Part 26

You have stumbled onto a tragic story...and now, whether you
like it or not, you are lost in it--with the rest of us.
     ~ Edward Khmara, Ladyhawke
 

"Hey, you can't just leave me here!"  Gary kicked gravel in the direction of the quickly-disappearing tail lights, but he knew it was a lost cause.  He sighed, his shoulders slumping as he considered his predicament.  No phone, no car, no paper , and the only person who knew where he was thought he was a useless appendage.  A pawn.

Again.

Scuffing at the gravel once more for good measure, he cursed his luck--or rather, his lack of it--with law enforcement.  Agent Mulder might be on the right side, but the man was infuriating.  Gary was neither a child nor a research subject, and he didn't appreciate being treated as such.

Not that there was much he could do about it at the moment.  There wasn't much he could do about anything.  Chuck, of course, would have said that this was a good thing.  After all, without the paper, or any means of transportation or communication, he could hardly be responsible for anything that would happen, could he?

Gary ran a hand through his hair.  Of course he was responsible.  He knew what was going to happen, and he was supposed to do something about it.  That was why he got the paper, wasn't it?  Because he would keep trying, no matter what.  Because he was compelled to do what he could to change things.

"Because you're drawn to it.  Like a moth to a flame."

Clenching his jaw, he fought to control the shudder that ran through him at the creeping sensation of Marley's voice in his head.  This wasn't going to do him any good.

Okay.  Here were his choices: stay here, start walking, or keep looking for Elizabeth Barnett.  He glanced at the barn, but it was silent and empty, the open window to its hayloft a gaping black maw.  Maybe he'd better keep searching the fields.

He had to do something.

* * * * *

They were waiting for an answer.  Scully stalled for a moment by hooking a strand of hair over her ear.  "He hasn't disappeared," she finally told Marissa and Fishman.  "He's with Agent Mulder."

"But you don't know where they are, do you?" Marissa persisted, her voice rising.  Her dog heard it and snapped to attention, tags jingling as he looked around and his ears came forward.

"No," Scully admitted.  In the end, she couldn't lie to these people, and she was too tired to obfuscate.  "No, I don't.  But if he's with Mulder, I don't think you need to worry."  That was Scully's job, after all.

"According to that article in the paper, we do."  Not about to be placated, Fishman took a step toward Scully.  The guard started after him, but stopped when Scully caught his eye and waved him off.  "What are you going to do about this?" Fishman demanded, his blue eyes searching her own for an answer.

Forestalling the admission that she had no idea what to do, Scully asked, "Do you actually believe that Mr. Hobson has a paper that predicts the future?"

"Well, yeah."  Fishman blinked, taken aback.  "I've seen it.  I don't know where it comes from, or how it works, but it's been happening for the past six months.  It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but it's real."

One hand on her hip, Scully looked him up and down for a brief second before turning to his companion.  "Marissa?"

"I--I've never seen it, of course, but--"  Her chin came up, "--but I know Gary.  He wouldn't lie, not to me, and not to you either.  Why would anyone make up a story like this?"

Scully could think of a couple reasons, but she kept them to herself.  Besides, as Mulder had pointed out, these three as part of a conspiracy was completely improbable.  "And there's no other evidence that this story is true?  Just your word, and Mr. Hobson's?"

"There's Meredith," Fishman put in.  Marissa nodded as he continued, "Meredith Carson.  She was a reporter for the Sun Times, she saw it.  She works for the Washington Post now, but you can call her and check it out."

A reporter knew about this?  Interesting.  "No one else?  Detective Crumb doesn't know?"

Glancing furtively around the lobby, as if he expected the detective to pop out of the marble, Fishman shook his head.  "Crumb?  No, he's not--no one else knows, and it's not a good idea if they do, especially after--"  He stopped short.

"Marley?" Scully prompted.

Fishman blanched and Marissa drew in a sharp breath.  "You know about Marley?" she breathed.  "Gary told you about that?"

"It's more complex than that."  Scully wasn't sure that they needed to know that Mulder had heard the name from them.

"This is not good," Fishman murmured, still shaking his head.  "Not good at all."

Marissa's expression darkened.  "He used Gary, Agent Scully.  You have to understand; Gary's so trustworthy himself that he's always been ready to trust other people, and the paper.  Marley figured that out and he used it to set Gary up.  He nearly succeeded."  Her voice had dropped to a whisper, but now it took on a more determined edge.  "That's not going to happen again; he can't come that close--we won't let that happen."

Scully frowned, her mind racing.  If even half of what she was being asked to absorb was true, if there was something to this paper--and she couldn't deny what she'd already seen, even though she couldn't explain it--then if this Marley person had known about it, there must have been others.  People didn't stay renegades, didn't keep off the law enforcement radar, for thirty years without connections.  How many  different government conspiracies could there be?

Was it possible that they'd all been dealt a false hand?  Played for fools?

Of course not, she told herself firmly.  No one could control that many events, plan for that many possible outcomes.

Fishman's voice brought her back to the immediate problem.  "Look, why are we standing here discussing the past?" he wanted to know.  "What about right now?  What about Gary?  That story--if the paper says he's going to be killed, then you have to stop it.  Somebody does.  Otherwise it's going to happen.  Trust us on this one."

"Agent Scully," Marissa said, holding out one hand in supplication, "The whole point of the paper is that someone has to stop the bad things in it from happening.  If you know about--about what's supposed to happen to Gary, and don't try to change it, you might as well be pulling the trigger yourself."  She swallowed hard and stood a little straighter, even as her voice tightened.  "Please, you--you have to help him."

Scully considered the woman in front of her carefully.  She had some idea what that plea had cost.  Despite her handicap, it was clear that Marissa was an independent person, not used to asking for favors.

It wasn't that Scully didn't want to help.  She just was at a loss as to what to do.

"I don't suppose he gave you any clue as to where this was all going to happen, did he?" she asked, fighting back a wave of weariness.  They both shook their heads.  "I'm sorry," she finally said, her hands flopping down to her sides in defeat.  "I don't know--"

"You know, I've always hated that word, sorry--" Marissa began tersely, but they both stopped at two sounds from across the lobby.

Plop.

Meow.

The trio froze, then turned slowly toward the large cherry desk.  Mouth agape, the receptionist was staring at something on the floor.

"Is that--" Marissa whispered.

"I guess; I don't see it, but--"  Fishman started toward the desk, but Scully stepped in his way and stopped him with a look.

Gawking up at her with wide brown eyes under golden bangs, the receptionist said, "This wasn't here before.  How odd."

Scully leaned over the desk, peering down at the receptionist's feet.  There on the floor sat the marmalade-striped cat, placidly licking one front paw as its tail swished back and forth over the top page of the newspaper upon which it perched.  Biting her lip to keep her mouth from falling open yet again, Scully marched around the desk and pulled the paper out from under the cat, which looked up at her with unfathomable emerald eyes.  When she walked back into the lobby, it followed.

The paper was undeniably Hobson's, the same battered copy of the Sun-Times that he'd handed over that afternoon.  Presumably, it was also the same paper Agent Donner had seen Mulder and Hobson looking at when they left.  But how was that possible?

"Is it tomorrow's?" Fishman asked, so close at her elbow that she nearly jumped out of her pumps.

"It appears to be your friend's newspaper, if that's what you're asking."

"Something's happened."  Startled at the near-panic in her voice, Scully looked up to see Marissa, eyes wide, worrying at the handle of her dog's harness.  "If the paper came here, then Gary must really be in trouble.  It doesn't go anywhere but to him."

Fishman cleared his throat.  "Well, except for the time it came to me."

"But that time, if it hadn't--"

"--Gar would have frozen to death."

"It didn't come from anywhere.  They just left it here on their way out, that's all,"  Scully murmured, ascertaining that the front-page story about Hobson being murdered hadn't changed.  She didn't mention that; she was pretty sure it wouldn't be the most comforting thing to point out at the moment.

"No, you don't get it.  Gary wouldn't have left it," Fishman insisted, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a jack-in-the-box.  "He never goes anywhere without that damn paper."

"What about your partner?" Marissa added.  "Is he the kind of person who would let something like that out of his sight?"

It was a pretty big intuitive leap; it was also the right question to ask.  Of course Mulder wouldn't leave it.

Which begged the question:  what was it doing here now?  Scully turned to the receptionist.  "Have you seen Agent Mulder, lately?"  She held a hand up at her partner's approximate height.  "He's tall, dark hair--"

"Oh, I remember him," the young woman said, her voice going breathy while her eyes took on a dreamy cast.  It was all Scully could do not to gag.

"And?"

She blinked.  "Oh--no.  No, I haven't seen him since early this afternoon."

Sighing as she turned back to her anxious pair of visitors, Scully paged through the haphazard sections of newsprint.  There wasn't much that she hadn't already seen; Ebert's review was still there, Moe had still won the downhill.  The cat started rubbing up against her legs, the way it had the day before out on the street, but she didn't understand what it wanted with her now.  Everything was the same as before, even the mixed-up order of the pages, except--

She finally found page six.

"Oh my God."

"What is it?" Fishman demanded.

"This wasn't here before."

Marissa nodded, her brow still furrowed.  "Gary says that happens some times."

"Tell me about it," Scully muttered under her breath.

Fishman, still standing close enough to hear her, was glad to.  "Well, that time back in January when it was really cold, way below zero, the paper came to me because Gary was--"

"I meant--"  Scully shook her head.  "Never mind."

Fishman's eyes grew perfectly round.  "You've seen it change?"

"No, but--well, let's just say I'm starting to doubt my short-term memory."

"What's there now?" Marissa wanted to know.

"It's this article about Elizabeth Barnett.  It says now that she's found, alive, and cured of--"  Scully broke off, realizing she shouldn't be revealing details of the investigation to civilians.  She turned, shrugging Fishman away from her elbow, and read the rest in silence, her mind reeling.  If any of this was even remotely true...

"Agent Scully?" Marissa finally asked.

Scully couldn't believe what she was about to do.  But what other choice did she have?  Mulder was off on his own--maybe out there, she realized, though she didn't see his name in the article--and she was left to deal with the situation as best she could.  If she remembered the highway numbers correctly from two nights before, this was happening close to the Andrews Institute, and the scene of their near-miss.

It was worth a chance.  Right now, it was the only lead she had.

Folding the paper, she tucked it under her arm, planning what she'd say to ASAC Rawlings.

"What about Gary?" Marissa demanded, but Scully's thoughts were already miles away.  Still, she forced herself to respond, to give Fishman a nod and answer the question in a voice that she hoped would be reassuring.

"If he's there," she promised, "I'll find him."  Turning on her heel, she headed back for the stairwell, and Hobson's friends and their pets were abandoned to the guard.  Offering a silent apology to the heavens and hoping she could make it up to them by doing what they'd asked, she hurried back to the office.

* * * * *

There was still no sign of anyone out in the fields or down by the road.  Gary thought about hitching a ride with a passing car, but for all he knew he'd get picked up by the people who had taken Elizabeth Barnett.  He made his way back to the barn, wondering how long it would take Mulder to do whatever it was he had to do, or if he would come back, if he could come back.

Maybe Mulder had forgotten him.  Maybe this was what he'd planned all along.  Perhaps he wasn't going to give a second thought to someone who was nothing more than another tool to be used and...

"And then I just...throw it away."

No.  Not that again.

He had to think of something else.  Once again he looked down at the county road, but saw no passing cars; toward the gravel road and the highway they'd come from, but, again, no luck.  No one was going to show up.  No one but Mulder even knew he was here.  Maybe he should just start walking.  But what would that change?  And for the better or for the worse?  There was no way of knowing without the paper.

He shut off his light to save the battery, letting his eyes adjust to the faint, clouded moonlight.  The trees on the property line were just inconsequential shadows from here.  He thought he remembered seeing a house over there a couple of days ago, too, but at this distance it was hard to see which shadows were what.  Not that it mattered.  The house had been just as deserted as the barn.

With a sigh, he swung his arms back and forth to get rid of the shivers.  He felt a twinge of guilt, realizing that Chuck and Marissa were probably worried out of their minds by now--not that this would be the first time.  They couldn't help him now, however; they had no idea where he'd gone.  He thought about the last phone call, Marissa's voice desperate as Donner hung up on her, and could have kicked himself for not trying harder to call them back.

It wasn't fair to do this to his friends, to leave them in the lurch like this, when all they wanted to do was help.  It just as unfair as what Mulder had done to his partner.

Heck, it wasn't fair to expect their help at all.  The past six months had pushed them all beyond the bounds of ordinary friendship.  He couldn't expect--

Something brushed his leg--once, twice--and then a soft vibration tickled his ankle.  Gary froze, then realized it was only the cat.

"You again?" he asked, casting a disgusted glance at the feline pawing his boot.  "You think you got some way out of this?  'Cause if you do, I'd sure like to know what it is."

Cat blinked up from where it was wrapping itself around his leg, then took off for the barn.  "Hey, c'mon, there's nothing in there!" Gary called after it, following nonetheless.  Pausing at the large double doors, which hung lopsided and slightly ajar, the cat shot a "meow" in Gary's direction and then darted in through the opening.

After one more visual scan of the barnyard, Gary pushed the door open a with his shoulder, just enough so that he could squeeze inside.  Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sound of water dripping, and there was a scuttling off to his right that was too small to be a cat--beyond that, he didn't want to think too much about it.

Wrinkling his nose at the musty smell and the dust that assailed his nostrils, he flicked on his penlight and scanned the first floor, noting stalls--or their remains--on his right and along the back wall, and an open area to the left.  Some of the stalls were missing doors; the side walls of others leaned precariously into one another.

A few rotting, forlorn hay bales sagged against the side walls, but nothing else was left in this deserted assemblage of weathered boards.  Cracks in the exterior walls let what little light was available in the clouded night sky into the barn, but that only made the place seem more gloomy.

If anyone had been here lately, they hadn't been doing much of interest.  Certainly they hadn't been curing cancer or planning abductions.

While Gary was conducting his meager investigations, the cat  made its way to the back wall, where a set of wooden steps, more a ladder than anything, led to the upper floor.  Sitting back on its haunches, Cat waited for Gary, who took one look at the contraption and backed away.  The loft up there wasn't in any better shape than the rest of the place, if the jagged holes in the ceiling were any indication.  Anyone who went up there would have to be out of his mind--or desperate.

This was a dead end, but definitely.  He couldn't imagine what the cat expected him to find.

Or whom?

Gritting his teeth at the thought that there might be someone else in here--or, God forbid, a body--Gary nonetheless decided to check every stall, every nook and cranny.  If the cat wanted him here, there had to be a reason, didn't there?

Methodically searching the entire first floor, and trying to avoid tripping over the cat which, for some reason, stayed close the whole time, Gary completed his check and ended up at the back wall.  There was nothing.  This didn't make any sense.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to find here," he told the tabby, throwing up his hands in frustration.  He slumped against a beam dividing two stalls, but straightened immediately when it gave out a sharp crack.

This was ridiculous.  He was going to have to walk back to the highway and get home somehow.  There was nothing else he could do.  How could he be expected to do what the paper wanted if he didn't have it?

Maybe that was it.  Maybe whoever, or whatever, sent him the paper was angry with him for telling Mulder and Scully about it, and this wild goose chase was its way of getting even.

"I get it, okay?" he said out loud, throwing up his hands in frustration.  "No more telling FBI agents."

He was halfway to the front doors when he heard a car pull up. A second later its headlights illuminated the interior of the barn, shining in through the crack in the doorway and the slits between the wall boards.

Gary took another step forward, but checked himself as he realized how stupid it would be to just walk out without knowing who was there.  Yes, it might be Mulder coming back, it might be the police or Agent Scully or any one of a number of helpful people, but it might also be the men who had taken Elizabeth Barnett.  Maybe he and Mulder had just been too early.

Moving more cautiously, he sidled up to a slit in the wall near the door and peered out.  A Lincoln Town Car idled in the muddy yard, and two men got out, one big and burly and the other older, thinner, and deliberate in his movements.  He turned to help a woman out of the back seat, and even through the narrow opening between the wall boards Gary could see that there was something wrong with her.  She couldn't stand upright; she leaned on the man's arm as if she were drunk or--Gary gulped--drugged.

The older man guided the woman toward the barn; the big one stopped to scan the yard before following.  As the group   approached, Gary could see, in the glow of the headlights, that the woman was Elizabeth Barnett.

"Oh, shit," he swore softly.  What now?  He was pretty much outnumbered, and he was sure that the larger of the two men, at least, would be armed.  Backing away from the wall as the group headed toward the door, he shoved his penlight in his jeans pocket and looked for a hiding place.

The stalls, however, were too easy to see in the filtered light from the car.  The paddock area was bare and open.  Gary considered, for about a millisecond, going out the back window or door, but he couldn't leave Elizabeth Barnett here with these people.  Who knew what they were about to do to her?  Or what they had already done?

Cat was back at the makeshift ladder, mewing urgently.  Biting back another curse and recalling his assessment of the mental capacity of anyone who'd venture to the rotting floor above, Gary nonetheless realized that it was probably the best place to avoid detection.  He hurried to the ladder and started up, while Cat leaped away and into one of the stalls.

Gary scrambled as quickly as he dared to the upper story.  Light flooded the barn as the doors were pushed open, and he used it to pick his way around hay bales and spots where the floorboards had rotted all the way through.  Dust filled his lungs, that particularly irritating dust that only hay could create, and he swallowed a violent sneeze.  Finally he found a hole through which he could watch the little group.  It was wide enough for a man to fall through; Gary lowered himself carefully until he was lying flat on his stomach, then peeked over the edge.

Elizabeth, a very groggy Elizabeth, lifted her head and stared around, but if anything she saw made sense to her, she didn't react.  Her head lolled back down on the man's shoulder, and she mumbled inaudibly.  Neither of her companions seemed to be listening.

"What now?" the bigger man asked.  Big, hell--the guy was the size of a Clydesdale.  He looked familiar; he could easily have been one of the men who'd beaten up Agent Mulder a couple of days ago.  Recalling what Mulder had told him in the car, Gary swallowed hard---these were the men who'd been taking innocent people, holding them against their will, and somehow giving them cancer; using them like guinea pigs in an experiment right out of Auschwitz--his fists tightened around the rotting floorboards at the edge of the hole.  There had to be some way to stop them.

"Now, we make sure the memory wipe worked," the grey-haired man said smoothly.  "Then we leave her here, make an anonymous call to the papers or the police, and hope the hypnotic suggestions last, at least until we can move the operation out of Chicago."

Memory wipe?  Hypnotic suggestions?  The operation?  Gary's stomach turned over.  Who were these people, and who did they work for?

At that point, Elizabeth stirred and lifted her head.  "What's going on?" she muttered sleepily.  "Dr. Nelson?  What are you doing--"

"She's waking up too soon.  We can't let her see us now," the older man--presumably Nelson--hissed.

"No problem," the big guard said.  He was standing behind Elizabeth and he brought out a gun, butt forward, and drew back his arm.

"That's a little bit crude--" the doctor began.

"You got a better idea?"

Gary didn't wait to hear the answer.  He rolled over and stood, planning to get down the ladder and stop them however he could--but the shifting of his body weight and the rotting wooden floor found a quicker way down for him.  It gave way with a sickening crack and suddenly his feet weren't in contact with anything but air.

Grabbing desperately at the splintering wood, Gary managed to keep hold of one board that was split in half crosswise and hanging at a perpendicular angle to the second story.  He wrapped both arms around it, feeling splinters cut into his hand but not caring, as long as he didn't hit the ground with the debris showering down around him.

"What the hell?" the doctor shouted as more pieces of the second floor cracked and crumbled around him, crashing on the cement below.

Well, Gary thought, kicking his legs in a desperate attempt to find some purchase, this is one way to make an entrance.

As if in answer, the board from which he dangled groaned and cracked, long splinters tearing under his weight.  Gary squeezed his eyes shut, expecting gravity to bring him down at any second.

Instead, there was a much stronger pull.  An arm so muscled he could feel the triceps through his jeans wrapped around both legs at once and yanked.

A rush of air whistled in his ears, then his head smacked against a pile of boards and his butt hit the cement floor.  He didn't black out completely, but he was reminded, for the first time since he'd been beaned by a stray pop-up in fifth grade Little League, why cartoonists always drew stars around characters' heads when they'd been hit by anvils.  Little points of light danced before his eyes for a few seconds, and when they cleared, he almost wished they hadn't.

Whoever this thug was, he was not going to win any beauty contests.  Slightly lopsided eyes, brows thick as woolly caterpillars, and a bulbous nose filled Gary's field of vision.  Scowling, the man reached down and hauled Gary to his feet with one paw, a death grip on the front of his jacket.  Gary tried to clear the swimminess from his vision by blinking and shaking his head.  That last move was a mistake; it only made his head hurt worse.  Despite the fact that he was being held by Goliath, Gary brought his left hand up, pressing it against the pounding just above his neck.  His sight began to clear, and he recognized the still form of Elizabeth Barnett on the barn floor.  All this, and he hadn't been in time to help her.  He was batting a thousand today.

Make that a thousand and one, he thought grimly, as the guard pulled a pistol from his jacket and rammed it none too gently against Gary's ribs.

No, this isn't how I die, it's a gunshot to the head, he thought wildly, scrabbling for any means to control the rising panic.  Somehow, it wasn't much of a consolation.

"You know him?"  The doctor stepped closer, peering at Gary in the slatted light.

"Yeah," the guard replied, "I saw him with those FBI agents the other day."

"Really?  Let's see what he has to say for himself.  Who the hell are you, anyway?" he asked Gary.

"I'm not--" Gary began, but the simple act of speaking shot a spear of pain through his head, and he winced.  He couldn't think straight, didn't have the slightest idea what to say.  His heart pounded a staccato rhythm, threatening to hammer its way right out of his chest.

"Well?" the thug prompted, jabbing the barrel of the gun into his ribs.

Every nerve cell screamed at him to close his eyes and give in to the throbbing in his head, to go limp, to rest--but instead Gary thought of what Mulder had told him about these men and their 'experiments'; he thought of Agent Scully and what must have happened to her; he looked at Elizabeth Barnett lying on the ground like a worn-out rag doll--and suddenly he wasn't afraid for himself anymore.  He was just angry.  He stood up straighter, despite the grip on his jacket, and glared right at Nelson.

"Who I am, is--is someone who's not going to let you get away with this any more."

Both man laughed.  "Right," snorted the bigger one.  He pushed the gun farther into Gary's ribs.

"No, there, there's--"  Fighting through fear for the right words, Gary spared a split-second glance at the gun, then looked back  at Nelson.  "You're not going to get away with this, there's backup on the way."

"Backup?" Nelson scoffed.  Waving a hand toward the front door, he took a step closer to Gary.  "I don't hear any backup.  All I hear is one man trying to bluff his way out of the inevitable."  Gary could see the man's eyes now; they were crinkled around the edges and should have held warmth.  Instead, there was something else there: a cynical amusement that chilled Gary to the bone.  "But in the end, you can't change fate."

"No, no, I don't believe that, it's--"

"This is hardly the time for a philosophical debate."  Turning his attention away from Gary, Nelson pulled an object from the pocket of his black wool coat.  Another gun.  He held it out to his companion.  "Use this one instead."

Never relinquishing his hold on Gary's jacket, the big man pulled the gun away from his chest, turning his hand palm-up so that Nelson could switch the weapons.  His rough features took on a look of confusion as he stared at the new gun.  "But it's--"

"--it's Mulder's.  A murder investigation ought to keep him from following us.  Get it over with," the doctor finished.  He didn't even spare a final glance at Gary as he stepped back, toward Elizabeth's limp form.

A sickening sense of vertigo overtook Gary; the bottom dropped out of his stomach as the thug pushed him out to arm's length, raising the gun and aiming at his forehead.

He closed his eyes, finally, against the pounding pain in his temples, trying to make his body move, to fight, to pull away from the next sound he expected to hear, the gun firing...

But the sound that came next was that of the back door slamming to the ground.  His eyes blinked open as he was released with a fierce shove, the thug directing his weapon at the new threat.  Gary tottered backward; the heel of his boot caught on one of the splintered boards.  He was falling--

"FBI!  Drop your weapons, NOW!  Do--"

The familiar voice was cut off by a sharp "crack" exploding at the back of his skull.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 27
 

When the truth is buried, it grows, it chokes, it gathers such explosive
force that on the day it breaks out, it blows everything up with it.
     ~ Emile Zola
 

If there was one thing Dana Scully hated, it was having to repeat herself.

"Back away from him and drop your weapon.  DO IT!"

Every muscle in her body was tensed, every bit of mental and physical energy devoted to gaining control of the situation.  She saw it as a whole, everything at once:  the large, grey-jumpsuited man looming over what she could make out of Hobson's form; a still mass, probably human, lying in a heap on the barn floor; and Agent Donner, who'd provided cover and then followed her in, moving around to her right, his gun trained on the man closest to Hobson.

There was, she couldn't help but notice, no sign of her partner.

"You heard her!" Donner snapped, stepping closer to the gunman while Scully edged toward Hobson from the other side.  "Put it down."  The young agent had more presence in this situation than she would have thought possible.

In the weird half-light of the barn, Scully and Donner were at a disadvantage.  The headlights of the other car--not Mulder's, she reminded herself, they had checked that before circling around the back--shone through the door in front of them, back-lighting the scene.  Frozen at the vertex of the triangle created by their weapons, the gunman tried to twist his neck enough to look behind him.  Scully's, "Don't move!" put an end to that.

She ventured a few cautious steps toward him, trying to get a look over the pile of boards, to figure out what was wrong with Hobson.  There'd been no shot, but she had seen him fall and now there was no sound from his direction.

Transfixed, the large man followed her movements, probably not even aware that he was tracking her with his gun.  Her voice wasn't the startling shout it had been when they burst through the door, but it carried just as much command.  "Sir, if you don't drop your weapon right now, I will fire."

The man's eyes widened, but Scully wasn't sure if it was at her threat or at the, "She will, too," that Donner breathed, so low he probably didn't think anyone could hear it.

Frayed and slatted as the light was, it was enough for her to see the hesitation, and then capitulation, of her main target.  His gaze swiveled from her to Donner then back; slowly, as if moving through water, he lowered his gun and took one step, then another, away from Hobson.

At a questioning look from Donner, she nodded, and he moved to the gunman's side.  Taking the pistol from his now-slack hand, Donner cuffed the man, pushing him down to his knees with one hand on his shoulder.

Scully breathed a silent  prayer of relief that at least one thing had gone right.  ASAC Rawlings had been angered at her involvement in the shooting of one of his agents, annoyed about Mulder's unexplained absence, and exasperated by her inability to produce evidence--evidence that anyone would believe--that this was a viable lead and not a snipe hunt; but in the end, he'd allowed her to take one agent along with her, and Donner was much more capable than she would have suspected.

Still standing next to the gunman, Donner frowned at the weapon he'd confiscated.  "Agent Scully, this gun--I think it's Bureau-issue.  It's a Sig Sauer 226."  She stepped closer to the pair, and Donner handed it to her.

It could easily be--it probably was--Mulder's weapon, the one he'd lost two days ago.  With this he could have been framed for Hobson's murder, and then that newspaper would have been correct.  Scully flicked the safety switch on his gun and pocketed it in her coat.

"Mulder?" Scully called into the dim recesses of the barn.  Why hadn't he come forward?  "Mulder, are you here?"  There was a movement then, in the darkness of the stalls off to her left.

"He isn't here.  Not much of a partner, is he, Dana?"

The voice that spoke from the shadows, echoing her own black thoughts, was smooth and rich as cappuccino, and recognition sent ice down her back.

Scanlon.

He stepped into the light like an actor moving from the wings to center stage.  Memories--waking up in a hospital, bright light in her eyes, fear and false hope--flashed through her mind, but she pushed them away.  This wasn't about her.  This was about his victims.

Scully stalked toward him, her only thought a grim determination to wreak revenge--no, justice--but her foot connected with Hobson's shin.  She paused, and her vision seemed to clear and re-focus as she blinked down at his inert form.  He wasn't moving, wasn't conscious; he needed her help.  Backing up a step, she knelt next to Hobson.

Scanlon started forward, one hand held out.  "Here, let me help you."

Scully was on her feet again before she had time to think about it, her gun aimed at Scanlon's heart.  "Back off."

"Dana, I'm a doctor--"

"I said, back off."  There was no attempt to hide the venom in her voice or her contempt for his use of the title they shared.

Scanlon paused a moment, considering her with an inscrutable expression, then shrugged.  "Suit yourself."

"Keep him covered," Scully told Donner.  Gun still in her right hand, she knelt again and used the fingers of her left to check Hobson's pulse.  It was strong enough, and there wasn't any evidence of a gunshot wound that she could see, not in the forehead or anywhere else.  Maybe they had been in time after all.

"Mr. Hobson?" she called, shaking his shoulder.  "Gary?  Are you all right?"  Her voice was louder this time, and it produced a response.

"Unh--"  His eyes flew open, then closed again as he winced in pain.  One hand came up to cradle the back of his head as he tried to sit up.  He only made it part of the way.  "Ah, shi--"

"Whoa," Scully cautioned, her hand on his shoulder.  She could feel Scanlon watching her, his eyes boring a hole in the back of her neck.  "Hold on, don't try to move too quickly.  You're going to be okay, but you need to take it easy."

Her words must have finally registered, because Hobson's eyes snapped open and he stared at her in shock.  For a moment, she wondered if he knew who she was.  "What--there was--" he began, then started and looked around wildly, an action which produced another grimace, another grab of his head, this time with both hands.  Scully moved her free hand to the back of his neck to support it.

"Careful.  You were out cold."

Nodding once, gingerly this time, Hobson lifted one hand away from his head, pointing up.  Scully craned her neck to follow the gesture.  The gaping hole in the ceiling and the loose, broken boards on the floor around them told her as much as she needed to know.

"It's all right.  Here, let me see."  She pried his fingers off the back of his head and cautiously felt for swelling.  "There's a lump there, and you're going to have one hell of a headache, but other than that I think it'll be okay."  Rocking back on her heels, she checked for abnormal dilation in his pupils--nope, nothing wrong with the puppy eyes.  "Everything else still work?"

"Think so," he muttered.  Shifting his legs around a little, he sat all the way up.

Scully watched him closely.  "Where's Mulder?"

"He left.  I don't know where, he didn't--"  Hobson froze, looking from Scully to the little group beyond her and back, eyes wide.  He started to say something, but Scully jumped in first.

"He left in the middle of this?"  Impossible, she thought.  Not even Mulder would--

"No, they weren't here yet," he told her, pointing at Scanlon.  "Agent Scully--"  His voice dropped to a whisper, and he leaned closer to make sure only she could hear.  "These--these people--"  Hobson paused and swallowed hard, searching her eyes for--for what?  Scully waited, but he didn't seem to know how to continue.

He didn't have to.  After years spent decoding Mulder's facial nuances, she found Hobson's remarkably obvious.  There was horror, wariness, and--sympathy?  She wondered how much Mulder had told him, and how much he had figured out for himself.  "He said, Agent Mulder said they--"

"They did."

For a split second, there was something darker in his eyes, and then the other expression returned and--the realization brought her up short.  He knew something of what she'd endured, but he didn't feel sorry for her.  It wasn't sympathy.  It was more like camaraderie.  Respect.

Somehow, the confirmation that passed between the two of them brought them back to the matter at hand.

"Elizabeth," he breathed, and they were both on their feet, Hobson swaying and clenching his jaw.

"Wait--" Scully began, but he was stumbling across the barn, toward the dark form crumpled on the floor, before she could advise restraint.  Of course, head injury or not, restraint didn't seem to be one of Gary Hobson's defining qualities.

Agent Donner was still trying to cover both suspects, and probably, she suspected, make some modicum of sense out of her exchange with Hobson.  Scanlon was watching it all with an expression that seemed downright smug, but that might have just been her own projection.

"She's alive," Hobson announced, after checking her breathing and pulse.  Like everyone else in the barn, he looked at Scully expectantly, waiting for her to decide what would happen next.

Damn it, where was Mulder when she needed him?  This would have been so much easier if--

"All right."  She interrupted her own useless train of thought and nodded at the man on his knees next to Donner.  "Take him down to the car, call for back up and an ambulance, and then bring the car up here."  She didn't like sending Donner down the road alone with the suspect, a quarter of a mile away where they'd parked to make their original approach, but she wanted to talk to Scanlon.  Donner was a good agent, but he wasn't Mulder, and he wouldn't understand the history.

No one would.  She caught Hobson's glance and nodded toward the front door, where Donner was escorting the gunman out.  "You go with him."

"I can't."  Hobson's gaze shifted from her to Scanlon, then down to Elizabeth.  He pushed stray strands of frizzy brown hair off the woman's face.   "She won't wake up."

She was about to argue, to insist, but Donner was already gone, and at that moment, Scanlon took a step toward her, moving from a ray of light into a band of shadow.  "What about you, Dana?  How are you feeling?"

Turning her attention full on Scanlon, Scully could feel her jaw clench in a hard, unyielding line at the audacity of that question.  "I want to know what the hell is going on here," she demanded, her voice sharp and dangerous.  "Start talking."

"What is it you want to know, Dana?" he asked, giving her name the same inflection, the same benevolent intonation he had used in the hospital in Allentown.  For a moment she was back there, clean sheets and bright lights and doctors and nurses who would take care of her, who held out hope...

But this wasn't about her; this was about all the women who had died because of this man.  She was their voice.  Nodding toward Elizabeth Barnett, she said evenly, "I want to know what you've done to her.  Did you give her the same treatment you gave those women in Allentown?"

His eyes widened in an attempt at sincerity.  He held his hands out at his sides, palms up, as if to show he meant no harm.  "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't bullshit me, Scanlon."  She thrust the gun in his direction, taking another step, a little closer.  Now she was in the shadows with him.  "Answer me--what did you do to her?"  Her gun was still trained on him; her aim never wavered.

"She has a simple bump on the head, like him."  Scanlon nodded toward Hobson.  Scully's gaze flickered in that direction, but she didn't take her eyes off Scanlon long enough to ascertain whether Hobson was watching them or not.  "There's really nothing wrong with her."  Scanlon's slow, satisfied smile was enough to make Scully ill.  It was a smile she had trusted once--that all of those women had trusted.

"Except terminal cancer," she pointed out, her voice even.

"That is no longer a problem for Elizabeth Barnett.  I wish I could say the same for you."

Scully didn't move, didn't flinch or flicker an eyelash, just waited to see how far the man thought he could go.

"She--she  wasn't okay when she came in here," Hobson put in.  He got to his feet, staring wide-eyed at Scully; his hand waved between Elizabeth and Scanlon.  "She was--it was like she was drugged or something.  He said something about wiping out her memory, about hypnosis, or--"  Finally noticing the venomous glare Scanlon was directing at him, he gulped to a halt.

He meant well, but the last thing Scully needed was to have someone else tangled in Scanlon's web, some other leverage he could use against her.

"I want you to go see if Agent Donner's on his way."  He didn't move, and Scully tore her gaze from Scanlon long enough to insist, "I mean it, Gary; he might need help."

"Are you--" he began, looking from Scully to Scanlon and back.

"Go," she insisted.

After another pause, he finally backed to the door, gaping at the two of them until he turned and stepped outside.  Scully allowed herself a small sigh of relief, then, still keeping her weapon trained on Scanlon, she circled him until she was as close as she could get to Elizabeth without backing off from her quarry.

"What did you do to her?" she repeated.  Her gun was still pointed at him, her left hand supporting her right wrist, elbows slightly bent.  It wouldn't do to have her arms lock up; this could take a while.

Scanlon shook his head slowly.  Just over his left ear, a lock of grey hair, slightly longer than the rest, flopped back and forth at the movement.  "You don't understand, do you?"  The hint of condescension in his voice made it clear that he thought he was in command of the situation.

"I understand that you are responsible for the deaths of at least twelve women in Allentown, Pennsylvania; for the abduction of Elizabeth Barnett--"

"You won't be able to prove that in a court of law."

Scully's breath caught in her throat at a memory: Melissa's grave, Mulder's news--"There may be some justice, just not the kind you're looking for...they found this man, Luis Cardinal, dead in his cell..."

Her voice rose just a notch.  "You'd better hope we can, and that you can tell us enough to warrant the protection you're going to need.  As of this moment, you're a liability to the people you've been working for, and we both know what that means."

Again, the dark look flickered across his face; his brow furrowed and his mouth hardened, and she knew he understood that the truth in her words.  His consternation passed as quickly as it had come, however, and he tried another tack.

"Dr. Scully."  The collegial tone Scanlon appropriated was enough to make her want to pull the trigger right there.  "The past is over, as far as I'm concerned.  Yes, there were sacrifices on the way, but they've led to something wonderful--a cure, Dana.  A cure for this cancer."

She thought of what the paper, Hobson's paper, had said about Elizabeth Barnett.  If it was true...

No.  Even if it was true, she wasn't about to trust Scanlon.  "The past isn't over.  You experimented on terminally ill patients without their consent and performed procedures that led to their deaths."

"But it was all for the greater good."  Scanlon kept his voice low; he held one hand out to her as if waiting for her to fill it with absolution.  "These people gave me the opportunity, for the first time in my career, to make real progress in my research.  The work that they allowed me to do led to this cure, to one of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the century."   His eyes were alight with a fire Scully recognized from her own work in science and medicine: the fire of discovery.  He wasn't lying--or at least he believed he was telling the truth.  The two weren't necessarily the same thing.

"What, exactly, was the work you were doing?"

"Looking for genetic cures for cancer.  Remember the attempt to perform the therapy on the P-53 gene?  I'd been making attempts for years, but the prohibitions against using human subjects slowed my work considerably.  When these men told me I could have the means, the patients, and the opportunity to try it, I had to accept their offer.  It was the only way."  His eyes were open wide, asking her to understand.

"You didn't cure anyone.  You killed them.  Those men didn't want your 'subjects' to survive," she reminded him angrily.

"But it was a chance to save other lives, Dana.  They--they just told me that once I knew how the genes would react, I had to make sure I covered my traces and--"  He paused, and his expression of regret was almost enough to make her believe it.  Almost.

"And you eliminated the 'evidence'?"  Scully spat out the vile words; they tasted like poison.

He nodded, a rueful expression crossing his face.  "Somewhere along the line, I lost track of the reason.  I fell into the trap set by the men who recruited me.  But you--you impressed me.  You were willing to fight.  You were stronger than the others."

Oh, bullshit--did he honestly think she was that stupid?  Did he expect her to believe this sudden turn of conscience at all, let alone that she was the one who'd precipitated it?

"I saw your humanity and I started to realize the inhumanity of what I was doing, saw what a puppet I had been.  I worked harder than ever on a cure, despite what they wanted me to do.  They wanted me to make sure all the women died.  All of you who were victims of their--their treatments, you were all supposed to die."

"Why?  Why did they have to die?  Why did they develop cancer in the first place?"

"Don't you mean 'we'?"

Scully glared at him and didn't answer.  He sighed, his shoulders drooping as his hands fell to his sides.  "It's an aftereffect of their initial procedure, and, for their purposes, a fortunate one.  It looks so much more natural than anything else they could do; attracts so much less attention."

"What 'initial procedure'?"

Scanlon eyed her closely.  "Don't you know?  Didn't he tell you?"

"Who?"

"Your partner," he answered simply, as if it were obvious.  "He knows.  He found out when you were--he didn't tell you?"

Scully kept her face a careful mask while puzzling through the clues.  What had Mulder told her?  Precious bloody little, evidently; nothing of what he'd found at Lombard, other than the fact that this man's name had been on the staff list.  She'd suspected all along that Mulder was withholding information, but having it confirmed here, by this man, this snake, this...she followed his appraising gaze to her gun hand, surprised to see that it was trembling.  It was just tired from holding the position so long.  She shifted her stance and readjusted her grip.

Three years ago, she had stood in another dark, abandoned building--a warehouse, not a barn--and heard an incredible story about attempts to create alien/human hybrids.  She had come as close then as she ever had to believing it, because of the evidence she'd seen with her own eyes; protein strands that shouldn't have existed on earth and a fetus that was neither animal nor human; a human/extraterrestrial hybrid.

She'd held it in her hands.  And she'd traded it for Mulder's life.

He knew what evidence, any concrete evidence, would mean to her; he knew it was the only way to win her belief in his seemingly improbably theories.  The only reason he would have to keep information or evidence from her would be if he thought--

--if he thought it would hurt her.

If he thought she wasn't strong enough to hear and see it for herself.

She'd tried to tell him.  In the hospital in Allentown, just a few weeks ago, she'd thought Mulder had understood when she'd told him that she had to keep going on this quest of his, but for her own reasons.  She'd thought his perception of her had changed, had grown; that he'd finally accepted that they were full partners, equally vested in this search for the truth.  Mulder had said he believed she would find a way to save herself--but apparently those were just words.  Apparently he still thought of her as a victim, and himself as her defender.

Scully didn't need that.  She was the defender here.

Mulder knew that.  He wouldn't keep the truth from her,  not unless--the idea, finally crystallized, struck her like a blow.

Not unless he thought she was just as weak as the rest.  Not unless he thought she was nothing more than another victim.

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but, like gnats, the doubts wouldn't leave her alone, even while she was speaking to Scanlon.

"You admit you were part of this.  You *caused* this cancer."  She took one step closer, heard the rising pitch of her voice as her vocal chords, like every other muscle in her body, grew tighter than she would have thought possible.

"No.  I was just there to deal with the fallout.  When some of the abductees started to remember, and they became ill, as the men in charge knew they would, I was called in to tidy up the loose ends.  I was just the...the clean-up crew."

Fallout....clean-up...his careless use of the terminology was nauseating.  "I hardly think you can equate murder with janitorial services."

"Regardless of what you call it, it led to a cure, and that's what I'm offering you now, Dana."  His hand came out again.  "A cure.  A chance."

"In exchange for what?"  Whether there really was a cure or not, she was sure he had valuable information.  The question was, was she willing to pay the price?

Scanlon nodded slowly.  "There is a price, of course."  She tried not to jump.  It was just coincidence that his words echoed her thoughts.  "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a jail cell.  I want to get away from this project, to cut my ties without cutting my own throat.  And I want the credit."

"That's a pretty tall order."

"But not impossible.  It's a generous offer, Dana.  Your life--and the lives of others--in exchange for my freedom and safety.  It's a simple choice."

No, it was not.

She had spent the last two years trying to find out, and dreading finding out, what had happened to her during the months she had been missing.  She had spent the month before last knowing that something was wrong, and avoiding it.  She had spent last month with the knowledge of just how wrong things were, trying to keep her hopes up while at the same time loosening her tethers, watching Mulder, her family, and even Skinner follow her with haunted eyes, as she faded to nothing more than another casualty in this quest for the truth.

Here was a chance to find out why.  A chance to make some sense of it all.  A chance to save herself and erase some of the pain from the eyes of the people she cared about.

But in the last month, she'd also been haunted by other eyes, other faces--and a promise she had made to a dying woman.  She had told Penny Northern that she would go on, she would be strong, she would bring the men who'd done this to justice.

Kevin Scanlon was one of those men.

"You're a doctor.  You broke your oath."  They all had, all those men in white coats in a white room...

"For the greater good.  For a cure, Dana."

She wished he would stop calling her that.

"No.  I don't believe you."  Her voice was threatening to crack.  "Those men who hurt m--who hurt the women who were abducted, they took the same oath.  And they violated it.  It didn't mean anything to them, and it doesn't mean anything to you."

"And you haven't been able to stop them at all, have you?" he asked, ignoring her point completely.  "All that work, all that effort and risk, and still, you're sick, you're dying, Dana, and you're powerless to stop it."  His voice laced with saccharine sympathy, Scanlon tilted his head to one side, the corners of his mouth coming down.

He thought she was weak.  This man, capable of so much evil, felt sorry for her, the same way--she sucked in a breath--the same way Mulder did.  The same way everyone did.  They all thought she was a victim.  And she had let them all think it.

Because in her heart of hearts, she feared they were right, that despite everything--her strength, her intelligence, her training in medicine and law enforcement--she wasn't safe, and never had been.  She was a victim.  Not an advocate.  She couldn't be what Penny Northern had wanted, what she expected of herself.

Maybe Mulder had been right to leave her behind so many times.  Maybe he just saw things more clearly than she did.  If he didn't trust her to be strong, then what was the point?  Maybe...

She was fighting a rising tide of nausea, but it was winning.  Here in this place, in the dark, things were suddenly becoming clear, the truth was coming into focus. The truth--Mulder's truth--she saw herself through his eyes.  Weak.  Incapable.  Dependent.

"Dana, I didn't do this to you.  But I can undo it."

Shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to lift the fog of doubt, Scully asked, "And leave me like you were going to leave her?"   She inclined her head in Elizabeth's direction, at the same time stepping closer to Scanlon, planning to handcuff him, to end this charade, to shut him up so she could attend to his latest victim.

"Leave you?  Leave you alone?"  He looked at her curiously.  Close enough now to see the shades in his eyes, to read through his transparent facade of concern, she also caught a whiff of his after-shave as he shifted his weight, probably uncomfortable after standing still for so long.  There was something familiar about the scent, something that flashed bright and hard in a forgotten corner of her brain--but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

"Dana, do you remember what they did to you?"

She hesitated--opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come, and when he held out his hand again, she could smell the after-shave, something faintly spicy--what *was* that smell?  It was like--it reminded her of--cold metal, white lights, too bright--

Blinking, she tried to adjust her vision to the new light, but the voice kept distracting her.

"You want to remember, don't you?  You said you wanted the truth.  To get the truth, you have to remember."  He had seen an opening, and he was taking it.  And she knew it, and she couldn't stop him.  There was too much else going on in her mind, and in her heart, and the one pounding, overriding thought was that even if she could remember, there was no one left who thought she could handle this truth.  Not even Mulder.

Scanlon moved again, leaning toward her.  "The memories hurt, but they're the only truth."

Now the smell filled her nostrils, pungent spice and overtones of sandalwood, like her father's scent, but this man wasn't her father...

...but she had to trust someone, there'd been no other way, she was powerless...

Scully shook her head, fighting against the undertow of memory for control.  "No, I don't remember."

"But you do.  Your body does, and the memory is eating you alive."

"No..."

"That's what this cancer is, Dana."

Some part of her, her rational mind, was screaming that this was all wrong, that she shouldn't listen to him--but her heart knew he was right.  She hadn't tried to remember, hadn't thrown herself into solving the mystery of her abduction soon enough, and because of that she was dying.  If only she could remember without hurting...

No, no, that wouldn't help, that way was fear and madness...

The memories were playing at the corners of her mind, but all she could recall, all she could ever remember were the pain and the fear and they were real and they wouldn't stop and no one was there, she was all alone.

She'd buried the truth.  Melissa had been right, she had to face it--but not here, not alone--

--but it refused to stay buried this time, because everyone else was right; she was weak, and she couldn't deny it any longer.  She couldn't fight it.

"There's another way, there has to be..."  But her rational mind couldn't come up with any more protest than that.  The memories were coming, inevitable as the tide, and they were drowning her capacity for logical thought, for words.  Her field of vision had narrowed to one man, one face, and even that was hard to see clearly.

"I know it hurts to remember.  But I can cure you Dana, and then remembering won't hurt anymore.  You can have it all--your health and the truth.  A way to get back at them, at all of them...but it can't happen unless you come with me, now."

"No," she said, and for a moment the rational part of her mind reasserted itself, came up for air one last time.  "I don't trust you."

"You have to trust someone, or you're going to die."

He had said that before, hadn't he?  No, it was different before.

"You're going to feel like dying..."  His words echoed back across the weeks.  But it wasn't then that she had felt like dying...she had begged God to let her die...when?

A thousand times, in that room, in the room where they did tests and procedures---and she'd been torn between fighting to stay alive and giving up--someone had come, someone who reminded her of her father, though her father wasn't in that place, and she'd had to trust someone, or she would have died, of loneliness if nothing else, in that cold, bright place.  The darkness of the barn gave way to bright light and she couldn't resist them, she couldn't move her arms or legs, she could only call out for someone, anyone; she'd called and called until she was hoarse, hoping Mulder would hear her, her mother, her sister, her brothers, but they hadn't come, no one had come...

No one.

She blinked back traitorous tears.   Even in this nightmare, Dana Scully didn't cry.  The light was just so bright...

"I'm alone."

"You were all alone?"  The voice that was questioning her wasn't in the room with her.  It was asking someone else, someone strong, and she wasn't strong.

"Mulder?"

"Not your partner.  He didn't come, did he?"

Scully tried to focus on the face in front of her, but it wavered in the shifting, watery light.  "I had to trust someone..."

The face nodded.  "I'm the only one who really knows.  The only one you can trust.  Your partner was never there when you needed him.  Just like he isn't here now.  He left you, because he thinks you can't handle it.  He left you once before, more than once, left you to them...and it made you sick.  All the tests, Dana, the men who hurt you, the way they left you alone, night after night, day after day--"

"I wasn't alone.  I--Mulder--"

"Mulder wasn't there."

Someone else then.  Someone had held her hand through the fear and the pain.  "Penny."

"No.  Penny's gone.  You don't remember anyone, not really, do you?"

"I do..."  She was sure she did.  Someone who stroked her hair, who held her hand, who called her by name.

"You want a cure.  You want to live, Dana, there's nothing wrong with that."

"No!  You wanted to kill me.  You did kill them.  You killed--"

She wasn't strong enough to do it alone.  She had to trust someone.  Blinded now by the white lights, by the memories of pain and horror that she could no longer suppress, she reached out for a hand to hold.

But there was only empty air.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 28

(Special thanks to Jesse, The Artist Formerly Known As Bear, for his editorial comments on this part!)
 

I will connive no more
With that which hopes and plans that I shall not survive:
Let the tide keep its distance;
Or advance, and be split for a moment by a thing very small
     but all resistance;
Then do its own chore.
     ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
 

Gary hoped no one was watching as he half-staggered out of the barn; he was walking like a drunk.  It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the solid darkness, and for his badly-abused sense of balance to adjust to continuous movement.

Somewhere down the road, he knew that Agent Donner and the FBI car represented safety, a place where he could rest his pounding head, and where he wouldn't have to deal with the incredible revelations and foreboding of evil he'd felt in that barn.  He could make out the car now, pulled off into the stand of poplars halfway down the road to the highway.  That was where he was supposed to go, but...Gary turned and looked back, wondering what was going to happen to Elizabeth Barnett.  Maybe he shouldn't have left her, orders from a gun-wielding avenging angel notwithstanding.  Elizabeth was, after all, the reason he'd come out here in the first place.  She was his responsibility as much as anyone else's.

But Agent Scully knew what she was doing--at least, he was pretty sure she did.

He sure as heck wasn't going to be the one to tell her she didn't.

Movement near the car commanded his attention.  Its headlights came on and Gary could see Agent Donner, standing near the driver's door, leaning slightly forward as he spoke into--it was either a radio or a cell phone.

Gary knew that Agent Scully had ordered him down there to keep him out of trouble.  He started walking toward the car again.  Whatever was going on between Agent Scully and that doctor, it was personal, definitely none of his--

"Meow."

Wincing against another wicked headrush as he flailed his arms for balance, Gary just barely managed to keep from falling headfirst into the gravel and dirt below him.  "Don't you have mice to catch or something?" he growled out between clenched teeth, fixing the cat he'd almost tripped over with a menacing glare.  "You gotta make my life harder than it is?  Do you enj--"

With an insistent screech that set Gary's teeth on edge all over again, Cat took off--back toward the barn.

That could only mean--his hand was inside his coat before he remembered that he didn't have the paper anymore.  He allowed himself one large, resigned sigh before jogging, more slowly than usual, after the cat, back up the road and across the barnyard.  The ginger tabby sat on its haunches right in front of the opening between the large front doors, its head swinging in a wide, careful arc between Gary and whatever it could see inside.  Heart pounding more than a trot of a few hundred feet could account for, Gary paused and listened. There were murmurs coming from the barn, but he couldn't tell who was speaking or what was being said.  He stepped inside.

"Agent Scully?"  From the barn doorway, with the headlights streaming in, Gary could see her halfway across the expansive space, her face in profile as she faced the doctor.  There was something wrong.  Really wrong.  Scully didn't appear to have heard him; she stared at Scanlon, mouth slightly open, eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond the doctor's head, one hand still pointing a gun at Scanlon and the other reaching out for--what?

This was not what Gary had expected at all.  What had happened?

"Just come with me, trust me, tell them you trust me, and we can end it all, Dana."

At the sibilant whisper, Gary nearly jumped out of his skin.  Scanlon, standing much closer to Agent Scully now, much too close, reached for the gun as he spoke.  Something about his voice made Gary's blood run cold.  His tone wasn't menacing, and his words didn't make sense to Gary at all, but still...maybe it was the way his mouth twitched, or the fact that his cool, almost sing-song voice was completely out of skew with the way Scully stood, wide-eyed, frozen in place.

Gary crept closer to the pair, completely unnoticed.

Agent Scully squeezed her eyes shut, as if against some blinding light, and then opened them again, dropping her free hand to her side and whispering, "No."

Agent Scully didn't whisper.  This wasn't right.

What had the doctor been saying earlier?  Something about a cure.  Just like in the paper.  Gary glanced over at Elizabeth Barnett, off to his side, and was surprised to see her sitting up, eyes huge, watching the scene just as he was.  Recalling what the paper had said about her, he swallowed hard.  If she was cured, maybe Agent Scully could be too.  Maybe she should go with Scanlon.

"You won't be alone any more," Scanlon was saying softly.  "It won't hurt any more."

No.  Gary refused to believe that this man was trustworthy, not after the cold way he'd ordered someone else to kill him.  It just didn't fit.

So why was Agent Scully even listening to this nonsense?  What the hell was going on here?  He felt even more clueless than usual.

"Dr. Nelson?"  Elizabeth's voice was a lost whimper.  Scanlon and Scully both turned toward her, still apparently oblivious to Gary's presence.

"Nelson?" Scully murmured.  Lowering her gun just a fraction, she brought her free hand up, pressing her finger tips against her temple.  The movement revealed a rolled-up newspaper in the side pocket of her trench coat.  It could only be the Sun-Times. His Sun-Times.  How else would she have found him?  Maybe if he could get it from her he'd know what to do.  There had to be something he could do to stop this.

Gary took a few more steps into the depths of the barn, attracting Scanlon's attention; he stared at Gary for a brief moment and then seemed to dismiss him as a threat, muttering, "Stay out of this if you know what's good for you," as casually as an uncle handing out advice.

Even though the command wasn't directed at her, Elizabeth scooted back into the shadows, still staring and frightened.  The doctor returned his attention to Agent Scully, who snapped her gaze back to him the moment he began to speak.

"I know you're afraid to remember.  But you won't have to be afraid if you let me help you.  They won't be able to hurt you anymore."  His voice was low, quiet, but with an undercurrent of intensity that Gary recognized from--where?  He frowned, trying to figure what Scanlon was up to as he sidled a little closer.

It was clear to Gary that the guy was in a hurry; he didn't want to break whatever spell he'd cast, but didn't want to stay here either.  "There isn't much time, Dana, so please..."  He reached out for the gun, fingers twitching perceptibly.  "It's time."

Close enough now to look into her eyes, Gary could see that while the half-dark washed the blue from them, fear shone out like a light.  Scanlon was breaking her down, diminishing her for his own purposes--

The memory clicked; Gary knew where he'd heard that voice, or one very like it, before.  A voice that had called his own name, a voice that shouldn't have been able to use his name like that, that didn't have any right to Gary's name.

Marley.

The realization hit him square in the gut and he shuddered, trying to rid himself of the feeling that there was a second demon in the barn.  No, J. T. Marley was dead, Scanlon wasn't Marley, he only sounded like him, and...

And suddenly, Gary had a damn good idea of what this man was up to.

He could see it in Agent Scully's eyes; the fear that came from walking knowingly into a trap because there was no other choice--all her other choices were gone.  Gary knew, all too well, how that felt.  Marley, Marley and the paper, they had left him no say during the events of those few horrible days.   He hadn't been a moth attracted to a flame, he'd been a fly caught in a web, and Marley had sucked nearly all his confidence, and his life, from him.

Even now, it was a struggle to trust that things would work out if he followed his gut.  It was still a struggle, some nights, to sleep without hearing that voice that undermined his faith in himself, in his choices and his part in shaping the future.

That someone as coolly self-possessed as Agent Scully could be caught in the same kind of trap had never occurred to Gary, but he saw it on her face as she watched Scanlon, her mouth half-open, her eyes round and full of a terror Gary didn't completely understand.  What he did understand was the self-doubt, and the fear of making the wrong choice, the one she would regret forever.

She was wavering, the gun coming down in fractional, jerky movements.  Whatever was going through her head, whatever she was seeing as she stared off into the shadows, it was more real to her than the other people in the barn.

"Give me the gun, Dana, and it will all be over.  You won't be alone anymore."

"Don't listen to him," Gary whispered.  She didn't react.

Scanlon, ignoring him still, smiled at Agent Scully and extended  his hand for the gun, closer, closer...

Gary took long strides to stand next to her, thinking if he could just get her attention he could lift the spell.

Scanlon wouldn't stop.  "I'm here, Dana, you can trust me.  You don't have to be afraid."

"Leave her alone!" Gary demanded, his voice loud and harsh, even in his own ears.  "Agent Scully--"

Without turning her gaze from whatever it was she'd fixated on, whatever nightmares she was imagining, or reliving, she blinked.  Hopeful, Gary took another tentative step closer, reached out his own hand and grasped her shoulder, hoping to turn her away, end her paralysis.

"You gotta listen to me--"

She whirled and pointed the gun at his head.

* * * * *

Scully blinked and shook her head, trying to clear her vision.  But it wouldn't clear.  The light shifted from pitch black to blinding white and there were shadows in both lights but she couldn't tell what they were.  She remembered them, though, from a time when she'd been...when she'd been...where?  She couldn't tell.

All she knew was that she had to keep the shadows at bay.  She had to keep them from touching her.  That, she did remember--whenever, wherever they had touched her, they'd imparted pain.

She was powerless; she couldn't keep them away.

There it was, a hand on her shoulder, turning her around.

"Listen to me," said the voice insistently.  Listen to what?  There would only be more of the same.

Bright lights.  White coats.  Needles.  Drills, pain, oh, God, alone...

She had to stop it.  Had to stop them.  At least this time she had a gun.  She could...if she could just find the people in the shadows she could defend herself.

"Agent Scully, you can't do this.  It's me.  It's Gary Hobson, don't you remember?"  That voice was laced with worry and tension, like the alarm she'd heard, she remembered an alarm.  The sound had been so loud, louder even than the drill, pounding in her ears until they ached and the noise itself threatened to drive her insane.

The other voice, the calm, soothing one, spoke from somewhere near, soft as ocean breezes through palms.  "I can end it for you, Dana.  He means nothing.  Trust me, I can take it all away."

She had trusted that voice, once.  Hadn't she?

But the alarm wouldn't shut up.  "Agent Scully, I know something happened to you, something that hurt you.  I know you felt like--like there was nothing you could do about it."

The shadows shifted, black in white, white in black.  Dana or Agent Scully?  Which one was she?

Maybe it didn't matter.  "Alone."  Weak, useless...

"You're not alone now, Dana.  I can help you.  There's nothing to worry about, nothing you have to do."  Comfort and authority, warmth; so much like Ahab, it would be so easy...

She hesitated, not knowing what to believe, which way to turn.  The light was too bright and it was blinding her and she had to do what was right...

"Don't listen to him.  You don't need the kind of help this guy's offering."  The newer voice cut across the first, unsettling her yet again, pulling her away from comfort and trust.  "Believe me, I know.  You--you can't doubt yourself.  You have to choose for yourself.  You're no puppet, Agent Scully."

Yes.  She had to choose.  She had to think.  They wouldn't be quiet and let her think.

Choose...she had to make a choice.  She wanted the pain to go away.  She wanted to live.

"Dana."  She turned toward the sound of her name.

Something brushed her side, low, where--where--

The shadow was too close, it was reaching out for her.

--there had been tests and they had taken something--

No, she couldn't give in.  She had to fight them, had to be strong.  She had to defend herself, had to defend herself, all of the women, against the shadows and--

There was a hand, and it was taking something from her, pulling at her coat.  She spun and kicked, hard.  Her foot met with muscle and the shadow shot backward, away from the bright light that engulfed her; there was a gasp and the sound of something--someone?--falling, hitting the ground with a thump.

Paper rustled through the air around them all and floated to the ground, flitting shadows of light and dark.  She heard groaning, a sound of pain that was not her own.

Using both hands to steady her grip on her gun, she advanced toward whatever it was that had taken something from her.

"Good, Dana," said the voice behind her.  "You made the right choice.  Now let's go before it's too late."

The approval in that voice sent a shiver down her spine.  She hesitated.

"No, no, you--you don't want--"  The words were forced out between desperate gasps for air.  "--don't go with him--he's not--"  This voice belonged to the shadow on the floor at her feet and there was real anger in it now--and pain.  She drew in a deep breath, hesitated, lowered the gun a fraction.  Someone was hurting, someone needed--

"Be quiet," hissed the other voice, and she jumped and blinked.

"Lis-listen to me, Agent Scully, you have to believe me, he's--he's not--"

Trying to focus beyond the voices, beyond the harsh play of light and dark, she shook her head.  Without warning, the shadows lifted and she found herself staring into worried eyes framed by dark brows and concern and there was something else there...

The man lying before her sucked in another breath.  "This--this isn't who you are, Agent Scully.  Whatever they did to you, it didn't make you who you are."

...understanding.  And respect.  Scully blinked.

The face belonged to--Hobson?  What was he doing here?  Hadn't she sent him to check on Donner?  Why was he lying on the floor?  And talking to her like this?

"I know what this is like, Agent Scully.  But you can't run away from who you are.  And you can't trust *him*."

Just as earnest as ever, Hobson was pointing at something behind her.  Or someone.

And she, Scully suddenly noticed, was pointing her gun at him.

That wasn't right.  Who should she be--

Scanlon.

He was right there, just out of arm's reach, as soon as she turned her head to find him, still looking at her with concern that was different from Hobson's.  It was--no she was--a patient.  Someone he felt sorry for.  Someone he could use.

"We have to go now, Dana," he said, more of an edge to his voice this time, a condescending smile still plastered on his face.

It was as if her true consciousness slammed back into her body, and she took a step back. lowering her arms.  What had she been thinking?

What had she been *remembering*?

"Dana."  Scanlon was looking at his watch.  "Please, there may not be much time..."

"Stop calling me that," Scully said in a voice that was suddenly deeper and decibels louder.  Stronger.  She swiveled and brought the gun up again, pointing it at Scanlon this time, where she should have kept it all along.  The man in front of her blanched, and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.  "Not another word, Scanlon.  Put your hands up."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hobson get to his feet, heaving a sigh of relief.  Beyond him, someone was sitting in the shadows.  Elizabeth Barnett.  Scully nodded in her direction, and Hobson went to help her.  There was a crackle of car tires on gravel, and the light in the barn grew brighter, objects more distinct.  It must have been Donner--how long had she been lost in her memory, in her fear?

It didn't matter, she told herself.  It was over, now.  She had what she wanted.

Drawing a deep breath, Scully began: "Dr. Kevin Scanlon, you are under arrest for the murders of Betsy Hagopian and Penny Northern, for the kidnapping of Elizabeth Barnett, for conducting illegal medical research..."

The litany went on as she motioned for him to turn around.  Scanlon stared at her for a long moment, as if wondering what else he could say, but there was nothing that would change her mind now.  He turned and reluctantly allowed her to put the cuffs on, then guide him out the car.

Donner looked inordinately relieved to see her emerge from the barn.  "Miranda," Scully reminded him as she handed Scanlon over.  Grasping the older man by the arm, Donner removed a card from his coat pocket.  "You have the right to remain silent..."

Scully watched him push Scanlon into the car, next to the bulk of the man they'd arrested earlier.  She holstered her gun, then brought both hands up to massage her temples.  The headache was still there; it had never gone away, and now it was compounded by frustration.  Capturing Scanlon was a victory, of course, but Mulder was still AWOL, Scanlon would have to be made to talk and carefully guarded, someone would need to take Hobson's statement, Elizabeth Barnett needed medical care, and...

...and for the life of her, she couldn't explain what had happened to her in that barn.  It was a confusing mix of images, of past and present, light and shadow, truth and lies, and it was far too real, right now; already, just trying to remember, she could feel herself being drawn back into a place, a situation, a memory that she could not control.

This would never do, not here, not now.  Scully squared her shoulders and moved to the car, intending to find out how many reinforcements Donner had called for , and when they'd arrive.

The younger agent was leaning against the car, the back passenger's side door still open while he kept a very close eye on the suspects.  "You okay, Agent Scully?" he asked when she approached.

"Yes," she said decisively, hooking her hair over her right ear.

"What about your partner?"  Scully and Donner both turned to stare at Scanlon, who looked up from his seat with a smug smile on his face.  Too damn smug.

"What do you mean?" Scully asked wearily, not really caring what the answer was.  She had already had enough of this man and his delay tactics for one night.  For a lifetime.  There were footsteps on the gravel just beyond the car; Scully turned to see Gary Hobson escorting Elizabeth Barnett toward the others.  She still seemed unsteady on her feet, but her head was up, and she was walking pretty much under her own power, so Scully counted that as another victory, at least a temporary one.

Or, maybe, just maybe, this one would be permanent.  In his free hand Hobson held the haphazard remains of the Chicago Sun Times--no wonder it had taken him a while to get out here.  He needed his infernal talisman.

But it was more than that, wasn't it?  Even she had to admit--

She shook herself, wondering what Mulder's voice was doing in her head when she didn't even know where the hell he was.

Scully was about to go to Elizabeth Barnett and see how she was doing when Scanlon's voice cut through her thoughts.  "If you don't find him, he could be in trouble."

Tired though she was, the insinuation didn't escape Scully's notice.  She turned back and peered down at him, wondering how she could have ever trusted the man.  "You know where Mulder is."

Scanlon looked away from her, staring resolutely out the front windshield.  "I have a pretty good idea.  But since you've already declined my offer, and you're not about to shoot me in front of witnesses, I hardly feel any pressure to tell you."

Nauseous, Scully gripped the top of the car's back door.  Not again.  "He's at the research facility, isn't he?"

"He could never break in there, not alone.  But there are other places and other ways, not as well-guarded.  Of course, there's a reason for that.  And if your partner was thinking clearly..."  Still turned so that she could only see his profile, Scanlon stopped himself.

It didn't matter.  He didn't have to finish the thought.  If Mulder was thinking clearly he would realize that if some place was easy to get into, it probably was because someone knew he was coming.  But right about now she wasn't sure that her partner was thinking clearly.  Just a few minutes ago, not even Scully had been doing that.

Anxiety clawing at her gut all over again, Scully pulled out her cell phone, praying that the ringing wouldn't give Mulder away if he was hiding.  He had to be warned.  She moved away from the car as she dialed, motioning to Donner to shut the door.

Two rings, then: "Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me.  Where are you?"

His voice was low, excited--"Scully, I found it."

She frowned.  "Found what?"

"All of it, the records, the x-rays--Elizabeth Barnett, Scanlon cured her, Scully, at least that's what that newspaper of Hobson's said."

"I know--I mean, I'm here with them."

Mulder's voice was suddenly concerned.  "With whom?"

She watched as Hobson handed Elizabeth Barnett over to Donner and began using the hood of the car as an impromptu table to organize the loose pages of his newspaper.  Donner watched his actions incredulously for a moment, then shrugged and turned to talk with Elizabeth in a low voice.  "I'm with Scanlon, Hobson, and Elizabeth Barnett--Mulder, where *are* you?"

"You're at the barn?"

"Yes, but--"

"Well, then I'm--"

Mulder never finished.  A muffled explosion cut through the night.  The sound echoed in her ears--both the free one and the one pressed to her cell phone.  It was louder, much louder, in the latter.

"Mulder?  What happened?  Mulder!"  There was no answer, nothing but static.  Her hand dropped to her side, limp, and for just a moment, Scully felt her world drop away from her again.

No.  Not again.

"Agent Scully?  What was that?"

She stalked back to the car, ignoring Donner's concern and questions. Yanking open the door, she leaned in and grabbed Scanlon by the front of his coat.

"What the hell did you do to my partner?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 29

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
     ~ Carl Sandburg, "Who Am I?"
 

Damn.  Scanlon thought he'd won.

If Mulder was... then Scanlon had won.  They, the ever-elusive They, had won, and she'd missed it because she'd been weak.

She'd get the truth out of Scanlon, one way or another.  Pulling him halfway out of the car, she growled, "Where is he, you son of a bitch?"--but stopped when someone else tugged at her free arm.  "Hobson, what--?"  She tried to swat his hand away, but he wouldn't let go; he waved that damn paper of his in her face, pure panic in his eyes.

"We have to go," he insisted.

Cars were coming up the road, and an ambulance, she noted.  She hadn't let go of Scanlon and Hobson wouldn't let go of her.  What was his problem, anyway?  She had to find Mulder.  "Go where?  What are you talking about?"

He tugged even harder, until she released Scanlon and straightened up, ready to kick Hobson away again if she had to.  Still clinging to her arm, he pulled her across the barnyard and tried to steer her toward the other car, but she finally broke free.  "What the hell are you doing?"

He turned back toward her as he ran to the driver's side of the Lincoln.  "It's Agent Mulder," he called over the hood.  "I know where he is.  Let's go!"

That was all Scully needed to hear.  She sprinted for the passenger door, yelling something at a dumbfounded Donner about watching the suspects.  She wasn't even sure he understood.

"Hobson, what the hell?" she yelled as he found the keys in the ignition, gunned the engine, and slammed the car into reverse, then drive, and took off across the barnyard.  He threw the newspaper at her by way of explanation.  Some of the pages scattered to her feet, and while she tried to make sense of those she managed to catch, it was hopeless in the dark.

"I can't read this," she growled in frustration, but she looked up and realized she didn't need it.  An orange glow before them, like a beacon across the rolling Illinois farmland, grew brighter every second. "The road is that way."  She indicated the approaching headlights as Hobson turned the car off of the gravel and onto the bumpy, muddy fields.

"No time," he mumbled, squinting to focus on the--well, not the road, that was for sure.

He was headed for what Scully could now see was a house on fire as they tore over ruts and bounced across fields that she was pretty sure had never been part of the Lincoln's road test.  "Jesus, Hobson, this isn't an ATV and you're not exactly Evil Knevil."

"He's there," was all he would say, and Scully was just as glad his concentration was being spent on driving.

"Please tell me your head is better," she gasped as she fumbled to get the seat belt buckled and then braced one hand on the dash, the other on the car's roof.

"Uh...yeah...sure...it's fine," he muttered, wincing as they hit a particularly big rut.

It wasn't doing much to help Scully's own headache; it felt as though her teeth were being rattled out of their sockets.  She wondered if that paper held any stories about close encounters between Town Cars and stray cows or jumping trees.

Hobson turned the car when they finally hit another gravel road, and then Scully could smell the smoke, acrid and thickening rapidly as they approached the burning house.  The old, abandoned building was a tinderbox that would quickly burn itself out.  Flames were shooting out of the boarded-up windows and doors, and parts of the roof had already collapsed.

Scully was out of the car before it stopped moving, noting the Rent-a-Wreck Cavalier, its paint already peeling from the heat, parked a few yards closer to the house.  She started toward the front door, but Hobson shouted, "No!  Here!" and sprinted for the side of the house.  When she caught up with him, he was pulling on gloves, kicking at timbers that had fallen from the roof and walls onto a pair of cellar doors set at an oblique angle to the ground.

This was where Mulder had found the information?

Embers showered down around them.  "Down there?" Scully asked incredulously as she set to helping Hobson clear off three large, smoldering timbers, that had fallen from the house.  She protected her hands by pulling them into the sleeves of her coat.  In the light of the fire she could see him clenching his jaw, hard.  He just nodded, as if talking was too much extra effort.

"What did the paper say?" she asked as they worked.

He looked at her, eyes dark, mouth set in a determined line, but would only say, "Agent Mulder is down here."

Finally they got the boards cleared, and Hobson motioned her back as he grasped the metal handle with a gloved hand and pulled.  Smoke billowed out and a wave of heat hit them full on. Turning from the opening, he tried to push Scully back, but she shook her head.

"You shouldn't go down there," he yelled, his voice already hoarse.

"He's my partner," she countered, and after a brief moment, he nodded.  They both turned back to the opening.

"Mulder?" she called down into opaque darkness, and her voice echoed in a way that sound shouldn't, not off earthen walls anyway.  The light from the fire above and the minuscule flashlight Hobson was shining down into the opening revealed concrete steps, cement walls, and lots of gleaming metal--this was not Aunty Em's storm cellar.

Scully pulled the lapel of her coat over her face, covering her mouth and nose as she made her way down the stairs.  Hobson was at her heels.  When they reached the bottom, there was a sense of cavernous space, but she couldn't see much at all.

The fire didn't seem to have spread down here yet, but the smoke was encroaching, coloring the darkness of the cellar with clouds of grey.  She lost track of Hobson as they each took different routes, although, with visibility limited to arm's length, he didn't have to go far to disappear.  Scully bumped into something hard and heard metallic clangs, felt it roll away from her.

A surgical table?  Down here?

"Mulder?"

She moved as quickly as she could, as quickly as she dared, through the undefined space.  Smoke.  Heat.  Obstacles that presented themselves when they were only inches away, and sometimes not even then; her legs and arms were going to be covered in bruises.  Incredibly, the smoke was getting worse as she moved in what she hoped was a straight line, away from the steps, into the room.  She could hear Hobson calling for Mulder, as she was, and banging into stuff as well.  Together, they created a cacophony muffled only by the smoke; they were so loud that they almost drowned out the new sound--coughing.  Familiar coughing.

"Mulder?  Is that you?"

He loomed out of the smoke and caught her upper arms, eyes wide, wild.  >From the way he leaned into his grip, he didn't seem to be able to stand very well.  "Scully, this is the place, down here, they hid it down here."

His voice was little more than a croak, but he was there, he was conscious, thank God...Grasping his forearms so that his unbalanced weight wouldn't send them both toppling, she let her coat fall from her face, and choked on the inrush of sooty air.

"Come on, Scully, we have to find it!"

She shook her head, managed to find her voice.  "They know you're here, they meant to get you here, that's why they're burning it down.  We have to get you out of here."  She tried pulling him back the way she'd come, but he was insistent.

"No, Scully, the records, the samples, we have to go back in here and find them..."

"Mulder, please--"  Didn't he understand that his life was more important to her than medical data?

"Let's get out of here!"  Hobson appeared behind Mulder, a faint outline stumbling out of  the smoke.  Scully tried to blink, to clear her vision from more shadows, but these--these were real, and so was she.

"C'mon," Hobson continued, pointing toward the door.  "We're getting out, now."

"But there's proof, there's--"  Mulder paused, coughing.  A faint popping sound came from the far side of the room; he was trying to pull her toward it.

Planting her feet firmly on the cement floor, Scully held her ground.  "What proof, Mulder?  What did you find here?"

"We have to go back," he insisted.

"No.  We have to go now !"   Hobson's voice was desperate, and Scully wondered just what exactly he'd seen in that paper.   Grabbing their coat sleeves, one in each hand, he was trying to tug them back toward the stairs.  "If we don't, we're all gonna die down here, the ceiling's about to go, the house will collapse on top of us--"  He broke off in a coughing fit.

"We have time," Mulder persisted, pulling his arm free, but Hobson shook his head.  "How do you know?"

"How do you think I know?"  Hobson was trying to lead Scully, at least, away, but she wouldn't leave Mulder, and he wouldn't leave without the information he wanted.

Scully looked from one man to the other, facing another desperate choice.

"Agent Scully, please," Hobson pleaded.

"It's all right, Mulder," she finally yelled, over the sounds of creaking timber above.  "We have what we need, we have--we have Scanlon."

"But Scully--"

"Mulder, they knew you were coming all along."  Scully could feel her own voice cracking; the combination of shouting and smoke was too much.  "They wouldn't have left anything important here."

Louder pops and crackling sounds somewhere off in the dim recesses of the cellar startled them all.

"We're going now," Scully finished.  "Come on."

"You found Scanlon?"  Mulder was trying to read her eyes in the impossible haze.

She nodded.  Mulder looked back into the smoke, but Scully, still clutching Mulder's arm, was already following Hobson toward what she hoped was the entrance.  This time Mulder moved with her, stumbling a bit until she realized he was still limping on his ankle.  She draped his arm over her shoulder, and, to her surprise, he leaned against her without protest.

They made their way to the steps, Hobson pushing what sounded like another gurney out of the way.  At the foot of the stairs, Scully realized that getting out wasn't going to be any easier than getting in had been.  More pieces of the house, timbers and window frames and charred, shingled sections of roof, were raining down; some were already blocking their way.

"I'll clear a path--"  Hobson started up the steps, but more timber from the burning house fell across and into the opening in a shower of sparks and splinters.  Scully and Mulder both reached for his jacket and yanked him back.

They were all coughing by now, into coats that were nearly as smoke-filled as the air around them.  Desperate for air, for better light, Scully shook off Mulder's arm and started up the stairs.  Somehow she managed to get a shoulder under the biggest timber blocking the doorway and started to shove; soon other hands, Mulder's and Hobson's, were there, too, and the three of them pushed the beam to the side until the opening was wide enough to allow them passage.

"Go!"  Mulder's shove practically threw her up and out the opening.  Choking on the somewhat fresher air, she turned and reached down for her partner.  Hobson followed on his heels, and the three of them jogged as quickly as they could away from the house, back toward the cars, where there was cooler, cleaner air on their skin, in their lungs.  They all turned back, though, at a long creak that built in intensity, then ended in a crash as the house's supports gave way, and it caved in upon itself.  Scully shut her eyes for a moment, letting what might have happened go in a rush of gratitude.

Mulder sank to the ground, leaning his back against the front right tire of the Lincoln.  He drew his knees up and rested his forearms on them, dropping his head.  Scully bent over him, vaguely aware of Hobson at her back as she placed a hand on her partner's shoulder.

"Mulder?  Are you okay?"

He nodded, still not looking up.  Her own legs suddenly limp as noodles, Scully plopped to the ground next to Mulder, leaning her head back against the car.  She reached for her partner's hand and wondered how to even begin telling him what had happened back there in the barn.

"Anybody got any Tylenol?"

Scully opened her eyes to find that Hobson, too, had lowered himself to sit in the dirt.  Not that a little dirt mattered, for any of them; in the eerie orange glow of the fire, she could see that the two men flanking her were covered with splotches of soot, and she knew that she, too, was not about to win any beauty contests.

"I think we can manage that, Hobson," Scully told him, and for some reason they both grinned at each other.  Mulder finally looked up, staring at the two of them as if they were lunatics.  Scully was about to say more when she heard the sound of a car, saw the sheen of headlights. Scrambling to her feet, one hand resting on her holster, she watched as a red sportscar purred to a stop a little way from the house.

Two figures exited the car.  Scully, blinking into the headlights, bit back an exclamation as she recognized them both.  Her hand fell away from her gun, and she told Hobson, "Looks like you have company."  He looked up, first at her, then at the man who was jogging over to the little group.

"Chuck?"

Hobson and Mulder both got to their feet, moving as stiffly as Scully herself felt.  She brought one hand up to massage the back of her neck, but dropped it quickly when she realized Mulder was watching.  Practically dancing in his impatience to find out what had happened, Fishman asked, "Gar?  You okay?"

Marissa Clark wasn't far behind, though her dog was leading her slowly over the unfamiliar terrain.  "Is he there, Chuck?"

"How did you--" Hobson began while Mulder shook his head.

"Scully, what are they doing here?  Is this your idea of backup?"

"No, they are."  She pointed at the approaching pairs of headlights that had just turned onto the lane that led to the house, then turned to watch the little scene playing out before her.  Hobson was trying to get around Fishman, but the little guy had a hand on his friend's arm, looking him up and down.

"You're looking a little worse for the wear there, buddy," Fishman observed, managing, as Mulder often did, to sound sarcastic and concerned at the same time.

Hobson ignored him for the moment, and stepped over to where Marissa had paused, a few feet away from everyone else.  "Gary?  Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm okay, Marissa," Hobson mumbled as his friend pulled him into a quick, tight hug.  "I'm fine, Chuck, really," he continued in response to Fishman's dubious stare.

Scully couldn't help it; this time she grinned at her partner.  He just shook his head at her, muttering something about "two of a kind", but he couldn't hide the wistful note in his voice.

Brushing what soot she could off her sleeves, Scully asked, "What, Mulder, you don't think Frohike's going to hug you when you tell him about the Hobson-Kennedy conspiracy?"

Mulder watched the trio for another moment before turning to Scully and saying, in all seriousness, "I don't think I'm going to be telling Frohike anything about Hobson."

She nodded, and reached over to squeeze his arm.  "Good choice."

Marissa was asking about everyone else as the other FBI cars--half the Chicago field office, by the looks of it, pulled up, followed by fire trucks and an ambulance.  Hobson was trying to pull both his friends out of the way.  "Yeah, it's okay, Marissa, everyone's--Agents Mulder and Scully are here and I think Elizabeth Barnett--"  He looked at Scully and their eyes met for a moment.  "I think she's going to be okay, too."  He turned to Fishman.  "What I still don't get is what you're doing here."

"He read the paper over my shoulder," Scully said, glaring narrowly at Fishman, who beamed as if she'd patted him on the head.

"Yeah, and I knew the general area was the same as a couple of nights ago, so we came out and when I saw the flames from the road and I just figured, where there's smoke, there's Gary!"  Fishman finished brightly.  Hobson ran a hand through his hair and shot him a disgusted look.

Scully turned to Mulder, who was staring, not at the new arrivals, but back at the house, nothing more than an oversized bonfire now, framed by ashes and embers and swirling tendrils of smoke.

"Don't," she told him simply, a hand on his arm.  He started and stared at her in surprise.

"Don't eat yourself up over this," Scully continued, in a voice so low that only Mulder could here.

"I failed you, Scully."

She shook her head.  "It's--it's not time to talk about failure yet.  We made progress tonight.  We have a cancer victim who might be cured.  We have Scanlon; that's some measure of justice, don't you think?"

"But you---"  Mulder turned, and for the first time that night he looked, really looked her in the eye, and for the first time in a long time she didn't flinch or turn away.  She wasn't sure what he was reading in her eyes, on her face, but his eyes widened at whatever it was he saw.  "Scully?  Are you--how--"

"I'm--"  She almost said it, but wasn't right.  She settled for the truth.  "I'm tired, Mulder."

He nodded slowly.  "What happened back there?"

She smiled a faint, wry smile.   "It's a long story, one you need to hear.  Let the nice EMTs take a look at you and then--and then you and I are going to have a talk."  And she wasn't going to be the only one talking.  There were some truths she wanted--no, needed--to hear.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 30
 

Truth is just like time,
It catches up
And it just keeps going
     ~ Dar Williams
 

Mulder waited impatiently for the line of elementary school students to clear the doorway.  Jabbering excitedly, pointing out swords, armor, and chalices to each other, the pairs of children filed in, but slowly; and of course each pair had to stop right in the doorway to take in the sights.

"Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six!"  The young teacher who stood opposite Mulder counted the last pair, breathed a sigh of relief, and flashed him an apologetic smile as she followed the children into the long gallery, calling, "No, Jeremy, we do not lick the display cases!"

Thankful that the horde was headed the other way, Mulder slipped through the doorway, pausing on the landing for the short set of steps that led to the connecting gallery.  At first he didn't see her; the ethereal blue light that filled the room before him was a commanding presence in and of itself.  He hadn't understood, when Scully had called him earlier in the day, why she'd wanted to meet here, but now he had a better idea.

"Mulder?"

Peering over the railing, he saw that Scully sat on the bench directly below him.  Head tilted back, red hair falling away from her face, she blinked up at him with eyes the same intense shade of blue as the windows.

"Hey, Scully."

She scooted from the center of the bench to one end, making room for him.  Mulder, who had good reason to draw this moment out, took the ramp rather than the stairs, and instead of sitting down next to her, he wandered the few yards over to read the notations about the windows.  He felt, as much as heard, Scully's sigh behind him, and turned to find her standing close, watching him with a curious, eclectic mix of emotions in her eyes.

"Marc Chagall's American Windows," he murmured, turning back to read from the card.  "Created to honor the Bicentennial and pay tribute to the arts which flourish in a free society."  Not that there was anything ironic about that, not today...he cleared his throat.  "I never would have taken you for a surrealist, Scully."

"It's not exactly surrealism--Chagall was in a category all by himself," she pointed out, her gaze sweeping the expanse of the three large windows before settling on Mulder again.  "And just because I require realism and concrete facts in my work, that doesn't mean I need an exclusive diet of them all the time.  But as long as you brought it up--"  She placed one hand on his arm, head tilted to try to read his eyes, his face.  "What have you learned so far?"

Mulder met her eyes for a moment, then blinked and looked away.  Other museum visitors had come to get a closer look at the windows, so he inclined his head toward the bench, and they walked back to it, sitting down in the same fluid motion; synchronized, choreographed.  "Scully--"  Mulder looked down at his hands, fingers that didn't know what to do lying limp against the dark fabric of his trench coat.  When he looked up again, she was watching him intently.  "Scanlon's gone."

"What happened?"

"It was the NSA."

Her eyes widened.  "The National Security Agency?  How in the world is this their jurisdiction?"

"Apparently he has information that poses a security risk.  They came in with orders from the National Security Council, if you can believe that one, and took him into protective custody."

Scully leaned her head against the wall behind them, shutting her eyes.  They both had known something like this could happen, but to have it be their own government that took away their chance for justice, for the truth, was a blow neither one had expected.

"I had Skinner on the phone the minute they showed up, and he'd like to put Rawlings' butt in a sling over letting Scanlon out of the FBI's hands, but the orders, whoever sent them, came from too high up.  Rawlings had to release Scanlon into their custody--Scully, I'm sorry.  According to Skinner the NSA has agreed to share any information they learn that might be pertinent to your case--"

"But we both know that will never happen."  She sighed.  "Do you believe that they are who they said they were?"

"Skinner does."  He hesitated over what to say next.  Somehow, here, it wasn't important to go into all the details, the shouting match he'd gotten into with the NSA agents, with ASAC Rawlings, even with Skinner, until Mulder had realized that they were both on the same side.  It wasn't important that Scanlon, Nelson, or whoever the hell he was, had a smug little smirk on his face that Mulder would have gladly wiped off for him, if not for the presence of six NSA agents, heavily armed and nearly twice his size.  "If it's any consolation--"

"Consolation, Mulder?"  He'd expected her to be angry, but her voice was quiet, her posture still.  Resigned?  No, not Scully, he couldn't let her be resigned.  "I don't think there's any such thing," she continued, staring at the window.  "We both knew something like this could happen.  At least it's our government that has him.  He won't be able to do this to anyone else."

"No, he won't."  Mulder reached over and squeezed her hand.  Now was not the time to point out the possibility of the US government's involvement in what had happened to her.  "You did what you set out to do, Scully."

"Did I?"  Her quick laugh was sardonic.  "All this proves, all over again, is that there is no justice.  Makes a mockery of this whole FBI gig, doesn't it?"

"What about Elizabeth Barnett?" Mulder asked, wanting someone other than this sarcastic, almost-defeated version of his partner to rise from the ashes of yet another unresolved case.  She should be angry, fighting, ready to do more damage.  "She's alive, and she's safe, and so are a lot of other women in Chicago who might have ended up--"  Biting back what he'd been about to say, he fell silent.  It didn't matter.  She knew.

"Like me?"  Her expression softened.  "No, Mulder, she won't.  Her cancer is in remission.  Her doctors--her real doctors--can't explain it."

"Can you?"

"I saw the tests they've been performing on her--blood tests, every possible scan and imaging procedure on the brain--she's in remission; not cured, but a lot healthier than she's been in months.  Happier, too.  I spoke with her and it was like she was a different person."

Of course she was a different person, Mulder thought with a trace of bitterness.  She'd been freed of a death sentence.

"And Agent Janski's going to be fine." Scully continued, her tone lightening.  "He'll be pulling desk duty for a couple of months, but he should make a full recovery."  Her fingers worried at a loose thread in the topstitching of her coat, her attention focused, for the moment, on this detail.  He couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like to have come so close to a cure, only to walk away empty-handed.

"Scully--"  He spoke hesitantly, not sure of his reception.  "At least now there's hope.  If there was a way to cure Elizabeth Barnett, there *has* to be a way for you, too."

She wrapped the thread around her index finger, so tight the skin above it turned white.  "Do you believe that, Mulder?"

"Of course I do."  He had to.  The alternative was simply not acceptable.  He tried to quell the rising fear--if she gave up now, they really would win.  "Scully, what happened between you and Scanlon?  I read the report you sent to Skinner--by the way, thanks for showing me up again and turning yours in to him in record time--but I know you left something out."

She snapped the thread and brushed it off her finger, the sound audible in the quiet gallery.  After one more searching look into Mulder's eyes, as if trying to ascertain just what it was he really did believe, Scully got up and walked over to the windows, standing, arms folded across her chest, head tilted to one side, looking up at the middle window of the three.  When Mulder came to stand beside her she said, never taking her gaze from the blue-swirled glass, "It's more the colors than anything else that I love about these windows.  I used to come here a lot, and I just thought...thought this might be a chance to show it to you, since I won't--"

Her words sent chills through him, and he touched her arm, lightly, but wanting her attention, needing the truth.  "Since you won't be coming back?  Is that what this is, Scully?  Some kind of checklist: 'Things To Do Before I Die'?  Are you giving up?"  He hadn't meant to inject his words with that angry edge, but there it was.

With a sigh, she turned to face him.  "Mulder, you're always accusing me of keeping things inside, of not telling you what I'm feeling.  Well this is--this is important, this place.  It holds comfort, and memories..."  It must have been the dry air in the museum that caused her to choke, almost imperceptibly, on that last word.  It must have.

"Scully, what is it?"

For a long moment there was silence.  Scully had refocused on some point a foot above her head in the damn window, and Mulder was sure she was going to leave him in limbo.  Finally, though, she said, her voice controlled, deliberate, "In that barn, with Scanlon there, I started to remember.  Not much, no details," she added ruefully.  Now she did look at him, and to his surprise, her was gaze questioning.  "But enough to know why this--why remembering what happened--is so hard for me.  It was almost overwhelming, and it made me realize--"  Her voice dropped even further, and she swallowed, looking down at her hands.  "Mulder, I need to know how you see me."

That brought Mulder up short.  What did she mean, how he saw her?  That should have been obvious.  He spread out his hands.  "Scully, you're my partner.  You're my friend."

Evidently that wasn't what she wanted; she shook her head.  "I'm not talking about defining our relationship, not exactly.  I'm not talking about defining me in relation to you."  Arms straight at her sides, she stared up at him with serious purpose, so intense it made his heart pound a little faster.  "When you look at me, when you think about me, who is it that you see?"

It was an impossible question.  He couldn't separate who she was from his own relationship to her.  Could he?  Well, maybe it was worth a shot.  It seemed that more than just their partnership was riding on his answer.

"Scully, you're the most--"  No, wait, that was a comparative.  He tried again, leaning down a little, trying to infuse his words with as much sincerity as her question.  "You are intelligent, brave, committed, and--and compassionate.  I'm not sure I know all the right words to describe you, actually, because I've never known anyone like you."

She hadn't wavered, and for another few seconds she continued to watch him, as if to gauge the honesty of his assessment.  What else was he supposed to say?  Talk about being lost in the woods without a compass.  "You--you're Scully," he finished helplessly.

To his surprise, she smiled--not a half-hearted, sarcastic grin, not a mocking upturn of her lips, but a rare breed: the full-out, warm Scully-smile.  "Don't you forget it."

Mulder blinked in astonishment.  It was like winning a game show for which he'd never auditioned.  "What does this have to do with anything, Scully?"

The smile faded, but not the warmth.  Not the serious determination, either.  "I want you to remember, Mulder, whatever happens--I walked into this with my eyes wide open.  This is my quest now, as much as it is yours, and it's my choice.   At times I might regret it, but those are my regrets.  And I don't need you to protect me from my own choices, or anyone else's.  I'm here because I believe there are answers, and I have faith that we can find them.  But together.  No more secrets, not about this."  She waited until he nodded, still not quite sure what it was he'd just agreed to, but relieved that she wasn't giving in to the disease or the men who had caused it.  She turned, and the blue light fell from her face as they started toward the steps.

"Oh, and Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Ditch me again, and you can pull your own ass out of the cellar."

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 31

Cause and effect, chain of events
All of the chaos makes perfect sense
When you're spinning 'round, things come undone
Welcome to Earth, third rock from the sun.
     ~ Joe Diffie, "Third Rock from the Sun"
 

"Okay, let me see if I have this straight."  Marissa leaned forward, elbows on the high, round table, a small smile playing on her lips.  "If Agent Mulder hadn't taken the paper with him when he left you at the barn, he wouldn't have set it aside, and Agent Scully wouldn't have found it."

"Yeah, and if she hadn't come down to talk to us, she wouldn't have seen the story in the first place, so she wouldn't have been able to find you," Chuck chimed in.  He was perched on the stool next to Marissa's, pool cue in one hand and beer in the other.

Gary just shrugged as he lined up his shot.  "I guess."  He was trying not to think too hard about it.

"Not to mention the fact that Crumb called her, which I still find totally unbelievable, because of what Marissa told him.  So, really, Gar, in the end, we were the ones who saved your butt," Chuck concluded gleefully.

Gary sank a ball and reached for the chalk.  "Sure, Chuck, whatever."

"No, actually, that's not it, either, because Agent Scully wasn't looking for Gary, she was looking for Elizabeth Barnett and for her partner," Marissa corrected.

Having missed the next shot, Gary moved over to their table.  "Why are we doing this?" he asked.  He didn't really see the point.  Things had happened as they happened; he could only change the future, not the past.

Ignoring him, Chuck leaned across the table toward Marissa.  "But the paper knew Gary would be there, it must have, that's why it sent Agent Scully there and--No!"  Slamming a fist on the table, he sat up straight.  Marissa jumped. "It was the cat!  The cat knew, and--"  He stopped, frowning.  "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Join the club," Gary muttered.  He signaled the waitress for another beer.

"The whole thing, it's like..."  Chuck waved his arms around, searching for the right word.  "It's like some overarching, paranormal, mystic--kismet!"

"Kismet?" Gary asked, shaking his head.

"Yeah, you know, Gar, fate, destiny--"

"No," Marissa cut in.  "There is no such thing as predetermined fate.  This was simply a case of cause and effect."

"Chaos theory."  A low, sardonic voice from behind caused them all to turn.  "Do I have that right, Dr. Scully?" Mulder asked, lifting his eyebrows at his partner.

"Sensitive dependence on initial conditions," she said with a nod.  "Something wrong, Mr. Fishman?"

Chuck was staring at the pair, wide-eyed and with the same expression he usually got when Gary needed his help with the paper.  "Uh...I guess that's up to you guys."

Gary choked back a laugh.  Chuck's paranoia was going to give him a heart attack one of these days.

"Mr. Hobson," Agent Scully was saying, ignoring Chuck completely, "we just came to--"

"It's Gary."

"Well, Gary..." Mulder drew out the name, just a little, and Gary wondered if he was being made fun of again.  "We missed you today.  Have you switched over to saving CIA agents?"

"Only on alternating Thursdays," Chuck shot back, as if Gary needed defending.  "Today it was a treasury agent who got his tie caught in a forger's printing press."

"Where the hell do you come up with this stuff?" Gary murmured as he and Chuck pulled stools over for the two agents.  His friend didn't answer, concentrating instead on making sure that he sat as close to Scully as possible.

"I've heard of that before, that chaos theory thing," Chuck said.  "It's the, the, whoosee-whatsit--caterpillar effect."

"Close.  It's commonly known as the Butterfly Effect."  Scully nodded at some unvoiced question Mulder was asking her with his eyes, and he drifted over to the bar to order drinks.  "It means that small variations in previous events can lead to large differences in later outcomes.  A butterfly flaps its wings in Fiji, changes the direction of a few air molecules, and you get hail instead of rain here in Chicago a week later."

She took the stool Gary offered.  He watched her carefully, but she seemed as self-possessed and in control as she'd ever been.  Noticing his stare, she lifted an eyebrow as she continued, "It's not as simple as that, of course.  A lot of other causal factors come into play, but without an extensive background in mathematics and a building full of Crays, it's almost impossible to trace the causality of most single moments in our lives."

"Thank you, Dr. Carl Sagan," Chuck cracked, but there was a note of respect in his voice.

Agent Scully must have caught it, because she smiled as she said, "I'll take that as a compliment."

Chuck was damned lucky she did.

Mulder returned with two glasses, while Gary, absently pulling the label off his beer, asked, "What happens next?"

He could feel Marissa stiffen beside him, and saw Chuck eyeing the two agents closely.  Gary could imagine his friends' thoughts--next?  There's a 'next'?  But he had to ask, had to tempt fate and appease his curiosity, because he had to know if any of this would come back to haunt him.

After another quick, communicative glance shared with her partner, Scully said, "Next, we go back to Washington.  We continue to look for the men involved in this--"  Her gaze flickered over to Chuck and Marissa.  "This case.  The research facility has been shut down, and we can track them better from our own office, using our resources."

"Was there anything--anything there, like what you were looking for?"  Gary caught and held Scully's gaze, but she shook her head and a shadow crossed her eyes and was gone, for the moment, anyway.

"There will be trials for Mr. Lutz and Mr. Swanson, of course," she went on, "and you will be called to testify."

"Mr. Swanson?"

"The gunman in the barn, the one who almost shot you?"  Scully wasn't teasing, she was just reminding him; Chuck, on the other hand, fixed Gary with a tight-lipped glare.  He still wasn't ready to forgive him for running off with Mulder.

Gary could feel his fingers curling into a fist, squishing the damp label into a ball.  That gun, that face , ranked right up there with Marley in terms of good, old-fashioned nightmare fuel.  "This trial, where will it be?  And what about Dr. Scanlon?"

Again, the haunted look crossed Scully's face; it was Mulder who answered Gary's questions.  "You don't need to worry about Scanlon," he said, with a quiet finality and a pointed look that made it clear that particular matter was closed to discussion.  "The trial for the others will be here, but it's possible that we may need you in Washington for a few days, to answer some questions."

"But only about this case," Scully assured Gary.

"I--I don't know if I can do that.  I have responsibilities here."  Not only that, but he was sure it was more than the past couple of days Mulder would want to pry into.

"I'm sure something will work itself out," she assured him.

Chuck nudged Gary in the ribs.  "Hey, Gar, maybe you can right a few wrongs in DC."

"Or visit Meredith Carson at the Post," Marissa added with a sly smile.

"Oh, yeah."  Gary flicked the soggy label into an ashtray.  "You two are a big help."

Scully flashed him a funny look, as if she was about to say something, but she settled for an enigmatic twist of her lips and a sip of her drink.

"What are you going to do about the paper?" Marissa asked, adopting a more matter-of-fact tone.  "I think Gary has a right to know."

"We have bigger fish to fry--no offense."  Mulder nodded at Chuck, whose forehead had wrinkled at the idiom.  Just once, Gary would have liked to know why the guy seemed to get such a kick out of yanking all their chains.

"Whatever's going on here, it's not posing a threat to anyone," Scully filled in quickly.  "There's no reason for us to pursue it any further.  But, Gary, about what you saw, what you heard--we'd appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself."  Her blue-eyed, piercing gaze said everything her words didn't; she was asking for more than simple discretion here.

"There's no one I would tell," Gary said simply.  "Who would believe me, anyway?"  Scully nodded, sealing the understanding between them.  Finishing off her wine, she slid off the high stool, brushing wrinkles out of the coat she hadn't bothered to remove.  "Thank you, all of you, for your...help."  She flashed a smile that would no doubt have Chuck in ecstasy for days; reached over and squeezed Marissa's hand.

"Thanks for believing," said Marissa.

Mulder stood, as did Gary, the two men finally facing each other without the wariness that had marked their previous interactions.  "Good luck, Hobson."  Mulder shook Gary's hand.

"You, too."

Mulder stepped aside as Gary held out his hand to shake Scully's, but to his surprise she stood on tiptoe and brushed a faint, friendly kiss across his cheek.

"Thank you, Gary."  Even as his cheeks warmed to the roots of his hair, he tried to smile back at her, but he couldn't help but worry about what he knew.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She tilted her head to one side, her gaze steady and self-assured.  "Time will tell."

Gary nodded; he knew that well enough.  He watched them make their way through the bar and out the front door, not turning until Marissa said quietly, "She made a choice, Gary."

"I know, I just...I just hope it's the right one."  The thought of someone like Agent Scully sick, dying from a disease like cancer, was almost more than Gary could wrap his head around.

"She would have been less than herself if she made a different choice, if she had believed Dr. Scanlon, or gone with him."

"I don't know if I could have done it," Gary said honestly.  He downed a swig of his beer while Chuck picked up his pool cue.

"Thank goodness you didn't have to," said Marissa.  "The choices you need to make are hard enough as it is."

Lining up his shot, Chuck called over his shoulder, "Hey, don't worry about it, Gar.  Do what I do--have another beer and face tomorrow when it comes."

"Or the day before," Gary finished, sneaking a look under the nearby tables.  Not a cat in sight.  Finally, a night off.

"Damn!" Chuck exclaimed as his shot ricocheted off the bumper and sank the eight ball.

Marissa slid off her stool, joining her friends at the pool table.  "Hey, when are you guys going to teach me to play, anyway?"

* * * * *

Scully watched the city fall away below her, the million lights of Chicago contrasting with the vast dark of Lake Michigan and blurring together as the plane climbed.  Finally, they went through a cloud bank, and the lights blinked out, then became stars.  With a sigh, she turned to her partner, who'd been watching her the whole time.  She'd felt it.  "What's next?"

His gaze skidded away from her and over the teenagers across the aisle from them; he knew he'd been caught in the act, but refused to acknowledge it.  "A mountain of paperwork, according to Skinner."

"Oh, joy."  She rolled her eyes.  "What are we going to do this time, flip for it?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a game of paper, rock, scissors."  He was leaning slightly forward in his seat, one hand tapping out a rhythm on the side of his knee.  Usually by now he was reading, sleeping, or teasing her with details of the next case, and she wondered what he was up to.  "Hey," he said, "what was that name Hobson's friend mentioned?  Somebody Carson?  At the post?  You think she knows anything about that newspaper?"

"Mulder, let it drop."  Determined not to let his antsiness, whatever the cause, affect her, Scully settled back into her seat.  "We promised him we weren't going to bother him about it anymore."

"But Scully--"

"No."

He sighed, and then, when he caught her watching him out of the corner of her eye, his mouth spread, just a little, into a Cheshire Cat smile.  Here it came.

"Well, in that case, I do have a file I want you to take a look at."  The seat belt sign blinked off with a loud "ding", and Mulder stood.  He pulled his briefcase from the overhead bin, handing her a folder as he said, "I'm just going to go visit the little agent's room, stretch my legs a bit."

Scully frowned at the folder.  It was heavy, but not with paperwork; inside was something slightly smaller than the folder, rectangular and about half an inch thick, wrapped in brown paper and fastened with masking tape.  She craned her neck to look back down the aisle, but Mulder was nowhere in sight.  "This better not be a gigantic alien microscope slide," she muttered, pulling the tape off and undoing the folds of paper.

It wasn't.

It rested in her lap for just a moment as her hands fell away and her jaw dropped in shock.  Then, careful to touch the silver frame and not the glass, she held it up, tilting it this way and that so the light could shine through.  It was a reproduction of one of the Chagall windows, in miniature; she could see a book, a hand, a pen...but more than all that, it was the blue, running the gamut from almost-white to deep indigo, all of them there, moving, swirling, bleeding into each other, but contained in the simple frame.

"You like?"

Mulder stood in the aisle, leaning over the seat next to hers and grinning, entirely too proud of himself.  For once, she didn't mind.

"This is--Mulder, it's beautiful."

"Yeah, well," he said with a casual shrug, sliding into his seat, "Chicago's the kind of town that if you go, you ought to get a souvenir."

It was more than a souvenir, of course, but Scully knew better than to press the issue and embarrass him.  She also knew it was a way of saying what he hadn't been able to earlier.  It was something of a talisman, something of a covenant.  She reached over to squeeze his arm.

"Thank you."

She'd been saying that a lot today, to Donner, to Hobson, and now to Mulder--but it was good to be able to say it, to know that she could rely on help for other people without diminishing herself.  "I mean it, Mulder," she added, making sure he looked her in the eye and understood what she was saying.  "This means a great deal to me."

"You're welcome," he said, and then looked down and away.

Time to chance the subject, before they both got too uncomfortable to be around each other.  She set the glass in her lap, but found herself unable to take her fingers off it.  Tracing the outline of the frame, she asked, "What did you get for yourself?"

Mulder grinned like a five-year-old, reached into his coat pocket, and whipped out a baseball cap.

"A Cubs hat?  That's it?" she asked dubiously.

"This, and a lovely bag of peanuts."  He nodded at the snack the flight attendant had just plopped on his lap, then donned the hat.  "I'd say the Cubs are an X-File in and of themselves, and besides, it's symbolic."

"Symbolic?  The Cubs?"

"Yeah."  Settling back in his seat, he pulled the brim low over his eyes.  "Hope springs eternal."

* * * * * * * * * *
Finis

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