Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Part I - Anomalocaris canadensis

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Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polish'd perturbation! Golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night.

The Second Part of King Henry IV

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Drilling Facility
University of Washington Volcanic Observatory
outside Newhalem, Washington
North Cascades National Park, Washington State
Monday, July 21, 1997
3:14 pm

"Thanks, Tim, that's the last one. You guys knock off for the rest of the day, all right?"

One of the crew hit a red button, killing main power to the hydraulic controls, and the rumbling in the great chamber ceased. Filing through a small side door, several of the men waved to Albert Rich as they left him checking straps that secured the newest rock core in place for transport.

At the last moment, Tim, his face streaked with dust, turned back. "Can you manage that okay, Al?"

Rich stopped struggling with the long, slick tube when he heard the man walk up beside him. "Just grab the end and shove. I oiled the wheels yesterday and now it dances like a mustang."

Tim glanced down at the orange steel cart, then gripped the grey cylinder. "You'll take this inside?" He jerked his head towards the double doors separating the derrick and all the heavy equipment from his lab.

The core secure, Rich nodded. "Thanks. I can take it from here."

As he turned away, Tim eyed the motion detector Rich had scrounged from the administration building back in Seattle. "Yeah, you can. See you in the morning."

Once inside, Rich eased the tube onto the end of a support pallet. Even though there were no windows here, he always worked on the slick, grey cylinders in his cleaner, quieter lab. Long benches were set up in the center of the space so he had access from any side to the still-cooling rock. But right now, he needed a break, so he stopped to rub his neck while he reminisced over the circumstances that kept him bent over his diamond-tipped rock saw, slicing sections through core after core.

The Observatory's current project involved deep sampling of the Cascadian volcanic pile, searching for data on the inactive rift zone being subducted under the North American continent. Using remote evidence from earthquake hypocenters, seismologists had determined the approximate depth of that descending slab of relict oceanic crust. He knew, from the discussions in the faculty lounge, that volcanologists, working on the Big Island in Hawaii, determined the transitions in ocean-basin basalts through direct sampling of freezing lavas.

That's a job I'd hate, standing on those black crusts, knowing that only a foot or so beneath your boots, the volcanics were still moving. I'm glad it's the graduate students out there, reaching over to scoop red-hot lava up with a coffee-can on the end of a broomstick. Let them earn their degrees, especially after how rude some of them can be.

Only a similar campaign would yield the exact changes in olivine while it returned to a semi-molten state at the temperatures and pressures encountered at depth, or so Doctor Campbell liked to say. But metals would melt, becoming useless far above those levels, which left geochemists only the option of small-scale laboratory experiments. Rich smiled, remembering that setting up just such a pressure chamber had been his first task for the University. But, in these days of tight research budgets, the funding for a drilling project of such speculative nature could only come to fruition through an unusual source.

Gerald Hoskins, class of '22, had devoted his life to enhancing his family's fortune in the logging industry. At the end of it, he decided, rather than let a horde of squabbling relatives spend his wealth in myriad foolish ways, to transfer it all to the University of Washington. His one stipulation was that his old company headquarters be used as a geological laboratory and field camp. Rich had been to the Endowment festivities, shaken the old man's hand, smiled at a pair of dancing blue eyes in the tanned and wrinkled face. When his ivory cane had snapped, Rich had offered him his arm for support, then as a reward, Hoskins told some whopping stories, even claiming to have seen Bigfoot a couple of times. Rich grinned, remembering that after a few beers, the logger had set his worn suede hat on the University's linen tablecloth, then rearranged the china to help illustrate a few of his taller tales.

The administrators had been only too willing to oblige, but then Rich had chuckled behind his hand at the moans of the geoscience faculty when they heard the location. While surrounded by the grandest of vistas, the erosion-resistant rocks directly beneath the site were the granites, gneisses, and migmatites of the old Northern Cascades Subcontinent. Far more interesting formations and tectonic histories lay twenty miles to the west and east, in the Skagit metamorphic pile and the Methow graben. But, the buildings themselves were beautifully equipped for comfortable long-term habitation, so vans were purchased, adjustments for graduate students made.

Back to work. Rich sighed. Opening the end, the technician guided the dark olive cylinder of rock as it began sliding onto a rubber mat. About two meters up from the end, he noticed a clear band of what appeared to be quartzite in the basalt. Hunh. Better get Doctor Campbell, he'd want to see this. The core extruded, he stood the drill tubes up in one corner of the room before leaving the lab to knock on the chief scientist's office door.

"Doctor Campbell? I have something here I think you might be interested in." He paused, wondering how his bold request would be answered.

"Mister Rich! Not *now*!"

Just what you thought, Bert. Rich stepped back as he heard the doorknob rattle. After the metal door swung aside, the angular, almost emaciated face of his boss glared down on him. James Campbell had spent too much time out in the sun, hiking up and down volcanoes, both active and extinct, until his skin hung in leathery bags from his cheekbones. From the dry thatch of grey hair to the calloused hands with broken fingernails, the rest of his frame was similarly weather beaten.

Campbell sighed. More interruptions! Deep lithosphere exploration had long been a dream of his, so once he had won the Hoskins bequest, he refused to take on new graduate students. Instead, he had spent that first year designing the special pressure and temperature resistant drilling heads and tubes they would need. Using newly developed composite materials, the crew had pushed through the granites of the subcontinent into the oceanic volcanics below. But, a project of this size seemed to attract an endless number of reviews or outside audits, forcing Campbell to spend less time in the lab, but more in the Provost's office, than he cared to recall.

"I think I've found something interesting, Dr. Campbell."

"I have papers to review. What is it?"

The younger man crossed his arms, clenching his hands into fists where his boss couldn't see them. "I can't identify a section of rock in the latest core sample." He waited, sucking in the paunch around his waist, hoping that one day, after ten years together, his boss wouldn't immediately assume he was an idiot. But the scientist's snort of derision told him that, as usual, he was wrong.

"There's a lot you can't identify, Rich, but let's see it anyway."

"Of course, Sir." The tech spun on his heel, preceding the older man back to the lab.

Campbell studied the bald spot in the middle of the brown curls, wishing his assistant would quicken his pace or get out of the way. As much as he needed the younger man's practical skills and seeming endless resourcefulness in running the lab during his increasingly extended absences, Rich tended towards the dramatic. Campbell had no patience with games or frills, so he pushed around him to step into the lab first, his eyes falling on the clear band of rock. This? He dragged me in here for this? Any first-year geology student could identify that! Unclipping the flap on the pocketknife pouch on his belt, he flicked the blade out while crossing the room.

Rich trailed along behind the professor. He's seen it. "It isn't quartzite, Doctor Campbell."

Impatiently, the volcanologist probed the clear region with the knife, then stopped. The metal blade had slipped into the center of the band, so he drew it out, watching as the vitreous mass sealed the incision closed. Without looking back, he extended his hand towards Rich. "Pass me a test tube. I want to take a sample of this."

Wordlessly, his assistant snatched the closest flask, placed it on his boss's palm, but held it until the cracked fingers closed around the base.

Campbell pried a small mass out of the band, scraping the knife on the rounded lip of the glass. The sample tumbled off the blade, bouncing down the side of the inclined beaker, coming to rest on the bottom.

Taking the container, Rich set it on the maple butcher-block lab bench, before he felt the professor clap a hand on his slender shoulder. Now he understands.

"Thanks, Rich. We'll need to keep an eye on that."

The younger man loved to watch the transformation in the scientist whenever he was onto something new. Gone was the rough curtness; instead, he was treated to the elated sense of adventure that kept him working for him. "Okay, Doc."

"Doctor Campbell?"

Unhesitatingly, the scientist rose to follow the younger man back to the lab.

"This makes no sense, but look!" Rich held up the beaker, showing Campbell the hole in the bottom.

The sample from the core lay on the table, exactly as they had left it, so Campbell pushed at it with a pencil. Frowning, he observed there was no glass beneath it, then turned at Rich's exclamation.

The younger man had touched the bottom of the beaker, then, as they watched, clear flakes floated to the floor. "Boss? What is this stuff?"

The scientist shrugged. "I really can't say right now, Albert. Let me read a bit." He observed the sparkling dust on his assistant's hands. "You'd better clean yourself up. Whatever it is, glass fragments like that will scratch you up but good."

Rich rubbed his fingers together. "Sure thing." He frowned. "This doesn't feel like glass at all, Doctor Campbell." Setting the beaker on a metal tray, he ran his hands under the hottest water he could stand. "It feels soapy, almost."

The volcanologist nodded, leaving the lab in silence.

Dark Apartment
Fairfax, Virginia
Tuesday, July 22, 1997
11:17 pm

"Hunh!" The bearded African-American continued to pummel a black leather pouch suspended from his living-room ceiling, attempting to rid his mind of the image of the lurking shadow. He had seen it again yesterday, hovering in the basement parking lot as he returned from the law office that was his cover job. He slept with all the lights on anymore, his isolation and paranoia driving him to fear even the flickering of the stairwell lights.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a shape in the window, so he forced himself to stop, turn, and look. It's here. Before he was aware of it, he was out the door, down to the exit, then running. This was too close. As always, he sought to make himself as unobtrusive and invisible as possible, so he aimed for the nearby YMCA, open at all hours. He sought to conceal himself among those similarly attired, but before he entered, he dropped the boxing gloves in a trash can.

"Hey, bro, you okay?"

He spun at the friendly voice. "Fine."

His good Samaritan, his tailored street clothes and closely cropped hair marking him as a doctor or a civil servant, stepped back when he caught the menace in the growl. "No problems, all right? You just look like you've seen a ghost or something."

Closing his eyes, X pulled in his horns. "I'll be fine. Just out for a late night run."

Puzzled over the gloves, the other man frowned, nodded, then headed for his Lexus. He watched as X took a few deliberate strides away from him, before accelerating into a trot.

Apartment 42
Arlington, Virginia
Tuesday, 11:23 pm

"Mulder." Limply holding the cel phone, the agent rubbed his chin sleepily while he rolled into a sitting position on the futon.

"Hey, boss, wanna shoot some hoops?"

"Yeah, sure, Nichols." Staggering towards the bathroom to throw some cold water on his face, he terminated the conversation, then pressed down on the first autodial button.

The initial buzz in his ear was cut short. "You okay, Mulder?"

He chuckled. "Why, Doctor Scully, must you always assume I'm calling purely to take advantage of your clinical expertise? Here I am, a handsome bachelor whose many charms are fading through disuse, wheezing his way towards geezerhood..."

"Mulder!" There was suppressed laughter behind her scold. "What do you think you have now?"

He grinned. "Dunno. Nichols wants to talk. I'll tuck you in with a good bed-time story later."

"Mulderrrr."

He raised the hand not holding the phone. "Promise."

"Right."

Apartment 5
Alexandria, Virginia
Tuesday, 11:49 pm

Her eyes closed, still turned on her side with one arm tucked under her pillows, Scully held her cel phone on her face. "So, what was on his mind?" Maybe this is nothing so I can sleep. "Mulder?"

"Uh, who is this?"

Her eyebrows drew together at the unfamiliar voice. "Who is this?"

"Look, lady, I don't know what your problem is, but is there any reason your husband would be out jogging this late?"

Now she was on her feet, all rest forgotten. "This is Special Agent Dana Scully. What condition is Agent Mulder in? Where are you?" She could hear the confusion increase.

"Agent? He's not your husband? Why would he be out here jogging with just this number in his pocket?"

Cradling the phone between her shoulder and cheek, she shoved off the pajamas, then yanked a pair of jeans out of her bottom dresser drawer. Mulder? Carrying my phone number? "I'm a doctor. What is his condition?"

"Uh, he's not bleeding or anything, he just collapsed after he threw the boxing gloves in the trash."

Boxing gloves? Either her partner had a new hobby he hadn't bragged to her about, or... "Describe him, please." She wanted to be sure she wasn't walking into a trap.

"Well, he's in his early forties, greying beard, dark-skinned, closely cropped hair..."

She froze. X? Why? "He's an associate of mine. Where are you?" She scribbled the address on the pad she kept by the phone.

West Chase Apartments
Laurel, Maryland
Tuesday, 11:57 pm

At the knock from her front entrance, 'Ace' rolled away from her keyboard. "Coming!" After checking through the view-hole, she swung the reinforced steel door open rapidly. "Wait till you see what I've found!"

Grinning, McConnell scooted through the opening. Like the good old days! He threw the dead bolt before following her. "Oh? You solved your access problems with the banking software?"

She reached back to tug on his elbow. "No, no, even better than that!" She waved him towards the other grey castered chair under her computer workbench, which was loaded with video boards and pushed to one of the side tables in her den.

He carefully stacked the cards in one of the chassis before rolling the seat over to her, then flopped onto it. McConnell's red brows drew together as he focused on the series of cross-sections she was rapidly scrolling through. "What is this?"

"The interior of our visitor's ship."

He glanced at her. "Really? How did you get these? The diving teams working in the Beaufort Sea can't find a way inside." At her delighted giggle, his eyes returned to her face.

"No, but the ultrasound scans I had them run did."

Leaning back, he took off his glasses to chew on one ear piece. "I never would have thought..."

Immensely proud of herself, she was bouncing on the seat cushion. "I had my NOVA tape about the Gobi Desert raptors playing in the VCR while I was working on the banking software last week. When I saw how they were cross-sectioning the eggs, it gave me the idea. The skin of the ship is made from a carbon-fiber composite, strong, yet lighter than metal, and corrosion resistant, which is how it survived in the saline ocean for so long. Electromagnetic probing is out because it's underwater still." Her eyes glowing, she leaned towards him. "So, I made a few calls, the crews up there used their ship-board sonar to take some data, after I sent up some modified software and a different transmitter for them to use, and now we have this."

He tapped the screen. "Anything on the propulsion systems or the engines?"

She sighed. "No, the resolution from these off-the-shelf units isn't that good. But, I could at least work out what the different parts of the vessel were for, including the crew quarters."

McConnell blinked. "Crew, as in more that one?"

Clicking rapidly through the images, she nodded. "There were spaces for three on board, but I can't tell if they were occupied during this voyage or not." She crossed her arms. "Sorry."

Startled by her self-recrimination, he grasped her shoulder. "Hey, no, don't be. That we know this much is great. But, I'm worried that we've only seen one. Could the other two have been killed, or were the quarters just unused, or..."

Deeply concerned, she rolled close to him. "Or, have they morphed into something, or someone, we've been looking right at, but missing all these months?"

Falls Church Recreation Center
Wednesday, July 23, 1997
12:16 am

"Hey." After slamming the driver's door on his Toyota, Mulder approached his colleague. Although his fellow agent was merely five years Mulder's senior, his weather-beaten face increased his apparent age by a decade. "What'cha got?"

Chewing his greying blond mustache, Nichols shrugged. "Just questions, boss." The barrel-chested man dribbled the ball absently. "How do you do it?"

The two began circling each other, looking like a pair of middling-aged friends out for a late-night game of one-on-one. This was exactly the cover the agents wanted, so Mulder feinted a grab for the ball, but Nichols dodged to the taller man's left.

Mulder spun, keeping himself between the basket and his balding subordinate. "Do what?"

Reversing his stance, Nichols turned his back to his new Section Head, then swept around to the far white line. "Work with Scully as well as you do." He elbowed his way past a pair of long arms to take his shot. The ball rebounded off the backboard, circling the rim before falling out into Mulder's hands.

Using the thumps of the ball against the concrete as cover for their conversation, the younger agent responded, "Why? She bothering you or something?"

Nichols swatted at the orange sphere. "No, nothing like that. I mean work with a woman, one who's always second-guessing you."

Mulder swung the ball in an arc over Nichols' head. "Oh. Rosen's on your case about Ridgefield?" The tall agent had come here expecting they would hash out the latest investigation, not this.

"No, that I don't mean, specifically." As the ball swished the mesh of the basket, Nichols grunted his surrender. "All my partners have been..." After he caught the ball, he shrugged as he finished softly, "male." He started dribbling again, working his way around the periphery of the court. "It's easy then, you know where you stand. You're either in charge or you're the junior partner." He switched the ball from his right to his left hand, angling towards the brown-haired man. "But Rosen, she won't take an order." He glanced up. "Oh, Boss, don't get me wrong, when we're on a stakeout, or if there's a situation, everything's smooth as glass, but once the crisis passes..." He spun, but too late.

Mulder's hand cradled the ball, guiding the bounce towards his own feet. "It's like you're back to square one." The tall man sprinted for the basket, leaping up to dunk.

Cradling the sphere in his arms, Nichols nodded. "Yeah." He dribbled noncommittally, plotting his strategy as they talked. "What's she doing? Looking to buck my authority?"

Mulder waved his arm, half focused on the ball, half on his thoughts. "Nope." He swatted, but missed, which roused his fellow agent.

"Then what?"

They continued to circle each other.

"Just her job, as she sees it."

Nichols spared a glance. "Come again?"

Mulder chewed his lip, wondering how best to explain himself. "Women like Scully and Rosen don't see their careers the way we do. They think first of the work; men angle primarily for promotions." He paused. "Usually. You and I are more interested in the work, too, but we're used to being the oddballs. The challenges we get are to point out how stupid we are, so we can be one-upped in front of the big-wigs." It was best to leave the Shadows out of any such discussion of partner problems. Their new agents needed to cement their working bond, because they would experience first-hand, and too soon, Mulder knew, the enemies all four now had to fear.

"Oh. It's not an ego thing?" Nichols shot, the success of his attempt pulling an adulatory grunt out of the tall man.

"Nope. Rosen gets huffy when you try to bull your way with her?"

After the mesh swished, Nichols heard the thunk, thunk of the ball falling through Mulder's hands in a rare miss for the younger man. "Yeah. Really bent. She wants to know why I do things the way I do, and once I explain it, she accepts it, but, Jeez, Mulder, do I have to spell *everything* out for her? Always?"

The tall man reappeared from the darkness at the side of the court where he had been retrieving the errant sphere. "No, but you will always talk more than you expect."

They began circling each other again.

Mulder grinned, taking advantage of Nichols' slight misstep to shoot. "It's connection, more than anything else, not a challenge or a threat."

Frustrated, the older man threw out another question. "What?"

"Go with it. Don't take longer to get trained than I did; the discussing is about the cases, not who's in charge, who's up or down. She sees you as her equal, just with different skills, not someone she'd like to topple from power."

Nichols held the ball while he considered the words. When they heard a cel phone ring, both men faced their cars.

But it was the tall agent sprinting for his Toyota, after patting the older man on the shoulder. "Good game, Nichols."

Accepting the polite dismissal with equanimity, he trotted back to his rusting Dodge Dart.

Fairfax YMCA
Wednesday, 12:54 am

"Scully?" Dropping to his knees by X, now propped against the trash can, Mulder touched his partner's arm to catch her attention. "What's wrong with him?"

Carefully manipulating his skull, she was checking for a blow. "I can't tell, Mulder. He seems to be uninjured, just non-responsive." She lifted an arm, the solid thump Mulder heard when the hand flopped limply onto the sidewalk making him wince.

He felt for a pulse at the jugular. "Shouldn't he be in the hospital?"

They locked eyes.

"Where, Mulder? Where can we put him that he would be safe?" She stood. "Where *we* would be safe?"

Leaning over until he could see into the shadowed face, he grasped X's shoulder, attempting to revive the intellect within the silent, motionless form. "I don't know, Scully. Maybe Skinner..."

While Mulder returned to his car, she turned to the light-skinned man standing a little ways off. "Do you know him?"

"William LeCroy Johnson, and no, I don't know him." He waved his right arm, then extended his hand for her to shake. "I just saw him standing by the trash can when I came out. He was staggering, so I asked him if he was okay. When I reached my car, I watched him begin to jog away, then he just collapsed." He stared at X, now slumped forward like an abandoned rag-doll. "Will he be all right?"

Scully sighed. "I can't say. He's not bleeding internally, nor is this an epileptic seizure of some kind. We'll do all we can for him." She pulled a card out of her pocket. "Please, Mr. Johnson, call us at any time, if you recall anything else, all right?"

He passed his card to her as well. "Gladly. Anything I can do..."

Nodding, she watched him return to his car, then faced her partner when Mulder approached.

"Scully, Skinner's out of touch, but the guys are getting something lined up. What's wrong with him, really?"

She shook her head. "Stress, mental breakdown, drugs, I can only guess here, Mulder." She knelt, checking his forehead for fever, not that she expected to find it. "When we get him to wherever the guys locate that's safe, we'll be able to tell more."

Pacing, Mulder ran his hands through his still-damp hair. "He's saved my life, Scully, I owe him."

Arching one eyebrow, she glanced up to judge his mood. "As do I." A quick dimpling of one cheek. "For saving your life. What did Nichols have?"

He focused down at her. "Hum? Oh, nothing." He grinned. "We were just discussing troublesome women partners."

She stood. "From what I could see, I thought he and Rosen were adjusting to each other."

"Yeah, they are. It's different for Nichols, Scully. This is the first woman he's been partnered with, so he has tweaking galore ahead of him."

The Look. "I'll warn Rosen."

Crime Lab
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Wednesday, 6:36 am

Holding the frozen samples away from his body, 'Charlie' dangled the tube rack from his thumb and forefinger, while rapping on the glass of the lab door. As he watched the shifting image of a woman crossing the room to admit him, he smiled to himself. How did I ever win you over, Lisa? You're so perfect, I don't understand why you were ignored for so long.

"Hey!" She tipped her head back, scanning over the lintel of the door as he entered, then offered her the samples.

'Charlie' checked over his shoulder to see what was so fascinating. "What?"

Setting the tubes in her freezer, she pursed her lips. "We had a safety inspector in here yesterday, and I wanted to be sure he didn't disturb my network cables." She stepped over beside him. "Thanks for the skin samples."

Since the building was still shrouded in silence, he wrapped one arm around her waist. "Anytime, Lisa. What are you looking for?"

Patting his hand, she moved away to cross to her workbench, then power up a spectrometer. "Oh, just something unique about the tissues we collected from the submarine. We've done the six base DNA typing ages ago, of course, but I was thinking of finding a useful macroscopic property, not a microscopic one. With the possibility of two other shape-shifters on the loose, we need some edge against them, Drew."

'Charlie' nodded. "I know. That they can pass themselves off as anything, or anyone, even one of us, was why the Old Men were so concerned with them in the first place. What if they've discovered the Organization's agenda?"

She rubbed her face. "Until now, that was only a theoretical possibility. All these hysterical UFO sightings of lights in the sky and little grey men, we've managed to whip into a plausible cover with a few mysterious follow-up visits. The feeble-minded media and Hollywood did the rest of our work for us. But, containing the one shape-shifter we knew about to the Arctic wastes we thought was good enough. That two got through our defenses, well, we *have* to find them."

He kissed the top of her head gently. "You'll figure something out, Lisa, you always do. Just don't work too hard at it."

She leaned against his chest. "Or, you just keep delivering the pizzas, okay?"

Basement X-Files Offices
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Wednesday, 7:16 am

Agent Andrea Rosen slipped the key into the lock on the basement door. It's open? Turning the knob, she began speaking to her partner before she could identify the room's occupant.

"Hey, Nick, I've been thinking about that wild idea you called me with yesterday. Last night, I realized there may be more to what's going on here than you might..." She stared at the slight figure standing before her. "Scully? Is anything wrong with Nichols?"

Before replying, the auburn-haired pathologist approached her. "No, Rosen, I just wanted to warn you about some unforeseen developments from last night." Following the younger woman back to her desk, Scully waited for her to settle in.

The new X-Files partners had arranged their quarters far differently from Mulder's and Scully's layout, with desks facing each other, a narrow walkway between. She knew that on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, the back corner would be occupied by Rosen's road bike. Those days she commuted 25 miles into the office along the W&OD bike trail from her home in Vienna.

With the X-Files themselves in the Second Floor offices and only a bookshelf or two taking up space, there was much more room for the pair to move around, lending a half-occupied feel to their area. Scully never understood why Rosen had insisted on keeping the free-standing blackboard in a wheeled frame. But, she suspected the slate surface operated as a mental aid for Rosen, just as slides did for her partner.

"Oh? Nic called me to say something was up."

Scully crossed her arms. Why had it taken so long for Mulder to bond with me like that? "One of our informants is injured."

Rosen nodded. That her new boss had told her this much was a surprise, despite the feeling that Scully may have said too much already. She switched her radio on before standing close to the diminutive woman in the tan suit and pale lavender blouse. "What can you tell me, Scully?"

The green-blue eyes bored into hers, gauging Rosen's dedication before replying. "I suppose the best description of his condition would be coma induced by an unknown trauma."

Rosen crossed her arms as she considered the new developments. "Not drugs?"

A sigh. "His system tested out clean. He's safe, for the moment, but we know there are powerful factions..." She watched the younger agent's face. Rosen had reviewed the D'Amato papers and the files pertaining to the Shadow government, so she took any information about their dark enemies seriously. Scully was relieved Rosen had not had the same trust in authority as herself, but had aligned herself with their views in far less time than she expected.

"Is Mulder telling Nic about this?"

That guarded look again. "No. Nichols isn't in yet. When he arrives, call us so we can come down from upstairs."

One quick nod, then a precise turn with all the polish of a drill maneuver, then Rosen was alone, staring at the door. You need a good woman. Frowning as she silenced the radio, she toyed with the idea of calling Cary. No, too early. Rosen let thoughts of lazy Sunday afternoons, sipping tea while cuddling in their tall sleigh bed, fill her mind. Cary Jean Hooper was entirely too far away for either of them to be satisfied. Their latest conversations were filled with protests over the other's prolonged absence, but Rosen knew that until Cary's mother passed on, there would be no way Miss Alice's daughter would leave upper New York State.

Would Scully even consider? Rosen sighed. Probably not. She's not your type, anyway. And she has Mulder. It was odd the way the pair of them were together: more than partners, friends certainly, something other than surrogate brother and sister, but lovers? Definitely not. A man like him would be more territorial, more possessive, if they were. Aren't *all* men? Whatever it was, it seemed to work for them: the quiet, serious woman, always upright and rigid, balancing the exuberant man, all arms and legs, all passion and restless energy.

Scully Home
Charleston, South Carolina
Wednesday, 7:21 am

Rolling over, Bill Scully reached for his wife, hoping she had caught at least a few hours rest tonight. The first days back from a cruise were always a period of adjustment, made more difficult by the dashing of both their hopes that his time of months-long sea duty were over. Feeling nothing but cloth, he peeled both eyes open to check around their bedroom.

"Honey? Liz?"

"In here, Bill."

The reply echoed slightly off the glass of the shower stall, so he padded into their master bathroom. Elizabeth was petite, like his sister Dana, her hair a rich honey blonde that bleached out if she spent too much time in the sun, or grew past her shoulders. But, with little Will, then with Ian and Dan, the twins, she had been forced to cut it short, or suffer their grasping and yanking the soft strands. While his younger sister's body had grown hard and wiry from the exercise after her multiple surgeries, his wife's had rounded and softened, especially when she was nursing.

Still in her grey and red striped nightshirt, Liz was gazing out onto the street through the octagonal window across from the sink.

Standing behind her for a moment, he watched the bright morning light turn Elizabeth's curls to antique gold, then wrapped his arms around her where she stood. "You okay?" Hoping the light kiss he placed on the back of her neck emphasized his concern, Bill smiled when she leaned back against him.

"Mm-hum. I hadn't wanted to bring this up yesterday, but..."

Loosening his grip, he leaned around her right shoulder. "What?"

She pointed across the street. "See that car?"

Tucking his chin against her ear, he studied the black sedan with government tags across the street. "What about it?"

"It's been there since just after you left in March, Bill, and it's usually occupied." Twisting in his grasp, she closed the bathroom door with her bare foot. "I didn't want to say anything in front of the boys, but sometimes, when the phone would ring, there would be no one at the other end."

Rolling his eyes, he stepped back. "You shouldn't have let Val and Mom scare you with the stories about little John, Liz. This is a military base. Nothing can happen to you without everyone knowing about it, and probably coming to help. As for the phones, well, the government's installing new cables here, didn't you know? There are bound to be glitches in any new system." He rubbed her arms. "Don't worry, there's nothing wrong, okay?"

"Okay."

The reply was flat, uncertain, so he smiled gently, but she jumped at the buzz of the phone. He hastened to offer further reassurance. "I'll get that." Crossing to her bedside table, he lifted the receiver from the old black rotary unit she had purchased on a whim while they were both in college. "Hello?" His eyebrows drew together. "Hello?"

Padding over to sit beside him, she spread aloe lotion on her wind-roughened knees while he wordlessly replaced the receiver. "Now do you understand, Bill?"

Settling beside her, he rubbed his hands together before pulling her close. "It sounded like there was someone breathing at the other end. Is that what you've been hearing all this time?"

A single dip of the head, then, at a petulant cry, she rose to hurry towards the door. "Sorry, that's the twins. You know how cranky they can be first thing in the morning."

He smiled. "Before their breakfasts. I'll see you downstairs; I'd like to shower first thing." He shrugged. "Get the dirt off." Waving her out, he hoped the nothing words would dispel her fears. After she left, Bill stepped back onto the tiled floor, checking through the window while he ran the water. There were two sedans outside now, the driver of the original car sliding into the back seat of the later arrival, while two others took his place. Bill frowned. Something's very wrong here.

Second Floor
X-Files Offices
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Wednesday, 7:26 am

Curled into a ball in her Father's chair, Dana Scully rubbed her eyes. I'm getting too old for this. Smiling at the whoosh of air through the outer door, she glanced up when she felt a large hand grasp her shoulder. "You're early, Mulder."

He chuckled. "My, so are you, Doctor Scully." Leaning against the desk, he crossed his arms, then faced her. "Couldn't catch any more sleep?"

She shrugged. "Why would he have my phone number on his person? Why risk our lives by tying himself to us?"

Having noted, as he walked in, that she had started a pot, Mulder moved to the doorway to check on the coffee maker. "Why you, Scully, and not me? He's only ever contacted you when I've been away or by mistake."

Sliding out of the chair, she padded to his side, still barefoot. "Perhaps he was afraid he would be assassinated, and his body dumped, so he was attempting to insure, however futilely, that someone would look after his remains."

Each sobered, thinking of the recent events that had overturned the powers in the shadow government, just as they were beginning to identify some of its leading members. Scully felt his hand again, rooting her in place long enough for him to prepare two coffees. Lifting one corner of her mouth as she accepted the one he held out for her, she swayed slightly, then sensed him keeping close to her.

Mulder traced the sag in his partner's shoulders with his eyes. "Maybe, but at least we won't have to wonder where he stands, anymore." Testing his drink, he dropped in another teaspoonful of sugar.

Scully watched him dip the spoon into the black liquid, then pull it through from one side to the other, swirling the creamer in its wake. "That leaves only one."

"Yeah, the one we started off with."

They retraced their steps, he flopping behind his desk, she tucked primly on the Naugahyde. She studied the hole worn in the bottom of his left sole. Sipping in silence, they instinctively gauged each other's fatigue. Scully had monitored the tall agent carefully, aware as she was, that the role of leader was at odds with his intuitive and paranoid modes of operation. Since returning from Miami, Mulder had hovered as close to his partner as she could stand these past few months. It was as if her flood of awakened memories had opened the doors for him to re-experience the emotions that had besieged him after her return.

Settling back into the lounge chair, Scully breathed in the scents embedded in the plastic, thinking back over those intervening months. Agent Phillip Alexander Nichols, late of the Drug Interdiction Division, had joined them in April, finally finished with his court appearances. The three of them had investigated a rash of UFO sightings and supposed alien abductions in Upper Michigan. Although many of the claims, especially after the first media reports, had been hysterical in origin, the initial witnesses had isolated themselves from the circus in a remote cabin in the forest. It had taken four days of hiking to reach them, the effort bringing her to respect their new agent for his physical stamina, if not for his ideas.

Just as she and Mulder were in many ways physical opposites, so were Rosen and Nichols. While both were of similar heights, Rosen, the brunette triathlete, radiated youth and vitality, while Nichols' blond hair was greying and thinning. He had the appearances of a seasoned campaigner, and had joked about, 'coming from a long line of ranchers in Montana.' His eating habits were worse than Mulder's, preferring a few non-regulation beers with his steaks. But each morning, he was rested and ready, setting them a steady pace, continuing to march until even her partner's long legs gave out.

The phone on her partner's desk buzzed, interrupting Scully's reverie. "Mulder. We'll be right down."

Sighing, she reached for her shoes. It was hard to leave the chair, where the faint scent of her Father's Old Spice still clung to the area of slight discoloration his resting head had left. But they had work ahead of them, and Ahab would never permit his Starbuck to shirk her given duties.

Volcanic Observatory
outside Newhalem, Washington
Wednesday, 4:53 am

While stepping out of his office, James Campbell rubbed his face. He had spent the night reviewing the literature on caustics, but was forcing himself to stop to handle the next group of cores from the drilling site. Other than a corrosive acid or a strong alkaline solution, no chemical compound he could find mentioned would dissolve glass, usually the most inert of substances. But, with a Ph of 6.5, identification as either was impossible.

Entering the lab, he crossed to the bench where Rich had stored the rest of the clear band in an aluminum lockbox. After several beakers had dissolved, then the vitreous substance had begun to rot the oak of the lab bench itself, they had, in desperation, tried a metal pan, which had remained intact.

What is this stuff? The scientist lifted a portion of the material, that had expanded and had taken on the consistency of putty, out of the box to roll it around in his hand. His attempts to dissolve the mass in water had failed, nor, as his before and after weighings revealed, had the substance absorbed any of the liquid following immersion.

Running his tongue over his teeth, he realized he probably hadn't shaved or washed since the core was exposed, so he replaced the sample in the container before turning to the sink to wash his hands.

I'll at least brush, for now.

Basement X-Files Offices
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Wednesday, 7:31 am

As Mulder held the door until Scully stepped through before him, Rosen and Nichols stopped discussing their first case as a full team. Noting how easily they had settled into his old haunts, the tall man nodded to the seated pair.

Used as he was to working undercover, Nichols had been delighted when Mulder informed him that, as a basement-lurker, the Bureau uniform of suit and tie was purely optional. But, for the occasional meeting or briefing with Skinner, the senior agent kept a tweed sports jacket on the coat rack, with a clip-on red bow tie in the pocket.

Rosen, however, followed Scully's lead, rotating over a two week period through a series of tailored pantsuits in carefully neutral colors.

When they moved upstairs, Mulder and Scully had left a few of their old oak slat-backed visitor's chairs behind. Now, the pathologist lifted one off the stack in the corner, then slid it forward, close to the older agent. "I'm glad Mulder didn't trip you last night on the courts." She and Nichols chuckled while Rosen studied their faces.

Mulder set another wooden seat beside hers, before removing his coat and tie, loosening his collar, then rolling up his sleeves. "Well, I guess you know what we're here to talk about."

Nichols nodded. He dressed today as he usually did when they were in the office, in a button-down Oxford shirt and canvas Khakis. "Not the Ridgefield reincarnation murders."

A pair of hazel eyes gazed into faded blue ones. Later. "Only the murders."

Rosen exchanged glances with Scully, who waved in a dismissive gesture before she sat. The younger woman grasped her meaning immediately. Another long lunch for the four of us at the waterfront, then. The brunette rose. "We've been kicking around some ideas, Mulder."

He grinned. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Rosen."

She stepped over to the blackboard she had rolled against the wall behind the desks. "Nic feels that the flashback dreams are past- life memories, but I think they're guilt-induced, and the amnesia is a particularly clever hoax. Our suspect is a professor of psychology, after all, more than capable of generating convincing symptoms." She was scribbling the victims' names on the blackboard.

Crossing the room, Scully shook her head. "Rosen, we don't have a link between Professor Smith and the women he killed. None of them were in his classes, nor does he completely fit Mulder's profile of a stalking-type murderer." The auburn-haired woman began listing the details of each death by the names of the victims. "From all accounts, Jacob Smith was too physically disabled with Multiple Sclerosis for him to commit these killings. He would have to possess sufficient strength and stamina to carry a one hundred and twenty pound body up six flights of stairs to throw it off the library roof. I think, based on his rather feeble escape attempt, that the local police arrested a man who definitely has something to hide, but given his disability, it would be difficult to prove he was the perpetrator of these crimes."

Nichols looked to Mulder, who had remained silent.

Propping his feet up on the desk, the tall man grinned. "But, Scully, why discount the possibility that his use of self-hypnosis to mask the pain he felt as a result of his disease might not have permitted his past-life memories to emerge?" He crossed his arms. "Then, he was a powerfully-built farmer's wife, capable of slinging sheep over his shoulder."

Nichols swiveled his wooden desk chair. "His MS was not advanced. He still had normal, if unused muscular capability. The woman he claims to have been was abandoned by her husband for a young serving girl. We know from the local town records Professor Willis was researching, that Deborah Wells hung herself in the barn shortly thereafter. Two of the victims were distant descendants of Anne Higgins and Richard Wells." He raised his hands. "Karmic Justice?"

Scully glared at him. "Ridgefield is so small nearly everyone who was born there is related to the Wells clan, Nichols."

Rosen stood beside Scully. "But if it *is* Karmic Justice, why the other two? You can't say all of them were connected to the past. What about the Korean exchange student? A many times removed cousin of some fictitious Chinese servant?"

Mulder shrugged. "Mistaken identity? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time? We know he never entrapped the Wells girls, but he was probably following them, and the four victims all lived in the same dormitories. The two others he can't blame on his previous life, and with Smith dead at his own hand, we can't question him further."

While the other two stared, it was Scully who erupted, "Mulder, *when*?"

Even to Nichols, the look the dark-haired man sent his partner broadcast awkward penitence. The older agent found himself wondering which of the two was really the dominant personality of the pair before a quiet reply emanated from the lanky figure.

"Early this morning. I took the call on my way in to work; I've asked the local FBI office to ship the body up here ASAP."

Rosen frowned. "Let me guess. He found some way to hang himself."

Nichols pounced on Mulder's nod. "There, you see! He died the same way she killed herself in his past life, Ros."

As she faced her partner, her tightly crossed arms pressed creases into her grey suit jacket. "Or how he wanted us to think. He was unstable when we arrested him, Nic."

Scully walked back to sit by Mulder. "That's too extreme, even for me, Rosen. I don't know of anyone with so little self-preservation instinct," she continued, glancing at her partner, "that he would kill himself intentionally to perpetrate a hoax."

As Mulder dropped his feet to the floor, he turned to her. "But we don't know that he intended it to go that far, Scully. He *was* under a suicide watch, at our suggestion. It may simply have gotten out of hand."

Nichols narrowed his eyes at the tall man. "Whose side are you on, Mulder?"

The younger agent caught his subordinate in a clear-eyed stare. "The side of the Truth, Nichols. If it is revenge for a past-life wrong, we need to be able to eliminate the other possibilities as less likely." He cocked an eyebrow at Rosen. "If it isn't an X- File, but a hoax, well, justice has been served, wouldn't you say?"

Nodding, the brunette cleaned the words off the blackboard. "We all agree Jacob Smith is the perpetrator. His fingerprints were found on the victim's skin and clothing. In the case of the second exchange student, she had just bathed and was wearing a new sweatsuit, so his were the *only* prints found on the victim, besides her own."

Scully nodded. "Footprints with a wear pattern matching a pair of jogging shoes belonging to the deceased Smith, were tracked through wet clay near the entrance to the library. The deeper depressions in the mud showed him to be carrying excess weight, possibly over his shoulder, rather than in his arms."

Nichols sighed. "Which tallies with his past life memories. The one surviving photograph of Sarah Wells on file at the University Library shows her carrying a sack."

Rosen stood over him. "But that's what makes it so ambiguous a piece of evidence. Smith was friends with Willis, and used the archival records frequently in his own work. How do we know that he hadn't seen the picture before? She's labeled in it, after all, and given that collection of cheap romances he was hording, the story would appeal to him."

Scully rose. "His latest research project, not a secret obsession, Rosen. Admittedly, it's not the type of literature you expect a man to have..." She glanced down at her partner.

Mulder was smirking as he threw out his query, "But could that be proof of his discovery of his former female nature, Scully?" He looked from one woman to the other. "Now, neither of you Dames Reason would go in for such." His offered praise failed to entirely quell the twin storms he saw about to break, so he continued quickly. "But, if Sarah were alive today, she would fit the stereotype of the Harlequin Romance reader: lonely, overweight housewife, ignored by her husband."

Rosen drew a line down the center of the blackboard, writing 'Reincarnation' at the top of the left column, 'Hoax' atop the right. "As I see it, this is how the evidence stacks up." She raised her voice to be heard over the scratching of the chalk. "Jacob Smith had recounted, under hypnosis, the feelings of loss and abandonment when Sarah Wells realized Richard had left her for Anne." In the left column, the brunette wrote, 'Emotion-filled testimony.'

Scully arched both eyebrows. "But the life of Sarah Wells is almost a fireside ghost story in that part of the country. He could have fabricated the tears."

As Nichols wagged his head, conceding the point, Rosen duplicated the words in the right column.

Scully glanced at her partner, his feet propped back up on the desk. The twinkling in the dark eyes baffled her. Are you enjoying this free-for-all, Mulder, or do you have a theory? When the squeaking halted, she turned her attention to Rosen.

The brunette was focused on her own partner. "Nic, he hasn't given us any specific details other than could be easily verified by quick searches in the University Library." Under 'Hoax', she wrote 'no unverifiable details.'

Nichols grunted. "But if we can verify what he said, doesn't that make it true?"

She wrote the same phrase under 'Reincarnation.'

"So, Rosen, you would prefer he had told us something we couldn't verify?" Mulder chuckled. "Would that make you believe?"

Crossing her arms, she leaned against the blackboard. "No, Mulder, I'm saying all the pieces fell in place too quickly. The Wells farm was buried in the blizzard of 1878, then covered by a mudslide the following spring. As a result, the site was abandoned for fifty years. But, the family who bought the land left shortly after they moved in, supposedly driven out by the ghost of Sarah Wells." Her voice assumed a wry tone. "It couldn't have been the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl, now could it?"

Thinking back to Mulder's advice, Nichols offered his partner a grin and some moral support. "Never. Ectoplasmic entities are *always* more potent than planetary forces."

Her fellow agents relished the moment of levity before she continued, "I would have taken Professor Smith's *alibi* more seriously *if* he had given us specific details that could only be verified by the archaeological excavation slated for next summer. Remember, he couldn't recall the exact layout of the Wells kitchen. If he had been a housewife, well..."

Mulder shrugged. "I agree it would be fun to watch Doctor Scully try to dance her way around that." Pursing his lips, he ignored the Look boring into his ear. "But, I don't think the Bureau will wait a year for a report." He waved one hand at the words. "Go on."

Scully watched his lips quirk. You're having the time of your life, aren't you?

Rosen wrote up 'carried victims over the shoulder,' 'suffering from MS,' and 'Professor of Psychology' in both columns.

As she scrawled 'killed descendants of Anne Wells' in the Reincarnation column, and 'killed women not related to Anne Wells' in the Hoax column, Scully stomped to her side. "Rosen! Reincarnation doesn't happen! There is no proof for it, even in this case!"

Turning, the younger woman blinked at her. "Scully, that's my point. Science is the art of the quantifiable, but here, we have nothing to measure. If it exists, the soul has no mass or energy associated with it, so we can't tag it, monitor its movements like a member of an endangered species, following it from life to life."

Nichols leapt to her other elbow. "Ros, that's exactly what these past-life memories are, tracking of souls, don't you see?"

Scully shook her head. "Memories are fallible, fragile things, Nichols. Do you truly remember your Grandparents' faces, or have they come to resemble the photographs you parents have shown you?"

Mulder rose, jamming his hands in his pockets as he approached the other three. "So, Rosen, you feel the tangible evidence is equivocal?" After her nod, he studied the faces of the others. Nichols' shrug before resuming his place behind the desk indicated his reluctant assent. Scully's glare told him she wasn't ready to acquiesce, just yet. "I agree." His partner went utterly rigid, so he touched her arm. "I'm no believer in the Shirley McLaine school of reincarnation, Scully. After all, if everyone who claims to have been Cleopatra in a past life really had been, the woman would have had a different soul each day of her life." Nichols' snort was both interruption and support. "But we do have tangible proof that Smith killed those girls, so one way or the other, justice has been served."

The older man sighed. "Until next time, Chief."

Mulder grinned. "We'll mark the case closed, for now, and write it up. In twenty years, who knows? Sarah Wells may come back to take revenge on a whole new generation of Anne's descendants." Spinning on his heel, he slung his suit jacket over his shoulder, leaving three astonished agents in his wake.

Scully glared at them both in turn, then ran after him at the chime of the elevator bell.

J. Edgar Hoover Building Elevator
Wednesday, 8:23 am

When Mulder saw the blur of tan topped by ginger flying at him, he pressed the Door Open button, working not to smirk at his partner, now in high dudgeon.

Scully opened the discussion in a flat, level tone. "Mulder, you don't seriously believe his reincarnation alibi, do you?"

Sobering, he wondered briefly how far he could push the discussion before she slugged him. "Not the New Age stuff, no." After shrugging into his coat, he activated the second and sixth floor buttons. "Do you believe the soul exists?"

Her arms akimbo, she assumed the sparring stance that presaged a fifteen round battle of wills. "Of course, nearly every religion holds that some eternal quantity outlives the body."

Grunting, he began pacing. Kevin Kryder again, after all this time. As his feet shifted aimlessly, Mulder sighed. He had hoped their friendship was strong enough to absorb the shock that reopening, however briefly, that case would bring. But have you really forgotten Lucy Householder, G-man? "All right, then what happens to this eternal quantity after death?"

She blocked his path, stepping into his personal space in her frustration. "Mulder, I'm a Catholic, you *know* I won't admit to reincarnation without violating every tenant of the Christian faith." She watched him calculate. "Out with it."

He leaned into her face. "So you won't admit to reincarnation based solely on the word of a single man in a palace in Rome?"

If she had been livid when she entered the lift, the heat was coming off her now in near-visible waves. "Mulder, it's not like that! There are nearly two thousand years of tradition and scholarship detailing that each soul is judged on the choices of a single lifetime."

He crossed his arms, their proximity nearly resting his elbows on her shoulders. "And five thousand years of careful rabbinical analysis concluding that just belonging is enough." When remorse appeared in those green-blue eyes almost immediately, he leaned back, softening his tone. I don't mean to use my family's tragedy to force you to agree with me, Scully. "Or, what, six thousand years of support for Karma? If we were to put the question to a vote from the entire planet, the Christian and Jewish viewpoints would fall in a significant minority." He touched her shoulder. "And we still, as Doctor Curie so painstakingly delineated just now, have no unequivocal evidence one way or the other." He waited as the fight left her in a prolonged sigh.

"Okay, Mulder, I see your point." She stared at her feet, asking softly, "So what do we do about X?" Scully sensed him sagging as well.

"I'd rather have continued to argue about Professor Smith than try to puzzle that out, Scully."

Instantly alert, she focused on his darkening face. "Mulder, I don't know everything that transpired between you and your contact..."

He shrugged. "Let me think about it, all right?" He tapped his watch. "New supervisor's briefing at 8:30. Skinner will tan my hide if I don't show up. I'd considered signing in and skipping out, but I can at least use the time to consider our latest problem." After the elevator settled at the second floor, Mulder held the door for Scully. "Your stop, Ma'am." As she left, he bowed slightly, smirking at the playful tap she administered to his shoulder.

Volcanic Observatory
outside Newhalem, Washington
Wednesday, 6:14 am

"Rich? Is that you?" Campbell met his sleepy-eyed technician at the door. "I have some ideas about this substance."

Recognizing the fervor in his boss' gaze, the younger man nodded, willing to let him ramble. "Oh?"

"It must be organic."

Knowing it was time to play his role as Devil's Advocate, Rich queried, "Why?"

The scientist threw up his hands. "Think, man, think! The deep-sea dives have been bringing back all these new life forms from the vents on the mid-ocean ridges."

"But, Dr. Campbell, anything living surviving at the pressures and temperatures existing at the depth of these cores is a near-impossibility. Volatile carbon compounds would burn off, not survive as a discrete band of rock."

Expecting this response, the older man grinned. "What we have here are ocean ridge volcanics, that were subducted only a few million years ago. What if..." He halted, regarding his assistant's horrified expression curiously. "What is it?"

Rich grabbed his boss's shoulder. "Dr. Campbell, what did you do to your teeth?"

He growled. "I brushed them. Why?"

"You should look at them."

Impatient with the interruption, the scientist stalked to their cramped bathroom, grinning at the mirror. "My teeth are fine, Rich, don't interrupt." Poking one incisor for emphasis, he grunted as he examined his finger. A chalky residue remained, so he studied his image closely while he rubbed the rest.

Rich's face appeared. "Sir, they're dissolving!"

Heritage Park
Alexandria, Virginia
Wednesday, 1:06 pm

Falling silent after finishing his recap of the night's events and a brief review of his involvement with X, Mulder glanced out over the barely ruffled water. The four agents had settled under a group of oaks by the Potomac to lunch and converse in privacy.

Mulder studied Nichols first, then Rosen, waiting for their responses. The older man gulped, but was silent. I expected that. Nodding, Rosen leaned forward, her mind working though the possibilities before she would issue a rapid-fire stream of queries. Not twenty questions, please. Mulder inhaled, seeking to forestall her cross-examination.

But his partner spoke before he could. "Rosen, we don't have the answers that fit all the pieces together yet. We know there has been a coup, or more properly, a palace revolution, but any specifics are difficult to pin down. We suspect a new group of younger leaders has replaced the old men at the top. But how many?"

The younger woman shrugged her sympathy. "You were just beginning to decipher the power structure inside the Consortium when the explosion in Manhattan occurred?"

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other, which was all the acknowledgment they felt secure giving.

The Section Head roused himself to assure their colleagues. "This all sounds fantastic, I know, and we had both wanted to give you two more time before we briefed you fully on the shadow governments, but last night changed all that."

Nichols' knees cracked as he shifted. "That smoking fellow you talked about is still alive?"

Mulder grimaced. "Most certainly."

"So he's a loose cannon?"

After another silent exchange of glances, Mulder responded, "We think so. He knew the plans of the new leaders, but acted as if they didn't know he was alive."

Scully sipped her mineral water. "We haven't heard from him since February, but knowing him, he's still working behind the scenes to gain whatever advantage he can from this new situation."

Rosen stretched, wriggling off the root that had been her perch. "So you'd recognize two of them again?"

Mulder balled up his lunch bag, the half-eaten apple still inside. "One of them works in the Senate, so Danny is running through the records on all the Congressional staff members and their associates. It's taking him longer than he thought it would, with all the overturn, but we may have a few candidates for the blond one." Pushing himself to his feet, he terminated the discussion by extending his hand to Scully. "Sorry, people, I'd love to continue this, but I have an obligatory meeting with Skinner at 1:30. It seems the Bureau has never had an astronomer on staff before, and you don't fit neatly into one of their square holes, Rosen."

Scully smiled at his gentle tease, but Rosen was anxious, so she patted her shoulder. "The X-Files have never fitted into a square hole."

Mulder continued smoothly, "We've survived the round file, more than once. You two work up a preliminary report based on our discussion this morning. Professor Smith's remains should be arriving at the Forensics Lab as we speak, so Scully can verify the cause of death."

Basement, Scully Residence
Norfolk, Virginia
Wednesday 5:37 pm

"No, John-John, give Daddy the darts."

The toddler jutted his lower lip petulantly.

Charles Scully sighed, then held out both hands. He's really learned to exploit our ignored child guilt. "Give Daddy the darts *now*, or no dessert tonight."

Tiny red splotches were beginning to appear on John's freckled cheeks.

Charles came to the realization that if he didn't distract the child soon, he would let loose with a full-blown tantrum. "Big boys don't cry to get their way, you know."

Clutching his prizes tightly between both palms, John Scully stomped his foot. "Do *so*."

His father shook his head. "Daddy doesn't."

"Uncle Fox cries."

"What?"

That protruding Scully chin put in a precocious appearance. "Gamma said so. Cried lots over Aunt Dana, when she was 'ducted. An, an last Forf of July, he showed Gamma a pit-chure of his sister, Sam..., Sam..."

Sighing, Charles made a swipe for the darts. Now I have to explain my sister and her partner to him? "Samantha."

His joints stiff, the boy ran to one of the few plain brown shipping boxes left in the back of the basement, seeking a photo album he had watched his parents pack. But, to tug open the interleaved flaps of the container, he had to set aside the projectiles that so concerned his Father. The spiral-bound white binder partially blocking his face, John staggered back to Charles with his treasure, then sat with a thud, dropping the book before him. He flipped several of the cardboard-stiffened sheaves over, then, triumphant at his discovery, hit a print in the center with his palm. "There! Told you." He crossed his arms, covering the Turbo Power Rangers on his T-shirt as he did.

Charles knelt, studying the image. Fox Mulder and Margaret Scully were huddled on a picnic bench, holding each other, a wallet-sized photo hanging off the end of one plank. While the dark-haired man's expression was obscured by Margaret's head, the compassionate gaze Dana Scully was sending her partner from just behind him was unmistakable.

"John, dinner!"

Charles watched his son pull himself up the stairs, all adult matters forgotten. When the boy was safely away, he collected the contended feathered missiles off the floor. Now, to return that phone call. What's this about lurking cars, I wonder?

Valerie Scully's form appeared at the top of the stairs. "Chuck?"

He grinned. "I owe Bill a call; I'll be up soon."

She sighed. "Just don't take so long your supper gets cold, okay?"

"No, Mom!"

Forensics Lab
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Wednesday, 5:49 pm

Through the glass of the door, Mulder could see Arthur Pendrell hovering at his partner's elbow while she worked in the open abdomen of the late Jacob Smith. After four hours with his supervisor, writing and rewriting a job description to wiggle Rosen into permanent status as an FBI agent, he needed to relieve a little tension. Stepping over to the intercom panel beside the entrance, he toggled an orange switch before whispering into the mesh-covered microphone.

"Oh, my poor, broken heart. Betrayed by my trooo luv." The petite figure went rigid. "Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me." As Mulder hoped, the technician stiffened immediately, flushed a bright purple, then rushed the far door of the lab.

One green-blue eye focused over Scully's shoulder before she jerked her head, beckoning him inside.

Mulder pulled the door open. Something's up, G-man.

She spoke when he had assumed a comfortable slouch by her right shoulder. "You really didn't have to scare Arthur like that, Mulder." She watched him shrug. "I think he's found someone new."

He could barely contain himself. "So soon?" Glancing at the white wooden door coated with multiple layers of institutional white paint, through which the sandy-haired man had departed, he snorted. "So much for all those months of pining by his microscope. Any idea who?"

Scully eyed her partner through her safety goggles. "Mulderrrr. No, none. On Monday, we had talked about attending a concert at the Folger this weekend, but he was here asking me if I minded if he could cancel."

He mouthed an 'Ah' at her, then dropped his eyes to the corpse. "So, what did you find on Doctor Smith?"

Turning back to the body, Scully's lips quirked as she plotted a riposte to even the score between her partner and the technician. Two can play at this game, Mulder. She pulled aside the intestines. "Oh, nothing more than an unnatural organ in his body." When the Hunter's gleam shown from the tall agent's eyes, Scully found herself glad her smirk was covered by the surgical mask. "Take a look at this, partner."

He grimaced before peering over her shoulder. "What am I supposed to notice here, Scully?"

She never understood his queasiness, but had long since accepted it without question. "Our professor was a she." The auburn-haired agent poked a small, pear-shaped organ deep in the pelvis.

After glancing at the corpse's exposed crotch, Mulder gagged. "What? But he looks like he has the right plumbing, Scully."

She nodded, severing the tissue she had indicated. "Functionally, he was all man, but he was actually an hermaphrodite, someone born with two reproductive systems, one for each sex." She began bagging the internal organs she had removed to take measurements, finishing the autopsy while they talked.

Mulder stepped back so Scully could work. "He fathered three children. Do you think he was even aware he had this?"

Threading a suture needle, she glanced at him. "No. The uterus was attached to the urethra, but it remained undeveloped, like that of a five-year-old girl's."

He watched her sew the cadaver closed, using fine, even stitches.

Once the body cavity was intact, she turned to the remaining organ, slitting it open expertly. "This was blocked off by a 3 cm thick membrane. It's pretty fibrous inside."

Over his discomfort, Mulder had been thinking. "Are you suggesting this may have triggered a female identity in his mind?"

As she bagged the anomalous tissue, Scully considered. "I'll have to research that, Mulder. The literature on modern hermaphrodites is sparse, but I've never seen a study on the psychological impact of two sets of sex organs. Have you?" At his shrug, she continued, "Most present-day hermaphrodites are sex-tested at birth, then the 'wrong plumbing' is removed shortly thereafter. Usually, the subject doesn't know, unless his or her parents pass the information along."

He chuckled. "His or hers is right, Scully. How much longer will you be down here?"

She stripped off the gloves. "Just long enough to wash up and change." Stepping into a closet-sized room, she continued to speak, raising her voice to be heard through the door. "He died of suffocation, just as we thought. He hanged himself. You can see the bruising around the neck." He lifted the sheet on the body, nodding as she concluded, "No great mysteries here, Mulder, just this slight oddity."

Turning when he heard the door latch click, he was amazed, one more time, at the transformation from surgeon to agent. Not a hair out of place. How do you do that? His lip curled. "Only a woman would consider having two sets of sex organs 'a slight oddity,' Scully."

She tipped her head, waiting for the joke, but he was frowning. "You okay, Mulder?"

Side by side, they walked to the door, then he stepped back so she could pass first.

Since he had ignored her first question, she tried again, "How did the session with Skinner go?"

Cocking his thumb vertically, he pointed an index finger at her temple, mouthing a 'Pow' at her. "Argh. Don't bring that up. I never knew there were so many arcane personnel rules to trip over. No wonder he turns into an ogre around review time." As they waited for the elevator, he glanced down at her. "If this manager stuff ever starts to make too much sense to me, promise me you'll shoot me again, and haul me off to the middle of nowhere for my own good, okay?"

She crinkled her nose at him. Arthur, this one's for you. "If I ever have to drag you off to clear your head again, it'll be somewhere nicer than Farmington, partner, and I won't be *shooting* you to make you come to your senses." She stepped through the opening elevator doors, calling back over her shoulder in singing tones of innocence, "Coming?"

He jumped, closed his mouth, then chortled as he followed her.

Basement, Home of Charles Scully / Study, Home of William Scully
Norfolk, Virginia / Charleston, South Carolina
Wednesday, 5:51 pm

"Bill?" Leaning back, Charles sighed at the comforting creak of his oak desk chair. "You settled in yet?"

"Not really. You surface guys have all the luck, breathing fresh air whenever you want. None of this going for months without sunlight on your face." The red-haired siblings grinned, each aware that they were related both by blood and as long-time men of the sea.

"Yeah. After the tight quarters and silence, three rowdy boys take time to get used to again. Are the twins crawling yet?"

Bill's eyes danced. "Are they ever! We thought we had learned with Will, but you forget, you know? Everything that hits the floor goes in the mouth."

Charlie laughed. "Before the second bounce, seems like. So, what's this about cars? Wiretaps?" He heard his older brother close his study door.

"Well, Liz doesn't want me to worry Mom or Dana with this yet, but, I think we're under surveillance."

Rubbing his now healed leg, the younger Scully dropped his feet to the carpet. The temporary loss of his son stabbed deeper than he would admit, to wife, mother, or, especially, sister. "Oh?"

"Tell me, what did you find out about the bugs in your place?"

Charles sighed. "I took them over to..., you remember Rick Young, don't you?"

"Sure. Top-notch gizmo guy. What did he say?"

"That he'd never seen anything like them. He came back, that night, with me, and we found twelve others, scattered around. But, when I asked about them later, he said he'd turned them over to his Commander, and clammed up, real fast." Charles shifted, concerned about revealing too much over the phone. "I think Dana's mixed up in something far bigger than she, or that Jew partner of hers realizes." He heard a sigh.

"You're right, Charlie, but, how do we convince her? She's putting us all in danger with her work, can't she see?"

"I've tried to talk to Mom, Bill, but I get nowhere. She's so firmly convinced that those two are doing something so, so *significant*, that their work can't be stopped. But what good is it if we're all dead? Who's going to look after Dana in her old age if her nephews are all gone? With no way to have children of her own..."

"And no prospects..."

Red curls bobbed. "Right, exactly. We have to look out for the whole family, now that Dad's gone." Both men paused when they heard clicking over the lines. "Bill? You still there?"

"Yeah. That's what Liz has been putting up with, apparently."

"Bill, we need to get together. Do you have any leave you could use? We could meet halfway somewhere..."

"No, I have a better idea. There are several reports that need to be delivered to your base floating around HQ here. I'll volunteer to make a delivery tomorrow, so we can get together, face to face, all right?"

Charles nodded. "When can I expect you?"

"I'll call when I get into the office in the morning, give you the final details then, okay, brother?"

A sigh. "Just use someone else's desk phone when you do, yes?"

"Sure thing."

"Oh, say hi to Liz and the boys for me, okay?"

"Yeah, and to Val and John, little Chuck, too."

"Will do, Sir."

Archives Metro Station
Washington, DC
Wednesday, 6:24 pm

At the chime, a multi-generational Japanese family touring the buildings of the federal capital pushed through the double-wide opening. Unwittingly, they were brushing aside a tall man in a rumpled dark grey suit and his auburn-haired, neatly-pressed associate in tan.

Scully pressed a sheaf of papers against her jacket, sending a frustrated glance after them, before stepping into the car. "Mulder, Frohike had forwarded me an interesting request for information he pulled down off one of the Volcanology bulletin boards last night. Here." She passed him the sheets, freeing her hands just in time to grasp one of the support poles as the subway car lurched.

Between the end of rush hour and the summer tourists, all the seats were taken, so the partners were pressed against the far door, clutching their briefcases out of the way of a group of Scandinavians.

Engrossed in reading, Mulder was motionless while the train pulled into and out of L'Enfant Plaza.

"Mulder, that was your stop."

"Hum?" He focused on her. "Oh, I'll catch a return Blue Line at Pentagon." His eyes dropped to the text. "What do you think this means, Scully? This thing came out of a deep core and dissolves bone?" He watched her shrug. "Maybe it's related to Trepkos' silicon bug?"

Now she snapped to attention. "We can't drop everything and run out there, we have..."

He nodded. "This would be up Rosen's alley, though. I think they're ready to fly solo, don't you?" Focused, he was mentally reviewing the events that had transpired in both the Arctic and the Cascades. "We'll have to warn them, tell them what precautions to take."

She blinked as the train emerged from the semi-darkness to pass over the Potomac. "We never had conclusive proof that the spores from the volcano were a silicon-based life form."

He shrugged. "Yeah, the military took it." He tucked the papers away. "Up for some virtual surfing? What say we hit the Gunmen's place to see what else they know about this?"

She stared. Is this overcompensation for the paperwork, Mulder? "No, we can't." Scully glanced around the crowded train car at the other commuters. "Remember they're still securing X, and knowing Langly, he's worked up some high tech booby trap to protect the offices. Besides, with the full-time access I now have, we can have something delivered and search away at my place."

His eyes glinted. "A new case *and* free food. What a deal, Doctor Scully."

Apartment 5
Alexandria, VA
Wednesday, 9:56 pm

Dana Scully pulled the pencil from between her teeth to call from the bedroom, "Mulder, would you get that?"

Once the door swung aside, he grinned at the stocky man in the hall. "Thanks for coming on such short notice, Nichols."

The older agent waved the case files in the air. "XF-1008, XF-2002, and XF-2009, right?" He waited for Mulder's nod. "I've called Rosen. She's out on a 15 mile training run, but she said she knows a route to make it down here in a half an hour. That should be about now." He held up a plastic bag. "Change of clothes."

Scully appeared at Mulder's elbow, her tan shorts and violet polo shirt a contrast to his dark suit trousers and button-down Oxford, but he had long since ditched the hated tie. "Coffee's hot, so grab a mug and we'll start taping these sheets together." She watched while the two men blinked in surprise. "I downloaded a geologic map of the drilling site, but I only have standard-sized paper. We should know what these guys hit before you two run out there."

They turned at the knock on the doorframe, all nodding at the sweat-drenched figure outside.

Rosen began apologizing. "Sorry. Give me five, guys." She disappeared into Scully's bathroom, emerging after a quick shower, just wet, but clean.

Mulder met her in the hall, tugging her by the arm into the kitchen, where Scully and Nichols were already settled, reviewing the files and the data.

Dark Apartment
Washington, DC
Wednesday, 10:06 pm

His ever-present Morley extinguished, the old spy inserted his pick-lock into the slot in Luther's apartment door, grunting as the dead-bolt yielded. Ah, this old cat has a few lives left yet. He tapped the handle, waiting for the reinforced steel to slowly swing away. Glancing around the living room, he detected subtle changes that verified his suspicions. Luther, with a computer? He can't even type! Circling into the kitchen, he pried open the seal on the refrigerator door, checking its contents. Salad mix? He was always a Porterhouse man. The lean form straightened.

Then it's true. I wonder when this happened? He seemed perfectly like himself just a month ago. Passing down the hall, keeping close to the wall, both to avoid casting shadows, as well as inadvertently creaking a floorboard, he bent at the closed bedroom door, placing his eye against the keyhole. Those idiots who rehab these old places go out of their way to acquire such authentic touches. So much the better for what I need to do.

As he studied the form on the bed, he thought he detected a shimmer of light, just a eye-blink's worth, but still, it was there. In sleep, they have the most trouble. So, it's true. Luther is not exactly who he claims to be, at least not anymore. This changes everything. I know how to keep the human factions at each other's throats with a word here and there. Or, by using those computer skills I've picked up along the way, I can keep them guessing about each other and the FBI. But this development goes to the heart of the Organization's mission. Like a ghost, the grey-suited figure slipped down the hall, then back to his car, which was parked around the block.

A grunt, then the figure on the bed shifted. "Anyone there?" Shrugging out of the covers, he checked the spaces in the one bedroom apartment, until, satisfied, he returned to sleep.

Apartment 5
Wednesday, 10:47 pm

"Mulder, I'm no expert at reading these, but I think they've tapped a layer of rock much older than Trepkos had." Rosen shifted Scully's ruler until it was perpendicular to the near-vertical formation boundaries indicated on the cross section. "Trepkos was working in an enclosed caldera, so whatever they found would only have lived on the surface, or in the chamber when it was void of magma. But this drilling project was designed to examine the recent tectonic past."

Mulder nodded. "This thing is different from the silicon life form, which only incubated in humans, but didn't dissolve their bones."

Nichols set the coffee mug on his placemat. "How do you know that? Scully was never able to finish her autopsy on Tanaka, were you?"

The auburn-haired woman shook her head. "My preliminary examination of the body showed damage only to the respiratory tract, but no bone loss." She lifted her print-out from under the map. "According to this account, Dr. Campbell appeared normal when the damage to his teeth was discovered. In the three previous X-Files, the victims exhibited either aggressive behavior, with an accompanying increase in metabolism, or obvious symptoms."

Rosen thumbed through two of the folders. "I'd lay odds that neither of these parasites is as extreme in physiology as extraterrestrial or silicon-based."

Returning from refilling his mug, Mulder bent over her. "Oh?"

Scully cocked an eyebrow. Good Luck.

Rosen pushed one of the X-Files at Mulder. "Take case 2002. From this Hopkins DNA analysis, the fluke-man was exactly that, a liver fluke that had somehow merged human DNA into its own sequences. It had evolved, if you prefer, to better utilize its host, humans, for the purposes of incubation. But, it paid a price in that the adult fluke assumed simian form."

Scully glanced at the younger woman. Finally, an ally. "However, many parasites spend the majority of their life cycles in juvenile, or in this case, most fluke-like form. The adaptations were very specific, Mulder. It had incorporated those sequences that would aid in rapid growth and development of the immature organism. It could use human growth hormone to spur its maturation. It had evolved to release the triggering enzymes that tell our own biochemistry to move fats from storage tissues into the bloodstream. The liver is one of the places where fats are processed into energy, which the fluke would then feed off of directly."

The astronomer had been nodding as Scully presented her theory, so now Rosen added, "Something dropped accidentally from space wouldn't have this evolutionary advantage."

Crossing his arms, Mulder huffed. "But the Arctic worm wasn't specifically adapted for humans. It used the dog as well."

Scully leaned towards him, moving close enough to brush his elbow with her shoulder. "All the more reason it was of terrestrial origin, Mulder. Perhaps, in a freak circumstance, if it were extra-solar, it might be able to utilize one species, but not two. Everything in the Arctic has to be adaptable to survive, which would mean being able to parasitize the first organism it encountered."

Nichols was beet-faced at Mulder's calm despite the united opposition. "But, it would have to be tough to survive in space, too."

Her wet curls sticking out at strange angles, Rosen shook her head. "No, no, no, Nic. We're talking evolution here, not some seeding of similar physiologies by god-like Founders." She steepled her fingers. "A meteorite drop on a planet is a one-way trip. There is no way the adapted worms could get back into space to mingle genes with the rest of its species, which is the only way what you're proposing would work."

Mulder grunted. "Unless they were harvested and interbred by sentient beings, Rosen."

Scully crossed her arms. "To what end, Mulder? If short, almond-eyed visitors wanted DNA, why not sample it directly?" She glanced at Rosen.

The brunette was frowning before she offered another theory, "Or if this Arctic worm was designed to make us more controllable, I'd say it had exactly the opposite effect, wouldn't you?"

The two men focused on her, Nichols non-plussed, but Mulder inwardly exuberant.

I haven't enjoyed myself this much in years. The tall agent congratulated himself.

Scully held up her hand. "Which brings us around to the silicon bug. What possible evolutionary advantage could there be in incubating in humans?"

Mulder was bouncing in his seat, hoping to use his colleagues' previous arguments to prove his point. "We don't know that it's only humans, Scully, that's all we saw."

Rosen shook her head. "If that was a silicon life-form, there is none, Mulder." She jutted her chin at his squint. "Look, our bodies are 97% H-two-O?" She looked to Scully, who nodded her support. "It's heated, at that, as hot as is encountered in shallower ground water."

Mulder chewed his lower lip before he mused, "Which is full of dissolved minerals."

Emboldened, Rosen continued, "Exactly. Rocks of volcanic origin are anhydrous, simply because at the high temperatures and pressures present at their formation, any volatile compounds, which are ubiquitous on the surface of the earth, would be driven out."

Nichols frowned, beginning to perceive the problems with Mulder's hypothesis. "All carbon-based life-forms rot when left in hot aqueous solutions long enough, whether alive or dead, unless, like salt-water fish, they have developed mechanisms to withstand their acid environment."

Scully rested her arms on the table. "But, the usual solution is to grow new cells to replace the old ones, removed as scales flake off, or fin cells die. The speed of development in any life form is ultimately limited by the rapidity of chemical reactions possible with the elements present in it. This is what determines how quickly our neurons can fire to alert our brains that we are in imminent danger, or how fast our muscles twitch to get us out of it."

Mulder turned towards her. "Scully, are you..." He stopped when she shook her head.

Scully retrieved one of the reference books stacked on the floor, pointing to the periodic table inside the front cover. "Carbon is element six, with six protons, six neutrons, and four electrons in its incomplete outer shell, when in its non-radioactive state. Silicon is element fourteen, with fourteen protons, neutrons, and electrons, also in its non-radioactive state. Yes, the outer shell has four free electrons, but the nucleus is so much larger, the reaction times are all slower, by a factor of the ratios of atomic mass."

Mulder leaned into her face. "So what are you telling me here? That a silicon bug would begin to dissolve if encased in a water-based life-form, and it couldn't think fast enough to know to get out of its bath?"

She nodded, hoping he had finally, after two and a half years, come to understand her objections to the first case they had worked on after her return.

He was still working through the ideas. "But a silicon-based life form that could live at the temperatures and pressures in magma wouldn't have those problems, would it? It could think fast enough to get out of trouble, and wouldn't encounter water."

As Scully brought her face up to Mulder's, she saw the sheer delight radiating from it. "Then it couldn't live at the low pressures and reduced temperatures of the human body, can't you see? It would freeze, just like the molten silicates it lived in. Oh, I could see the life in magma possibilities, Mulder, since the last thing it would encounter there would be predation by carbon-based life-forms. But outside? No." Feeling her sleepless night in her bones, she sagged against the seat back, then turned to the other agents. "Look, it's getting late, and you two have a plane to catch tomorrow."

While the new agents were both startled into surprised outbursts by the abrupt shift, it was Nichols spoke first. "What? You're not coming with us?"

Mulder shrugged. "We'll be out in a day or so." He fixed each of them in a stare in turn, watching as understanding dawned. "The tickets are on Cynthia's desk, so pick them up first thing in the morning. Your flight's at 9:15 from National. Keep us informed."

Catching his partner's eye, Nichols jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Run you home?"

Rosen nodded, so the two took their leave.

After escorting them through the living room, Mulder turned to grasp his partner's shoulder. "Do you mind?"

She held up her car keys. "I presume this is not a judgment on my hostessing skills, Agent Mulder?"

As he reopened the door, running his hand down her back to shepherd her out, he grinned broadly. "If it were, Agent Scully, I would have applied to sub-let your sofa years ago."

Apartment Complex
Arlington, Virginia
Wednesday 11:31 pm

"The main entrance is blocked, so turn here, Scully."

She eased the Honda into his darkened parking lot before guiding it purposefully into a gap formed by several unoccupied spaces. "When do we leave for New Jersey?"

He touched her arm. "8:30. I'll pick you up at 7:45, all right?" He watched her shake her head. "What?"

"I don't see how you do that, Mulder."

"What, Doctor Scully?"

"We barely thought this was case before you were wheeling and dealing us official orders!" She tipped her head. "When I didn't hear 'season tickets for JKC stadium,' I knew that wasn't Danny at the other end of the phone."

Shrugging, he leaned into her face. "Let's just say the exaggerated rumors of your cruel rebuffs of my charms have their uses."

She rolled her eyes. "Surely the women in travel and accounting have more useful things to do with their time than gossip about Spooky and the Ice Queen."

He snorted.

"Whatever, Mulder. Are you sure X will be safe at this Sanitarium in New Jersey?"

All business, he nodded. "It's been used by the MUFON recovery network for years. You'd be surprised who's been there."

They approached the entrance together.

"So this is the Betty Ford Center for abductees?"

"Something like that." He studied her while he held the door. "What?"

"He'll shoot you when he wakes up."

He sobered. "If he wakes up."

She grasped his elbow momentarily, then turned to leave.

Mulder jumped back from the entrance, muttering about vermin.

Scully spun around, just in time to watch a brown rat scurry into the bushes. "I'd say this place is due for another fumigation."

He was fumbling for his SIG. "Yuck."

When Scully realized his intentions, she laughed. "Mulder, it's only a rat, a brown Norwegian at that. Just another one of the species we've introduced to this continent."

He was grimacing. "I hate those things almost as much as I do praying mantises." They both stared at the spot where the rodent had disappeared.

Scully pushed him gently on the shoulder. "Go on inside, Mulder, it looks like rain."

He was calculating. "That's pretty brave for a rodent, wouldn't you say?"

She frowned. Where is he going with this? "Too dangerous for a rat? Mulder! Not at all, they don't fear humans, and with the amounts of garbage generated in a modern city, they can dine in style. In fact, the long-standing assumption in pest control is one rat per person in urban areas."

Feeling the long day now, his shoulders drooped. "Whatever, Scully. 7:45, remember."

She stepped away, calling back over her shoulder. "Get some sleep, okay?"

The rat quivered under the bushes, watching the Honda pull away. That was too close. He checked himself over, smoothing his fur with his paws. He didn't like reducing himself to so compact a life-form, but when concealment was necessary, he found that mimicking this particular species had its advantages. So that was where the dark-skinned man had been taken. Now to collect the data I've been sent for, and make the trade.

Carlos Rodrigues yelped as he felt a sharp shove in his back, but something in the quiet growl made him cower.

"Get out of my way."

Mentally switching to English, Rodrigues whirled to confront ... a tall, broad-shouldered man with a prominent jaw and steely eyes. The man's nostrils flared, the palpable menace driving Carlos back against the wall.

Cowering, the Hispanic man realized he would lose any confrontation over his machismo he might normally otherwise provoke. "No sweat, man."

The intimidating bulk thrust past him, leaving Carlos staggering.

"No sweat." He shook himself. What just happened here? He waved to three of his friends, the trenchcoated figure forgotten almost immediately.

Office of the Lone Gunmen
Alexandria, Virginia
Thursday, July 24, 1997
6:04 am

"Hey, Langly, wake up!"

Swatting at whatever had been shaking him, the blond Gunman grunted.

"It's me, Frohike, she's back, come on!"

"What's going on? Is the new traceback program activated?" Shoving the covers away, Langly fumbled for his glasses on his nightstand, or, what passed for one. To accommodate the documentation he was proofing for O'Reilly Books, the Gunman had fallen back on his college days, hastily assembling shelves for the manuscripts from cinder blocks and vinyl laminated plywood boards. As he rubbed his glasses on his shirt, he tripped over his latest effort, the Third edition of "Running Linux", due out in September.

The two men were moving down the hall together, headed for their computer lab when Frohike answered breathlessly. "I can't! You were still editing it when you left for Digex. Whatever possessed you to take on a second job for an access provider, trouble-shooting during the graveyard shift, anyway?" The query was accompanied by a broad grin.

Langly responded in kind, "It pays three times what I'm getting writing leakage detection software for DOE, *plus*, I can think, usually without interruption." He rubbed his hands together. "What's she up to now? More file manipulation?"

"Yeah."

The blond man punched a few keys. "Did Byers finish the rerouting subroutine?"

The round-faced Gunman grunted. "What do you think? Vicky blew into town for three days unexpectedly yesterday, so after we returned home he was gone, gone, gone. This is your show, my friend."

Scratching under the M in Ramones, Langly grinned. "Don't be tough on an old married man, dude. Think how you'd feel if it were you and the Doc, and she appeared unexpectedly while off on a case."

Frohike bowed slightly, conceding the point. "He *is* working on holding it together, I have to give him that." He saw that Langly's index finger was poised over the Enter key. "That's all you needed to do to get this sucker running?"

A grin. "When you're good, you're good." A click. "Follow the bouncing red dot." Tapping a white X-window in the lower left corner of the screen, Langly leaned back, waiting.

Two pairs of hazel eyes tracked the marker from the Mount Vernon section of Alexandria, through Arlington, then DC, into Laurel, Maryland, before halting and growing into a five pointed star.

Frohike whooped with delight. "Man! Lady Lovelace is local!"

The long hair waved while Langly rapped the table. The star had fizzled out, little dots of color falling down the screen like digital snow. "No, she's not. Look, it's a mirror site, a false positive." The blond Gunman rubbed his nose. "Make up some java, dude, I have work to do."

West Chase Apartments
Laurel, Maryland
Thursday, 7:18 am

'Ace' smiled at the four raps on the door, three in quick succession, one slightly delayed after the rest.

"Hey, Drew." As she opened the door, she began to speak a further, more personal greeting, but the sight of her visitor dropped her professional visage in place. "'Finn', what's wrong?"

Hesitant, the blond man remained without. "Who's Drew?"

Her eyes flashing as she stepped aside for him to enter, she kept her answer brief. "'Charlie'." 'Ace' waved at the one bare spot on the sofa, a narrow space between uneven stacks of chassis covers. "So, what's wrong?"

Wedging himself in, Lindhauer sprawled both arms along the back cushions, seeking to put the woman in front of him at ease before initiating any conversation. "Why should anything be wrong? Why can't I just drop by to see your new place? Like I used to be able to?"

'Ace' had turned to walk into the kitchen, but halted at the implication of his words. What does he mean, used to be able to? Looking back over her shoulder, she sighed. "You're welcome anytime, 'Finn', you know that."

Now he rose to approach her, taking her by the arm when he reached her. "Anytime?"

She nodded. "The work comes first with me. 'Charlie' understands that, 'Finn'."

He turned her, attempting to read behind the green eyes. "That's good to hear. But does it for 'Charlie', too?"

She lifted her elbow out of his hand. "Of course. Is this what you wanted to ask me about?"

They locked eyes. He shook his head, both turning at another set of knocks. Lindhauer watched as 'Ace' flew to the door, throwing it wide. When 'Charlie' caught sight of a tall, lean form in the middle of the living room, the delight written on his face was replaced by a carefully neutral expression.

Lindhauer nodded a greeting. "You're here. Good."

'Charlie' followed 'Ace' as she returned to stand by the sofa in her cluttered living room, draping an arm over her shoulders as the three faced each other in a close triangle.

'Charlie' addressed Lindhauer. "What's wrong?"

The blond leader regarded them quietly. "It's your former bosses' assistant. He's missing." He paused while 'Charlie' and 'Ace' stared, expressing their initial surprise. "Two nights ago, he left his apartment, dressed for a run, and never returned. He may have gone over to them, told them everything he knows." Lindhauer held up both hands. "I'm here speaking with you two first, before I inform 'Andrew'. I think we should have him eliminated when we find him."

'Charlie' shook his head. "No, there's something wrong." Stepping away from 'Ace', he moved one stack of cards from an armchair to the floor, then sat. "He may have been feeding Mulder information, but he's always been loyal to the Project. He understands how important the work is, and how exposure would ruin the preparations. That's why he's steered the FBI so carefully, always guiding them away from us."

'Ace' joined him, perching on the padded arm. "So, what do you think is wrong with him?"

Lindhauer towered over the couple. Now is not the time for secrets between us. "Tell me."

Curling his arm around 'Ace''s hip, 'Charlie' sighed. "Six years ago, his test results revealed a genetic indication of mental instability. That's why Black Lung wanted to use him as a mole with Mulder, dropping hints until he took over the Old Man's role. He knew an unstable informer would eventually crack under the double game and offer him total deniability. I'm guessing that this breakdown has finally occurred."

'Ace' nodded. "So, we should check the area mental institutions, homeless shelters, or jails?"

'Charlie' grinned. "It would be a start."

'Ace' smiled back. "We can finally write him off now, can't we?" The three exchanged glances. "One fewer headache to deal with." She rubbed her eyes. "Sorry. I've been up all night trying to solve the problems with this new security system." She glanced upward.

Lindhauer was holding her shoulder as he offered her what he knew would be unwelcome advice. "We have other programmers, 'Ace'. Use your talents for the Group's strategy, not this."

Looking to 'Charlie', she shook her head. "No, it's my idea. I'll see it to fruition. That troll Frohike has been too close, twice now. I know how his mind works, so I can develop a lockout that exploits his mental blind-spots. No one else in the Organization has sparred with him as much as I have."

'Charlie''s hand pressed soothingly into her back. "That's our 'Ace'. You okay? You look like you've barely slept."

Lindhauer cleared his throat. Hate to break up this tender domestic scene, but... "Thanks for the information. 'Andrew' won't be happy, but this is for the best." He touched one side of his nose with his forefinger. "I'll see myself out." But there are many other things he and I need to discuss.

'Charlie' nodded absently, thinking only of the woman beside him, but he waited until he heard the click of the door latch before pulling 'Ace' into his arms. "Sorry I arrived late. Was he bothering you?"

Shifting over until she was draped on his chest, she planted a playful kiss on his nose. "Never too late, Drew."

Tightening his grip on her shoulders with one arm, he pushed her short curls off her forehead. "Good. You planning on going into the Bureau dressed like that?" He tugged at her baggy T-shirt.

"No. I haven't had the time to shower and change." She patted his stomach. "I'll only be a few minutes."

He followed her to the hallway. "I could get in the way?"

She kissed him quickly on the lips. "Later, okay? I think I've come up with something else on our visitors."

Delta Flight 1034
somewhere between Washington National and Philadelphia
Thursday, 9:13 am

Fidgeting in the restrictive seat, Mulder stretched his legs further into the narrow aisle in coach, settling his back partly over his partner's arm.

Her lips twitched, running through several teasing remarks she hoped would set him at ease. Before she whispered into the ear hovering just in front of her face, she checked the drowsing grandmother to her left. "So this is how you plan to hot up the rumor mill for next time, partner?"

He mouthed a silent 'Ha, Ha' over his shoulder. "This late, we were lucky to get adjacent seats, Scully."

He loosened his tie while she rubbed gently against his back with her shoulder. "Had trouble sleeping?" she inquired sympathetically.

His barely perceptible shrug told her that he had, that he was grateful for her concern.

She held up a printout of a scanned photo. "This is Doctor Campbell, taken at the AGU Meeting in San Francisco last Fall. I pulled his curriculum vitae off the Net last night, and while he's no Trepkos, he does have an impressive list of accomplishments."

He flipped through the stack of pages she passed him. "So we were right to send Nichols and Rosen out there. If he'll talk to anyone, it'll be a fellow geologist." He swiveled around in the seat. "I thought you told me to get some rest. How about you? This took time to find."

Chuckling, she stretched. "Oh, well, with someone like Andre in my life, I *always* sleep like a log."

Relieved, his full cockeyed grin unfolded. "Ooh, Doctor, I thought it was Raul on Wednesdays."

Waving theatrically, she sighed, slipping the printout under the blue folder on her fold-down tray before she parried the riposte. He's relaxing, good. "Old news, Mulder. I *know* it's hard to keep up with them all, but you *should* try."

His eyes dancing, he leaned close to her ear. "Anytime, Agent Scully."

Before returning to the final draft of the Chiapas drugs paper she and Susan Miles were publishing, she patted his arm.

He attempted to expand the seat into the aisle. This is no good. We'll have to switch to business on the way back. His attention drifted to the words on the pages that occupied her, so completely that he had to catch a single yellow sheet that slipped from between the rest. As he read it over, he frowned. "Scully?"

Squinting through her reading glasses, she looked up at him. "Oh, sorry, Mulder. I need to send that in to the publisher."

When she attempted to take it from him, he gripped the paper. "This is your personal credit card number."

She slapped the folder with the galley proofs shut. "Yes, it is. Susan is first author on the other one, so Hopkins is paying the page charges on hers. But, we agreed, she and I, that I would pay for the one I'm first author on." She left her hand open, confused at his resistance.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

He looks genuinely upset with me. "Because it isn't work-related, Mulder - Mulder!"

After tucking the sheet into his briefcase, he wedged the soft-sided valise beneath the seat in front of him, where it was firmly out of her reach. When he sat up, the stare he fixed her in was dark, unreadable. "Scully, it *is* work-related. These drugs were discovered while on official FBI business, and the Bureau should pay, just as it funds publication of any other techniques or results of scholarly interest." Agape, she sat motionless, but while the sight of a non-plussed Dana Scully tweaked the corners of his lips, he persisted, "I've already talked to Rosen, and we're paying the publication charges for her dissertation work, since her major professor has left Cornell. I could hardly do less for my own partner."

She closed her mouth, focusing on the cirrus clouds visible in the distance through the window. "Mulder, I never thought..." She sighed. "It *is* science, not proof of vampirism."

He grasped her shoulder, bringing her attention back to him. "Hey, if one of the Spooky Patrol publishes in the New England Journal of Medicine and another in Science, it's a reason besides our solve rate to let us stay together, Scully. We're not quite the official embarrassment we usually are." Dropping his hand, he studied the black loafers that encased his feet, now jammed sideways between the briefcase and the box stuffed under his seat. "And I know certain pathologists who aren't as far along in their careers as they deserve to be, because of choices they made, decisions that are more appreciated than they can ever..."

They locked eyes briefly, before she returned to the manuscript, he to the only entertainment the situation provided, watching her work while pestering her with questions about the text.

Volcanic Observatory
outside Newhalem, Washington
Thursday, 2:11 pm

Before escorting them into the core analysis lab, Albert Rich shook the hands of the two FBI agents. Rosen bent over the cylinder on the bench, examining its fractures closely.

Nichols followed the technician to the lockbox. "You say Campbell is still in the hospital?"

Rich nodded. "Most of his teeth are gone now, dissolved down to the roots. Other than that, he seems healthy and alert. The doctors are monitoring his bone mass for further losses, but after they flushed his mouth thoroughly to attempt to sample for bacteria, it seems to have stopped. He's on antibiotics, just in case."

Her hands in her pockets, Rosen peered at the vitreous mass, glancing at her partner when he grasped her shoulder.

"Ros, you don't want to stick your face in that stuff. Remember the Firewalker Case." Nichols cautioned.

Nodding, she straightened before turning to the technician. "But I thought from the report you put up on the Web that this substance had to be in contact with a surface before it damaged it?"

Rich held up one of the destroyed beakers. "So far, yes. I've been monitoring the material, which seems to only increase in mass after dissolving something."

She grunted. "As if it were ingesting it. No wonder Campbell thought it was organic."

Nichols nodded. "Can Campbell talk?" He found himself the focus of the other two's attention. "Can he answer questions?"

Deep creases furrowed Rich's forehead. "Yeah, sure. But without his teeth, he whistles a lot." He reached for a pad of paper. "This is the name of the hospital and his room number."

They nodded their thanks, then left.

Elizabeth Hill Rest Retreat
outside Chatsworth, New Jersey
Thursday, 5:27 pm

"Isn't this a little close to Fort Dix for comfort, Mulder?" As the rented Taurus turned up a long driveway, Dana Scully peered through a stand of willows at the high Victorian home.

"Nah, provides good cover. Who would be suspicious about something this close to a military base?"

A young orderly approached the car while they parked, then exited it. "Mister Mulder?" He smiled as the tall agent nodded, shaking the hand extended to him. "Hi, I'm Lewis, I'm new since..."

Scully slipped into position at her partner's elbow, where she was rewarded with two beefy grins.

Lewis stepped back, vainly attempting to disguise his awe. "You're Agent Scully?"

Mulder chuckled, his eyes light with teasing and affection as he pressed his hand into the small of her back. "The Enigmatic One, in person." Her sharp glance morphed into amusement at the well-built blond man's next words.

"Wow! We were warned by the Lone Gunmen, but Frohike couldn't do you justice."

Mulder whispered to her as he ushered her forward, "Ooh, and here I thought he would be inventing cantos of praise to your grace and beauty on the long drive up here."

She shook her head, setting the silliness aside with the gesture. "What can you tell us about X?"

Escorting them up into the building, Lewis sighed. "He's much as he was when he left you. Certain responses are still in place, like blinking at lights, cringing at loud noises, and he will walk around, when he wants food or," he explained, glancing apologetically at Scully, "to take a leak, which we staff members appreciate."

Nodding, she held the door for her partner. "That's not typical of cases like his. Can you determine anything about his mental state otherwise?"

Lewis shrugged. "I'll let Doctor Alvarez tell you about that." He rapped once on an opaque glass panel set in a heavy walnut frame, smiling at the black-haired woman who answered before he excused himself, then disappeared.

She was about Scully's age and build. The two women nodded at each other, exchanging quick, courteous handshakes. But her brown eyes gleamed at the sight of the tall agent. "Fox! It's been what, three years?"

Shyly, he nodded, wincing as she moved forward to hug him. "Almost, Maria."

Stepping back, she held him by the waist. "No more blood irregularities?"

He shrugged, not looking either woman in the face.

Scully cocked an eyebrow. "This was after Kristen?"

His diffident glance answered her question.

The two doctors nodded at the unspoken response.

Scully smoothly changed the subject. "Just how terrible a patient was he?"

As she ushered them in, Maria focused on Scully for the first time, sensing the deep connection she suspected the two shared. "Our worst. But you must already know that, Agent Scully." She held her office door open, patting Mulder's shoulder fondly as he passed. "And what about you, Doctor, how have you fared after your abduction?"

The auburn-haired woman sat, using the opening to inform Maria of her own medical history, as well as providing her partner time to compose himself. Ever the Agent, Scully's eyes took in their surroundings in quick snapshots while she talked.

The south-facing office was small, like most of the spaces in the Nineteenth century building, constructed when number of rooms was more important than size. But the tall windows, curtained in antiqued lace, that occupied most of the south and east walls, looked out onto the plush green of rolling lawns. The added light gave the space a much bigger feeling. Doctor Alvarez's desk was actually a period drop-leaf chestnut table with turned legs, set between a fireplace of rough-cut granite and two mahogany-framed armchairs with subdued brocade cushions.

Scully realized that this was more a classic consulting-room than the records-keeping center a modern office had become. Most of the patient files were probably computerized, accessible through that Pentium on that bird's-eye maple side table like Mom's. A quick check of her partner told her he was still wrestling with whatever had silenced him when they entered. I'll handle the necessary questions later.

Finally, Mulder twisted in the chair, pushing his discomfort away, calling the doctors' attention to him. "So, what is his prognosis, Maria?"

The dark haired woman walked around her table, a series of photographs in hand. She passed the first to Mulder, the second to his partner. "I have no idea, Fox. As I'm sure Lewis informed you, outside of certain limited activity, he is, for all intents and purposes, catatonic."

Scully dropped the image into her lap. "Did you find any chemical substances in his blood or nerves that might account for his condition?"

Doctor Alvarez slid the folder onto her desk, then propped herself against it. "No, his bloodwork and toxicological tests were completely negative. He carries the gene for sickle-cell anemia, but there is no indication he suffers from the condition."

Scully leaned forward. "Have you only checked him upon admission, or has he been retested since?"

Mildly irritated at Scully's relentless probing, Maria focused on the auburn-haired woman. "We ran him through an MRI just before you arrived, but found no evidence of lesion." Smiling, she tapped the photo Mulder held. "What you have there are a series of cross sections of electrical activity in a human brain. The images are false-colored, with blue representing areas of low activity, progressing through green, yellow, orange, red, and violet as the numbers of times the neurons fire during the exposures increase."

She wiggled the paper and he snatched it away playfully, his partner making a mental note of the exchange.

Maria continued, "Yours is from a normal brain in REM sleep. If you had been paying attention, you would have seen areas of red concentrated in the frontal lobe, which are interpreted to represent dream activity in the brain."

Scully lifted one corner of her mouth. "Understand, Mulder, she means the image, not the grey matter in your skull. There would probably be a second catatonic patient here if you were in REM sleep long enough to finish one of these maps."

The doctors locked eyes, Maria reading the history behind the words. Just as I thought. He has this problem on the outside, too. "Right, Scully."

The auburn-haired woman pointed to her fidgeting partner. "If he's Fox, and you're Maria, then please, use Dana." She focused on the woman before them, ignoring the growl from the matching chair. "This," she explained while she flapped the page of images she held, "is from a normal waking brain. There are areas of red throughout, showing the multiprocessing we do at any given moment in the day, some of it unconscious."

Doctor Alvarez held up a third set. The rear of the brain was black, but the entirety of the frontal lobe was violet. "This is your friend's."

Mulder took the page from her. "He's in an hallucinatory state."

Maria nodded. "Exactly, Fox." Although he shot her a disapproving glare, her attention was focused on his partner. "What could have triggered this, do you know?"

Scully chewed her lip. "Maria, we don't even know his name, let alone any medical background. Was his heartrate elevated during the testing?"

The black-haired doctor considered. "As if he were experiencing waking nightmares?" She caught Mulder's wince at the prospect. "No, it wasn't. What are you thinking, Dana?"

Scully stood, placing the photo on the desk. "Our bodies normally block signals from the brain during REM sleep, so we don't injure ourselves if we dream we are being chased, or are covered in bugs."

Mulder crossed his arms. "You think his catatonia is a result of this self-protective mechanism taking over his body inappropriately?"

Scully shrugged. "It's a possible explanation, Mulder."

Maria wagged her head. These two are so alike. No wonder... "And a testable one, Dana. We can check his spinal fluids for increased levels of neurosuppresants." She checked her watch. "But in the morning. The clinical staff is home right now."

Mulder rose, towering over the two doctors. "Can we at least see him, Maria?"

She extended her arm towards the door. "Let me show you the way."

Room 309
Rest Retreat, New Jersey
Thursday, 6:03 pm

Before settling on the edge of the bed, Mulder grasped the shoulder of the man staring vacantly at the wall. Scully and Alvarez waited just outside the doorway.

"Hey." He left his hand on X's forearm. "The Doc tells me you've been a better patient than I was." His grin appeared suddenly, vanishing equally rapidly. "That's not hard, I know, but they'll take good care of you here. Trust me, the Doc's a pro, and a real lady." He glanced over his shoulder at the two women. "Look, I never had a chance to thank you for West Virginia."

The head rotated on the pillow, then, for an instant, the eyes crystallized into the penetrating focus that Mulder expected to see in this visage. Then the muscles softened, the presence and personality vanishing as he watched.

Mulder gasped, grasping X's arm in surprise. "Just try to come back, okay? You're needed out here." Suddenly speechless, he stood, hurrying to the door.

The three hovered outside, Scully touching his elbow. "He responded when you mentioned West Virginia."

Mulder shook his head. "But what does that mean, Scully?"

Maria crossed her arms. "If you two don't mind, he *is* my patient. Tell me about what happened in West Virginia while we have some dinner. It may help." Mulder studied his feet, but Maria tugged on his arm. "This was another one of your escapades?"

Scully nodded. "You could say that."

The hovering demon had been haranguing him, recounting all his flaws and shortcomings, until the words had dissolved into one long stream of disgust and scorn. Hanging in space in front of him, mocking and taunting before the unchanging background of what he could only assume was a hospital room, the face on the monster changed. Sometimes it was a lean, aquiline profile that he remembered from the rare visits to a high-rise office in Manhattan, sometimes it was his Smoking superior. Only rarely was it the wavy-haired old man, with sad, doelike eyes, expressing disappointment at his failure.

But once, the face formed into a familiar countenance that brought all his old feelings of impatience to the surface. He studied the wide, fleshy noise, the strong chin, the soft brown hair, scarcely believing that this one particular vision was radiating the compassion he felt. "Thank you for West Virginia." He tried to reach out, to speak, but the face faded, replaced by darkness and maniacal laughter.

Was that real? What's happening to me?

Cascades Humana Hospital
Darrington, Washington
Thursday, 4:36 pm

James Campbell frowned at the visitors standing at the foot of the bed.

"What?" The w escaped with a trill.

Rosen walked around to his left shoulder. "That's right, Sir, we're with the FBI, and we'd like to know more about the depth the cores reached when it sampled this vitreous mass." She smiled, enjoying this interview with a fellow scientist. "I have an undergraduate degree in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines, and a Doctorate in Astronomy from Cornell, so please, feel free to share your conclusions with me in as much detail as you wish."

Nichols admired her skill at setting their witness at ease. If she could bring Campbell to see her as a colleague, he might let something useful slip that he might not give a layman like himself.

Campbell responded eagerly to a fellow scientist's curiosity, "Well, I had initially thought this was a caustic organic compound, but now I think it may be a new life form."

Remembering those same words in the report on Trepkos and Firewalker, Nichols felt a chill run up his spine. "Sir, might this not be a contagion of some kind?"

Rosen and Campbell stared at him, the volcanologist regarding him with distaste, his partner with a silent look that broadcast clearly 'Let me handle this.'

But the man in the bed spoke first. "No, I think not. Rich is unaffected, as are the graduate students who have worked with the material. I inadvertently brought the substance into contact with my mouth, and there is something in my teeth that is as attractive to whatever this life-form is as is glass."

Rosen nodded. "Mister Rich also mentioned that it dissolves wood." She leaned closer to the geologist. "If I may offer my assistance, I'd like to return to the lab and set up a few simple tests. Perhaps we could glean something about the nature of this life form by what it did and did not consume, and how quickly it did so."

Campbell nodded. "That would be most helpful, Agent Rosen. I know Rich will have his hands full keeping up with the cores." He waved one hand at the door. "My doctor wants to keep me here for a few more days of observation, but if I lose no more bone mass, I should be out of here by Monday."

As Rosen waited for her partner to ask the question she knew was uppermost on his mind, Nichols took a step forward. "Doctor Campbell, in one of their past cases with the X-Files, Agents Mulder and Scully encountered a life-form in a caldera that they speculated was silicon-based."

Campbell shrugged. "Anything's possible, Agent Nichols. I admit that encountering a organism encased in volcanics as this one was makes that an extremely attractive, even reasonable, hypothesis, but we should exhaust other potentialities first. That we've found anything capable of living in so caustic an environment is of significance, whether carbon or silicon based."

The agents shook his hand, then took their leave; Nichols holding the door for his partner. "So, Ros, will you need my help with the tests?"

She nodded. "That would be great. Whatever this stuff is, the fewer people who know about it, the better. We can report to Mulder and Scully tomorrow when we know a little more about our glass-eater bug."

Rest Retreat, New Jersey
Thursday, 8:07 pm

Through the cast-iron grapevine woven into a grill for the screen door, Maria Alvarez paused to study the lean form of Fox Mulder. Her former patient was hunched over, both arms resting on the carved railing of the porch, which was painted in pale yellow with aquamarine accents on the scrollwork.

"You were right about Dana Scully." The hinge spring creaked while she pushed her way outside.

Mulder, now in a navy blue polo shirt and jeans, straightened, facing the black-haired woman. "Hey." He slouched on the far end of a suspended cedar swing, one arm draped along the back, watching as she joined him. "Thanks for taking X on such short notice."

Resting her head in the fold in his arm momentarily, she smiled up at him. "You were always a challenge, Fox, so I figured he would be, too."

He stared out at the purples and oranges of the sunset sky. "I hate it when you call me that."

She poked him gently in the ribs. "I know. But you understand why I do, Mister Oxford graduate."

He pulled away from her to cross his arms. "Right. It would be good therapy for me to make a more personal connection to someone besides Scully and Sam. I always knew you wanted to keep me on the couch."

She tracked the lines in his face with her eyes. Don't use humor as a shield. I know that trick of yours. "I thought that was my job." She chuckled. "After all, the placard in the hallway does say Staff Psychologist. How are you, really? Was getting Dana back everything you'd hoped it would be?"

He shrugged. "For a while. I need her, Maria." He frowned at the hitch in her breathing. "I don't mean like that. She helps focus me, calling me back before my ideas get too out there to be able to prove. But there was a time when we..." He rocked in silence for a moment. "It wasn't so good. We were angry with each other. I wanted her to believe without question, but she needs evidence."

Doctor Alvarez waited. She realized the agent attached the same significance to his partnership with the red-haired doctor that most men assign to their marriages. Her silence would elicit more details than a barrage of questions ever could.

"We found some, but then she tried too hard to just believe. It wasn't her, not really, and she almost left me because she couldn't do it."

Maria leaned into his side. "But she's still here."

Surprised by contact he would accept unquestioningly from the subject of their discussion, he glanced down at the black-haired psychologist. "Yeah. We worked it out. She understands that I know how much I need her logic to balance my intuition. We're a team again." He sighed. "It's so good it scares me. We have two other agents working with us."

Maria smiled. "I'm happy for you."

Standing, he rubbed his hands on his jeans before jamming them in his pockets. "I'm trying not to make the mistakes I saw my Dad make. Once, he took Sam and me to his office in DC during an open house at the State Department. Everyone there was so terribly nice to us, it reminded me of how my Mom was when he got angry." He shrugged. "I figured he must have yelled at all of them, too."

"Fox..." She winced at his shudder. "Mulder, is there something about your family you haven't told your doctor?"

Wiggling his fists inside his pockets, he focused on her while he pressed his lips firmly shut.

Yes, and wild horses couldn't drag it out of you. She changed the subject. "This is good news, that your work is going so well. You deserve it."

Turning away, he crossed his arms. "No." The word was almost a puff of night air.

She crossed to the railing, looking up at him. "You do."

He locked eyes with her. "If it was just Scully and myself, I wouldn't worry. She understands the risks and made the decision to come inside with me. But the other two." He waved vaguely at the third story of the building. "Three. They were handed to me. How do I tell Nichols and Rosen what we've found out and make them believe before they leave me?" He hugged himself. "Is it fair to bring them all the way in so soon? Am I ready to lead them all?"

She grasped his wrist. "Fox, as the risk of sounding very undoctorly by not playing twenty questions to drag the conclusion out of you: don't obsess so. You'll be fine. Scully has faith in you, and so do I."

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he stepped away.

She watched him pacing and chewing his lip while his mind worked. "Just let it be. If you could make a go of it with Dana, you'll manage this, too. Perhaps it would help if there were something else in your life besides your work."

After a few more minutes of aimless wandering, he met her eyes, then sighed. She can't understand. "Good night, Maria." Before she could respond, he disappeared inside, the slap of the screen door terminating the conversation.

Rio Entertainment Complex
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Thursday, 8:23 pm

McConnell slid into one of the two white plastic lawn chairs across from 'Charlie' and 'Ace'. The outdoor section of the Italian restaurant where they had agreed to meet overlooked a man- made lake behind the mall. Occasionally, a breath of humid air would flow from the water over them, ruffling the red, white, and green-striped umbrellas.

After ordering, he leaned towards the pair. "So, what have you found?"

Releasing 'Charlie''s hand, 'Ace' sipped her Diet Coke, then repositioned the glass exactly in the condensation ring on a tiny square napkin before replying. "Our visitor emits a fair amount of UV in the upper wavelengths, close to the X-ray range. It may be a part of how they morph." She shrugged. "I don't know."

A wave of movie-goers exited the mall behind their table, collecting at the grey steel railing overlooking the lake to feed their leftover popcorn to oversized koi waiting below. The high-pitched cries of the children, as they released energy pent up by sitting for two hours, combined with loud conversations from the adults, forced the three to huddle together to be heard.

'Charlie' glanced at 'Ace' before continuing. "Now we have a way of tracking the visitors. Since there may be others we don't know about, we'll need it."

McConnell nodded. "I agree." He turned to the dark-haired woman between them. "How are the funding redirection programs going?"

She sighed. "I'm running passive sweeps right now. So far, it's easy to access individual corporate accounts, count the funds, rewrite the records, then leave. I want to be absolutely certain we can't be detected before I move any amount of money, no matter how small."

The red-haired man crossed his arms. "Yes. We have to maintain total deniability if the organization is to continue to survive." As their server arrived with their meals, he leaned back, nodding his thanks to the Hispanic woman. "Anyway, you'll let me know as soon as you have something?" He wanted to finish with business, then move the conversation to more pleasant subjects while they ate.

Passing breadsticks to 'Charlie', 'Ace' nodded. "Sure thing. Too bad 'Finn' couldn't make it."

McConnell shrugged. "You know him when he's made a new conquest. He's thrilled, but being really secretive about this one. You'd think he'd landed someone important, like a Senator or something."

'Charlie' sighed. "Another high risk hobby. First it was the art, now it's women. At least when it was the art, it wasn't like he could mess up someone's life just to put another notch on his bedpost."

'Ace' fixed him in a sharp glance.

McConnell spoke gently, quick to smooth over any division among the four. "Well, how was the movie?"

The couple grinned at each other, then she replied, "Oh, just as ridiculous as the original, with T. Rexes running around. But we really didn't expect it to be 'Land of the Lost', you know, the series from the seventies, not the new one."

The three quickly lost themselves in a discussion of old Sci-Fi films.

Alvarez Office
Rest Retreat, New Jersey
Thursday, 8:43 pm

Scully blew on the tea to cool it before she took a sip. "What, exactly, was this blood condition?" Her partner had retired uncharacteristically early, so she and Maria were discussing their sometime patient and joint friend.

The dark-haired doctor refilled her mug with redolent peppermint tea before responding, "As closely as we could tell, a modified form of syphilis."

As one copper eyebrow arched, Scully's forehead tipped. "From Kristen."

A black line rose to match the one facing her. "There weren't any other candidates. In case you were wondering, the infection had the side-effect of making the patient light-sensitive."

Watching a broken leaf fragment swirl in her cup, Scully sighed. "Poor Mulder. I know he saw Kristen as damaged and needing protection. He thinks if he can fix someone else's problems, he can atone for what he believes he failed to do that night in Chilmark. He's always looking for Sam, and it seems he can find her in all the wrong places."

Maria nodded. "That family was messed up from the start, Dana, you know that."

Scully sipped the last of her tea, both hands balancing the cobalt blue mug on her fingers. "His Mom's a strong lady, but vulnerable, like he is. We spent some time together around New Year's, my Mom and me, with Caroline and her new husband."

Maria fixed her in a probing stare. "They went through with the divorce, after all this time? Fox always felt as if he were in limbo, with neither a whole family, nor with one that everyone else would recognize as divided."

Scully refilled her mug, watching the foam swirl around the liquid, then dissipate before responding. "His father's dead, Maria."

"No." The tone was resonant with sympathy. "How?"

Scully shrugged. "He was shot in his bathroom, and Mulder held him while he died. It was about two and a half years ago." She caught the other woman's eye. "I thought, since this place was on the UFO network, you would have heard. We had evidence the government was willing to do anything to recover. They killed my sister, too."

Maria leaned forward. "Is that what Fox told you about the Home?" She watched Scully nod. "Well, we handle many different illnesses, not just purported abductees."

Scully straightened. "Purported? But..."

Maria smiled. "I'm no believer, Dana, which is why Fox and I spent so much time together. In your absence, he needed a sparring partner. He was bound and determined to convince me you had been taken by aliens, as his sister had been. But the more we talked, the more certain I was that his problems were rooted in a lifetime of neglect, rather than two isolated incidents." She waved at the light filtering in through the door. "The staff was infinitely appreciative. If he was arguing with me, he wasn't complaining to and about them."

Scully tipped her head. "How long was Mulder here?"

"I had wanted to keep him for three weeks, but we treated him aggressively with antibiotics to knock out the infection." Maria noticed the agent was smiling. "What?"

"This is good ammunition that I'll use sometime when he feels better, or when he's irritated the living daylights out of me. He left me with the impression that he was frantically looking for me."

Her eyes twinkling at the memories, Maria laughed. "But he was! That was our main problem with him; we couldn't get him to rest as his body needed. He was always on the phone to the Gunmen, driving them to search, or was scanning the news or the police bands. We had to move a computer and police radio into his room before he'd stay in one place." She set her mug on the floor. "Even that wasn't enough. He left after spending a little over a week with us. I've always been worried that he hasn't truly beaten this infection off."

Scully studied the interior of her mug, unwilling to relate Mulder's unusual cure at the hands of a Navaho shaman.

Doctor Alvarez checked her watch. "Dana, it's late. You need to sleep, too."

Stretching, Scully rose. "Thanks, Maria. I think between you and my Mom, Mulder was as well taken care of as he would permit himself to be."

The dark-haired doctor fell in step beside her, guiding her to her visitor's room. "We tried. He may be a pain in the posterior, but it's easy to grow attached to him. I'm pleased things are going as well for you two as they are." She yawned. "I'll make my rounds before turning in for the night."

The women smiled politely before they separated.

Room 309
Rest Retreat, New Jersey
Thursday, 9:02 pm

When a female face materialized in his view, the maniacal laughter receded. I know this one. He saw her periodically, looked for her eagerly, in fact. She radiated the same detachment and gentle concern he had felt from Dana Scully, the two times they had met in Mulder's apartment. Her emotions were usually a blessed respite from his tormentor, but this time, it appeared she was observing him, so none of her warmth or humanity touched him.

She was opening his mouth, no doubt to take a throat culture. But the problem isn't a flu or a virus, it's that thing! He sensed ridicule, his mind turning it into the insane cackling that preceded a new stream of invective. The last sound he remembered, not from *it*, was a snick, snick of scissors. But I don't need a trim or a shave.

Guest Quarters
Rest Retreat, New Jersey
Thursday, 9:17 pm

After she had showered, then changed into her sleeping clothes, Scully shivered. Each of the guest rooms in the refurbished back wing of the Hospital boasted its own air conditioner. Whoever had set hers had a very much lower idea of comfortable temperature from herself, since she loved the sticky heat of the summer. She would have slept with the drop-silled windows fully open, if given a choice. That's a thought.

Scully twisted the control knob to OFF. Pausing in the sudden quiet, she realized she was hearing sounds coming from her partner's room, though not a shower or the television. With this huge four-poster, I don't see where they would put one. As she raised the window closest to his quarters, she identified the noises. Muttering. Oh, Mulder. She pulled her terrycloth robe over her gym shorts and baggy FBI T-shirt, then scanned her room, locating and collecting her laptop and her folder with the Ridgefield case report.

"No!"

She heard the slats in the antique bedframe creak, then the sound of a body shifting restlessly. Tying the robe around her, she left her room to knock on his door. "Mulder?"

The face that appeared in the slit was dark with stubble, under eyes still lost in the nightmare.

'Are you okay?' will get the door closed in your face, Dana.

"Yeah?"

She crossed her arms over the brown packet of notes, tugging the laptop strap further up her shoulder. "The air conditioner was cranked up to Arctic, and I've turned it off, but the room's still cold. Do you mind if I work in here until it warms up some?"

His eyes drifted closed, feeling that sense of wholeness that her presence always brought him, so he stepped back to admit her, brushing her back with his hand as she passed him.

He'll talk when he's ready, Dana.

"Sure, Scully." He paced the periphery of the small room, furnished as she expected, bare except for an identical, high, four-poster bed and a small table, watching her set her notes out on the side still made up. The bed was authentic down to the overstuffed mattress, far higher in the center than at the sides. She heard, she came, but she doesn't want to smother me. Spotting a stapled report in a clear cover, he pointed. "Is that Rosen's version?"

As she laid the copy on the sheets beside her, she slid on her reading glasses. "Yes. We'll have to update it in light of the autopsy findings, but she's presented our field evidence very succinctly."

As he assumed the mantle of Agent, the fear from the dream left him, so he grinned. "Summarized it well, or threw out Sarah Wells altogether?"

She crinkled her nose at him, but he was rummaging through his briefcase for his own spectacles.

He had settled in for the night in one of his old pairs of black lycra jogging shorts. But now, he tugged the navy blue polo shirt he had dropped on the carpet over his head, before he climbed back under the covers to read. He eyed her large, wine-colored pen lying on the tan lace coverlet. "You need that?" When she tossed it up and over, Mulder watched it flip, end over end, until he caught it in a diving grab just before it hit the floor.

"Showoff."

They exchanged slight grins, then settled down to work in silence, Mulder making notes in the margins, Scully revising the autopsy report. She had crossed her legs under her, covering them completely with the robe, which left her hunching over to reach the keys. When he sighed and closed the folder, clipping the pen over the top, she knew he was either ready to talk or sleep.

Scully saved the report, then shut down the machine. "You okay, Mulder?"

He passed her the papers. "Yeah, I guess." He slid further into the bed, linking his hands behind his head. "It was just a nightmare."

She shifted until she was looking down at him, her hands clasped in front of her. "A new one?" At his nod, she placed her palm on the blankets folded down over his chest.

"My overactive imagination." Crossing his arms to pin her wrist in place, he squinted at the floor lamp behind her elbow. "You, Rosen, Nichols, and X were all on gurneys under white lights, and I couldn't wake you up to pull you out of that warehouse in West Virginia before the others came back." He rested both hands on top of hers before flipping away from his partner and her sympathy. We don't need to waste time and energy on my insomnia; it's just a fact of life. But, the last thing he wanted was for Scully to think he was ungrateful for her concern, so he forced a lightness into his tone he really didn't feel. "Just a variation on my usual."

She rubbed his shoulder, the cotton knit bunching as she bent close to his ear. You don't fool me, partner. "Mulder, we've planned, taken precautions so we won't be monitored, so our work won't be lost. Nichols is an experienced field agent, and Rosen is a quicker study than I was. If something or someone turns on us in the future, you must understand that there is no more four humans can do."

He rocked back and forth, hugging the down pillows tightly. "But what if it isn't enough, Scully?"

She sighed. "All we can do is our best, partner." How can I distract him? "Maria and I had a long talk about you."

He pulled his knees up. "Oh, you two doctors dissected all my psychological and physiological inadequacies, no doubt."

Scully stretched out to grasp one wrist firmly. "In excruciating detail. We swapped war stories about a certain demanding and obnoxious patient." Her voice dropped to a whisper, bringing his head out of the pillow to hear her next words. "She said you were responsible for one whopping electric bill." His inarticulate squeak of protest told her he was banishing his self-recriminations. "You're a royal pain in the hinder, Mulder." She ruffled his hair. "But one we're both quite fond of. Good night, Chief."

Before she slid off the bed, he rolled over, then grinned, finally at ease. "Scully..." What ever did I do to deserve you?

She watched his gratitude shine from a pair of dark eyes that followed her as she moved around the room, gathering her computer, notes, reports, and papers. The rattling glass in the door snapped both their heads around.

"Agent Scully? Mulder?" The voice belonged to Lewis. "Doctor Alvarez is missing!"