Summary: Set in goldmining country, we unearth a new X-File and an old murder, a little romance (although not between Scully and Mulder), and some nuggets of information about Walter Skinner's past.

Author's note: I have never been to South Dakota, but pictures I have seen recently make me long to go there. I apologize for any factual errors regarding the State which may occur in this story as a result of my ignorance.

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"Mister Fitzgerald, I believe this will be a gold-mine again, if you will pardon my little joke."

The older man looked at the younger with an expression that suggested he would do no such thing. Michael Fitzgerald then turned from his companion and continued with his task of prising the boards from the entrance to the mine-shaft. He had refused the offer of assistance which the other man had only halfheartedly given, saying he was the one who had put up these boards forty years ago and he would be the one to take them down.

The air in the shaft tasted of decay. It was many decades since these tunnels had been freshly dug. A few broken tools lay near the entrance; beyond, the tunnels only decorations were rodent droppings and ancient cobwebs.

Fitzgerald walked the tunnel with the assurance of a man whose family had worked this mine for generations. He paid no heed to Mcquaid, who picked his way carefully between the tracks, terrified of tripping, for fear of what he might land in. When they reached the point where the tunnel branched, Fitzgerald paused for breath, in acknowledgment of the fact that he was forty years older than the Michael Fitzgerald who had last walked through the mine. He grinned suddenly as he noticed Mcquaid, who could not have been more than thirty-five, was more out of breath than himself, and made some mental comments about "city folk".

"Yes sir," Mcquaid said, mistaking the reason for the grin. "This is what the tourists want to see: the way it really was back then. Of course we'll need to fix it up a bit - a few less rats, a few more tools, get the trucks going again. We had a thought about putting in some miners, you know dummies, although if they moved, that could be good."

Fitzgerald made a non-committal sound in reply. He didn't give a damn what Mcquaid and his business associates did down here, so long as the disruption to himself and his family was kept to a minimum and they paid over his share of the profits regularly. He hadn't wanted to open the mine to the public; in truth, he didn't really believe the public would be interested. However, Kate had thought the proposal interesting, and so he had agreed. After all, some day this would all be hers, it was only right she should have a say in matters; also, Katy's wish had always been his command.

"First of all, we'll need to have the engineers in to make sure it's safe. We don't want to lose any paying customers in a cave-in."

"We don't?" Fitzgerald queried, deadpan.

Mcquaid tittered nervously. He never knew when the old man was being funny or just being his usual self - difficult.

"I suppose it is safe for us to be here now?" he ventured.

Fitzgerald shrugged and headed down one of the smaller tunnels. As the old man was the one carrying the torch, Mcquaid followed reluctantly. Some ten feet along the tunnel, Fitzgerald stopped to examine an upturned truck.

"I don't remember this being here," he commented to himself, then turned to his companion. "Hey you! Help me lift this, there's something under here."

The two men pushed the truck onto its side, revealing what lay underneath.

Mcquaid staggered back horrified, his horror increasing as Fitzgerald knelt beside the remains and actually touched the hair. After a few moments he turned to the younger man. There were tears in his eyes and a catch in his voice as he whispered:

"I know her."

Special Agent Fox Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn't like playing waiting games. If Assistant Director Skinner had something to say he should simply come out and say it, if not he should send the two F.B.I. agents about their business, which in Mulder's case was the perusal of some particularly intriguing photographs of alleged U.F.O.'s. His partner Special Agent Dana Scully had equally pressing business awaiting her: catching up on the paperwork from several cases, a task which Mulder invariably managed to avoid. For now, she sat beside him quietly, her expression inscrutable.

"Sir?" Mulder broke the silence which had now lasted some five minutes.

Scully glanced furtively at her watch and smiled to herself. Exactly on time, Mulder was so predictable.

"Yes Agent Mulder?" Skinner replied, at last looking up from the file on his desk, which he had been staring at since they came into the room.

"You wanted to see us about something," Mulder prompted.

"Yes, I did."

There was another long pause, during which Scully had visions of her partner's impatience causing him to leap across the desk and strangle their boss.

"I have a new case for you," Skinner eventually continued. "It's not an X-File, not strictly speaking an F.B.I. matter... yet. But I think your input could be useful."

He passed the file to Mulder. Scully pulled her chair closer to read it also.

"The remains of a woman found in an abandoned mine near the town of Seven Pines, South Dakota," Mulder read aloud. "Preliminary examination suggests she died approximately twenty years ago?"

Mulder looked up in surprise.

"You want us to investigate this?"

Skinner nodded.

"The owner of the mine insists that it's been boarded up for the past forty years, but clearly he's mistaken," Skinner explained. "The woman was killed by a single shot to the head. They were exploring the mine with a view to opening it as a tourist attraction when they found her."

Mulder grinned mischievously.

"Maybe it's a hoax to bring in more business," he suggested. "Some people like that kind of thing, visiting murder sites. If the place is haunted by this woman's ghost they could make a fortune. What?!"

This last comment was addressed to Scully who had been trying to get his attention throughout his speech. She pointed at the bottom of the page.

"The victim was identified by her father as Eve Fitzgerald Skinner," Mulder read.

Skinner leaned across the desk, thrusting his face close to Mulder's and from between clenched teeth said:

"I believe your profitable ghost is my wife."

"You could have stopped me," Mulder complained, for the hundredth time.

"I was trying to," Scully replied. "Why do you think I kept kicking you? Did you think I was playing footsie?

"Let's just pray we can solve this case, because I don't want to go back to Skinner empty-handed after what you did. Keep reading."

Mulder, however, closed the file on his lap and turned to look at the passing scenery. This part of the country was really quite lovely and entirely new to him.

"Why do you think Skinner wanted us to come here? I mean why not come himself?"

"I don't know. It is a bit strange, not wanting to see her," Scully replied thoughtfully.

"Would you want to see someone who'd been dead in a mine for twenty years?"

Scully ignored the question; Mulder's attempts at humor had landed them in enough trouble already.

"I assume he'll be here for the funeral," she continued. "I suppose he wanted to stay away until the investigation was concluded. Although, considering our recent success rate with cases, I wonder if he made the right choice."

"Maybe that's why he chose us, maybe he murdered her."

Scully gave an exasperated sigh, pulled the car in to the side of the road and said:

"O.K. Mulder, you drive and I'll make the kind of comments that will lose us our jobs."

They swopped seats, and as they moved off again Scully began to leaf through the file.

"It seems when she went missing twenty years ago, her disappearance was not looked upon as suspicious. That's odd."

"What? That they thought she left him of her own accord? How long were they married?"

"Three years."

"That long? And you're surprised?"

"I don't know Mulder, this is just too weird. Skinner with a wife? I didn't think he had any life outside of his office. Makes you wonder."

"If Cancerman bounces grandchildren on his knee?"

"Something like that. Although I sincerely hope not."

"I don't think you're going to get much more out of that file, Scully. I've been through it all already and I have concluded that this is an open-and-shut case."

"Not wishing to cast doubt on your pet theory that Skinner done her in, but I think you did overlook something. You didn't notice that Walter Skinner is a dad."

"What?! Let me see that!"

"Mulder! For God's sake watch the road, you nearly hit that truck. I'll read it to you.

"Katrina Mary Skinner, born twenty-second of September, 1974. She lives with her maternal grandfather Michael Fitzgerald. Their ranch is quite near the mine. In fact, it seems he owns the whole mountain."

"Well, we're nearly there now. So, do we go and stare at the human curiosity who is Walter Skinner's daughter, or can we contain ourselves long enough to check into a motel first?"

Earl Thompson, proprietor of Earl's Inn regarded the two F.B.I. agents with some curiosity. There could only be one reason why they were here in Seven Pines: investigating the murder of poor Eve Fitzgerald. The local grapevine had ascertained that she had been murdered before the sheriff himself had heard. No-one had talked of anything else since. Of course, everyone now maintained that they had suspected foul play all along, even if some folk thought she had just run away. Those few people who had only moved into the area in the last twenty years had been swamped with people offering to tell them "poor Eve's" sad story, a story which Earl was now mentally rehearsing in anticipation of questioning by the "feds".

"Anything else I can get you folks?" he asked, approaching the table where the two agents were finishing a late dinner.

"No, thank you. That was delicious," Mulder replied. "But perhaps you could answer a question for us?"

"Sure."

Earl pulled another chair to the table and settled himself for a chat.

Although Mulder had only intended asking directions to the Fitzgerald place, the landlord's willingness to talk about the family was so obvious that he decided to take advantage of it.

Earl, a long-time resident of the town, was indeed a mine of information. In anticipation of gems to come, in particular any gossip about Skinner, Mulder patiently sat through the recitation of the family history of the Fitzgerald's, starting with their emigration to the New World from Ireland. Scully, in spite of the fact that they had been sent there by the man himself, couldn't help but feel that they were prying into Skinner's private life.

"So, I guess you two know Walter Skinner, seeing as you're with the F.B.I. and all. What do you make of him?"

"He's our boss," Scully replied.

Earl chuckled.

"I reckon that answers my question about what you think of him. I can't say as I ever really took to him myself, he was never one for talking much. Still he's had a hard time of it I guess, ever since the first time Eve disappeared."

"You mean she had disappeared before?" Scully queried.

"Didn't you know about that? She went missing for months before her baby was born. They were here on vacation, staying with her folks at the house. She just went out one day and didn't come back. Just over seven months later I think it was, she turned up on the steps of the County Hospital about to have the baby. No-one knew what had happened to her. Poor thing, they say she didn't know herself, or she wasn't able to tell.

"She'd gone very strange. I heard she wouldn't even look at the baby. If anyone tried to talk to her about where she'd been all that time she'd get hysterical.

"It was a shame. I remember her playing out in the street there with the other kids when she was a little girl. She was such a nice kid."

Earl paused for a minute, lost in his memories.

"What happened then?" Mulder prompted him.

"Well, they never did find out what had happened to her," Earl answered."Walter reckoned he couldn't look after her and the baby, so he left them here with her parents, went back to his job in Washington, visited every now and then. A couple o' years later it seemed she was getting a bit better. She started looking after the baby, and going out places again. So Walter came to take them back home with him and the next day she was gone."

"Without a trace?"

"All she took with her was what she had in her purse. She left her car at the bus station in Rapid City and she vanished."

"Did she get on a bus?"

"No-one could tell, a lot of people go through there every day."

"Poor Skinner," Scully muttered to herself.

Earl nodded in sympathetic agreement.

"Yeah, he took it awful hard. Well, it did look like she was running away from him, even if it turns out she didn't get very far.

"She really loved him once and I think he still loved her, even though she'd changed so much. I remember their wedding, I guess most folks 'round here do; it was quite a party. Mike Fitzgerald is a big man in this town, and nothing was too good for his daughter, or for his granddaughter for that matter."

"Tell us about her," Mulder encouraged him, as the landlord fell silent.

Earl suddenly got to his feet.

"You'll meet Kate tomorrow. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do. Sleep well, breakfast's at seven."

Mulder climbed out of the car, stretched his long limbs and sighed contentedly.

"Country life agreeing with you?" Scully asked.

"It sure is. Smell that air."

"All I can smell are the horses," Scully commented, glancing around the stable-yard for someone to talk to.

"Yeah, that reminds me: breakfast."

"What?"

"Horses. We need to get some exercise if we're going to keep eating like we did this morning. Earl certainly has a generous hand with the maple syrup."

"He certainly does."

The two agents turned to see who had spoken. A young woman had just emerged from one of the stalls behind them.

"You're welcome to come riding while you're here, but I imagine you want to get on with the interrogation first."

"Katrina Skinner?" Mulder asked, in a tone that betrayed his surprise.

"Kate. You're Fox Mulder and Dana Scully?"

"Yes," Scully replied. "I suppose your father told you we were coming."

"Yeah, Walt favoured us with one of his epic phone calls. They're rare, but they're memorable. This one lasted all of one minute.

"Coffee? Or is there any danger after one of Earl's infamous breakfasts that you'll explode?"

Mulder grinned at her. "Oh, I think we could squeeze in another cup."

"You two go up to the house then. Jane will look after you. I'll follow you in a minute."

"I guess she takes after her mother then," Mulder commented in an undertone as they followed the driveway to the house.

"Why? She seemed quite sane to me," Scully replied, deliberately misunderstanding him.

"I mean, in all the years I've known Walter Skinner, he's never offered me coffee."

A few minutes after the housekeeper had settled them in the lounge with their coffee, Kate entered. They had had just about enough time to examine the photographs on the mantelpiece and smile at the sight of Walter Skinner with a full head of hair, before they heard the footsteps in the passage outside.

"He did look quite different then, didn't he?" Kate commented as she took a seat facing them.

The two agents started guiltily, then relaxed and smiled as Kate laughed.

"Don't worry. I always make a beeline for the photographs when I'm left alone in someone else's house too. That's my grandparents there, and my mother next to it."

"Oh, I thought that was you," Scully said.

"Thanks, but the similarity is only physical," Kate replied. "If you ever got on my bad side, you'd know I'm more like my father. Grandpa should be back soon. I suppose he's the one you want to talk to. I wouldn't know much about what happened twenty years ago. They try to keep me in the dark about most things around here."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked.

"Well, they always avoided talking about my mother when I was young. I learnt from a kid at school that she had gone crazy, and abandoned me when I was two. I got in a terrible fight with him, and then Grandpa and Grandma decided to tell me themselves before I broke anyone else's ribs."

"You broke some kid's ribs?"

"I told you I was like my dad in a fight."

Scully considered the young woman's tall, well-built frame and decided that maybe she was more like her father after all.

"Anyway, do you want to go up to the mine while we're waiting for Grandpa?"

"Don't you mind going there?" Scully asked, surprised.

"Because they found my mother's body there? I don't believe in ghosts Agent Scully. Maybe, it seems a little heartless, but I don't even remember her, and she never took much interest in me. It really doesn't bother me to go there."

The path from the house to the mine wound steeply up the mountainside. Scully found herself struggling to keep up with the long-legged strides of Mulder and Kate Skinner. She wished she didn't feel such antipathy toward the other woman, she knew she was being unfair to her; but Kate reminded her too much of the girls who had excelled in gym class and had always made Scully feel short and unfit.

The other two were some distance ahead of her, deep in conversation. Mulder seemed to be getting great amusement out of whatever they were discussing. Scully supposed that it was inevitable he should enjoy the company of someone so tall, attractive and blonde as Kate Skinner. She grinned to herself, wondering what Walter Skinner would make of this. He had shown admirable restraint in never hitting Mulder back after that time Mulder had punched him. However, seeing Mulder hitting on his daughter might just push him over the edge.

Mulder and Kate went out of sight around a bend in the path and when Scully finally reached that point she saw them disappearing into the entrance of the mine.

"Thanks for waiting for me," she muttered as she hurried after them into the darkness.

The body had been removed and the scene closely examined by the local officers, whose report the F.B.I. agents had that morning received, but Mulder and Scully spent some time going over the section of the tunnel where Eve Skinner had been found. For Mulder, this was as much to get a feel for the location and the possibilities of the crime as for finding physical evidence.

After a while, they heard footsteps coming along the tunnel.

"Who's there?" Mulder called out.

"I might ask you the same question," the other person called back. "This is my property you're trespassing on."

Michael Fitzgerald soon came into view, took one look at the trespassers and spat out: "F.B.I."

"Mister Fitzgerald? I'm Agent Mulder and this is Agent Scully."

Fitzgerald pointedly ignored Mulder and turned to his granddaughter instead.

"I told you not to come up here. I would have brought them up."

"I didn't mind."

"Well, I mind. This is no place for you, no place for anyone. Once this business is sorted, I'm closing it up for good."

He turned to Mulder: "So, who killed my daughter?"

"Mister Fitzgerald," Scully intervened. "In your statement you said that you had boarded up the entrance to the mine some forty years ago. Did you ever notice if the boards had been interfered with since then?"

"Well, I didn't examine them every day!" he snapped, then continued more calmly. "Maybe I should have, but Eve's car was at the bus station, a hundred miles away. People saw her there. I never thought to look for her here."

Kate took her grandfather's arm and turned him toward the exit.

"It wouldn't have mattered Grandpa. Even if you'd found her sooner, it wouldn't have made any difference, not to her."

"We might have had a better chance of catching whoever did it. How are they ever going to find out now?"

"Walter has great faith in them. He said if anyone could find her killer, they could."

"Since when have you had faith in that no-good jerk?"

"He may not be much of a father, but I hear he's good at his job. Give him A chance to prove it," Kate replied.

A thin strand of blue-grey smoke climbed upwards in the still air. The smoker watched it with apparent absorption for a few minutes, then leaned forward and extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray on the edge of the desk. His attention now returned to the man sitting opposite him.

"Well? Where are they then?" he asked.

Assistant Director Skinner glared at the man who so calmly strolled into his office whenever he chose and always demanded an answer to his questions.

"I'm sure you know exactly where Mulder and Scully are," Skinner replied angrily. "What's your interest in this?"

The other man lit his next cigarette before replying.

"I'm always interested in what my two young friends are doing. Their interests are our interests, and I find their enthusiasm endlessly fascinating.

"You think this case isn't an X-File, Agent Skinner? I have found that Agent Mulder attracts them to him like flies."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that, for the sake of your lovely daughter, there are some things that should stay buried."

"Where to first?" Scully asked as she climbed into the driver's seat.

Mulder glanced at the notes in his hand.

"We might as well start with the late Eve Skinner's doctor. It's not far from here. Head west along Main Street and stop when you reach the end, his house is the last on the right. Maybe this Doctor Carroll can fill in some of the gaps. Michael Fitzgerald was certainly giving nothing away about his daughter and her relationship with her husband."

"That's understandable, it's not going to be easy for him to talk about her. And he probably didn't want to say too much about Skinner, whom he obviously doesn't like, in case we're friends of his."

"I don't think I've ever thought of Skinner as a friend, he's more of an uncle," Mulder commented. "You know the kind: he quizzes you about your grades and tells your father he should send you to Military Academy - make A man of you."

"I know what you mean, I had an aunt like that," Scully replied.

"She wanted to send you to a military academy?"

"No, a finishing school, to turn Missy and me into ladies; but the idea's the same."

Mulder was silent for a while, then said thoughtfully, almost to himself:

"I've always envied you, having a large family. After Samantha was gone, and there was just me and my parents, this terrible chasm seemed to open up between us.

"Sometimes I think that I see everything about my childhood with her through rose-tinted glasses. I often wonder how we'd have got on later, as we were growing up."

"You'd have gone through various phases of loving and hating one another and telling on each other to your parents."

Mulder smiled and nodded.

"Samantha was a master at that. I remember one famous incident when I 'executed' one of her dolls with Dad's paper guillotine. She didn't hesitate to rat on me, I thought I was going to be grounded for the rest of my life.

"But in spite of all the arguments, we were really close; I don't think you're ever as close to your parents as to your brothers and sisters."

"I guess that's true," Scully acknowledged. "But I don't know that any of us appreciated that growing up, when we had to queue for the bathroom. Melissa and I always shared a room, so when I got my first Apartment, I thought I was in heaven. But now..."

They drove in silence for a few minutes, Scully wrapped up in her own thoughts, Mulder for once at a loss to know what to say to her.

"It's just that now," she continued. "My apartment seems so big and empty; and every time I walk in the door I think I see Alex Krycek standing over Missy."

Mulder's fists clenched involuntarily at the mention of the former F.B.I. agent, for a while his own partner, who had murdered both his father and Scully's sister.

"I know," he said. "I've only been back to our house once since Dad died. I couldn't wait to get away again. Mom is talking about selling it, but I don't like the idea of someone else living there with my memories. Does that sound crazy to you?"

Scully shook her head.

"Maybe it's the reason why I haven't sold my apartment. What on earth?"

She pulled the car in to the curb, behind the fire engine, and they stared at what should have been Dr. Carroll's house and surgery. All that remained was a burnt-out shell, smoke still rising from the embers.

"I figured you two would turn up some time," Sheriff Wilder greeted them."And no, we don't know what caused it yet."

"Doctor Carroll?" Scully asked.

The sheriff shook his head.

"It started early this morning, about three o'clock. Doc didn't have a chance. The house went up like a bonfire."

"Do you suspect arson?" Mulder interrupted.

"I suspect everything and everyone," Wilder replied. "Until the fire investigator tells me different. I'll send you a copy of his report."

He moved away to discourage the crowd of onlookers who had gathered nearby. Scully and Mulder exchanged glances.

"No, I wouldn't call you 'Spooky' if you said this was more than a coincidence," Scully said.

Dana Scully held out her hands to the fire and smiled to herself. Perhaps the case was getting nowhere fast, perhaps they had spent a long day in a fruitless search for relevant history on the dead woman, but now as night was falling and the wind was rising, there could be few things more pleasant than a log fire and the prospect of one of Earl's sumptuous repasts. She closed her eyes and realized that, for the first time in many months, she felt content.

It was then that the phone rang.

A knock on the door followed hard on the heels of the phone call and Scully, with a deep sigh, acknowledged that the brief respite was over.

"Come in."

"Well don't sound so welcoming," Mulder commented as he entered her room; but the smile on his face showed that he wasn't at all put out by her tone.

"I've just had a phone call," Scully began.

"Ditto."

"O.K., you go first," she replied. "Yours seems to be better news than mine."

"Michael Fitzgerald just rang to invite us to dinner. He seems in more of a mood to talk; I suspect he's been drinking. I said we'd be there."

Scully looked at him quizzically as he continued to grin in a most irritating way.

"What's so funny?" she challenged him.

"Well, actually he asked me to dinner and told me to bring my 'foxy ladyfriend'. Don't worry Scully, I defended your honor: I said you weren't my ladyfriend. Then he said did that mean you weren't my friend or you weren't a lady, in which case I should make sure to bring you."

"I think I'll pass on the invitation."

Mulder lay down on the hearth rug and smiled up at her.

"Come on Scully, you could do a lot worse. A rich old man with a nice house, even owns a Goldmine."

His good humor was irresistible and Scully had to smile.

"I guess you're right, but you do realize that would make me Skinner's stepmother-in-law."

Mulder laughed loudly.

"There's a mind-bending concept."

"Oh, that reminds me, my phone call."

"Who was it?" Mulder asked, eyes closed, basking in the warmth of the fire.

"I'm sorry to ruin whatever you had planned for this evening Romeo," Scully replied. "But it was Skinner. He's on his way, should be here in a couple of hours."

Mulder sat bolt upright, a distressed look on his face.

"No."

"I'm afraid so. You go on up to the ranch, and I'll wait here for him and follow later. That'll give you a few hours with the lovely Kate before Daddy arrives."

"Very funny Scully, ruin my evening and then laugh at me."

"I'm sorry," Scully said, attempting, but failing to put on a serious expression. "No really, I am sorry. I mean, you're even wearing the expensive after-shave."

Mulder slammed the door behind him in reply.

Mulder comforted himself with the thought that it would take Scully and Skinner even longer to reach the ranch than it had taken him. The rain had started soon after he had left the town and the road was quickly churned into mud. The autumnal storm was sudden and ferocious, and Michael Fitzgerald gave it as his opinion that he wouldn't be surprised if the river burst its banks again, in which case the road would be flooded nearer the town and be impassable.

Mulder wondered if it was a sin to pray for a natural disaster, but quickly realized that he was not alone in how he felt. Neither Kate nor her grandfather showed any inclination to see Skinner that evening, although Fitzgerald did express disappointment that Mulder had left that "pretty little thing" behind at the inn.

Dinner was a jovial affair, both food and conversation being good and plentiful. A couple of glasses of good whiskey and some persuasion from his granddaughter had mellowed Fitzgerald's attitude toward the F.B.I. and he had become much more relaxed and talkative.

"You know, I liked Walter Skinner when I first met him," Fitzgerald commented, as they took their coffee into the lounge. "He was a lot like you then, a bit more cynical maybe. I don't know, I guess circumstances change people in different ways, it's hard to know why people do the things they do. All the same, I find it hard to forgive him for just leaving Kate here and going back to that job of his, as if it was the only thing that mattered."

"Let's not talk about that now, Grandpa," Kate said in a subdued voice.

"I'm sorry Katy," Fitzgerald replied. "You know we always wanted you here, but he could have called and visited more often. He was always welcome."

"Was he?" Kate asked. "Did we really make him feel part of the family when he came to see us? Grandma spiked his coffee with senna pods once, for heaven's sake."

"My wife went a bit strange towards the end," Fitzgerald said by way of explanation to Mulder. "Actually, she never liked poor Walter, but no-one would have been good enough for our Eve as far as she was concerned. She blamed him for Eve running away, I guess we both did."

They were silent for a few minutes, each reading their own thoughts in the flickering light of the fire.

"I think I blamed Walter as well," Kate acknowledged. "I feel guilty now, I mean there was another reason why she never came back."

"I wonder what the connection was between the first and second time she disappeared," Mulder said thoughtfully.

Fitzgerald shook his head.

"We could get no sense out of her when she turned up at the hospital. She said some strange things, some terrible things, but none of it made any sense. Only God knows where she was all those months and what happened to her."

"Someone else knows too," Mulder replied. "Maybe now we'll find out. Can you remember any of what she said?"

The old man shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"She said that I wasn't her baby," Kate answered for him. "It's alright Grandpa, you needn't worry, I heard it a long time ago. It's a small town."

"Where some people should learn to keep their mouths shut," Fitzgerald snarled.

"She refused to see me," Kate continued. "She kept saying that I wasn't hers and she didn't want me. When anyone asked her what she meant, either she wouldn't answer or she'd become hysterical. It was the same when they tried to find out where she had been.

"It was diagnosed as severe post-natal depression, but some of her doctors thought there was more to it than that, that it was brought on by some sort of trauma during the missing months."

"Did they ever get any idea as to what had happened?" Mulder asked. "Did they try any regression therapy?"

"Funny you should ask that," Fitzgerald replied. "'Cause that was the only thing that seemed to help. It was nearly two years afterwards that they started that hypnosis thing to try and get her to remember. It was a last resort really, they'd tried pretty much everything else, drugs mostly. Doc Carroll didn't think much of the idea, but it seemed to work. She started to take an interest in Katy, to go out a bit more, and she seemed more at peace with herself. The nightmares even stopped."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah, ever since she came back, she'd wake up screaming or crying most nights. She'd say that she heard voices or saw someone, someone who scared her, but she couldn't remember who it was."

"And did the regression therapy reveal anything?"

"It's hard to say. It was all very confused: she saw men without faces, speaking in languages she didn't understand, strange stuff like that. Her therapist seemed to think she was on the verge of a breakthrough, that it might all come clear soon, that was just before she disappeared."

"Do you think that might have been connected to her disappearance? To her murder?" Mulder asked eagerly.

Fitzgerald sighed and leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed.

"I always thought I'd get wiser as I got older; but it seems to me that the older I get the less I understand about this world. I don't understand how anyone could hurt my Eve, how anyone could kill her, but someone did. I don't know why."

Kate rose from her chair and crossed the room to her grandfather's side.

"I think we've talked enough about this for tonight Grandpa," she urged him gently. "Maybe it's time for bed."

He got up slowly and, wishing them both "Goodnight," headed up the stairs, looking suddenly older and more frail than before.

Kate watched him go, an expression of great sadness on her face. She sat on the couch next to Mulder and regarded him thoughtfully.

"I suppose it's better to know the truth about my mother at last," she began. "But it's just so hard to have all this brought up again, particularly on Grandpa. He doesn't usually talk much about my mother, but I guess everything that's happened lately has opened the floodgates."

"It must be hard on you too," Mulder said gently.

"When I was a kid, I couldn't go anywhere or do anything, without someone recounting the story of 'poor Kate and poor Eve', or at least it seemed like that. Then, after a while, it became old news and I could go into town without feeling like people were talking about me behind my back.

"Ever since my mother's body was found, instead of feeling sorrow or whatever it is I'm supposed to feel for a woman I don't even remember, all I feel is resentment that my life and Grandpa's are being turned upside-down again. Most of all I resent the fact that it took this for my father to finally come and see me again. Did you know he hasn't been here in two years, not since Grandma's funeral?"

"He never struck me as a warm man," Mulder commented.

"I wouldn't know," Kate replied. "I suspect you know him better than his own daughter. Oh, I just want this nightmare to end and for things to get back to the way they were."

The sudden ringing of Mulder's cellular phone made them both jump. Mulder listened in silence to the voice on the other end of the line, then said:

"Fine. They're both fine... We'll see you in the morning then."

"Was that Walter?" Kate asked as he turned off the phone.

"Yeah, it seems there are trees down all over the place, and the river did flood the road. They had to turn back, they'll come up in the morning."

"Which also means..."

"What?"

"That I'm stuck with you for tonight Agent Mulder."

"Sorry about that."

"Did I say I minded?"

"The fire investigator confirmed this afternoon that the fire was started deliberately," Scully said as she concluded her report to Assistant Director Walter Skinner.

"I suppose I shouldn't speak ill of the dead," Skinner said. "But I never really liked Doctor Carroll. You couldn't say that around this town 'though, they're very protective of their own."

"They don't really take to strangers?" Scully asked.

Skinner looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

"No, some of them don't. This is it then, is it? My interrogation. Am I a suspect?"

Scully colored deeply.

"Of course not sir, but you're obviously someone we have to interview. Without Doctor Carroll, there are very few people left with any pertinent information."

"But plenty of people with gossip," Skinner interrupted her.

"Sir, I didn't mean to start this now. It's been a long day."

"Actually, I'm not particularly tired, but I imagine you are. I'll say goodnight Agent Scully."

"I'm not tired," Scully replied, then taking a deep breath, and hoping she wouldn't regret what she was about to say, she continued: "If you want to talk, it's alright."

"To you?" Skinner said in some surprise, before realizing how rude it sounded. "I'm sorry, I just didn't think you would want to talk to me."

He sat down again opposite Scully and stared into the fire without speaking for some time. Eventually, he looked up at her and said:

"In some ways I'm glad we weren't able to go up to the ranch tonight. I could do with time to sort my thoughts. I haven't seen Katy in two years, I don't know what I'll say to her."

There was another long silence, which Scully hesitantly broke.

"When my father died, there were so many things I wished I could have said to him. I think there were things he wanted to say to me too. We were always close, but even so there were so many lost opportunities, times we could have spoken and we didn't."

"You think I shouldn't waste my opportunities with Katy?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't planning on dying just yet," he said, then smiled at something just recalled. "But after everything that's happened in the last few months, I should know my plans have little to do with it. I seem to remember you threatening my life at one point."

"If I remember rightly, the threat was mutual, sir."

"No, Agent Scully, you drew your weapon first."

"At the time, I thought you had been sent to kill me; but I had the wrong F.B.I. agent."

"Did you really think I would kill you?"

There was a genuine look of hurt in his eyes and Scully was taken aback.

"No, I didn't want to think that, but everything was very confused at the time. Mulder was missing and I didn't know who to trust."

Skinner nodded, in acknowledgment of the fact.

"I wouldn't have shot you, but I'm afraid to ask if you would have shot me," he said, then added, with a sly grin: "Considering you had already shot Agent Mulder."

Scully grimaced, saying: "And he has never let me forget it."

"He should be grateful to you," Skinner replied emphatically. "You probably saved his life by your actions at that time."

"And he has the hole in his shoulder to remind him."

Scully shrugged off the discussion.

"Gratitude doesn't enter into it with Mulder. Too much has happened to the two of us for that."

"I admire your loyalty to Agent Mulder and to The X-Files," Skinner said. "It's hard to imagine now that you were originally assigned to debunk them."

"I still don't swallow them hook, line and sinker," Scully quickly pointed out. "I still have my doubts about some of our cases, but I guess my outlook on some things has broadened."

"I believe we've all changed our perspectives in the light of recent events," Skinner agreed.

"...which was the year I graduated from college," Kate finished her story.

Mulder looked at her, baffled.

"Wait a minute, I'm getting confused; you mean you graduated when you were seventeen. How did you manage that?"

"I was in an Accelerated Learning Program for gifted children," Kate replied. "They kept pushing me onwards in school, until they pushed me out, and I went to college. They said I was disruptive in school because I was so far in advance of the other children."

"How disruptive were you?"

"Let's just say that breaking Johnny Thompson's ribs was not an isolated incident."

Mulder couldn't help laughing.

"If that's Earl Thompson's grandson, it would explain why he didn't want to talk to us about you."

Kate nodded.

"None of the Thompsons talk to me anymore. I really think the reason I was such a trouble-maker was that I never stayed in any class long enough to settle down and make friends. And I also seemed to have far too much energy, I had to work it off somehow."

"On the other children?"

"I'm much calmer now," Kate assured him. "I no longer pose a threat to society. Since I left college, I've been working here on the ranch. It takes up all my time and energy."

Mulder poured them each another glass of wine, before asking:

"Are you happy with this?"

Kate considered this question for some moments, then answered:

"Happier than I've been doing anything else. For now, I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing. Maybe tomorrow Walter will come and ask me to move to Washington."

"Would you go?"

"Without hesitation. My family seems to be constantly diminishing, I'd like A chance to get to know my dad at last. Perhaps this cloud will have a silver lining after all, and I'll get my wish."

They were both silent for a few minutes, then Kate shook her head as if to dispel all gloomy thoughts and smiled at Mulder.

"Now it's your turn Agent Mulder, tell me your sordid history."

"Agent Mulder sounds very formal, if I'm going to be revealing intimate details."

"Please don't ask me to call you Fox ; don't take this personally, but I don't think I could," Kate teased. "Would 'Hey, you' be alright as a substitute?"

"I've been called worse," Mulder replied. "Well, I suspect my days in formal education were a bit different from yours. I wasn't on any Accelerated Learning Program, although when I was in college in Oxford my dad used to say I was on an Inebriated Learning Program.

"It was then that I learnt the Golden rule: never answer the phone when you're drunk and/or in bed with someone; because it's guaranteed to be your parents calling."

"And this is a tenet by which you live your life?"

"It's a valuable lesson, which has stood by me over the years."

Mulder moved closer to her and taking the wine glass from her hand, placed it on the table. He slipped his arm around her waist and drew her toward him.

"Shall we take a chance that our parents won't call tonight?" he asked.

Kate gave no reply save for a slow, deep kiss, which Mulder decided was sufficiently expressive to answer his question.

"I wouldn't have imagined Earl would have such a good cellar," Scully commented as she tasted the wine. "I guess it's true you can't judge a book by its cover, although we do it all the time. I mean -"

"So what had you decided about me that proved untrue?" Skinner asked, correctly guessing where her sentence had been going.

Scully blushed deeply. It suddenly occurred to her that the intimacy of a late night conversation, so natural with Mulder, was perhaps unwise with the Assistant Director. She struggled for an acceptable answer, then finally gave up and replied lamely:

"A lot."

Skinner did not appear to have taken offence. He leaned back in his chair, listened to the rain and considered the firelight as it shone through the glass in his hand.

"There really are few pleasures greater than a warm fire on a stormy night," he commented, after several minutes of contemplative silence.

Scully smiled warmly, then replied:

"I was thinking that myself earlier this evening. I hope they're as comfortable at the ranch."

"Don't worry about them. It's a well-built house and, as they're considerably higher than the town, they're a lot safer. Floods are the greatest danger with these autumn storms."

"Did you spend much time here? It's beautiful country."

Skinner shook his head.

"We spent most of our vacations at the ranch with Eve's parents, but I never lived here. I'm too much of a city person, I start to miss the noise after a couple of weeks.

"Kate seems to be more like her mother than me. She loves the ranch; the only time she left it for any length of time was to go to college. She graduated top of her class, she could have done anything, but all she wanted was to come back to South Dakota and raise horses."

"You would have liked her to join the F.B.I...?"

"Possibly, at the time; but after all that has happened in recent years, I now want her as far away from X-Files, conspiracies and extra-terrestrials as possible."

"Maybe you shouldn't have assigned Agent Mulder and me to this case," Scully suggested with a smile, leaning forward to refill her own glass and Skinner's. "X-Files are drawn to him like bees to a honey-pot."

Skinner stared at her.

"Why did you say that?"

"You don't think it's true?"

"It reminded me of something someone said to me."

Both the fire and the wine had been making Scully rather drowsy, but the expression on Skinner's face gave her cause for concern and she was quickly wide awake again.

"What is it, sir? What do you know about the case?"

"Not much more than you, Agent Scully, but yesterday I had a vistor who warned me off this case. I think you know who I mean."

"Why would he have an interest in this?"

"I don't know yet, but that's what I came here to find out."

"Then his warning had the opposite effect to what he intended," Scully commented thoughtfully. "But he should have known you would come straight here to make sure your daughter was alright."

"Except that now I can get no farther than Earl's damned Inn. Excuse me Agent Scully, but Agent Mulder had better look after Katy."

Scully hoped that her face didn't betray what she was thinking as she replied:

"We'll go there first thing in the morning, she's in safe hands until then."

"I can't help worrying," Skinner said. "I should have been there for Eve. God knows what happened to her.

"I was on my way from Washington to bring her and Katy home. She called me just that morning, she sounded so happy. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard her laugh. That was why it was so hard to believe she had gone again, that she had just left us..."

Scully found her eyes filling with tears as she looked at the man she had so often thought of as an automaton sitting behind a desk. For twenty years he had believed his wife to have deserted him. She doubted it was any comfort to him to know that Eve had not left him, but had been murdered and her body dumped in a mine-shaft.

"Did she ever say anything that might have given some indication of -"

She stopped abruptly as he raised his head to look at her, his anguished expression shocking her into silence. After a moment he composed himself sufficiently to answer.

"She told me when she called to say she wanted to come back to Washington, that she had something important to tell me, something she had remembered in therapy, but couldn't understand. She seemed to think I would. But I can't think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt her.

"I suppose some people suspect me. I wasn't always as patient with her as I might have been, that was partly why I left her here with her parents. I couldn't deal with her. I was never much good at dealing with other people's problems, their weaknesses, their tears...babies."

He smiled sadly at Scully as he continued:

"I don't think I was cut out to be a father. I just wish I could explain to Katy that despite all my faults as a husband and a father, I love her, and I loved her mother - very much."

Scully moved to sit beside him, surreptitiously brushing the back of her hand across her eyes. Forgetting all protocol, she saw only a sad and troubled soul before her. The same instinct which had led her to study medicine, the need to help others, prompted her to place her hand on his arm and say with as much confidence as she could muster:

"I'm sure she knows that, and there's still time to tell her."

"Scully, you -"

Skinner stopped speaking, hesitated for a moment, then tried again, blaming his distraction on the bright blue eyes which gazed so tenderly into his own.

"Dana, thank you."

He took her hand in both of his, but resisted the impulse to tell her how beautiful she looked in the firelight. The J. Edgar Hoover Building seemed at this moment to be a million miles away, but even so, such a politically incorrect statement to another agent might not easily be forgiven, or forgotten.

"Why are you smiling?" she asked.

"Don't ask me why, but I was thinking of J. Edgar Hoover," he replied."Then I realized how wholly inappropriate that was."

"Do you always think of our patron saint at such moments?" she questioned, with difficulty holding back her laughter.

"How would you define this moment?"

She shook her head, suddenly serious, and unable to meet his steady gaze. She felt the color rising in her face as a flood of surprising, but not altogether unwelcome, ideas and images entered her mind.

"I don't know - yet."

She slipped her free hand into her pocket and switched off her cellular phone, remembering a piece of advice Mulder had once given her.

Special Agent Fox Mulder had, in his college days, woken up in many strange places and with some strange bed-fellows, both real and inflatable, the latter placed there by that sense of humor which is peculiar to students. He had even woken up to find a gun pointed in his face, but never his own gun, and never in the hands of the woman next to whom he had fallen asleep. He found himself a little disconcerted and rather surprised.

"That good, huh?" he queried.

"Get up and get dressed, and don't say a word," Kate ordered, in a cold and unfamiliar tone.

Michael Fitzgerald was standing on the porch of his house waiting for them as Dana Scully parked the car. He acknowledged his two visitors with a nod as they approached.

"Your partner went up to the mine early this morning," he informed her.

"Why?" Scully was surprised.

"I don't know," Fitzgerald replied. "He was gone when I got up. He told Kate he had an idea, that there was something he wanted to check; he wanted you two to follow him up."

"Do you mind if I see my daughter first?" Skinner asked acerbically.

"She's at the stables," Fitzgerald replied, then turned to Scully with a more friendly expression. "Can I offer you some breakfast, young lady?"

"No, thank you," she replied. "I think I'll head up to the mine."

"No, wait for me Agent Scully," Skinner said. "I won't be long."

"You never are," Fitzgerald muttered, as he watched his son-in-law walk toward the stable-yard. "Not when it comes to spending time with your only child."

Some ten minutes later Skinner came into the kitchen, where Fitzgerald and Scully were sitting. They looked at him questioningly.

"I think you were wrong about some things Scully," he commented. "She didn't want to know."

Fitzgerald looked surprised.

"That's odd," he said. "She seemed really eager to see you again. I thought you two would have a lot to talk about."

"Well maybe, Michael, you finally got through to her," Skinner snapped at him. "Convinced her what a low-life I am."

Fitzgerald stared down at the table for a few minutes. Eventually, he looked up at the younger man, and his voice shook as he spoke.

"I don't think I could do that Walter. Kate loves you; but if I have caused any trouble between you, I'm sorry. I lost my daughter to some madman with A shotgun, I don't want to see you lose yours."

"I'll speak to her again later," Skinner said. "For now, let's go and see if Agent Mulder has any answers for us."

Scully made no effort to catch up to the two men as they climbed the steep path to the mine entrance. She was pleased to see that they were speaking to one another, but felt no desire to listen in. This unwillingness to eavesdrop was a good reason for lagging behind, and a less irritating reason than the fact that she could not have kept up with their long-legged strides even if she had wanted to.

She wondered what Mulder hoped to find up here, what inspiration had come to him in the night to cause him to go mountain-climbing so early in the morning. For everyone's sake she hoped this new idea would prove fruitful and give them some direction for this case.

Coming around the last bend in the path, she was disturbed from her reverie by some movement in the trees near the mine entrance. She stepped back into the shadow of a tree and waited silently. Skinner and Fitzgerald had already gone into the mine. A few seconds later, she was surprised to see Kate Skinner emerge from the trees and follow them.

Scully was crossing the open ground in front of the entrance when a thunderous explosion broke the stillness of the morning. The ground shook beneath her feet and she stumbled and fell. The air became so thick with dust, that for a few moments it was impossible to see the entrance to the mine. As she got to her feet again, she could just make out the silhouette of a person carrying a pick-axe emerging from the mine.

"Kate!" she called out.

"What are you doing here?" Kate asked, startled.

Too late Scully realized the other woman's intent and was unable to evade the pick-axe handle and the crashing blow to the side of her head.

The words "You might have killed her" were the next thing Scully was aware of. She was unable to see the man who had spoken them, although his voice seemed familiar to her. Her head ached and she was overwhelmed by a feeling of nausea. She lay quite still, as even the slightest movement sent daggers of pain through her skull. After a few minutes, the dark fog cleared and she was able to see that she was back in Fitzgerald's house. She was lying on the sofa, a man was sitting nearby watching her and Kate was standing by the door. Afraid to move or speak, for fear she might pass out again, Scully waited.

"I must apologize Agent Scully," the elderly man said. "Miss Skinner sometimes forgets her own strength."

Scully stared at him for a while before she was able to gasp out the word:"Why?"

"Why? Well, I suppose she panicked when she saw that you had not been buried in the cave-in along with your colleagues and Mister Fitzgerald. There are still a few problems to be ironed-out with her, but we can't expect a perfect result the first time. Or did you mean why did she cause the cave-in?"

"Yes."

"That is a long story Agent Scully," he replied smoothly. "Perhaps I may tell you while we wait for my colleagues to decide what we will do with you; but I'm afraid I can't allow you to use the information."

"The funeral," Scully said, suddenly remembering where she had seen him before.

"That's right, we met at the funeral of Agent Mulder's father. I was able to help you then."

"You warned me that someone would try to kill me."

"I will not be able to help you this time Dana. My friends and I have various projects in which we take an interest. Some of the project-leaders deal more harshly with interference than others, and you have interfered with the wrong people this time."

Scully struggled to sit up, but as the room began to spin, she abandoned the attempt and lay back again.

"How could you kill your own father?" she spat the question at Kate.

The young woman did not even blink in reaction, but continued to stare straight ahead.

"Because she didn't know that was what she was doing. All emotional responses become defunct when she is following orders."

"Whose orders? How could they make her do that?"

"She has been programmed since birth, using processes and technology far beyond your knowledge or imagination, to follow our orders, blindly."

"Some sort of brainwashing?"

"In a manner of speaking, although a little more sophisticated. She doesn't respond to you now because she is in a dormant mode."

He removed a flat rectangular box from his pocket.

"When I activate this device it stimulates an implant which causes her to obey any command which I give her. I could command her to become her usual self again, the self who knows nothing about any of this."

"Why kill them? We were nowhere near finding any of this out."

He shrugged and replied:

"Personally, I would have left well enough alone, but there are those who are quite paranoid about the activities of yourself and Agent Mulder. The decision was made not to miss the opportunity to dispose of three rather troublesome agents in a manner which could only appear accidental. A cave-in in an old and dangerous mine: A tragic accident."

"That was why Cancerman warned Skinner off the case, knowing it was the surest way to get him here."

"So that's what you call him. I must remember to tell the others," he chuckled. "They'll like that. Feeling a little better?"

This last was as Scully managed to pull herself into a sitting position. Her head felt as if it would explode, but being at eye-level with her captor made her feel at slightly less of a disadvantage. Thoughts of Mulder, Skinner and Michael Fitzgerald jostled for space with the pain inside her head, but she tried to put them aside, to focus on the information she needed from this man. She also tried to forget the issue of whether or not she would ever get to make use of what she learnt.

"Why choose her?"

"We had at one time a facility in this area. The remote location suited our purposes. We drew subjects from the environs. Doctor Carroll was kind enough to provide us with information on expectant mothers."

"Which is why you killed him before we could interview him."

"I did say some of my colleagues were a little paranoid. At the time that Kate was selected, the F.B.I. were less fond of interfering in our concerns, but since then many of our group have regretted the decision to use her as a subject. However, in all other respects, she was an ideal candidate."

"Why did you take them before the babies were born? I assume it was your people who kidnapped Eve Skinner when she was pregnant."

He looked at her thoughtfully for a few minutes, then answered:

"You have a terrible curiosity, Agent Scully. It has gotten you into enough trouble already, why pursue it any further?"

"You have nothing to lose by telling me. What did you do to them?"

"We made them what they are today."

He waved his hand to indicate the young woman who was still standing motionless by the door.

"Incredibly intelligent, athletic, even beautiful, and completely biddable, thanks to the implant technology. They are the race of super-beings the Nazis could only dream of. You must realize that Kate is not the only one, she is not even one of the first, although she is the first to have received an implant. We had a few regrettable incidents in the past, when our control over the subjects was not complete. You yourself, Agent Scully, have suffered at the hands of one of our 'mistakes'."

"I don't believe you. This is all impossible, that kind of genetic technology wasn't even dreamt of twenty-two years ago; it isn't even possible today."

"My dear young lady," he replied, apparently not in the least put out by Scully's disbelief. "When will you realize that what the wider scientific community believes to be the frontier of scientific discovery is so far behind the reality as to be ludicrous? We have a source of information and technology which few people even dream of."

"Technology from another world?" Scully asked the question which she knew would have been on the tip of Mulder's tongue.

"Ah, the spirit of Agent Mulder speaks through you," the man commented, smiling benignly. An instant later, the smile vanished.

"The spirit of Agent Mulder can speak for itself," a familiar and welcome voice spoke from behind Scully.

She turned as sharply as her pounding brain would allow, to see her partner standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a gun trained on the seated man.

"Give that to Agent Scully," Mulder indicated the box which the man still held.

He hesitated and Mulder commented:

"Unless she's quick on the draw, you'd better not think of activating her. She may be super-woman, but is she bullet-proof?"

"You wouldn't shoot her."

Mulder's grim expression however suggested the contrary, and the man, after another moment's hesitation, handed the box to Scully.

Mulder took another step into the room and threw a length of rope onto the table.

"If you're planning to take over the world with your zombie army," he commented. "You'd better teach them how to tie better knots. Also, you shouldn't have left Agent Scully's weapon lying on the kitchen table, you never know who might get their hands on it."

He glanced down at Scully.

"I think I'll keep this for now, you don't look like you could hold it steady. How are you at knot-tying?"

"Well, my dad was in the Navy," she replied, getting slowly and shakily to her feet.

She tied the older man securely to his chair. Throughout the operation he made no protest, nor did he seem at all upset by the situation. Scully sat down again, still feeling a bit light-headed, but much relieved by Mulder's arrival.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Kate took my gun and made me go up to the mine, then she knocked me out. When I came to, it took a while to untie myself. I started back down the mountain; I took a short cut, I must have missed you on the way up. I was about halfway down when I heard the cave-in and went back. I saw Kate carrying you down. There were two other men and our friend here with her. I waited until the other two drove away, then came in and found your gun, which was lucky."

"Very fortunate for you, Agent Mulder," the other man interrupted. "But my two colleagues will be returning soon and there will be others with them, so I suggest you make your escape while you still can."

"What about Skinner and Fitzgerald?" Scully asked anxiously.

"I don't know," Mulder replied. "I called the sheriff, he said he'd get digging equipment, but he didn't know how long it would take to get it up here. He's going to get some men to help and they'll be here as quick as they can."

Scully stood.

"I'm going back to the mine."

"Not yet," Mulder said firmly. "There's something that needs to be done first. Have you got your medical bag in the car?"

Scully looked dubiously at her patient, then warned Mulder:

"It's not generally recommended to perform surgery, even minor surgery, when you have a suspected concussion."

"You look a lot better than you did when I came in," he replied encouragingly.

"If she goes for me again with a pick-axe," she cautioned him, as she set to work with the scalpel. "I'll come after you with this."

"So that's what she got you with? You must have a pretty thick skull," Mulder said, in a tone of admiration.

Ten minutes later they were staring at a tiny metallic disc which Scully had removed from the back of Kate's neck.

"We won't learn much from this without an electron microscope," she commented, placing it in a glass sample container which she then slipped into her pocket. She turned back to Kate, who had sat quietly in the chair in which they had placed her throughout the entire procedure.

"What now?" she wondered aloud. "Maybe we should have 're-activated' her before removing the implant. I thought she would recover as soon as it was gone."

She tapped Kate's face experimentally and called her name. There was no reaction. Mulder then tried the same tactic. After a few minutes of this, and a glass of ice-cold water, they were beginning to get anxious.

"His hench-men may be back soon," Mulder pointed out. "Maybe we'd better just take them with us and go back up to the mine. The sheriff might be there by now."

Scully looked toward the room where they had left the man.

"There's no point, we won't get anything more from him now."

"He never answered your question."

"When will you learn Mulder, that they never do?"

She spun round suddenly and hit Kate across the face with the back of her hand. The force of the blow was such that she knocked both Kate and the chair to the floor.

Mulder stared at his partner in shocked silence, then, as Kate uttered a low moan, he turned to help her up.

"Did you enjoy that?" he snapped at Scully.

"More than you can imagine," she replied calmly. "It worked, didn't it?"

Mulder was forced to admit that this was true. Kate did seem to have returned to normality, although she was extremely disorientated and had no idea of what had happened, or why she had a pain in the back of her neck. The two agents promised to explain once they had got her to safety, although, even as they said this, they wondered how on earth they would go about this explanation.

The rescuers stared gloomily at the collapsed tunnel.

"There must be a ton of earth fallen in there," Sheriff Wilder speculated.

The others nodded in agreement.

"Let's hope they were far enough in when it happened," he continued, sounding less than hopeful. "Maybe it didn't collapse the whole way along."

He turned at the sound of voices and footsteps coming up the path from the ranch. He and the other men had taken the direct road to the mine from the town.

"I thought you'd be here waiting for us," he commented to Mulder, as he, Scully and Kate came into view.

"There was another problem, at the house," Mulder replied, but gave no more details.

The sheriff shrugged, then turned to the more pressing matter.

"We have to wait on the experts and the digging equipment, flying in from Rapid City," he explained. "I'm sorry Kate, but if we start ourselves, more of the tunnel may fall in, and we've no way of knowing where they are in there."

"That could take hours," Kate cried.

"What in God's name?"

This last was from one of the men, as two filthy, bedraggled beings came crashing through the trees. Kate gave an inarticulate cry of delight and ran forward to throw her arms around her father and grandfather.

The rest of those present stared in amazement at the two men. Scully and Mulder were the first to recover and hurry to where the family reunion was taking place.

"Dana," Skinner looked up and saw her. A look of great relief spread across his face. "Thank God! We didn't know if you were in the tunnel behind us when the ceiling came down."

"I hadn't made it as far as the mine," she explained. "How did you get out?"

Fitzgerald chuckled, and winked conspiratorially at Skinner.

"There was another way, but no-one else knew about it. A secret handed down from father to son. Follow me."

He led the curious group a little way down the mountainside through the trees. Pulling back a tangle of undergrowth, he revealed what appeared to be a small cave.

"This was the other entrance to the mine. My father closed it up years ago, but we only had to dig through about a foot of earth to re-open it."

"Why was it a secret?" Kate asked.

Skinner and Fitzgerald exchanged glances, then disappeared into the cave. A few minutes later they re-emerged, each carrying a crate, which rattled with the distinctive clinking of glass bottles.

"I hope that is what I think it is," Sheriff Wilder commented. "So I can confiscate some of it."

"I think there's enough for every man to confiscate a couple of bottles," Fitzgerald replied. "There's some more cases inside. Help yourselves boys, and thanks."

The rest needed no second bidding, and soon they were heading back down the mountain with several bottles each of Fitzgerald's home-distilled whisky, which at one time had been known as the finest in the county.

"How long has this been in here?" Mulder asked, examining a bottle.

"Since Prohibition times," Fitzgerald replied. "My family was as famous for this liquid gold as for the nuggets we dug out of the earth. I think it'll be nicely matured by now. I was saving these last few cases for a special occasion. I don't think there could be a better one than this. That is, if the G-men don't haul me in for offering them a glass of boot-leg whisky."

Skinner shrugged and picked up the last case.

"I think we can omit it from our report."

"Well, if you insist sir," Scully sighed in mock resignation. "You are the boss. But, before anyone touches a drop of that, we're turning ourselves in to the County Hospital, to make sure there are no concussions or internal injuries."

"Everyone?" Skinner asked, surprised.

"We've been having our own adventures," Scully replied. "We'll fill you in later."

"What about that man you left tied up at the ranch?" Kate asked suddenly.

Mulder and Scully both muttered the same curse as they remembered their captive, then headed back toward the ranch at a run.

They were not too surprised to find him gone, and the marks of several sets of tyres in the yard.

"You could join the zombie army, Scully," Mulder commented, holding up the rope with which she had tied the man to the chair. "You tie even worse knots than Kate."

"It wouldn't have made any difference, once his friends arrived," she answered. "Do you suppose there's any point in putting out an a.P.B. on him?"

Mulder shook his head.

"I suppose we'd better go through the motions, but it's like you said: some questions are never answered, and some people are never meant to be found."

Scully watched the fat-bellied moths fluttering around the lamp, one by one, either giving up on the prize, the flickering flame, or falling to a fiery death within. The swing rocked slowly back and forth and each time that it seemed about to stop, she gave a push with her feet against the floor of the porch and set it in motion again. The incessant chirping of the crickets had prevented her from sleeping and now she sat on the porch of Michael Fitzgerald's house, contemplating the events of the last few days as she stared into the darkness.

They had concluded that the reason for Eve Skinner's murder had been that, in her regression therapy, she must have remembered a face, or a name, perhaps, from the time that she had been kidnapped. Whatever it was, it must have been something that would have led Skinner to her kidnappers, perhaps it was a name he would have recognized. Finding this out, they had killed her before she could tell him, and made it look as if she had left him of her own accord, as she was believed to have done once before.

The day had been spent in explanations, first to Skinner, then to Kate and her grandfather. They had been given a less detailed version than that which was given to the Assistant Director. Skinner felt it would be better to fill in the details slowly, unsure of how this news would affect his daughter. To this end, he had decided to take what leave was owing to him and spend it with his family, coming to terms with the momentous revelations, and making plans for the future.

Everyone had retired to bed early, the three agents electing to stay at the ranch to watch over Kate and Michael. In reality, no-one had felt like leaving; the five felt connected in some way by the recent events and by the secret which they now shared. Spending the evening together, having supper together and drinking one another's health in fine old South Dakota whiskey had been like a solemnisation of that bond. In a sense Scully felt, that the connection she had so long had with Mulder, now existed, even if only temporarily, between the two of them, Skinner and his family.

The screen door swung open and Mulder stepped onto the porch. He smiled at her sleepily, then sat down beside her.

"Damn crickets," he yawned. "Keeping you awake too, Scully?"

"Them, and a whirl of other things."

"It's been an eventful couple of days. I've learnt things about Skinner, about you, that I never would have dreamed of."

"About me?" Scully asked, startled.

"Yeah, who'd have thought you had such a powerful back-hand? I must remember never to play you at tennis. Don't look so worried, I'm sure Kate will forgive you, she's probably forgotten about it already. She has plenty of other stuff on her mind."

"Do you think she'll ever know the whole truth?"

"No," Mulder replied with a sigh. "What's the point in telling her everything? We can't give her answers, only more questions. I imagine they'll stay away from her from now on."

Scully shook her head.

"I wouldn't bet on it, Mulder," she replied. "Skinner wants them both to come to Washington, where he can keep an eye on her. They're very isolated out here."

Scully pulled her feet up underneath her, and settled herself more comfortably against the cushions. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the seat.

Mulder looked down at her and smiled.

"Shall I tell you a bedtime story?" he asked.

She nodded drowsily.

"How about a romance? Beauty and the Beast?"

"I really don't want to hear about your adventures with Kate Skinner."

"I was thinking of some other people."

"Shut up, Mulder, and go to sleep."

The End

Dear Missy - Lost and Gone Forever Epilogue

Dana Scully pushed open the door of the room and gazed longingly at her bed. There would be no nightmares tonight, only deep, exhausted sleep. She kicked off her shoes and fell onto the soft covers. A deep sigh escaped her lips. She lay on top of the covers for a few minutes, wondering idly whether it would completely ruin this suit if she slept in it. She was at a point of both tiredness and confusion where she couldn't have cared less if the suit was irredeemable.

As she lay there,feeling incapable of movement, but with a million thoughts still whirling in her brain, her eye fell on a small, leather-bound book on the bedside table. She reached out and picked up the book and the pen which lay beside it. There was something she needed to do.

She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow, before beginning to write, before performing the nightly ritual which she felt had saved her sanity in the past months.

She wrote:

Dearest Melissa, So much has happened since I last wrote, that I don't know where to begin. We've just been to South Dakota, from a case involving, of all people, A.D. Skinner. It was a strange experience, realizing that he had a life, an existence beyond the four walls of his office.

All the way home, Mulder talked of nothing but his amazement at the transformation in Skinner once he goes beyond the J. Edgar Hoover building. He didn't seem to notice how little I said. I was glad he was the one driving, and therefore couldn't see my face, when he commented on the fact that Skinner has been so relaxed the last few days that he must have got laid. You see, I have a confession to make.

Yes, I know, it was incredibly stupid of me. He's my boss, one shouldn't get involved with people one works with, blah, blah, blah. Oh, Missy, all those things go out the window when passion takes over. I nearly wasn't going to write those last words, most people wouldn't associate Walter Skinner with passion, but I knew you'd understand. You never were hung up on the conformities as I am, or was until three days ago.

Right now, I'm eating chocolate chip icecream, which you know was always an accompaniment to us telling each other everything. I wish you were here in person to share it.

Where shall I start? The gory details, I suppose. Oh, I wish I could blame it on the wine or the late hour, and maybe they had a part to play, but that would be too easy, and nothing about my life has been that straightforward, that common-place since that day I walked into the basement office and The X-Files. Do you remember asking me what my first day at work was like? Anything worth a second glance? you asked. I told you I could dig the AD if he was a little younger, or Mulder if he was a little more mature. Well, Mulder improves with age and acquaintance, even you ended up liking him, after getting off to a bad start. And Skinner? He seems younger now. Maybe when I said he was too old, I meant he was too unapproachable, within the fortifications of his position as Assistant Director, too distant from the real world the rest of us have to live in. I saw a new side to him this past week, his pain and vulnerability changed him completely in my eyes, and suddenly, thoughts and feelings I had discarded as pointless, re-surfaced.

As I looked into his dark eyes (I had never noticed before how soft they can be), I knew I was reaching the point of no return. He took my hand and we looked at one another, as if seeing one another for the first time. I slipped my hand into my pocket and switched off my celphone. It would be just like Mulder to call at such a moment. Or Mom! I would have died!

I'm embarrassed by how little I hesitated. It was one of those moments for momentous decisions. One of those my-next-action-may-affect-my-entire-life moments. One of those moments requiring calm, reason, and lengthy agonising. It was also one of those moments when the brain is so busy analysing and proing and coning that it doesn't notice the rising mutiny in the body until it is too late. Perhaps this is a good thing, although at the moment that I leaned across the gap between our chairs and kissed Walter Skinner, I was too surprised at myself to decide this.

Several seconds later when I paused to draw breath, I was certain that it was a good thing. In the moment of that one simple action, I realized that life was too short for all this angst, that crackling log fires are transient things, the effects of good wine wear off and even brass bed-steads don't last forever, or at least are not that widely available. I have come to the conclusion that the brass bed-stead did have a part to play in my yielding to temptation, along with the wine, the lateness of the hour and the intimate conversation which preceded the event. The bed was, however, the deciding factor. I just knew I couldn't live with herself if I passed on this opportunity to make love on a brass bed-stead underneath a hand-made quilt.

He put his hand to my face. He has such large hands, yet so gentle, it surprised me. An eternity seemed to pass before he kissed me. What was it like? Let's just say that his kiss left nothing to be desired, or rather, it left everything. I closed my eyes, I even kept them closed after the soft touch of his lips had passed. I was afraid if I opened them, it would all disappear. I couldn't bear the thought that this might be all, that this dream might end here.

I remember pulling away from him then and looking at him; trying to guess what he was thinking, hoping he was thinking the same thing I was. That bed was like a beacon and I could feel my face going red as he looked at me, as if he could read my mind. Perhaps he could. He stood, his dark eyes never leaving my face. He had been holding my hand all this time, and slowly he raised it to his lips, looking at my questioningly. I just smiled in answer to his unspoken question, and an instant later his arms were around me, lifting me out of my chair and over to the bed. My God! There wasn't an instant to think, and guess what? Thinking was the last thing your little sister wanted to do at that moment.

I could feel his shoulder muscles under his crisp white shirt, quite as molded and firm as I had imagined them to be. He sat on the side of the bed, looking down at me as I lay there. I have never wanted anyone as much as I wanted him at that moment. I never knew a longing so intense could exist. Tentatively, he stroked my hair. Every circumstance was just so right, from the log fire and that big bed to the way his hand wandered oh so casually, oh so slowly downwards. His touch was so light, I might not have noticed, if every nerve in my body wasn't so hungry, so desperate for his caresses. When I saw him for the first time without his glasses, all I wanted to say was "take me, I'm yours". He did, and I was.

I want so badly to call him. Ask him to come here right now, and lie with me on my bed as we lay that night. I could call him. I wonder would it be the same, without the crackle of the wood fire, and the soft orange light throwing our entwined shadows against the wall? Would it be the same here in this real world we live and work in? Would we be the same?

All I know is that I would love to have him here. I would love to give this room, this bed, the same memories of love, of warmth, of fulfilment that that little hotel room in South Dakota now has. I would walk in this door of an evening and I would smile to myself, remembering. And if I felt tired or surly, I could remind myself that there are times when I can be energetic and perfectly amiable. (I've just had a wicked thought! I could inform him at a crucial moment that Mulder had also slept in this bed. I needn't elaborate on the circumstances).

So, has one night of folly only added one more level of complexity and confusion to my existence? Or have I found the man of my dreams? Well, if he wasn't the man of my dreams before, he has been several times since. Excuse me for a minute while I call some of them to mind, in "glorious technicolor, breath-taking cinemascope and stereophonic sound". I know what you would tell me to do: "go for it, girl!" Maybe you're right. This damn job has taken so much from me, from all of us. Nothing can make up for losing you, Missy, but just to get something, one thing, back from this strange world I find myself in, that might help a little. I sure as hell have nothing left to lose. I think my reputation was shot the first time I backed up one of 'Spooky' Mulder's crazy theories. I try not to blame Mulder for everything that's happened; I've always known what I was doing...well, almost always.

Do I know what I'm doing now? No, definitely not. I think I'm going to give spontaneity a try. After all, it worked out very nicely the last time I did it. Your little Dana is going to have some fun for a change. Don't tell Mom, and wish me luck.

Dana

Walter Skinner pushed open the door of the room and gazed longingly at the bed. There would be no nightmares tonight. He kicked off his shoes and fell onto the soft covers. A deep sigh escaped his lips. He lay on top of the covers for a few minutes, wondering idly whether it would completely ruin this suit if he accepted the invitation in the eyes of the young woman beside him. He was at a point where he couldn't have cared less if the suit was irredeemable.

"Thanks for calling me," he said in a low voice. "I hardly dared hope that you would."

She reached up to him and pressed her mouth against his.

"I hardly dared hope that you would come over," she replied.

He smiled, a rare, but warm and genuine smile.

"Do you think I'm that much of a fool that I'd miss this chance?"

"A chance for what?" she asked playfully.

He pulled her into his embrace and whispered against her lips:

"Would you like me to tell you or show you?"

The End

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Kathy Mcnee for editing this and most especially for her encouragement. Thanks Kathy for being my sympathetic reader!

I have this incredible craving for feedback! Please satisfy it and let me know what you thought of this offering. As long and detailed, or as brief (and complimentary) as you like. I await your response...

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