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_Vengeance_ Chapter Eight: "Answers"
by JulietttXF@aol.com
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        Scully stepped out into the living room where her friends were
waiting for her.  She smiled and went past them to the front door,
opened it, and went outside.  They followed her, Jackie shaking her
head.

        "Your mom's something else, Dana."

        She grinned.  "She's *very* perceptive."

        Mulder was looking at her.  "Runs in the family."

        Her eyes met his and for the first time since before this whole
mess had begun with his becoming so ill from the drugs in his water
supply the silent communication flowed between them once more.

        She had forgotten how wonderful -- almost intoxicating -- it felt.

        She sank to the porch swing.  A moment later it creaked and
dropped several inches as Mulder joined her.  Jackie grinned and took
her place on the porch railing.

        They swung for a few minutes in silence, each lost in his or her
own thoughts.  Gradually Scully became aware of how easily the swing
moved with the two of them in it together, his much longer legs pushing
gently in perfect rhythm with her shorter ones.

        <Just like our partnership.  Give and take.  Each of us taking
up the slack in the other.>  She looked over at him.  He was watching
her and gave her a half-smile.

        *I missed you.*

        *I missed you, too. . . .*

        St. George, watching them, decided it was up to her to bring
things back into the realm of words.  She cleared her throat and they
both jumped slightly.

        "So."

        Mulder took a deep breath.  "Where do I start?"

        Scully bit her lip.  "The phone call."

        He nodded.  "Okay.  Eric -- that's the boy who took me out
into the desert on his bike," he explained to Jackie.  She nodded.
Dana had been able to tell her about Eric.  Mulder continued.  "We
rode out into the desert -- I don't know -- several miles.  He showed
me a group of buried boxcars -- I guess the earthquake had
uncovered them.  We went down to the one where he had been before,
where he had discovered -- what he had discovered.  My cel phone
rang," here Scully looked up in interest.  She had not known this
before.  Mulder nodded again.  "It was Cancerman.  Gave me some
line about how my father was involved in everything and that if I went
any further I would be exposing him."  He dropped his eyes.  "Maybe
I should have listened to him."

        "No."  Scully's voice was firm and he looked up.  "One thing
I've learned during my time with the X-files, Mulder -- sometimes it
hurts to find the truth.  But in the end the lies always seem to hurt
more."

        He considered this for a moment and then nodded.  When
Scully had been returned after her abduction and could not remember
anything he had not pushed it.  There had been between them the
unspoken understanding that perhaps it was better *not* to know
everything that had happened to her.  She was frightened and he
knew it -- what was more, he understood.  He was frightened as well.

        But then when the MJ files had been unencrypted -- at least
partially -- she had discovered her own name among them, with
Duane Barry's, which suggested to her that in these files were the
answers behind her abduction.  And suddenly the truth had become
important once again.

        <I want you to find out, Mulder.  I *need* you to.>

        But how could he tell her what he now knew?

        When was the Truth no longer as important as sleeping at
night?

        <Not yet.  Later.>

        "Anyway.  I climbed down into the boxcar and there were . . .
these *bodies*, Scully -- they weren't human . . . they were small
and misshapen . . ." he shook his head at the memory.  "And then
I called you."  She nodded and he continued.  "I looked at the arm
of one of the bodies and there was a mark on it, like a smallpox
scar.  You said something about the files speaking about tests.  I
got to wondering -- what if these bodies were the bodies of aliens
that the government had somehow captured and subjected to tests?
Were they testing the aliens' immune systems?  Testing for
evidence of previous exposure to human diseases? -- that would
suggest either that they had come here before or that we -- some
humans from somewhere -- had gone to wherever it was they came
from.  In any case, somebody was keeping secrets."  He shook his
head again.  "Or maybe they were trying to see if the aliens
possessed some sort of super antibody that could be used in
treating human diseases.  Or maybe --" he trailed off and looked at
her warily.

        "What, Mulder?"  When he didn't respond immediately she
sighed in exasperation.  "It can't possibly be any more outrageous
than what we've heard so far."

        He simply looked at her for a moment.  Then, "branched
DNA."

        Jackie's head snapped up.  "What?!"

        He nodded.  "I know -- it seems to be a recurring theme,
doesn't it?  Maybe one of the government's pet side projects."

        Scully said nothing.  <They found branched DNA in my
system when. . . .>  Mulder was evading her eyes.  She closed her
own and said a silent prayer for strength.  Somehow she knew she
was going to need it.  "Go on," she said softly.

        He took another deep breath.  "The hatch clanged shut and
cut off our phone conversation.  At first I thought," he grinned, "I
thought that maybe Eric was . . . involved in something. . . ."  He
darted a wary glance at his partner but was relieved when she
merely nodded.  In those early days of confusion and paranoia she
had considered nearly every possibility, including this one.  "But
then the hatch opened again and some men climbed down in and
pulled me out at gunpoint."

        She stared at him.  "Where was Eric?"

        He frowned.  "They had him down on the ground -- it looked
like they were sedating him or something."

        Scully nodded absently.  This confirmed her suspicions that
the boy's memory had been wiped and new information implanted.
They had been very clever, erasing only the few minutes it had taken
to remove Mulder from the boxcar.  The smaller the amount of
information eradicated, the less likelihood of errors and
inconsistencies.

        ". . . okay?" Mulder asked.

        "'Scuse me?"  She shook her head to clear the muddled
thoughts that were beginning to cloud her mind.

        "I asked if you had heard anything more about Eric Hosteen.
Is he all right?"

        Scully nodded.  "Somehow word got back to them when
the . . . the body was found.  Albert called me to tell me how sorry
he was."

        Mulder sighed in visible relief.  "At first, when they took me,
I was afraid they had taken him too," he continued.  "They told me
they had, but I hoped it was just another threat."

        "Do you know where. . . ?"

        He shook his head.  "No -- they drugged me and shoved me
in a car.  I remember an explosion and then everything went black."
He grinned.  "At first when I woke up that was all I could remember.
I thought I was . . . dead."

        She looked at him.  <Me, too.>

        He cleared his throat and went on.  "When I came to I was in
some sort of laboratory, on a table.  There was another table next to
me, and another man on it."  He stopped and bit his lip, unwilling to
continue.

        Jackie spoke up.  "Don't tell me.  The body they found in the
house."

        He nodded.  "He didn't look like me, really -- same general
build, and dark hair."  He paused again, then went on.  "Then they --
some people in surgical scrubs and masks -- came in and started
examining me.  No," he hurried to explain when he saw the concern in
Scully's eyes, "they didn't hurt *me*."  He stopped again.

        Her eyes grew wide at the implication of the stressed word.

        Mulder picked up his story again.  "They -- stripped off my
clothes.  I noticed at the time that they were very careful with them --
I couldn't imagine why until later, when . . ." he broke off.  Now was
the time when he had to be most lucid.  There were so many details,
so much to explain to them, but he had to be calm.  "They examined
me, went over every inch of my body, and made notes.  They
especially spent a lot of time on my left shoulder."

        Where she had shot him.  She closed her eyes, remembering
again the feel of the kick of the gun when she pulled the trigger,
hearing the shot and smelling the burnt cordite and seeing him slump
to the pavement. . . . She felt a touch on her arm and opened her
eyes.

        He smiled at her.  "I didn't tell you before -- but thanks."

        "For what?  Shooting you?"

        He nodded.  "For preventing me from becoming a murderer."

        She stared into his eyes.  There was no anger there.  Only
gratitude and friendship and -- something else.  He didn't blame her
for hurting him.  What was more, he was not angry at her for allowing
Krycek to escape.  And so as she gazed into his eyes something
that had been hurting her for five months, something that had nothing
to do with Mulder's disappearance, finally began to heal.

        He settled back and resumed his tale.  "Then they moved
over to the other table and they pulled back the sheet."  He swallowed
hard.  "And they . . . they . . ." he closed his eyes, unable to
continue.

        "What?"

        His voice was very hoarse.

        "They shot him."

        "WHAT?!"  St. George jumped down from the railing and stood
in front of the swing that had ceased to rock.  "They did WHAT?!"

        "They -- shot him.  Stood right over him and shot him right in
the left shoulder where my scar was.  He -- he jumped a little but he
didn't scream or anything so. . . ."

        "He was ALIVE?  He was alive and AWAKE?!"  Scully was
shaking.  "They. . . ."

        He nodded, his eyes full of pain.  "Scully -- they went over my
body -- they were looking for new scars and they . . . they inflicted the
wounds on him so he. . . ."

        "So he would have the same scars you had.  The BASTARDS!"
Jackie shouted.  She was trembling with rage.

        Scully was very white.  It had been bad enough that she had
had to shoot Mulder.  But now -- some poor man had suffered for it
as well. . . .

        Mulder's swallowed painfully.  "I -- don't know what all they
did to him after that because I yelled and they put me out."

        At least he had been spared that.  Had been spared watching
Them replay the rest of his injuries, *intentionally*, on another subject.

        He went on again.  "Later -- I woke up.  I have no idea how
long I had been out, but I was thirsty.  And I noticed that they had
bandaged my shoulder again.  Not as carefully or as well as *you*
had, Scully," he teased.  He was rewarded with a faint smile.  She
still looked sick.  "Anyway.  I had -- a lot of time to think about
everything.  About what they had done -- would do to me.  To us."

        "Did you ever see anyone else there?"

        He nodded.  "That man -- I saw him twice more.  They
were checking for any scars they might have missed."  He
shuddered.  "And then they took blood from both of us a couple of
times.  He was conscious but looked -- drugged -- every time I saw
him.  I figured that they had to keep him awake so that they could
monitor him -- make sure he didn't die during their . . . treatments."
He shuddered again.  That human beings could be so capable of
cruelty -- intentional cruelty -- to one of their own.  That they would
keep this unknown man alive simply in order to kill him at their own
whim. . . .

        "What else?" Scully asked softly.

        He took a deep, shaky breath.  "Sometimes a couple of men
would come into the -- cell -- where they were keeping me and ask
me questions.  I don't remember that part very well for some reason --
maybe it'll come back eventually.  And then one of the -- scientists --
there told me. . . ."  He grinned sardonically.  "Isn't there a line in a
lot
of movies when the villain says, 'I might as well tell you what I'm going
to do to you because you won't ever make it out of here alive anyway'?
I always figured that if they *didn't* tell you everything it was a good
sign you were going to be released.  But with these guys," he shook
his head.  "For all I knew they were just going to wipe my memory
again.  In fact, I *still* don't know whether they were planning on
killing
me.  Glad I didn't stick around long enough to find out.

        "Anyway," he continued, "after -- I don't know how long -- a
couple of weeks? -- a couple of months? -- they came in and drugged
me again."  He remembered hoping that they were going to return him
to D.C. or the desert or the Hosteens' house -- anywhere away from
here, anywhere where Scully could find him. . . . He had lain there as
the drugs took effect, trying to remember everything he could.  Although
at that point They had not revealed to him the full extent of Their plans,
he was smart enough -- and paranoid enough -- to figure out that They
would not stop at just inflicting injuries on the other man.  His double.
They had a lot to answer for already; he only hoped he would be able
to escape before they added to their list of crimes.

        "When I woke up this time I was in our office."  He turned in
time to see Scully's mouth drop open, and nodded.  "A replica.
Pretty convincing, too -- they'd even dressed me in a suit and tie.  I
figure they wanted to see if I would reveal the location of the DAT tape."

        "But you didn't," Scully said softly.  He shook his head.

        "A clumsy attempt -- they must have figured it wouldn't work
but was worth a try.  Eventually I grew to wish I had. . . ."  He sank
into silence again, obviously lost in his memories.

        Jackie leaned forward.  "What did you do while you were --
away?"

        He sighed.  "They kept me in a cell of sorts.  I did sit-ups.
A *lot* of sit-ups.  Conjugated verbs in English, French, and Greek.
When I got *really* bored I memorized the Declaration of
Independence backwards.  Sometimes I wrote letters in my head.
If I concentrated hard enough I could 'listen' to music from memory.
I went through everything I could think of -- classical, pop, rock, jazz
-- even a couple of musicals."

        Jackie grinned.  "I didn't know you liked musicals, Mulder."

        He made a face at her.  "I went to a few shows while I was in
England -- besides, any port in a storm, right?"  He grinned suddenly.
"Guess what I realized?  Whoever owns the rights to _Madame
Butterfly_ has got grounds for a suit -- the tune for 'Bring Him Home'
from _Les Mis_ was lifted straight out of 'The Humming Chorus.'"

        Scully shook her head as she digested this piece of
information.

        "I recited some poetry, too," he said, watching for her
reaction.

        "Oh?"

        He nodded.  "Some Shakespeare -- and Chaucer.  The
Brownings.  Some Donne and Dickinson, too."  She blushed faintly.
She didn't have to ask which ones by Donne and Dickinson.  He
smiled.  "A couple of nights I even put myself to sleep with Dr.
Seuss. . . ."  What he *didn't* tell her is that he did not say aloud
the page from _The Sleep Book_ that she had recited for him on one
of their stakeouts; instead he simply closed his eyes and listened to
her voice in his head repeating the lines until he fell asleep.

        <Way out in the West, in the town of Mercedd. . . .>

        "Anyway.  I tried to keep track of how long I was there by
counting meals, but I had no idea how accurate that was."  He
paused again.  He was about to head into those dangerous waters.

        "A couple of weeks ago I noticed they started treating me a
little . . . differently.  They would come into my cell more often.
They took more blood.  Almost like they were -- double-checking
something."

        Scully closed her eyes.  "Your double," she whispered.

        He nodded.  "Yeah -- I figured that.  They must have been
giving him time to heal before . . ." he swallowed.  "I only hope that
-- they killed him or at least knocked him out before . . ." his voice
trailed off.  Knowing that another man had died in his stead in agony
in that fire was only marginally better than suffering it himself.  Or
maybe it was marginally worse.

        "It worked," Scully said dully.  "The wounds they inflicted --
the branched DNA -- hey convinced the FBI pathologist -- and *me*
-- that it was your body."  She still said nothing of her irrational faith

that had, in the end proven right.  He *was* alive.  "Wait a second.
The body had DNA that was a combination of your DNA and an
unknown. . . ."  She trailed off and stared at him, her eyes wide.
"Oh my God."

        He nodded.  "You figured it out," he said softly.

        "Mulder -- they -- but how could --"

        "I don't know, Scully.  But they did."

        It hadn't been Mulder's body with irregularities in his
bloodstream.

        It had been an unknown man with irregularities in his
bloodstream.  The "irregularities" had been the man's own blood;
ironically, it was *Mulder's* DNA which was foreign in this
equation.

        How twisted, and sick, and . . . and very nearly
successful.

        No, it had been successful.  Had X not had his own
agenda. . . .

        She thought again of the emotions she had allowed
herself during those first few awful hours after the news of the body
had reached her.  Her disbelief that covered a trembling fear

        <Noit'simpossibleitcan'tbeIdon'tbelieveitI'dknowI'dknow
wouldn'tInohe'snotdeadit'snothimit'snotit'snotitcan'tbeMulder>

and then the frozen resolution as she performed the autopsy and
then that one moment of excruciating, blazing pain as she
touched his arm and knew then that she had been wrong -- about
him, about her, about *everything*.

        And then blessed nothingness.

        And once again she believed, as she had before, that had he
died in that boxcar or at any other time, she would have known it.
It was a gift, a very great gift, this renewal of her faith in their bond
that X had given her -- almost, but not quite, as great as the gift
of Mulder himself.

        Not that she would ever tell him.

        Not that she *could* tell him.

        Or at least not yet. . . .

        His voice was hoarse.  "There's more, Scully."

        "More?"

        He nodded and swallowed hard, but when he continued his
voice was, if anything, even more hoarse than before.  "That --
scientist -- told me . . ." he trailed off and just looked at her, pain in

his eyes.

        "Go on, Mulder," she said quietly.

        He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, seeking
hers.  "They told me -- oh, Scully . . ." his voice was low and rough.
"They told me they have a double for you, too. . . ."

        Scully went very pale and her lips trembled.

        "Scully," he pleaded, taking her hands in his, "they may just
have been torturing me -- I don't know. . . ."

        Her mind spun.  How long?  How long had the monsters
been planning this?  And had it been Mulder all along, or was he
merely a convenient test subject?

        And then with a sudden wave of clarity, understanding
rushed through her, nearly rocking her to her knees.

        <Oh, God. . . .>

        "No, Mulder," she said calmly although she was still white to
the lips.  "It makes sense.  I wonder. . . ."  She broke off, then
continued in a whisper.  "I wonder if . . . if that's why they . . . took
me. . . ."

        Now St. George was white as well -- with fury.  "The
bastards," she hissed.  "If I find them . . ." she clenched her fists
and Mulder and Scully were very glad she was not wearing her
gloves.

        Scully sat very still with her eyes closed, but she was
shaking.  Mulder slid an arm around her and she hugged him back,
tightly.

        More and more of the pieces were slipping into place.

        The branched DNA in her bloodstream -- perhaps They had
been experimenting with her to see whether They could mix her
genetic material with her double's to obtain a close enough -- or at
least a confusing enough, as in Mulder's case -- match to serve
their purpose in the future.

        But something had gone wrong and so she had had to be
returned.  Perhaps they had kept her for so long because they had
been trying to repair the damage.  <To save my life so they could take
it at their own pleasure later,> she thought angrily.  They had been
unable to remove all trace evidence of the tests from her system, but
they had broken the molecules down to prevent any correct
interpretation of the clues.  In the end, the "waste products" of the
genetic mutations they had performed had served their purpose in an
even more deviously convincing way.  They had led Mulder -- and, she
admitted, to some extent, she had at least entertained the possibility
herself -- to believe that she had been abducted by aliens and
submitted to extraterrestrial experimentation.

        The truth was even more horrific.  And even more unbelievable.

        By manipulating the evidence they had assured that any
further investigation into Scully's abduction, whether she died or not,
would be impossible.  Mulder's suggestion that she had been taken by
aliens -- a possibility planted in his head by the men who *were*
responsible -- would have gotten him laughed off the case.

        Mulder began to speak again, and quickly told them that one
day -- or night, he could not be certain which -- the lights had
suddenly gone out in the building in which he was housed.  He had
lain in the darkness, ready to spring at whoever came through the
door and make at least an attempt at escape.  By now he knew that
Scully and all the others must believe him dead, and that no help
would come to him.  He had to count only on himself -- and he had
to get to Scully. . . .

        When the door had opened he had tensed himself.  But in
that instant before he leapt a voice had spoken out of the darkness.
He could have not been more surprised -- no, shocked -- had it been
Scully herself, although he wished it had been.

        But he had reacted to Mr. X's presence in an entirely
different manner than he would have reacted to his partner's.  His
embrace had been one of attack rather than joyful reunion.  And the
last thing he remembered happening in that building was a sudden
pain in his head and that calm voice saying, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mulder,"
and then blankness.

        He had awakened in the back seat of the car, his head
throbbing.  Mr. X had given him water and aspirins and he had slept
off and on, losing all sense of time and space once more.  It could
have been hours or days from the time he had been rescued, as he
ultimately realized he had been, to the time he had awakened
under the tree in Mrs. Scully's front yard.

        The three agents sat in silence for a long time, lost in thought.

        Jackie watched her two friends, so close in proximity, their
minds racing in similar directions, but so far apart.  She alone knew
that both of them had the same fears about Scully's abduction.
During a particularly memorable drunken stupor Mulder had told her
of his visions of Scully on an operating table, surrounded by
shadowy beings, her belly expanding beneath some sort of high-tech
instrument.  Even she, without a psychology degree, recognized in
that symbolism of impregnation her friend's fear that his partner had
been sexually violated.  And she also saw something in it that Mulder
himself did not realize: his proprietary protectiveness of Scully's body,
particularly of her sexuality.  His feelings for her -- whatever he wanted

to call them -- compelled a deep angst within him when he thought
of anyone hurting her, especially in *that* way.

        And she knew that Scully, too, had feared something of this
nature.  Physical examinations had shown no evidence of either rape
or impregnation, though goodness only knew what They had done to
her.

        Might not Mulder's experience finally give them some answers
that could put to rest at least some of their fears?  Perhaps this is
what they had done to Scully herself -- but they had had a chance
to wipe her memory, which is why she could not remember anything.
Mr. X had gotten to Mulder before they could wipe his.

        As horrific and terrifying and humiliating as it might seem, it
was far less so than all the things each of them had imagined.

        Scully took a deep breath.  "Mulder, do you think. . . ?"

        He nodded.  "Yes, Scully, I do."

        So much said in so little.  Their customary shorthand was in
and of itself as comforting as the message.

        She closed her eyes, feeling a knot loosen in her chest.
Perhaps he was wrong.  Perhaps he was only saying this to make
her feel better.

        But it was working.

        Suddenly a tension she had not known was there, that
*must* have been there for nearly a year now, eased.  And she knew
in that instant that she belonged to herself again.  To herself and. . . .

        Mulder stood up.  "Is that lasagna I smell?"

        Jackie jumped up as well.  "I'll just go see if they need any
help," she said, obviously intent on leaving them alone for a moment.

        Scully accepted Mulder's hand and rose from the swing.

        "Thanks," she said.  His eyes met hers and he smiled briefly
in understanding.

        They had not settled everything, but it was a start.

*End Chapter Eight*

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_Vengeance_ Chapter Nine: "Laughter"
by JulietttXF@aol.com
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        Margaret Scully stood in the kitchen stirring a pan of hot cocoa
while   Melissa set out mugs and a bowl of marshmallows on a tray
nearby.
        Suddenly there was a burst of laughter from the other room
where Dana and Fox and Jackie and Marty were playing poker.  All
four were laughing, but Margaret's face softened as she recognized
Dana's silvery laugh among the others, and Fox's deeper, earthy laugh
in counterpoint to hers.  She caught Melissa's eye and they both
smiled.  At times during the past five months she had wondered if
her baby girl would ever laugh again. . . .
        But now Fox Mulder was back and safe and -- for she had
seen to it herself -- well-fed, and Dana was happy again.  Really, truly
happy, not merely functional, which was the best Margaret had begun
to think possible.  With Mulder's return the whole atmosphere of the
house had brightened, as if the heavy pall of sorrow and despair that
had covered it had been lifted and replaced with a blanket of warmth
and comfort and hope.  It might still be -- and was -- raining outside,
but now the raindrops fairly sang on the windowpanes, and the
howling of the wind in the chimney served only to remind them that
they were safe inside, together.  Safe and loved.
        Dinner had been a merry affair, the six of them chatting and
laughing and feasting until it indeed seemed, as St. George had
suggested earlier, like Christmas in September.
        She had sat and watched, observant as always with her
mother-eyes, noting with concern that while Fox had heaped his plate
with an enormous serving of lasagna and garlic bread and salad, he
had not even eaten as much as she herself did, let alone enough for
a man who had quite obviously been starving himself -- or had been
starved.  And Dana ate even less than she normally did, which was
little enough, though quite a bit more than she had been eating of
late.  She sighed and reflected that they still had so far to go --
Mulder was back and so they could begin the healing process, but
it had just begun.  She wondered how long it would take.
        She was cognizant, too, of the undercurrents that wove
their way beneath and through the various conversations among
the diners.  Dana and Fox and Jackie evidently still had unfinished
business to which to attend, although she was also aware of the
fact that *something* -- something of major import -- had been
settled.  Dana in particular seemed more at ease with herself than
she had been in longer than Margaret could remember -- since
far before Fox's disappearance.  Perhaps since her own
disappearance.  And Fox would watch her with the eyes of his soul,
speculatively and with great concern, seeking in her face the
answer to some unspoken question.  And when she turned to him
eyes clear for the first time in months he seemed to find what he
was looking for, for Margaret saw him close his own eyes momentarily
and bow his head.  When he opened them again everything was
completely different; he looked enormously relieved and had shed
several years around his eyes which Maggie had found herself
thinking looked far too old for such a young man, even one who
had seen so much.  And he even managed to tuck away another
few bites of food before finally pushing his plate away with a groan.
        After dinner she had made good on her earlier promise and
cut Fox's hair.  It had been a few years since she had last cut
Brian's hair -- the girls had insisted on having their hair done
professionally beginning in high school, though she continued to
cut the boys' hair until the left home -- but she had always been
good at it.  Dana and Jackie hung over her and made worried
noises as she snipped carefully in an attempt to make Fox
believe she was botching the job, just as Dana and Melissa had
done to the boys when they were all children.  When she was
finished, however, they all had to admit that she had done a good
job; if it was longer than Mulder usually kept his hair, it also gave
his too-think face a softer look.  She knew he would return to the
regulation FBI cut when he returned to work, but he seemed
genuinely pleased, and that pleased her.
        It was while they were thus occupied -- Marty and Melissa
had taken cleanup duty -- that Jackie had proposed the poker game,
and that delighted Margaret.  They had lost so much time -- had so
much to catch up on.  And unless she missed her guess, she was
certain that the three agents had begun to lay some very serious
plans.  Fox still might have to face some sort of official action when
he returned to duty; for all she knew, Dana might as well.  Whatever
happened, though, it had to be much better than the not knowing and
the emptiness and the anguish.  For tonight, though, they would push
all that away and revel in the pleasure of friendship and warmth -- and
poker.
        Soon they would have to call Skinner -- and Fox's mother.
She didn't know all the details of what Fox had endured during his
absence, but she suspected that he was not entirely out of danger.
Her eyes darted around the kitchen and she thought of all the
windows and doorways in this house.  Long ago, on Jaclyn's first
visit here, they had been attacked.  She had been asleep at the
time but Melissa had told her about it much later.
        Tonight, she would return the clip to Dana's gun.  It
seemed so silly now that she had taken it.  But then she hadn't
known what to expect.  She only hoped her daughter was not angry.
She didn't seem to be, but then her reactions today had been
overwhelmed by the joy of Fox's presence.  <Forgive me, Dana.>
        She would pull Jaclyn aside and assess the situation.  If
need be, they could raid the Captain's gun cabinet.  She herself
hated firearms, but on Dana's insistence after her father's death
Margaret had accompanied her daughters to the firing range and had
learned to handle a gun.  She was surprised to discover she was a
decent shot and remembered the thrill of pleasure she had felt in
seeing the open approval in Dana's and Fox's eyes.  Oh, yes, Fox
had been there as well.  Sometimes it seemed to her that he had
always been there.
        <You're alone in that big house, Mom.  I want to know that
*you* know how to protect yourself.>
        Another burst of laughter from the living room and she
smiled.
        <Not so very alone.>
        She filled the mugs and added a plate of cookies to the tray
and they went out into the dining room.  She paused in the doorway
and took in the scene.  She knew the mental snapshot would remain
with her for the rest of her life.  Dana's eyes were dancing at her
partner-turned-adversary as she smacked him on the arm.  He had
his hands raised in front of his face in protest as well as to ward off
the sunflower seeds Jackie was flicking at him.  Next to her Marty
was holding his sides and laughing.
        There were piles of sunflower seeds in front of each player
and another in the center of the table.  She noticed that Mulder's pile
consisted mostly of empty shells and that Scully's pile was by far the
largest.
        As she watched Mulder reached over and took a handful of
Scully's seeds.  He popped a few in his mouth and dumped the rest
on the table in front of him.
        "Hey, cut that out, Mulder!" her daughter laughed.
        "Like you'll really miss them.  Mrs. Scully," he said, shaking
his head as she set down the tray, "I swear this daughter of yours is
a card shark."
        She laughed.  "Her father taught her.  She used to sneak
downstairs and watch him play with his Navy buddies.  Once he
even let her play but when she started winning they said they'd never
come back again if he let her play.  She was eight."
        "True," Scully agreed, "but he didn't make me give back the
sixteen bucks I won."  Her mother stared at her in shocked surprise
and they laughed.
        Mulder eyed his partner suspiciously.  "I think she's been
counting cards."
        She laughed, then glared at him.  "That's not cheating except
in Vegas, *Mister* Photographic Memory.  And besides, isn't it
cheating to crack sunflower seeds and then count both halves of the
shell?"
        Jackie chuckled.  "He wouldn't stand a chance otherwise."
        Marty took another look at his cards and groaned, tossing
them into the center of the table.  "None of us do, anyway."
        Mulder shrugged, chewing.  "Hey, at least I only cracked
them with my teeth instead of putting them in my mouth like I
usually do. . . ."
        They all groaned.
        Mrs. Scully dropped a marshmallow into a steaming mug and
handed it to him.  "Well, chew on some cookies instead, okay, Fox?"
        He grinned and added two more marshmallows to the mug
and passed it to Scully.  "I think you could use the extra sweetness,
partner."
        "Hah.  I think *you* could use. . . ."
        Everyone laughed and the pair stared at them blankly.
"What's so funny?"
        "Just like old times," Jackie said, wiping her eyes.
        "Maybe not," Mulder said, grinning.  "This is winner take
all, right?"
        Scully eyed him back.  "Right."
        Jackie shook her head and tossed her cards on top of
Marty's.  "I'm out.  Gimme some cocoa."
        Mulder triumphantly spread his cards on the table.  "Full
house.  Read 'em and weep, *Scully*."  He sat back and regarded
her smugly.
        Behind her sister Melissa grinned and winked at Jackie.
Then her mouth dropped open as Scully nodded carefully and casually
tossed her cards onto his, face down.  "Congratulations, Mulder.
Maybe absence makes you a better poker player."  She stretched and
reached for her cocoa as Mulder chortled and raked the huge pile of
seeds in front of himself and popped more in his mouth.
        "Geez, Mulder -- that's the first time you've won in recent
history.  Dana, are you *sure* he's not a clone?"
        "I'm sure," her friend said softly.  Then she reached out and
ruffled his hair affectionately.  "Besides, who would want to clone
*him*?  One is most definitely enough."  The other three women
heard the undercurrent in her words but Mulder appeared not to
notice.
*****
        Later, over the dishes, Melissa confronted her sister.  "Dana,
I may not be as good a poker player as you are, but . . ."
        "You're not," Scully retorted, drying the mugs.
        Melissa ignored her and went on.  ". . . but to my knowledge
a royal flush beats a full house.  You let him win."
        Scully shrugged.  "Must've been the extra marshmallows,"
she joked.
        Melissa narrowed her eyes.  "You *hate* to lose."
        Scully closed the doors to the cabinet and faced her sister.
"It's a technique we use sometimes on perps.  With some of them,
if you never let them win they get frustrated and quit trying, and you
can't catch them that way."  She paused.  "Think of it as an
investment in the future."
        Melissa eyed her carefully.  "To keep Mulder playing poker,"
she said, understanding what Dana was really saying.
        The younger redhead dropped her gaze.  "To keep him in
the game," she agreed softly.  And then she blushed slightly, but her
sister made no comment.
        Sometimes, only sometimes, a full house beats anything
else you can lay on the table. . . .
*End of Chapter Nine*
**********************************************************
_Vengeance_ Chapter Ten: "Distracted Globes"
by JulietttXF@aol.com
**********************************************************
        Dana and Melissa finished cleaning up the kitchen and
rejoined the group in the living room to find an argument in progress.
        "You've got to be kidding me."
        "Mulder, why would we joke about something like this?"
        He shook his head.  "I suppose I should have known."
        "Hey, it's *your* legal system. . . ."
        Scully sank to the floor next to Mulder and turned to
Jackie, questioning.  "What's going on?"
        "Mulder here doesn't believe us that the O.J. Simpson trial
is still going on."
        She nodded.  "Yep.  Jury hasn't even gone out yet."
        He shook his head.  "This is *crazy*!  I mean, everybody
knows that. . . ."
        Scully clamped a hand over his mouth.  "Not again,
Mulder.  You know we made an agreement not to get into that
again."
        He looked at her with an exaggerated expression of
innocence.  "We did?  Hmm -- must've been wiped from my
memory."
        She regarded him slyly.  "Oh, really?  Then I suppose you
will also have forgotten the deal we made just before New Mexico?"
        He eyed her warily.  "Deal?"
        She nodded, a glint of mischief in her eye.  "I agreed to
find somebody to . . . look at some files you found, and you
agreed to do all of our paperwork for the next month."  The others
in the room sat back, grinning.  <Go get him, Dana!>
        "I said that?"  She hesitated, almost feeling sorry for
him, until her memory presented images of her filling out
endless piles of forms in an attempt to justify one ridiculous
expenditure or another for him, and she simply nodded.
        "You said that."
        He made a wry face at her, knowing she was lying.  But it
was too late to backpedal now.  She had him over a barrel and they
both knew it.  And it *could* have been much worse.  And he *was*
grateful to her for putting her career -- her *life* -- on the line for
him.
Yet again.  He sighed.  "Okay."
        She grinned at him and winked at Jackie, who chuckled
softly.
        The easy banter lasted a little longer, but they were all
still very, very tired.  Finally Margaret stood up.  "I'm going to bed.
Last one up, please douse the fire."  The others stood up quickly.
Scully turned to Mulder.
        "Mulder. . . ."
        "No, Scully," he said softly, shaking his head.  "I'll take the
couch."
        "But. . . ."
        "No 'buts.'  I sleep on my couch at home half the time,
anyway."  He followed her up the stairs.  "I will accept your kind
offer of some covers and a pillow, however."
        She made a face at him as she opened the closet and
pulled out a set of sheets and a quilt.  "Well, then, here.  But don't
blame me if you wake up with a crick in your neck.  I'm a lot shorter
than you are and I could fit on the couch perfectly well."
        Marty opened his mouth to offer Scully his place but Jackie
laid her hand on his arm and shook her head warningly, and he
obediently remained silent.
        "I'll be fine, Scully."
        "Fine."  She shoved the bedding into his arms and marched
into her bedroom and retrieved one of her pillows.  The others were
all already in use now with the house as full as it was.  "Here."
        "But. . . ."
        "Shut up and take it before I change my mind, Mulder."  He
knew she liked to sleep with two pillows, but he shut his mouth and
accepted it with a nod.
        "'Night, Scully -- and thanks."
        Her face softened slightly.  "'Night, Mulder."
        He turned and trudged slowly back down the stairs and she
disappeared into her room, shutting the door behind her.
        Marty, Jackie, and Melissa exchanged glances and slipped
quietly into their respective rooms.
        And for a long, long time the house was quiet.
*****
        She was in the morgue again, dressed in scrubs and a pair
of safety goggles.  A body lay before her on the table, covered with
a white sheet.  She was both compelled toward and repelled by the
shrouded figure, but she didn't know why.  There was something
about it she needed to remember, but the knowledge just barely
tickled at the back of her brain and then withdrew, leaving behind
discomfort but no revelation.  She sighed and stepped up to the
table, reached for the microphone and the file, and began to record.
        "The date is April 23rd, Special Agent Dana Scully acting
pathologist."  She opened the file and the recording echoed in the
room, redoubling over and over until it fairly rang with the sound of
her own voice.
"The date is April 24th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
  "The date is April 25th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
    "The date is April 26th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
      "The date is April 27th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
        "The date is April 28th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
          "The date is April 29th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
            "The date is April 30th, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
              "The date is May 1st, Special Agent Dana Scully. . . ."
And on and on, until the voice finally said, clearly and loudly enough
that she could hear it over all the echoes,
        "The date is September 22nd,"
and stopped.
        "Subject is a Caucasian male, mid-thirties."  She drew
back the sheet and reached for her measuring tape.  "Decedant is
186 centimeters in extremis."  She glanced up at the face.
        Recoiled in horror.
        *Mulder.*
        She shoved herself away from the table, her hands over
her mouth.  Slowly, deliberately, the body -- *his* body -- sat up on
the table, the sheet falling around its waist.  It swung its legs over
the side of the table so that it was facing her, and then suddenly
it was dressed in one of Mulder's trademark dark suits and loud
ties.
        "Ssssculllleeee. . . ."  The mouth opened and her name
came out of it, a sibilant hiss.  She whimpered and backed up
against the wall.
        It hopped down from the table, its eyes fixed on her.
        "Sssscullllllllleeeeee, I neeeeed yourrrrr helllllllppppp. . . ."
        She was hyperventilating now, crushing her body back
against the corner of the room.  Her eyes widened as wisps of smoke
began to curl off the fabric of his suit.  He smiled at her, that dear,
engaging smile, but his eyes were blank, and it terrified her all the
more that he looked just like himself but his intellect was gone.  It
was even worse than the time she had almost been fooled by the
shapeshifting alien because *this* was Mulder, was really he, but
there was something terribly, terribly wrong with him.
        He took another step towards her.  Smoke was pouring off
of him now, and his hair was steaming.
        "So, Agent Scully, any thoughts?"
        And then he burst into flame and it was like Cecil L'Ively
except that Mulder did not laugh and wave his arms, Mulder just
stood there looking at her reproachfully.
        "Scully, you know how much I hate fire."
        She heard a voice screaming and knew that it was her own.
*****
        She sat up amid a tangle of sheets, cold sweat pouring
down her face, her breath rasping harsh and fast in her throat, her
heart thudding painfully in her chest.
        She had been dreaming.  But this time that part of her that
assured her that it was only a nightmare had failed to push through
her terror.  For an instant, only an instant, she had been more
terrified than she had ever been in her life.
        She lay in her bed, chilled now, and listened.  The house was
too still.  There wasn't even any wind to make the old building creak
on its foundations, a sound which had frightened her badly as a child
but which she now would have welcomed in its implications of sheer
normalcy.
        So quiet.  Evidently her scream had been part of the dream as
well.  And a good thing, too -- she knew the rest of the household, her
mother in particular -- had not been sleeping well lately.  It had been
her fault, she thought ruefully; her mother especially had been on edge,
listening even in her light slumber for any sign that her daughter needed
her.
        Scully turned on her side and checked the clock.  Groaned.
<Great.  Almost two o'clock.  You're turning into as much of an
insomniac as Mulder is.>
        Mulder.  Wonder if he was up as well?
        <Why don't you go check?>
        <I don't need to go check.>
        <But you *want* to, don't you?>
        <No.  Not at all.  He's back and he's healthy -- well, fairly
healthy -- and he's perfectly safe and *probably* asleep, downstairs
on the sofa.>
        <Then why are you getting out of bed?>
        <I'm thirsty.>
        She crossed to the door.  <There's a faucet in the bathroom.>
        <I need a glass.>
        <snicker>
        <Fine.  While I'm downstairs *getting a glass*, I'll check in on
him.   Happy now?>
        <Immensely.>
        She sighed and reached for the door handle, pressing in on
the wood just above it as she turned the knob to prevent making any
noise -- a trick she had learned years ago.  She stuck her head out
into the hallway.
        Nothing.
        Scully tiptoed into the hallway and hesitated at the head of
the stairs to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness.  Called herself
ten kinds of fool.  And then she started down.
        <Step.  Step.  Step-step.  Step.>  An echo?
        She paused, and then she heard it.  A step that was not her
own.
        "Scully?"
        She breathed a sigh of relief.  "Mulder!" she whispered.
"What are you doing?"
        He continued up and she continued down and they met
somewhere in the middle.
        "Couldn't sleep."
        "Me, either."
        They stood in awkward silence for a moment.  He could
sense the tension in her shoulders, the remnants of whatever
nightmares had driven her from her sleep.  Then she reached a
decision.
        She took his hand in hers and gently but insistently
pulled.
        He followed her up the stairs and into her room and they
shut the door.
        Two of the other doors on the hallway opened softly and two
faces peeked out and smiled sleepily at one another.
        Then the doors closed and all was quiet once more.
*****
        She woke slowly and then stretched luxuriously.  It had been
a long time since she had felt she could sleep this late -- sleep at all,
really, with all that Dana had been suffering.  But last night had been
quiet and she had been tired.  She had not realized just how tired she
had been, but she had evidently needed the sleep, because now it
was -- she rolled over to look at the clock on the bedside table.  Ten
o'clock.
        Ten o'clock!!!  She hadn't slept so late in *years*!  Margaret
Scully rose to a sitting position and then slid out of bed.  She had
missed Mass, for the first time in longer than she could recall at the
moment.  And today of all days, when she felt more grateful than she
had for anything since Dana's recovery from her coma.
        <Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.>
        Rest.  They had all definitely needed the rest.  She yawned
and crossed the room to the door, pulling on a robe as she went.  At
this rate it was going to be lunchtime before she had her first cup of
coffee. . . .
        Coffee.  This made her think of Fox, and made her smile.  He
had stayed with them for nearly a week over the previous Christmas,
after Skinner, who was still concerned that Dana did not seem to be
recovering as quickly as they had thought, had given them five days'
personal leave.  Fox had made a show of reluctance when she had
asked him to spend his mini-vacation at the Scully house, but she
had seen through his charade and had pushed the issue, knowing that
Dana needed him there and that he needed to know that she was all
right.  Then, as now, the house had been full, but because there had
not been room for the boys and their wives and their children they had
opted to stay in hotels and only Melissaand John, Dana, and Fox had
stayed at the house with her.  It had been perfect; Dana had her own
room, as always, and Melissa and John had Bill's room, since her own,
which connected to Dana's via the extra bathroom, had been
reconverted into the den it had been before the two girls had hit the
pre-teen years and demanded separate rooms.  Fox had had Brian's
room, where Jaclyn and Marty slept now.  Those two had been
somewhat nervous and more than a little embarrassed about sharing a
room under the Scully roof, but Margaret had seen no reason to inflict
her moral sensibilities, whatever they might otherwise have been, on
the younger generation especially during this time of sorrow.  As it was,
she missed her Captain more painfully than she had done since Dana's
disappearance.  And Jaclyn and Marty were engaged, and she had a
feeling the Canadian agent was a lonely young woman.  And, too, her
loss of Bill and their loss -- their *supposed* loss -- of Fox Mulder had
reminded her just how very uncertain life was.  Let them sort it out
between them; she was there simply to mother them, all of them, and
she felt she was doing that quite well.
        Fox Mulder.  That young man needed the mother-touch,
and he evidently was not getting it from his own mother.  She didn't
fully understand what his relationship with his parents had been, but
she had gathered from something Dana had said that they were not
close, and had not been for quite some time.  It had been Dana, not
Mrs. Mulder, who had taken care of Fox during and after his nearly
fatal illness after Alaska.  But Dana's care was not exactly the
mother touch.  She didn't know quite what it was, but she knew it
was something more than simply a doctor's care for her patient or
that of a friend for another friend.  Just how much more she could
only speculate.  She wondered about Fox's and Dana's own
speculations on the subject.
        He cared, she knew that.  About Margaret herself as well.
That first morning he had spent at the house the previous Christmas
she had come downstairs, smelling freshly brewed coffee, and had
found Fox sitting at the kitchen table with a cup and the morning
paper and a sheepish, half-apologetic look on his face.
        "I hope you don't mind, but I helped myself," he said, waving
the cup at her.
        "I told you last night, Fox -- make yourself at home."  A
glance past him into the living room told her that he had done just
that; a pillow and blanket lay tangled on the floor.
        "I -- uh -- have trouble sleeping, sometimes, especially in a
strange bed," he explained with some embarrassment.  "I -- sleep on
the sofa a lot, even at home."
        She had simply nodded, hiding her surprise and concern and
filing that little bit of information away in her brain for further
consideration.  So he had sleeping problems.  Well, no wonder.  She
was often surprised Dana herself did not have trouble sleeping -- come
to think of it, her daughter's eyes were shadowed more deeply of late,
and she had heard her whimpering in the night, not crying, exactly, just
making little sounds as though something were troubling her.  Then
again, she *had* just come home from the hospital a month previously,
and she still had not recovered.  For one thing, she was still far, far
too
thin and pale.
        She had filled a cup and taken a seat.  "Done with the first
section yet?"  He relaxed visibly and she made another mental note.
He had told her of his sleeping problems in greater detail than he
need have.  Hence, he both felt comfortable enough with her to confide
in her and craved her concern and care.  But he was obviously relieved
when she made no move to press further about the matter, so he was
uncomfortable with his weakness at the same time that he longed for
someone to recognize and help him with it.  His brain and his heart
were at odds -- in more areas than one, if she did not miss her guess.
He and Dana were quite a pair.
        In the end she had incorporated his bizarre sleeping habits
into her own morning routine.  He would get up and make coffee and
retreat to the sofa, usually with the paper,  and she would come down
and join him.  She had no idea just how early he awakened, but
evidently he began sleeping better as the days went by, because late
that week she had come down to find the coffee still "jumping," as
Brian had described it as a boy, and on one memorable morning, his
last there, she had had to brew it herself because he had worn himself
out playing with the children the night before.  The children all adored
Fox.
        It was a little tradition she had greatly enjoyed for those few
days the previous winter, and now she looked forward to spending
that quiet time with Fox again, sunk chummily into the depths of
the sofa or seated in companionable silence around the kitchen
table, getting to know this intense, quiet, enigmatic man who filled
such a large part of her daughter's life.  She had never thought to
share coffee with him again.  She smiled.  Just another unexpected --
but greatly welcomed -- miracle, scarcely less important to her than
Dana's own return.
        As she padded down the stairs in her bathrobe she sniffed.
No coffee.  Two possibilities: either he had gotten up so early that he
had thrown out the coffee because it had become stale, or he had
actually slept late -- later than even she usually slept.  She fervently
hoped it was the latter.
        When she entered the kitchen her sharp eyes immediately
took in the lack of coffee cups, and there was no morning paper
awaiting her on the table.  She checked just to be sure.  The coffee
pot was dry.  Smiling, she measured the grounds and water and then
went outside to bring in the paper while it brewed.  She was sure
Fox would be waiting when she returned, hanging over the pot whose
aroma would certainly have awakened him.
        She stepped back into the kitchen.  No Fox.
        <Well, he must *really* be out of it,> she thought as she
poured them each a cup, added cream, and carried the mugs into
the living room.
        A quick glance told her that the sofa was empty, although it
had been slept on.
        She frowned.  A shower?
        Well, Dana always loved a good cup of coffee first thing in
the morning.  She detoured back through the kitchen, added more
cream, then headed upstairs.
        Almost ten-thirty.  Well, they had all been up very, very late
the night before despite Fox's and Dana's exhaustion, enjoying one
another's company -- and playing poker.  Toward the end of the night
they had even roped her into playing.  She noted with a grin that after
that first hand Dana had won with almost appalling regularity.  She
guessed her little girl's pride was stronger than she had thought; she
had not been blind to the fact that Scully had *let* Mulder win the first
game, though he had not appeared to notice.
        At the door she paused to shift both mugs into her right hand
so that she could open it with her left.  And then she paused again.
        Dana and Fox were asleep together in the double bed, her
daughter held protectively in his spoon-like embrace.  She shook her
head slightly.  This looked like it was becoming a habit, and she
wondered what would happen when they had to return to D.C.  Still,
they looked awfully sweet all snuggled up like that. . . .  She turned to
retreat but stopped when she heard a sliding sound of cloth against
cloth, and turned back around.  Dana was sitting up in bed, rubbing
her eyes.
        "Mom?"
        "Good morning, darling.  I brought you some coffee," she said,
holding out the steaming cup.
        "Oh, thanks."  Scully took a long, invigorating swallow.  And
then her surroundings seemed to register <Mulder . . .> and she
nearly spilled the hot liquid.  She seemed hesitant to meet her
mother's eyes and blushed when she finally did so.
        "Sleep well?" Maggie asked softly with a smile.
        "So-so," she shrugged.  "Better -- towards morning."  And
blushed again.
        <After Mulder came upstairs.  No wonder.>  And speak of the
devil. . . .
        He stirred and then sat up, blinking sleepily.  Then he, too,
realized exactly where he was, and his eyes widened.  She
stepped forward and held out the mug of coffee to cover their
confusion.
        "Here, Fox.  Coffee."
        "Oh.  Uhh -- thanks," he mumbled, clearly uncertain as to
where he stood, whether or not he had crossed some invisible line
from grace to disfavor.  She didn't seem angry, though. . . .
        And she wasn't.  Not at all.  "See you downstairs.  Breakfast
in half an hour," she warned, and then she left, closing the door
behind her and leaving the two agents staring after her in stupefied
wonder.
        They would have been even more stunned had they seen the
expression on her face as she paused in the hallway before heading
back downstairs to start breakfast.
*End Chapter Ten*
****************************************************************
_Vengeance_ Chapter Eleven: "A Leave of Absence"
by JulietttXF@aol.com
****************************************************************
        When Mulder and Scully came downstairs forty-five minutes
later after showers and a change of clothing for both of them -- they
had slept in sweats as they had the night before, but somehow they
felt more in control appearing downstairs in fresh casual wear instead
of their sleep-rumpled clothes -- they found breakfast already in
progress.  As they sat Margaret placed a plate of blueberry pancakes
and bacon in front of each of them and reheated their coffee.  Mulder
tucked his chin into his chest and began to eat, and Scully
successfully avoided the others' eyes.  When Jackie calmly asked
her to pass the compote, however, she glanced up and caught the
twinkle in her friend's eyes and had to duck her head again.  After
just a few moments the tension eased and soon they were joking and
arguing over the paper.
        "So, what's on tap for today?" Maggie asked.  Nobody
answered for a moment, her daughters, Jackie, and Marty all intently
and with great fascination watching Mulder polish off his fourth plate
of pancakes and Mulder's mouth too busy occupied with astonishing
them.  She smiled and answered her own question.  "First off, we
need to find some more clothes for Fox here.  That suit you were
evidently wearing is unsalvagable," she informed him.  "I have some
sweaters and things of -- of Ahab's, but you'll need jeans and such."
        He nodded around the last bite of pancake.  "I wish I could
get to my apartment and get some stuff, but. . . ."  He shrugged.
        "We have to decide," Scully said.  "When to go back, I
mean."  <I don't want to go back,> part of her insisted.  <There's so
much pain to go back to.>  They needed to call Skinner.  Mulder
might be back, but a murder had still been committed, and if they
were going to bring the killers to justice. . . .  They needed Skinner
to have the body exhumed, for one thing.  And then there was still
the matter of the investigation.  It had been dropped, but since
Mulder had never been put on trial and acquitted he still might face
charges and she, Scully, might find herself facing more than a
simple suspension.
        Mulder laid down his fork and nodded.  "You're right.  We're
going to have to call Skinner sooner or later and -- my mom," he
finished reluctantly.  It wasn't that he didn't want to set her mind at
ease -- there were just so many hurdles to jump every time he tried
to get close to her.  His father's death -- and his own supposed
demise -- were just two more obstacles to overcome.
        "So how do we do this?" Jackie asked.  "I mean, do we go
back trailing clouds of glory and march in and just announce to
Skinner and the rest of the world that Mulder's alive?"
        "Works for me," he grinned over his coffee cup.
        Scully frowned for a moment in perplexed concentration,
then her brow cleared and she grinned.  "Nope," she told the men and
women gathered around the table, "I know how to take care of Skinner."
*****
        In the end Mulder decided to attempt to call his mother but,
accurately reading his fear of terrifying or confusing the poor woman
even more than she already had been, Margaret offered to make the
call for him.  He agreed, rationalizing that she probably had a better
sense of how it would be best for a mother to hear that her child, whom
she had thought dead, was alive.  He wondered how the hospital had
broken the news of Scully's return to her.  He had never thought to ask,
being more concerned with the message itself rather than the manner
in which it had been delivered.
        He and Dana and Mrs. Scully sat down at the kitchen table.
Scully looked ready to flee at the moment he began speaking to his
mother, but he hoped she wouldn't.  Mrs. Scully, he was certain,
*would* duck out of the kitchen after handing him the phone, but he
didn't want to be alone with this, not with his mother.  It registered
only
momentarily how odd it must have seemed to others that he was
closer to his coworker and her family than he was to his own.  But
then Scully wasn't just his coworker.  She was his *partner*, his best
friend. . . .
        Margaret hung up the phone with a sigh.  "No answer."  She
picked up the second number Mulder had given her, that of his
mother's next-door neighbor, and dialled.  This time she spoke
briefly with the woman on the phone, then hung up again and turned
to the two young people sitting at the table sipping the last of their
coffee.
        "Mrs. Gilbert says your mother went away for a week with
a family -- the Conways?"
        Mulder closed his eyes in relief.  The Conways were old family
friends who owned a villa in Florida.  They had been trying to get his
mother to accompany them on their annual migration south for years.
He explained this to Scully and her mother, feeling slightly guilty.  Was
he relieved because she was in such good hands or relieved because
he wouldn't have to deal with this just yet?  Perhaps a little of both?
        "Guess there's nothing I can do about Mom right now then,"
he sighed.  Scully and her mother exchanged a look of understanding.
        "Now," said Dana, picking up the phone.  "Skinner.  I'll try his
office first just in case. . . ."  Jackie poked her head in and Scully
motioned her to take a seat.
        "She's calling Skinner," Mulder mouthed, and the Canadian
agent grinned.  This was going to be good.  She could read in her
friend's posture a certain restrained excitement, even exhiliration.
And she understood.
        This was a triumph of sorts for Dana -- she would be able to
call her boss and report that her partner was alive, that she had not
failed him, after all.  More importantly, she would be able to prove that
her gut instincts had been right all along.
        The phone was ringing and she held up her hand for silence.
        "Bureau, Assistant Director Skinner's office."
        She frowned a little.  His personal assistant was there?
"Laurel?  This is Agent Scully."
        The woman's voice took on a sympathetic tone.  "Oh.  Agent
Scully.  How are you?"
        "I'm fine.  Is Skinner in?  It's kind of an emergency," she
explained.  She had really hated getting the kid-glove treatment from
her coworkers in the Bureau during the past few, difficult months,
even from those whose pity and sorrow were genuine, as Laurel's
were.  But she was not above playing on the woman's feelings a little
to get what she wanted. . . .
        There was a brief silence, then a click and Skinner's
businesslike tones.  "Agent Scully."
        "Sir -- sorry to bother you on the weekend, but. . . ."
        "No problem, Scully -- I had a meeting."  He paused.  "What
is it?"
        She hesitated.  "I'm calling to -- ask a favor, of sorts.  I know
Mulder's case has been closed, but. . . ."  She took a deep breath
and then continued.  "I'd like you to order an exhumation of the
contents of the grave, sir.  I have reason to believe -- we may have
been hasty in our identification of the body."
        "Reason to believe?  What sort of reason, Agent Scully?"
        "Some -- new evidence has come into my possession" -- she
caught Mulder grinning out of the corner of her eye at this but she
ignored him -- "which suggests that the -- body -- is not that of Agent
Mulder but some unknown man.  If we could positively identify the
body we would be that much closer to discovering who is behind this
whole fiasco."
        There was a long silence.  "I take it, then, that you haven't
heard. . . ."
        "Heard what, Sir?"
        A long sigh.  He had NOT wanted to be the one who had to tell
her this.  "Agent Scully."  His voice was very compassionate.  "The --
grave -- was disturbed over the weekend."
        "And the body's gone."  She closed her eyes with a sigh of
her own.  "Great.  Just like in Oregon."  No body, no DNA.  No DNA,
no identification.  No identification, no possibility of bringing home
this murder -- for murder it definitely was, though, thank God, not
Mulder's -- to the perpetrators.  Suddenly a thought struck her and
she sighed again, in relief.  The Lone Gunmen.  They presumably still
had the sample she had taken them earlier.  She grinned, imagining
Frohicke's face when he she told him the news.
        Skinner was stunned.  Ever since receiving the unwelcome
phone call Saturday afternoon he had been playing scenarios in his
head of Scully's reaction when she received the news.  This was NOT
one of them.
        "Agent Scully. . . ?"
        She straightened.  Her victory was somewhat more hollow now.
Somewhat.
        "Sir.  I -- the evidence of which I spoke.  You're not going to
believe this."  <With Mulder I'll believe practically anything.>  "Sir --
he
-- Mulder's alive, sir."
        "WHAT?!"
        She nodded, then, realizing that Skinner could not of course see
her, responded with a verbal affirmative.
        "But. . . ."
        She couldn't help but grin.  For once Skinner was speechless.
"Would you like to speak with him, sir?"  He still didn't respond, and
she took that as a yes.  Mulder reached for the phone but she waved
him towards the kitchen extension.  This was just too good to miss.
        "Sir?"
        "Mulder?!"
        "Yes, sir.  Uh -- sorry for hitting you. . . ."  Silence again
from
the other end.  "I guess this is where I say something like 'the reports
of
my demise have been grossly exaggerated'?"
        The sudden release in tension was palpable.  "Then it IS you.
I should have known -- if Scully believes it. . . ."
        "Yeah, Ms. Skeptical.  Can't put anything over on her.  I tried
to convince her I was Mel Gibson having a bad hair day, but. . . ."
        This time Skinner let go with a low chuckle.  "How are you?"
        Scully broke in.  "He has no injuries which require any
immediate medical attention that I cannot give him here, sir.  He is,
however, suffering from extreme exhaustion, malnutrition, and
dehydration.  He's lost a lot of weight and has a few minor injuries as
well, but nothing a lot of rest and a good diet won't cure."  He glared
at her but she ignored him again.
        "Hmmm."  Skinner thought rapidly.  He wondered. . . . "In your
profession opinion, Dr. Scully, is he fit to return at this time?"  He
stressed the word "professional" slightly, just enough to suggest that
he was asking her opinion as a medical doctor and as a partner.  And
also, perhaps, as a friend.
        Scully's eyes widened and then she smiled.  She was
beginning to like this man more and more.  "Well, sir, in my
*professional* opinion I would say that Agent Mulder would be much
better off remaining where he is for the time being."  She held her
breath and waited.  That much was true, and Mulder *was* healing
much, much more rapidly than she knew he ever could back in his
apartment, where likely he would neither sleep nor eat enough, nor
do either well.  But it was primarily for psychological healing that she
felt Mulder needed to stay -- for his and her healing both. . . .
        "I see."  There was another momentary silence as if Skinner
were considering his options.  He knew his superiors would have
questions -- lots of questions -- for Mulder upon his return.  As would
he.  In fact, he was anxious to speak with the younger man, to hear
his explanation not only of his absence but of his actions.  And he
could read Scully's hedgy answers; he knew that Mulder was in no
serious danger physically *or* mentally -- had that been the case his
partner would have insisted on taking him to a hospital directly.
        But they both needed the time off; Scully herself was on a
two-week leave of absence.  When they got back there would be so
much for them to face, although he had a feeling he knew how to
handle at least part of it.  He knew, though, that were he to order
Mulder back Scully would come back, too, and while he had no idea
just in what shape Mulder was he knew that Scully had been at the
physical and emotional breaking point.  And, too, despite her mixed
reassurances and unspoken pleading Scully had not been able
completely to hide her concern for Mulder.  He could order them back
and then put him -- perhaps both of them -- on involuntary medical leave
while he attempted to straighten out this whole snafu.  Or. . . .  "I want
you back to make your report. . . ."  They both tensed.
<So much to face back in D.C., little of it good. . . .>
<Everything he needed or wanted was here. . . .>
". . . Next Monday morning, eight A.M.  You, too, Agent Scully."
They would be much better off in Margaret Scully's care; he knew they
would be forced to get the rest they both needed.
        Mulder's eyes widened.  "Is that an order, sir?"
        "Agent Mulder, there are no outstanding warrants for your arrest,
and I don't want to see your sorry face in my hallways for the rest of the
week.  And if you think that lame apology is going to get you off for
giving
me a shiner that lasted me two weeks, you are sadly mistaken."
        Mulder grinned.  "Yes, sir."
        "Agent Scully."
        "Yes, sir?"
        "Agent Mulder is officially in your custody.  I expect you to
make certain he gets plenty of rest and whatever else he needs and
that he arrives here on time -- and in one piece, if at all possible --
Monday morning.  Is that clear?"
        "Yes, sir.  Crystal."
        "Goodbye then."  He paused.  "And, Mulder?"
        "Yes, sir?"
        "Welcome back."  He was smiling as he replaced the telephone
in its cradle.  He was much, much happier than some of his superiors
would be -- one in particular, if his guess was right.  His eyes narrowed.
He still had one card to play. . . .
        They hung up and looked at one another.
        "What just happened here, Scully?" Mulder asked her.
        She smiled.  "What just happened here, Mulder, is that we
just got ourselves a leave of absence with Skinner's full approval.
Now, anybody tapping the phones will know that you are here, but they
will also know that Skinner knows, and he will undoubtedly file a report
with somebody.  I think we're safe for the time being and can relax
without feeling threatened *or* guilty."
        They grinned at one another, absurdly pleased, considering.
        Well, the body was gone.  Great.  There went any opportunity
they had of identifying the unfortunate man and proving Cancerman's
involvement; the DNA samples would not be enough evidence without
a body.  Then again, They would not want any prying into how the body
had wound up with injuries so close to Mulder's as to be improbable and
a mixture of DNA that was impossible in nature -- or for one man of
Mulder's admitted intelligence but limited resources -- to produce.  And
from what they could gather from the conversation just past, Skinner was
on their side, on this one at least.  They had a feeling they might both
just come out of this on their feet.
*****
        Later that afternoon while the others went their separate ways --
Margaret to an afternoon Mass, Melissa off to call John and check in
with the shop, and Marty and Jackie off for a private tramp in the woods.
Mulder and Scully sat in the front porch swing.  She yawned and
leaned her head on his shoulder, lulled by the gentle creaking of the
swing and the quiet sounds around her.  She was really quite sleepy.
She might even do the unheard-of later and take a nap.
        Mulder smiled down at the top of her head.  Scully was not
usually so -- physical, so demonstrative in her affection.  The
nightmare the previous night had shaken her badly, he knew; he
had held her in the silent dark for a long time before her rigid body
had relaxed and her breathing evened out into sleep.  He closed
his eyes.  He liked this new, softer side of his partner, his friend.
        They swung gently, enjoying in companionable silence the
cool breeze that ruffled the still-green leaves of the trees like so many
tenuous feathers.  Before long they would be changing into their fall
coats of golds and reds and rusts before shedding.  Mulder had
always found it interesting that while animals put on heavier coats for
winter most of the trees got naked.  The original Polar Bears Club.
        Funny -- for years he had taken the seasonal changes for
granted.  But curled up in that dark cell who-knows-where he had
longed to see again -- among other things -- the approach of autumn
in the District.  To watch the leaves change and then drop, leaving the
trees more and more bare to the wintry sky.  To walk across Memorial
Park's crunch carpet.  He might even scuff his feet and enjoy the dry,
crackly sound of the leaves under his shoes as he hadn't since he
was a boy.  And then to breathe in the sharp bite of encroaching winter
as the days began to lengthen.
        And now he was here, and now he could do all those things.
He was even looking forward to that awful sweater his aunt who, while
she was an amazing woman in most respects, had questionable
fashion tastes, had bought him and which he never wore unless he
had been warned of a visitation.  This year he might just wear it --
just because.
        Odd, really.  So many changes had taken place in his life --
in Scully's life.  And yet the world went on, as it always did.  The sun
rose and set in the same directions and the seasons, given long
enough, would change.  He had never really thought of himself as
an important person -- not really, although over the past few years he
had made some friends that, he now knew, would miss him were he
to vanish from the world.  He wasn't a vain man.  Oh, he had his
faults, and he knew it -- a certain pride that insisted that no-one could
do what he did any better than he.  But perhaps that was well-
founded.  In any case, when he had realized with a shock that the vast
world took little or no notice of his existence, he had accepted it with
wry humor instead of indignation.
        But the universe and personal universes were two entirely
different things, as he had discovered during Scully's disappearance
and then her coma.  He now knew that a part of the helplessness
he had felt had been more than simple agony at not being able to
*do* anything -- it had been anger and despair that nothing outside
of her hospital room had seemed to change.  Aside from a few
hushed condolences from the small handful of agents at the
Bureau who actually felt comfortable speaking to him on a casual
level, things there continued as if she had never left.  None of their
coworkers sent a card or flowers, much less stopped by once she
had been moved to a regular room after awakening.  Well, that
wasn't entirely true -- Skinner had come by several times, staying
only long enough to wish her a quick recovery -- and to reassure
himself with his own eyes that Dana Scully truly was alive and
(relatively) well.  He had never stayed long enough to tire her -- or
to alert their enemies to the fact that his concern was anything more
than professionalism.
        But no others had come.  And that infuriated Mulder.
        Would they have been so cold toward her had it not been
for her association with the X-Files?  With *him*?  She deserved
better, he thought angrily.  From her coworkers and from her
superiors.  It stunned him, the way they all seemed to write her
off and expected him to go on as if the very earth had not just been
jerked out from under his feet.
<You weren't even partners anymore, not officially.>
He had been lost, with no bearing.  He had not realized to what
extent she had become his compass, constantly reminding him of
the existence and direction of due north when his own obsessions
and weaknesses threatened to send him spiralling out of control,
off course, led by one emotion or another.
        And so, when she had returned, he had decided that he
needed her too much to let her go.  He had not protested -- not
really -- her request that she be reassigned to the X-files.  Perhaps
that was selfish, but there it was.  And he had felt guilty about it,
guilty enough to suggest a couple of times that she take some time
off, that she speak to the counselors the Bureau provided, all the
while holding his breath that she might come to him one day and
tell him she wanted out, wondering what he would do then.
        But Scully, being Scully, had jumped right back into things,
a little more frail, for a brief time, but once again his rock and his
compass.  All questions had been asked and answered without
the benefit of verbal communication, but she had known of his
concerns and he had received her affirmation that *this* was where
she wanted to be, *this* was what she wanted to be doing.  And he
had breathed a mental sigh of relief, even only then realizing what it
would have meant to him had she wanted out.
        And then, in New Mexico, after the effects of the drugs in
his water had worn off, as he lay in the hotel room listening to her
speak so calmly and matter-of-factly of sedating him and helping
him and driving him out of state, halfway across the country to
meet a Native American code-talker with whom she had never
even spoken before, to get answers for him, answers from files which
supposedly dealt with a subject in which she did not even believe,
he wondered once again whether he had made a mistake.  He
should have scared her off, as he had so many others before her
-- not potential partners, but others who might have gotten too
close.  So many opportunities to push her away . . . after that very
first meeting when they had clashed so forcefully and he had been
his cockiest, trying to unnerve her with talk of UFO's and EBE's
and she had thrown back every barb he had tossed her way.
Later, during that first case, when they had argued about the
physical evidence of the body in the grave and the strange
markings on the children's backs.  In the Arctic when they had
really begun to trust one another.  So many times on so many
cases when his cynical self had reared its head and taunted him
that he would be better off without her, urging him to make that
one comment, push that one extra button that would break the
tenuous link that had begun to grow between them when they had
sat in the darkness of his hotel room on that first case and he had
told her about Samatha.
        It had hit him full force when she had sent him off on his
own to search for the truth.  At first he had felt a pang of doubt
but then her voice had arrested him on his way out of the room
and she had implored him to find out the truth for her.  She
needed to know.
        And that was another kind of guilt.  She never would have
lost those months had it not been for him.
        But then Scully had never really asked him for anything
before, and he would have done what she asked even without
the extra impetus his guilt gave his search.
        Guilt.  Perhaps his own kidnapping had been an atonement
of sorts.  Not that it would do anything to bring back the many
weeks Scully had lost from her life -- and from the way she looked
she had lost time during his disappearance, although not in the
same way; that first night she had looked, in some ways, as badly
as she had when she had awakened from the coma -- but he had
felt a need to suffer some, too, to assuage his guilt.
        Not that it had helped.  And now she had an official
reprimand on her record and might be facing even harsher discipline
because of him.  Her universe had been turned topsy-turvy by
everything that had happened since his disappearance, and now she
would be affected by his return as well.  He turned to her and opened
his mouth to say something, he really had no idea what.
        And was stopped cold by the look of warmth in her eyes.
        He couldn't help it.  He relaxed and smiled.  That look
reminded him of how he had felt when she had awakened from the
coma.  He had felt himself glowing on the inside and had been
certain that he must have beamed so brightly everyone could see
his heart and the joy that filled it to overflowing.  But she couldn't
possibly. . . .
        He looked at her again.
        She had forgiven him and so that was all right.
        Perhaps someday he would even be able to forgive himself.
*End Chapter Eleven*
***************************************************************************
_Vengeance_ Chapter Twelve: "A Preponderance of Evidence"
by JulietttXF@aol.com
***************************************************************************

     Scully was awakened by the crunching sounds of her 
mother's car driving up the gravel road to the house.  She opened her 
eyes and blinked against the light, soft as it was.  They had 
somehow managed to fall asleep in the swing.  She didn't remember 
shifting but somehow she had ended up stretched out with her head 
on Mulder's knees, his arm curled around her shoulders keeping her 
from falling.  She looked up.  His head had dropped back against the 
corner the back of the seat made with the cable and he was out cold.  
She tried to sit up very gingerly to keep from setting the swing 
rocking again.  To no avail.  He woke up, blinking sleepily, and smiled 
down at her.

     "Hey," he croaked.  "Sleep well?"

     She nodded.  "I don't see how *you* could have, though."

     He yawned and shrugged, working the kinks out of his neck 
and back.  "It's a gift."

     Margaret pulled up and got out of the car, carrying several 
flat cardboard boxes and a shopping bag in her hands.  Mulder stared 
and then his smile of bemusement widened into an ear-to-ear grin of 
delight.  "Pizza!"  He stood up, wincing as his back cracked, then 
hurried to take the boxes from her.

     She held up the shopping bag.  "And a couple changes of
clothes."  She smiled.  "I figure you probably didn't get much pizza 
where you were. . . ."  Her voice trailed off, implying a series of 
unspoken questions.  He chose to answer the most immediate and 
least threatening.

     "No, I didn't, and that's one of the things I missed most, 
along with sunflower seeds and good coffee."  He grinned again.  
"Both of which cravings have been satisfied.  If I stick around long 
enough maybe I'll get everything I missed while I was gone. . . . Ow!"  
He frowned and rubbed his arm where Scully had elbowed him, then 
his face took on an understanding, if slightly guilty, expression.  "I 
didn't mean. . . ."  He paused again and smiled, a slow, wicked 
smile that crept across his face like a bright shadow.  <Then 
again. . . .>

     "Forget it, Mulder," she muttered, following her mother into 
the house.  He shrugged and trailed after them, lifting the lid of the 
top box to peek inside.  Super deluxe.  Yum.

*****

     By all rights they should have been ravenous, but both Mulder 
and Scully only ate a couple slices of pizza.  Margaret eyed them 
worriedly.

     "You two aren't eating enough," she fretted.  

     "When you don't eat for a long time your stomach shrinks," 
Scully reminded her patiently, and she nodded.  Mulder, however, 
stopped drinking his soda in mid-sip and his eyes narrowed.  He knew 
she had lost weight; he now began to wonder whether her decrease in 
appetite had been anything like his during her absence.  He had 
practically fasted because nothing had appealed to him, and gradually 
even the thought of food had sickened him.  And now she was avoiding 
his gaze, stolidly working her way through a second slice even though 
he could tell she didn't want it.  He gazed down at his own half-eaten 
third slice with a sigh.  On a normal day he would have polished off at 
least half a pizza on his own, and when he was really hungry, perhaps 
a whole pie.  That morning he had stuffed himself with blueberry 
pancakes -- they had tasted wonderful, warm and homey.  And the act 
of making breakfast for a whole family -- a real breakfast, not cereal or 
toast or something else grabbed on the way out the door -- had always
had in it something inherently domestic and loving in it.  It had been as
though in eating Mrs. Scully's pancakes he had been revelling in the love
and safety he felt in this house.

     But his stomach had been feeling the aftereffects of his gluttony 
all afternoon.  At least, he supposed that was what had given him those 
bizarre dreams, that and the gentle motion of the swing.

     He glanced up.  Margaret was clearing the table.

     He leapt to his feet.  "No -- Mrs. Scully -- we'll get these," he
assured her.  He wanted a chance to talk to Dana, anyway.  She cast
him a curious, wary glance and the others quickly left the room.

     They cleared in silence and carried the dishes over to the sink.
She turned on the water and let it run, holding her hand under it to test
the temperature.  "So," she asked over her shoulder, "wash or dry?"

     "Scully," he said gently, "we need to talk."  She refused to 
look at him and finally he sighed.  "Dry."

     She nodded and added detergent to the sink and began to
wash.  He stood next to her, waiting, and as she handed him the clean
dishes he wiped them and put them away.

     When he spoke his voice was soft.  "Scully -- why do I get the
feeling you haven't told me everything?"

     She did not pretend to misunderstand him.  Instead, she 
sighed.  "Because I haven't.  Not everything," she admitted.  And there
were some things she still wouldn't tell him.  Maybe someday, if. . . .
But not now.

     "They *did* come after you, didn't they?"

     She nodded slightly.  "Not -- overtly.  Not at first.  At first they
sent someone -- a real smooth-talking guy -- who suggested that if I
had any information at all it might help them find you."  She bit her lip,
remembering how horribly tempted she had been at that moment.

     "What did you say?"

     She smiled wryly.  "I told them that as an officer of the law
I fully realized the ramifications of withholding evidence or interfering 
with an ongoing investigation, and that if there were anything I could do 
to find you, I would."

     "They didn't buy it."  At her swift look of surprise he hastened
to clarify himself.  "That you didn't have the tape, I mean.  I'm assuming
that's what they wanted since. . . ."

     She nodded again.  "Once or twice I came home and -- I couldn't
be sure, but I thought somebody had been in my apartment."

     He felt a tightening in his chest.  "Scully. . . ."

     Another wry smile.  "Lucky I bought that extra weapon, huh?"
He nodded.  After her abduction Scully had casually mentioned that she
was thinking of buying a second gun.  They had gone together.  Funny.
Some couples shopped for rings or furniture or even houses.  The pair
from the X-files shopped for guns together.

     She continued.  "I needed to look for you anyway, so that's when
I went back to New Mexico."  She thought for a moment, remembering
Skinner's face as he asked for her gun and badge and informed her of
her suspension.  "You know, I think Skinner sent me off to New Mexico
on purpose.  He knew I wanted to look for you, but I think he also 
suspected my apartment was being searched."

     "You think he was behind it?"

     Slowly, she shook her head.  "No, I don't."

     He considered, then nodded.  "Me, neither."

     "I *was* wondering, though. . . ."  She trailed off and turned
to look at him.  "Mulder -- do you think Skinner had anything to do 
with Mr. X rescuing you?"

     He paused in wiping the dishes.  "I hadn't really thought about
that.  Could be," he shrugged, "but he *did* seem surprised when you told
him."

     She nodded and handed him a glass.  "I know, but maybe he hadn't
heard that you had been found -- maybe he just -- I dunno -- planted the
bug in Mr. X's ear.  No pun intended," she said in response to his grin.  "I
mean, he seems to know who this X is -- or at least how to contact him.
And they've met before," she added, remembering the night Skinner had
evidently fought with Mulder's mysterious contact to get the information
Scully had needed to find him in Alaska in time to save his life.

     "Which brings us back to the age-old question: who is X working
for and what is his stake in all this?"  Mulder shook his head.  "I'm
beginning
to think we can trust Skinner.  I had no idea how much I distrusted X until
he showed up and tried to rescue me and I jumped him."  He grinned
ruefully.  "Didn't do a very good job, either."

     "And a good thing, too," she retorted.  "He could have killed you,
Mulder."  Yet another point in this whole mess at which he could have
gotten himself killed.  And she never would have known. . . . She would
have gone through the rest of her life believing that they body she had
helped bury -- the body she had autopsied -- had been Mulder, never
knowing that he had at that very moment been alive and hoping she would
come for him.  "I'm sorry, Mulder," she whispered.  Two tears trickled down
her cheeks to join the hot water in the sink.  "I shouldn't have stopped
looking. . . ."

     "Hey."  He set down the glass and turned to her, lifting her chin
with a forefinger so he could look her right in the eyes.  "You didn't stop,
Scully.  Even after everybody else gave up, you *still* *believed* I was
alive.
You know that's true -- that's why you insisted on doing another autopsy
and requested a second battery of DNA tests, right?"

     She nodded, reluctantly.  She had known, somehow, that he was
still alive.  When she had come to the conclusion after the second autopsy
that he was indeed dead -- the sudden realization that that bond she had
thought existed between them that had made her believe, the revelation that
she had imagined it, that they *weren't* that close -- that had hurt, 
somehow, even worse than his death had.  It had seemed a betrayal of her
understanding of what they had had.  She had allowed herself, against 
every bit of her scientific training, to believe in something that went far,
far
beyond the realm of science.  And her blessed/cursed science had proven
right in the end after all, and she hated it -- hated herself -- for it.

     But then!  That night, that blessed night he had come back to her,
and she knew that she had been right from the very beginning to trust her
heart instead of her analytical mind.  Her brain had betrayed her -- her
heart never had.  And she felt, now, a sense of embarrassment and sorrow
that she had allowed her mind to lead her astray.  She should have known
-- should have believed. . . .

     <In what, Scully?  In something that cannot be proven in any 
laboratory in all the world?  In something that, were you to share it, would
get you branded insane by your coworkers and possibly even your family?
In something at which even *Mulder* would probably laugh?>

     Then again, maybe he wouldn't.  Her mother had told her of how
Mulder had insisted on not giving up on her while she was gone.  Margaret
had gone to select her tombstone and he had been sorrowful and pleading,
almost angry.  And then, after her return to the hospital, he had insisted 
that the doctors fight to save her, despite the fact that she was in a coma
and they had no idea what was slowly killing her, believing beyond all 
reason that she would survive.

<Since when have you begun to look for answers outside the realm of
Science, Dr. Scully?>

     "But Mulder -- I should have known They could manufacture 
evidence as well as faking test results.  *You* would have suspected it. . .
."

     He shook his head.  "I don't know about that, Scully.  Maybe I
would have.  But then I see gremlins behind every bush."  He bent to look
at her seriously.  "You and I see things differently, Scully.  You're the
rational one, and I *need* that.  I need you to keep me anchored to the
ground sometimes, just as I think sometimes you need a flight of fancy.
We see more clearly together.  We keep each other honest.  So, yeah --
maybe I *would* have thought about it.  But then what?"  He shook his
head again, remembering the time during her coma when he had, with
the help of the Lone Gunmen, discovered evidence of branched DNA in
her bloodstream, but nobody would listen to him.  "Who would have
listened to me?  You have the knowledge, Scully.  But more than that,
you generate the respect we need to get where we're going."

     She gave him a wry smile.  "After all this I don't know if I have
that anymore."

     He sighed and nodded.  "I'm sorry about that, Scully."

     "I didn't mean. . . ."

     He nodded again.  "I know you didn't.  But look at it another
way -- you, armed only with your instincts, came to a conclusion that
despite all the evidence to the contrary has proven true."  He grinned at
her.  "You may just have made your reputation in the VC."

     She laughed a little.  "But what *kind* of reputation, Mulder?"
She considered.  So what if they started thinking she was "spooky,"
too?  Right now it seemed better than being considered cold and
unfeeling.  *Mrs. Spooky.*  It could be worse.

     In fact, she kind of liked it.  

     "The kind of reputation that might make them let you stay with 
the X-files instead of transferring you away," he said, watching her
face.  "That is, if you *want* to stay. . . ."

     "What kind of question is that?" she asked, turning to face him,
her hands on her hips.  "You think after all you've put me through that
you can get rid of me?  No way, Fox Mulder.  You're stuck with me
and don't you forget it."

     His eyes lit up and he slowly nodded.

     "Now let's finish these dishes."

*****

     That night they were all exhausted again.  The previous day
had been run on adrenaline, but now that they had taken care of
business so far as Skinner was concerned, the rush of energy had 
gone, leaving them drained.  Mulder flopped onto the couch next to
Jackie and, after a moment's hesitation, Scully eased to the floor next
to Marty, who sat between St. George's feet.  From her vantage point
on the hearth Melissa smiled at them, the glow from the fireplace
turning her hair almost as red as her sister's.

     After less than an hour of spotty conversation punctuated by
deep yawns they were all more than ready for bed.  As they rose
from their various positions around the room Mulder hesitated, then
turned to Scully and looked a silent question into her eyes.  She 
smiled slightly and nodded, and his face relaxed as he smiled back.
She held her head high, her face flaming, ignoring the exchange of 
looks among the other four in the room.  

<So what?  Let them talk.  At least I know I'll sleep tonight.>

They all tramped upstairs as a group, saying their good-nights as 
they went.

     No-one commented when Mulder followed Scully into her
room and shut the door, but Maggie winked at her older daughter 
as she closed her own door behind her.

*****

     Mulder gave Scully the bathroom first and lay back on the
bed waiting for her to come out.  He rested his head on his clasped
hands and stared at the ceiling.

     Had he been told a week ago that he would be at Mom
Scully's within a few days, back with Scully again, sleeping 

<with *Scully*>

and eating well for the first time in so long, he would have scoffed.  
Odd, really, how he so appreciated now the creature comforts he 
normally denied himself.

     Of course, he always *did* eat and sleep better at Mrs.
Scully's house, just as he always ate and slept better with Scully
herself nearby.

<And just how much more "nearby" can you possibly get, hmm, 
Mulder?>

<Don't even think it.>

     He closed his eyes and sighed.  He admitted to himself that
he was enjoying being close to Scully -- more than he should have.
Last night he had tried to explain it away -- they had been
separated for five months, after all; it was only natural that he should
have missed her and that he should relish their time together now.

     But none of that explained the way he felt, holding her in
the darkness.  His heart thrilled to the fact that she wanted to be
with him, too.

<Purely platonic, right, Mulder?>

<Shut up.>

<I mean, if she were Agent Henderson, you'd do the same thing,
right?  Or Bruce Cunningham?>

<That's disgusting.>

<But why?  If it's merely *platonic*. . . .>

<silence>

<Do platonic friends hold each other like that, Mulder?>

     The water stopped running and he opened his eyes and sat
up.  As he did so his eyes fell on the envelope on the bedside
table.

     Scully came out of the bathroom drying her hair with a large
white towel.  "All yours, Mulder."

     When he didn't answer she pulled the towel away from her
face.  He was staring at something on her bedside table.  She
glanced over to see what it was.

     Oh.

     Slowly he swung his gaze up to meet hers.  *Had she
opened it?*

     Scully simply looked at him.  Suddenly all the emotions
she had felt during his long absence -- grief, pain, fear, betrayal --
came back in a trembling rush and she had to bite her lips to
keep the tears that burned behind her eyelids from spilling out.
Funny.  For so many months she'd been unable to cry, and now
it seemed it was all she could do to keep her emotions in check.

     Mulder uncurled himself from the bed and walked past her
into the bathroom without a word, though he gave her a gentle smile
before he closed the door.  She crossed to the bed and crawled in,
then reached over and picked up the envelope, turning it over slowly
in her hands.

     She wondered what he thought.  Was he relieved she had
not opened it?  Disappointed?  She tried to imagine what he might
have done in similar circumstances, how she herself might have
reacted.  She couldn't.

     She dropped the envelope back on the bedside table with
a sigh and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the
headboard.  There was so much they had yet to settle.  But not
tonight -- tonight she was tired and emotionally needy.  She was
grateful Mulder had asked her that unspoken question with his
eyes; she wanted -- no, *needed* -- him with her, but she had
questioned whether she had the temerity to come right out and
ask him.  *Especially* in front of her mother and sister and
friends.  It sounded so -- odd -- for her to be *sleeping* with her
partner like this.  And yet it was so right, and it was *exactly*
what she needed after all those months of loneliness.  She knew
they were treading on thin ice in some respects, knew she was
in danger of becoming dependent on Mulder. . . . <I already *am*
dependent on him,> she realized in shock.  And he was
dependent on her as well.  She just had to take care that that
mental and, to some extent, even *emotional* dependence did
not become physical.  She knew she was sleeping better with
him beside her at night -- better even than she had for months
before New Mexico.  Better, perhaps, than she had since her
abduction -- definitely better than she had since Donnie Pfaster.

     But this wasn't forever.  After this week it would end.

     And so she would enjoy every minute of this week,
knowing even as she slept that she was safe and cherished and. . . .

     The door opened and Mulder stood there towelling his
hair.  She smiled at him and he grinned back and padded barefooted
across the floor to join her in the double bed, draping the towel over
the back of the chair before pulling back the covers and sliding in.
The bedsprings creaked beneath his weight as he settled back
against the headboard next to her with a sigh.  He turned.  She
was staring at him.

     "What?"

     "Mulder, if you go to bed with wet hair you'll catch a cold."

     "Now, *Doctor* Scully, you know that's just not true."

     She chuckled a little and nodded.  "Sorry.  For just a
moment I felt like I was channeling my mother."

     He grinned.  "You *sounded* just like her, too.  Besides,"
he reasoned, "my hair's short.  It'll be dry before I fall asleep."

     Knowing his usual sleeping patterns, that was true.  He
sighed and stretched out.  She jumped.

     "Ouch!"

     "What?"  He straightened up in surprise.

     "Mulder, your feet are ice cold!"  He looked at her for a
moment, then sighed again and slid back out of bed.  She watched,
puzzled, as he crossed to the dresser.

     "Do you mind?"  He gestured to the top drawer.  She shook
her head.

     "What're you. . . ?"  She broke off when he made an
exclamation of satisfaction and turned back to her with a pair of
gray ragg socks in his hand.  She stifled a smile.  <Very
thoughtful, Mulder, but. . . .>  "I don't think they'll fit."

     "Academy PT socks, Scully -- these things are one size
fits all."  He sank to the edge of the bed and pulled one sock over
his left foot -- up to the heel.  There it caught and would go no
further.  "Okay, maybe one size fits most."

     She shook her head.  "I'm not up to debating the fine
points of footwear sizing with you, Mulder.  Come back to bed."
She realized just how that sounded and blushed.  He grinned but
said nothing, and obeyed.  She noticed that this time he took care
to keep his feet well away from her.

     They lay in silence for a few minutes.  <Now's a good time
as any,> she thought.  She took a deep breath.  "Mulder."

     "Hmmm?"  He turned on his side to face her, his head
resting on his hand.  She bit her lip for a moment, then rolled over
to retrieve the envelope from the nightstand.

     She held it out to him.  "Here."

     He took it, immediately noticing that it had not been opened.
He didn't know whether to feel relieved or sorry.  Then he realized --
<those things I said in the letter -- she should never have to hear
them that way.  I'll have a chance to tell her.  Not now -- not right
now.  But someday. . . .>

     "You didn't open it."

<You didn't open it and yet you still want me here with you.>

     "No."  She shook her head.  She glanced up.  He was gazing
at her, his eyes serious and questioning.  She sighed.  "I -- couldn't.
It was . . . too final."

     He nodded, understanding, and tossed the envelope onto
the chair.  It caught for a moment on the towel, then slid to the floor.

     She watched it go.  <Just two days ago that envelope was
all I had left.>  She still wondered about the contents.  Then she
looked up into his eyes and suddenly it no longer mattered.

     They had time now.

*End Chapter Twelve*