Archive of Our Own

Part 1: Gone

Prologue:

He should’ve fought her, trusted his gut instincts and fought her.  Or, he should’ve just left her behind, even though he’d promised her he never would.  He could’ve gotten down on his knees the next day and begged for her forgiveness.

“They’re taking abductees,” he’d told her, taking her in his arms even though they were in the hallway outside Skinner’s office.  “You’re an abductee.  I’m not going to risk...losing you.”

She’d pushed him away, defiant.  Her jaw was set, mouth a grim line.  Her eyes blazed with what could’ve been fury or fever.  He’d heard her throwing up that morning, but they’d both ignored it.  

“I’m not letting you go alone,” she said.

“I can take Skinner.  Or the gunmen.”

“I’m your partner .  You go, I go.”

He’d relented.  Against his better judgment, he’d just nodded his head and relented.

And now, as runs through the forest towards the bright white light, kicking up dead leaves and tripping over branches, trying desperately to reach her and convince himself that this is not happening, this is not happening , he knows it’s his fault in the first place for taking her back to Bellefleur.

******

Chapter 1, Day 1:

Mulder waits in the pocket-sized interrogation room of the Bellefleur PD for Skinner, his head in his hands.  He doesn’t look up when the door opens, just closes his eyes and presses his fingers deeper into his scalp.  He hears the chair across from him slide back and then silence.

“She’s gone,” Mulder says, his voice hoarse from screaming Scully’s name for hours the night before.  “I lost her.  Again.”

“You wanna tell me what you mean by that, Agent Mulder?”

Mulder looks up.  The man across from him isn’t Skinner.  He looks military.  Hard features, chiseled jaw.  Close-cropped dark blonde hair.  A hint of an accent in the way he pronounces Mulder’s name - Mold-ah - New York or New Jersey native, maybe.  Piercing blue eyes.  He’s sitting back with his arms crossed and his head tipped back to look down at Mulder like he’s passing judgment.

“Who are you?” Mulder asks.  “Where’s Skinner?”

“Skinner will be along.  Why don’t you tell me what you mean by that last thing you said.  You were referring to Agent Scully, weren’t you?  You lost her?   Again ?”

Mulder bristles at being treated like a suspect.  If he didn’t have other things on his mind, finding Scully being one of them, he thinks he may have already thrown a punch at the guy.  Knocked the smug off his face.

“You’re wasting your time,” Mulder says.

“How’s that?”

Mulder shakes his head.  He purses his lips and rubs them together, wanting to tell this jerk across the table to go to hell, but knows he should keep his mouth shut.  The man takes a file out from under his arm in the silence and drops it on the table.  He flips it open, browses it casually, and then looks at Mulder.

“Eight years together,” he says.

Mulder says nothing, but he drops his eyes to try to read what’s on the paper in the file.

“Rumor is you didn’t want Agent Scully on this case.  You wanna tell me about that?”

“I’m not interested in telling you anything, quite frankly.  I don’t know who you are or what you’re getting at, but the only person I want to talk to right now is Assistant Director Walter Skinner.”

“Easy, Agent Mulder.”

“Get me Skinner or get out.”

“Just how have you and Agent Scully been lovers?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is all this because of the baby?”

Mulder can’t stop himself from jumping up out of his seat at this point.  “What the hell does that mean?” he yells, kicking his chair back and pushing the table away as the other man gets up and takes a step back.

Suddenly, Skinner bursts into the room and steps between the two men, both hands on Mulder’s chest pushing him back.  “That’s enough,” he says, turning his head down and away from Mulder.  “John, that’s enough.”

“Were you out there this whole time?” Mulder yells, effectively pushing at Skinner’s arms.  “You sonofabitch!”

“Get out, Agent Doggett,” Skinner barks.

The man, Agent Doggett, glares at Mulder before leaving them alone.  Skinner takes a painfully tight grip on Mulder’s shoulders, urging him to calm down.  They both know he’s stronger and could forcibly subdue Mulder if he needs to.  Mulder stops fighting, but he doesn’t relax.

“What the hell is going on?” Mulder hisses.

“He’s following Kersh’s orders,” Skinner says, his voice low.  “Right now they’re looking into this as a possible homicide.”

“Homicide!”  Mulder yells.  “They think I killed Scully?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Fourteen people went missing last night in those woods, did I kill them too?”

“No one thinks that.”

“I can show you the site.  We need to get the gunmen the coordinates.”

“Mulder, we’ve got a task force-”

“You and I both know there isn’t a task force in the world qualified for this.”  Mulder makes a plea to his boss with his eyes.  He needs to get out of this interrogation room and back on the hunt for Scully.  He’s wasted too much time trying to follow protocol.

“Alright,” Skinner relents.  “Show me.”

“Sir.”  Mulder stops Skinner from turning away and squeezes his upper arm.  “What did that man, Agent Doggett, mean when he asked if it was about the baby?”

Skinner takes off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.  He hesitates before he hooks them back over his ears and looks Mulder directly in the eyes.  “Agent Scully used the bureau labs yesterday afternoon to run some bloodwork on herself,” he says.

“She wasn’t feeling well.”

“According to the results of those tests, she was pregnant.”

Mulder feels like the wind has been knocked out of his chest.  He leans over, bracing his hands on his knees, and takes shallow breaths.  Skinner’s hand drops to his back for a moment, but then he pulls him up by his shoulders.

“You didn’t know?” Skinner asks.

“It’s not possible,” Mulder says, shaking his head.

“She ran the test herself, Mulder.”

“But, it’s not possible.”

“How do you know that?”

“We tried...we...last year we tried three times to get pregnant by in vitro.  It wasn’t...it just isn’t possible.”

“So, you didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“It’s better that you didn’t.  Do you have records of your attempts to corroborate your story?”

Mulder looks at Skinner with a bit of contempt.  “It isn’t a story.  And I don’t exactly feel comfortable sharing that kind of information with the rest of the bureau.”

“You may have to Mulder.  Right now, the theory is, you found out about the baby and couldn’t handle it.  That you used this investigation as a way to cover up something.”

“Scully’s not dead.  She was taken.”

“Show me the place.”

*****

The clearing looks different in daylight.  The tops of the trees circling the perimeter are singed and black.  An ashy substance dusts the ground.  Skinner and Mulder stand at the outer ring, where the foliage is still thick enough to warrant flashlights.  Skinner tucks his flashlight under his chin and checks his GPS.

Mulder feels absolutely helpless.  He can’t do much of anything except stare at the vacant circle of forest where he last saw Scully, looking up into a beam of light with group of strangers before they all vanished before his eyes, along with the light.  It’s not like tracking down a deranged kidnapper.  He can’t put out an APB on a spaceship.  

Skinner walks the perimeter like there’s evidence to be catalogued, but Mulder stands and stares.  If only he’d been quicker.  If only he’d seen the light ten seconds sooner.  If only he’d made Scully listen to reason.  If only Scully had told him about the baby.  He can’t imagine what she’d been thinking, knowing she was pregnant and following him anyway.

“I’m gonna call this in,” Skinner says.  “Have it marked off as a crime scene.”

“They won’t find anything,” Mulder answers.

“No, I don’t imagine they will, but for your sake, Mulder, it’s better they find nothing than something.”

“I need to get those coordinates to the gunmen.  And if Krycek-”

“Krycek is gone.  He slipped out after you and Scully left.”

“Of course he did.”

“Do you have any...contacts left.”

Mulder shakes his head.  “The last one died helping me get to Antarctica.”

“I don’t know what to do here, Mulder.  Where do we even look?”

“Get the coordinates to the gunmen,” he says, dead leaves crumbling under his feet as he walks away.  “If they can’t find anything, I don’t know either.”

*****

Chapter 2, Day 2:

Mulder hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten, hasn’t showered or shaved.  He waits for a phone call from the gunmen that hasn’t come and he stares blankly at maps and profiles of fourteen missing people.  Inside his mind, he’s frantically searching for Scully, trying desperately to come up with something, anything that could help find her.  He also knows, deep down, that this is going to be a long, torturous waiting game, one that could last weeks, months, years, or forever.  And this isn’t like two years ago, or five years ago.  The deputy director would like nothing more than to toss Mulder out on his ass.  If he doesn’t toe the line, the resources afforded to him in the FBI will be gone.

Agent Doggett has been demanding an interview with Mulder, and Mulder can’t refuse, and he’s afraid his temper will get the better of him.  The guy rubs him in too much of the wrong way not to get worked up over.  To Mulder’s surprise, a woman comes in instead, with dark hair and the perpetual hint of a smile.  Where Doggett was too aggressive, she is too relaxed.

“Agent Mulder,” she says congenially.  “It's nice to meet you.  I'm Agent Reyes.”

“Where’s Agent Doggett?” he asks.

“We thought it might be better if I spoke to you instead.”  She sits across from him.  She doesn't carry a notepad or a file with her.  She looks like she's here for tea and conversation, not an interrogation.  “I've been assigned to the task force to find the missing fourteen.”

“Good luck.”

“I’m sorry about your partner.”

He wants to answer her politeness with sarcasm, but he hears Skinner in the back of his head telling him to play nice if he wants any hope of being allowed in on the investigation.  The sooner they could clear him of any wrongdoing or negligence, the sooner he could do something substantive.

“I appreciate that,” he says.  “Sorry won't help me find her though.”

“What will?”

“What's your specialty, Agent Reyes?  What do you know about alien abduction?”

“Not much.  I work in the ritualistic crime division in New Orleans.”

Mulder pauses and thinks for a moment.  “Monica Reyes?”

“Yes.”

“You worked the Lafontaine murders last year.”

“I did.”

“I wanted that case.  Submitted a requisition for it, but got denied.  Kersh had us working shit detail at that time.”

“Why would you have wanted that case?  It was horrible.”

“It bore a striking similarity to a mass murder in 1979.”

It's Reyes’ turn to pause and she tilts her head slightly.  “Were you my anonymous tip with the news article from The Times-Picayune?”

“Anonymous tips are meant to be anonymous for a reason.  I read your report.  You didn't find a connection.”

“No, I didn't.”

“I didn't kill my partner.  So ask me what you think you need to know so I can get out of here.”

“You and Agent Scully were close?”

“Yes, we are close.”

“Right.”

“To pick up where Agent Doggett left off, yes, we’re more than just partners, though that's been a more recent development in our relationship.”

“How recent?”

“About four months recent.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you decide to become intimate with your partner?”

“It wasn't so much of a decision as...it just happened.”  

Mulder sits back and closes his eyes.  He thinks about the first night they spent together, when he put his arm around her as they watched a movie, when she looked up at him with surprise, but smiled.  When he’d let his thumb graze her arm past her short sleeved top.  When she’d shifted closer and cautiously rested her hand on his thigh.  When she'd looked at his mouth and he had to know what it would be like to kiss her.  No, it hadn’t been a decision, it had been a compulsion.

“I'm sorry if this is uncomfortable or embarrassing for you.”

“ If ?”  Mulder gives a little snort.  “People have talked about me behind my back for years.  I'm not worried about what anyone says or thinks about me, it's what they might say about Scully that bothers me.”

“I'm told she's a good agent.”

“The best.”  A headache that Mulder has been fighting starts to pulse behind his eyes and he pinches the top of his nose before rubbing his brows.  “I have medical records I'm supposed to give you.  Of our attempts to have a baby, and her infertility.  I didn't know she was pregnant until yesterday.  I'm not even quite sure I believe it, but I would never, ever hurt her.”

“If you were trying to have a baby, why didn't she tell you she was pregnant before you went to Bellefleur?”

“I can only imagine it was because she knew I wouldn't let her come.”

“Wouldn't let her?”

Mulder puts his hand down and looks Agent Reyes in the eyes.  She looks at him neutrally, but he has the feeling she thinks she's caught him in an admission of guilt.   He tried not to clench his jaw, but it's hard not to.

“I had a bad feeling about coming back,” he says.  “I tried to talk her out of going, but she insisted.  If she had told me about the baby, I would’ve tried a lot harder.”

“What would you have done?”

“Not come at all, probably.”

“You would stay behind and not chase a lead?”

“For her I would.”

“That's not what I've heard about you.”

Mulder swallows.  The even tone in Reyes’ voice is unsettling.  She has a way of stating things without malice or surprise, but the judgment is still there in what she says.  He was wrong about her being too relaxed.  Perhaps she's even more calculating than Agent Doggett.

“Let’s just say I haven’t felt the need to go haring off on my own lately.”

“But, she has, hasn’t she?  Wasn’t it just a few months ago that she followed the lead in an investigation without telling you where she was going or that she was with a man you’ve described as an enemy of the government.”

“Jesus, how did you even-”

“And you said you’ve only been together intimately for four months.  Was she running out on you then, or was this before you were together?  Did she run off on you now?”

Mulder can’t take it anymore.  He stands up and slaps both hands down on the table, but Agent Reyes doesn’t flinch.  “This is insane,” he shouts.

“No, fourteen people vanishing without a trace is insane, Agent Mulder.”

“Not if you’ve seen what I’ve seen.”

“According to you, you didn’t see anything more than a bright light in the sky.”

Mulder scrubs his face with both hands, frustrated and tense.  He pushes his hands back through his hair and tightens his grip as he turns away from Agent Reyes and paces the room.

“I’m here to help you, Agent Mulder,” Agent Reyes says.

“Help me?”  Mulder turns towards her and shakes his head.  “You can’t help me if you don’t believe me.”

“I never said I didn’t believe you.”

The door opens and Agent Doggett enters, followed by Skinner.  Agent Reyes stands and pushes her chair back into place under the table.

“You’re gonna accompany the task force to Arizona,” Doggett says.

Mulder cuts his eyes to Skinner, whose face reveals nothing.  “What’s in Arizona?” he asks.

“Boy by the name of Gibson Praise,” Agent Doggett answers.

“What do you want with Gibson?”

“I don’t know,” Doggett says, holding a red file up in his hand.  “But, someone wants us to find him.”

*****

The sun is still high when the caravan of black SUVs stops in front of the tiny desert boarding school for the deaf.  The air is hot and thick with the dust the cars have kicked up.  Mulder wipes a gritty sheen of sweat off the back of his neck.  He hasn’t had a chance to be alone with Skinner, to find out what this is about.  He still hasn’t heard back from the gunmen.  He’s flying blind in this situation and he feels like he needs to proceed with the utmost caution.

Agent Doggett is on one side of Mulder, Agent Reyes the other, like a police escort.  Mulder thinks they may as well just put him in handcuffs.  He feels like they’d like to.  There are at least ten other agents in the task force behind them, buzzing with adrenaline and excitement, like invading a school for deaf kids is going to be the high point of their careers.  He wonders if any of them has ever been out of the bullpen.  It wouldn’t surprise them if they hadn’t.  Kersh likes to keep his agents on a tight leash.

“I thought we were only here to talk to him,” Mulder says to Doggett, glancing back over his shoulder at the team behind them.

“They’re not here for the boy,” Doggett answers, eyes forward.  His face glistens in the heat.

Mulder takes another look back.  It becomes clear to him then.  They’re there to make sure he doesn’t get away.  He searches for Skinner amongst them, and then sees his boss standing alone and apart from the group, his cell phone pressed to one ear and a hand over the other.  It looks like he’s shouting something, but there’s a strong desert wind blowing that carries his voice away.

“Wait,” Mulder says, stopping and turning fully to watch Skinner.  “Something’s wrong.”

“What is it?” Agent Reyes asks.

Mulder takes a step away from the two agents and squints out at the desert.  There’s a glimmer of something in the distance, but he’s distracted when Skinner pockets his phone and starts briskly for them, his face red and wet, tie billowing over his shoulder in the wind.

“Someone breached the FBI database overnight using Agent Scully’s credentials,” Skinner says.

“What were they looking for?” Mulder asks.

“Files on Gibson Praise.”

Mulder turns to go back to the school, but Skinner stops him.  “There’s something else,” he says.

“What?”

“I heard from your...friends…”  Skinner pauses and glances at Agent Doggett and then back at Mulder.  “They say they’re getting reports of activity in Clifton.”

“Clifton?  How far is that from where we are?”

“Thirty miles, maybe.”

“We need to find Gibson.  Now.”

With Agents Doggett and Reyes hot on his heels, Mulder rushes towards the entrance of the school and throws open the door.  There’s a receptionist at the front desk that looks up with puzzlement, but it’s clear she can’t hear the commotion that follows him.  He starts yelling Gibson’s name, trusting that at least Doggett or Reyes has flashed a badge by now to someone, and searches the school room by room.

“He’s not here,” Mulder says to the agents that trail after him.  “He knew what was coming.”

“Where could he go?” Agent Reyes asks.

Mulder shakes his head and pushes open the back exit.  He squints out at the desert again and then looks down at the ground.  There are footprints in the dirt, two sets of shoes, tennis shoes and what looks like high-heeled boots.  The imprints are clean at first, even steps out towards the open desert, but they soon grow messier and more chaotic.  Mulder follows the tracks, slowly at first, and then picking up speed.

“Agent Mulder!”  Agent Doggett calls after him.

Mulder doesn’t stop.  He runs alongside the fading footprints and doesn’t have to look back to know Agent Doggett is behind him.  Through the desert brush and tumbleweeds, he spots something in the distance, taking shape the closer he gets.  He sees what looks like Scully, dragging a stumbling Gibson Praise behind her, marching defiantly towards the edge of a cliff.  Agent Doggett must see what he sees at the same time, because he calls her name.

“Agent Scully!”

Scully doesn’t slow or stop or acknowledge Agent Doggett’s call to her.  Gibson is resisting her pull as best he can, but she’s relentless in her hold.  Mulder stops in his tracks about twenty feet away and puts an arm out to stop Agent Doggett as well.  He didn’t notice Agent Reyes behind them, who skids to a stop on the other side of Mulder.

“Agent Scully, stop right there!”  Agent Doggett shouts.

Scully finally pauses and looks towards them.  There’s something cold and dead in her eyes.  She’s unmoved by the boy struggling in her grip and her hold on him is effortless.  She blinks slowly as though she’s studying the three agents.  Mulder can hear Gibson wheezing, trying to say something.

“Sssnoter,” Gibson croaks, staring at Mulder with wide, fearful eyes.

“Sssnoter,” Mulder murmurs to himself, repeating it and forming the shape of the words with his mouth.  “Sssnoter.  Snot ter.  Snot her.  It’s not her!  It’s not her!”

Instinctually, Mulder moves his hand to his hip to reach for his weapon, only remembering that his gun was taken from him by Skinner before they left Oregon.  Agent Doggett, following Mulder’s lead, draws his weapon and Agent Reyes follows.

“Let him go!” Mulder yells.

“Hands in the air,” Agent Doggett orders.

The Scully imposter still looks unmoved, but she releases Gibson, who falls to his knees and starts to crawl away.  Agent Reyes breaks away from Mulder and Agent Doggett, her gun still pointed at Scully, and steps to the side to where Gibson is crawling.

“I’m not gonna ask you again, put your hands in the air!”  Agent Doggett takes aim, ready to fire.

“Don’t shoot unless you can hit the base of the neck,” Mulder says to him.

“What?”

Agent Reyes has knelt to pull Gibson out of harm’s way and Mulder moves behind Agent Doggett as he stalks forward.  The Scully imposter cocks her head to the side and then almost with a shrug, turns and steps off the edge of the cliff.

“No!”  Mulder screams, knowing full well it isn’t Scully who’s just fallen, but it looks like her, and he knows it’s an image he’ll never be able to shake.  He stands rooted to his spot while Agent Doggett runs to the drop site and peers over the edge.

There’s the sound of activity surrounding him, of Skinner rushing past to join Agent Doggett, of members of the task force trying to help Agent Reyes with Gibson, of Agent Doggett shouting orders to people, but it all blends into a cacophony.  It’s Skinner that breaks the spell by pulling Mulder to the side and asking him what happened.

“It was a bounty hunter,” Mulder says.  “They’re after Gibson.”

“Why?” Skinner asks.

“I don’t know.  He needs protection.”

“He needs a hospital.  They think his leg might be broken.”

“Someone’s got to stay with him.”

“Are you asking me?”

“You’re the only one with any idea of what we’re dealing with here.”  Mulder looks towards Agent Doggett, who’s organizing a team to head down into the canyon and retrieve the body of the Scully imposter.  “I don’t trust anyone else at the moment.”

“What will you do?”

“Keep searching.”

Skinner looks away, contemplative.  He finally nods once, but doesn’t say anything to Mulder before he walks away.  Mulder watches as he lifts Gibson into his arms and orders another agent to get to one of the SUVs to go to the hospital.  No one but Agent Reyes notices when Mulder heads further out into the desert.

*****

Mulder has been walking for over an hour.  He’s been feeling lethargic for awhile, his throat is dry and he has a headache.  He hears Scully in his head, can’t even leave you for a day, Mulder, and you’ve gotten yourself dehydrated .  He stops and hunches over, his hands on his knees.  The sun has gotten low and the air has cooled somewhat, but he’s still hot all over.  Dirty sweat has dried on his skin, making him itch.

Even in the middle of the desert, he has the feeling of being watched.  Several times, he’s paused to search all sides of the vast landscape, but it’s hard to see through the brush and cactus.  He’s completely alone save for the few lizards he’s passed, a low-flying vulture, and a scorpion he nearly stepped on from not being attentive enough.  It only now starts to occur to him that he could die out here and no one would know.  He wonders if there’s anyone left to care at this point.

He hears a noise he can’t identify close by and he goes still, immediately fearing a snake of some kind.  When he finally dares to glance over, he’s more relieved than he cares to let on seeing Agent Reyes approaching.  He straightens and sways a little on his feet.

“Have you been following me?” Mulder asks.  He notices a canteen at Agent Reyes’ hip and unconsciously lips his chapped lips.

“Water?” she asks.

“Please.”

Agent Reyes pulls the strap holding the canteen over her head and hands it to Mulder.  His grip is almost too weak to unscrew the cap and he fights the urge to gulp at the water.   Slowly , Scully’s voice reminds him.   Small sips, Mulder.

“I grew up in New Mexico,” she says.  “Most parents probably tell their kids never to talk to strangers.  Mine told me never to go into the desert alone.”

He coughs on a sip of water and screws the cap back on the canteen before he hands it back to her.  “Yeah, well…”

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“Aircraft.  A force field.”  He shrugs.  “You don’t really find it, it finds you.”

“What happened back there on the cliff?”

“That wasn’t Scully.”

“Then who was it?”

“Not who.  It.”

“ It looked like Agent Scully.”

“ It can look like whoever it wants.”  

Mulder turns away from Agent Reyes and looks out into the grey nothingness.  There’s an orange glow behind the mountains in the distance.  It will be pitch black soon.  He wasn’t thinking earlier.

“Agent Mulder?”  Agent Reyes asks.  “If that wasn’t Agent Scully, who was it?”

“An alien.”

“How did you know?”

Mulder hesitates.  He isn’t sure of how much he should tell Agent Reyes.  He doesn’t know that he can trust her, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a point in being discreet now.  Keeping quiet certainly won’t bring Scully back.

“Gibson Praise is part alien,” he says.  “At least, that’s what I think.  He knows what they’re thinking.  He knows what all of us are thinking, actually.  We should head back.  It’s getting dark.”

Agent Reyes cups her hand at Mulder’s elbow when he walks one way and pulls him in a slightly different direction without comment.  He follows her, sensing that her confidence comes from experience.  When it starts to get darker, she pulls a flashlight out from her pocket and points it at the ground in front of their feet.  After some time of silence, she speaks.

“I first met Agent Doggett about eight years ago,” she says.  He was NYPD at the time.  Did you know that?”

“I don't know anything about Agent Doggett,” he answers.

“He was a suspect at one point for the murder of his son.”

“That's...that's awful.”

“Yes.  Luke was seven.  Agent Doggett was cleared very early on.  I was in the New York City field office at the time and I was on the investigation.”

“What happened?”

“Stranger abduction, we think.  Never made an arrest.”

Mulder quietly contemplates this bit of information.  He wonders what Agent Doggett was like as a cop.  He wonders if that incident in his life propelled him into joining the FBI.  If Agent Doggett was also there for a personal cause.

“I only tell you this so that you'll know that Agent Doggett is on your side,” she says.  “He’s been in your shoes.”

“Scully isn’t dead.”

“It’s about loss, Agent Mulder.  He knows what it’s like.  And I think he must have felt a particular way about this case to call me in on it.  He doesn’t keep in touch.  I’m sure I remind him of Luke, and why we met.  He will call though, if he needs the help.  He’s here to help.”

“Like I told you before, you can’t help me if you don’t believe me.”

“And like I told you, I never said I didn’t.”

“Wait,” Mulder whispers, putting his arm out and catching Agent Reyes’ wrist to stop her.  “Do you see that?”

In the sky up ahead is a light, slowly moving closer, growing larger.  He thought at first it might be a shooting star, but it’s not falling across the sky, it’s heading towards them.

“I see it,” Agent Reyes says.  “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.”  

Mulder steps ahead and holds his arm up over his head to block the light from his eyes.  His heart pounds with hopeful anticipation, but it soon becomes apparent what’s approaching them is a helicopter.  He deflates a little and drops his arm as he turns to Agent Reyes.  There’s a look of deep sympathy in her eyes when he looks at her.

The helicopter descends and Agent Doggett hops out, beckoning to the two of them.  Agent Reyes comes forward and pauses next to Mulder.  She doesn’t say anything, let’s him make the decision to cooperate and follow her, which he does.  She gets into the helicopter and he pulls himself inside as well, Agent Doggett behind them both.

“We didn’t recover a body from the bottom of the canyon,” Agent Doggett shouts over the noise of the helicopter.  “And we haven’t been able to reach AD Skinner.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?” Mulder asks.

“As he was putting the boy in the SUV.  I’ve got men searching the hospital now, but they can’t find him.”

“Can we land there?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

*****

The hospital seems to be even smaller than the school, and equally as quiet.  The only staff is a doctor and a night nurse and a janitor.  One of the task force agents meets the helicopter as it lands on the highway and drives them across the main road to the building.  Agent Shaffer, who drove Skinner and Gibson to the hospital, is posted outside of Gibson’s room on watch.

“Sir,” Agent Shaffer says to Agent Doggett as the trio approaches Gibson’s room.

“You were the last to see AD Skinner?”  Agent Doggett asks him.

“I entered the hospital with AD Skinner and the boy,” he confirms.  “AD Skinner hasn’t been seen since leaving this room to take a phone call approximately half an hour ago.”

“Any idea who that phone call was from?”  Agent Doggett asks.

“No, Sir.”

“He wouldn’t leave,” Mulder says.  “He’s still here.”

“So, we’ll do another search,” Agent Reyes says.

“I want to talk to Gibson,” Mulder says.

Agent Doggett seems to mull the request over, his piercing blue eyes staring hard at Mulder.  He finally nods once and turns to Agent Shaffer.  “No one enters or leaves this room,” he says, glancing at Mulder.  “You got that?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Monica, you’ll search with me.”

Mulder slips into Gibson’s room and watches through the small window beside the door as Agents Doggett and Reyes head down the hall.  Agent Shaffer blocks the door with his body and assumes a crossed-arm pose.  Mulder rolls his eyes a little as he turns around.  Gibson is lying in a hospital bed that makes him look even smaller than he is, his leg propped up in a fresh white cast, eyes closed.

“Gibson?” Mulder says, moving closer to the hospital bed.  He can tell the boy isn’t sleeping, but feigning.

Gibson opens his eyes.  “I don’t know where Agent Scully is,” he says.

“I wasn’t...nevermind, you’d know I’m lying.”

“I know they have her.  But, I don’t know where.”

“Do you know if she’s close?”

“I’m sorry Agent Mulder, I can’t tell you anything.”

“Can you tell me what they want with you?”

“They want what anyone wants, to study me, keep me like a lab rat, cut me open, kill me if they have to.”

“Gibson, no one wants...you’re not a lab rat.”

“Sure.  The only reason you’re in here is because she’s gone.”

“Yes, I want to find Agent Scully, but I want to protect you too, Gibson.”

“You know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

“I’m certifiable, Gibson.”

Gibson snorts, but it isn’t with humor, it’s with derision.  He shakes his head a little and looks away.  Mulder pulls a plastic chair over to the side of the bed and sits down.  He’s starting to feel the effects of the lack of sleep, food, and water on his body.  He still has the headache that started in the desert and now his bloodshot eyes are starting to feel dry and irritated.

Suddenly, Gibson turns his head again, sharply, like he was startled by a noise.  He sits up and Mulder straightens, turning his head in the direction Gibson is staring.  The boy is listening to something, Mulder’s sure of it.

“What is it?” Mulder asks.

“It’s coming,” Gibson answers.

Mulder looks around the room for a place to hide.  The window is too small to climb out of.  The cupboards next to the bed are too narrow.  It’s too late anyway, the door opens and Skinner walks in.  Behind him, Mulder sees Agent Shaffer, slumped on the floor.  He pulls Gibson from the bed and stands in front of him, backing up slowly as Gibson hobbles behind him on his cast.

“Agent Doggett!”  Mulder yells.  “Agent Reyes!”

The thing that’s posing as Skinner moves slowly, but purposefully towards Mulder.  Mulder stands his ground and blocks the thing from reaching Gibson.  The imposter reaches out and grabs Mulder by the throat.  Mulder scratches ineffectually at the hand choking him.

“Stop,” Mulder wheezes, just before he’s lifted into the air by his neck and tossed to the side.  He hits his head and his shoulder.  There’s an explosion of pain throughout his entire body.  He manages to stand, though his knees are shaking and he’s seeing double.

“What the hell is this?” Agent Doggett shouts, rushing into the room with his gun drawn.  “Get away from the boy!”

“Base of the neck,” Mulder croaks, losing his balance and stumbling against the cupboards.  

It’s Agent Reyes that fires, her aim remarkably accurate.  The bullet hole oozes a sizzling green sludge.  The body falls and moments later, begins to liquify.  Agent Doggett stands perplexed, a look of shock and horror on his face.  Gibson is huddled against the wall, inching away to escape the toxic blood that pools closer to his feet.

“John, the boy,” Agent Reyes says.

Doggett holsters his weapon and rushes over to Gibson, stepping over the liquid corpse to escort the boy to a safer place.  Agent Reyes goes to Mulder, who has lost the ability to stand and has slumped against the side of the bed.

“It can look like whoever it wants to,” she says.  “Isn’t that what you said?”

Mulder nods and his throat tightens with a surge of nausea.  

“We just found AD Skinner in a storage closet,” she continues.  “He was unconscious, but alive.”

Mulder coughs and retches bile.

“We need a medic in here!” she shouts.

Mulder loses consciousness.

*****

Chapter 3, Day 5:

The hospital wants to keep Mulder longer, but he refuses any more treatment.  He has a mild concussion and bruised trachea, but nothing serious.  He thought he may have fractured his shoulder, but his x-rays were clear.  He’s still sore and his wrist aches from the saline IV used to treat his dehydration, but he feels well enough to travel.  Besides, Skinner was released the previous day and it will be easier to travel back to DC together.

He sleeps better on the flight than he has in the past few days.  There’s no one waking him up every two hours to check his vitals.  He misses both beverage carts and meal service, but he doesn’t care.  When they land, he realizes that Scully’s car is the one in long-term parking and he doesn’t have her keys.  He has a set at home.  He can pick up the car later.  He takes a taxi to his apartment.

The bed is still rumpled and messy.  Scully had actually admonished him for leaving it that way the morning they went to Bellefleur.  This was after she'd woken him before the alarm had gone off with her fingers trailing down his chest and her hand slipping inside his boxers.  He'd feigned indignation at having been pulled from sleep fifteen minutes before he had to be and she pretended to let him pin her down as penitence.  She wore a slow, easy smile as he moved inside her and the alarm later punctured the leftover euphoria.

Mulder touches the pillow on the left side of the bed which still bears the indentation of her head.  He's sure if he looks, he could probably find a strand or two of her hair.  Her underwear, pulled off and kicked from her restless legs, peeks out from under the crumpled sheets.

Eventually, he’ll have to do simple things like change his sheets and throw out the soy milk inside his refrigerator that only she uses.  He’ll have to see her shampoo and conditioner in his shower and either resist the urge to close his eyes and remember what her hair smells like, or give in to the temptation.  He’ll have to find the little items she’s left around his apartment like a trail of bedcrumbs marking her existence in his life.  There will be a bobby pin on the floor next to the toilet in the bathroom.  There will be the coffee mug with her lipstick on the rim in the sink.  There will be the extra toothbrush in the cupholder.  There will be the balled up pantyhose under his bed that she was going to throw out because of the run in the calf when they were both too hasty to get her out of them.

Mulder can’t face any of that right now.  He’s too tired and he still doesn’t want to believe she’s not just away for the weekend, but coming home soon.  He closes the door to his bedroom and spends the rest of the night on the couch, in the dark.  He doesn't sleep.

*****

Chapter 4, Day 6:

Mulder’s shoulder is still sore as he dresses for work.  Skinner called him early in the morning and let him know he had a meeting with Kersh at nine and not to be late.  He wonders if he’s getting fired.  He checks in with the gunmen before he leaves, but they tell him things have been quiet.  No reports of any activity at all.

Kersh’s secretary looks at Mulder with curiosity while she announces his arrival.  He’s early, for once, and he wishes he’d been late.  

“Can I get you anything, Agent Mulder?” she asks, sweetly.

“No.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine.”

He knows this woman is only pretending to care when all she wants is for some gossip she can spread around the secretarial pool.  She’s never liked him, and she’s certainly made it clear she’s never liked Scully.  The feeling is mutual on both their behalves.

Agent Doggett arrives and looks just as surprised to see Mulder as Mulder is to see him.  He takes a seat next to Mulder on the couch with nothing more than a nod to acknowledge his presence.  Kersh finally calls them both in a few minutes later.  He doesn’t offer either of them a chair in his office, so they both stand in front of his desk.

“I read your report, Agent Doggett,” Kersh says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together with an air of smug superiority.  “I have to say I’m disappointed.”

“Sir?”  Agent Doggett’s expression doesn’t change, but Mulder can tell he’s bewildered.  This experience of being called to the carpet must be new to him.

“I sent you to Oregon to find a missing Agent and to explain the disappearance of not just her, but fourteen individuals.  I gave you free rein to select a task force to take with you, and you come back here with stories of shape shifters and psychic children.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder can see Agent Doggett clench his jaw.  He’s irritated, but he won’t argue, good soldier that he is.  

“That’s something I expect from Agent Mulder,” Kersh says.  “Not from you, John.  I thought you were more level-headed.”

“What’s in my report is the truth,” Agent Doggett says.  “I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.”

At least he has integrity, Mulder thinks.

“And if you need witnesses to corroborate,” Agent Doggett continues.  “Agent Reyes, Agent Shaffer, AD Skinner, and at least ten other agents have submitted their reports on the incidents in Bellefleur and Flemington.”

“That’s all, John.”

“And the fact remains, the case of the missing fourteen is still active.  This is only a preliminary report.  With time-”

“Not for you, John.  Effective immediately, you’ve been reassigned to the x-files division as senior investigator.”

“Sir?”

“That’s all.  You’re both dismissed.”

Mulder can tell Agent Doggett wants to say more, but he clenches his jaw shut and stares at Kersh with the same kind of incredulous contempt Mulder’s had for the man for nearly two years.  And for once, the brunt of Kersh’s scorn isn’t directed at him.  Without having even said a word, Mulder walks out of the office and hopes Agent Doggett is smart enough to follow.

At the elevators, Agent Doggett grabs Mulder’s arm, the same expression of bewilderment on his face that he’d had in the hospital watching the bounty hunter dissolve into a puddle.  Mulder could almost feel bad for him, but not quite.

“What the hell just happened?”  Agent Doggett asks.

“I was punished for being me,” Mulder answers.  “You were punished for doing your job.”

The elevator opens, but Agent Doggett doesn’t follow Mulder inside.  Mulder doesn’t head for the basement though, he presses the button for the parking garage.

*****

Mulder has done a lot of difficult things in his life, but driving to Mrs. Scully’s house to tell her that her daughter is missing, again , is right up there in the top ten list of difficult things he’s done.  Part of him wishes Mrs. Scully won’t be home so that he doesn’t have to go through it, but on the other hand, he would prefer getting it done with as soon as possible.  Procrastinating won’t change the situation.

Mrs. Scully doesn’t look too surprised to see him at her door in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday.  She looks as weary as he feels, which means, someone has already told her what’s happened.  She lets Mulder in anyway and asks if he’d like to take a seat in the dining room, but doesn’t offer him anything to drink or cookies or freshly baked muffins, as she’s been known to do in the past.

“I wanted to come in person to tell you,” Mulder says, trying but unable to look Mrs. Scully in the eye.  

“I already know,” she answers.  There’s coldness in her voice.  “Your boss, Mr. Skinner, informed me.”

“I’m doing everything I can.”

“Yes.  I’m sure you probably are.”

“Whatever I find, I’ll let you know every step of the way.”

“No.”  Mrs. Scully shakes her head and he finally looks at her in surprise.  

“No?”

Mrs. Scully gets up from her chair and wraps her arms around her middle, slowly making her way to the window that overlooks the backyard.  She gazes out at the lawn and speaks to the window.  Mulder watches her reflection.

“I know there’s a lot that Dana hasn’t told me,” she says.  “About the work you do and the danger you’ve been in.  But, what she has made abundantly clear to me, is that she doesn’t want me to know or to be involved or share my opinions on the matter.  And so she’s gone again?  Well, she chose to stay when I asked her not to.  Just as she chose not to tell me about her illness or her gunshot wound or probably countless things I still know nothing about.  I’ve always had to find out from a hospital, or from you, or from the FBI.  I asked Mr. Skinner to remove me as Dana’s personal contact.  I don’t want to know these things anymore, Fox.  I don’t want you to call me to tell me what you know or don’t know.”

Mulder is stunned.  He’s always thought of Margaret Scully as a pillar of strength.  He was unaware of the toll their work had taken on her.  Scully never made any indication that there was turmoil between her and her mother, but clearly there was.

“I don’t think she ever meant to exclude you,” he says.

“Yes.  She meant to exclude me.  Dana thinks about the consequences of every action she takes.  I’m sure you know that.”

He does know that.  He nods unconsciously, but hopes Mrs. Scully hasn’t seen him in the reflection.  He can see her toying with the cross she wears at her neck, just like Scully does when she’s anxious or deep in thought.  He decides right then, that he’s not going to tell Mrs. Scully about the pregnancy, or about his relationship with Scully.  He was going to, but now it feels like it would be throwing salt into an open wound.

The silence tells Mulder the conversation is finished.  He gets up to leave, but hesitates, shoves his hands into his pockets.  Mrs. Scully turns and gives him a brief glance before she walks away.  

“You can let yourself out, Fox,” she says.

“I will find her,” he answers.

“If you do, you have her call me.”

Mulder sees himself out, but sits in his car in front of Mrs. Scully’s house for quite awhile, hoping that maybe she’ll change her mind, but she doesn’t come out.  She is as stubborn as her daughter.

*****

Chapter 5, Day 12 and 13:

Agent Doggett has insisted on spending a week in the office getting to know the x-files, if he’s to be the senior agent.  Mulder tells him to suit himself and spends his time searching message boards and underground networks the gunmen have contact with for patterns in UFO sightings.  He also spends time checking into every single John Doe and Jane Doe intake notification that comes through from the missing persons databank supplied by national hospitals.  There are more of them than he would have thought, and also less than he imagined.

Agent Reyes, to his surprise, contacts him almost immediately upon his return to the office.  She lets him know her AD has given her permission to continue working on the missing fourteen in some capacity and that she will provide him with updates when she can.  He has the gunmen set up an encrypted email for her to use.  The only information she has so far is related to background information on the abductees.  Nothing that’s going to help find them.

Skinner issues their first case.  It has the appearance of routine homicide, which Mulder can tell leaves Agent Doggett feeling rather relieved.  As Mulder reads the file, he comes to the conclusion it’s anything but routine homicide.  The victims have human bite marks with secretions of anti-coagulants that only exist in bat saliva.  It’s obvious what they’re dealing with is a half-man, half-bat.

Batboy, Mulder ?  Scully’s voice says in his head.   Seriously?  You picking up cases from the Weekly World News again ?

Agent Doggett doesn’t comment much about Mulder’s theory.  It isn’t hard for Mulder to imagine John Doggett as a cop.  He thinks the man would be so much more comfortable in a uniform, patrolling streets and keeping order.  Agent Doggett is very by the book.  Black is black and white is white.  A person is good, or they are bad.  A man is a man and a bat is a bat.  No grey areas.

By chance, Agent Doggett discovers a newspaper article that helps put the pieces of the puzzle together.  They track down surviving members of a hunting party from fifty years ago who were written up for the killing of a creature the county coroner could only describe as not quite a man, not quite a bat.  Shortly thereafter, the coroner was killed and the creature disappeared.

Mulder and Agent Doggett split up to interview the men they track down.  During Mulder’s interview, the creature appears and attacks both Mulder and the man he’s interviewing.  Mulder manages to get a shot in before he’s knocked down and Agent Doggett arrives just in time to get in a few more shots, but ultimately, the creature gets away.

“What the hell am I going to put in my report?” Agent Doggett asks on their way out of Idaho.

“What you saw, what you did, what you stopped,” Mulder answers.

“I don’t know what I saw.  I sure as hell don’t know what I stopped.”

At least he didn’t tell me there was a more rational, scientific explanation for it, Mulder thinks.

*****

Chapter 6, Day 17:

Agent Reyes calls Mulder, not about Scully or the missing fourteen, but to ask his advice on a case that’s come to her way.  She’s currently in Utah, where a young hitchhiker was found murdered, stoned to death, possibly as the result of some sort of cultish ritual, however the strangest thing was, that the body showed signs of decay usually attributed to the elderly.  She mentions the word ‘glycoprotein’ and he knows it sounds familiar to him.  He tells her he’ll check his files and get back to her.

When Mulder can’t reach Agent Reyes on her cell phone a few hours later, he tries the local sheriff’s office, but they tell him Agent Reyes never showed up.  He tells Agent Doggett he has an errand to run and heads to the airport.  He catches the first flight out to Las Vegas, rents a car, and drives over to the sheriff’s office in Utah with a x-file on a stoning death that’s similar to the hitchhiker’s case.  Agent Reyes is still nowhere to be found.

Thinking it might be possible that she’s had a breakdown on the road somewhere, Mulder sets off again in the area he thinks she might have traveled.  Dusk comes quickly, and he stops at a gas station to question the attendant, and though the man says no, he hasn’t seen a dark-haired FBI lady come through here, Mulder spots a slightly dusty Ford Taurus parked at the side of the station with a Nevada license plate.  He thanks the man, hides his car back down the road a bit, and then sneaks over to a cluster of clapboard houses beyond the gas station.

He hears muffled screams as he approaches one of the houses, and he draws his weapon and crouches low.  He cautiously peeks into a window and sees a group of people, at least ten, kneeling together in a circle.  Whatever they’re murmuring is so monotonous, that it just sounds like a low hum.  Mulder moves to the next window at the back of the house and spots Agent Reyes, gagged and tied to a headboard on a sagging mattress.  Her back is exposed and she writhes in pain as her spine ripples in an unnatural way.  She screams around her gag.

There isn’t a lot of time to stop and think.  His priority is getting Agent Reyes out of harm’s way.  He holsters his gun and slowly pushes the window open, trying to be as quiet as he can.  Agent Reyes turns her head to the sound.  Her eyes are wide and full of panic.  Mulder puts his finger to his lips to remind her to stay quiet, and hoists himself through the window.

Swiftly, with the aid of a pocket knife, Mulder cuts through the binding on Agent Reyes’ wrists.  He pulls the gag out of her mouth and helps her sit up.  She’s wincing and moaning and actually shoves the gag back in her mouth to scream in pain when Mulder tries to get her to stand.

Mulder stops to regroup.  He moves to the door, leaving Agent Reyes where she sits on the bed, and puts his ear against it to listen.  The group in the next room is still in prayer, or whatever it is they’re doing.  The low hum comes back at him through the door.  He doesn’t think he’ll be able to get Agent Reyes through the window, but he’s not going to be able to sneak her past ten people either.

There’s an oil lamp on a bedside table, flame low.  Mulder tests it by turning the flame up a little and then down again.  He crouches in front of Agent Reyes and squeezes her arms.  She’s panting hard and sweating, but she looks at him.

“Can you walk with my help?” he asks.

Agent Reyes shakes her head and shrugs, but then she nods slightly.  Mulder doesn’t wait for her to change her mind, but pulls her up and slings her arm over his shoulder.  She’s still hunched, and he has to lower himself a little, but she walks with him as he takes most of her weight.  He has to let go of her arm to grab the oil lamp, but he keeps one arm around her waist and then whispers to her to open the door.

After a few heavy breaths, Agent Reyes pulls the door open and without hesitating, Mulder throws the oil lamp out towards the front room.  The glass shatters and there is shrieking and yelling behind him as he hurries in the other direction towards a door at the back of the house.  He kicks it open and rushes down the stairs.  Tucked into his side, Agent Reyes is sobbing and growling.  She can’t keep up and Mulder knows they’ll never make it to his car.

There are people appearing out of nowhere on all sides of them.  If he doesn’t act fast, they’ll be surrounded.  He drags Agent Reyes into a barn where he finds an abandoned bus.  He locks them inside, deposits Agent Reyes onto one of the bus seats, and turns the key in the ignition, but it won’t start.

“Get it out of me,” Agent Reyes moans, scraping at the back of her neck with both hands.  She slides out of the seat into the center aisle of the bus and starts crawling to the back.  “Oh God, get it out of me.”

Mulder steps over Agent Reyes and pulls her up so that she’s kneeling in the aisle and she drapes herself across one of the seats as she moans.  Her neck bulges and pulsates and she screams.

Outside of the bus, a hand slaps at the window where they’re at, then another, and another, until the bus is rocking from the force of all the hands banging on the side and on the glass.  Agent Reyes begs Mulder to kill her.  To please, oh God, just kill her.  He can only ask himself, what would Scully do?

“Hold on, Reyes,” Mulder says, flipping open his pocket knife.  “Just hold on.”

Quickly, so he can’t talk himself out of it, Mulder grasps the back of Reyes’ head and pushes her face down into the seat.  He makes a slice in her neck with the pocket knife, just above the spot where it’s bulging, and screws up his face before he pushes his fingers under her open skin.  He doesn’t know how he accomplishes it, but he manages to pull a pink, squirming slug out of Reyes’ neck, tossing it onto the floor and kicking it away from them as Reyes sags against the seat.

The slug starts wiggling its way down the aisle and Mulder pulls his gun and shoots it.  As soon the slug stops twitching, so does the banging on the side of the bus.  The people outside stand mute and stunned and make no move towards them when Mulder hoists a limp and exhausted Reyes back to his side and drags her from the bus.  The back of her tank top is covered with blood and it seeps down her back and soaks Mulder’s jacket as well.

If it was Scully that was stumbling beside him, he would pick her up and carry her to the car, but he can’t carry Reyes.  He tries to encourage her by telling her they’re almost there, almost there, every step they take, but she can barely stand and she’s losing blood.  He’s momentarily blinded by a pair of headlights that swing in their direction and he tightens his grip on Reyes and shifts his hip, ready to pull his weapon if he needs to.

The car lurches to a stop and the door swings open.  It’s too dark for Mulder to clearly see the man that springs out, but he can see his silhouette.  Strangely, it looks like Agent Doggett to him.

“Agent Mulder!”

It sounds like Agent Doggett too.  Reyes lifts her head at the sound of his voice and murmurs his name.  And then Agent Doggett is beside them, taking Reyes from Mulder and lifting her up in his arms as she collapses.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” Mulder says.

They rush Reyes to the car and Agent Doggett puts her in the back seat.  Mulder climbs in behind her and tries to staunch the blood flow by tearing a strip of his shirt off and pressing it to her neck while Agent Doggett drives.

“You want to do me a favor, Agent Mulder,” Agent Doggett says.  “The next time you want to run an errand in Utah or wherever the hell else isn't the same block as the Hoover building, you want to let me know?”

“How did you find us?” Mulder asks.

“The sheriff you spoke to called the office after you left and wanted to let you know that he sent a deputy out along the highway to look for Agent Reyes, but didn't find her.”

“Obviously that deputy did a piss poor job of looking.”

“You should've had back up.  You both should've.”

“That's why she was headed to the sheriff’s office.”

“Yeah?  What's your excuse?”

Mulder meets Agent Doggett’s gaze in the rear view mirror and then looks away, back down at the blood-soaked cloth under his hand.  The dome light in the car makes the blood look darker than it is.

“Like it or not,” Agent Doggett says.  “We’re partners.”

Scully is my partner, Mulder thinks.  You're temporary.

*****

Chapter 7, Day 19:

Every day that Mulder can, he’s stops by Scully’s apartment on his way home.  He’s already met with the super and told the landlord that Scully would be away indefinitely, and that he would take care of the rent and be picking up her mail.  He’s been particularly concerned about one of the plants in her kitchen window.  He waters it and he gives it pep talks, but the leaves keep getting more and more shriveled.

It’s obviously dead now.  There is nothing left but bare, brown stems.  All the leaves have fallen off and litter the inside of the pot.  He sits with it at the kitchen table and puts his head down.  What good is he?  It hasn’t even been three weeks and he can’t even keep one of her plants alive.  

He thinks about Scully’s pregnancy as he presses his thumb into the damp soil inside the pot.  He wonders why Scully asked him to father her child when she wanted to try in vitro.  He said yes to her, but not because he wanted a child, he actually didn’t, but he said yes because he would do anything for her.  Maybe she knew that, and maybe that’s why.  He was relieved, at the time, when it didn’t work, but also sad for her.

Now, he thinks how unfair it is that he would like nothing more than to be sitting with her and reading pregnancy books, rubbing her feet, holding her hair back during morning sickness, rushing out in the middle of the night for pickles and ice cream, shopping for cribs and car seats, or arguing about baby names.  How unfair that when he doesn’t just want a baby for her, but for him and for them, it’s taken away.   They’d had a discussion about fate a few months ago and about choice and all paths leading to one destination.  Maybe the universe is trying to tell him something.  After all, he can’t even keep a plant alive.

Mulder tips the potted plant over and pounds his fist into the dirt.

*****

Chapter 8, Day 32:

Mulder is doing everything he can possibly think of to do.  He’s got the gunmen broadening the scope on abductees, looking for more than just patterns, but trying to put himself ahead of another abduction by looking at hot spots of the past and clusters of activity.  Without a syndicate communicating with aliens though, he can’t do much more than work on hunches.  If it was possible to profile an alien, he would’ve done so a long time ago.

Cases come and go.  He doesn’t feel the same motivation he usually does to investigate.  He lets Agent Doggett lead and he follows, which is very unlike him.  He keeps his sarcasm and opinions to a minimum and maintains a superficial, arms-length kind of relationship with the guy.  He wouldn’t say he dislikes him, but he wouldn’t say he likes him either.

Reyes is the only person he talks to on a regular basis, aside from the gunmen.  She hasn’t found anything pertinent in the investigation of the missing fourteen, but he appreciates that she keeps him informed and she’s interested in his working theories whenever he’s out on a case.  All things considered, he wishes that she was his temporary partner instead of Agent Doggett.

They take a case involving a kidnapped child that returns ten years later as the same age he was when he was taken.  Initially, Mulder’s interest in the case is purely selfish.  He thinks it’s possible the boy might have been an abductee, but a lot of things don’t sit right with him once he meets the boy.  He can tell it rattles Agent Doggett, working on a kidnapping case.  He calls Reyes to join them on the investigation because he knows the boy isn’t what he seems to be, and he also knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re on the verge of finding a dead child and putting to rest a ten year old mystery.  The family will soon have the closure Agent Doggett never had and he knows it will be hard.

The end of the case does hit Agent Doggett hard, but he takes it stoically and heads off by himself.  Mulder and Reyes are sitting in a diner near their motel when Agent Doggett returns and silently slides into the booth next to Reyes.  He keeps his eyes down and his hands are squeezed into loose fists on the table.

“Did you know about my son?” he asks.  

“Yeah,” Mulder answers.

“Have you been lookin’ into me?”

“No.”

“I told him, John,” Reyes says.

“Why the hell would you do that, Monica?  He’s my son.  Mine.”

“She was trying to tell me that I wasn’t alone in my suffering,” Mulder says.  “For some reason she thinks it’s important that I trust you.”

Agent Doggett snorts, clenches his fists for a moment and then relaxes them.  Reyes puts a hand on his back and they all sit in silence for awhile.  You’re a lucky man, Doggett, and you don’t even know it, Mulder thinks.  Then again, it took him seven years too long to realize what was right under his nose the whole time too.

*****

Chapter 9, Day 47:

Mulder has a fickle relationship with dreams.  They disrupt his sleep more often than not, but he sees value in them.  He once told Scully that he believed dreams were the answer to a question one hadn’t yet learned to ask.  He still believes it, even during the hardest of nights, he still believes that.

Since she was taken, Mulder’s dreams are exclusively about Scully.  Sometimes they’re happy dreams of happy times they had or that he wanted to have with her.  He dreams of flirting with her until she laughs more freely than she normally does.  He dreams of making love to her in other impossible places and scenarios.  But, he also dreams of what’s happening to her out there on the spaceship.  He dreams of her torture and her screams and her begging for him to help her.

He hasn’t slept in his bed since Scully disappeared.  He sleeps on his couch or at his desk or, on a few occasions, at the gunmen’s lair.  Once, and only once, he fell asleep on Scully’s couch and he had the sweetest dream about her he’s ever had.  They were making love under a canopy of shooting stars and she held his face and looked him in the eyes and asked him not to look away, not to look at the stars, but look at her.  So, he did.  As he held her gaze, he began to see the stars in her eyes and he realized, he never had to look elsewhere.  He cried when he woke up.

Mulder sits and listens to the gunmen give their little spiel on the history of the third eye and its significance.  It’s not new information to him, but he likes the way Frohike tells the story.  He’d actually asked the three to put together a presentation for him, with visual aids, that he could present to Doggett to explain what he thought was happening with their latest case, but they did such a good job with it, he asked them to show it to Doggett.  It all boils down to dreams and how their suspect has the ability to inflict his will upon others through when they’re asleep.  

“I see where you guys are going with this,” Doggett says.  “Tipet believes he opened his third eye.”

Mulder waits for the eye-rolling and the Mulder, you’re crazy, speech, but Doggett remains quiet and thoughtful.  The gunmen look to Mulder, as though also waiting for an argument that doesn’t come.  Byers continues with the presentation by moving on to the CIA’s experimentation with mind control portion.  Again, Doggett stays quiet and thoughtful.

“What if Tipet could invade his victim’s consciousness in their sleep?”  Doggett asks.  “That’s what you’re getting at here isn’t it?  I mean, that's why you'd be afraid to fall asleep, right?  If you thought your nightmares might come true?”

That’s not the only reason, Mulder thinks.

When Mulder and Doggett go to make their arrest of the suspect, Tipet, he tries to take his own life by slamming his head into a table saw.  Despite seeming receptive to Mulder’s theory, Doggett still believes it was an act to avoid arrest and not to obliterate the third eye.

Before Mulder goes home, he stops at Scully’s to collect the mail.  Her apartment is filled with a strange, blue glow.  The hair on the back of his neck stands up and he get the feeling he’s not alone.  He goes to reach for his weapon, but discovers there’s an axe in his hand and he’s not sure why.  He creeps down the hall and pushes open the bedroom door.

Scully is asleep in her bed, a slice of moonlight across her cheek.  He’s angry that she came back and didn’t even bother to tell him.  He goes up to the side of the bed and stares down at her, breathing heavily.  He raises the axe, ready to bring it down on Scully’s head, but he’s startled awake by a touch on his shoulder.

“You sleepin’ in the office these days?” Doggett asks.

Mulder blinks and shakes his head to clear the haze of sleep away.  His heart is pounding like he’d just run a mile.  The phone rings and he picks it up on reflex, mumbling a gravelly hello into the receiver.  It’s the agent posted at the hospital where Tipet was taken, wanting him to know that Tipet died just minutes ago of his injuries.  Mulder thanks him, hangs up, and gives Doggett the update.

“I’m gonna go splash some water on my face,” Mulder says.

In the bathroom, Mulder brings cold water up to his face and holds his hands against his cheeks.  He looks up at his reflection and rubs his dripping wet thumb into the space between his brows for a moment and then looks again.  He hasn’t realized just how angry he is with Scully for being taken until now.

*****

Chapter 10, Day 75:

The body of one of the missing fourteen is found by a hiker in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, approximately 2,400 miles from Bellefleur.  The coroner hasn’t made a determination on the cause of death, but puts the time to be roughly six to eight hours before discovery.  The crime scene was highly contaminated, and the forensic team sent out to collect evidence returns with next to nothing.

Reyes sends Mulder photos of the crime scene and of the body.  The wounds evidence nothing short of torture.  There are scars that look both old and new on the chest, abdomen, and face.  To Mulder, it looks as though someone attempted an autopsy on the person while they were still alive.  He has to leave the office to be sick.  

The gunmen don't find any chatter about UFO activity in the area, or even remotely nearby.  The channels are quiet and they’re no closer to finding Scully now than when they started.

*****

Chapter 11, Day 83:

The second body of the missing fourteen washes up on the beach at Gulf Shores, Alabama.  It’s ruled a drowning.  There is salt water in the lungs, which means that the victim was returned alive, though unfortunately, in the middle of the ocean.  This body has undergone a bit more decomposition, and the consensus is that, he was probably returned prior to when the first body was found.  The same scars are noted on the face, chest, and abdomen.

The gunmen are sorry to say there are still no reports of any activity that they can find.

*****

Chapter 12, Day 96:

Theresa Hoese is the first of the missing fourteen to be found alive, but barely.  She’s found by a family vacationing at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.  She’s unconscious and wrapped in a blanket.  The husband reports to police that there’s a woman off the side of the road with a head wound, bleeding from the nose, and he thinks she may have been hit by a car.

Before Mulder and Reyes make it to the hospital in Salt Lake City that Theresa was brought to, she disappears.  The intake nurse explains that a doctor from another hospital came by not more than an hour ago with transfer papers to take her to a facility in Boise.  They review footage from a security camera, but neither the man who took Theresa from the hospital, nor the man who loaded her into a waiting ambulance, is identifiable.

Two days later, Theresa Hoese walks into her parent’s home in Bellefleur as though nothing happened.  She remembers nothing about her experience, how long she was gone, how she ended up in Utah, or how she even got back home.  The last thing she says she remembers is putting her baby to bed.

*****

Chapter 13, Day 132:

One of the missing fourteen are found every seven to ten days for the next few weeks.  Out of seven abductees returned, three are found alive.  It doesn’t quite put the odds at 50/50, but it’s something to hope for.

Mulder studies the photos of the bodies and of the crime scenes day and night.  He isn’t very helpful to Doggett with the cases that come through the office, but Skinner turns a blind eye.  As long as he keeps his head down and off of Kersh’s radar, he’s allowed to pursue the investigation as much as he can from DC.  Reyes is extremely helpful, his eyes and ears in places he can’t go.

He notices something while studying the photos of the sites where victims were returned.  The same shoe print amongst the dozens that are catalogued comes up in four of the sites, not least of which, the three where the victims were found alive.  The pattern of the print is unique enough to be distinguishable from the rest, but ordinary enough not to be identifiable.  There are straight lines across the full length of the shoe and a circular stamp of some sort just off-center at the heel.  He wonders the bodies aren’t being returned so much as someone is placing them in these locations to be found.

*****

Chapter 14, Day 161:

Mrs. Scully calls Mulder and asks if he will come to the house.  He agrees without hesitation.  She doesn’t tell him what she wants, but it’s Scully’s birthday, so he thinks that might have something to do with it.  He’s been trying not to think too much about the date, but as it looms closer, it’s constantly on his mind.

He doesn’t feel as anxious knocking on Mrs. Scully’s door this time as he did before.  Now that the missing fourteen have been appearing so frequently, he’s been more hopeful than when they’d had nothing to work from.

“Hello, Fox,” Mrs. Scully says, pulling the door back to admit him into the house.

“It’s nice to see you,” Mulder says.

This time, Mrs. Scully directs him to sit with her in the front room.  He takes a seat in one of the chairs that frame the picture window and before she sits opposite him, she retrieves a manilla folder from the the coffee table and holds it on her lap.

“I need to know that I appreciate your dedication to Dana,” Mrs. Scully says.  “Through the years and now in this disappearance, I do appreciate your dedication.”

“Of course.”

“It’s been nearly six months.  I think it’s time that we all move on.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I need to move on, and Dana’s brothers need to move on.”

Mulder feels his skin grow clammy.  He’s afraid Mrs. Scully has done something rash.  “Look,” he says.  “You asked me not to share any part of the investigation with you, and I’ve respected that.”

“I know, Fox.  But, obviously Dana still isn’t here, so I think it’s time to put this behind us.”

“I disagree.”

“My son didn’t think I should call you.”

Bill, of course, Mulder thinks.

“But, I thought you at least deserved the courtesy,” Mrs. Scully continues.

“Courtesy of what, exactly?”

“I’ll be submitting papers to have Dana declared legally dead.”

“Please, don’t do that.”

“Fox, look at you.  You look like you haven’t slept.  You’ve lost weight.  When was the last time you had a hair cut?”

“I don’t know.”  Mulder rubs his sweaty palms against his knees.  He doesn’t need Mrs. Scully to point out how badly he looks.  He feels worse inside, so it doesn’t really matter.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.  Dana wouldn’t want you to.  You know that.”

Spanning a hand across his forehead, Mulder rubs at his temples and squeezes his eyes shut.  He feels awash with desperation.  He can’t let Mrs. Scully do this.  He keeps his hand over his face and his eyes closed as he begs for her to reconsider.

“Just give me until May,” he says.  “Please.”

“What difference will nine months make from six, Fox?”

“Seven abductees have been returned so far.”  He thinks he hears a slight gasp from Mrs. Scully, but she doesn’t reply.  “I have reason to believe that when Scully is returned, she will be of the last to come back.”

“Why?  How could you know that?”

“Scully was pregnant when she was taken.”

This time, he definitely hears a gasp come from Mrs. Scully and he takes his hand down from his face to look at her.  She has her fist at her mouth and it looks like she might be biting the side of her finger.  Her other hand moves to the chain at her neck and the folder of papers slips from her lap.  Mulder thinks that as long as he’s opening the door to revealing this information to Mrs. Scully, he might as well share all.

“It’s not something she kept from you,” he says.  “She only found out the morning we left for Oregon, and I didn’t even know until after she was taken.”

“She knew?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Mrs. Scully takes a deep breath over her fist and shakes her head slightly.

“We’d...been together for about four months.  But, about a year prior, I helped her attempt in vitro fertilization and we weren’t successful.”

“My God,” Mrs. Scully murmurs.  Her fingers work restlessly at the cross at her throat.

“I should have told you.  I wanted to tell you.”

“These people that have come back.  Have they told you where Dana is?  How to find her?”

Mulder pauses for a moment with his lips pursed.  Mrs. Scully must sense that he’s hesitating to choose his words carefully and she relaxes her wet gaze on his face.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” she asks.

“No,” he says.  “Not all of them.  Three of the seven were found alive.”

“But, they can’t tell you where Dana is?”

“They can’t remember anything.”

Mrs. Scully nods and then folds her hands over her face for a few moments with her eyes closed.  She drops her hands, blinks open her eyes and then picks up the spilled envelope from the floor.

“I’ll give you until May,” she says.  “But, then I will be submitting these papers and next time, I won’t call you ahead of time.”

“Thank you.”

*****

Chapter 15, Day 169:

Reyes calls Mulder and asks him how quickly he can get to Montana.  She doesn’t tell him why, doesn’t want to say over the phone.  Doggett is in the hospital under a short quarantine from possible exposure to a biological agent.  With no one to make excuses to, he tells her he’ll be there right away.

When Mulder arrives in Helena, Reyes gives him the file of a suspect in custody who was arrested the night before for trespassing on a rancher’s property.  While the police were arresting the young man, another call came in from a rancher a few miles away that he’d found a body in a field on his property.  No body was recovered, but the neighbor of the rancher spotted two men coming out of the field shortly before the police arrived.

“The boy in custody, Richie Szalay, claims he was chasing a UFO and followed it onto the rancher’s property,” Reyes tells Mulder.  “He says his best friend was abducted in Oregon, just a few days before the others.”

“That’s true,” Mulder says, nodding.  “I know him.  Scully and I met Richie in Bellefleur a few days before the abduction.  Gary was already taken at that time.”

“I thought you’d be the best person to interrogate him.  He may not know anything about our missing fourteen, but he may still know something.”

“Hello again, Richie,” Mulder says as he enters the interrogation room.  “Do you remember me?”

Richie takes a moment and then nods.  “The FBI Agent.  Scully?”

“Scully’s my partner.  I’m Agent Mulder.”

“Oh, right.”

Mulder nods towards Reyes.  “You met Agent Reyes.  We want to ask you a few questions.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Richie says.  “I swear!”

“I believe you, Richie.  I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“You should be out there looking for Gary.  He’s been gone six months and no one’s done anything about it!”

“Believe me, Richie, I can tell you that’s not the case.”

Richie is momentarily subdued, but jittery.  His knee bounces constantly and he wrings his hands together under the table.  His dark brown hair is greasy and unkempt.  There are dark smudges under his eyes.  He looks older than his nineteen years.  Mulder feels sorry for him.  His desperation is palpable.

“You told the officers that picked you up you were chasing a UFO,” Mulder says.

“I’m not crazy.”

“No one thinks you’re crazy.”

“I thought you believed me about Gary.”

“I do believe you, Richie.”

“Agent Mulder and I are here to help you,” Reyes says.

Richie scrunches his face and shakes his head.  Mulder can tell Richie is as skeptical and distrusting as he is impatient.

“You can help us help you, Richie,” Mulder says.  “And you can start by telling me what you know about that UFO and how you found it.”

“Chat rooms, mostly.  I made friends with a few people who track that kind of stuff.  One of them is an abductee like Gary.  He wanted to help me find him.”

“Do you know how they get their information?”

“Sightings and stuff, I guess.”

“But, those would be after the fact,” Reyes says.  “You came to Montana because they told you a UFO would be here.  How did they know that?”

“I don’t know.  Algorithms?”

“What’s the name of the man who helped you?” Mulder asks.

Richie hesitates.  “I don’t know if I should...is he in trouble?”

“He’s not in trouble.  Neither are you.  You’re being let go with a fine for trespassing, but no charges are being pressed.  You’re talking to us of your own free will right now.”

“I can go?”

“You’re free to leave anytime.  I’d like it if you stayed for a bit to talk to us though.”

Richie is torn.  Mulder can see it in his face.  He takes advantage of Richie’s indecision and gets up from his chair to lean against the table in front of the boy.

“You want to help your friend,” Mulder says.  “I also want to help your friend, and the rest of the people who went missing in Oregon.”

“Is it true that half of them have already been returned?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The man in the chat room.”  Richie pauses and he shifts his eyes back and forth between Mulder and Reyes.  “His screenname is Absalom.”

“Absalom?” Reyes asks, a look of recognition in her eyes when she looks up at Mulder.

“Yeah, I mean...that’s not really a name, you know?  It’s what he calls himself.  I don’t know his real name.”

By the way Reyes is shifting in her seat, Mulder can tell she’s anxious for the interview to be over.  He’s confident that Richie doesn’t really know anything past what he’s told them, so he pushes away from the table and takes his seat again.

“Richie, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor,” Mulder says.

“Okay,” Richie answers.

“Stay in town for a few days.  Give your contact information to the Sheriff so we can reach you if we need you.”

“I can only stay until tomorrow.  I gotta be back in Oregon by Friday.”

Mulder nods and Richie stands slowly, as though waiting for someone to stop him.  When no one does, he heads to the door, taking glances back over his shoulder along the way.  He finally rushes out, hastily slamming the door behind him.

“What do you know about Absalom?” Mulder asks Reyes, as soon as the door closes.

“He’s the leader of a doomsday cult.  I was part of a team that investigated him a few years back.  At that time he had a compound in Baton Rouge where he and his followers were preparing for an alien invasion at the start of the new millennium.  He claimed that first Y2K would cripple the world, and while we were trying to rebuild our technologies, an alien army would begin systematically abducting prominent citizens, returning them as super soldiers to eventually wipe out the human race.”

“Hm.”  It doesn’t sound that illogical to Mulder.  “And what happened?”

“Well, the group disbanded when there was no Y2K.  He lost the faith of his followers and just disappeared.”

“But, now he’s back.  With apparently credible information on UFO activity.”

“Should we find him?  Bring him in?”

“Let’s see if we can’t get him to talk voluntarily.”  Mulder already has an idea of who he’ll get to reach out to try to contact Absalom.  Who better to speak his language than three like-minded conspiracy theorists in a converted warehouse office?

*****  

The gunmen waste no time in finding Absalom and begin sending Mulder archives of newsgroup postings and chat logs they are able dig up.  They reach out to him under the guise of official magazine business, requesting an interview of him, and then wait for a response.

In the meantime, Mulder and Reyes drive out to inspect the field where the rancher says he discovered a body.  The air is cold and crisp, even though the sun is high.  There's still a bit of frost on the ground even though it's midday.

The two agents make separate tracks through the field, parting ways to inspect patches of ground more closely, coming back together to silently ask if they'd found anything.  A shake of the head.  Not yet.

Mulder is crouched down, running his hand across a line of flattened grass, when Reyes calls his name.  He looks up and sees her stand from her own crouch and turn to him.  She cocks her head for him to come take a look at whatever she's got.  He brushes dirt from his knees as he rises.

“Footprints,” Reyes says, pointing out two sets of tracks that almost seem to overlap each other, but they're pointed in opposite directions.

“If we were carrying something heavy,” Mulder says.

“Like a body?” Reyes interjects.

Mulder nods.  “Like a body.  Someone would probably be moving backwards.”

“And someone would be moving forwards.”

The tracks are smudged, as though the two individuals were dragging their feet.  Mulder follows the backwards steps as they head in the direction of the nearest highway.  At one point, he stops, bending to squint at the most clear footprint he can see.  He can't be absolutely certain, but he's almost positive the lines in the shoe match the footprints of the other photos.

“That's the same shoe,” Reyes says.

“That's what I was thinking,” Mulder answers.  He looks out into the field and turns to check all angles.  A hill slopes in the distance to the north.  The highway to the south is empty and calm.  The neighbors house, the one who reported seeing two men in the field, is about fifty yards to the east.  

Something seems to be clicking into place in Mulder's mind.  A missing body.  Two men.  Footprints heading south.  The highway.  The hill.  The land.

“He's not placing the bodies,” Mulder says.

“Who?”

“The man with the shoes.  I thought he was placing the bodies in areas they'd be found.”

“What's he doing then?”

“Taking them.  Or, trying to.”

“And bringing them back?”

“I think...I think it depends on how bad off the person is who's returned.  I think he's...healing them.”

“How?”

“I've seen it before.  I need to call Doggett.  No, I can't call Doggett, he's still in quarantine.  I need to call Skinner and have him pull my files on a man named Jeremiah Smith.”

*****

Skinner is none too pleased that Mulder is in Montana, but not only does he send the files to Mulder, he lets him know in his email that he’ll be on the first flight out to Helena.  Mulder shares the material with Reyes in the small conference room the Helena PD has allowed them to utilize.  He paces the room, rolling up his shirt sleeves as Reyes reads bits of the file out loud.  When she finishes, he turns one of the chairs around and sits backwards, draping his arms over the back.

“I don’t understand how this guy is any different from the bounty hunter,” Reyes says.

“I don’t quite know myself,” Mulder answers.  “Only that while they can both take on the forms of anyone they choose, Jeremiah Smith is, at least, a healer.  He saves lives, he doesn’t take them.”

“So you think he’s essentially rescuing the abductees after they’re returned.  Or, attempting to?”

“It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense to me right now.”

“How does he know where to find them?”

“I don’t know.”  Mulder shrugs and pushes up from the chair in frustration.  He puts his hands on his hips and paces the room again.

“Is there a possibility that this is related to the doomsday cult?”

“How so?”

“What if those people weren’t taken by a UFO?”

Mulder gapes at Reyes and shakes his head.  “I know what I saw.”

“I know, but hear me out.  What if that’s what they wanted you to see?  What if Absalom staged the abduction and took these people to reignite the interest in his prophecies.  If they’re not coming true organically, he’s going to make it happen.”

“No.”  Mulder shakes his head again.  “That’s not possible.”

“And what if Absalom is giving the same information to Jeremiah Smith that he gave to Richie Szalay?  What if he’s controlling this whole thing?”

Mulder laces his fingers together at the back of his head and puffs his cheeks.  He circles the room once and bobs his head a little.  He sits down and scratches his bottom lip with his teeth.

“All right,” he says.  “Let’s explore that theory.  An abduction hoax to regain the trust of his disciples.  It’s pretty elaborate, and risky.  How has he gotten this far without getting caught?  How has he done any of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s too much for one person.  There’d have to be dozens of people involved.  People that would kidnap and torture without asking questions.”

“Like a cult?”

“Like a cult.  That still doesn’t explain how they would’ve pulled it off.  And I know what I saw.”

“Let’s hope your friends can find Absalom and maybe we can ask.”

*****

Skinner arrives that evening and knocks on Mulder’s motel room.  He has a grim look on his face and asks Mulder to take a walk with him.  Mulder follows his boss out to the edge of the parking lot, where concrete ends and nothing but the dark expanse of empty fields begins.  The stars are as luminous as Mulder has ever seen them, large and bright and plentiful.

“I’ve come to escort you back to DC,” Skinner says, without preamble.  “Kersh caught wind of your trip out here.”

“I can’t leave, Walter,” Mulder says.  “Not now.”

Skinner rubs the back of his head for a few moments.  “What have you really found that’s going to make a difference in the investigation?”

Mulder tells him, briefly, about Reyes’ theory, and about the gunmen working to find Absalom, and the missing body and the footprints in the field.  Skinner listens without reacting or asking questions.  It’s too cold out for the thin sweater Mulder is wearing and he rubs his arms briskly with both hands.

“What we’ve got right now are seven returned abductees,” Skinner says.  “Seven still missing.  Half of those returned are dead.”

“I know.”

“And nothing tangible but theories.”

“Even if Reyes’ theory doesn’t pan out, we have a lead with Absalom.”

“Maybe.”  Skinner sighs and puts a hand on Mulder’s shoulder and squeezes lightly.  “These bodies are appearing rather quickly now.  Are you prepared for what might happen?”

Mulder pulls his shoulder away from Skinner’s grasp and crosses his arms tightly across his chest.  He looks up at the sky and blinks back the tears that fill his eyes every time he has to think about the worst case scenario.

“I once had a conversation with Scully about starlight,” Mulder says.  “How it’s billions of years old and how, even after they’re long dead, their light won’t die.  I told her it’s where I thought that souls resided.  If I’m wrong about everything else, I hope I’m right about that.  Because, I would need to know that whenever I look up, she...”

Mulder lowers his head and bites his lip.  His throat has closed too much to continue.  Skinner puts an arm around him and squeezes his shoulder again.

“She will be,” Skinner says.  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

*****

Chapter 16, Day 170:

Things happen quickly the next morning.  As Mulder and Skinner are loading the car to head to the airport, Mulder gets a call from the gunmen.  They're on speakerphone, talking over each other with excitement until Mulder tells them to calm down.  He moves away from the open car door and puts a hand on his hip.

“We made contact,” Byers says.

“With Absalom,” Langly adds.  “Dude fell for our line like flies to cow turds”

“I gathered that,” Mulder says.  “And get a better metaphor, please.”

“We pinged his ISP in Helena,” Frohike cuts in, getting to the point.

“He's here?”  Mulder turns to face the car and raises his brows at Skinner.  Skinner frowns.

“We can't tell you where,” Byers says.  “But he's definitely in the Helena area.”

“What else can you tell me?  Give me something less vague.”

“That's all we've got,” Frohike says.  “Sorry, man.  So far all he’ll talk about is spreading the word that prior abductees are in danger.”

“Danger from what?”

“Being taken again.  Returned as something other than what they were.”

“Super soldiers?”

“That's what he called them,” Langly says.  “An army of super soldiers that will destroy the human race.”

“Ask him what he knows about the missing fourteen.  Get back to me.”

Mulder disconnects the call and slips his cell phone back into his pocket.  He tells Skinner what the gunmen have just told him, but before Skinner even opens his mouth to ask questions, Richie comes running across the parking lot towards them.

“Agent Mulder!”

Mulder steps out from behind the car and walks towards him.  The boy is agitated and jittery.  He's sweaty and wild eyed, but Mulder doesn't think it's from the short run he just made.

“What is it, Richie?” he asks.

“I saw him!  I saw Gary!”

“Where?  When?”

“Like an hour ago.  I was at the gas station and I seen him in the back of a car.”

“Are you sure?”

“Totally sure.  I followed him.”

“Okay, okay.”  Mulder looks to Skinner who shuts his car door and comes around to the back side to stand next to Mulder.

“Did you write down the license plate of the car he was in?” Skinner asks, taking a notepad out of his breast pocket.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie answers.  “I have that, but I think they're getting ready to leave.”

“Who?” Mulder asks.

“A bunch of people.  I followed them off the highway to a cabin behind the hills.  They're all packing or something, and Gary was with them.”

“Did you see the guy driving the car?” Mulder asks.

“No, but I saw the guy in the passenger seat.  He was old, kind of sunburnt face, with grey hair.”

“Can you show us where they're at?”

“Yeah yeah.  That's why I came to find you.  I was kinda scared to go by myself.”

“You did the right thing.”  Mulder nods to Richie and then looks at Skinner.  They're due at the airport in an hour.  

Skinner puts his notepad away and then adjusts his glasses.  His jaw is clenched, but he doesn't look angry, just indecisive.  Finally, he nods to Mulder.

“You better go get Agent Reyes,” Skinner says.  “I'll call the local PD and have them run the plate.”

Mulder spins around and heads to Reyes’ room at the end of the motel before Skinner can change his mind.

*****

The cabin Richie guides them to is only hidden by virtue of its position amongst the hills.  The trees are sparse.  Richie shows them where he stopped his car and where he hid so he wouldn’t be caught spying on the group.

Reyes stays with Richie at the car while Mulder and Skinner take the sloping, curved path towards the cabin.  There’s not a lot of cover, unless you were to count the clouds that have blocked out the sun and blanketed the area in grey shadows.  It will sleet or snow within the next few hours.

A man and a woman come around the side of the cabin as Mulder and Skinner approach.  They look startled and the woman nearly drops the pile of blankets she carries in her arms.  Mulder waves his hand in a friendly, calming gesture.

“We’re looking for a man named Gary Cory,” Mulder says.  “We heard he might be here.”

Neither the man or woman say anything, but they turn around and hurry back behind the cabin the way they came.  Mulder and Skinner glance at each other, but keep going towards the front porch.  The wood is old and rotted in parts, making the trip up the flight of stairs a bit precarious.  They test the weight of each step and tread lightly.  The screen door rattles with each rap of Skinner’s knuckles.

A young man answers the door, barely out of his teens.  He’s got dirty blonde hair and a dazed look in his eyes.

“Gary Cory?” Skinner asks.

“Yeah,” he answers.  “Do I know you?”

“We’re FBI.”  Skinner reaches for his badge and Mulder does the same.  “I’m AD Skinner, and this is Agent Mulder.  Would you come out here, son, so we could ask you a few questions?”

“Okay.”

Skinner and Mulder step back as Gary opens the door.  He’s barefoot, wearing jeans that are too big for his hips and the cuffs of his sweatshirt dangle past his hands.  The porch creaks as he shuffles towards the rail.  Mulder and Skinner glance at each other again and follow.

“Son, are you aware that you’re a missing person?” Skinner asks.

“Missing?” Gary asks, his brows sliding together into a divot above his nose.  “How can I be missing?”

“You disappeared six months ago,” Mulder says.  “Your friend Richie has been very worried about you.”

Gary tips his head in puzzlement.  “Richie and I hung out like two days ago in his basement,” he says.  “We played video games and ate pizza.”

“Do you know what day it is?” Skinner asks.

Gary shrugs.  “Friday?”

“What month, what year?”

Gary shrugs again.  “I don’t really pay attention to that stuff.”

“Do you know how you got to Montana?” Mulder asks.

“I wake up in weird places a lot.”

“What kind of weird places?”

“I don’t know.”  Gary shrugs.  “Back yards, on top of picnic tables, the beach.  Ever since the first time they took me, it just happens sometimes.”

“Who took you?” Skinner asks.  “These people here?”

“Oh, no, the guy that lives here found me in a field.  He’s going to drive me home today.  I mean, the aliens.”

Mulder bites into his upper lip and nods.

“You think we could talk to that man?” Skinner asks.  

“I don’t think he’s here right now.”

Skinner nods curtly and then looks at Mulder.  Mulder is chomping at the bit to search the house and the grounds.  He tries to keep it contained, but Skinner must see it in his face.

“We’ve got your friend Richie with us up the road,” Skinner says.  “How about you come with me right now?”

“Okay.”

“You have shoes inside, son?”

“I’ll check.”

Gary shuffles back across the porch and goes inside.  Skinner immediately pulls Mulder back to the railing by the elbow.

“I’m sending Reyes back here as soon as we get to the car,” Skinner says.  “Do not do anything foolish.”

“Me, Sir?”  Mulder gives Skinner his best mask of innocence.

“I mean it, Mulder.  I don’t want you going inside, I don’t want you taking a tour of the perimeter, I don’t want you to move a muscle beyond the bottom of this porch.  The only reason I’m leaving you here at all is to keep watch that no one gets in or out of here.”

Mulder raises his hand up to salute Skinner.  Skinner lets him go.  The screen door bangs open again and Gary steps out in shoes that are also too big for him.  They all make their way gingerly down the steps and Mulder hangs back once they get down the stairs as Skinner and Gary head back to the road.

Skinner must know Mulder better than to stay still in one place, though.  He wanders to the right side of the cabin where they saw the man and woman earlier and peers around the corner.  Seeing nothing of interest, he wanders to the left side and peers around that corner as well.  The left side is tucked up against the slope of hill, but the ridge is angled back behind the house.  He hikes his way up to the side so that he’s just about the same level with the roof of the cabin and he spots a man going over the back ridge.

Mulder looks back and sees Reyes, just turning the bend to approach the cabin.  He waves his arms at her and then points at the back side of the house before he takes off running.  He doesn’t think about whether Reyes saw him, will follow him, or if she’s able to keep up.  His goal is to find the man over the ridge.

The dirt softens under Mulder’s feet as he hits the high point and he slides down a few feet and has to catch himself before he loses balance.  He pauses and looks over the top of the ridge down the other side.  The man he saw earlier is almost half-way down, moving at a slow angle, trying not to stumble.

“Jeremiah Smith!” Mulder calls.

The man looks up and freezes.  Mulder scrabbles at the sliding earth to get up and Jeremiah starts hurrying down the hill again.

“Wait!” Mulder calls.  He claws at the dirt and crawls forward enough to hurl himself over the side of the hill.  He comes down, bringing a landslide of dirt and rock with him as he slides his way down towards Jeremiah.

Mulder is only a few yards behind when Jeremiah reaches the flat end of the canyon of hills.  He heads towards a grove of trees and rocks, but slips and Mulder easily catches up and grabs his arm.  They’re both out of breath.  Jeremiah doesn’t struggle.

“Are you responsible for this?” Mulder asks.

“I’m only here to help,” Jeremiah says.

“What's your part in all of it?”  Mulder gets no response but a blink of Jeremiah’s eyes.  “Answer me!”

“I'm only here to help,” Jeremiah repeats.

“You're picking up the abductees after they're returned.  How do you know where to find them?  Are you communicating with them?”

“No.  They want me too badly for me to try that.”

“Then how?”

“Absalom knows.  He offers me protection from being taken and in return, I heal the ones who are returned.”

“What's his interest in it?  More followers for his cult?”

“He's also a former abductee.  One of the first I healed.”

“How does he know where to find them?”

“I don't ask.”

“You have to know something.”

“I don't know anything.”

“Where's Scully?”

“I don't know.”

“When will she be returned?”

“I don't know.”

Mulder kicks one foot in the dirt in frustration.  He takes out his handcuffs and Jeremiah shakes his head.

“I can't go with you, Agent Mulder.”

“You can if I arrest you.”

“If you stop us, you'll never see Scully alive again.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It's a prophecy.  They're not returning this group alive.  The only way to ensure she'll live is if you let us get to her first.”

Indecision pulls at Mulder's gut.  He wants more answers that only Jeremiah and Absalom can give him, but not at the expense of Scully’s life.  He would sacrifice his own life for her, if he could, would trade himself for her in a heartbeat, but he doesn't have that choice.  Behind him, he hears Reyes calling his name over the hill and he looks back, but she's not there.

“Go,” Mulder says, nodding at the trees and rocks up ahead.  “Go.”

“I'll do my best,” Jeremiah says, and takes off for the grove, disappearing amongst the foliage.

Mulder waits until he can't see anything more of Jeremiah and then he backtracks to the middle of the canyon, making it there just as Reyes reaches the ridge.

“Agent Mulder!”

Mulder waves at her to stay where she is and he slip-slides his way back up the hill.  He's covered in dirt by the time he reaches her and it's beginning to rain ever so slightly.  He hopes his footprints, and Jeremiah’s, will be washed out soon.

“He's gone,” Mulder says.

“Who?  Absalom?”  Reyes asks.

“We’re too late.”

“We'll interrogate those people at the cabin.  We’ll-”

“Let it go,” he says, shaking his head.  “Just let it go.”

*****

Chapter 17, Day 179:

Billy Miles is found alive, wandering down a highway outside of Miami.  Of all the abductees, he's the only one with a memory of his abduction.  Not of his time away, but of the moments leading up to their disappearance.  Reyes sends Mulder the transcript of his interview.  He reads it out loud to Agent Doggett in the office.

REYES: Whenever you’re ready, Detective Miles.

MILES: You can call me Billy.  Everyone does.

REYES: Whenever you’re ready.  Just start from what you remember.

MILES: I remember being pulled to the spot in the woods.

REYES:  Pulled by who?

MILES: Not by a person, by a force.  I had to go out there.  I couldn't stop.  It was like I didn't have control over my body.

REYES: What did you see?

MILES: I saw Theresa there.  I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't do anything more than just stand and wait.  I saw Agent Scully as well.  She was the last one to come into the circle.

REYES: What circle?

MILES: We were standing in a circle.  Like we were placed where we were purposefully.  When I walked up, I just suddenly stopped, but I don't know why.  Only that it's where I had to be.

REYES: And then what?

MILES: And then it seemed like everything was gone.  The woods were gone and we were all looking up at a light.  The light, it was bright, but it didn't hurt to look at.

REYES: And that's the last thing you remember?

MILES: Just looking up at the light.  And feeling like I was weightless.  And it's like I fell asleep.  When I woke up, there was a man holding a hand to my head, telling me that I would be okay.  

REYES: What did the man look like?

MILES: Greyish whitish hair.  Small eyes.  His hands felt ancient, but maybe he was in his 60s or 70s.

REYES: We can go ahead and stop now.  Please call us if you remember anything else.

MILES: I will.

“Something seems off about that interview,” Doggett says, when Mulder’s finished.

“I agree,” Mulder says.

“None of the other abductees have any memory about what happened.”

“I know.”

“And then this guy shows up walkin’ down a highway.  Doesn’t really fit in with all the others.”

“I agree.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

*****

Chapter 18, Day 186:

It’s a Sunday night.  Mulder is staring up at the ceiling above his couch, listening to the low drone of a sitcom on TV.  He only turned on his TV for the noise, not to watch.  There’s a nice warm, orange glow lighting the room from the sun setting through the windows.  The stain of masking tape puts a light x-shaped shadow on the wall.

On the coffee table, Mulder’s cell phone rings and he reaches out to grab for it.  It’s Agent Reyes’ number.  He sighs and then connects the call.

“Mulder.”

There’s a beat of silence on the end of the line, then two.  “I’m in Roanoke,” she says.  “We found her.”

Mulder sits up quickly and springs from the couch.  His throat goes dry and every muscle in his body tenses, waiting for the news.  He thinks, if she’s alive, Reyes would’ve already told him.  He thinks, if she’s dead, Reyes would’ve called Skinner to tell him in person.  He swallows the lump in his throat and finally asks.  

“Is she…?”

To be continued in Part 2