Title: A More Divine Endeavor Book II: The Prophet and The Plague 
Author: Smurf 
Email: KRUMS@qis.net 
Rating: Strong R for language, violence, content, the whole shebang.
But this may change to NC-17 coz so help me I can't not have graphic
sex. <g>
Category: XSR, some post-colonization

Spoilers: Big ones for FTF. All mythology up to Sein Und Zeit/
Closure. Possible stand-alones from everywhere.

Keywords: XF/ER crossover, Mulder/ Scully married, Doug/Carol married,
but this is NOT SAP!!!

Archive: Gossamer, no, I'll do that. Ephemeral, Spookies, big archives
I can't think of, yes. SexyPhile, does this count as HolidayFic? If
so, you can post it. Everyone else, go ahead but lemme know where it's
going. :o)

Summary: The final (for now) story of this line. Beginning with the
death of a Chicago visitor, Mulder and Scully are re-introduced to the
facts of a conspiracy working with aliens to plot the demise of all
humans. As colonization draws nearer, they battle a deadly virus, a
group of beings bent on destroying the human race, and each other.
What will win out in the end: a powerful love or a vicious hate?

Disclaimer: Here we go again...Mulder, Scully and anything of/or
relating to The X-Files does not belong to me. Doug Ross, Carol
Hathaway, and Mark Greene and anything of/or relating to ER doesn't
belong to me either. All other characters are completely fictitious.
Any relation to any real persons, living or dead, is completely
coincidental. Please do not use the following characters without
asking or notifying me first so I can see me people in someone else's
story: Jack Harley, Zoe Mulder, Reese Mulder.

Notes: This is it folks, I'm planning on this being my last mythology
in this storyline. Unless of course... I am struck by inspiration like
I was before. I dunno...we'll see what happens. Oh, one important
thing. You do not have to have read the stories previous to this one,
although I STRONGLY suggest you do. I am going to try and make this
fic friendly to those not familiar with my mythology stories. If you
would like to read the previous stories, they are the Zoe series and
the Hold On series. I am also going to make this newbie and non-phile
friendly for my deprived friends and family. Sorry if that offends you
seasoned philes out there...
Story Outline: Prologue 
Book I: Unspeakable Truths 
Book II: The Prophet and 
The Plague Book III: Brighter Dawns [achivist's note: book three
doesn't seem to have ever been posted]

**
**

 "Dana!" She heard called from behind her. 

 "Dana, are you all right?" A hand settled onto her shoulder. 

Scully stood up straight, seeing Carol bending over her. She nodded
and swallowed hardly. "I'm fine," She said, crossing her arms over her
chest against the cold. "I've just.I've never seen anyone crash and
bleed out like that."

"Me either," said Carol as both women stared off at nothing along
Massachusetts Avenue.

Doug came out moments later, heaving the doors apart as if they
angered him, and stood in his way. But the look on his face wasn't of
anger it was of confusion. He had just let a patient die, and there
was nothing that he could have done to stop it. No matter how many
times any doctor had to watch a human die, it never got any easier.

 "What the hell was that?" He asked Scully. 

 She exhaled slowly. "It was a virus at work." She hesitated, debating
whether or not she should tell them any more than that.

 "What kind of virus?" Doug questioned. 

 Scully looked around, avoiding the question at first. "I can't really
say right now," She confessed, looking at her friends and then walking
back into the hospital.

For a change, she wanted to tell them what was going on. She wanted
them to know what she had found and she wanted them to know all of
Mulder's theories. She wanted to explain all she knew about it and
everything that happened four years ago. But she just couldn't. It
wasn't like the information was classified in the conventional way,
but it just wasn't something you went around talking about. The idea
that there may be a conspiracy against the government plotting the
demise of the human race was not something you chatted about around
the water cooler. In their experiences, loose lips were something that
got you killed. Ask all of their dead informants.

 Her idea of this reaffirming her decision not to tell Carol and Doug
about the virus, Scully went back to the lounge to retrieve her cell
phone and call Mulder, he would definitely want to know about this.

 Mulder Residence 

As soon as Mulder got off the phone with Scully, he called Dmitri
Oslev. For a change, Dmitri agreed to meet him at home, instead of
some park or private location in DC. So, Mulder went home early,
leaving Jack to finish the paperwork from Chicago. He stopped by the
daycare mom's house on Falstone Avenue and picked up Reese. The woman
had at least a dozen children there and was more than happy to unload
one early.

 Two hard raps on the door signaled Dmitri's arrival. Mulder had been
waiting less than half an hour, surprising considering his informant's
penchant for being fashionably late. Grabbing Jake by the collar to
stop him from attacking the older Russian, Mulder opened the door and
let him in.

"You have a very beautiful home, Agent Mulder." Dmitri remarked,
standing in the doorway to wipe the snow from his boots and avoid
ruining the hardwood floors. He took off his thick scarf and heavy
trench coat and hung it on a coat hook.

Mulder let go of Jake as soon as he was certain the dog was calm.
Jake immediately set about sniffing the cold air that still hung
around Dmitri from outside.

 "He doesn't bite," Mulder said, gesturing towards the living room for
Dmitri to have a seat and make himself at home. "Can I get you
anything? Coffee, beer?" He asked politely.

"Black coffee would be nice," Dmitri answered, kneeling before Jack
and scrubbing his neck and ears with his fingers. He spoke a little in
jumbled Russian to the animal until Mulder reappeared, two mugs of
coffee in his hands. "I used to have a dog like this," Dmitri said.

Mulder was a little off struck by Dmitri's words. First the
compliment on the house and then the almost playful nature with the
dog, it was bizarre. Could it be that this informant wasn't just a
turncoat government robot, but rather human? Mulder almost wondered if
he should bring Reese down and see how Dmitri reacted around him.

Dmitri had made himself comfortable in the second recliner from the
door. Mulder sat on the sofa adjacent to him.

After taking a sip of the steaming liquid in his mug, Dmitri spoke,
"I have something to show you, Agent Mulder," He put down the coffee
mug on the corner table beside his chair, and then brought out a
folded paper from the inside of his tailored suit pocket.

 He handed it to Mulder, who unfolded and studied it eagerly. He saw a
dizzying, seemingly endless code of numbers, no spaces between them,
that continued on for two neatly printed pages:

235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513
914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853
151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351
185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147
235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513
914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853
151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351
185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147
235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513
914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853
151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351
185315139147235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147
235118531513914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513
914723511853151391472351185315139147235118531513914723511853
151391479199131391451420. . .CONT'D

 Mulder looked at the papers for a long few moments, and then back up
at Dmitri with questioning eyes. "What is this?" He asked.

 Dmitri leaned back in the chair, taking the coffee mug into his hand
again, sipping it, and letting the silence hang. "It's a satellite
transmission received by Langly Air Force Base in Virginia." He
explained with insouciance.

 "What does it mean?" 

Dmitri smiled one of his mysterious, yet warm and friendly smiles.
"You are too quick to rely on someone else for the answers. You will
need to figure things out on your own if you're going to get anything
done." He watched a moment at Mulder's offended expression. "It's a
simple numerical code, I'm sure you'll have no trouble figuring it
out."

Mulder snorted and shook his head, annoyed. "I think I can handle
it." He said, and smiled.

 Dmitri guffawed, and then burst into an awful fit of dry coughs until
his eyes and face turned red and watery. He pulled a cotton
handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it. As the coughs
subsided, he looked up at Mulder, who looked concerned. "Damn
cigarettes," He said coarsely. "I'm trying to quit--" As he spoke the
word quit, which sounded more like qvit in his accent, another short
cough burst from his mouth. "Unfortunately it is a hard habit to kick
that I seemed to have picked up from a man I believe you are familiar
with."

 Mulder nodded, rolling his eyes. "Unfortunately," 

 Settling back into the chair once again, the red flush draining from
his face, Dmitri crossed his ankle over his knee. He looked at Mulder,
a musing expression in his eyes. "How much do you know about the
Project?"

Mulder thought for a minute. After so many years, he should know
something definitive. The only thing he knew for certain was that his
sister was alive. Everything else had been contradicted or denied.

 "All I know are lies," He said solemnly. 

 Dmitri nodded. "Fifty-four years ago there were reported sightings of
strange, flying objects in New Mexico and other parts of the world.
Your US government denied the claims that one of these ships had
actually crash-landed near Roswell. But there were always believers.
You are a believer?"

To the statement asked as a question, Mulder nodded slowly, already
enthralled by the man's deep, baritone voice, and his words in
general.

"What your government always denied, and the cultists continued to
believe was that this ship was alien. But just because they denied it,
doesn't mean it wasn't true." Dmitri, paused, blinked, took in the
expression on the younger man's angular face, and continued, "I'm not
going to be blunt with you Mulder, that ship that crashed was alien.
Aboard it were three aliens, Beings, as we have come to call them. Two
died in the crash, one survived for a few days afterwards. Now, I was
not present during this particular incident, but I was at the one in
Russian around the same time. We figure it was pure coincidence that
two ships crashed nearly at the same time. I can tell you that what we
found out from these creatures will blow your mind."

Mulder was speechless and dumbfounded. Was he actually supposed to
believe this was the truth? As ridiculous as it seemed, one Russian
man's accounts of fifty years before, he believed. He believed with
all his heart and soul.

 "They told us their plans. How they were going to destroy us with the
systematic release of an indiscriminate, genocidal virus. We bargained
with them, both my government and yours. We convinced them through
satellite transmissions that they needed our help as much as we needed
theirs. They needed slaves, for what purpose was theirs alone, but
they still needed them. We told them we could make their genetic
hybrid slaves, in return for the immunity of everyone involved with
the Project. They agreed. Of course it was a ploy. We wanted a chance
to work with the genetic material of the virus and make our own
vaccine. But the ideals were not completely unselfish; we only wanted
to save our families. Back in 1997, you came to Russia and were
subjected to the tests of the virus. I remember hearing of it. In '98,
Russia and the US Consortium joined forces to get the vaccine. We had
a vaccine and the Consortium had a weak treatment, that one you
administered to Scully when she was infected. I moved here from Russia
during that time. Soon after that, the band of rebel aliens found out
about our first full hybrid--Cassandra Spender--and destroyed us. They
killed off almost the entirety of the US Consortium, Cassandra
Spender, and our insurance. That's when the vaccine failed. We all but
gave up. It seemed as though greater powers were satisfied, they would
have immunity, screw the rest of the world. I left the project then,
deciding that it was completely wrong to play god that way, deciding
who would live and who would die. I've been keeping up though.naïve,
mouthy young employees will yak off about anything I ask."

Absorbing all the blatant information, Mulder was stunned into
speechlessness, never before had so much been laid out for him. He
usually relied on his own theories and vague clues from informants. It
was obvious that Dmitri Oslev had plans for him.

"As of recent, Spender, who heads the whole deal now, has had a few
side-projects in slim hopes of a Resistance, but I think he has given
up and accepted what is going to happen. His family is going to
survive, and he couldn't really care less about the rest of the
world."

Mulder looked confused for a moment. "Spender? The Smoking Man?" He
asked.

Dmitri nodded, drinking the last of his coffee to moisten his dry
mouth. "Spender is all we know him as. No one knows his real name."

 "What are some of the projects he's been working on?" 

"Oh, you know of them. The Alpha-Human Project and the New Hybrids.
The whole point of the New Hybrids was to implant previously barren
women, mostly abductees, like Scully, with hybrid ovum. I'm not sure
what he hoped to accomplish with a few naturally immune babies, most
of which are still a trimester or two shy of birth. The man is getting
foolhardy in his age."

 "What was the point in the AHP? Why subject all of those children to
those tests for nothing?"

 Dmitri's eyes grew sour. The AHP was a project he strongly objected,
and didn't relish discussing. "Because he could," He answered coldly.

 Mulder fell silent for a few moments, still thinking about all he had
been told. There was still so much unclear, but he shied from asking
too much. Shaking his head, he conceded to ask, "I still don't
understand, why did they take my sister?"

 "Your sister was taken as part of the bargain. They took a handful of
family members of the group. The Beings needed to study humans, to
learn our weaknesses and defenses. After they were through, they
returned them. The reason you saw your sister being taken away is
because your father did not want to give one of you up, so they took
it upon themselves to take her. When they returned her, they didn't
give her back to your family because they weren't sure of Bill
Mulder's faithfulness without insurance. But your family is far more
connected to all of this than that."

 This would have stolen Mulder's interest, had what Dmitri was saying
not already done that. He didn't even have to ask Dmitri to elaborate.

 "I have it on good knowledge that your mother was not always faithful
to the man you know as your father. For twelve years she was having an
extra-marital affair with a man that worked closely with Bill Mulder.
From that affair, she bore two children.your sister, and you."

 Mulder was shaking his head slowly, having the momentary idea to jump
up and punch this man for accusing such things of his dead mother. But
deep inside, he knew it was true. "Who is my father?" He asked
blindly.

 "I think you know," Dmitri answered intensely. 

Mulder opened his mouth to speak again when a wail erupted from the
upstairs. It was almost as though Reese had timed it. Dmitri's eyes
wandered to the staircase, and then he slowly rose from his seat.

"Go care for you son, I can show myself the door," He said, walking
towards the front door.

 Mulder stood as well, not talking. 

Before Mulder started upstairs, as he was putting on his coat and
scarf, Dmitri spoke one more time, "Agent Mulder, the things I tell
you and show you are some of the darkest secrets of modern
civilization. They are things you were never destined to know. Before
you contact me again, you need to ask yourself if you can handle it,
and is it's what you really want.and if you're willing to sacrifice
your life for it." He let that hang, and then said good-bye in
Russian, opened the door, and left.

After getting Reese up from his nap, changing him, and putting him
into the playpen, Dmitri was long gone and Mulder was alone with
everything he had been told. He sat heavily on the sofa, trying to
sort everything out in his mind.

The boxes filled with his mother's mementos were still stacked upon
each other in the corner by the window seat. All of the sudden, Mulder
got up and went over to the boxes, and began separating them and
ripping open the packaging tape. There had to be something in one of
the boxes that could defend or denounce Teena Mulder's honor.

 In the first box was a menagerie of old, framed pictures that used to
sit on the mantel or hang on the walls. One of the pictures was the
black-and- white photo from his parents' wedding. Mulder picked it up
and studied it. They were both so young when they married, but, oh,
they looked happy. He frowned at it, anger and disbelief stinging his
eyes. Damn dust, he thought, wiping away the water from his eyelids.

 Setting aside the picture box, he came to a lighter box marked in his
sister's handwriting with the phrase Letters/Documents black magic
marker. He opened this box and began sorting through the musty,
yellowing papers. He must have sorted through a hundred from people he
didn't know and places he had never been until he found one letter
that for some reason caught his eye.

 Call it intuition or a stroke of luck, but a simple, enveloped, plain
letter on white paper nabbed his attention. It shouldn't have, not the
way it blended in with the other, not considering it didn't have any
special attributes, but it did. He pulled the letter from the pile,
reading the hand-written address. There was no return address, no hint
as to whom it was from. Without hesitation, he pulled the letter from
the ripped top of the envelope and unfolded it. The letter itself was
not lengthy, with no real names to be discerned, and in an obvious
man's handwriting:

 TM,   I'm sorry it has been so long since we've last spoken, or seen
each other. I miss you terribly. Unfortunately work keeps me. I hope
you are fairing well. I know the winter has been hard there.  Love,
I'm afraid I cannot delay this much longer. I fear for our secrecy. I
fear your husband may be catching on. Do you think? If he found out
about us, he would probably kill me. But I simply cannot stop seeing
you. It would be too hard.  Write me often. Each day I long to hear
from you. I cannot wait to see you again.

 Love Always, CS 

 The letter was almost sickening. TM, that was obviously Teena Mulder,
and CS could be none other than C. Spender. It horrified Mulder that
his mother loved another man all the while she was married to his
fa.Bill. It was hard, even for him, to believe the facts. He and his
sister were both illegitimate children, the offspring of perhaps the
most evil person to ever walk the face of the planet. How it hurt to
learn he was the Devil's spawn.

**

Rubbing his forehead, he gripped the paper tightly, re- reading the
words over and over again. He wondered if Samantha knew. Perhaps
that's what she meant when she said she got her job in the Group
through "Dad"?

 He looked up from the writing after a moment, slowly lowering it from
reading level.  Tears of rage nearly brimmed his eyes again. He
stubbornly rubbed at them with one hand, chalking it up to more dust.

 As he opened his eyes again and his vision focused, something glinted
on the lamp to his right. Looking at it, he put the letter down and
walked over to the table lamp sitting beside the window seat. If he
looked at the lamp in the right angle, the light from outside
streaming in the window hit a tiny, almost imperceptible button on the
body of the lamp.  Around the neck of the lamp were tiny, metal
facets. The one that caught Mulder's eye was set differently than the
others. When he picked up the lamp to inspect it, he noticed that that
particular facet was a darker color than the others, too. It looked
like the head of a metal thumbtack with a tiny clear bubble over it.
He touched it with his thumb. It moved. Using his thumbnail like a
chisel, he scraped at the edge of the facet and it popped of the lamp
easily, revealing its connection to a thin red wire.

His eyes widened when he realized that the little button was a tiny
camera. He grabbed the wire and tugged gently. It showed no signs of
giving. Without a second thought, he picked up the lamp and banged the
ceramic base on the table, shattering it. The wire was threaded
through a very small hole to the camera, and then into a small black
box inside the lamp base. Mulder placed the lamp on the floor so the
camera laid flat on the hardwood floor. Then he stepped on it,
crunching its tiny components with the heel of his shoe.

In a determine hunt, he began scouring the living room. Mindlessly
tipping up the lamps and chairs and trinkets on the mantel over the
fireplace. On the table in the corner by the chair where Dmitri had
been sitting, he found a little microphone wedged between the boards
of wood. It was wired all over the room, to other microphones, and to
another camera beside the overhead light that blended in with the
ceiling fan. He pulled it down immediately and destroyed it.

 He founded ceiling cameras and microphones in the kitchen and dining
room, along the upstairs hallway by the air conditioning vent.

 He went into the nursery. Jake had escaped up there and was stretched
out on the navy blue rug. The pale blue walls were all noticeably bare
and reflected the daylight, giving the room a cheery appearance. The
natural wood crib sat caddy-cornered to the wall near the wind, a
bright animal mobile hanging silently above it. Mulder went to the
mobile, spun it with his hand thoughtfully, and watched the animals
move. A blue elephant spun by, its black bead eyes glistening.
Abruptly, he stopped the mobile and inspected the tiny stuffed
elephant. One of its eyes was larger than the other, but not so much
that one would see it without looking. He pinched the larger bead and
pulled it off, it was attached to a thin green wire. He unclipped the
elephant from the plastic arm inspected it, then dug his fingers into
the seams and ripped it open. Nestled in the cotton stuffing of the
toy was a similar black box to the one in the lamp.

Shaking his head and muttering unintelligible curses under his
breath, Mulder went back downstairs and got the phone from the
kitchen. As he put it to his ear, he heard the barely imperceptible
click of someone else picking up on the line. The phones were tapped.

"Shit," He grumbled hoarsely, storming out to the living room where
his cell phone lay on the couch. He checked on Reese a moment, then
took his phone and went outside on the porch. Just to be safe, he
crossed the yard and stood by his car, in case the porch was bugged as
well.

His entire house, as far as he knew, was bugged. By who and why he
had no idea. But he did know that whoever was surveilling him, had his
entire conversation with Dmitri on tape. And that could very well cost
him his life, or worse, the lives of Scully and the kids. Unmindful of
the bitter cold he dialed the secure number to the Lone Gunmen
offices, possibly the only men that could help him.

 DC General Hospital 

At two o'clock, Scully had finally waded through enough clinic
patients to catch a late lunch. She let Carol take over the last
handful of patients until she was finished. Then she retired to the
employee lounge and the lone round table. She sat at that table, her
Tupperware packed salad before her, untouched. Somehow her appetite
was lost in the morning hours.

Going against what she and Mulder had discussed, she had called the
local branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to
handle the cleanup of the body. She assured them that her research of
the virus had showed it could not be airborne and that all employees
in the trauma room at the time had showered before treating other
patients, her included. They spouted off the song and dance about how
the virus was not at all an FBI case and for her to cease and desist
research on it and turn over her specimens before she was suspected of
bio-terrorism. She didn't agree to anything, merely kept her mouth
shut. Meanwhile CDC employees came in their sterile suits and cleaned
up the trauma room, body and all.

That was two hours ago, and Scully was still thinking about it. She
wasn't about to give up her specimens and cultures, not knowing that
the federal CDC would probably bury the virus anyway, pretending it
never happened. Or they would do like they did in Dallas, slap some
known viral outbreak name on it, clean up the evidence, and end up the
hero.

 Scully poked at her salad as the lounge door opened and someone came
in. Without greeting, Carol came over and sat beside her. She was
silent for a long while, watching Scully stare at apathetically at her
lunch.

"Dr. Aden wants to know about the virus. He wants to know how you
know about it."  She said finally. Dr. Wes Aden was the head of the
emergency medicine. Self-righteous and pushy at times, he was still a
good man and a fine doctor.

Scully nodded. "There's not much more I can tell him that I haven't
told the CDC."

"There wasn't much you told the CDC." Carol said, her eyes almost
hard on Scully's face.

 Scully knew just what Carol was after. She wanted to know what Scully
knew. It may have been important to her, or it may have just been that
she was curious. Whatever her reasons, Scully knew that Carol wanted
answers, and would not easily be deterred.

"Carol, there are things about my work.about my life that I can't
talk about, that I don't want to remember, much less talk about." She
said seriously.

 Carol looked at her sympathetically, but said nothing. 

 Putting down her fork, Scully watched Carol's expression intently. It
was almost blank, but there was a dark eagerness that burned in her
eyes. It was the same way with everyone. Somehow they seemed to know
that she knew a lot of secrets, and they wanted them as well. Quite
frankly, Scully couldn't handle it anymore. She couldn't handle lying
straight into the faces of her friends and her family.

"All right," Scully said softly, condescendingly. "I'll tell you
everything I know."

Doug came into the room the instant the sentence spilled from her
mouth. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was standing
at the door waiting for it. He walked across the room and sat on the
other side of her, just as curious as his wife.

Scully was silent for a few moments, gaining her bearings. Most of
all, she was letting her memories take over.

Dallas, Texas, 1998. She and Mulder were there after a bomb threat
was called to a federal building. As usual, Mulder ignored protocol
and somehow managed to drag Scully across the street to a different
federal building and continue the search there, even though they had
been informed the bomb was at the other building. They looked all over
that damn building, finding nothing. Mulder was the only person that
ever would have gotten locked into the room with it in the end,
finding it in a soda vending machine.

 The entire building ended up exploding into a towering inferno. They
thought everyone was out, except the unfortunate SAC. Everyone was
instructed to evacuate. So why were they informed later that three
firemen and a little boy had also perished in the explosion? Why,
because someone need a scapegoat, and who better than Spooky Mulder?
The Office of Professional Review board threatened transfer for
Scully, eventually leading to Mulder's eventual demise.

Mulder did a little digging. He met a man who allegedly worked with
his father. This man told him of the Conspiracy that he had always
believed in. Told him those people were killed by something else and
kept in the FEMA offices in Dallas. Upon inspection of one of the
bodies at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Scully discovered the same massive
infection as she saw in Chicago and again in DC. She hadn't a clue as
to its origins, its nature, or its name, only that it was a quick,
virulent, and efficient killer.

They went back to Dallas and found fossils that matched the
characteristics of the victim's tissue. They found the covered up site
where the boy and firemen had come from. They chased unmarked tanker
trucks that Mulder claimed were carrying this virus. It all lead to a
dead end and a pair of railroad tracks.

That was when the entirety of Mulder's information came out. His
theory: the virus was extra-terrestrial.

 Naturally, the very idea of it being such a thing was aggravating the
Scully, especially without adequate proof. They argued about it by the
desert roadside and the railroad tracks until a train went by, on the
train were their two unmarked tanker trucks.

They continued chasing until they found a cornfield and two huge
facilities that stored millions upon millions of honeybees. Mulder
told her later that the bees and the corn were used to carry the
virus. It was hard to believe, especially for her. No one in their
right mind would believe honeybees were being used to carry an alien
virus being kept secret from the human race. And Scully continued not
believing, right up until she was stung by

 one of those bees in the hallway of Mulder's apartment building. 

 Scully explained the whole tale up to there and then stopped, taking
in the bewildered and similarly disbelieving expressions on both Doug
and Carol's faces.

"I don't really remember much after that," She said, hesitated, and
told them what she did know. "I was kidnapped and taken to Antarctica,
I don't know why. Mulder came and rescued me, I was pretty out of it
the whole time, as you can imagine. Afterwards, they let me stay in
DC, obviously. We read in the newspaper that they claimed the outbreak
in Dallas was the Hanta virus and we heard nothing of it after that."

Scully leaned forward in her chair and cleaned up the uneaten
remnants of her lunch, signaling the end of the story.

 Carol looked across the table, dumbstruck. She could say nothing but,
"Whoa,"

Doug was a little less awed. He scratched his chin thoughtfully and
looked utterly unmoved. "I don't know, I find that all a little hard
to believe. I mean, an alien virus? Transported by bees? Not only is
it virtually impossible, it's just way too bizarre. I don't believe
it."

 "Join the club," Scully said flatly. 

"Those are some pretty.outstanding accounts, Dana." Carol said.
"Antarctica's a pretty long way from Dallas."

"You're not the first person to tell me that. But trust me, I was
being impartial as I could. I only told you what I remembered and what
I knew." She replied.

 "Alien or not, it was a virus that killed that trauma this morning."
Doug said, propping his elbows on the edge of the table. "What do you
know about the virus?"

 Scully sighed and drummed her fingers on the table. "Not much. I know
that it's not enveloped, which makes it harder to treat, and I know it
is RNA based. Its structure is like that of a typical Class IV
reovirus, polyhedral in shape, about seventy-five to eighty
nanometers, etc. I observed that attacks cells with more aggression
than I've ever seen. It penetrates the cell membrane, multiplies in
the cytoplasm, and attacks the nucleus. It breaks down the proteins
from the inside out, leaving the cells nothing but a liquefied waste.
The cells don't even have a chance, human lysosomes have no way of
recognizing the virus as something to attack."

 Shaking his head, Doug responded, "There's no way we can treat it?" 

 Scully shrugged. "Not that I know of." 

"So what you're saying is that we have an outbreak of some unknown,
possibly alien, virus out there and there's nothing we can do about
it?" Carol asked, a slight tone of fear in her voice.

"It's not an outbreak yet, only a few isolated cases. But if this
virus ever becomes a serious contagion, it would probably have
epidemic.possibly pandemic effects." Scully told her.

 Doug looked at the two women, his wife and the federal agent doctor.
He spoke to them with a dark, sober reality, "It could destroy the
world."

 4:15 p.m. 

After the abnormally long day and the events of the late morning,
Scully was more than happy to get home. She hoped for a quiet evening
where she could sit down for five minutes and forget about the world
around her. In a way, she enjoyed her time off from the FBI. It was
something different for her to do than the same old paperwork, the
same old office, and the same old investigations. Yet in the same way,
she missed working with Mulder and being out in the field. There would
come a time when she would decide what to do, become a practicing
doctor or stay in the FBI, but hopefully she could continue putting
that off as something else she would rather not think about.

Turning the car onto Uppingham Court, Scully lifted her hand in
greeting as one of the neighbors drove past, doing the same. After
moving into the house two weeks before the wedding, Scully had made it
her personal mission to get to know all of their neighbors. In her
view, most of them were friendly, some were a little annoying, and
there were a few she could do without. To Mulder, neighbors were like
bad habits. You tried as hard as you possibly could to get away from
them, but they were always there, nagging at you.

She new everyone in the first six houses, two on the right, four on
the left. Most of them were the homes to families with children, one
was a newlywed couple that hadn't started yet, and one was a younger
woman and her roommate who were renting the house from one girl's
brother while they attended college. There was only one house that she
didn't know who lived there. It was on the opposite side of the street
of her house and two down. The only cars that were ever in the
driveway were unmarked sedans with government plates, which wasn't so
weird considering the only cars in her driveway were unmarked sedans
with government plates. At first she thought maybe they shared the
neighborhood with other FBI agents. But when she asked around, know
one knew anything for sure. Oh well, it wasn't really her business
anyway.

 She pulled into the driveway four houses from the start of the street
and two from the end of the court. As soon as she got a look at the
front yard, her jaw dropped. First of all, the Lone Gunmen's grungy VW
van was sitting in the driveway, the back doors hanging wide open
revealing tons of computer equipment and wiring. Second of all, all of
the living room and dining room furniture was sitting in the driveway
and in the grass. That would have been fine, except for the fact that
there was six inches of snow in the grass!

Already on the warpath to get an explanation, Scully killed the
engine, grabbed her bag, and got out of the car. She weaved between
the stacked dining room chairs and the back of the Gunmen's van. She
stopped at the edge of the driveway to examine the living room sofa as
it soaked up the melting snow. The upholstery was probably ruined for
good.  Frowning, she continued up the driveway, crossed the freshly
cleared stone walkway, and went inside the house.

The front foyer and living room were totally foreign to her. The
living room had been completely stripped of furniture, save for the
yet-to-be- decorated Christmas tree and the playpen. Even the rug had
been rolled up and nestled into the corner, revealing the hardwood
floors beneath. At least the place is clean for a change, her sardonic
sense of humor joked inside her head.

She dropped her bag on the floor by the door and shed her coat. The
only sign of life to be seen was Reese playing obliviously in his
playpen. She crossed the room, three-inch-heels clicking audibly on
the floors, and watched a moment as Reese played with his tiny feet--
the most interesting thing in the world to him. Then she leaned down
and scooped him up into her arms, shaking her head at Mulder's lack of
responsibility. It wouldn't be the first time he left Reese awake and
unattended. His excuse was always, "But I left the baby monitor on!"
Sure enough, the walkie-talkie like object tethered with Velcro to the
side of playpen was on. That was all fine and dandy, except for the
fact that Mulder usually didn't turn the receiving end of the monitor
on too. Men.

 "Where's Daddy, Reese? Where is he?" She asked the baby softly as she
carried him upstairs. Reese just looked at her, grabbing her fingers
and drooling unresponsively.

Scully looked into the nursery, which was surprisingly still filled
with all its furniture. There was no sign of her bullheaded husband.
At the end of the hall, she peered into her bedroom, finally finding
her source of aggravation. Mulder was standing upright, in stocking
feet, on the waterbed, inspecting something by the ceiling fan. To her
right, Byers was sprawled on his back on the floor, a flashlight in
one hand, looking at something on the bottom of the wooden lip of the
bed. In front of her, just beyond the passageway between the foot of
the bed and the dresser, Langly was hunkered behind the TV in the
corner, fiddling with the wires. On the far side of the room, Frohike
was looking through the drawers of clothing in the tall bureau. She
could imagine missing pieces of lingerie from the small top drawer.
Jake, who was absolutely not permitted on the bed, lay stretched out
on it at Mulder's feet.

 "What the hell is going on here?" She asked, the red anger showing on
her cheeks and neck.

Startled, Mulder looked down from the ceiling and dropped his hands
to the sides. In one hand, he clutched a screwdriver, in the other, a
penlight.

**

"Oh, hi, Honey, glad you're home." He said casually, and a little
abnormally loud. He stepped forward and hopped easily off the bed,
bringing his index finger to his lips and dropping his tools onto the
dresser. He picked up a notepad and pen and scratched something on it.

Scully opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by
Mulder's fingers pressing against her mouth. He showed her what he had
written.

 We're bugged. 

Scully's eyes averted from the paper to his face, the red flush
draining from her face.  "Bugged?" She mouthed to him, just to be
certain she read correctly.

 He nodded, mouthing back and gesturing around the room, "Everywhere."
Then loudly as before, "Why don't we go downstairs and talk?"

Scully nodded her reply, wheeling back into the hall and shifting
Reese over her shoulder.  Mulder guided her with one hand high on her
back and followed her down the hall.

 Back in the living room, Scully deposited Reese back into his playpen
and followed Mulder as he gestured outside. They went down the porch
stairs and over to the vehicles in the driveway.

 "We're bugged? How? By who?" Scully spat out all at once as they got
a safe distance from the house.

"I don't know how or by who." Mulder explained, the dry calmness of
acceptance in his voice. "I was looking through my mother's things a I
saw something on the lamp in the corner, so I picked up the lamp and
pulled it off. It was one of these." He pulled one of the little
bubble cameras from his pocket. The wire that connected it had been
severed went it was snipped away from the ceiling, disabling it.

Scully took it from him and looked closely at it. At first all she
could see was her reflection in the glass bubble. But when the light
hit it at the right angle, she could see the tiny components of the
camera. They all fit on the expanse of something no bigger than the
head of a thumbtack.

"I found microphones in the living room, too, and another camera on
the ceiling. Someone had been keeping us under close surveillance."
Mulder said, not waiting for her response to the camera. "I called the
guys right away," he continued, "we moved all of the furniture our of
the living room and found two more mikes. We found two overhead
cameras and four mikes in the kitchen and dining room, a mike in the
guestroom, the storage room, and the office, a camera two mikes in the
nursery, a camera and a mike in the little bathroom, a camera and a
mike in Zoe's room, two cameras and two mikes in the hall, and now
we're in our bedroom."

"The bathroom?" Scully said, half to herself, turning the camera in
her fingers.

Mulder nodded solemnly. "So far we've found two cameras in our
bedroom and two mikes."

Scully looked up at the house with distain, suddenly feeling very
untrusting of it. This was far worse than a perverted peeping tom. The
people who were most likely behind these bugs needed information to
use against them.

"For all we know they've been watching us twenty-four- seven. We've
gotta find out why." Mulder added.

She looked down the street at the house with the government sedan,
too shocked for speech. Then she looked back at her house and
shivered, more out of disgust than cold.  For some reason, she had
this idea that something of a normal life could get her away from
things like this. That domestication could stop all the watching eyes,
and the shadowy figures, and the lies, and the death, and.

It was ridiculous to think that. Her normal life was anything but.
And it hurt.

"The guys are almost finished. Ours is the last room." Mulder told
her, seeing the distressed look crossing her face.

 He knew she was still feeling the initial shock that he had felt. It
was terrible thing, to know someone was watching you at every minute
of every day. It made one feel dirty, exposed, utterly.naked. It took
a sick, sick person to watch a family night and day, where ever they
were in the house, and whatever they were doing.

 "Hey," called the familiar voice of Langly back on the porch. "We're
finished. We're not turning up anything else."

 Mulder and Scully headed back to the house at Langly's beckoning.  

Frohike and Byers were in the bare living room, packing up their
electronic snooping instruments. They looked worn from the tedious
work, but satisfied that they had succeeded.

"We're pretty sure we found all of the hardware. Whatever's left
should be disabled by the lack of wiring." Langly concluded.

"Do you have any idea who could have wired all the rooms?" Scully
asked.

Frohike responded, "This is some very sophisticated stuff. I mean,
you saw the size of those cameras. This is the kind of equipment even
we couldn't get our hands on."

 "I heard about this hardware from some online buddies." Langly added.
"It's brand new stuff, testing to be used for spying in hostage
situations. They can hide the mikes inside of anything imaginable and
they'll never be uncovered. The only problem is they're extremely
short-range. Instead of hard wiring, they transmit information with
radio waves to a receiving dish. The dish can't be more than a mile
away."

"Our best guess would be that one of your neighbors aren't who you
think they are." Byers piped in.

 Scully and Mulder shared a look.  

 Frohike zipped up his bag of equipment, but let it lie by the bottom
of the stairs. "C'mon," he said, "we'll help you move the furniture
back inside."

 10:32 p.m. 

 By the time they had gotten all the furniture back inside the house,
and dried as much as possible, it was nearly eight o'clock. A later
dinner was eaten in dismal silence, the shroud of uncertainty hanging
over the. The cameras and microphones were gone, the wiretap in the
phone had been removed, and the hidden wiring disabled, but there was
still and overwhelming feeling of being watched.

Around ten o'clock, Mulder went into the bedroom to watch TV while
Scully attempted to get Reese to fall back asleep after being fed.
When she reappeared in the doorway, shutting the out the dog, his
attention diverted from the television to her. She disappeared into
the bathroom for a few minutes where she most likely went about her
normal bedtime rituals of brushing teeth and washing face. She came
back with her auburn hair clipped away from her neck and a
distinguishing lack of make-up on her face. She wore an over- sized
tee shirt, probably one of his, and flannel pajama pants. Not the most
sexy clothes on Earth, but he couldn't ask too much. She was always
dignified in the way she normally carried herself, but with slightly
slumped shoulders and a blank expression, she looked positively beat.

Without a word, she walked around the bed to what was normally his
side--as he occupied hers--and collapsed on top of the bedclothes,
heaving out a sigh of exhaustion.

In her belly-down position, her face to the side, her eyes closed,
she spoke, "Finally got Reese to sleep, Zoe's down for the count,
looking forward to the next four hours of quiet."

Mulder chuckled. "Maybe if you're lucky I'll be gentlemen and feed
Reese tonight." He said.

That brought a weary half-smile to her lips. "That'll be the day."
She muttered.

 He switched off the TV and sat up. In the renewed silence, he turned
and sat on his knees, as close to Scully as he could get. Then, slowly
and methodically, he began to rub her back.

 "Oh god that feels good, Mulder." She managed to murmur intelligibly
after a few minutes. She shifted a little, to a less boob crushing
position on his firmer half of the water mattress, and then continued
to enjoy the all-too- rare massage.

His fingers moved expertly along her spine, registering a muffled
moan of pleasure from her. Near the dip in her back, his hands came
across a tense group of muscles, and began working them loose,
receiving another gratuitous groan.

 "There?" He asked, working his fingers in tight circles on her back. 

"Mm-hm." She replied; her face too buried in the comforter for her
voice to be heard clearly. "I knew I married you for some reason." She
mumbled next.

 "Thanks," He said, laughing lightly. 

 "Hey, now we're even," She replied abruptly, before he could get out
a sarcastic quip. "You married me because I'm the only one that will
cut open your dead bodies, and I married you because you give one hell
of a massage. It's a mutual agreement."

"Right." He replied, removing his hands from her back. He flopped
down beside her and rolled onto his stomach, outstretching his arms
before his head. "My turn," He said matter- of-factly.

Scully sat up reluctantly, looking at her husband stretched out
beside her. He was naked from the waist up, worn cotton pants covering
his lower half. She moved over and straddled his waist, allowing her
bodyweight to rest on his lower back. She brushed her hands lightly
down his back, watching him shiver in response. His back had a network
of scars on it, half of which she didn't even know the origins. Except
for one on his left shoulder, a round, white scar a little larger than
a quarter, shaped much like a spider web. It was the obvious exit
wound of a bullet, a bullet she had shot. And she couldn't help but
feel guilty for it, but it had been for his good, if there was such a
thing.

 She started rubbing his back at the bunched muscles in his shoulders,
and spoke as she went. "I uh.I told Carol and Doug about the virus."
She said hesitantly.

 "How much?" He asked casually. 

 "Everything, I told them all I know about it," She paused to rub the
tension out of the base of his neck. "I told them what happened in
Dallas, how we found the virus, and all of your theories about it, and
all of mine." She sighed, stopping the massage and leaning back again.
"I just can't keep secrets from them anymore. Especially not something
this big."

 Mulder made a motion of rolling over, and Scully sat up on her knees
as he did, then back down on his torso. He rested his hands on her
thighs and looked up at her face, but said nothing.

"But now I'm not so sure I should have said anything, after what
happened here. I could have endangered them.and us. I feel like Big
Brother is watching." She tried to fake a humorless laugh.

Mulder's eyes were soothing. "I don't think telling them what
happened four years ago is enough to worry about. At least I hope not.
And the cameras are gone, we're going to find whoever put them in
and." He trailed off before he could say what he was going to do when
he found the culprits. He didn't know what he would do, what he could
do. Last time someone had been surveiling him he shot the guy. That
nearly ruined his life completely. He couldn't do that now.

Scully leaned forward and rested her head on Mulder's chest,
extending her legs out so that she laid on top of Mulder's body. He
wrapped his arms tightly around her smaller body and kissed her
forehead lightly.

"Why can't we have a normal, quiet life like everyone else?" She
asked after a long while.

 "Because that would be too easy." He replied. She managed to smile a
little.

She lifted her upper body off his and propped her weight on her
hands. Then she kissed him on the lips briefly with all intents of
moving back onto the bed, but when she saw the passion igniting in his
eyes, she kissed him again, longer, harder. He passed his hand up her
left side to her shoulder and back, pulling her closer to him. His
intentions began obvious when his body moved more beneath her and his
lips became more intense. But her mind wandered elsewhere, to the
cameras and microphones that had been all over the bedroom, to the
possibility that some secret government agents could be watching them
still. She ended the kiss prematurely, slid off his body onto the bed,
and stared at the ceiling.

"I can't do this, Mulder," She told him, trying to keep her voice
steady, feeling her eyes tearing up with frustration and anger.

He moved onto his side, put his arm around her and kissed her cheek
tenderly. "It's okay," he whispered.  "Everything's gonna be okay."

 But it wasn't, and he didn't really believe it was. They weren't even
safe in their own home. Who knew what else was planned for them. Big
Brother was watching.

  

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

 

 Chapter 6 

 2135 Uppingham Court Somerset, Maryland Thursday, December 19, 2001 

Alex Krycek hated winter. Winter was cold, and cold made his
desecrated shoulder hurt, and pain made him miserable. How thrilled he
had been when the big smoking kahuna had given him strict orders to
post watch on the Mulder household in chilly, miserable DC. He was to
be in the surveillance home twenty four-hours a day, seven days a week
until he completed his assignment, aided only by shift employees that
could go home every night.  The house that contained all the
surveillance equipment was heated of course, but whether that heat
worked or not was a different story. He had a thought to go out and
sit in his car (where the heat worked), but that would be too obvious,
someone would see him. For it was his black sedan with government
plates that sat in the driveway of the house four down from Mulder and
Scully's.

He had been sitting in the sparsely furnished living room for the
past hour, trying to get over the cold. No one was home at the
Mulder's. Mulder himself had left for work at the same time as always,
six forty-five, so precisely you could set your watch by it. From what
Krycek had seen, it was Scully that got Mulder's rear in gear every
morning though. She left around nine--after Zoe had gone as
well--probably to drop off her other munchkin at daycare and then go
off the wherever it was she went. Finally, when he couldn't take the
cold anymore, he got up and went over to the thermostat.

 Fifty-nine degrees. 

 And the heat was off. 

He pressed a few buttons, fiddled with a few knobs, and waited for
the heat to kick on. The floor registers creaked a grumbled, but no
heat come out. He kicked one of the registers, still nothing. The
thermostat remained the same.

 Fuck it. 

He flopped back down the lone armchair and wrapped his coat around
himself. Staring out the window at the on and off flurries that had
been pretty steady all week, he began to contemplate his assignment,
and the fact that he couldn't go through with it.

**

The assignment had been clear and to the letter. Get into the house
somehow, get Mulder's kids, and get out. If Mulder or Scully resisted,
shoot them. Take the kids to the secured bunkers in Virginia. Zoe
could be sedated if need be, Reese couldn't possibly be too difficult
for someone like him to care for. It would be a piece of cake. Not.

 Not when his conscience got in the way. Alex Krycek's conscience, not
a phrase people that knew his would ever think. It was kind of like an
oxymoron. But in truth, he was no less human than Spender, if not
more.

It had really started when he watched the surveillance tapes more
closely. He only watched when there weren't certain activities going
on, unlike the shift guys who were more than happy to see a little
"action". Even Krycek wasn't that sick.

Anyway, the more he observed Mulder and Scully with their children,
and together, the more he realized he couldn't do it. He couldn't take
those kids away from them. He knew those two would sooner die than
give their children up, but then, wouldn't any good parent? Sure, but
Mulder was the only one that wouldn't give up until it did kill him,
and Scully would be right there with him the whole way.

 Krycek had quite a track record for making the duo's lives miserable.
Most were things he didn't look back upon, to keep the guilt from
building up. He just took his money, and waited for his next job.
Among his successful hits were Bill Mulder and Scully's sister
Melissa. He had also nearly killed their boss, and still had him on a
short leash. He had been assigned to kill Mulder earlier that year,
but had sent someone else who ended up getting killed. He drew the
line on killing Scully when she was pregnant. A man had to have some
morals.

 It was those morals that stopped him from kidnapping their children.
He saw the night they brought Reese home from the hospital. He watched
one day when Scully read a Christmas story to Reese and Zoe. One might
say Krycek's heart grew time three that day.

 He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it.  

 But that didn't mean the mission wouldn't be completed. He had plenty
of his own underlings that he could send to do the job it just had
less of a chance for success. He would speak with Spender that night
and tell him he was sending one of his employees to do the job.
Spender would threaten that if the job was not completed, Krycek would
pay, blah, blah, blah. He would assure Spender it would be successful.

 Even if he hoped it wouldn't. 

 FBI Headquarters Washington, DC 

 "Is this the case you're currently working on, Agent Mulder?" 

Mulder looked up at his boss at the inquiry, startled from his
previous silent reverie. He cleared his throat, brought his hand away
from his chin, and uncrossed his ankle from his knee.

 "Yes, sir," He replied. 

His Assistant Director, Walter Skinner, scrutinized him a moment,
then went back to read the report in his hands.

Mulder had been called in for a one-on-one meeting after lunch. He
had handed in the field report from Chicago that morning, and could
only guess there was something Skinner disliked about it. So he had
showed up at Skinner's office at two sharp, where he sat in silence as
Skinner reviewed the report.

Skinner himself could be a rather intimidating man. An ex- Marine,
balding, muscular, and a little over six-feet tall, he was not a man
you would want to be on the bad side of. Over the years, he had become
more than a superior to Mulder and Scully, he was a friend. There were
a number of times when he had bailed them out of trouble. There were
also a number of times when he had unwittingly helped them get into
trouble, usually by keeping information from them. He always seemed to
be torn between the so-called good and the so-called evil, and
therefore could never be completely trusted.

 After a long few minutes, Skinner lowered the report and looked back
to Mulder. "Explain to me why you feel this particular case merits FBI
investigation." He said.

 "Well, there were some suspicions that the victims were murdered with
a poison or controlled infectious agent. Or it could have been
biological terrorism, although it really doesn't fit the definition of
BT." Mulder answered coolly.

 Skinner nodded slowly, gesturing for Mulder to go on. 

"BT is generally used like any other act of terrorism, to prove a
point or draw attention to something. It's usually a certain disease
or highly effective contagion released on a large group of people
directly through water or aerosol methods or indirectly through
another person or object. Since this virus only infected one person in
a location so far it isn't really bio-terrorism."

"Okay," Skinner said, "So it's not biological terrorism because it
was only a few people. There is no standing MO so it isn't murder.
Then why are you wasting time and resources to continue this
investigation?"

Mulder had been waiting for that. "We still don't know how these
victims were infected, or why. We don't know how the virus is
transmitted or where it came from. We can't rule out BT until we know
for sure. That's what we're investigating. The possibility that
someone brought this virus here, or created it, and is only testing it
out to use it on an eventual upscale act of terrorism."

 Skinner closed the file, straightened the papers by tapping it on his
desk, and then slid it across the blotter to Mulder. "This is a case
for the CDC. The outbreak of an unknown contagion is not in FBI
jurisdiction. And biological terrorism is not an X-file. I received a
phone call this morning from the CDC telling me that three of my
agents got involved with the body in Chicago, possibly contaminating
valuable pure tissue samples. This is why FBI agents to not handle
disease outbreaks until there's valuable evidence of violent
intentions. And a few injection marks do not merit as BT evidence."

Goddamn it, Mulder thought. It was only a matter of time before
higher powers pulled the answers he was so close to right from his
grasp. "But Scully agrees that this could still be BT. We got the name
of a volunteer that was not a clinical regular. And the only way
Anthony DeCaro could have contracted that disease was through an
injection because it

 isn't airborne." He argued. 

Skinner stared stolidly at the agent. "I just spoke to Agent Scully
this morning and she said she called the CDC when a victim died at DC
General. They came to clean up the body and strictly told her to leave
the case alone. She told me that the case should be theirs because it
isn't BT. The body Tuesday showed no signs of recent injections. She
wants the case turned over before more people die."

Mulder had to resist the urge to let his jaw drop and mumble and
unintelligible "What?" to his superior. Scully never told him about
that. He thought she would know better than to call a federal
organization when they were battling a government conspiracy.

"Agent Mulder you are to close this case and turn over any evidence
to the CDC," Skinner told him before he had a chance to respond. "I'm
sure you've got a mountain of other cases that could use yours and
Jack's attention." He sized Mulder up for a moment as if to see if
Mulder would have any type of outburst about it. When nothing happened
he said calmly, "Dismissed."

 Mulder got up and left the office in a hurry, the file in his hands.
He couldn't believe Scully had called the CDC, especially after all
she had seen. True, it was her thought that it should be a CDC case
from the beginning, but after she figured out what the virus was, he
was almost certain she knew that it had to be kept a secret.
Obviously, she still didn't believe in the idea of the whole
Conspiracy, at least she didn't before she found out about the
cameras. Why was it that he was always alone in this?

 Go figure. 

 Mulder Residence 

Mulder came home late. He usually got home around six- thirty or
quarter of, depending on the dreaded beltway traffic. He didn't come
home until nearly eight that night. He just needed time to think. It
was more than his meeting with Skinner that plagued him; it was the
entirety of the last few weeks, from his mother's death to everything
he had learned. He hadn't slowed down enough to let himself absorb
everything, and he hadn't had time to think about what he was going to
do.

So he went to a bar. He had a few beers, talked with some other guy
about the trials and tribulations of life, and went home, doing his
thinking in between. He didn't get drunk, he knew better than that,
but he didn't call Scully and tell her where he was going. He wanted
to see her in person when he talked to her because he knew he knew he
would bring up the subject of the CDC.

 By the time he got home, dinner was finished, the table was cleared,
and his family was lounging in the living room, watching evening
sitcoms. That is, until he walked in the door. Scully remained sitting
on the sofa, but her expression hardened and her attention went away
from Friends. Zoe immediately picked up on what was about to go down,
and wanting no part in it, got up from the floor and high- tailed it
upstairs. Reese was asleep in his playpen, lulled by the voices from
the television.

Mulder took off his coat and went into the living room casually,
waiting for his wife to make the first move.

 "Where were you?" Scully asked him calmly. 

 "Thinking," He replied with an equal amount of coolness. He sat down
in the recliner and propped his elbows on his knees.

"You should have called." She said next. "I hate it when you go out
and just leave me hanging."

"I needed to be alone," He snapped even as she continued talking
without break.

 "You need to be more responsible."  

He changed the subject. "I had a meeting with Skinner today. He
ordered me off the DeCaro case. He told me that you called the CDC and
had them take the body and the evidence."

 She didn't respond. 

 "I thought we agreed to keep this quiet."  

"That was before I realized what this thing was, and what it could
do."

 He stood up, his anger and frustration finally unleashing in a fury.
"So just because you get a little edgy you uncover the whole thing?"
He said louder.

She stood up too, "What do you mean uncover the whole thing? You
sound like we're the ones keeping things secret!" Her voice was closer
to a yell.

"We should be! They already know about this! They'll just bury like
they always have. Every time, every damn time we get a little closer,
they just take it away and the cover it up, and then we're back where
we started! Don't you want to find out the truth?"

 "Hundreds of people could die if this became any more contagious--" 

 He interrupted her, his voice now a shout. "You don't think they know
that?!"

 She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. Standing only a
few inches from him, she could smell the beer on his breath, and that
only made her angrier.

"Scully, they've known about this for years, they're the ones
planning on releasing and killing us all! They don't care how many
people die, they're just testing us."

 "You're really paranoid, Mulder," She replied, her voice not as loud,
but just as icy.

"After everything that's happened, you still have the nerve to say
I'm paranoid? You don't even care."

 "Don't you dare, Mulder, don't you dare even say that I don't care. I
care more than anyone else, more than you know." She started towards
the stairs. "You know what, you can stay down here and be paranoid,
I'm going to bed!"

With that, she stormed up the stairs without another word. A few
seconds later, the door slammed.

 Mulder watched her go, and then sat down on what would be his bed for
the night. Scully was the only person in the world that he really,
truly trusted, and now she seemed to be abandoning him. How he deduced
all this from this one fight would never be known, but that was how he
felt. It was how he felt every time she argued with him this heavily.

Not only had the last few weeks been trying psychologically, there
was an untold part of the story. The weeks had been straining on their
bond. Things like this always tested them, and it always got worse
before it got better, but boy, when it got better it got better.  But
these last few weeks had been particularly rocky.

It was little things that people argue about that were made up for
easily, and it was the bigger things, too, that were soon forgotten.
There was something else as well, something between them waiting for
the chance to come out, living inside, festering, spreading like an
infected wound. Mulder had a feeling that just as this virus thing
wasn't going to go away soon, neither was the tension.

 2:42 a.m. 

Mulder was jerked from his restless sleep by Jake's loud barking.
Jake sat in front of the door, sniffing the door, and barking every
couple of seconds.

 "Jake! Shut-up!" He hissed, and then rolled over to face the back of
the sofa.

 But Jake persisted. After a second he began scratching feverishly at
the door, barking and growling a deep, guttural growl.

 Mulder sat up, knowing this was no false alarm. He had hoped that the
booming bark and prospect of a big attack dog would be enough to deter
any unwanted visitors, but that was not the case. Something or someone
was outside driving Jake mad.

 "Jake," Mulder beckoned in a whisper again. The big dog looked at him
and then continued growling and digging at the door. Mulder threw off
the quilt that covered him and stood up, wearing only his undershirt
and boxers. He grabbed his gun from the holster on the chair and
released the safety.

He crept across the room barefoot and leaned against the door. Over
Jake's growling, he could hear someone picking at the dead bolt lock.
He looked through tiny peephole and saw a man hunched at the door, a
gun--a thirty-three by the looks--in one hand, and a professional lock
pick in the other.

 The lock began moving more as the intruder got it undone, but Mulder
decided to beat him to it. In one swift motion, Mulder opened the door
and delivered a swift blow to the startled man with the butt of his
gun. The man in his black clothes and gloves stumbled backwards and
fell down on the porch, a dribble of blood trickling down his
forehead.  Mulder stepped forward to grab the weapon. As soon as he
bent down to take it from the man's hand, the man swiped his left arm
across Mulder's cheek--slicing the point of the lock pick into his
flesh--and knocking him to the side. In an instant, the man in black
was on his feet and tugging Mulder down the porch steps by his arms.

 Mulder's vision was blurred a bit by the blow, until he felt the cold
snow on his bare skin. He looked up into the darkness at the intruder,
emitting a small groan of pain. He heard the unmistakable sound of the
hammer on a gun being lifted. The muzzle of the gun was lowered to his
face as he tried to get up.

At that moment, a fierce snarl and bark erupted from the porch. The
man wheeled, but not fast enough. In one leap, Jake was off the steps
and plummeting the man to the ground beside Mulder, his teeth burying
in the man's shoulder. Mulder got to his feet and aimed the gun at the
man's chest, easing Jake away to get him out of danger. The man still
had his gun similarly pointed at Mulder.

Lying on his back in the snow, the assailant began to speak, "You
shouldn't even try Mulder. You can't stop us. We'll just kill you. I
was sent here to get your kids and take them away from you. You don't
deserve to have children. You stupid son-of-a-bitch--" He

didn't finish his sentence, but spat up at Mulder's face, still
holding his gun on his chest.

 At that moment, something snapped in Mulder's mind. He stared sternly
into the man's eyes and saw the hate. Everything that had happened
flashed in his mind, furthering his anger. He saw things he hadn't
thought of in years. He saw Scully lying in a hospital be dying of a
cancer They gave her, he saw Scully's dead daughter Emily, a child
never meant to be, he saw Zoe screaming and crying as they took her
away, he saw his sister, he saw his dead mother, and he saw the face
of the Smoking Man, the cause for all their pain.  There was nothing
but pain, and this was the peak of it.

**

He pulled the trigger. 

His assailant never had time to react. The slug tore through his
chest, killing him instantly.  His arms dropped to the ground, still
holding the gun and lock pick. His eyes and mouth still hung open.

Mulder just stood over the body, his heart pounding in his chest,
finally perceiving what he had just done. Behind him, he heard the
screen door slam and Scully utter an "Oh my god". He turned slowly and
looked at her. She looked fully awakened, probably by the gunshots,
and wearing a robe over her pajamas, her hair unkempt, and her face
aghast.

 "Mulder, what the--" She looked at the body of a man dressed in black
laying in the snow, and saw the gun in Mulder's hand. She walked into
the snow in her slippers and hunched over the body, her fingers
snaking around his throat for a pulse. Dark crimson blood was
spreading into the snow from the man's torso. His eyes stared
lifelessly into the sky. "He's dead." She said definitively.

 "C-call 911." Mulder finally managed to stutter. 

 She straightened and looked at him. "I already did, when I heard the
scuffling." She could already hear the sirens in the distance.

Mulder said nothing. He just stood, staring at the body, unnoticing
of the blood streaming down his cheek or the fact that it was thirty
degrees out and he was only in his underwear.

 "Mulder, what happened?" Scully asked, bending back over the body to
look for some identification.

 Mulder just shook his head.  

In the man's coat pocket, Scully found a wallet. She pulled it out
and flipped it open. When she saw the ID, her eyes widened. "You'd
better have a damn good explanation." She said, handing Mulder the
wallet.

 He read the ID, Agent Jose Alvarez, CIA. "Oh, shit." Mulder muttered.


 By then the police cars and ambulance were arriving. The other houses
on the street had lights in, and there were people standing on the
porches or in their driveways, looking on.

 "Oh, shit." 

 4:20 a.m. 

The normally quiet neighborhood was shaken alive by the dozens of
police cars, the county coroner's van, and the small number of press
cars. Jack had been called by a police officer and asked to come down
to the crime scene. He managed to find a place to park on the curb
across the street.

 In the small expanse of an hour, the front yard of Mulder's house had
become a bona fide crime scene. There was a radius of yellow police
tape around the yard and into the street with a handful of officers
fending off the rabid press that had already shown up. Jack weaved
around the front of a cruiser and flashed his badge to the officer
guarding the perimeter.

 Inside the crime scene perimeter, there was a larger group of police
officers. The coroner was just getting started, having only arrived a
few minutes before Jack. The body was just beyond the front walkway to
the porch, covered in a white sheet. Jack passed by a pair of officers
as they drank coffee and talked. Though they didn't seem to be hard
workers, they were efficient, he had to give them that.

Jack went up the porch and inside the house, passing by a female
officer carrying a notepad. The first person he saw was Mulder,
sitting in a dining room chair talking with a man in a trench coat,
probably the detective. The detective seemed to be hammering him with
questions that he didn't want to answer. Jack crossed the foyer,
making his presence known. Mulder looked up at him, but said nothing.
His face was haggard and strained, making him appear about ten years
older than he was. Scully was pacing around the kitchen in her pajamas
and a bathrobe, trying to calm a wailing Reese in her arms.

"We'll talk later," The detective said; stuffing his steno pad and
pen into his coat.

 Jack summed up Mulder after the detective was gone, taking in the cut
and blood on his left cheek that had yet to be cleaned up. "What
happened?" He asked.

Mulder sighed heavily and leaned back in the chair. "I was sleeping
down here on the couch--long story--and Jake started freaking out at
something outside. I went to check it out and I saw this guy with a
gun and a lock pick trying to get into the house. So I opened the door
and slugged him. When I went to get the gun, he hit me with the pick,"
Mulder pointed to the cut on his face. "And then dragged me down the
steps into the snow. He was going to shoot me when Jake jumped him. I
got up and held my gun on him, and he started telling me all this
shit. And I.overreacted."

 "Again," Scully added. She gave Jack a look and went back to rocking
and shushing her son.

Mulder picked up the plastic evidence bag from the table with the
badge in it and handed it to Jack. "Turned out it was a mother-fucking
CIA agent that I overreacted on."

Jack examined the badge. "Oh, shit." He muttered, looking at Mulder
with pity.

 "My sentiments exactly." 

 "Mulder you are gonna be in some serious shit for this. I can already
hear Skinner wailing on you." Jack said.

"No kidding," Mulder mumbled. A paramedic appeared in the kitchen
entryway, armed with and orange medical kit.

"I need to look at your cut, Mr. Mulder," She said, setting the kit
on the table and proceeding to take out sterile gauze and antiseptic.

Mulder nodded and continued, "It wouldn't surprise me if I got
fucking canned for this. They've been waiting years for something like
this to give my ass the boot."

 "Worse than that, you could go to prison." Jack said. 

"He won't go to jail," Scully piped in, having gotten Reese quieted
down. "Heaven forbid the FBI get a blemish like this on their record."

The detective came back as the paramedic was finishing up affixing
two butterfly bandages on the one-inch cut just below Mulder's
cheekbone.

"Agent Mulder, since you have told us that you did shoot Jose
Alvarez, we have to take you in, we just got the arrest warrant signed
on. You'll probably have to stay in jail until the arraignment. Now if
you'll stand up," The detective grabbed Mulder's arm, directing him to
stand.

Mulder did as he was told and pulled his arms behind his back so he
could be cuffed.

 "You have the right to remain silent," The detective began saying in
a rehearsed voice with no emotion. "Anything you say can and will be
used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an
attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to
you. Do you understand the rights I have presented to you?"

Mulder nodded solemnly and uttered a quiet "Yes," as the started to
the door. He looked up to see Zoe standing at the top of the steps,
watching.

 "Mommy, what's going on?" She asked, tears filling her eyes and fear
in her voice. She looked to Scully for help.

"Sweetie I told you to go back to bed," Scully said, trying to keep
her voice steady.

Jack went up the stairs. "I'll take her," He called over his
shoulder, directing the child back to her room.

As he was led out to the police car, Mulder looked back at Scully.
She was calm, but her eyes betrayed her professional demeanor to the
scared woman beneath. He knew she was still angry with him, but he
wanted to run back and hold her and tell her everything was going to
be all right. That's all he wanted, was for everything to be all
right.

 Bethesda Municipal Police Station, Central Booking 

 By the time Mulder had gotten through the booking procedures, it was
nearly eight o'clock in the morning. He was going to be held until his
arraignment hearing, which was set for Friday. That would mean a day
and a night in jail. He was given one of the tasteful orange jumpsuits
and put into a cell by himself, to sulk and wait for tomorrow to come.

He had called his lawyer friend, John Charles Stoffand, in to
represent him. Since JC was a corporate lawyer, it was going to be
difficult to persuade him.

 He had also phoned Scully and talked to her. By her voice he knew she
was still mad, and would be until they had a good, long talk. She had
talked with Zoe and gotten her off to school. Zoe was okay, she seemed
shaken up by it all, but she was a strong kid. Jack went in to work,
probably to tell Skinner all that had happened.

After his phone calls, Mulder sat in his cell in silence, absorbing
everything. He knew he had overreacted, and he knew he was in trouble.
It wouldn't be the first time his short temper had gotten him in a
similar position. He had been thrown in jail before for a murder he
didn't even commit, so was used to the atmosphere.

He shot a man in cold blood. He couldn't get over it. He had shot
people before; he had killed people before, but never intentionally,
never without it being in self-defense or the defense of someone else.
He may be able to argue self- defense for this, but he knew it wasn't.
He could have detained the guy, cuffed him, and taken him downtown.
But he didn't, he just pulled the trigger. He was probably going to
get second-degree murder for this one. It all weighed heavily on his
conscience.

 Scully shot a man in cold blood once before. How she dealt with that
every day he would never know, because he knew for damn certain she
had to think about it every day. He knew he would be thinking about
this for the rest of this life. The man she shot went by the name of
Donnie Pfaster. He was one of those satanic death fetishists, obsessed
with the hair and nails of dead women. He kept the whole fingers in
his refrigerator after her killed an unsuspecting woman, a real
sick-o. He kidnapped Scully.Mulder thought a moment.back in 1993, and
nearly killed her, scared her to death at least before he was
arrested. She hadn't spoke of it until the year before-- 2000--when
Pfaster broke out of prison and went after her again. Mulder
remembered very vividly, standing in Scully's apartment doorway,
Scully by the kitchen, Donnie between them. Scully was bruised and
battered, her gun in her hands. She must have emptied nearly a clip
into him, rather than letting him be arrested. She just shot him.

 Mulder shook his head at his infernal photographic memory, a blessing
at some times, damnation at others, the latter for this particular
memory.

He remembered the look on her face when she lowered her gun as she
stared at Pfaster's body. How much hate, how cold, how heartless it
had been. She felt no guilt, no pity for the dead man at her feet,
especially not after what he did to her. Mulder never, ever wanted to
see the look on her face again.

They hadn't spoken of it since then. She had to think about it, she
just had to, but how did she cope?

"Mulder, your lawyer's here," The guard said, interrupting Mulder
from his thoughts. He unlocked the cell door as Mulder stood up,
burying the memories back in his mind.

He followed the guard to a little interrogation room where JC
Stoffand was waiting. JC, a stocky, goateed, well groomed, rich,
African-American man, stood up when Mulder entered, greeting him with
a handshake. He pulled back the handshake in exchange for a manly
embrace between the good friends, and they both went to the table in
the center of the room to sit.

"It's been too long Mulder, I'm sorry these are the conditions we
must use to see each other again." JC said good-naturedly. "You still
owe me a b-ball game."

Mulder waited as the guard locked his handcuffs to the bolted-down
metal table, and his ankle cuffs to the floor. He didn't even argue
with the chains anymore, knowing they wouldn't take them off. After
the guard stepped away, he spoke, "Yeah, I dunno when I'll be able to
pay off that debt, I've been a little um.busy lately."

JC smiled and nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. He looked over
at the guard, who was also a black man. "Why don't you go for a walk,
I can handle this scrawny little white boy." He told him heartily.

 The guard opened the door, more than ready to leave and get an early
coffee break. "Whatever you say, chief." He said, closing the door
behind himself.

JC looked back to Mulder, the humored smile slowly fading from his
face. He and Mulder had been friends for a long time, so he was used
to hearing about Mulder's getting into trouble. "So, what did you do
this time?"

 Mulder bit his lip and fiddled with the chains linking his wrists. "I
shot a guy,"

 JC leaned back in the hard metal chair, straightened his gray Armani
jacket, and crossed his arms. "I think you better tell me the whole
story."

Mulder exhaled, and told the story for the fourth time that day,
being as impartial as humanly possible, simply because he felt guilty
and under no circumstances felt that it was self-defense. He was
pissed off, and took his anger out on some jackass CIA agent who
probably worked for the Conspiracy and was sent as a hit man.

Even JC looked a little stunned, and nothing surprised him. "A CIA
agent, huh?"

 Mulder nodded. 

 The big shot lawyer contemplated a moment, scratching at his trimmed
goatee. "So you shot a CIA agent that was trying to break into your
house for god knows what reason, not in self-defense, and without
trying to arrest him." He muttered to himself.

 "Am I screwed?" Mulder asked him. 

 He looked up. "Yup, you're screwed." He picked up his briefcase from
the floor and began to stand.

 "Wait," Mulder prompted, not letting him give up that easily. "Wait,
Jace, you gotta represent me. You're the only lawyer I trust, and
that's an oxymoron. There's no one else I can turn to."

JC sat back down, not at all singed by Mulder's poor lawyer joke.
"Mulder, I haven't practiced criminal law since I was just starting
out and that was.over seventeen years ago. Besides, you don't even
know if they're gonna hold a regular trial on this. You of all people
should know the FBI like to keep their affairs internal. You'll
probably get a mark on your file and get canned or shit like that. I
don't know what it is you want me to do."

The guard appeared at the door again, this time with a bald man
following behind him. "You got another visitor, Mulder." He informed
them.

 The man that the guard directed in was Skinner. The guard closed the
door behind him, and Skinner nodded to Mulder and JC, keeping a cool
demeanor.

 "Is this your lawyer?" Skinner asked, sizing up JC, who outsized him
by about thirty pounds and three or four inches.

Mulder didn't answer directly, but introduced the two men. "JC
Stoffand, my AD Walter Skinner, Sir, JC Stoffand, attorney at law." He
made a poor attempt at gesturing with his bound hands.

 The two men regarded each other professionally, with a handshake. 

"So I guess this means I can talk to you in private?" Skinner asked
Mulder.

 "Be my guest," JC answered, stepping out the door. 

Mulder watched his friend go, and then looked to his superior,
finally seeing Skinner's true emotions of the morning.

 He was positively livid. 

 He placed his palms on the table surface and leaned on them, looking
down on Mulder.  "What the hell were you thinking?" He asked in a
gruff voice.

 Mulder didn't answer.  

"Jose Alvarez was a top agent with the CIA. They are thoroughly
pissed at the FBI and the director is breathing down my neck to do
something about this. What am I supposed to do?!"

Mulder stared up at Skinner, unafraid by his showy display of
intimidation. "If he was such a top agent, what the hell was he doing
breaking into my house? What did I do to deserve this? He said he was
going to take my kids. My kids. He was going to kill me to do it,
probably Scully too. Maybe it's better off that he's dead."

"No it is not better!" Skinner yelled. "You killed another agent of
the government in cold blood. And you and I both know if it looks
bad."

**

"It's bad for the FBI," Mulder interrupted. "You don't think I fucking
know that? What was I supposed to do? Invite him in for coffee? Oh,
Agent Alvarez works for the CIA, sure, go ahead, take my kids, have a
grand fucking time!" Mulder pounded the table in anger.

 Skinner was a bright shade of red. "You're outta line!" 

 "No, with all do respect, sir, you're the one that's outta line." 

Skinner sat heavily in the chair that JC had preciously occupied.
"They're working on a background check on Alvarez because of a check
they found in his wallet for 2000 dollars from an unknown source. It
could be as payment, it could be nothing. But because of your itchy
trigger finger, we'll never know if he really intended to kidnap your
children or if he was just bullshitting you. On those grounds I have
convinced the judge to informally drop the charges to keep this
internal. But until I can figure out with Internal Affairs what we're
going to do about all this, you are officially suspended without pay.
You're going to be released on 800 dollars bail to make sure you won't
skip town until this can be resolved." Skinner stood up, his temper
cooled, his face back to its normal shade. He turned to the door, but
wheeled back and looked at Mulder, no longer as a superior but as an
equal. "You better hope some more evidence comes up against Alvarez,
or your ass is grass."

Skinner called for a guard and left Mulder alone, once again, with
his thoughts.

 Mulder Residence Friday, December 20, 2001 

It wasn't until around nine a.m. that the only car in the driveway
pulled out. Mulder had been watching the house across the street and
four down all morning; almost certain it had a few secrets. He ran
through the arguments in his head, that maybe the people that lived
there were very secretive, maybe they didn't want any visitors or
outside contact. But none of those were right, that house had to
contain the surveillance monitors. They just had to.

 Scully had gone to the grocery store, taking Reese with her, and Zoe
had school. So Mulder was alone in the house. He spent all morning
watching the house down the street from the living room, pacing and
thinking and waiting for the single car to pull out. He didn't exactly
know what he was going to do after the car did leave, he was just
"playing a hunch" as he liked to put it.

For the most part he was at least relieved Scully had gone out. She
was definitely still angry with him, and he spent another night on the
couch. He knew that eventually things would get better, but when and
how he hadn't a clue. Until then, he found himself focusing on the
whole deal with the Conspiracy, as he usually did. If he could take a
step back and look at his life, he would see that the Conspiracy was
consuming his life, everything he did, everywhere he went, all of his
time. But he couldn't look at his own life, everyone else could see
it, but he was blind to the truth.

At nine o'clock, the black sedan finally pulled out of the driveway
and drive away. The windows were all tinted, so he couldn't possibly
see who was driving. No matter, he wasn't interested in who the small
time government employees were. He was interested in what they knew.

As soon as the car was out of sight, Mulder jumped into action. He
went upstairs and got his lock pick from his evidence kit. It was
almost exactly like the one that CIA agent had, a metal gun-like
object that fit in the palm. The sharp pick was used to penetrate the
lock and the spring trigger handle squeezed to rotate the pick portion
until the lick's pins could be released. It was all part of the perks
of being a field agent. After stuffing the pick into his jeans pocket,
he grabbed his running shoes and sweatshirt.

 He leashed Jake to make it appear as though he was merely out jogging
with the dog, and left the house, being sure to lock the doors. He
walked down the driveway, Jake tugging before him at the leash, and
crossed the street to the side the mystery house was on. He jogged
casually down that side of the road, watching a little to see if
anyone was watching him.

When he got to the empty driveway of the house, he stopped and
pretended to be stretching out his legs, all the while looking at the
house for any signs of life beyond the windows. Nothing stirred. As
casually as possible, he started up the front yard to the little
concrete porch.

There were closed blinds over all the windows, so it was impossible
for him to know if anyone was home. All he could see was that the
lights were off. He looked around once more, and seeing no one
outside, proceeded to pick the deadbolt lock on the door. A few twists
and turns later the door was unlocked. He turned the knob and opened
it easily.

Before he went in, he dropped the dog leash on the porch and firmly
instructed Jake to "sit" and "stay". That way, he wouldn't have to
worry about the dog messing something up, and if someone drove by,
they would merely suspect Jake had broken free of the electric fence
around the yard, as he sometimes managed to do.

 Inside the house, Mulder stood in the front foyer, holding his breath
and listening intently to the silence. There was definitely no sound
of anyone moving. All was clear, for the time being.

The house was laid out with two wings around the center stairway
going to the second floor. From the first floor it could be guessed
that no one held permanent residence there. In the living room the
right was a single armchair, a sofa, and a television. The blinds on
all the windows were drawn shut, casting out the sunlight. The room to
the left of the foyer was completely bare. Mulder stepped into the
sitting room and looked back into the kitchen. It was almost bare too.
The only sign that anyone lived there was the couple of empty pizza
boxes on the table and the Styrofoam cups in the sink. It was
definitely men that lived or worked there.

Uninterested in the empty living quarters, Mulder started up the
stairs, taking each step carefully to keep the wood from creaking,
just in case someone was upstairs. In that event, Mulder's only
defense would be to run, he had left his gun at home.

The top of the stairs led to a hallway, horizontal to the front of
the house. Both ways looked identical, one door on each side of the
hall. Partly intuitively, partly guessing, Mulder went left to those
two rooms.

The back room from the front of the house had only a bed in it. It
looked slept in, disarrayed and rumpled. Yes, definitely men or a man
that lived there, no women.

Mulder turned from that room and opened the closed door to the room
across from it and stepped inside.

 Bingo. 

This room had more stuff than all the other rooms combined. It what
he guessed was supposed to be the master bedroom was a stock of seven
thirty-two inch TV monitors, all in a large part octagonal shaped desk
like one would find in the security room of a large building. All the
monitors were off, probably because they didn't register pictures
since the cameras had been taken out.

 There were three headsets lying on top of the monitors, all connected
to a big tape recorder beside the desk. On the shelf below the
recorder were probably a thousand hours worth of audiotape still in
roll form, all labeled with the date and room where they had been
recorded.

 Mulder fingered through the tapes until he found the date he wanted,
12/17/01, the day Dmitri came and talked to him. He pulled out that
tape and put it on the empty pins, then picked up a headset and
listened.

".It's a simple numerical code. I'm sure you'll have no trouble
figuring it out."

 He heard Dmitri's recorded voice say. Just as he had suspected, they
had the entire conversation on tape. And that alone was enough to get
both of them killed.

 "Damn-it!" He muttered aloud to himself, pulling off the headphones.
He had completely forgotten about that code in all the commotion over
the past couple of days. It was still in the bedroom where he put it.
He would have to get the Gunmen to look at it as soon as possible.

He stopped the recording and put it back where it was, continuing
along the room. Beside the audio tape deck was an enormous video tape
deck of eight-hour tapes. Each tape was labeled precisely with the
hours running, an abbreviation of the room taped, and the date, and
then organized so well even the most obsessive- compulsive video
collector would envy it.

 The most recent tapes were in the top right hand corner. Mulder found
the one labeled 11:00a.m.-7:00p.m. (edited) / LR / 12-17-01, and
pulled it from the rack, stuffing it into the big pocket in the front
of his hooded sweatshirt. Then he looked back at some tapes from
November and pulled one labeled from the Master Bedroom, just for
spite.

 The final thing in the room was a small table beside the opposite end
of the monitors. On it were a few empty carry out cups, an empty
carton of McDonald's French fries, a cup of pens, and a legal pad. The
legal pad had a list of names, a column for the date, and a column of
spaces for signing in:

Employee   Date   Shift Alvarez   12/14  8am-8pm Anderson   12/12
12n-11pm Andrews   12/12  12m-12n Bishop    12/17  5am-5pm Cruz
12/16  5am-5pm Donahue   12/17  5pm-5am Fitzgerald  12/15  6am-6pm
Frank    12/15  6pm-6am Truesdell  12/16  5pm-5am Vogel    12/14
8pm-8am

"Alvarez," Mulder mumbled. This was his proof. This was his proof
that Alvarez was watching him! Without a second thought, he ripped off
the top sheet of the pad, uncaring if anyone realized it was gone. He
needed this proof.

Below that sheet was a similar one with older dates. At the bottom
was a surprisingly a name an unreadable signature. The name and
signature both belonged to Alex Krycek.

That sparked a flame of old anger in Mulder. "That bastard," He
muttered, finally able to put together who was behind it all.

With a glance at his watch he decided that he had been in the house
way too long and it was time to go before someone came back. His
evidence tucked safely in his pocket, Mulder made a final check to
make sure everything was mostly the way he found it, and then left the
surveillance house.

 11:04 a.m. 

".And when you feel your faith is running low, I'll be there to
believe in you. When all you find are lies I'll be the truth you
need.when you need someone to run to, you can run to me."

The country ballad playing on the radio was cut short when Scully
shut off the care engine after pulling into the open garage space. She
normally didn't listen to country, but there was nothing better on the
radio, and the song was sweet. Reese apparently thought so too, as it
had lulled him to sleep. Before she got out of the car, she popped the
trunk to access the grocery bags. Then, she got out of the car, got
Reese and his baby carrier/car seat out, and grabbed one of the brown
paper bags of groceries in her free hand.

Stepping idly around the boxes, she entered the kitchen through the
connecting door. She had a faint hope that just maybe Mulder would
have gone through some of the stuff and gotten rid of the clutter. But
that was only wishful thinking.

 She dropped her keys and the bags of groceries on the serving counter
across from the door and placed Reese in his seat on the dining room
table. He was wide-awake when she unbuckled the straps and picked him
up. As usual, he had that all to familiar odor about him, while he
continued to play the innocent, absently slobbering over a plastic
rattle.

 "Charming," She muttered, picking up her son by the sides and holding
him with one arm.

 On the way upstairs, she ignored whatever Mulder was watching on the
TV, barely even acknowledging that she was home. It had been only two
days since their little tiff, and she was still angry with him.
Silence would hang around between them until the problem could be
resolved and they could make up. That could be anytime from the next
few minutes until weeks later, depending on how cooperative both sides
were. Scully didn't feel very cooperative at the moment. Mulder had
hurt her feelings, plain and simple. He went so far as to claim she
didn't care about the truth anymore. That was a lie. She cared about
it as much as he did. After losing the daughter she didn't even know
she had and her sister to it, how could she not care? It was this
truth that gave her Zoe, and probably Reese as well. In a way she
thanked the truth, and in another she feared it. Whatever way she
viewed it, she wanted to find it as much as Mulder did. How dare he
say she didn't care? She had to let him mull over it for a few days.

 After changing Reese, she carried him back downstairs, and put him in
the highchair. It was nearly lunchtime and he obviously didn't mind
entertaining himself in the chair. She went back to the living room
and beckoned Mulder for some help with the groceries. She wasn't
giving him the silent treatment, after all, only the cold shoulder.

He didn't reply, but continued to fast forward through the
surveillance tape he had been reviewing. "Scully, look at this," He
said quietly after a few moments and looked back at her.

 "I'm looking at it, where did you get it?" She asked, recognizing the
living room lay out. She saw two men sitting in the living room. One
was obviously Mulder, the other she held no familiarity.

 "The house down the street." He replied. She walked around the sofa,
watching the silent movie more intently. "They have everything in
every room on tape, only the parts when no one was in the room is
edited out."

 "That's you and Dmitri?" 

"Yes, they recorded our entire conversation with the mikes, and the
video. I went down and did a little snooping and I found this, too."
He picked up the tape from the bedroom and gave it to her. She looked
at the label and back to him. "They have everything on tape."

She gave him back the tape, disgusted with even holding it. "The
surveillance equipment was in that house with the sedans in front,
wasn't it?" He nodded. "And you were playing a hunch."

He nodded again. "Don't worry, nobody saw me. I'm very good at
getting the information I need. I also came across this," He handed
her the sign- in sheet from the desk, slightly rumpled from being in
his pocket. "It should clear my name."

Scully skimmed the list, immediately seeing Alvarez's name at the
top. She gave Mulder a questioning expression.

 "I talked to Skinner about it. He was a little peeved I went into the
house, but he said he would send some guys down here. If it's true,
I'm off the hook, there are no recorded CIA operations around here."

 Scully just nodded her comprehension. 

Mulder sighed. He looked at her as if he was going to tell her
something else, paused, and changed his mind, rising from his seat and
stopping the horrible surveillance tape.

 "Still groceries in the car, huh?" 

 Scully passed him a smirk and nodded, leading him out to the kitchen.
"Ready and waiting for you, sir." She said, gesturing towards the open
garage door.

"I'll get right to it ma'am." He replied smartly, offering her a
sarcastic military salute. It got no humored reaction from her.

 He set about unloading and putting away groceries, thinking about his
meetings from earlier in the morning.

 He had met with Dmitri again. The Russian claimed to have never known
about the surveillance, and seemed appalled by it. They had stooped to
a new low, he said. Then he explained that matters were getting more
pressing internally. The "Beings" were getting closer, and would
probably be arriving within the next few days. It would be wise for
Mulder to keep his mouth shut about any information he had received
(certain satellite transmissions included) from now on--save for only
the most trusted.

The last thing Dmitri hinted at was that everything would be
revolving around Russia. It was secluded, it was quiet, and there was
a large uninhabited area. The bases would probably all be set up in
Russia, and operations would be done from there. That, as usual, gave
Mulder something to think about.

   

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X

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 Okay, so I lied, it is 18 parts. But as you can see, this is not the
end. More to come. Feed back is loved! :o) --

*Smurf*

AIM: XFSmurf a.ka. Dr. Pheobe--Blurbologist, colleague of Dr. Bambi
xxxxx <The 89% insane, Spiffy Little Shippy Blue Alien, Queen of
Fanfic with barefeet and live Goats!>









 "I smile because I don't know what's going on."