickering darkness.

"I need you to tell me what this is all about," he croaked, because he
didn't know what else to say.  "Tell me right now."

She shook her head, eyes tightly closed.  "I... I can't."  

Mulder gripped William closer, nervous.  "Yes, you can.  I showed you
mine, now you show me yours.  That's how this works."

"Is it?"

That was a dig, and Mulder winced.  He steeled his gaze, managed,
"Lily."

"Paul - "

"Don't."  His eyes watered, stung.  "I want the truth from you.  I
deserve that much."

Her knuckles grazed her nose, trembling.  "What is it you want me to
say?" Her head shook.  "When this kind of thing happens to you, when
you're told it can never medically happen but it does, it's supposed
to be a joyous occasion, a miracle.  It's not supposed to be like
this." She banged her fist on the counter.  "Damn it!"

Mulder was stone silent.  

"I'm a strong person," she continued, opening her fist and pressing a
palm to her cheek.  "But I can't do this again.  You'd send William
away to save him, but what will you do to save me?  You want the
truth? The truth is painful, Mulder.   If you thought... if you wanted
to - You can't send all of us away to save us.  You can call for
reinforcements, you can board us up in the basement and run in the
other direction waving a big red flag, but the truth is going to eat
us alive no matter what you do. "

Mulder was sure that he'd been struck on the side of the head - he
even raised a hand to his temple to check for a concussion.  Suddenly,
he felt dumber than he had ever before felt in his life.  He hadnt
considered the possibility because the idea was, at its core,
impossible, ludicrous.  William was a miracle.

He should have known better. 

"You're pregnant," he said.  

It wasn't a question.   

"How long have you known?"  His head buzzed; he thought he might
faint.

Scully sucked in a breath, and her chin tucked in towards her neck. 
She leaned back against the counter, not speaking, not moving.  Her
silence was enough to finish him off.  Mulder was sure if he hadnt
been holding a small child he would have thrown something at her.

"This whole time," he said, answering his own question.  "You knew
this whole time and you didn't say anything to me.  That's why... When
we found William, that's why you were so upset.  You knew."  He bent
to a crouch and set William down on the tile at his feet.  Blood
rushed to his face and he felt so hot he thought his head might
spontaneously combust.  "You knew.  You knew, goddamn it.  How long
have you known?  How long have you been lying to me?"

Scully breathed slowly.  "Don't make it into something it's not, P.I. 
I wasn't lying - "

"No, not much."  He ran fingers through his hair, wishing he could
pull every strand out by the root.  "I asked you, Scully.  I asked you
repeatedly if you thought you were sick, and you lied to me.  I
started thinking the worst " about the chip, about your cancer.  God,
why would you keep this from me? Because you didn't trust me?  Because
you thought I would cart you off to Washington with Skinner?  Do you
really think so little of me?"

"No!"  Her eyes widened.  "Good grief, that's not at all - "

Mulder flashed back to that morning, and then to the night before, and
to the night before that.  Fuzzy details he'd previously ignored
swirled into focus.  He replayed each nuance over in his head like a
tape recorder.  "Jesus Christ, I must be dumber than paste. You've
been avoiding coffee for almost a week now.  Is this why?  Is it?"

"Mulder - "

"Is it?" he demanded.  

Scully pressed a hand to her forehead.  "Yes."  

"Why?"  Anger bubbled in his chest until his stomach could no longer
contain the heat.  His limbs hummed with the pressure.  In a minute he
would have to put his head between his knees in order to breathe.

"Because I didn't want to believe it," she said, her voice unsteady. 
"We'd been careful about that sort of thing, and I didn't even think
it was even possible. But then I remembered that first night here in
the house and I, I didn't know how to explain it to you, or to myself,
and I thought you would insist that I... that... I - "

"That you should abort it."  He shook his head and took up pacing,
because pacing was preferable to smashing dishes.  "But now you're,
what?  Three?  Four months along?  Is that why you waited?  So you
wouldn't be able to get an abortion?"

"No!  Jesus, Mulder, it's not that I didn't trust you - "

Unable to control himself any longer, Mulder advanced on her until
their noses were inches apart.  "I can't believe you, Scully.  I
really can't.  After that lecture you just gave me on the couch about
there being no secrets between us. You not trusting me is exactly what
this is about."  He jabbed a finger into her sternum, his voice a
hiss.  "You couldn't trust me to tell me you were worried about being
pregnant.  You couldn't trust that I would honor your judgment.  And
when William came back, you couldn't trust I would, that I would - " 
When he could no longer bear to look her in the eyes, he turned,
grunted an ungraceful, "fuck,"  and stopped only when a wall blocked
his movement any further.

"Don't do this," she said.  "I trust you.  I trust you with my life."

He turned on her.  "But that's all you trust me with."  

"No."  She stifled a breath. "No, that's not it at all." 

"But you didn't think anything of lying to me?"

"I didn't lie!"  She banged a palm on the counter.  "God damn it,
Mulder.  You act like a melodramatic little girl sometimes, you know
that?  I never lied to you.  I took a home pregnancy test a few days
ago.  I suspected before that, but I wasn't sure.  Yes, I was afraid
that you'd want me to give up the child, and if you did, you'd
probably be right, but that's not why I didn't tell you."

"Why then?"  When he ran out of pacing room he paused at the garage
door, turned in a circle.  "Why?"

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"The hell it doesn't."

"Well, I don't think - "

"Tell me!"  

Scully rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes as if trying to
push her eyeballs back into her skull.  "You weren't there," was what
she said, her fingers crooked like hooks into her eyebrows.

Mulder shut up.  He bunched his hands into fists, stuffed them into
his pockets for lack of better places to stuff them.

She waved an arm, breathing hard and heavy.  "You weren't there when I
was sick, or when I had uterine complications, or when I started
bleeding, or when I had to go it alone.  You don't know what it's
like, how terrifying it is. I wasn't allowed to be happy - there was
no room for happiness.  You were gone, everyone else wanted a piece of
my child, and it was the most alone I had ever felt in my life. 
Goddamn it, you weren't there, Mulder.  You weren't fucking there!"

Mulder remained silent.  His fingers tensed.  She'd been wanting to
say this for months, had been dying from holding it back, and he was
going to have to listen.  Listening was all that was left. If it
destroyed him to hear this, if it made him want to climb the walls, he
was going to let her speak.  He had to.

"There was an emptiness," she went on, the words too quick, without
pause.  "I didn't want to feel it.  I had a baby to carry. I had work
to do.  I had a life to live, do you understand that?  A life that had
to keep going.   But suddenly your truth was my truth and your office
was my office and you weren't there and I never wanted the truth that
way.  I loved you so much that I hated you, I hated everything your
absence made me feel, and I couldn't even... I couldn't even look at
your nameplate.  I couldn't even think about it.  I didn't know what I
was supposed to feel, but I knew what I wasn't supposed to feel, and I
beat myself up for feeling it anyway.  And then you came back and you
left again, and it was my fault as much as it was yours, and I had to
- I had to - "

She paused, darted her gaze at the ceiling, and then at the floor, and
then directly at him.  She spread her arms in a grand show of
proclamation.  "Fox Mulder goes off again in search of his truth, and
everyone pities poor Dana Scully.  She's not even directly involved
with his quest - she's the unfortunate byproduct of an association
with the savior of the world.  Not even my child was about me - it was
all about you.  Everything about my pregnancy and my child was about
you and you weren't even there with me."

William sat on the floor between them now, his legs folded
Indian-style, blue-bunny clutched to his chest.  His head darted back
and forth, his big blue eyes wide, his brows bunched above his nose. 
Scully sniffled but did not break down.  Shaking her head, she bent at
the knees to pick up her child, cradling him to her chest, kissing the
top of his head.

"William is the only part of this quest that truly belongs to me," she
said, rubbing her lips along the baby's forehead.  "Even you - you
don't belong to me.  You belong to your truth.  Well this -" She
bounced William gently.  "This is what's mine. He's not exactly aliens
or tractor beams, but he's mine.  And giving him away was the most
painful thing I've ever known.  I risked losing you, I risked losing
myself, but I did it anyway.  I've had to live with that.  For months
I had to live with it.  I have a second chance now, Mulder."

He shook his head.  They were going in circles.  "Scully, you did what
you did. What does any of it have to do with your pregnancy?  With why
you couldn't tell me?"

"It's the same," she whispered. "Don't you see?  It's the same as it
was."

Mulder cocked his head to one side, utterly baffled.  "What?"

"It's happening again."  

He shook his head.  "It's not.  I'm here."

"For how much longer?"  Her voice broke. "Until that cult comes to
kill William, or to take you away?  Until Knowle Rhorer shows up at
our doorstep?"

He sighed.  "Scully."

"No.  Don't patronize me. I didn't want to believe it because knowing
the truth would kill me.  And now I don't know what to do."

Mulder rubbed his forehead. He didn't know what to say or how to fix
this, and it was hard to see the forest through the trees when the
underbrush was littered with thorns of ill-conceived logic.  She
didn't understand him and he didn't understand her.  It wasnt the
first time theyd crossed wires and he was fairly sure it wouldnt be
the last.

"Do you want me to say it in Mandarin?  In German?  I'm not going
anywhere.  Goddamn it, Scully, this isn't the same as it was.  Is that
why you didn't tell me?  Because you were afraid of the past?  That's
a fucking weak excuse.  It really is."

A tear decorated the line of freckles below Scully's left eye, and
Scully rubbed the inside crease of her palm against the drop so hard
she pulled skin.  The baby bunched her shirt in his little fingers,
clung to her.

"I wanted to tell you, Mulder.  And you're right, I should have.  But
then we found evidence of alien residue in that garage, and I thought
we had been found, and I didn't know how to tell you.  How could I
tell you?  I was so terrified that the second I told you, everything
would come down on my head."

Mulder crept closer, shook his disagreement at her.  He was going to
scream.  He was going to lose his mind.  "That's not why, and you know
it."

Scully's chin jutted.  "It is."  

"No."  Mulder glared at her.  "You were afraid that I would make you
give it up. I wouldn't understand your desire to keep a baby, despite
a world of reasons not to raise one.  Because I wasn't there the first
time to really get it.  Isn't that right? You wanted to wait until I
bonded with William.  You thought that maybe if I connected with my
son, then I would understand. Because you think I don't understand
now."

Scully's watery eyes were pink, her lids puffed from the weight of her
tears.  "You arrogant son of a bitch.  How dare you profile what you
think my motives should be."  Her glare was dark, her eyes almost
black.  "If you think you know everything then that's your business. 
But what I told you is the truth.  If you don't trust me - "

Mulder pressed a hand to her forearm, squeezed. "You don't trust me."

When Scully didn't answer him or back down, his temper boiled over
into his lungs, and then bubbled up out of his mouth. "You think I
wouldn't understand?  I understand. You think I don't know?  I know. 
I wasn't the one who gave him up in the first place, was I?"

With a look of disgust so intense it could have burned through the
back of his head, Scully yanked her arm clear of him.  She yanked it
back so hard her elbow banged the counter.  The only indication she
gave of even feeling the sting was a slight wavering of her eyes. 
Mulder held her gaze, and Scully held her ground.  William buried his
face in her chest, whimpering.  Mulder was positive that if she
werent holding the baby, she would have thrown the first punch.  And
he would have hit her back.  They would have pummeled each other until
the house came down around their ears.

"You're the one who asked me to go," he hissed. "You're the one who
made that choice."

Her nostrils flared, and he saw that he'd hit home.  "I may have asked
you to leave but I didn't force you to go.  You left because you
wanted to."

"Why?"  His voice was low, his head pounding.  "Why in the hell would
I want to go?"

"We both know why.  And its the same reason why you want to stay,
now."

And thus, the gloves came off.  He took a painful, ragged breath. 
"How dare you," he bit out.   "You have no idea what leaving you did
to me.  I needed you, damn it. I still need you."

Scully took a breath, her cheeks red, her brows raised in question.
She looked as if someone had just bumped her in the head with the
microwave door.
 
"Im taking the baby upstairs," she mumbled. "He needs to be put down
for a nap." Her face was the color of a fire extinguisher.

"Good," Mulder mumbled back.  "That's good. Put him down, then."

"Fine."

"Fine."

And the end of the discussion was reached: no goodbyes, no concluding
words, no apologies, no second chances.  Just like always.  And both
turned and walked in opposite directions, he to his corner and she to
hers, silence blanketing them in a smothering grip -

Just like always.  

---------
	 

******************
Shadows of Winter
Part 7
By Jaime Lyn 
******************

* Welcome to NC-17 land.  Whee! If you're under 18 or squeamish,
you're good till about halfway down.  Then I promise you can skip and
not miss anything important.  Seriously.  ;-)


------


Mulder sat at the computer, straight-backed, eyes glazed, irises
stung, bloodshot. Columns and numbers and stacks of data crisscrossed
the screen in a tic-tac-toe board of non-solution. The streaks of
information were bars, rusted, scratched, cold steel bars closing in
on him, imprisoning him, imprisoning Scully.

There were places around the globe that once served as MUFON
headquarters for former abductees - far off places, where victims
could hide and pray that nobody would find them, all the while being
fed lies about the child whose existence could destroy the world.  Who
knew what cult members still lived in wait, biding their time for the
exact right moment.  On one side of the screen: Australia, Belgium,
Ireland, Greece, Italy - places of mobilization.   In the middle of
the screen, names: Theresa Hose, Malcolm Bracket, Jules Dapner, Angela
Carridy, Carl Dawson - abductees who disappeared following the raid on
Absalom's compound.  It was unclear, still, what had happened to these
people, where they had gone, and who - if anyone - was leading them.
Any one of those former abductees could be waiting outside the door,
conspiring with the last known supersoldiers.  Revenge, redemption,
reconstitution of the project - William's death could be motivated by
any of those ideals, but would pinpointing the exact reason behind it
truly do him any good?

There were sites upon sites within the FBI mainframe that listed the
chemical properties of iron, its electrical and magnetic advantages,
its known chemical-molecular properties and uses.  If Mulder was going
to beat this thing, he had to first understand how the beast worked,
and studying the compound that killed it was his best opportunity. The
problem, however, was that The X-Files were no longer a resource at
his disposal, and there were no known official sites within any
mainframe that instructed visitors on how to kill an alien. After
twenty minutes of fruitless searching, Mulder could now properly align
fragments of iron in order to magnify them, but that was about all he
could do.  He still had no idea how to destroy a supersoldier.

So on the far left side of the screen, another list of names:  John
Doggett, Walter Skinner, Alvin Kersh, Monica Reyes.  People who could
dissect the vaccine Marita Covarrubias had given them, and tell him
exactly what it could do.  Research the first list and risk exposure. 
Research the second list and risk wasting valuable time.  Contact
anyone on the third list and risk alerting the entire law enforcement
community of his and Scully's whereabouts.

Each list, every choice, was a set of prison bars.   

If Mulder tried to stare past the screen he'd see nothing but a
conglomeration of circuits, bunched wires, carefully welded splatters
of metal.   Technology could save you or it could kill you, he
realized.  It could create a complex contraption capable of breathing
for a person unable to breathe for himself. It could connect you to
another person halfway around the world, hang you onto the invisible
web of the internet by a modem no bigger than your thumb.  It could
create life; it could create a human being so advanced that the
biology bordered on human, bordered on alien, bordered on medical
abomination.  Technology could grab you by the throat and squeeze
until every single bone and vertebrae in your neck fractured. 
Technology was man's creation, but in the end, man could so easily
succumb to his own intelligence.

"Mulder?"

Startled, Mulder turned in his chair.  

Dana Scully braced herself on the doorframe, her arms folded beneath
her breasts, clutched tightly, as if she was cold. Mulder knew she
wasn't.  Her dark suit had been traded for a nightshirt - his
nightshirt, to be specific.  The Knicks logo bunched beneath her arms
and crumpled in garnet and blue and gray wrinkles.  Her legs were
bare, slender, smooth - careful studies in personified sweet cream.  A
flashlight lay on the floor at her feet.  Her amber-kissed hair had
been brushed back, pulled into a clip; unruly wisps broke free of
bondage, swirled around her pale, freckled cheeks.  Her makeup was
scrubbed clean, her lips unpainted; she was naked before him.  Baring
herself in this way was an unspoken gesture of truce.

"I thought I'd let you know William's asleep," she said.  "I put some
couch pillows on the floor and laid him down in the bedroom.  He
should be alright for at least an hour.  He's in the center of the
room and I moved... moved everything he might be able to grab."

Mulder nodded.  

"I, um - "  Scully paused.  "I was doing some thinking, about the
things Marita Covarrubias said, about William's DNA, about the iron
magnetite. I had some ideas."  She cleared her throat.  "Iron is a
principal component of a meteorite class known as siderites, and it's
a minor constituent of two other meteorite classes. Current scientific
data doesn't make clear how many other classes contain iron as a
significant chemical compound."

"Did you rehearse that, Scully?"

Her jaw clenched.  "No."  

"Huh."   Mulder leaned back in his chair, lounging.  "So, iron meteors
with altered molecular properties."

 "Something like that, yeah."

"So then, are you suggesting that the substance is derived from outer
space?"  Mulder couldn't help but grin.  "Very cool coming from you,
Scully."

"That's not what I'm suggesting."  Scully took a breath.  "What I am
suggesting, however, is that we know the black oil virus existed deep
underground for millions of years, perhaps since the conception of the
planet. And the core of the earth is thought to be largely composed of
iron and about ten percent occluded hydrogen.  If a meteor were to
have crashed here, perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago - a
meteor that contained an unknown iron with an unknown makeup of
isotopes - the result could have been intense radioactive output.  Or
something very similar Over generations, mutated DNA could have
sprouted in the numerous alien sects we've come into contact with. 
Perhaps - perhaps even mutation of the original molecular structure of
iron itself."

"Interesting approach," said Mulder.  "So you think... That what we
classify as iron isn't really iron at all, but rather a kind of
molecular mutation?"

She nodded.   

"Okay.  Then that would mean a purer form of iron exists, somewhere." 
He frowned.  "Or it could exist, theoretically.  But let's just say it
does.  Could that mean William somehow has an un-tampered, un-mutated
iron isotope floating around in his system?"

She nodded again.

"But according to Marita Covarrubias, it's acting as a sort of - " He
cupped his hands together, "A sort of radioactive poison.  How would
that work, exactly?"

Scully's head dropped back against the doorframe, her eyes squinted in
thought.  "Iron exists in all of us, in hemoglobin - it assists in the
oxidation process."    She cracked her neck.  "But alien hemoglobin is
considerably more acidic, and we know it's not carbon based, which
means it must oxidize differently than human blood. When I was
abducted, a branched strand of DNA was found in my body, and it nearly
killed me.  The doctors couldn't pinpoint the exact cause.  If the
technology Marita spoke of is accurate, then it's possible a lethal,
purer form of iron was poisoning my blood, preventing the normal
oxidation process.  Almost like a suffocating type of anemia."

Mulder scratched his chin, following closely.  "So why doesn't it kill
William? If what you're saying is true?"

"I don't know," Scully admitted.  "It could be exactly what it seems -
a step up on the evolutionary ladder.  A biology capable of sustaining
a different type of chemical makeup.  And if William's body is, in
fact, oxidizing a form of iron purer than any other known form, then
his respiration could possibly be releasing the compound into the
air."

"In the form of a toxin."

Scully nodded.  "Possibly."  She cleared her throat, shrugged. 
"Anyway... it's a theory."

"Killing them softly," Mulder mused, thoughtful.  "That would make
William's blood the purest form of human blood in existence."

Her jaw trembled, but her gaze was steady.  "It would mean the truth
is in our son."

"I think you might be right," agreed Mulder.  

His gaze drifted southward, rested on the flat of her abdomen.  He'd
missed so much of the first pregnancy that the thought left unhealed
scrapes on his memories; Scully's pain, her complications, her brushes
with the unknown, her fears and hopes.  He'd not been there, and if he
were any other man with any other set of priorities, he would have
been.  He should have been. Perhaps Paul Selden would have known; Paul
Selden was the normal guy, after all. But Fox Mulder couldn't be
anything less than Fox Mulder, and he didn't know how to be more than
that, either.

"Is that what you came in here to tell me?" he asked.  

"Mostly," she said.  

"Mostly?"

While there wasn't much Mulder remembered from the abduction, at least
not much beyond jagged flashes of memories that faded into burns on
his retinas, he recalled her absence - the empty spot inside him she
would have filled.  Something had been torn away.  He caught glimpses
of metal tables, spikes, foul-smelling drills, needles of pain
thrusting him into unconsciousness.  Her face was what he remembered
most vividly.  Her fingers on his scalp, her laugh, her frown, the
gritty, raw edge of her voice when she declared herself to a suspect. 
She'd kept him alive; perhaps he hadn't been there with her, but she'd
been there with him.

"I think... that I owe you an apology," she finally said, her head
tilted towards her chest, neck bowed - the lily whose stem had finally
snapped from lack of sunlight.  When she looked up once more, the pain
was raw and open in her expression.  "I let my emotions cloud my
judgment and that was a mistake.  I know we risk detection, but we
need to contact Skinner.  We need help."  She took a deep breath.
"We're ill-equipped here and there's too much at stake now for us to
be selfish.  If you want to stay, we can, but we need to... If we
can't protect William on our own, or if this unborn child puts us in
danger - "

Mulder rose from the chair.  He felt tethered to his wife like gravity
tethered all things to the earth. He'd missed the morning sickness and
the mood swings, and he wanted that chance back. He had been forced to
endure separation from her - months of wondering, and months of
darkness, and then months of never-knowing.  She was a mystery when he
returned from the dead, her new body a Rubik's Cube of unanswered
questions.  He'd been afraid, and angry, and so utterly confused.  He
could never have known the how or the why, because he wasn't yet ready
to understand the logistics.  He hadn't been there to process the
possibilities of love, of miracles, of Scully's God, of considering
more than one option even if he'd never before been able to believe.

But he was here now.  

He knew when it had happened, too, could pinpoint the exact moment of
conception.  A late fall blizzard, a shadowed living room.  He'd
whispered his devotion into her trembling lips, and pressed her to the
carpet, and cradled her when she shuddered, and held her when she
slept, and cried with her when she cried, and beyond the pain of their
shattered existence and the darkness of what was to come, someplace
far inside her body, a part of him and a part of her had fused, united
in a biological explosion that made science more like magic.  Right
there in front of a warm fire, where it was safe.

"If this baby is like William," Scully continued.  "If it is happening
all over again, I'll have to...."  She paused, gritting her teeth. 
"I'll have to do what's right.  For us.  For William.  I'm a doctor.
There are ways, methods.  They're not pretty, but they'll work.  And
then Skinner could advise us where William would be safest."  She
refused to meet his eyes, and her tears were eerily silent.  "Until
all of this is over."

Mulder stopped a foot short of the doorway, unsure of what to say or
do.  There was so much anger that snuck up on them, that trickled down
their backs like melting ice cubes.  He wanted to touch her, to
apologize, to say he understood - even if he didn't truly understand -
but he was frustrated and stubborn, and she even moreso.  He wanted to
tell her that neither of them needed to apologize, that any remorse
was instead owed to them by men who would never give them the
satisfaction.

But he found he couldn't speak.  

"It's snowing heavily out there," Scully said.  "I was downstairs, and
then in the bedroom.  I sat there for awhile, just watching..."

She cleared her throat. 

"Anyway, ah, I don't know how long it'll be before we lose power, but
I left a flashlight by the door of each room, just in case.  When
you're done in here, there should be some bottled water by the
refrigerator, and there are some batteries in the um - "

Mulder bent to his knees, and Scully's breathing slowed in ragged
puffs.  Her voice cracked. "Batteries in the drawer by my computer. 
And some matches, old newspaper, if we want to start a fire.  I don't
- "

His hands crept to her hips, where he curled his fingers around her
and tugged. Every nerve ending hummed, crackled with heat.  He wanted
to know, wanted to feel for himself.  He pressed his ear to her
abdomen, his head nestled beneath her folded arms.  Part of him was
inside of her, and he needed to feel it. He needed to know, to make it
real, to understand.

Scully's voice was a creak of unsteadiness.   "I don't - don't know
where the butane lighter is - I, ah..."  Her hands dropped to his
shoulders, her chest rising and falling with strong, steady rhythm. 
She closed her eyes, and just breathed with him.

"Can I hear its heartbeat?" Mulder whispered, encircling her hips so
that he pulled her tight to him.  "If I listened, if I was really
quiet - "  He gazed up at her, and willed himself not to cry.  "Do you
think I could hear it?"

A wistful smile tugged at Scully's lips, and when her eyes opened,
they were the color of moon-kissed snow.  Her hands drifted into his
hair, sifting, searching.  "No, you won't be able to hear it," she
said.  "But sometimes you can feel it."  She bent so that his head
rested in the darkened furrow left by her forward-tipped spine.  Her
cheek pressed atop his head, her arms found his neck - she smelled
like warm coconut.  Her lips drifted in wet trails over the crown of
his skull.  She was curled over him, molded to him like warm
chocolate.

"If you're really quiet," she whispered, sinking slowly to her knees. 
"If you're really quiet you can feel it."  And then her breasts were
eyelevel, and her shirt rode up between them, and her neck came into
view, and finally, her eyes, her wide, deep blue eyes found his, and
she was on the floor with him, sitting on her knees.

"You can feel it," she repeated, sucking in hard lungfuls of air. 
"Right here." She took his hand and lowered it to her stomach, where
the skin was soft and slightly round beneath her shirt.  "If you're
looking for it, if you want to feel it, it's there.   Oh, God, Mulder,
what if - "

"Shh," he mumbled into her, pressing his lips to hers, kissing away
her tears.  "I hear it, Scully.  Just listen.  It's there.  I hear
it."

--


The lights flickered in blinding abandon, spectral black to radiant
yellow; luminescence danced in abrupt flecks on Scully's cool skin. 
Mulder kissed a wet line down her jaw, down her neck, his mouth
wandering in the lightning insanity between now and tomorrow and
utter, pitch darkness.

He was desperate for her, feverish.  He was positive that if he didn't
have her now, he would never have her again. Time would steal her from
him; the well of tomorrows slipped from them, minutes running out. 
How long before the men following Marita Covarrubias found them, too? 
Tried to destroy them?  The intensity was so dark, so sly and quiet,
slinking up the base of his spine. He thought the walls would close in
and destroy them both.

In the span of a final, sharpened flicker, the air turned opaque.  The
computer whistled itself to sleep, the air vents hushed into the
backdrop of darkness.  A thud and a rattle, a click, and a second beam
flooded the room - white, pure, halogen.  The light ballooned on the
ceiling, rolled forward and back, tented them in gold: a spotlight.
Electricity was dead, and the sounds of nature pounded against the
house, scratched at the window, begging entrance.  What else was out
there, begging entrance, waiting to claim them?

Scully braced her elbows on the floor and arched her back, her neck
bared towards the ceiling, her dark lips parted, reticent.  Her chest
bobbed with breath.  A black clip dangled from her hair like a
blistered leaf from a winter branch, and ruddy waves threatened to
break free, spill across her back.  Mulder trailed his nose along her
cheek, her chin tilted toward him, asking for more, asking him
silently.  Dana Scully was nothing if not resolute; she always knew
what she wanted.

Answering as silently as she'd asked, his mouth found hers, his lower
lip tickling, edging her open.  Her tongue dipped past his teeth, did
a thorough sweep, a long, complicated waltz, her head slanted into his
hands.  When she parted from him, she left him dizzy, disoriented,
swollen; her cheek pressed to his in exhaustion, hot, moist, lost in
the aftermath of mouths making love.

Her body trembled, but remained firm beneath him.  If other women
melted to boiling puddles of Jell-o in the arms of their lovers,
Scully remained firm, bull-headed as ever.  She was all resilience and
familiarity and gentle curves mixed in a simple haiku.  She had the
intelligence of a trained pathologist, the hard determination of a
mercenary, and she was put together in a musical type of asymmetry.

Mulder nudged apart her legs with his knees, fitted wisps of golden
hair behind her ears.  "Mine," he whispered into her mouth, running
his hands over her exposed neck. He kissed her again, losing himself
in the taste of her, and nearly bent her back to the floor in zealous
abandon. Minutes ticking, pounding, running out - or no, that was his
pulse, his heartbeat.  He would die without this, without her; it
wasn't the sex, but the completion he would die without.

Their noses brushed, reverent, tender, caressing patterns over
glistening skin.  Her mouth found his ear, her tongue smooth and wet. 
"Got it wrong," she breathed, licking at his earlobe until he couldn't
remember his name.  "Backwards...Got it... You - mine."

As language floated back to him, Mulder chuckled.  "I - yours.  Me
Tarzan, you Jane."  His finger trickled down, flicked at the underside
of her breast.  "Jane sexy.  Tarzan hard.  Tarzan fuck Jane - "

Scully snorted into his ear.  "Why do you get to be Tarzan?"  she
muttered.  "Because you're the big, macho - "

His palms pressed down on either side of her, caging her beneath him,
and his tongue slid down, down her chin, marking her neck in circles
that left her without words.  She gasped.

Turning onto his side for leverage, Mulder edged up the cotton shirt,
bunching the hem beneath her breasts.   Her underwear was
straight-edged and dark beneath flashlight shadows, caressed at each
corner with a swath of lace.  Mulder pressed down over the silk,
circled with two fingers above a triangle of damp fabric, tested her
curves for pliancy.  Scully moaned something unintelligible, her head
dipping, falling back, dragging to her shoulder until the clip fell
free from her hair.  Tendrils clung to her shoulderblades, trapped in
sweat.

"Oh," she whispered, the word almost an exhale.  "Mulder..."  

The Universe disappeared in an undulation of shadow over Dana Scully's
lips, and the arch of her back.  His pulse beat a thready harmony in
his neck.  He wanted to see, wanted to watch, wanted to drink her in
until he drowned in her.  Now was soon, but now wasn't nearly soon
enough.  She needed to be more naked than she was, she needed to be
bare, entirely, completely.

Mulder paused, his fingertips perched atop the wet silk in an
upsidedown V.  Pacing himself, he sauntered his fingers in careful
measure back over the material and underneath the hem. Warm there. 
Much warmer. Incredibly soft. Wet.  Ready.

"You," he murmured into her ear.  "Everything."

Scully was whispering something back, her lips moving without sound. 
He wanted to kiss her again, steal the air right out of her mouth.

Mulder's breathing slowed, bottomed out.  Desire built a rough pit of
fire in his belly, pressing down on his cock in a rush of blood
between his thighs.  He was thick, hard, drowsy with need.  He would
have Scully, and he would have her now. This moment in lethargic
darkness was all that existed.  Only here.  Only now.  Nobody could
take this from them.

His hand pressed down against the warm, wet folds of Scully's skin -
swollen, waiting for him.  Wetter, she kept getting wetter.  Her legs
shifted, trembled; she refused to sit still.  In went one finger, and
then two - slick, tight, hot.   Scully mewled and pressed a fist into
the carpet, trying to pull up fibers.  He could barely breathe.

Her hips rocked towards him, and the erection he'd been ignoring
became painful and obvious.  He needed more, needed to feel her around
him, needed it soon; he was sure he'd black out otherwise.  His mouth
on her neck, he pushed down with his lips until finally, one elbow
gave out on her, and she tilted awkwardly to the floor.  One bare leg
dropped to the carpet, the other stable, bent at the knee.

Steady on one side, she grasped his shirt, tugged at it, pulled with
shaky fingers.  She was ready, waiting, dangling - she wanted to fall
with him.

"Mulder," she whispered, and the arm that had betrayed her flopped to
the floor above her head, palm up.  Her skin beaded with sweat.  She
breathed: in through her nose, out through her mouth.  "Take... off -
"

He circled inside of her with his fingers, pulling out, pressing back
in, sliding until he found her clitoris and she contracted with him.
Her pupils darted, rolled up and back into their sockets. Her lids
fluttered shut.  "Oh Jesus..."  She pulled again at the shirt.  "Shirt
off... Pants... Off... Mulder - "  He slid his index finger up and
out, crooking it slightly, and Scully arched back at an impossible
angle.  "Fuck," she muttered, making quick mess of his shirt with
groping hands until Mulder was positive she'd rip the material into
shreds.

Sitting back to comply, Mulder's fingers edged out of her and Scully
hissed at the absence.  She was on her back now, one hand pressed over
her nude stomach, the other draped above her head, palm to ceiling. 
Her eyes were smoky, the color of flint.  She watched him with
totality, hunger steeling her expression, asking him without speech -
want this, need this - just you, right now.  Mulder smiled; it was
rare that they both wanted the same thing.

Mulder crossed his arms at the hem of his shirt, pulled it up over his
head in one quick motion.  The shirt sailed over his desk chair,
skipped off the edge and hit the floor. He sat on his knees before
her, fumbling with the zipper on his jeans, both of them utterly out
of breath.  If he didn't free himself soon he was sure he would end up
with some sort of permanent dysfunction.

Silent, Scully pulled herself to a seated position, scooting closer to
him on her knees, bracing one arm on the floor and the other on his
hip.  She leaned forward and brushed his nose with hers; her tongue
darted out, licked his lips, tasted him, her fingertips tickling at
the edge of his zipper.

Into his mouth, she growled, "Stand up," her hands clutching the
material on either side of his hips. At this point, she could have
asked him to jump off the roof wearing only a sheet as a cape, and he
would have complied.  Without question, Mulder stood as Scully held
tight and pulled; the jeans dripped to his ankles like liquid.

Stepping out, Mulder pulled off his underwear, and then his socks,
never breaking gaze with her.  He sank to his knees like a man starved
for prayer, waiting at the temple doors for her to open them and let
him in.   Her mouth pursed in suspended whistle, chest expanding,
contracting - her temple bell was about to chime the hour.

Scully gazed at him, her dark blue eyes an aroused black, pupils
dilated.  With trembling fingers, she reached down and pulled off her
nightshirt, dropping the article behind her with a crooked index
finger.  Her breasts rose and fell with each breath, and Mulder
pressed his palm to the underside of her flesh, rubbing his thumb
alongside her nipple. She was so soft.  God, she was so, so soft.

"You," she whispered, her fingers on his lips.  "Your lips soft...
also."

Mulder swallowed; had he said that out loud? 

She watched him as if circling, marking with her eyes what belonged to
nobody else.  Nine and a half years together and they'd cornered the
market on singular passion - when passion was directed at the work,
intensity drowned out ordinary concerns like heat melted pure January.
 And when passion was directed at each other, the result was a
coupling so absolute that the Earth stopped and dropped them out by
the edge of the Universe.  They played their passion in stark black
and white - no gray, never gray.

Mulder touched a hand to her neck, felt her pulse thudding beneath a
warm mane of dark, orange ochre.

"Is this okay?" he asked, a thumb on her cheek.  He wanted her, wanted
her so badly that his head hurt from lack of blood flow.  But he
remembered the baby, and how sick she'd gotten earlier, and how dizzy
she got the night before.

"Huh?"  

Her hand pressed to his chest, palm drawing light circles below his
breastbone.  Her expression was almost comical in its total
non-comprehension.

"Is this - " Mulder nodded towards her abdomen.  "Is this going to
hurt anything? Anyone? I'm not..."  He frowned, trying to find the
words behind a haze of powerful want.  "I'm not going to injure you? 
Or - or injure hard-head junior?"

"Hard-head junior?"  

She was smiling now, and advancing on him like a cat stalking a can of
tuna.

Jesus - he was the tuna.  

Insanely aroused at the sight of his wife on all fours, and yet
slightly terrified that sex might fracture their child, Mulder backed
away on his hands and knees until his bare buttocks hit the desk and
there was nowhere else to go. He would surely die from an unsatisfied
erection, but at least Scully wouldn't get dizzy and pass out on him
from overexertion.  And there would be no scarring of his unborn
child, which was a plus.  He could just imagine Scully explaining this
situation to the paramedics.

Pausing about a half-foot short of Mulder's worried crouch by the
desk, Scully raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.  Mulder forced a
nervous smile.  Obviously mistaking concern for a challenge, Scully
bent at the knees and pulled herself up until she towered above him; a
renaissance statue of stubborn, beautiful imperfection.

With a quirk of her lips, Scully hooked her thumbs in the waistband of
her panties.  Her face was a detailed mix of amusement.  Ever so
slowly, she pushed down at the silk garment until Mulder was forced to
endure it slinking all the way down her legs like falling mercury
inside a thermometer.  When the shiny material finally hit the floor,
she kicked it away with the toe of her left foot, standing above him
like a self-satisfied Buddah.

"Some macho, jungle hero you are," she muttered, smiling, and then she
lowered herself to her knees, spreading his legs and positioning
herself between them.  "I say... Me Tarzan."

The glint in her dark eyes screamed for rebuttal, for him to kiss her,
just kiss her good and hard, and the flashlight beam caressed her
breasts in shadow until he could have sworn every part of her was
laughing at him.  If she kept this up, Mulder was positive he would
either drag her down to the floor, fucking her until her eyes flitted
back in her sockets, or else his heart would flat line. There would be
needles and electric paddles involved.  And not the kinky kind,
either.

"Wait.  Scully -  Are you sure I won't -  " He truly, honestly, really
needed to know, but his head was foggy and the English language had
evaded him.  "I mean, I can't... I don't  want to - " He searched his
mental vocabulary.  "Impale anyone. That is, the kid's in there - "

And this time she did laugh at him, a deep, throaty laugh, hooded with
the smoky volume of desire.  Her neck bent, and her head fell forward
onto his chest, her hair blanketing the skin above his ribs.  She
pressed a palm to his shoulder and her back arched with cracked
giggles, so much laughter Mulder seriously thought about strangling
her before ravishing her stupid.  Still painfully hard and now a good
deal embarrassed, Mulder blew a frustrated stream of air out through
his lips.

"I'm so glad I amuse you, Scully."

Scully raised her head and grinned at him, blue-black eyes sparkling
like stained glass beneath a pinprick of sunlight. She pressed closer
to him, wriggled her thighs downward until he was poised at the
opening between her legs, not inside, but close, too close, so close
he could have bit his tongue off. She was good at this game - she was
too good at it.  Her hands rested on either shoulder, tickling, head
tilted to one side, mischievous.

"Jane act like big baby," she muttered, brushing her nose over his
cheek, tickling him in warm, slow patterns.  She kissed his chin,
still smiling, and a giggle escaped.  "Jane not injure anything." Her
lips tugged at his.  "Tarzan promises  - Tarzan doctor, knows these
things."

Finally, Scully reached between his body and hers and grasped the head
of his cock, and Mulder jerked as if burned, positive there was an
explosion of stars and tiny birds floating in packs around his skull. 
She squeezed and ran her fingers up around the shaft, pressing,
circling, doing something skilled with her fingertips that should have
been illegal in forty-eight states.  She was killing him.  Slowly
killing him.

Mulder grasped her face with both hands, gazed into her eyes; she was
fading in and out of focus.

"Keep...keep your eyes open," he managed through his teeth.  "Don't
close... your eyes."

Her thumb running the swollen rim of him, she pressed her hips closer,
pressed until he was right there, almost inside her.  And suddenly,
Mulder was floating, edging out of his body until he was dizzy and
surrounded by the scent of his aroused wife.  The head of his cock
peeked at her edge, ventured in once, twice.  Scully groaned, her skin
thick with perspiration.  She panted in short, tight puffs, nodding at
him, guiding him into her, lowering herself until they were joined
completely and she sat on his lap, her eyes level with his.  Their
noses brushed, tip to tip, their foreheads pressed together; he was a
part of her, a part of her, his body so intimately infused with her
that nothing could take her from him.  She ran through his veins.

"Like this?" she whispered.  

His tongue darted out, wet her lips, his eyes wide open.  "Like this,"
he agreed.

With a low grunt, Scully began to move, her hips bucking up and down,
slowly - she slid up and out, and then back down, and then up, and
then faster, and then slower, and then faster again. When she couldn't
seem to make up her mind, Mulder reached down between them and flicked
at her wet skin, pressing down with his thumb where they joined
together, and her body bucked upwards once more.

She kept her promise - eyes open, wide open.  

Mulder stared into her until he saw past the flecks of sapphire around
her irises, until he saw himself again, until he saw what she saw when
she looked at him, and he couldn't remember how to breathe properly.

Harder she went, harder and harder, faster, deeper, and the pressure
in Mulder's stomach built, intensified; there was too much heat,
boiling, bubbling.  He would explode from the volume, burn to death,
melt.  She was so wet, and slick, and tight, and soft, and her arms
wound around his neck, slick with sweat, clutching him, begging him
without words to keep her bound to him, secured to the earth, keep her
from falling off the edge, because then she would float, and he would
float, and then they'd float forever, and they'd never find their way
back, but maybe floating wasn't so bad when she was there, and she was
always there, she was everywhere, and he was falling into her, falling
until he couldn't fall any farther, falling until he ended up inside
of her eyes, and he was drowning in a sea of them together:

Scully handing him his jacket, her fingers brushing his knuckles,
murmuring, "maybe you should ask yourself if your heart's in it, too,"
 her voice on his cell phone, "Mulder, it's me," her shampoo soaking
the couch from where she'd showered and fallen asleep, her arms folded
over her chest in the basement office, "four-hundred-and-forty-six
million dollars, I'm in this as deep as you are, and I'm not the one
who overreacted," her lips curled around words like "musculature," and
"animaceous," and "allosteric proteins," her arms around him,
clutching, tears on his collar, "I won't let you go alone," his lips
on her ear, watching her sleep, the hospital bed so much bigger than
she, he didn't dare say it, but he thought it, "I love you, Scully, I
love you, I love you," her stomach rounded with child, she was just
joking, not really involved with the pizza man, look at the way she
laughs, just like the sun rising -

And he was back in his body again, shuddering, his head buried in the
crook of her neck, his eyes tightly shut; he was swirling down the
drain.  Her hips held him tight inside of her, her arms around his
neck.  She wasn't there yet, but she was close, damn close; she moved
erratically, her breaths echoing in short, hard gasps, her mouth
working at the skin at his neck.  Up and down, up and down, faster,
harder, and gasps became grunts.

His head raised, and he watched her.  Her neck tilted back, her eyes
opening and closing, teeth gritted, nostrils flared, her fingernails
raked tracks in his upper back.  She was a study in beauty, in what
drove men to insanity.  She was everything.

And then she suddenly pitched forward into his chest, her muscles
contracting around him, jerking him upwards.  The spasm was powerful
and hard, and Mulder grasped her arms, steeled her to him, biting his
lip as wave after wave of contraction rocked them both, forcing him
out until he pressed back in.  She moaned, and breathed, and sighed,
and he watched her, just watched her.

 "Oh God, it's okay.  It's okay.  It's okay," she whispered, her face
buried in his neck.  "I love you, too."

Too?  Had he said it first?  He couldn't even remember.  There'd been
a roaring tide of sensation, a blinding crash of light in her eyes and
then -

His shoulder was wet, dripping, and it took him a minute to realize
the moisture wasn't from saliva or sweat.  "I love you," she murmured
again. "I love you. We'll be okay, Mulder -  don't let go.  We'll just
sit here and not let go."  Her back heaved in heavy sobs, the wake of
her orgasm leaving her exposed, raw, vulnerable.  She was more naked
now than she'd been in months.  "We'll strike a bargain.  I won't let
you go, so you, you won't, either.  Nobody can take us here.  We're
safe.  We're safe right here, aren't we?"

Mulder held her tight, and he remained inside of her, joined with her,
sobbing with her, breathing with her.  "We're safe here," he promised,
rocking her gently, back and forth.  "I'm not letting go."

***********
Shadows of Winter
Part 8
by Jaime Lyn 
***********


* Rated PG again.  Darn it.  Doncha just hate that?

---


Sated, Mulder laid on his back, hands cupping the back of his head. 
The beam from the flashlight was steady, a dusty beacon bubbled on a
darkened ceiling.  Scully lay on her back beside him, Knick's t-shirt
draping her breasts and bunched around her thighs. She was quiet,
goose-bumped, tranquil.  One arm rested behind her head, the other on
her stomach.

Once they'd finally disengaged from one another, both had been
exhausted, drained, and had simply flopped back onto the carpet. 
Scully had shivered, and pulled her shirt back over her head.  Mulder
closed his eyes and reveled in a pattern of sounds and textures - the
fabric of Berber versus the occasional burst of color behind his eyes:
blue, red, green, yellow, rough, soft, rough, soft.

Scully's tears had dried in tracks against her cheeks, but her eyes
remained open, unfocused, the pink around her irises evaporating into
eggshell-white as seconds stretched into minutes.

The house was silent, replete.  Only the whistling of winter
discontent flitted through the walls: branches tapping stucco, wind
hissing at trees, snowflakes dueling.  Time was ticking, warning them,
prodding them.  But even if they wanted to leave - wanted to leave
right now - there was no way out.  The roads would be blocked off, the
lawn covered in thick, white hills.  Cold was closing in, contracting
around the heart of November, and soon they would have to go get
William and move the party downstairs, where a fireplace could promise
warm flickers of heat.

"Scully, do you remember why you wrote your senior thesis?" 

Scully turned to him, leaned over on her right side, braced herself on
an elbow.  Her thick red hair fell over her shoulder like an
un-tethered drape.  "My undergraduate paper?" she asked, her chin
pressed into her hand. "The one you flung at me like a false
credential when we first met?"

"Hey now."  Mulder raised an eyebrow.  "There was no flinging
involved."

Scully smiled.  "Perhaps it was your distaste for me that gave the
appearance of flinging."   Her free hand secreted towards him, drew
swirls over his knuckles, her lids heavy.  "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," said Mulder.  "Einstein's Twin Paradox - it was the
first thing I wondered about you, after we worked on that first case
together.  Why would such a staunch scientist choose one of Einsteins
most outlandish theories as part of her graduation requirements?"

"Did you even bother to read it?" she asked, amused.   

Her suspicious tone was so familiar that Mulder felt momentarily
transported.  A quiet basement office, once a copying room, and then a
storage closet, and finally a joke to anyone who passed and saw his
nameplate on the door.  Slides and files hanging off the desk, photos
littering the floor, unfilled expense reports sticking out the corners
of drawers.  Piles here, piles there.  The scent of fast food
hamburgers, hot coffee, and ketchup.  An unwelcome, red-headed urchin,
so green from inexperience it was frightening, daring him to
contradict her, arguing with him that nothing existed beyond the realm
of science: the answers are there, she insisted.   You just have to
know where to look.

It took her a week to re-file the office, him another week to re-file
it back, and her a third week to clean it once last time: she left him
post-it notes in strategic places and threatened death if he dared
rearrange anything in a way that would create more work for her. The
loopy swirls of her handwriting coupled with the no-nonsense
practicality of her messages made him smile; he'd kept every single
one of those post-its.  He still had them, somewhere.

"I did read it," he insisted, opening his palm to her. Her fingertips
traced the lines in his skin.

When her eyebrow refused to back down, Mulder gave in and bit his lip,
sheepish.  "Okay, I tried to read it.  And I kind of got it.  But I
had no idea why x equaled v and t equaled x - "

"Actually, I think I wrote that 'x' was a position in time, assuming
that time moved relative to any object in motion with a constant
velocity of 'u' - " She waved a hand as if lecturing - " 'U' being the
constant velocity of earth, for example - and that this was in fact
equal to the constant x times u, plus the constant of a second body,
we'll say anything at motion on earth - "

Mulder tapped her arm, jolting her.  "Hey - braggart, you just lost
me."

Scully frowned, seemingly confused as to why anyone would have
problems understanding the variables of physics.  "Which part?" she
asked.

"Everything after 'Actually,' " he answered.  Scully smacked him on
the arm.

"Well, seriously, then.  What didn't you understand about it?"   

Mulder turned on his side to face her, mirrored her posture.  "I think
I just need a refresher course, Agent Scully.  Explain to me how the
theory works in your expert opinion," he said.  "Without forcing me to
dig out my Scully-to-laymens dictionary."

Scully tilted her head to one side, a few red hairs skirting into her
face.  She swatted them over her shoulder, brushing her cheek with her
knuckles.  The brows above her blue eyes converged, and she looked
wholly unconvinced of his seriousness.

Mulder grinned.  "Okay.  So one person leaves the sphere of gravity
and makes a trip to Pluto, and then returns fourteen years later,
except he's younger... or can he actually return older? It's all about
traveling at the speed of light, right?  Is that... am I close?"

Scully took a breath.  "We'll start with general relativity," she
said.

Mulder groaned into his arm, flopping back to the carpet.  

Scully chucked, sideswiped him with the back of her calf.  "You're the
one who asked me."  Her toes tickled up and down the inside of his
leg, and she smiled a very naughty smile, adding, "Big baby."

Mulder peeked his head out from his arm, pressed a kiss to the outside
of her elbow.  "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was recess." He waggled
his eyebrows.  "Preach on, Sister Spooky."  Another kiss at the arch
of her elbow.

At the very least, science lessons with Dr. Scully were much more
productive than science lessons in high school, especially since, in
this class, fucking the professor into bowlegged contentment was an
acceptable excuse for forgetting to do your homework.

Scully took a moment; her lips quirked, and Mulder couldn't be sure
whether she was trying not to laugh.

At last, she began, "Without getting too deeply into uniform
gravitational fields - "  She paused a moment, as if waiting for more
grumbling from the class.  When Mulder proved he could actually keep
his mouth shut, she continued, "Say you have two identically
constructed clocks. You synchronize them -date and time - and send one
off in a spaceship, traveling at the speed of light, while you keep
the other here on Earth.  Theoretically, since both Earth and the
spaceship travel at a constant speed, and since time is a universal
invariant, the same amount of time will pass for both Earth and the
spaceship, but the clock on the spaceship will register that less time
has passed, even though time has actually been a constant variable.
It's rate that fluctuates, since the speed of light is faster than the
speed of Earth's revolutions."

Mulder tugged on Scully's foot with his, his toes skirting her ankle. 
She was hot when she was scientific.  "Okay, I think... Yes, I get
what you're saying. But let's say I were to blast off in a ship to
Pluto traveling at - oh, ninety-nine percent the speed of light -
would I notice the passing of time as years or minutes?  I mean...
would my body recognize the change, or force biological growth at a
faster rate?"

"In scientific theory or psychological theory?"  

Mulder shrugged.  "In your theory," he said.  "It was your thesis."  

"Okay..."  Scully exhaled a chuckle.  "Special relativity generally
debunks the idea that I would be younger than you, since I was
traveling on Earth at the slower speed, and I couldn't feel the
momentum - and since you obviously had thrusters on your spaceship. 
As far as your other question goes, biology shouldn't change just
because velocity does."  Her toes ran the length of his leg, and the
smile she sported dimpled her cheeks.

"But the argument in your thesis had more to do with the bigger
picture," Mulder said.  "What an effect like that could mean in a more
metaphysical sense.  If I'm remembering correctly - you said something
about... parallel universes?"

The arch of Scully's foot played along the inside of Mulder's knee,
her fingers dancing, intertwined with his, along his palm. If Mulder
didn't know any better, he'd argue that she was flirting with him,
dirty-talking him with her science, arousing him in her own,
intellectual, deranged strategy.  He certainly wouldn't put it past
her.  She hummed to herself, sing-songing, "Close, but not close
enough, P.I."

Mulder grinned, certain his jaw would break from stretching;  Good
God, she was flirting with him.

"I argued that proper time would belong to you - you being the
passenger in the spaceship traveling at the speed of light, me being
the one left behind on Earth.  My interpretation of time would be
merely as an observer, and in that case, I was perhaps traveling in
the wrong gravitational loop."  Her cheeks reddened slightly, and she
held their intertwined hands at eyelevel as she spoke.  "In other
words, you would cease to exist in my gravitational frame of reference
because we'd be traveling in different loops.  If the speed of light
was the law by which we judged actual time, then all other life forms
existing at a point less than that speed would be on other planes,
measured by other frames of reference."

"Parallel Universes," translated Mulder, satisfied with this
conclusion.

Scully snorted.  "You make it sound like something out of Heinlein."  

"Nah." Mulder grinned.  "Not Heinlein.  Maybe Ray Bradbury, though. 
You must have been one groovy nerd to hang out with in college,
Scully."

Scully shook her head.  "God, I was so young."  She smiled, wistful. 
"Idealistic, naive..."

Mulder brushed his finger across her cheek, understanding the
sentiment. Nine and a half years, three abductions, a pot of
paranormal hodge-podge, five gunshot wounds, a dozen alien encounters,
a cancer, a baby, an adoption, a death, a murder trial and a break
from the law later, and she was not the person she'd once been.  And
neither was he.  But he rather liked this person that she was now,
just as he'd liked any incarnation of her throughout the years.

"Mulder," she said.  "Seriously.  Why do you ask?"  

"I re-read your thesis a few years ago," he said, tucking a long red
curl behind her ear.  "When you were pregnant with William.  I sat at
my computer and leafed through it, looking for something - I don't
even know what.  I think I missed a lot of the technical stuff, but I
got the general idea, and I kept it out - you know, where I could
reach it easily."

Scully cocked her head to one side.  She whispered, "Why?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Just because," he said, and now he was the one who
blushed.  His thumb dropped to her shoulder, and then to her wrists. 
"I think I was at a point in my life where I was trying to figure us
out.  A lot was going on professionally and I - I wondered whether it
was fate or coincidence that I'd found you, and you found me - that we
were partnered together.  If I could have known in the beginning that
it would end this way."

She nodded, her eyes unreadable.  "And what did you come up with?"

"I thought - " He sighed.  "I thought that maybe I had done something
to you, robbed you of something important.  And that the reason you
believed in me was not because you wanted to, but because you had been
forced to by circumstance."

Scully inhaled sharply, her fingers squeezing his.  "Mulder - "

He held up a hand.  "It's okay," he whispered.  "Just wait until you
hear the whole thing."

She nodded, silent.  

"So I was sitting there, out of work, out of distractions, and reading
your thesis because I found it in my desk, and I was bored, and I
thought - "  He smiled, covered her fingers with his.  "It wasn't a
matter of me dragging you out into the thick of ludicrousness - you'd
always wanted to be there.  You liked the ludicrousness.  You wanted
to believe - or at least, I think you did, but you didn't want me to
think you did. You know?  When I first met you, the curiosity was
there.  And the drive was there.  And in the end - "  He raised a hand
and cupped her face with his thumb and index finger.  "There could
never have been anyone else, or any other way for me.  You were
just...someone I would have fallen in love with in any universe."

"Nice," said Scully.

"You like?"  Mulder grinned, self-satisfied.  

"All this from my senior thesis, Mulder?"

"Yeah, that."  Mulder cocked an eyebrow.  "Plus, you've got an amazing
ass.  Cosmic, really."

A smile tugged at her lips, and she leaned closer, bridging the gap
between them with a sliver of shadow.  Her eyes swam out of focus, her
fingers splayed wide over his cheek, tickling the cartilage of his
ear.  Her mouth found his and tugged, searched, angled. Her tongue
entered, and there was a sudden merging, a crashing flash of desire.
She was soft, and warm, and breathing life into his lungs.  Her red
hair ran like smooth, gold spun silk beneath his fingertips.  She
tasted like nine and a half years of familiarity, and at least six
lifetimes of tears, sweat, and loyalty.

When she pulled away, his eyes were still closed.  "Impressive," she
murmured.  She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, and he
opened his eyes. "I think that was even better than your 'one in five
billion' speech, and that's really saying something, Mulder."

Mulder grinned, unabashedly giddy.  "Yeah, well, I aim to please."  

"Really?" Scully's eyebrow shot up.   "If I recall correctly, I was
your 'one in five billion' because you wanted me to do an autopsy I
didn't plan on performing.  And before that, when 'I completed you,'
it was because you wanted me to stop that pesky global conspiracy
thing."  She clucked her tongue, rising to her feet.   "Always
something with you, Mulder."  Her lips were swollen, hair wild and
tousled.  She looked ravished.  "So what do you want from me this
time?"

Mulder tapped her ankle, marveled at the stripes of darkness that
flitted over her.  With a tilt of his chin, he said, "Woman, go make
me a fire."

Scully rolled her eyes.  "I'll be downstairs," she muttered.  "You can
lay here like a lump if you want, but I don't feel like listening to
you complain all night about your ass contracting frost bite. So give
me a few minutes. Then I suggest you grab the Tater-Tot and meet me in
the living room."

"Or what?"

Scully folded her arms.  "There are plenty of theories concerning time
dilation.  I'll start with Galileo, move on to Newton - "

Mulder groaned, tossed an arm over his eyes.  

Scully chuckled.  "Get dressed," she ordered, and turned on her heels.

Mulder pulled himself to sitting, grasped her wrist before she could
go any further.  His heart cracked out a wild, erratic drumbeat; he
couldn't explain the tension.  That encroaching feeling took over,
that powerful, almost hallucinogenic thought that the walls were
closing in on them.  Scully frowned, questioned him with squinted
eyes.

"I love you," he whispered suddenly, looking her square in the eyes so
there could be no debate.  "I mean it, Scully.  I love you."

Scully nodded slowly.  She hooked her fingers into his, squeezed, and
then let him go. "I know you do," she said.

And then she turned and walked into darkness, disappearing down the
inky hallway.

******************
Shadows of Winter
Part 9
by Jaime Lyn
******************

* R rating for this chapter. la la la...

---

Mulder groaned and pulled himself to his feet, bending from side to
side.  The bones in his back realigned with a satisfying crunch, and
his muscles screamed in exhaustion.  He felt old, suddenly.  Worn out.
 His neck was stiff and sore, arms chilled; the house whistled its
disagreement with the weather, and the air was edged with the silent
creeping of frost.  If this late fall storm was as bad as the
weathermen had predicted it would be, chances were good nobody would
be getting out to repair the electricity anytime soon.  Which meant no
light, and cold house, and no more sex, and annoyed, annoyed Mulder.

Another stretch, and Mulder pulled on his jeans, buttoning them,
pausing when something sharp jabbed him in the hip.  He hissed and
reached carefully into the furrowed bulge of his pocket, pulling out
the hypodermic needle Marita had given him in the cafeteria. Shards of
light bounced off the metal, glinting the tip with white-gold.  His
other hand dug into the other pocket, and he removed the amber vial of
liquid, holding both up to his face for close inspection.

"This is for Agent Scully," Marita had instructed, "If the time ever
comes for her to need it again."  The words had been cryptic and
foreign, but made a modicum of sense in retrospect.  William's
injection.  Scully's pregnancy.  Marita hadn't known about the new
baby - hell, not even Mulder had known about it - but if she had
considered the option as an eventuality, or at the very least, as a
possibility, perhaps the vaccine was meant to prevent a similar
iron-mutation in another child.  A last resort in the fight against
unlucky chromosomes.

But then there were other concerns:  

"Marita Covarrubias is in love with you, Mulder." 

Mulder's mind replayed a slideshow of blurred images; the way Marita
had gazed at him, spoken to him, giggled with him in the middle of New
Mexico, underneath a blanket of desert frigidness.  The sand cold
beneath them, an arch of sunburned clouds scorching the sky.  The way
she'd whispered her secrets like kisses, begged him to feed her child
as she ran a warm sponge over her soiled arms.  Her voice low, broken:
"My father was never buried - they shot him, but they never found the
body..."

Marita had not specified the vaccine was necessarily meant for a
second child. She said only that the vaccine was meant for Scully. 
Specifically, for Scully.  Why would the vaccine be meant for Scully? 
Mulder shivered.  At the hospital, Marita had spoken in totality to
his wife, her cold, blue eyes like daggers.  The heat of her glare,
her voice cracked with bitter repose, like a woman with nothing left
to lose.  She hissed, "It was never about you, Agent Scully," and she
hissed it like a snake rattling a warning.   Marita wouldn't
deliberately try to harm Scully, would she?

Mulder sighed and played with the cap of the vial, twisting it and
untwisting it.  Chances, coincidences, fate, life, blizzards...

Scully was convinced that history was repeating itself, that the child
she carried was no different than William had been before Jeffrey
Spender offered hope in the form of a mysterious liquid.  If she were
correct in this assumption, it would mean their unborn child was also
a weapon, a commodity, a means to keep alien life alive.  While
William's altered biology would now kill anything with alien DNA, a
second child could, theoretically, bring supersoldiers back from the
dead.  The insanity of the situation was genetically stunning.  The
answer lay in his gene-pool - his and Scully's - a crapshoot of
recessive chromosomes merging in a single embryo.  Somehow, this
revelation came as no surprise.

One final, errant twist, and the vial opened, the cap spiraling out of
his hands into darkness.  Mulder jumped back in surprise, muttered a
curse.  Feet frozen in place, he bent and searched along the floor
with one hand. All he needed was to spill the liquid all over the
carpet, murder whatever chances he and Scully had of beating this
thing.  Or at least, figuring out what it thrived on, what its
weaknesses were.

On a stumble backwards, the flashlight grazed Mulder's foot and
toppled; the room bubbled with slashes of light, cuts of blinding
yellow beams.  Shards of yellow-gold bounced over the walls and
rolled, skittered, settling with flickers into a far corner.  The
carpet was left in darkness, and Mulder couldn't even make out his
feet beneath him.

"Shit," he muttered.  "Fucking wonderful."  

Opened vial in one hand, needle in the other, Mulder worked his jaw as
he tried to figure out what the hell to do now.  If the vaccine needed
to be sealed in order to retain its potency, Mulder was staring
directly into the mouth of trouble. Even if he objected to Scully
administering the vaccine right away - or at all - she would certainly
kill him if he let anything happen to disrupt the actual compound
itself. Anything Marita had given them was evidence, and if evidence
helped them destroy the enemy, every single little bit helped.

Leave it, dispense it, leave it, dispense it...

Shaking his head at what would probably end up being the wrong
decision, Mulder stuck the tip of the needle into the vial and pulled
up the stopper, sucking golden liquid up until there was no room left
in the plastic tube.  Sufficiently filled, he dropped the vial to the
desk behind him -

And missed by about half a foot.  The tiny glass bottle pitched into
shadows, and Mulder gazed in horror as whatever was left disappeared
to its death.

"Batting a thousand tonight," he muttered to himself.  

There was no way he'd hunt around for that thing in the dark. 
Tomorrow was plausible.  At the very least, morning would bring
sunlight into the room and, if there was indeed a God, electricity
with it.

Mulder bent to his knees and followed the trail of light on the
ground, hypodermic needle clutched in one hand.  He pulled up when his
opposite hand closed around the flashlight, and the pastel shaft moved
again, a flash on the ceiling.  He gritted out a shiver.  Mulder was
starting to actually miss the suffocating air of August, the red-mud
of dirtied benches at southwestern rest stops.  And Scully - she was a
mirage of wild beauty in her white tank tops, damp red hair curling
into sunburned shoulders.

Mulder's flashlight alit a trail of white-gold weaves over Berber
carpet, and he gazed in wide-eyed fascination, padding
tight-rope-single-file down the hallway.  The carpet was deep beige,
speckled with brown.  Each knot was tiny - too tiny.  He'd never
before noticed how big his toes were in comparison.  They were
actually freakishly large.

A creak on the stairs, and he could hear Scully coming up behind him.

"Hey Scully," he said, bouncing the beam along the carpet at his feet.
 "How big would you say my toes are?"

The slow click of a cocked gun echoed like an explosion in Mulder's
ears.  Mulder froze, flashlight squeezed in one hand, a halo of light
trained on the door to the bedroom. He didn't dare move the light, and
the walls around him receded, inky, dark. The door wasn't more than
two feet away, and William was behind that door.

His son.  

Oh lord, his son.  

There were no weapons in sight, no room for quick getaways.  Mulder
strained to see past the fog of darkness, his heart pulsing like the
deep rattle of a snake. Three black silhouettes loomed in front of
him, two figures back-to-front, and one to the left, blocking the
stairs.  Someone floated behind Mulder, training a gun on his head.
Scully - she'd gone downstairs to start a fire in the fireplace.  Oh
Jesus, where was Scully?

Another click, and a harsh, three hundred watt glow ignited black into
white. Blinded Mulder to his knees. His hand came up, and he shielded
his eyes with the fisted needle.  For a moment, he could see only
blue-white specks, painful swirls on his burned corneas.  His head
tilted to one side, and he backed against the wall.

"Isn't it nice when the family comes to visit?" asked a stunted voice.

Mulder turned, following the sound.  

There in the crackling of shadows was a waxy face, nose collapsed in
on itself from acidic tear, mouth twisted as if the skin had been made
of Play-doh and then pressed with wide thumbs. Luminescence danced,
made a freak-show of what science had already deemed monstrous,
unnatural.  The man's eyes were blank, expressionless.  His arms
seemed to float in a soup of nothing, black sleeves against black
emptiness.  His stance was wide - bureau procedure wide - gun trained
on the side of Mulder's face.  Mulder had no doubts that the man would
shoot if provoked.  Or even just because Mulder's splattered brains
would be a nice end to a cold day.

"Jeffrey Spender," said Mulder, his voice carefully neutral.  "Don't
tell me you stopped by for some coffee and crumb cake."

"We're wasting time," said another voice.  

Mulder turned a second time.

And nearly choked.  

Billy Miles stood at the base of the stairs, one arm wrapped around a
slender, gray t-shirted abdomen, the other pressed against a pale
neck, the gleam of his sharp knife cutting at the hollow of her
throat.  Scully's legs were still bare, ivory-kissed, and the Knicks
t-shirt bunched around her thighs, strangled in Billy's grip. Her
expression was hooded, blanketed in leftover flashlight flickers.  Her
chin jutted, her eyes straight ahead; she seemed to radiate pure
strength.  She watched Mulder, trained her sights on his face.  Only
the rapid rise and fall of her chest gave away what grotesque thoughts
might be flitting through her head.

"Scully," he whispered, for lack of better things to say.  

Flanking Billy Miles was a woman, tall, thin, red hair - her hands
shook on her flashlight like an almost-mercenary tricked into robbing
a bank.  Lizzy Gill, Scully's former baby nurse, and an admitted
scientist for the project. Lizzy said nothing, merely darted her
wide-eyed terror from Spender, to Mulder, to Billy Miles clutching
Scully, and then back to Mulder.  Her coat was long, brown, torn at
the sleeves.  She was haggard, unkempt, a wild creature with an
agenda.  She shivered, and the light fluttered in arching swoops
across Mulder, and then across Spender.

"What do you want from us?" Mulder asked.  

Truthfully, the question was both a ploy and a fish for explanation;
Billy Miles had found them.  He had come in place of Knowle Rhorer.
Which meant Marita had been wrong - not all of them were dead.  And
chances were even greater now that more would soon follow.

Billy Miles' face remained expressionless, sallow in the burn of
crackled orange.  Mulder's flashlight and Lizzy's flashlight
criss-crossed in midair, pressing an X down above them and burying
everything in deathly shades of canary and scorched sunset.

"I'm here to give you a choice, Agent Mulder."  Billy Miles nodded
towards the closed bedroom door.  "What I want for what you want.  I
could kill Agent Scully, but her death is fairly inconsequential at
this stage of the game."

Billy's fist closed hard over Scully's neck - as if for emphasis, and
Scully's eyes widened, oxygen ebbing from her throat. Her hands
flitted to Billy's elbows, pulling, clutching - a gasp escaped.  She
couldn't breathe.  Oh dear God, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't
breathe!

Mulder fought back the urge to leap the foot-wide divide between them,
teeth bared like a leopard protecting the cave.  Mulder's fist
clenched around the barrel of his only weapon: Marita's hypodermic
needle - and his fingers trembled with rage.  His wife, his partner. 
They'd traveled the world together and always emerged victorious,
beaten, but glued tight in places that mattered.  A study in the art
of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Defeat was palpable,
but foreign.  They couldn't have gotten this far only to have the vine
chopped off behind them.

"You want my son," said Mulder, his voice a growl.  He tilted his chin
at Scully, who gulped deep breaths as Billy's grip loosened and
allowed oxygen flow.  "You'll kill her no matter what I do.  And then
you'll kill me.  So why not just kill all of us right now?  You don't
care whether we live or die.  Your kind never has."

It was a risky tactic, being that forward, but he needed to understand
before this went any further.  Why hadn't Billy Miles just killed
Scully downstairs?  Why go to all the trouble of bringing her up here?
 It didn't make any sense.

Billy tucked the blade closer to Scully's neck, said, "You have
something I need."

Scully's eyes darted, searching for something, anything - God himself,
to provide a distraction, a means of escape. Billy's voice was low,
deadly. "Knowle Rhorer was careless, and he let the situation
deteriorate into the fiasco it has become."

Mulder swallowed, watching Scully carefully.  "What are you talking
about?"

"They're all dead, Agent Mulder."  Billy's brown eyes glinted. 
"Knowle Rhorer was a prototype.  His job was to maintain security of
the project, and he failed.  He was eliminated because of his failure.
 And now I am the last.  My only goal is survival. The woman I brought
knows how to properly dispose of the toxin that has destroyed plans
for colonization.  I would have killed your brother, had he not made
himself useful in finding you out.  Agent Scully is, from what I
understand, an emergency room doctor. And she calls herself Lily
Selden.  Am I right?"

Scully paled, and her eyes widened at Mulder, her mouth half-opened. 
Mulder tried to think back to the realtor who had sold them the house,
the phones he'd installed himself, the electronics he'd checked and
re-checked again.   Privacy was an undefined, unidentifiable frame of
mind, incapable of providing comfort.  his conversation with Scully in
the kitchen, about the pregnancy - Jeffrey Spender had been tracking
them all this time, perhaps even listening in. Anything was possible. 
How much did Billy Miles know?  Could he have found out about Scully's
pregnancy? Fear was awash in the quiver of Scully's lips; they were
both thinking the same thing.

"Frankly, I don't care what happens to you, Agent Mulder.   There is
no project left, no great cause for you to fight.  I'll give you what
you want - " He turned his head so that his breath tickled Scully's
cheek.  Scully closed her eyes, her jaw tight.  "If you'll give me
what I want.  It's a very simple transaction."

Mulder gazed helplessly at his wife. There was no right way out of
this.  None at all.

"You're a liar," he said, hoarse.  "I won't let you kill my son or my
wife.  I won't make that choice."

Jeffrey Spender pressed closer, and the cold metal of the barrel
caressed Mulder's ear.  "You're walking a fine line, dear brother. 
Choose your next words carefully."

Mulder turned his head; the gun traced the line of his earlobe, his
jaw, and then pressed directly into his nose. Jeffrey's eyes were deep
black hollows of un-remorse.  His blank gaze rested on Mulder's hand,
and on the vaccine clutched to his chest.  There was a moment of
crackled tension.  An un-spoken message passed between them, a sort of
bizarre communication.  Mulder's nostrils flared as he fought for
understanding, desperation tugging at the corners of his mind.  The
back-sounds of wind and thunder echoed in his ears - a winter storm
cracking away at the house, at the foundation -

Realization flooded him. 

"You want this vaccine," said Mulder. He felt cold all over,
frostbitten. When he turned again, Spender's gun ran the planes of his
face, and then trained on the back of his head.   The tip of the
revolver trembled, and Mulder knew he'd been right.

"Keep quiet," Spender ordered.  

Mulder pressed his thumb to the stopper of the needle, pulse racing,
and he turned the metal towards his right arm, poising to administer a
shot.  "You went after Marita because she stole this from one of the
labs.  The same lab my brother got William's vaccine from.  You needed
to be sure whether any one of us had injected ourselves with it. You
need this thing before you can kill William. That's why you haven't
killed Scully yet."

"Time is running out for you," Billy Miles warned, holding fast to
Scully.  "I haven't killed her yet, but I will if you force my hand. 
And then I'll kill your son."

Mulder felt bile collect at the base of his throat.  "You lying son of
a - "

"Your son doesn't have to die," Lizzy Gill blurted.  She bobbed the
flashlight, her voice broken, nervous. Her opposite hand outstretched
towards Mulder, her pale, sallow face tense under the X of flashlight
threads.  "We can take care of him, study him.  We can co-exist
together with these life forms, learn how to make ourselves better,
stronger. But we - we need the vaccine, Agent Mulder.  If we have the
compound, William doesn't have to die." Her eyes darted to Scully, who
stood silent beneath Billy Miles' strong grip.  "Ms. Covarrubias died
because she betrayed the project and gave the compound to you.  Do you
- Do you want to see your wife die?"

Scully released a strangled breath.  "Mulder, don't give - "  

But Billy Miles pressed the knife roughly into the jugular of her
neck, and her mouth closed, eyes screaming with frustration.

Mulder held the vaccine close to his bare arm, needle pressed just
above his bicep.  He fought to keep his shaky fingers from pressing
down on the stopper.

So Marita was dead.  Strangled or shot or broken, left to decay
somewhere behind a snowdrift or a slush-eroded building or maybe just
in a dumpster, blue and frozen, awash in rats and putrid leftovers
from a life that pressed on without her.  The thought turned Mulder's
stomach inside out like a ragged shirt.  Marita had given him back his
son. She'd had ulterior motives for every move, every ace she'd ever
offered him, but she'd not been evil. She'd been human.  Too human. 
Another person dead for this project, for this science that should
never have been.

Mulder's feet were lead; he was rooted.  There were no weapons this
time.  No means of escape.  He had no idea what molecules swam in this
solution he held, whether or not the compound would kill him or turn
him into a slab of iron or make him into a supersoldier, but
threatening to inject himself with it was the only way out. Billy
Miles needed this vaccine, and he needed it badly enough to enlist the
help of corrupt, 'mere mortal' scientists.  He needed it badly enough
to use Jeffrey Spender in order to find he and Scully.  He needed it
badly enough to kill Marita, but to keep Scully and William alive so
long as Mulder threatened to waste the mysterious liquid on himself.

"Give Lizzy Gill the vaccine," Spender ordered, jabbing the gun closer
to Mulder's scalp.  "I'll kill you - "

"You'll kill me anyway."  Mulder's words were hard, and his gaze
rested again on Scully.  Her lower lip quivered against chattering
teeth, her eyes focused wholly on the needle at his arm.  Terror was
bold in her expression, and she seemed to will the needle into
becoming a way out, forcing God's hand by sheer concentration.

To Spender, Mulder afforded the truth: "He's going to kill you right
after he kills me."  And then, with a jut of his chin towards Lizzy:
"And he'll kill you, too."

"No." Lizzy's flashlight jabbed towards Mulder in hard stabs, erratic
patterns darting on the walls and ceiling.  "You don't understand. 
It's okay, Agent Mulder.  There's more going on here than you - "

"He'll kill you," Mulder repeated, his eyes unapologetic.  "Just like
he killed Knowle Rhorer and Marita Covarrubias.  Just like he killed
your colleague, Duffy Haskel.  Just like he'll kill Scully and my son.
 He's only used you to get to me."

"You think you're some kind of God," Spender hissed, the barrel
shaking erratically at Mulder's scalp.  "You think you can save the
world by not handing that needle over?  By giving us all your
goddamned expert opinion? You think you've won this round, just
because you have your son back?  Why don't you ask Marita Covarrubias
what happens to people who think they can play God?"

Scully seemed to notice the slight wavering of the gun, and her eyes
flitted in Spender's direction.  Her mouth opened slightly, only
slightly, and her left leg crossed back over her right.  The stairway
behind her was dark, bottomless. The toes of her left foot came up
against her calf, and her eyes sought Mulder's.  Her meaning was loud
and clear: distract him.

"You're losing focus," Billy Miles snapped, turning the knife so that
the blade faced into Scully's chin and not into her neck.  It wasn't
much, but it might be enough to allow Scully to tuck and roll away.

"Just grab the baby," said Lizzy Gill, her voice a squeak.  "Why do we
have to kill anyone?"

"We can't take the baby until we have the vaccine," said Billy Miles. 
"Agent Mulder needs to stop playing games he can't win."

Mulder kept the vaccine pressed hard to his arm.  Scully's eyes locked
on him, her left foot edging slowly up the back of her right leg. 
Closer, closer. Almost -

"You're afraid," said Mulder, his finger pressed to the stopper.  He
fought for understanding, and sputtered out the first idea that came
to mind.  "That's it, isn't it?  You won't come near me because you're
afraid of what this compound can do. You think you know what it is,
but you're not sure.  Not after what happened to my son. It could do
anything.  It could poison you - or perhaps it could make an ordinary
man powerful.  Powerful enough to stop you."

Billy Miles' knife wavered a fraction of a centimeter, and Mulder
noted that he'd hit a nerve.

"You'll be dead," said the supersoldier. "Before all the liquid even
circulates through your system."

"If I'd be dead then why haven't you just killed me and taken it?"  

"Agent Mulder - "  Lizzy's expression was pleading.  "Please.  Give it
to me."

"Give me one good reason why I should hand this over," said Mulder,
vaccine trained on his bicep, pressing down like a sharp pencil. He
felt sick, dizzy.

"I'll put a bullet in your head," Spender growled.  The gun wavered in
hummingbird quickness, and Scully's eyes darted quickly from the gun,
to Mulder, and then to the gun, and then to Mulder once again.  So
close now. So close.  Just had to wait for the right moment...

Mulder swallowed, took a breath.  "One of you is going to kill me
anyway, so you might as well get it over with." Mulder tore his gaze
from Scully and faced his brother once more.  The gun was hard, and
cold, and terrifying against the raw stubble on Mulder's cheek. 
"You've been jealous ever since the minute you met me." Mulder jutted
his chin in challenge.  "You hate me so much that you're willing to
align yourself with this man - admittedly a result of the work our
father perpetuated. You're willing to give up your decency, your
courage - the few things that seperated you from him.  Now nothing
separates you from him.  You're a coward."

"Shut up!" Spender shouted.  The skin hanging from his nose flapped. 
Lizzy's flashlight jutted at the shout, and light splashed off the
silver metal of Spender's gun.  Mulder's breath caught in his throat. 
He prayed that Scully was ready to make her move.  Otherwise they were
both good and dead.

"So why don't you just shoot me, Jeffrey?"  Mulder steeled his
expression.  "You've been wanting to.  All these years you've been
wanting to - "

"I'll give you ten seconds," Billy Miles interrupted.  

Mulder turned in time to see the shadowed supersoldier press the knife
to Scully's cheekbone.  Time slowed to an aching crawl.  Scully was
right; time was relative, objective, a variable that shifted in the
eyes of the beholder. Mulder swallowed back a curse.  Scully's eyes
trained to the left, where the sharp blade hovered just below her
lash-line.

"I would hate to slash your wife's pretty face."

 The tip of the knife pressed into the skin below Scully's auburn
lashes, and Scully gasped out involuntarily.  A drop of blood, round
and perfect and tear-like, skipped the side of Scully's face.  She
looked like she was crying paint.

Mulder's mouth went dry; he was running out of time.  Billy meant it. 
He truly meant it.  Ten seconds and Mulder's wife would be dead. 
Scully's ankle trembled, and she seemed to be fighting for composure. 
Or else she was going into shock.  Fear rose like tendrils of icicles
in Mulder's throat.  Distracted as she was, she'd never be able to
execute a self-defense strike like this.  Billy would cut her throat
so fast she'd be dead before she hit the floor.

Mulder took a breath.  He felt melted, like Jell-o before the gelatin
hardened.  "Try anything and I'll inject this whole fucking compound
into my veins.  I don't care what it is."

Billy Miles grinned, and the action didn't agree with him. "You
wouldn't."

"Try me."  

Scully's face was dark, painted, a line like war-paint down her cheek.
 "Mulder - just go.  You have what they want.  Fight them.  Take the
baby and - "

Billy squeezed her abdomen to choke her off, knife trailing down the
side of her face.

"No!"  Mulder pressed the needle harder into his arm, so hard he
nearly punctured skin.  "You kill her and I'll die putting you down."

"Agent Mulder - "  Lizzy Gill again, desperation edging each word like
a warning.  "Just give it to me.  I'm begging you."

"Eight seconds."  

Mulder's fingers squeezed the stopper.  "There won't be a single
fucking drop left. If you hurt her - "

Another drip of scarlet trickled the apple of Scully's cheek, and her
mouth opened and closed; she looked as if she was either praying or
losing her mind.

"Seven seconds."  

A creaking outside the house - slow at first, and then harder, faster.
 A snapping of sorts.  Tethers loosening, splintering, wood crunching
together and then splitting apart completely.  All movement in the
hallway seemed to stop, freeze frame like a VCR on pause.  Wind howled
in delight, slapped at the windows - the slow tear of glass stretching
to its breaking point.

"Mulder - "

A mind-numbing crash rocked the floor beneath them, buckled the
carpet, rippled them nearly off their feet.  Mulder gasped and hit the
wall, Spender landing hard behind him, palms out, defensive. 
Ricochets of light prisms fluttered off the walls and ceiling, and
then burnt out.  The air went black with loud, hideous whistles of
blizzard.  The world was gone.  Mulder was blind.

"Scully, run - "

"I'll kill you myself," hissed Spender, and Mulder was pulled forward
- pulled with invisible hands.  He struck out with the heel of his
palm, turned his face away.  Spender's skin flaked, and Mulder
grimaced as the man's nose crumpled like an accordion - Spender howled
and Mulder twisted them both back with his legs, crashed them into the
wall.  He had to get the gun away.  He needed leverage, needed -

A grunt and a shriek from the other side of the room: what might have
been the toppling of a body down a hard, wooden pit.  Other bodies
rushing forward, hitting the carpet, hitting the wall.  Glass and snow
flushed into the hallway, wind bellowing, thunderous.

Spender's arm came up behind Mulder, knocked him to the ground.  The
hypodermic needle dropped from his hand, spiraled out into the
darkness.

"Criminal!"  

A scuffle here, a scuffle there - a woman's gasp - Mulder couldn't
tell whose.

 "Here," came Scully's breathless reply, and then another thud - a
body crashing against the wall.   She grunted, and there was a third
thud.  A wheeze of air.  A blast of low, rolling thunder drowned out
anything more.

"Stay away," screeched a woman's voice - not Scully's.  "Stay the hell
away from me - "

"Back!"  Scully's voice this time, dark, familiar.  "You don't want to
get hurt then you stay the hell out of my way."

Air froze, condensed; It was snowing inside the house.  The storm had
banged for entrance, and now the worst had finally gotten in.

With a groan of purpose, Mulder slammed back into Spender, knocking
them both to the ground.  The gun skittered away into a clank of
crushed metal or glass or something that sounded like a pile of
shards.  Mulder searched the darkness for a big enough shard, or the
syringe, or Scully, or anything - a fist came up into his chest and
air whooshed out of him.  Mulder's back hit the ground hard, and deep
edges of invisible shrapnel dug into his spine.  Mulder hissed, his
heart beating  - his pulse drummed a frenetic map of survival: grab
the sharp thing, grab the sharp thing, grab the sharp thing... 
Mulder's fist closed around a cold slab of glass.

Swinging wildly, praying he would hit something, Mulder finally
connected with bone: there was a crack, and a slice of glass through
skin, and Spender went down.  For how long, Mulder couldn't be sure. 
The syringe.  Mulder had to get the syringe.

"Scully!" he yelled.  "I need you to get - "  

Behind the door to the bedroom, a child's wails exploded. Shrieks
fought for dominance over the roar of winter wind. William. The gun,
the baby, the gun, the baby.  But where was Billy Miles?  If he was at
the bottom of the stairs, experience told Mulder that he wouldn't be
down for long.

On his hands and knees, Mulder swept along the floor - the gun, the
needle, the gun, the needle. And the baby.  Fucking hell.  He couldn't
see a goddamned thing.

"I have it!" came Scully's voice.  "Mulder - "

Light flooded back into the room - it was Lizzy Gill, crouched on the
floor by the far wall. Her eyes wild, she swept the hallway with a
silver flashlight in her shaking hands.  Wind whipped through her
hair, and the shaft of light illuminated walls, and shattered glass,
and drunken swirls of snowflakes swimming like dust.  Finally, the
light rested on Scully, crouched like a cat, her fist closed around
the base of a hypodermic needle.  Her back to the stairs, her elbows
shook.  Her bottom eyelid dripped blood, but she didn't seem to
notice.  Her blue eyes glazed: the prowl of a wild den mother.

Behind Scully, Billy Miles loomed up the stairs, his face blank, arms
at his sides.  His shirt was ripped, arm gashed. He didn't care.   He
shouldn't; the blood wasn't real.

Pain erupting from the punch to his abdomen, Mulder crawled towards
her, reached out an arm.  "Scully!  Behind you!"

Scully turned on her knees, and Billy Miles paused at the top of the
stairs.  Mulder reached back an arm to steady himself and connected
with a solid, fleshy object.  His hand slithered in a pool of warm,
wet liquid.  He didn't need to turn to know what it was.  Spender.  He
wouldn't look - he couldn't.  He still didn't have the gun.  Nobody,
it seemed, had the gun.  Where was the motherfucking gun?

William's screams grew louder, more desperate, and Mulder's eyes
darted from the door to the bedroom, to Scully, to Lizzy Gill cowering
in a corner, and then back to Scully.  Billy Miles pressed off to the
left and Scully turned on her hands and knees, following Billy's
movements, never breaking eye contact.  She was a cornered lioness, a
trapped dragon.  She pressed the needle in towards her bicep, her
fingers caked with blood. She was a grain of salt away from breaking. 
Her knees - it was her knees that bled.  Mulder breathed raggedly, and
each exhale puffed like smoke into the air.

Scully's teeth barred, her eyes glittered.  She hissed, "You take one
step towards my husband or my son, and so help me God, you'll wish you
hadn't."

Billy Miles remained expressionless, slinking along the wall towards
the bedroom.  "And what will you do, Agent Scully?"

Air smoked out from her lips, snowflakes collecting in her hair.  Snow
blew sideways in jagged lines, the swirls and upsweeps of wind almost
deafening.  Scully was the wilder storm.  "You know exactly what I'll
do."

Billy crept closer to the bedroom, unconvinced.  Mulder jutted his
chin towards the man.  "Now you've done it," he said.  "Now you've
really pissed her off."

Scully's thumb teetered over the depressor of the needle. Her eyes
darted and she gasped.  "Mulder - " She jutted her chin.  "Mulder,
behind you - "

Mulder turned in time to see Jeffrey Spender, deformed and bleeding,
skaking and rising to his knees.  A dark spot spread over his
shoulder, and he grasped the gun in one black-gloved hand and lowered
it to Mulder's temple, index finger a hair away from pressing the
trigger.  Mulder squinted through the upsweeps of snow and skirted
away, down on his spine, pulling himself backwards with his hands.  He
slid his feet across the floor to take out Spender's knees.  Spender
came down and a shot fired, deflected wide.  Mulder ducked, and behind
him, there was a shriek from Scully.

Time disappeared on the howls of wind. 

For a terrifying second, Mulder was sure she'd been hit. His heart
erupted into his throat.

William screamed, and Mulder could make out terrified squeals of ...
it sounded like... "Mama."  Again and again, like a demented joke.
First words, first steps, first brushes with death - "Mama, Mama - "

Scully cried out.  

Mulder couldn't see her.  He had to turn.  Billy Miles would kill her
- would kill her.  A cry ripped from Mulder's throat -

"Scully!"

Spender grunted, and struggled for control of the gun.  Mulder felt
along the floor and grasped a long shard of glass with one hand, the
other clutched at Jeffrey Spender's elbow.   Underneath the man's
ribs, Mulder thrust the shard of glass, twisted, tugged.  Warm liquid
burst over Mulder's fist and he thought he might vomit altogether. 
His brother.  Jesus.  This was his only brother.

 The gun clicked to the floor, and Mulder kicked it away; the barrel
sputtered and hit the bedroom door.

"Mama!"  William's wails jabbed like pins in Mulder's ears.  "Mama! 
Mama!"
Mulder turned and the Universe screeched to a halt.  The syringe was
completely empty, buried in Scully's arm at an impossible angle.  Heat
flared in her eyes, and Billy Miles sprung toward her.  Scully sat,
daring him with her jutted chin, unafraid.

Pulse racing, terror running like frozen blood in his veins, Mulder
leapt up and tripped over Spender's slick fluids, entagling his legs
and dropping back to the floor.  The nerve-endings in his ankle
shrieked.  Glass crunched in hot needles of pain beneath his fingers. 
More blood.  His blood. Hurt.  So cold.  Scully.  He had to get to
Scully.  Had to get to her before -

Billy Miles grabbed her, yanked her to her feet by her hair.  The
needle dropped from her fingers, useless now, forgotten.  "Was the
truth worth it, Agent Scully?"

Fear flickered in Scully's eyes for only a moment, and her gaze froze
in tandem with Mulder's.  Glinted. She was a hundred Scullys at once. 
She was Lily Selden and Laura Petrie and Dana Scully, and she was the
truth and the light and every answer he'd ever sought.  Air
constricted, ebbed, and the room was a vaccum of singular moments. 
She was looking forward to working with him, she had a wedding that
weekend but would see him on Monday, she didn't think vampires killed
the cows because vampires didn't exist, and he was nuts, bringing up
genies and mummies, and she tasted like chocolate when she ate
Hershey's Kisses with her beer... Mulder's ears hummed. He silently
willed to her: Scully, run.  Go.

The blade came up quickly, before Mulder could blink, and time
abruptly ran out.  Billy dug into Scully's neck with an arc of
graceful dexterity.  Across her neck the glint of the knife ripped,
trailing a thin smile of blood behind it, dark, almost black.  A
nauseating whoosh of metal sliced through skin.  And just like that,
her throat was severed. The hourglass shattered over his head,
blinding him, and what was done was done.

"No!"  

He couldn't tell who was screaming.  

"No!  No, no - Scully!"    

"Mama!"  William cried, muffled now, receeding to background noise.
"Mama..."

Scully's eyes went wide in shock, her expression like that of a kitten
who had just been birthed.  Her mouth opened, struggled for air where
the was none. Her blood bled deep, brick red over Billy Miles' arms. 
He released her with a disgusted shove, and Scully fell forward.
Mulder pitched towards her like lightning and caught her before she
hit the floor.  He couldn't even feel her.  He couldn't feel anything.
 They sank together.

A sob tore from his throat. Mulder cradled her, sticky and wet with
his blood, with Spender's blood, and now with his wife's blood.  She
was so pale and red was so stark, so bold - it didn't belong on her. 
He felt like howling, like covering himself over with leaves and grass
and dirt.  If she died, he would die here with her.

Scully's eyes closed, opened once more in a desperate, losing battle. 
Her hands shook and she brought her fingers up, gazed at them. 
Disoriented.  Reaching.  Blood.  So much blood.  She was everywhere,
spilled over the rug, trickled over his hands.  Her eyes glazed, and
she focused on him one last time. Her lids heavy, her mouth moved
without sound.

"Don't go," he choked.  

And her eyes closed a final time.  Her neck dropped.  The lily had
been broken.

*****************
Shadows of Winter
Part 10
by Jaime Lyn 
*****************

* PG rated, for your pleasure.  :-)

---


The brain was a funny and yet hideous thing.  Neurological synapses
flowed and connected one lobe to another.  Human psychology was a
direct result of these synapses, of a complex biology of chemicals
reacting with one another.  To this day, scientists couldn't pinpoint
why the mind flashed certain emotional responses to certain stimuli. 
Why some abused children became axe murderers while others became
lawyers.  Why a man fell in love with one woman, while research
insisted he was more emotionally and physically compatible with about
a hundred others.  Why a certain series of images or memories were
triggered by a series of events, and other memories were discarded
under the same set of circumstances.  The mind had many mental
defenses and bizarre strategies meant to battle complete and utter
shut-down.

As Mulder held his wife in his blood-coated arms, rocking her back and
forth, he drifted back to a cold night seven years ago.  A hard-backed
plastic chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.  Melissa
Scully sat on one side, Margaret Scully on the other.  Dana Scully was
in a coma.  Her body was weak, on the verge.  She was dying.

"She doesn't want to live like this," the doctor said, his clipboard
raised as a shield.  "She stated her terms clearly in her living
will."

Mulder had signed Scully's living will the year before.  As her
partner, she had asked him because statistics proved that chances were
high she could die in the line of duty.  It was Mulder's professional
job to know her, her habits and nuances, inside and out, so in the
eventuality of danger, he could pull her out. So he could save her or
know when to gracefully let her go.  Mulder understood what they were
up against; Scully insisted he was as good a friend as anyone, and
he'd know when she was ready to die.  A strange compliment, to say the
least.  But Mulder had signed, making a joke about her willing him her
Eagles Greatest Hits collection.  The pen skirted across paper, his
signature appeared, and then he was done.  Onto another mutant,
another vampire, another slideshow.

Mulder never imagined she might actually die.  Immortality was easy to
believe when one consistently emerged from the clutches of danger. 
Death was an impossibility, and signing her living will was merely a
formality, like signing the check at the end of a long, satisfying
dinner.  Scully was invincible.  She was Batman or Superman, swooping
down to save him from all the dark places.  She was his superhero. She
wasn't supposed to die.

Margaret Scully and Melissa Scully were there, supported by two
doctors and a nurse. Dana Scully lay on the bed, face pale, red hair
draped about her shoulders in tattered strings.  She had freckles -
Mulder had never noticed those before.   The freckles matched her
hair.

Mulder opted not to enter the room, a silent protest from an outsider,
but he watched for a moment by the doorway. He discovered that
'pulling the plug' was more a figure of speech than a literal
interpretation.  Pulling the plug meant flicking switches, turning
monitors off, and releasing a patient from a breathing tube.  In
reality, there was no wire, and no outlet for such a wire to fit. 
Pulling the plug meant counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds
until death.  Pulling the plug wasn't instantaneous; if the patient
still breathed, pulling the plug was like offering a glimmer of hope
in the form of a brutal slap.

Mulder had never before felt so drawn to another human being, and when
the doctors released Scully from her electronic binds, Mulder felt
mortality as if someone had kicked him in the ribs with it. Margaret
Scully buried her face in the shoulder of her eldest daughter and
sobbed. And Mulder's life shrank down to a harsh, black and white
sketch of causation, of before and after: Before Scully and After
Scully.  'After Scully' wasn't ever supposed to happen, not that
suddenly.  'After Scully' was unthinkable.

When Mulder opened his eyes, cold air rushed him like a linebacker.  

Billy Miles would kill him, now.  Mulder was positive of it.  There
was no longer a good reason for Mulder to live, and he was much too
numb to move or care.  Funny how he could misjudge himself so
completely, when life came down to brutal, primate instinctive ness. 
He'd always imagined revenge for injustice as a part of his
psychological makeup. That if someone murdered Scully, he would get
right back up and fight for her.  Just as he'd fought for Samantha,
for his father, for his mother.  He would drive a bullet through the
bastard's skull, or else he would die trying.  But silent musings and
the occasional nightmare did nothing to prepare a person for the
actual choking hold of grief.  And Scully was not his sister, or his
father, or his mother; Scully was so much more.  And now she was gone.
  Phantom eventuality was not reality.  The harsh light of death was
paralyzing, and Mulder was trapped within its grip.

He held her, pressed his face into her hair; she still smelled like
Scully.  Coconut creme and baby powder.  She was smooth and warm.
Beautiful. Death was supposed to be cold.  But she was soft, and
radiating heat, filling him.  She would always fill him.

"Scully," he whispered, his lips on her ear.  "Remember what I said to
you?  In the jail cell?  When the guard told Skinner that everyone had
to leave and I pulled you back?  Do you remember what I said?"

There was, of course, no answer.  Streaks of snow and blasts of wind
knocked out all sound, and Mulder couldn't even hear himself breathe -
a tear landed on Scully's nose, but he couldn't remember if he'd
actually begun to sob. No, this wasn't right.  This wasn't how it was
supposed to happen.  Scully didn't die - she couldn't die.  Death was
a common, mortal concept, meant for ordinary people.  Scully was so
much more than ordinary.  She was... was...

Human. Scully was only human, and her living will stated that she
didn't want to live like this.

Where was he?  Was this the hospital?  

Scully had been abducted, ripped from him.  He'd searched for her and
now she'd been found.  Her eyes were closed - she had freckles.  Since
when did Scully have freckles?  She was so lovely, just in a coma, not
dead yet. The doctors had brought her in and Margaret Scully was
offering coffee, Melissa, she was saying how you could feel Scully's
spirit in the place between life and death and drifting.  They took
her off life support but Scully was going to live.  She had to live.

There were tears but no sound.  Sound had disappeared.  And Mulder
registered that he was shivering.

Where was he? 

The hallway was a tundra, a meteorological condition.  Somewhere, in
the back of his mind, it occurred to Mulder that he hadn't been killed
yet.  Or perhaps he had.  Scully was right; there was a hell, and
Mulder's hell was to exist in this moment, with Scully's blood
painting his hands, in a circular loop of science fiction splendor. 
This was the tunnel at the end of the light, a well that stretched
until night bottomed out and nothing was left.

In the corner of perception, Mulder heard wails, loud, unending
shrieks.  At first he thought it was his imagination, but the wails
got louder, more pronounced.  Vaguely, he remembered a child. Seven
years of backtracking and second guessing and investigating, and then
a warm night on his couch when Scully came back in search of her
wallet.  Drills, metal tables, terrible pain - his return, like
falling into a hot-water bottle.  Scully's swollen stomach.  "What are
you going to call him?" he'd asked, gazing into a tiny, pale face. 
"William," she'd answered.  "After your father."

Mulder's head shot up.  The baby.  Determination flooded into him,
Scully's strength and her fortitude.  Oh God, the baby was in danger. 
Billy Miles was going to -

Billy Miles was shaking.  But not just shaking - seizing.  His black
eyes bugged wide, baffled - he gazed at his hands, at the blood that
soaked him down to his forearms.  Scully's blood.  Bubbling.  Oozing. 
Scully's blood was burning his skin right down to the bone.

Mulder gasped, pulled Scully's body tighter to him.  "What the hell -
"

Faster and faster Billy's body shook, so fast Mulder thought the man
would explode.  Tugging Scully with him, as if she could still see or
feel, Mulder pulled them back towards the wall, back until there was
nowhere else to go.  The snow was loud and thick; it was hard to make
anything out clearly.  Mulder shielded his hands over his eyes.  Billy
Miles' face went gray, and then black, and beyond the laughter of
winter wind, Mulder could hear crackling, bones imploding in on one
another, fracturing, degenerating.

Billy Miles was biodegrading.  

First his arms shrunk, twisted in gnarled facsimiles of hands, and
then further down, into black knobs.  Then his shoulders sunk into his
chest, and his head went the color of night.  His eyes were gone,
mouth gone.  Down he went, melting - actually melting, and Mulder had
a bizarre flashback to the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy had thrown water
at the witch.   Scully - Scully was Dorothy.  And Verona's frigid
November snowstorm was over the rainbow.

Jesus, Mulder was cracking up.  Losing it. This wasn't happening.  No
way this was happening.

Mulder pressed his face to Scully's pale cheek, his shoulders and neck
soaked in her blood. The twang of salt and iron danced in his nose,
made his head swim with promises left broken. The baby still cried,
called out for his Mama.  How could Mulder tell his son that Mama
wasn't coming to pick him up?  Not ever.  How could he tell himself?

"Tell me this isn't happening," he whispered into her ear.  "Wake up,
Criminal.  Tell me this isn't happening."

A hand touched his shoulder, and Mulder nearly leapt out of his own
skin.  He turned his head and clutched Scully closer, held her like a
blanket, his teeth gritted, head cloudy with instinct. Someone had
come to take his wife from him. Someone wanted his child. Christ, she
was already dead.  They'd already hurt her once.  No.  Never again.

"Get away from us," Mulder growled.  He rubbed his thumb over Scully's
cheek until the blood disappeared from her skin.  He would do that; he
would wipe the blood away, and then she would be alive.  She would
wake up and tell him -

"Let me help her, Agent Mulder."  

Mulder froze - a male voice, and an unfamiliar one.  Not his.  Someone
else was there, standing behind him.  It wasn't Spender. Someone else
was in the house.

The mysterious, floating voice crouched next to Mulder, and Mulder
fought the animalistic urge to turn and sink his teeth into whoever
had come to threaten his family.  Nobody would touch Scully again but
him.  He just needed a minute. He needed to wipe the blood away. This
wasn't real.  All the blood was a dream, a construct of his overactive
imagination.  If Scully could speak, she'd tell him that this entire
evening was the result of hallucinogenic drugs.  Perhaps everything
since the onset of her first pregnancy was the result of
hallucinogenic drugs.  He wasn't in his right mind and she would tell
him that. Any minute now.

"I can help her," the voice said again.  "I've helped her before.  Let
me do what needs to be done."

Mulder turned.  

And speech escaped him.  

There, in Lizzy Gill's tattered brown coat and dark blue slacks, was
Jeremiah Smith, his gray hair awash in swirls of drunken snowflakes. 
He nodded at Mulder for approval, and Mulder had forgotten what it was
he was supposed to say.  Fluid clogged his ears.  He felt drunk. 
Scully was either dead or Scully wasn't dead.  William was in the next
room. Something bizarre had happened here.  He just didn't know what. 
He couldn't understand.

Mulder's grip loosened on Scully's torso, and he fell back, confused,
hypnotized.  He wanted to wake up.  He seriously wanted to wake up. It
was cold in here, and dark, and strange, and he missed watching the
tendrils of flames kiss the edges of his wife's fireplace.  He should
be downstairs, arguing with Scully about the Bog serpent, reading a
book to William, listening to Scully's stomach.  She was supposed to
have a baby.

"We could have co-existed," said Jeremiah Smith, and he lowered his
hands to Scully's neck, pressing.  "But now is not the time.  Perhaps
in another few thousand years, things will be different.  I don't
believe in the sixth extinction, Agent Mulder.  I told your wife as
much when we prayed together.  I don't think she remembers.  She
thought I was someone else."

Mulder's head spun.  "Thought you were someone else?"

"The truth is whatever we believe it to be, Agent Mulder."  

Mulder gazed in fascination as the blood ebbed from Scully's skin, the
gash that had severed cords in her neck closed, pinched, collapsed in
on itself, and soon it was gone altogether.  Scully's chest bobbed
with new breath, and Mulder jumped as if scorched. Scully was alive. 
She was alive? Oh sweet Jesus, Scully was alive.  But, but -

Mulder turned to Jeremiah Smith, wishing to impart gratitude, but
unable to find the words.  Gratitude was a small concept - trite and
human, and better left in the silence between life and death.
Gratitude was insufficient, just as love seemed to be.   Gratitude
didn't encompass the roiling emotions crisscrossing Mulder's veins,
the years of sights and smells, textures, and the sound of her voice,
memories, but not the last memories of her he'd file away. She was
still Mulder's superhero. She would forever be.

Jeremiah's hands began to shake, and his face took on a gray pallor.
His cheeks trembled, rippling as if to music.  Mulder pulled back,
taking Scully with him, dragging her.

Jeremiah was dying - just as Billy Miles had died. Somehow, Scully's
blood was killing him.  Whatever was in that vial, it had been lethal
- but not to humans. Which meant Scully was quite literally
kryptonite. She was poison for all the inhuman supermen of the world. 
Marita had been wrong. Even Scully had been wrong.  It wasn't about
Mulder at all, and perhaps it was never meant to be.  He couldn't do
it alone; he wasn't the savior of the world.  It was Scully and the
child both of them had created together who would prevent extinction.

"Congrat - grat- u- lations... on your... your new - new - child,"
said Jeremiah Smith, his hands gray, and then black, convulsing.  "I
pre - pre- pre - dict great things.  Many more..."

And then he was gone, liquefied.  A black puddle left on the carpet in
his place, coating the shards of glass and ovals of blood that soaked
up into knots of Berber.

Mulder blinked, tried to inject normality into himself.  The baby was
still crying.  The last living alien life forms had just died before
him.  Scully had also died, but now she was alive again.  There was a
storm raging outside that had knocked out the heat, and, somehow, had
shattered the pane of his office window.  And now with all the blood
and glass and black oil all over the place, they'd never get their
security deposit back.

Scully shifted in Mulder's embrace. She pressed a palm to her forehead
and stretched, kitten-like. Her lashes fluttered open and shut, and a
moan trickled from her lips.  "Mulder?" she said.

The sound of her voice was like oxygen in a vacuum, and Mulder
gravitated towards his wife, drawn, pulled, as he had always been, to
her side.  He pressed his lips to her temple, closed his eyes. She was
soft, and warm, and alive, and his.

"Mulder?" she repeated.  

"Hm?"

Her lashes fluttered, and aquamarine eyes darted about the hallway as
if she'd never before seen it.  "It's snowing in the hallway," she
stated.

He nodded.  "Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Because... it's raining in the living room?" 

"Oh."  Scully yawned, seeming to accept this. She turned and snuggled
closer, clutching him.  If she had any memory of dying on him, she
didn't share.  "Mm...It's cold in here. You're going to freeze."

"Mm hmm." He breathed her in once more, reveling.  

"Go build a snowman with the baby, Mulder.  I'm going to take a nap
for just...mm... just a minute.  Next time it snows in the house, wear
a coat, okay?"

Mulder chuckled against her forehead, breathing in the fresh, familiar
scent of her.  And for the first time in ages, he felt that everything
would finally be alright - or, at the very least, the kind of bizarre
that actually passed for normal in his and Scully's zipcode.

--

If the upstairs hallway was a twisted mess of glass and melted snow
and pungent, black and maroon stains, Mulder's office rivaled the
hallway on a sliding scale of disaster wreckage.

The door to the office he'd been forced to close - the entire second
story would need to be snow-plowed if he didn't  - and he bordered up
the doorway with the computer box and what was left of the computer. 
The monitor had somehow escaped dentless and intact, although the
actual screen had not been so lucky, and the keyboard was plucked of
its keys in a way that would have done a dentist proud. Two thousand
dollars out the window - literally.

Brown, leafless fingers had groped through what was left of the
window, shattered the glass panes and wood dividers, and had beaten
the crap out of anything within reach.  The crates and shelf that had
once been pieces of Mulder's desk were tossed about the room like
sheets of paper.  His metal folding chair dangled like an earring off
one of the gnarled branches.  Dirt, slush, and street gravel coated
the floor, embedded in parts of the wall.

Scully's favored Maple had been the cause of their indoor winter
wonderland, a fact both ironic and poetic in a divine right of
circumstance. The theme of the week seemed to be 'wouldn't it be wild
if...' and now a tree had taken a roll at the dice. Already bent
towards the house at a forty degree angle, roots pulled up from the
earth, the trunk had finally succumbed to old age and disease and
twenty-five-mile-an hour winds. If not for the maple's weathered bark
and sickened branches, the right moment during the right storm, with
winds blowing in the right direction, Mulder would likely have been
shot to death. Scully would never have injected herself with the
compound that killed Billy Miles, and William would be dead.

Of course, on the other hand, had not the tree's complex root
structure remained intact, none of the above would have mattered. 
Their tiny cottage would have been pushed right off its foundation,
cracked down the middle by a hundred-year-old tree trunk, and
destroyed; they'd all be buried in cigar boxes.

If God indeed played the crapshoot, he certainly enjoyed rolling odd
combinations.

After tying an old shirt around his knees to quell the bleeding,
Mulder went in to quiet his screaming son.  William could never have
known the difference, nor would he have cared, but his confinement had
actually saved his life. Not that being alive made fear any less
fearful for the sleepy toddler, but at the very least, he was still
screaming, which meant he was still breathing, and when all was said
and done, Mulder couldn't have asked for more.

His lips at the baby's temple, his arms secure around his back and
bottom, Mulder kept repeating the same phrase, over and over,
delirious with relief:

"Daddy's here," he whispered, rocking the child back and forth, as
much for William's sake as for his own. "Daddy's here."

To survey the damage, Mulder stood back with his hands on his hips
like a man keeping watch over the side of a mountain.

Jeffrey Spender's pulse had been snuffed out.  The man was certifiably
dead.  Mulder's only brother, and the last in a long line of men and
women who had sought to destroy him, and other men and women who had
sought similar truths.  Mulder's father, his mother and sister, Chief
Blevins, the cigarette smoking man, Alex Krycek, Marita Covarrubias,
Melissa Scully, the lone gunmen - it seemed as though everyone he'd
ever known had drowned at the threshold of his quest.  Everyone, that
is, except for he and Scully, their unborn child and their son.

And Assistant Director Walter Skinner of the FBI.  

Deciding that maintaining his cover had all at once become a
non-issue, Mulder finally contacted his former superior by cell-phone.
 In a second bit of irony, Mulder discovered that his former colleague
was already stranded in a Lake Ontario airport just outside of
Kingston. One of Paul Selden's 'help wanted' fliers had apparently
found its way to Skinner's desk by first-class delivery, and the
words, Verona, Lake Ontario, had been scratched on the envelope. On
the back of the flier was another message: "And baby makes three."

Skinner didn't specify whether there had been a return address, and
Mulder wouldn't have needed one to pinpoint the sender anyhow.

She was nothing more than a memory now, alive as long as someone
remembered her.

But more amazing than any mysterious delivery or alien entity was
life's ability to bounce back after a kick to the head. That same
afternoon, Agents Doggett and Reyes of the X-Files division relayed
staggering news to Walter Skinner that had come to their office via
telephone: the charges against Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were
officially being dropped.  The men who had originally perpetuated such
charges had disappeared off the face of the Earth, and in the space
between yesterday and this afternoon, all searches for the missing
agents and operatives had been called off.  No reason was given. The
military tribunal Mulder had faced became little more than an un-event
in the relative passage of time.  The federal government, of course,
had no record of any such tribunal taking place within the justice
department.  Knowle Rhorer, the man Mulder had been accused of
murdering, was not dead, because he did not exist.  Nor would such a
record of his existence ever surface.

Just as quickly as one regime fell, another regime rose from the
ashes.  Alvin Kersh, former Deputy Director of the Violent Crimes
division, had been promoted to director of the bureau's main branch
office in Washington, D.C.   No warning, no preamble. In an
interoffice memo to Assistant Director Walter Skinner, he had ordered
that the X Files division be mainstreamed as a quiet offshoot of the
Violent Crimes division.  He'd requested Mulder personally, although
Skinner insinuated that the man's exact words were, "If the jackass is
still alive, find him."

Mulder's cell-phone died just as William called out to him from the
bedroom.  The baby's exact words were, "Dadda," and "shit."

At the end of the day, there was no way Mulder could win them all.

After deciding to leave the mess upstairs for Skinner to handle,
Mulder dragged his wife down to the living room amidst groans and
protests.  To say she was disoriented was to vastly underscore the
situation; she'd twice begged Mulder to please turn off the
slide-projector so she could finish her expense reports for the Jersey
Devil case.  Near death was not a pretty color on her, and the
after-effects were similar to detoxification.  Had the circumstances
been any different, Mulder probably would have been amused by Scully's
unending mumblings about a pigeon that kept laughing at her from a
bench by the Hoover Building's reflecting pond.

The problem was that Mulder had been sliced in a dozen places, and his
ankle had been twisted. Hauling William down the stairs was a
necessary act; one years olds weighed very little, and they simply
didn't climb stairs by themselves. Hauling his barely conscious wife,
however, while she shooed away invisible birds, was another
aggravation entirely.

Caught in the liquid confusion between consciousness and sleep, Scully
slowly clawed her way back to herself while Mulder entertained the
Tater-Tot.

She muttered about a headache and asked for something to drink.  It
seemed that being murdered and brought back from the dead had left her
with a scratchy, dry throat.   Mulder offered her the mildest asprin
he could find and a mug of hot tea. Blinking awake, Scully accepted
the pills and the tea, and dumped half the sugar bowl into her cup.
Mulder had never known Scully to be big on the sugar, at least - not
in her tea, but she'd shoveled in piles of the stuff until Mulder was
positive his own teeth would crack just from watching her.

"Hard-head junior has a sweet tooth," she muttered, and drank
wide-eyed, like a teenager unused to the taste of whiskey.

Half a mug later, and Mulder sat back against the base of the couch,
legs spread, lips buried in the crook between Scully's neck and
shoulder.  Scully sat in the gap between his legs, leaning into his
chest, quiet, solemn. William curled against her, plucking fur off of
blue-blunny, gurgling a fascinating story in his native,
one-and-a-half year old tongue.  Scully's fingers played in the baby's
fuzzy hair and down his back, and she massaged him until his eyelids
fluttered in protest of sleep.

The fire glowed bright in the fireplace, rocking, dancing, smiling at
them and hooking up into the black soot of the chimney.  If the power
never returned, thought Mulder, this would be enough for him.  He
didn't need light or heat or sound.  He needed this moment, with his
wife, his son, and his unborn child.
 


 --

"I think I'll take Tater-Tot out to see the Kelpie," Mulder said,
thoughtful.  "But first I want to get one of those cameras with the
zoom lens - "

Scully groaned, as she always did, at the mention of Cameron Bog's
infamous sea monster.  "Again with this bog monster fantasy?  You
really will believe anything, won't you?"

Mulder grinned.  "Only the good stuff," he said, brushing his palm
over the crown of his son's head, the sides of his arms resting
against Scully's.

Silence, and the fire crackled its approval into wisps of smoke. 
Scully's fingers brushed over his, and their hands merged against
William's flushed cheek.

"Mulder?"

Eyes half closed, Mulder managed a drowsy, "Hm?"

"What happens now?"  

Scully's red hair curled around Mulder's cheeks, untamed and wild from
melted snow.  She still smelled like coconut creme and warm, feminine
skin.
"Well."  Mulder blinked his way back.  "We're going to have to explain
the mess to Wright Realty, and to State Farm, and I don't think
'eliminated threat of alien colonization' is going to fly on an
insurance claim, so we'll have to come up with something more
plausible.  Good thing I keep you around, Criminal.  You see what
happens when you try and save the world?  God throws a tree through
your window."

Scully hummed.  "Do you really think it was God, Mulder?"  

"What, the tree?"

"Yes."  She paused.  "Well, no.  Yes and no.  Not just the tree. 
Everything."

"I don't know what to think," Mulder answered honestly.  "I just know
that, for the first time in a long time, it's quiet.  Do you feel it,
Scully? The quiet?"

The room flickered in shadow, wind swirling, protective, blanketing. 
Only their breathing cut the darkness, pressing in with the evened
sounds of survival.  They made it this far; they'd broken free.  Any
adventure from this point forward would be something new, unfamiliar,
a journey down an untrodden path.

"Do you really think they're gone, Mulder?"

Mulder took a breath, his hands running her biceps.  "I don't know.  I
really don't.  Skinner told me that a lot of CIA officials, defense
department personnel, and FBI agents just disappeared last week- some
right from their offices - and that the searches for them were called
off yesterday.  Nobody knows why.  Before he died, Billy Miles
insinuated that he was the last of his kind.  Maybe he is or maybe he
isn't.  Or maybe I'm just sick of running, or maybe I'd rather turn
into the wind and fight, but I really want to believe that it's true."

She sighed.  "But is that naive of us?  Wanting to believe that this
is the end?"

Mulder paused a moment, thoughtful.  "We both know it's not," he said.
 "There are still uncertainties and risks.  And now comes the work
antacid pills are made of. Lab runs, tests, analysis, research.  All
that fascinating shit."

Scully shifted.  Her legs stretched the outline of his calf. "Breaking
down the science of the unknown," she murmured.  "That'll take some
time."

"It will."

"And our cover's essentially blown."

"Essentially," Mulder agreed.  He craned his neck until the back of
his head hit the couch.  The ceiling flashed above him in flickers of
gray and white popcorn paint.

"But does it ever end?" She asked.  "Is that even possible?"

The room smelled of pine, real wood and the stuff that came in a can. 
Over the course of four months, he'd grown accustomed to the odor.

"Logically, dear Watson, I'd have to say no."  He elbowed her, and she
elbowed him back.  He couldn't tell whether or not she smiled.  He
imagined she did.

His mouth found her earlobe, and he tasted her.  "There's always going
to be something out there, Scully.  And I don't want to stop
searching. It's not in me to give up and it's not in you, either. 
We've just beaten the tough round, you know?  Like when you beat the
oompas and the turtle-ducks and the fire-breathing-flower-pots, and
then you get the bonus mushroom that gives you an extra life, and you
go on and kill Bowser?"

At Scully's silence, Mulder gave in, "After I got fired, I played a
lot of Nintendo."

"Ah, I see."  Scully exhaled loudly.  "Are you sure you didn't hit
your head, Mulder?"

Mulder chuckled, rubbed his hands down her goose-bumped arms.  "I
think I'm just grateful.  All supersoldiers and trees through the
house aside - " He kissed the corner of her neck, "That my son is
here, and this new baby - it sounds so bizarre to say that it finally
feels like my life, because it is my life, it's always been my life,
but I don't know, Scully.  I keep thinking back to this dream I had a
few years ago... I was living a different life.  I was given another
choice, another fate.  I was given all the comforts any man could ever
want and in the end, it wasn't... wasn't what it should have been.  It
wasn't the right time and you - you weren't there.  And when you
finally came, you kicked me in the ass.  You told me that it wasn't
supposed to end this way. I had to fight, get up."

"I remember," Scully said.  "You were telling me that everything was
upside down. That I was the only one who told you the truth."

"You saved me," he emphasized.  

Scully curled closer.  "You keep saying that," she murmured. 

"Well, you keep doing it," he answered.  He paused, and pressed his
mouth over her ear, turned his head so that his nose poked through her
thick red hair.  "You said I belonged to my quest, to my truth.  And
maybe to an extent, you're right.  But you're wrong if you think
you're not a part of that.  You're - "  He paused, cleared his throat.
 "You're my wife.  I belong to you, Criminal."

Her head turned, and her lips pressed against his chin.  "I know," she
said.

"So what do you want to do next?" he asked.  "Skinner's stuck in an
airport in Kingston because of the storm.  I spoke to him... He knows
about William, Scully.  I'm guessing Marita tipped him off."

"Why?" Scully's tone was neutral, soft.  "A last ditch effort at
trying to protect you?"

"Maybe," Mulder agreed, shivering at the thought of Marita, of her
sacrifice.  "At any rate, Skinner should be here tomorrow, whenever
the roads clear. We'll have some explaining to do, but thats the
norm.  It was insinuated that Kersh wants us back in D.C.  Can you
believe that?"

"No."  She kissed his neck, and he shivered. Her lashes fluttered
against his skin, hot and wet with moisture.

"So what do you want to do?" he repeated, closing his eyes.  

"I think I just want to call my mother."  Scully swallowed, and a tear
pressed between them.  "I really miss my mother."

When she said nothing further, Mulder nudged her with a poke to her
hip.  "What are you really thinking?"

"I don't know.  Nothing. Everything."  She shook her head. "It's
funny, the things you come up with when it's so quiet.  I'd put so
much of myself into this battle. All the fighting and running against
the grain, and standing still was strange.  It is strange.  I was so
tired, Mulder.  I needed something solid, a sign that I'd finally made
the right decision, because it seemed as though there was this - this
endless line of wrong.  And I stood there, looking back on it,
wondering why."

He took a deep breath.  "Sick of feeling helpless?"

"In a way," she whispered.  

"Is that why you did it?" he asked.  

"Is that why I did what?"  

"Injected yourself with that vaccine." 

Scully paused.  She seemed to consider him, and her body tensed. 
"Maybe," she admitted.  "Or maybe it was something else.  Something
speaking through me, making things right."

Mulder nodded. "Do you think it was God?" he asked. 

She was heavy against him, hot.  If life did indeed boil down to the
smaller moments - Scully pressing a dinosaur sticker over his mouth to
shut him up, William clapping at an old, rest-stop photo, the three of
them gazing into a warm fire - then all the larger moments were simply
preludes, stepping stones.  The bigger truths were unreachable, and
saving Earth from extinction only held meaning when there was
something precious to save; the smaller truths were the things worth
rescuing.

"I think it's plausible," she said, "That perhaps God works through
science, and science is what gave us this miracle."

Mulder laughed.  "The baby, or the means to stop colonization?"

 "Both, I guess."  She shrugged. 

Mulder frowned, somehow expecting more from her.  He wasn't sure what
he was expecting, actually, but the truth had to be more than that. 
The truth was the light they followed.  It was the cloud hanging over
them, teasing them with its white tufts, cottony edges so close he
could almost touch them.  But when he got too close, the creamy white
billows evaporated into mist, evading him.

Or maybe he'd just been shaking his fist at himself all these years,
and not at the sky.  Jeremiah Smith had said the truth was whatever
Mulder believed it to be.  Perhaps he'd been right. The truth wasn't
the sun, blinding him into misdirection.  It was the flashlight that
he'd kept by his side for all the years he searched.
 
 "Isn't that some sort of oxymoron cop-out?" Mulder finally asked.  

Scully tilted her chin to meet his eyes, and when he brushed her
cheek, a dazzling smile stretched the corners of her lips.   The truth
was beautiful when it smiled at him like that.

"Maybe," said Scully, her nose grazing the underside of his chin. 
"But I've dealt with much stranger."

---

And weve reached the end.  Whew.  This was one of those stories that
took me a good long while to write, and research (especially since I
had to go back and re-watch the season 9 episodes I wasnt a big fan
of,)and then rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. . . and beta (just ask
poor Mish and Sybs. Theyre the best sports.  They really are.) But
youve made it this far, and for that, I thank you.

* Extra, EXTRA thanks to Sybil for the best literary interpretations
known to fic: "The truth sure gets around.  I have decided that the
truth is a whore."  And extra thanks to Mish for some yummy pics of
David Duchovny that inspired much smut.

I figured there would be some questions at the end(and I did get some
of these questions by email) and so I wanted to let you guys crawl
into my head for a bit (watch out for dust and things that bite.)

Anything you ever wanted (or didnt want to know) about SOW:

1 " Why in the world would Mulder want to give his child back, when
Scully was the one who gave William up?  Just what is the deal with
Mulder in this story?

I wanted to write a fic that remained true to the show (much as I may
have disliked " and even hated - some of the directions the show had
taken) because canon was what I was basing this story on.  And in the
show, Mulder told Scully he felt she had made the right decision when
she gave William away.  I thought it would be a cop-out (and much too
easy) to write a piece where Mulder and Scully went back on their
principals and ran to get their kid.  Im sure there are lots of other
stories like that out there, and as wonderful as they may be, this is
not one of those stories.  I wanted William back, but I wanted to do
it in a different way.  Road less traveled and all. I think it makes
better drama, anyway.  I could be wrong.

2 " Marita Covarrubias had a thing for Mulder, eh?  So who is Moiras
father?

Thats the stuff sequels (or prequels) are made of.  You can take your
pick here of all the X-men, but rest assured that its not Mulder. 
(The timeline within the show doesnt fit, for one.) That doesnt
mean, of course, that she hadnt wanted it to be Mulder... Right. 
Prequel-land.

3 " William is almost 2 years old, but he cant walk or talk? Are you
kidding me?   What is that all about?

William was given up for adoption when he was about 8 months old
(pre-speech and bipedal walking,) but was taken by Maritas operatives
the day after the adoption.  He was on the road ever since then,
driving cross-country with some admittedly questionable types.  Nobody
played with him.  Nobody talked to him.  Nobody cared for him or loved
him.  He might have even been abused " we have no way of knowing. All
these things can affect a child, psychologically.  Remember, after he
was discovered by Mulder and Scully, William did start picking things
up rather quickly: he could stand up, and he could talk. My feelings
on this were that William would be emotionally stunted because of his
experiences (its not unheard of, psychologically) and I thought I
would leave that door open in case I ever decided to write a sequel.

4 " Scullys senior thesis? Is there a website that actually contains
the transcript or did you pull that out of your ass?

The physics part concerning Einsteins Twin Paradox is all factual, to
the best of my knowledge. I swear. (I went through some websites, and
nearly got seasick trying to figure out how to interpret all the
scientific gobbledygook.  God bless all you scientists.)  Scullys
metaphysical take on it, however, I did pull out of my ass, because I
have no idea what her "new interpretation" actually was.  Creative
license and all " Scully tells me shes actually pleased with her
uncharacteristic openness to the idea of parallel universes, but that,
in the next fic I write, she wants to be drunk.

(As far as I know, there is no known site where you can access her
senior thesis.)

5 " So all the stuff with the iron and William? And meteorites? 
Balderdash or fact?

All the stuff about DNA and the actual properties of iron, and how it
assists in the oxidation process are true.  And the stuff about iron
in meteorites?  Also true.  How these items relate to the X-files
mythology, of course, are what I took a few liberties with to fit
within the context of the story.  (Since there are no aliens in our
Universe, I had to twist a few facts to explain why iron might kill an
alien.  I mean, I probably could have just as easily dropped an alien
vaporizer into Mulders hand, but my masochistic side said that would
be way too easy.  Plus, Scully had problems with the vaporizer.)

6 " Are Mulder and Scully heading home?  They cant really believe
there arent any more aliens out there, can they?

As far as Mulder and Scully know, the truth is still out there "
aliens, no aliens, pizza with extra cheese, mutant pineapples -
Theres no way for them to know for sure. As far as Im concerned, the
aliens are all dead because that would make the supersoldier plot dead
and buried (which was partly the purpose of this story)and would much
please this fanfic author.  But yes, I assume Mulder and Scully might
want to head home.  After all, their cover has been blown.  They left
the U.S. because the government was after them, and not because aliens
were after them.  Remember, these aliens and unknown types have always
been after Mulder and Scully, and that never stopped them from going
about their lives in Washington D.C. before. I have always felt that,
post finale, the reason Mulder and Scully were forced to run was
because Mulder had been sentenced to death, and not because aliens
wanted to kill them. But now the charges have been dropped. So Scully
can just click her heels together, if she so desires.  (Or Mulder can
" depending on who you think wears the ruby slippers in that family.)

7 " What about those dropped charges?  That was fast.

Yes, it was.  I think the question should actually be, "who or what
did Marita know, and how did she get the vaccine?" Think of it this
way: it wouldnt be The X-files if I told you everything, now would
it?  (At this, Mulder groans in the background.  He says he wants to
be drunk in the next fic, too.)

8 " Did Mulder ever tell Scully that her blood is what killed the
aliens?  And what the hell was up with that, anyway?

Mulder might have told her, and he might not have.  He seems to enjoy
keeping things from Scully whenever he feels the secret-keeping will
benefit her.  Again, thats the stuff sequels are made of.  <g>

9 " Did Scully ever plan on telling Mulder she was pregnant?

Before William showed up, or before her water broke?  Heh.  Scully
says she of course meant to tell Mulder.  Guess well never know what
she meant to say before the car crashed into the tree out front.  Darn
those crazy hormones.

10 " So that sequel you were talking about?  

Maybe Ill write a sequel, but not for a long, long time.  Mulder and
Scully are already breaking out the tequila and the shot glasses. 
Theyre exhausted from the angst.  Mulder wants to know why I cant
write a fic where he sits around and watches the Redskins game. 
Scully says not to worry about writing such a fic, because she thinks
the Redskins suck.  If youll excuse me, I have to go break up a
fight.

Special thanks to the following resources:   

Usenet relativity FAQ - Micheal Weiss  
The University of South Wales Physics homepage
Usenet Periodic Elements FAQ - (Iron)
www.loch-ness.org
The Biology Project Homepage,
The University of Arizona

And lots and lots of love to Mishy and Sybs, who are brilliant betas. 
Both of you get lots of cyber chocolates.

Shadows of Winter: 
http://members.tripod.com/~LeiaSC/SOW.htm