Title: Rongbuk
Author: Ravenscion
E-mail: ravenscion@hotmail.com
Rating: R (language, violence, sex)
Category: XR
Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance, some angst
Spoilers: possible for seasons 1-5 and the movie.
Date of First Posting: 29 August 1998
Author's website: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/6767/
Archiving: Please archive at Gossamer.  Others, please email for
permission.

Summary and notes: see chapter 1.

Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all of the other characters
and situations related to the X-Files, belong to Chris Carter, 1013
Productions, and the FOX network.  I am using them without permission
but intend no copyright infringement.

[begin part 6 of 11]
************************************************************************

Kathmandu, Nepal
Sunday, 20 September, 9:45 a.m.

Jill Whittaker took a long sip from her cup of coffee and considered the
second strange event that had occurred within the space of a week.  She
suppressed a shiver.  The first had been merely unusual, but this new
development had made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up as
a chill had crept up her spine.

Less than 72 hours after she had placed him on a Royal Nepal Airlines
flight for the Persian Gulf, and less than 48 hours from when, according
to the message she had received, he had landed safely at Andrews Air
Force base in Maryland, John Leslie had walked into the U.S. embassy in
Kathmandu asking for transport back to America.  One of Jill's contacts
among the embassy's consular officers, a young man who didn't question
her willingness to share his bed and who made a point of not sensing the
connection between the favors she bestowed upon him and those she asked
of him in turn, had called her at home early Sunday morning with the
news.  Having previously helped arrange for Leslie's papers on short
notice, under no small pressure from Jill to handle the affair
expeditiously and discretely, he well remembered both the man's name and
face, and had been understandably surprised to see him in Kathmandu a
few days later.

Jill, having known who was waiting for Leslie back in the States, had
been even more surprised.

And now he sat across from her, in her office, just as he had a few days
before, though he seemed to be in somewhat better shape than he had when
she had last spoken to him.

She lit a cigarette to go with her coffee.  "So tell me, John, how do
come to be here in Kathmandu again so soon?"  She cocked an eyebrow at
him.  "If I had been in your shoes, I'd could have thought of a long
list of places to go before coming back to this shit-hole."

A look of puzzlement invaded the features of the man seated across from
her.  "I'm not sure I follow you, Miss...?"

"Whittaker.  Call me Jill, please."  She gave him her most engaging
smile.  The hell you don't, she thought, but we can play games if you
wish.  "Smoke?"

Leslie brightened.  "Ah, yes, please."  He took the cigarette she
offered him, then patted his clothes in an unsuccessful search for a
light.  "Hmmm.  I seem to have lost..."

Jill offered him her lighter, which he examined before using it to light
the cigarette.  "I'm very sorry," he said, "but I don't remember when I
was last in Kathmandu.  I think I may have been...injured...while I was
in Tibet."

"Injured?"

"I don't remember how I got there -- to the monastery, I mean.  And I
don't remember anything before that at all."  He paused for a moment,
then said "I'm not even sure I am who you say I am."

"Are you saying you're *not* John Leslie?"  Jill was incredulous.  Did
he think she had been born yesterday?

"I don't remember," he said.

Jill gave him a hard look, but Leslie did not react.  "Wait here," she
said.  "I have to make a call."

This was just too weird, she thought.

************************************************************************

Western Massachusetts
20 September, 1:07 a.m.

Dana Scully reached for her travel cup and sipped lukewarm coffee as she
directed the car through the turns of a winding mountain road somewhere
in what Mulder had referred to as 'Lovecraft Country.'  In the
passenger's seat, her partner slept, leaning against the right-hand
window, a rolled-up jacket serving as a pillow for his head.  Though
they had neared their destination, the small Appalachian village of
Arkham, Scully not woken him.  The earlier events of the day had left
Mulder exhausted, and he needed every minute of rest he could get.

They had hurried back to the offices of "The Lone Gunman," realizing as
they did so they would be too late to prevent the harm from being done.
Florescu had to have been spying on the 'Gunmen,' or Krycek's plans, at
least the smoking man's version of those plans, made no sense.  And sure
enough, after a lengthy search of the cluttered office, a rather morose-
looking Frohike had turned up the listening device, evidently hidden in
the room by Florescu when he had first visited them.

Not since Mulder's apparent death in New Mexico had Scully seen the
'Gunmen' look so lugubrious.  On top of everything else, their pride in
their work had been wounded.

The implications of the discovery were more serious than that, though.
The presence of the bug meant that Florescu could have been privy to
every conversation she and Mulder had held with their friends.

Every conversation -- Scully shuddered at the thought, trying to
remember the details of each discussion they had had at the 'Gunman' in
the last couple of weeks, finally giving up the endeavor as both
impossible and useless.  There was no repairing the damage now.

She remembered too the look of dismay she had exchanged with Mulder when
they had realized, simultaneously but belatedly, that the smoking man
might have been wrong about Florescu, that he might still have had the
'Gunman' under audio surveillance.  Earlier, they had told their friends
what the smoking man had told them about Arkham, and by the time they
had realized the implications of that, it had been close to 4:00 --
Florescu had done a devilish job of concealing the listening device,
prompting reluctant admiration even from the notoriously difficult-to-
impress Ringo Langly -- and though Mulder had insisted on starting for
Arkham at once, they had both known that the effort would likely prove
futile.

Florescu would have had a head start of several hours.

They had considered trying to catch a flight to the area, but quickly
settled on a long drive.  Though it would be tiring, travel by car would
give them greater flexibility and would not take much more time, given
the airline schedules and Arkham's remote location.

And so Mulder had pointed their vehicle northward along I-95 and driven
with single-minded determination, stopping only for the briefest of
meals -- Scully had contented herself with a soft pretzel and a cup of
coffee purchased in a rest-and-refueling area -- and to at last give up
the wheel to her, after almost eight hours on the road.  During the
drive, they had talked through their earlier disagreement, Scully
acquiescing to Mulder's urge to visit Arkham to see for himself whether
their -- and Florescu's -- errand had hope of success.

Not that Mulder had given her much choice.  His self-recrimination for
the mistakes they had made had sent him into pursuit mode, the one that
at times put him in terrible danger, forcing Scully to follow him and
bail him out of trouble.  That had been the case years before, when she
had found him, barely alive under the assault of an alien retrovirus, in
the hands of a bewildered medical staff at a base in Alaska.

Of course, that same uncompromising devotion had brought him to the
Antarctic as well, to free her from her crystal coffin deep within an
alien tomb, without regard to the danger to his own person.

Scully looked affectionately at her sleeping partner.  Mulder was a
haunted, imperfect knight, but his passion and devotion had won her
love long before.  She had carried that love in the most secret place
in her heart, through all the difficult years, nourishing and treasuring
it through dozens of long stake-outs and in a thousand bleak motel
rooms.  Scully turned her attention back to the road, resisting the urge
to reach over and touch him, and returned her thoughts to the purpose of
their journey.

In the passenger seat for most of the trip, Scully had examined a print-
out of Florescu's image, acquired at the last minute from one of the
security tapes from 'The Lone Gunman' offices.  The picture was a bit
grainy, but clear enough that she would recognize the man if she were to
see him.  Florescu had long hair pulled back from a wide brow, over
clear, intelligent eyes.  His nose, strait and hooking slightly
downward, gave him a somewhat predatory look, accented by a drooping
mustache.  He was not unhandsome, Scully decided, but had an
intimidating and dangerous cast to his features.

His was the face of a killer, she thought, hard and cold beneath his
good looks.

When Mulder had given over the wheel to her, she had passed the picture
to him, urging him to study it.  She had a feeling that they would both
have need to recognize Florescu on sight.

The road crested a ridge and began to weave down into a mountain valley,
the dense forest on either side giving way to the occasional farm as the
elevation decreased.  Scully slowed and, as the land flattened out and
the road crossed a small bridge, spotted a sign informing travelers that
they had entered the Town of Arkham, population 900.  She reached out
and touched Mulder's shoulder, easing him awake.

His eyes opened and he shook his head, clearing away cobwebs.  "What
time is it?" he asked.

"After one.  Sunday morning."  Scully stifled a yawn; she could have
used a nap herself.

"Thanks for driving," Mulder said.  He noticed her weariness.  "Are you
okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine.  Just a little tired."  They entered the village proper then,
a few dark buildings looming in the night around them.  Houses climbed
the slopes beyond, vague shapes in the darkness.  "Any idea where the
hospital is?"

"Not really.  On the edge of town, I'd guess.  You didn't see it on the
way in...?"

"No," Scully said.

They passed what was most likely the local post office, indistinct in
the darkness, the complete lack of moonlight making it impossible to
read any signs not directly in their headlights, and then a church
steeple silhouetted itself against the stars ahead of them.  Scully
turned the car sharply to the left with the sudden curve in the road,
following it over another bridge and into a stretch of woods.  They had
begun to climb again, leaving the village in the valley behind them.

"I guess that was Arkham," she said.

"Bright lights, tall buildings," Mulder quipped.  "Where's the damn
mental hospital?"

"Could we have missed it?"

Mulder didn't have time to reply, as the woods opened around them again
to reveal a long, low building, rather like a garden apartment, which
unlike the town itself was well-lit, both within and without.  In front
of the main gate, several police cars stood, their lights flashing.

As Scully brought the car to a halt in the driveway of the Arkham Mental
Health Center, Mulder said "dinner at the 'Occidental' says this isn't
the local farmer's market."

"No argument here," said Scully.

Together, they got out of the car and made their way toward the front
door.

* * *

Several hundred yards below, back toward Arkham proper, Radu Florescu
moved cautiously out of the cover of the woods and toward the van in
which he had traveled to the western Massachusetts hills.  The lack of
moonlight pleased him.  He had been able to move silently through the
utter darkness of the forest, his night-vision goggles, part of the kit
he had brought when he entered the United States, providing more than
adequate vision.  Florescu crept silently to the driver's side door,
pausing before sliding the key into the lock.

So far, his evening had gone as smoothly as he could have hoped.  The
drive from Washington had been tiring, but not so much that his skills
had been impaired significantly.  Arriving after dark, he had been able
to elude the few guards -- members of the same crew that had attacked
him the night before, he surmised -- that patrolled the woods around
Arkham, making his way into the facility.  

Once inside, he had gone directly to the front desk, rendering the
surprised duty nurse unconscious with a quick choke-hold.  It would have
been simpler just to kill her, but Florescu always preferred not to kill
women, even when that meant an extra effort.  He had quickly found
Leslie's name in the hospital records and, moving with alacrity, had
made his way through empty corridors to his room.  The one orderly he
had met was most likely still out cold in the closet into which Florescu
had locked him, after dealing him a quick blow to the head.

Leslie himself had proved largely incoherent, and Florescu had wasted
little time in conversation with him.  Instead, he had located the
locker where his valuables had been stored, using the orderly's keys to
open it, and removed the surveyor's journals.  Those were the truly
important acquisition, the guides to Krycek's 'master site.'

His prizes in hand, Florescu had exited the hospital via a window and
redonned his NVGs, slipping silently into the forest.  It had been then
that the operation had nearly gone awry.  One of the guards had crossed
paths with Florescu by pure chance -- mischance for him, as it turned
out.  Judging from the relative lack of outcry, his cooling corpse
remained undetected in the tree where Florescu had left it.  Other
guards had been nearby, and he had not had time to be delicate.

The nurse had recovered, it seemed, and immediately called the
authorities.  Florescu decided he should have taken the time to bind her
as well as knocking her out.  The first police cars had arrived as he
had moved deeper into the woods, in the direction of his vehicle, which
he had left in the village.

When he arrived at the spot where he had parked, just as he had prepared
to step out from the forest's edge, Florescu had been forced to pause to
let another arriving car pass.  He had not had a good look at the two
within it, but something told him that his Washington targets, Mulder
and Scully, had followed him north, arriving too late to do more than
puzzle out what he had done.

Which was fine.  All he had to do now was get to New York without
incident.  He already had a plane ticket, reserved under an alias,
waiting for him.  In a few hours, he would be bound for Hong Kong.

He entered the cab of the van and started the engine.  Phase one in his
employer's operation was nearly complete.

* * *

Scully had almost reached the doors of the hospital when she realized
that Mulder was no longer following her.  She turned, saw him standing
with his head cocked, listening intently for something.

Scully spoke in a whisper.  "Mulder, what is it?"

"Engine," he muttered, his attention elsewhere.  "Now who the hell...."
He didn't finish his thought, turning instead and racing back in the
direction of their car, leaving Scully staring after him in flustered
surprise.

A few seconds too late, her fatigued brain caught on to Mulder's intent.
"Mulder, wait!" she called after him, beginning to run herself, but her
partner had already scrambled into their car, starting the engine and
roaring out of the drive in a shower of gravel.  "Damn it!" Scully
exclaimed to no one in particular.  Her eyes tracked Mulder's path down
the hill toward Arkham.  Through the trees, she spied another set of
lights, heading east into the darkness.

Florescu -- it had to be him.

Cold tentacles of dread enveloped her as she realized that Mulder had
sped off alone in pursuit of a professional killer.

She turned and sprinted back toward the building, seeking one of the
drivers of the police cars.

* * *

Radu Florescu had driven no more than a mile, from one end of Arkham to
the other, when he caught sight of distant headlights in his rear-view
mirror.  Immediately, he pulled his van to the side of the road and
jumped out, sliding neatly into the darkness at the edge of one of the
buildings.  Florescu had seen plenty of car chases in the movies, but he
had absolutely no illusions about the ability of a driver to elude
pursuit on a lonely road in the forest, in a society held together by
the world's most sophisticated communications network.  He had to
thwart, and silence, whoever had followed him if he were to have any
chance for a clean getaway.

Florescu did not particularly enjoy killing, but he would do it without
hesitation when the need arose.  And now, with time of the essence and a
lone car following him, a quick, clean kill was his best option, as it
had been in the woods near the hospital.

He moved deeper into the shadows and watched as the car pulled up behind
his van.  One person -- Mulder he realized -- climbed out of it, and to
his surprised relief, Florescu saw that he had left his partner behind.

This Mulder was evidently as impulsive as Krycek had suggested, he
thought.  Well, he had just made his last mistake.  Florescu slipped
silently along the wall in the direction of the vehicles, taking one
quick glance uphill to make sure that no other cars were approaching.
Mulder had moved toward the driver's side of the van, his attention
focused on determining whether anyone remained within the vehicle, his
back to where Florescu stood.

Florescu drew a long-bladed knife and stepped out into the light cast
by the headlights of Mulder's car.

* * *

Scully rushed into the confusion within the Arkham Mental Health Center,
waving her FBI badge at the faces around her, looking for a police
officer, or anyone who appeared to have authority.

"Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI," she called out.  "Who's in charge
here?"

Those in the room, nurses, orderlies, and others, exchanged glances, but
no one spoke.  Scully searched the confusion and finally spotted a
police uniform.  She rounded on the officer, a youthful, nervous looking
man with dark curls and a boyish chin.

"Let's go," she snapped, flashing her ID at him.  "I need your vehicle."

The policeman opened his mouth, as if to protest, but wilted before the
glare Scully cast at him.  She realized his confusion was bringing on
inertia, so she stepped forward and yanked his elbow, drawing him toward
the doors.  "Now!" she exclaimed.  "Move it!"

He began to follow, and Scully turned and hurried for the cruisers
parked outside.

"Into the car!  Drive!"  Scully realized she had come close to shouting,
that the young officer must think her half out of her mind, but she
couldn't help herself.  Somewhere down the road from the hospital,
Mulder was in hot pursuit of someone who would kill him without a
moment's hesitation or remorse.  An image of her partner, her lover,
lying alone somewhere in a dark, slowly-spreading pool of his own blood,
arose in her mind and resisted all her efforts to banish it. 

Fear and love and anger contended for control of her psyche.  Don't do
this to me, Mulder, she thought, controlling herself with an iron grip.
Don't get yourself killed in an mad rush for your 'Truth.'

If she lost him, if he were killed because she hadn't been there to
protect him, she wouldn't be able to bear it.  Despite her self-control,
Scully felt herself beginning to unravel, as the prospect of a final,
unparalleled grief, tore at her.

She pulled on her seatbelt and turned to the policeman next to her.
"Toward the village," she said, willing her voice back to normal again.
"Go."

The officer turned on the car's flashers and sped down the hillside
toward Arkham.

* * *

Mulder approached the van slowly, his pistol held before him in a ready
position.  The vehicle in front of him was silent; he saw no sign of
its occupant.

Part of him was painfully aware of the lack of Scully's reassuring
presence, the knowledge that she wasn't there to watch his back.  But
he silenced that concern.  He had not wanted to leave her behind, but
when he had heard the van's engine, he had known that he had to react
instantly or lose the chance to catch Florescu before he disappeared
into the night.  Scully would be annoyed at him, but she would see the
need for his decision.

It had to be Florescu.  If pressed, Mulder would not have been able to
say how he knew that, but his intuition told him that Florescu and none
other would have been hurrying out of Arkham at 1:30 in the morning.

Mulder took one step closer to the van.  He did not hear the footsteps
in the gravel behind him.

Something warned him, though.  Some unnamed, atavistic sense made him
turn, just as Florescu's knife sliced forward toward his unprotected
neck.  Mulder flailed with his left hand, warding off the blade at the
cost of a severe cut to his palm.  Pained flared there, affecting his
aim, as his gun went off in his right hand, and he missed Florescu at
point blank range.  And then the knife shot forward again, in a low,
underhand thrust this time, an icy heat that tore into his abdomen.
Mulder tried to bring his gun to bear, but Florescu knocked it away with
an almost negligent flick of his hand, then stunned him with a hammer
blow to his jaw.  Mulder's vision closed to a circle directly in front
of him as his legs folded and he collapsed to the ground.  Florescu
stepped over him and climbed into the van.  Pebbles skittered against
Mulder's side as the vehicle sped off into the darkness.

Just before he lost consciousness, Mulder became aware of his partner
kneeling next to him, back-lit by frenetic, discotheque flashes of blue
light.  So beautiful, he thought distantly, so very beautiful.

"Mulder, it's me," he heard her say from across a great void.  "I'm
here.  Can you hear me?"  He was vaguely aware of her hands working on
him in an effort to stop his bleeding.  He wanted to answer her, but
couldn't find the energy to speak.  He reached out feebly with his left
hand, somehow catching hold of her sleeve.  Her gaze locked with his.
Precious lapis lazuli, he thought, and then everything faded to black.

************************************************************************

Washington, D.C.
Monday, 21 September, 9:00 a.m.

The smoking man inhaled deeply and blew smoke in the direction of the
woman seated across from him.  Diana Fowley made a slight face but did
not otherwise respond.  She waited for him to speak, returning his gaze,
evidently unintimidated.  Her annoyance gave her additional fortitude,
no doubt.  The smoking man took another puff and spoke:

"What may I do for you, Ms. Fowley?"

Diana came right to the point.  "You might have warned me," she said.

About Scully, the smoking man thought, but he had no intention of
letting on.  This was all part of the game, after all.  He affected an
expression of benign puzzlement.  "Warned you?"

"Don't give me that," snarled Diana.  "You had to have known...about
her."  Venom dripped from her words.

The smoking man noticed that she had not spoken Scully's name.
Excellent, he thought.  Fowley had reacted almost exactly as he had
hoped.  Now that the knife had been whetted, the time had come to point
it at someone.

However, he found that he was no longer certain who represented the best
target.  Old schemes were being rapidly overtaken by events, and new
ones had to be devised to replace them.  Though he had dealt with
similar situations many times before, the smoking man did not enjoy the
sense of chaos he felt when developments outsped plans.  He returned his
attention to the conversation.

"Ah, you must be referring to Agent Scully.  Am I to infer that there
has been a...development...in her relationship with Agent Mulder?"

Diana glared at him, aware that she was being mocked.

The smoking man pretended concern.  "I'm sorry, I was not aware of that
complication.  But there's nothing I can do about it, of course.  You'll
have to work it out on your own.  The mission remains paramount."

"I don't think they'll let me go with them," she said, trying to mask
her anger.

"Agent Mulder knows your qualifications.  He values them, no matter
where he's been taking his...pleasures."  A wounded look crossed
Fowley's features.  The smoking man continued: "I think he will listen
to reason, in time.  He and his partner will need all the help they can
get."  He paused for effect.  "There has been an incident."

"What incident?"

"Agent Mulder has been injured -- somewhat seriously, I'm afraid."  The
smoking man filled her in on what had happened in Massachusetts, events
he had learned of just that morning, as his agents in Arkham at last
got there reports in to him.  He found that he had miscalculated.  The
Rongbuk affair had begun to spin out of control, and he would have to
act quickly to regain mastery of it.  In addition to Florescu's coup in
Massachusetts, there had been Jill Whittaker's report of the second
arrival of John Leslie, which told him something about Rongbuk but
raised additional questions as well.  He gave Fowley only a bare-bones
account of Mulder and Scully's recent misadventure.  She need not know
more than was necessary, he thought.

Diana looked ill.  Her affection for Mulder was genuine enough, the
smoking man observed.  That could prove a volatile element, but one that
he could exploit.  But now, he had to decide what he wanted to do with
it.  Prior to the weekend, he had fully expected Mulder to stymie
Krycek, with any luck compromising himself in the process.  And had
Mulder managed to thwart Alex's designs without revealing himself to the
Chinese authorities, who would hardly appreciate an FBI special agent
operating in their Tibetan backyard, well, that was why he had brought
the young and ambitious Ms. Whittaker into the equation.

He had not counted on the speed or effectiveness of Radu Florescu,
however.  How had Alex managed to acquire his services?  The smoking man
found that he very much wanted to know that.

The Romanian had somehow managed to reestablish his surveillance of
Mulder's absurd associates, and had done so with greater alacrity than
one would have thought possible.  And Mulder, who had more energy than
sense, had blithely confided in his friends, telling Florescu everything
he had needed to know.

No one in Arkham had actually seen Florescu, of course, but the smoking
man, upon reading the reports that had come in, knew at once that the
same man who had brushed aside one of the Consortium's assassination
teams in Arlington had been the one to slip through the cordon guarding
John Leslie.

Only one man had been killed this time -- assuming Mulder did not
succumb to his injuries -- but the smoking man did not really appreciate
Florescu's restraint.  The man clearly represented a much greater
problem than he had suspected, even as late as Saturday morning.

"How is Agent Mulder?"  Diana wore an expression of genuine concern.

"I'm not certain -- he was stabbed, it seems.  Assistant Director
Skinner was concerned enough to fly up to check on him."

Diana stood.  "I have to go to him," she said.

"Very well.  Encourage his swift recovery.  He will have to hurry if he
is to get to Rongbuk in time."

Agent Fowley left the room without responding.

The smoking man lit another cigarette on the heels of the last one and
sat back, considering the situation.  He would have to take more
decisive action, now.  If Alex managed to discover something at Rongbuk,
that would overshadow any other matter, including the smoking man's own
feud with Agent Mulder.  Jill Whittaker and Diana Fowley would not be
enough.  He would have to send a team into Tibet.

The smoking man sighed and picked up the telephone.  He did not much
like the idea -- the Chinese would react very negatively to any act of
the Consortium within their territory.  There would be serious
repercussions if the People's Republic discovered what was going on near
Rongbuk.

It was a risk he'd have to take, however.  Mulder had already stumbled,
and though the smoking man's cohorts in the Consortium loathed anything
that drew attention to their enterprise, it would be worse -- much worse
-- if Alex gave the Russians an additional advantage.

Yes, the time had come for active measures.

************************************************************************

Northampton General Hospital, Northampton, Massachusetts
10:00 a.m.

Fox Mulder awoke to a dull headache and assorted other pains, and the
image of an unsmiling A.D. Skinner looming over him.  He looked around
for his partner, was disappointed not to see her anywhere about.

"How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?"  Skinner's voice thundered in the
room.

Mulder tried to sit up, then desisted as his head rang like a gong and
a sharp pain stabbed him in his left flank.

"What the hell happened?" he asked instead.  "And where's Scully?"

"She's working," said Skinner, "and has been ever since you were
declared out of danger."  He grimaced in irritation.  "I don't have
to tell you we couldn't get her out of here while your prognosis was
still in doubt."

The events of the other night came back to him in a rush, and Mulder
found that he well knew why Skinner was annoyed with him.  He had taken
a foolish risk and nearly been killed as a result.  Remorse flooded him.
Scully didn't deserve his irresponsibility.  "How is she?" he asked.

Skinners faced twisted slightly once more.  "She's been better.  Between
this case you've been unofficially investigating and your own
recklessness, she's close to exhaustion."  Skinner looked away, toward
the hallway outside the room.  "I told her to get some rest, but she
wouldn't hear of it."  He paused.  "Frankly, I'm concerned."

"Damn," Mulder mumbled, mostly to himself.  He attempted to sit up
again, with results similar to his first effort.

Skinner turned back to him.  "I suggest you stay where you are.  You're
going to need to heal before you can continue your inquiries, which I'm
making official, by the way."

Mulder blinked in surprise, and Skinner said: "I've received
instructions from certain...quarters.  For some reasons, you've been
given leeway, for this case at least.  I wouldn't mind an explanation,
if you have one."

Mulder thought of the smoking man, then shifted back to his immediate
situation.  "What happened to me?"

"Your near-fatal spasm of cranial-rectal inversion resulted in a mild
concussion, a stab wound to the gut, and a badly cut left hand."

Mulder laughed, then regretted it at once.

"You were lucky," Skinner added.

"Shit," said Mulder.

"So what's going on?"

Mulder related the gist of the meeting with the smoking man to Skinner,
as well as Diana Fowley's surprise visit on Saturday morning.

Skinner's normally bland expression betrayed a certain degree of
incredulity.  "And what's your assessment of the matter?" he asked.

Mulder shrugged cautiously.  "I think the smoking man is telling at
least part of the truth.  I think Krycek used me to find Leslie for him,
and now he may have what he was looking for."

"Which was?"

"Off hand, I'd say he wanted the surveys that Leslie made near Rongbuk.
He already had the journals Sales had written, but those were useless to
him."

"And now that he has the surveys, he'll head for the site."

"I'd like to hear what Scully was able to find out at Arkham, but yeah,
that'd be my guess."

"You can't go to Tibet, Agent Mulder.  Not as Bureau, anyway."  Skinner
had already guessed his mind.

"I've got some leave coming.  We can go unofficially."

"You and Agent Scully, huh?"

Mulder nodded.  If she'll consent to go with me, he thought.  After
this, he had his doubts.  As eager as he was to see her, he also dreaded
the moment when he would have to face her.  He expected her to be
furious with him, and he could hardly blame her if she were.  She might
want to opt out of the case once and for all; she'd never been
enthusiastic about it.

Then another thought struck him, one that made his heart bind with
dread.  She might decide she wanted quit of him altogether.  Mulder knew
she loved him, needed him, but he also knew that he hardly represented a
factor for stability in her life.  After all she had been through in the
last couple of years, it wouldn't take much to drive her away from him
permanently.  It wasn't that Scully was inconstant -- far from it -- but
she already had every reason to give up on him and leave, and he had
just given her another.

She might decide that the time had come for her to cut her losses and
go.

Mulder squelched this line of thinking, deciding to simply hope Scully
had it in her to forgive him one more time.

If she hadn't, he didn't know what he would do.

Skinner interrupted his introspection.  "Agent Mulder, I'll have you
know, I'm not blind."

"Sir?"  Oh, hell, here it comes.

"You've put your partner through a lot over the last five years, but for
some reason, you're the most important person on earth to her."  He
shook his head.  "I'll be damned if I know why."

"Sir, I..."

Skinner held up a hand.  "Agent Mulder, the next time you feel like
running off after something, try to think about the people you're
leaving behind you."  He walked out of the room.

Mulder closed his eyes, dismayed that Skinner had divined his and
Scully's secret.  Christ, he thought.  All I need is for my boss to
decide he's my father-in-law as well.

He had to admit, though, that Skinner was right.  Mulder found that his
headache had worsened.  He settled deeper into the bed, hoping to get
some sleep before Scully returned.

************************************************************************
[end part 6 of 11]