Back and Forward
by Leigh Alexander
leigh_xf@geocities.com

First posted: January 27, 1999

RATING: PG
CATEGORY: SA
SPOILERS: The pilot and the movie (and anything in between).
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully UST
SUMMARY: The X-Files have been re-opened and Scully and
Mulder's first case takes them back to where it all began:
Bellefleur, Oregon. Re-visiting the past highlights how
things have changed, and a cataclysmic event forces Scully
to reassess her beliefs.

DISCLAIMERS:
1) Dana and Fox belong to Chris and Ten Thirteen Productions
and the other Fox. Absolutely *no* copyright infringement is
intended - I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for
love. I *love* these characters, I wouldn't want to hurt
them! :)
2) OK to archive, but if it's going anywhere other than
Gossamer, please drop me a line just so I can keep track.
3) Feel free to distribute and discuss this, as long as my
name and addy remain attached.

INTRO:

I had every intention of posting this before season six
started, but unfortunately writer's block struck at the
worse time, meaning that it comes to you four months later
than it was supposed to. Thankfully, I had the help of three
fantastic editors who put me back on track more times than I
can count. I have to take the time to thank Lena for her
attention to detail; Melissa for her remarkable ability to
read this numerous times and *still* find things to comment
on in each draft; and Meredith for pointing out the most
obvious plot flaw of all. And huge hugs to all of them for
the continued encouragement throughout my struggle.

I was originally hoping that this would fall under the
banner of my first ever "X" category (as in X-File, not the
rating), but in the end, I think it has ended up veering
just this side of a full-blown X-File, so I've classified it
as a story. Still, there is an X-File in here, so if that's
your kind of thing, then read on.

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Back and Forward
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Bellefleur, Oregon
September 15, 1998
11:21pm

Jerry Seinfeld struggled to hold back a grin, with little
success. The line was funny, and he knew it. As did the
studio audience whose high voltage laughter held the actors
in place waiting for the silence they needed to continue the
scene.

But one man didn't laugh.

Seated in his armchair with his concentration directed
towards the TV in front of him, the man watching the
"Seinfeld" rerun allowed no flicker of humour to touch his
expression. He appeared completely absorbed by the show, but
in reality his mind was far away. He had turned the
television volume up as loud as he could without disturbing
his neighbours, but the noise did little to drown out all
that he was trying to ignore. The sounds, the feelings and
the fear.

His body was rigidly tense as the dread continued to build
within him. He knew it was coming. One of these nights he
would no longer be able to fight it. Even now, it was only
because of the intensity of his concentration that he was
able to ignore the pull. But soon his body would give up and
he would be forced into something that was beyond his will.
Pushed by an energy that was stronger than *any* human will.
He tightened his grip on the chair.

A loud pounding on the door suddenly broke through the TV's
din. The man started and glanced fearfully at the door.
However, his panic was quickly sidelined when the voice
called out to him from the other side.

"Billy, are you there? Let me in - I need you to help me!"

Her voice was frantic and desperate. Billy knew exactly why
she had come to him; he understood the force that she was
trying to escape. Hurriedly, he moved to the door and
unlocked it, opening it just enough to verify that it was
her, then pulling it a little wider so he could study her
more closely. Tears poured down her face as she stared
frantically at him. "They're coming, Billy... I can feel
them." The words bubbled out as the sobs heaved through her
body. She stepped into his apartment and clutched his t-
shirt.

Billy pulled her inside and locked the door behind them. He
gripped the young woman's wrists and shook her slightly.
"Don't let them get you, Theresa. You've got to fight it."

Theresa scrunched her face up and shook her head. Weakly,
she replied, "I can't... You have to help me."

His eyes darted anxiously around his apartment. So far, they
had only taken people from the woods - never from inside -
yet he knew it would be foolish to take that small fact for
granted. Nevertheless, he tried to reassure her.

"Don't worry. You're safe here."

It was a lie spoken without conviction, but Theresa was too
distraught to care. She nestled against his chest and
allowed him to calm her. Soothingly, he stroked her head.

A few seconds of quiet lulled them into a feeling of
security. Too soon, Billy loosened his grip on his
companion's arms and unknowingly gave her body the window of
opportunity it had been waiting for. With a sudden movement
that he had no way of anticipating, Theresa ripped her hands
from his grasp and slapped him hard across the face. A new
tenor entered her voice as she began shouting at him. "Let
me go!" The tears disappeared in an instant and Billy knew
that Theresa was no longer in control.

He grabbed her again, but this time she fought him. Her
fingernails cut into his skin and her teeth wrapped around
his wrist. He recoiled in pain as his blood began to spill
and Theresa took the opportunity to run back towards the
door and start unlocking it.

Billy tried to stop her one more time, grabbing her around
the waist and yelling, "Theresa, don't let them do this!
Fight them! Don't let this happen again." Her leg kicked out
and caught him in the shin, the door opening at the same
time. His words had no effect on her as she slid out the
opening and ran down the hallway. He started after her then
abruptly drew to a halt at the top of his stairwell. Billy
knew that if he followed her now, he would be led down the
same path. With despair he realised that Theresa was already
lost.

Uselessly, he watched her vanish into the night. Knowing
that she was running to her death.

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

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Federal Bureau of Investigation
September 1, 1998
8:46am

The two nameplates stared at her. Or maybe she was the one
doing the staring. Whatever the case, Dana Scully was taking
a long time to enter their new X-Files office; the office
that she most definitely shared with her partner, Fox
Mulder, if those nameplates were anything to go by.

Fox Mulder
Dana Scully

She couldn't wipe the smile from her face. It was such a
little thing and yet it meant so much - and without even
needing to open the door she knew what she'd be confronted
with inside. Two desks and two computers. All the space in
the world.

Scully pushed open the door to their brand new third-floor
office and found that Mulder was still capable of surprising
her.

A ladder stood in the centre of the room and a pair of legs
dangled loosely from a hole in the ceiling above it. Scully
gazed upwards in utter astonishment and then moved to the
ladder's base. Mulder had no idea she was there until she
cut through the silence with a deliberate cough.  The legs
wiggled and he lowered the rest of his body until his feet
touched a step. His head emerged from the hole with smears
of dust spread all over his face and although he met her
gaze with a careful facade of nonchalance, Scully could
easily see through the mask of aloofness. His embarrassment
at being caught in such a position was just as obvious in
his voice when he greeted her.

"Hey, Scully."

Skirting a reciprocal hello, Scully replied bluntly. "Do I
even want to ask?"

The archness of her tone caused him to grin. But he didn't
answer her question and instead turned back to his previous
position. With his hands back inside the hole he looked at
her and said, "Tell me if you hear this." Within a few
seconds he was back in the hole, allowing Scully to admire
his smooth agility even as she simultaneously wondered if
he'd finally lost his mind. But before she had time to
ponder the question further, a muffled tingling reached her
ears. It reminded her of the windchimes on the porch of her
mother's house; only these windchimes - if that's what they
were - appeared to be wrapped in cotton wool or some similar
muting agent. His head appeared an instant later with an
expectant look. Scully nodded in reply and then watched as
he slowly descended the ladder.

Upon reaching the bottom, Mulder made a move towards his
desk before being stopped by Scully's hand on his arm. A
fleeting look of curiosity quickly subsided into
comprehension as he watched her reach up and start to gently
wipe the dust from his face. His eyes closed in a reflex
action and his consequent lack of vision intensified the
other four senses - most notably touch. He felt her fingers
dance across his skin, imparting intimacy with their dappled
touch, and he succumbed willingly to her ministrations.

Too soon, the sensation was gone. Mulder held back a sigh;
keeping his eyes closed and his voice light and jocular, he
asked, "All clean?"

Scully rubbed her hands together to allow the last traces of
grime to drop off and replied in the affirmative. When his
eyes opened she fixed him in her gaze and asked, "What was
all that about, Mulder?"

Holding her look for a moment, Mulder studied her expression
before tilting his eyes towards the ceiling. "I've never
trusted those things." He indicated the discreet sprinkler
nozzles above their heads.

Scully looked at him quizzically, "The sprinkler system?"
Her intonation dropped at the end as it often did when
Mulder confronted her with an idea that was so utterly
bizarre she couldn't even begin to comprehend it. Seeing his
vigorous nod she added incredulously, "Mulder - if the old
office had *had* a sprinkler system we would still have all
of our files. We wouldn't be starting all over again from
scratch..."

"They're the perfect disguise, Scully."

"For what?!"

"Surveillance."

It all fell into place. "Is *that* why we never had
sprinklers in the basement?"

Mulder nodded again and then clarified his response. "When I
first moved in, there weren't any - it was before all the
regulations came in place, and the photocopier room had
always been the last priority - but eventually the Bureau
sent someone around. And I just sent them right back again."

Scully looked at him. She'd thought that she'd already
witnessed the intensity of his paranoia but it had just sunk
to new depths - or heights, in this case. She glanced up at
the ceiling and cast her eye over the three nozzles spread
out at even intervals. Then her gaze moved to the hole that
had so fascinated her partner and without looking at him she
asked, "So what were you doing up there?"

"I figured that it would be impossible to get them removed
so I had to do a bit of lateral thinking."

"Lateral thinking?" Her head dropped back down to look at
him.

"Yeah. You ever seen Home Alone?" She replied with a look.
"Well, I've set up a bit of a booby-trap. If anyone tries to
do *anything* up there, I'll hear them."

"That's what the bells were for?"

"Exactly."

"What about when we're not here?"

Mulder pulled a small tape recorder out of his pocket.
"Voice-activated - I've had Langly fix it so that it's extra
perceptive. I just turn it on every time we leave and if I
come back and find that something's been recorded then I'll
know that they've been tampered with." His eyes flashed
excitedly.

"Mulder..." She didn't even know where to begin so instead
she just stared at him. Intently. As deeply as she'd been
staring at those two nameplates not too long ago and with
about as many thoughts circling through her head.

He placed his hand on her shoulder and his voice became
serious. "I'm not crazy, Scully. Just cautious."

Scully met his look. Things had changed between them
recently and this was one of those moments that threatened
to alter the delicate balance they had so far maintained.
Everything was so much more important now. After what they
had seen and experienced in between the closure and re-
opening of the X-Files, the partners knew that the ante had
been well-and-truly upped and if they'd thought that they'd
relied on each other before, then that dependence was now
all the more intense. Any cracks in that armour would only
shatter what they had put so much energy into building up.

Scully accepted his words then averted her eyes. For the
first time she took the time to look around their new
office.

It was big. Damn big.

As she turned in a slow circle Scully guessed that they had
something like three times the space they'd had in their
little basement room. However, the size only served to
highlight the office's lack; where she had once been greeted
with the familiar sight of Mulder's favourite poster and
other miscellaneous items there were now only blank walls.
Huge windows let streaming rays of sunlight in, but instead
of welcoming their presence, Scully only felt resentful. The
desks - two of them, just as she'd guessed - were adorned
with pens, pencils and computers and nothing more; the
filing cabinets were shiny, new and obviously empty and the
surrounding space was about as uncluttered as an empty
warehouse.

It was desolate and stark. Just looking at it caused her
shoulders to sag, but she tried to make the most of it with
a joke, "Jesus Mulder - who'd you tick off to get stuck with
this?"

He chuckled and followed her gaze. "It could do with a
plant, couldn't it?"

"Something like that."

As Scully sunk back into her contemplation of their new
space, Mulder moved to the ladder and started climbing up it
again. Before long he was hoisting himself back into the
roof to complete the assembly of his booby-trap. Scully
glanced at him briefly before moving over the desk that she
assumed was to be hers.

And waited.

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

It was two weeks before they got their first case. Two weeks
that were spent filling the new X-Files office with as many
adornments and resources as possible. Eventually they ran
out of mindless tasks and began playing chess for hours on
end. It was the perfect time-filler, involving long periods
of intense contemplation that allowed little time for in-
depth conversation. Both of them knew that it was also their
way of avoiding certain topics that they hadn't dared broach
with each other, and it was with a mutual, yet silent,
agreement that they kept discussion of any personal matters
at bay.

The one vocal conversation they'd had regarding the events
that had unfolded in the previous few weeks was in making
the decision to lie low for a while in their pursuit of the
truth behind the colonisation and vaccine. Neither of them
wanted to lose their lives to this quest and Scully had
finally managed to convince her partner that it was just too
risky to plunge straight back into their investigation of
Cancerman and his cronies. Reluctantly Mulder had been
swayed by her arguments but Scully knew that if they didn't
get another case soon he wouldn't be able to hold back for
much longer.

So they were both relieved to get the call from Skinner's
office on that Thursday morning. The phone shattered their
deep concentration on the board laid out in front of them
and as soon as it became apparent who was at the other end
of the line, the partners were practically leaping from
their chairs in their haste to ascend to his office.

Mere minutes passed before they met with their superior and
if he was surprised at their alacrity he kept the feeling
tightly guarded as he indicated the two seats in front of
his desk. After a moment spent contemplating his two agents,
Skinner finally cleared his throat and began to speak.

"I've been handed a case that I believe holds special
interest for you, Agents." Curiosity lit up two sets of eyes
and Skinner continued in his subdued tone, knowing the
effect his question was going to have on the pair. "Do you
remember Bellefleur, Oregon?"

The words came as a complete shock. Confusion creased
Mulder's forehead and he turned and quickly glanced at
Scully before seeking clarification from his boss. "You mean
Billy Miles?"

Skinner nodded at the desk, then focused on his two agents,
dropping the bombshell they never could have anticipated.

"It's happened again."

The AD waited for a response but upon receiving none - apart
from their flabbergasted looks - continued explaining, "At
4am yesterday morning the body of Theresa Nemman, aged 27,
was found in the forest ten miles from her house."

Scully breathed in sharply, momentarily distracting the
Assistant Director from his recitation. Quickly shaking the
emotion off, the female agent covered the interruption with
a question.

"Did she have the marks on her back?"

Mulder's surprise wasn't evident from the outside, but
internally he was reeling. Hearing Skinner's news was just
as much of a shock to him as it was to his partner, but
listening to her vocalise such a question drove the shock
home even sharper. That was the type of question that he
would normally ask. She had come so far. They had both come
so far. He couldn't refrain from looking at her and at the
sight of her serious expression, an indefinable sensation
took hold of him: she was in this with him and nothing was
going to hold her back from finding the truth. He bowed his
head for a moment and took a deep breath, not quite knowing
how to cope with the feelings he was experiencing. When
Skinner started talking again, it quickly sliced through his
shaky reverie and brought his attention back to what was
unfolding in front of him.

"I didn't ask. No autopsy's been performed yet, Scully - I
told them to hold off until you two got there. What I do
know is that the main suspect, Billy Miles, didn't report to
work yesterday morning and appears to have been missing
since the night before last."

Scully faced her partner, "We told her that nothing was
going to happen to her." Her voice was calm, yet Mulder
could hear the desolation she was trying to disguise.

"Agent Scully, I hope you can remember other aspects of this
case," Skinner broke in softly. "I'm assuming that all the
files on the incident in 1992 were destroyed in your office
fire..." He directed the last commented to Mulder who nodded
wordlessly as he slowly rose to his feet.

"Don't worry, sir - we haven't forgotten anything about that
case."

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

No, they hadn't.

As the plane carrying them back to Oregon cut through the
thick, white clouds, Scully was slowly recalling every last
detail about her first X-Files case. Those few days had been
her introduction to the demented and obsessive world of Fox
Mulder and his X-Files. Their investigation into the reasons
behind Karen Swenson's death had revealed so much more than
the answers to that particular question. It had laid the
foundations for their partnership, the basis by which they
still functioned, and had grafted them together with such
intensity in their mutual desire for the truth that
separating them would become an impossibility.

If anyone had told her that day when she went to Blevins'
office that she and Mulder would end up at this point six
years later - so united that the thought of being broken
from him would make her rail in anger and frustration - she
never would have believed them. That day she'd known him as
Spooky: the agent who had a remarkable knack for getting
into the mind of criminals and who investigated the absurd
notion of paranormal phenomena. How things had changed. She
knew she would no longer recognise the person who she'd been
that day in Blevins office; that nervous, deferential and
naive woman had rapidly disappeared once she found herself
being plunged deeper and deeper into Mulder's life and his
passion.

Turbulence momentarily distracted Scully from her memories
while also bringing one recollection in particular to the
fore. With a cheeky smile she glanced at her partner, who
was obviously thinking the same thing from the smile he
returned to her. She stated it anyway.

"This must be the place."

Was it possible for him to look at her any more intently
than he already had in the past five years? She hadn't
thought so but at that instant she felt as though she could
read his deepest emotions in those pockets of shadow. They
belonged to each other. No other person could ever hope to
crack this silent code they shared, their bond now too thick
to be severed. She no longer needed to look away during
these moments - the fear had been lost, or discarded,
somewhere along the way.

Scully felt Mulder glide his fingers between hers and she
closed her grip to clasp his hand against her skin. They
didn't speak again for the rest of the flight - there was no
need. They knew everything.

Mulder felt the warmth of her palm against his hand and its
constancy reminded him of their solid and faithful
relationship. He no longer defined this thing they shared as
a "partnership"; the official term could never fully
encompass all that they were. It was a relationship between
two friends who could never contemplate life without the
other. And now, as they journeyed back to the place where it
had all begun, Mulder found his mind continually returning
to the elusiveness of destiny. His memories of their first
case together were razor sharp and recalling everything that
had happened to them in Bellefleur he couldn't help but reel
at the unexpected changes that they had each undergone since
that time. Both together and separately. A night in a motel
room had set down the parameters that had defined them for
six long years, but in that time they had pushed and pulled
at the boundaries, stretching and manipulating them until
they bore only the vaguest resemblance to their initial
form. And through it all they had survived.

A darker chord emerged as that word jolted through his
system. Had they really survived? They had embarked on their
partnership with hope and innocence - ideals which had
subsequently been ripped into tatters thanks to the repeated
assaults which had consistently struck them over the past
six years. The net of deception which continued to encircle
them had resulted in an undeniable scent of failure. If this
was survival, it was in a desperate and sacrificial form. It
had its parallels with the actions during the last hours of
a sinking ship; he and Scully clawed over the other bodies
in order to remain afloat at the end. Learning that survival
had its price.

Scully interrupted his bleak thoughts with a murmur.
"Mulder?" Her tone spoke of her understanding and when he
met her eyes he knew she could see the battle that was
taking place within him. He tightened his grip on her hand.
Needing her. Now, as always. Her lips curved a touch and it
was enough to pull him back. He closed his eyes and banished
the ugliness from his mind.

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

Portland Airport
September 17
1:45pm

Arriving at the Portland airport didn't bring on the influx
of memories Scully had been expecting. After half a decade
of travelling from one obscure part of the country to
another, all of the airports had quickly started to look
exactly the same to her. The baggage carousel might be in a
different corner to the last one, but the creased, tired
passengers were alarmingly identical, as were the shops and
restaurants. The only remarkable thing about this airport
was the fact that their luggage was actually the first to
spew out from the bowels of the terminal. This was such a
rare event that it actually took the two agents a few
seconds to realise their luck, but once they had grabbed
their bags they were off without a second thought.

Once in the car the partners fell into their usual routine
of second-guessing the case they were about to start
investigating. For once they had no paperwork to go over -
they were the lead agents and would therefore be the ones
filing the paperwork - so all they had to go on was the
little that Skinner had told them and their recollections
from six years ago.

"So, what are you thinking, Mulder? Is Billy Miles
responsible, or has someone finally decided to come back and
finish the job they started in 1992?"

Mulder cracked a sunflower seed and spat the husk out his
window.  "'Finishing the job' isn't exactly your typical
alien's MO."

"You are assuming that this is an abduction scenario, then?"

He glanced at her; a familiar mockery was there but in a
severely diluted form. He could hear the hesitation in her
voice. "Do you think Billy Miles decided six years down the
track to finally kill the girl he tried to murder when he
was in his vegetative state?"

"Why did he run?" She challenged.

"Maybe he didn't."

Scully immediately grasped Mulder's intent. "You think we're
going to find his body soon?"

He shrugged as he devoured a few more seeds. "It's a
possibility." Scully was silent and he took up the thread
after a couple of minutes. "What I'm curious about is
whether we'll find those marks on Theresa's body when you
examine her."

"We don't know that they disappeared in the first place."

"I told you what I saw that night, Scully - the marks on
Billy's back were gone after the light..."

"But we can't even be certain that Theresa ever had the
marks," she pointed out calmly. "We never examined her,
either before or after the incident in the woods with
Billy."

Mulder hit the turn signal as their turn-off approached. As
he slowed down, he looked at his partner and said, "Well, I
guess we're going to have to find that out."

They settled once more into silence. The car continued
steadily along, gaining ground with every passing minute.
With each beat of time that unfolded, the tension in the
vehicle's interior increased one more degree. It wasn't
until Mulder started darting sidelong glances at the radio
that Scully finally put a finger on what was causing their
reactions. Her brain couldn't seem to concentrate on a
single thought, and her fingers were continually clenching
and unclenching themselves of their own accord. She looked
at Mulder as he peered through the windshield, his head
arching slightly towards the sky. A sigh escaped her throat:
the echoes of their first case were haunting them like
demons. She purposefully closed her eyes and attempted to
clear her mind of thought but the memory of the madness kept
pushing into her skull.

- the rain drummed down on her head as she stood on a
deserted highway arguing with Mulder about the invariability
of time -

Time. That strict, linear concept which defined life as she
knew it. As she had known it. But now...

Now she had her doubts.

It wasn't long before they pulled up to the motel and Scully
gladly bullied her thoughts in another direction. The little
she had noticed of the town as they drove through had been a
disappointment. In six years she had undergone so many
changes that she couldn't help but expect the same from the
town she had left behind so long ago. So it was with
surprise and sadness that she observed no similar
transformation had taken place in Bellefleur. Turning her
gaze outwards, Scully looked at the motel. At least it
appeared different, she wryly noted as the car slowly drew
to a halt. It had obviously been rebuilt from scratch after
the fire that had destroyed it in 1992 and Scully was
pleased to see that their former accommodation appeared to
have fared well out of the reconstruction.

She felt Mulder's eyes levelled at her and met it with an
unmasked gaze. He spoke softly, "I was waiting for the radio
to go haywire..." Back in the depths of his eyes she could
see a pinprick of vulnerability. He didn't want this to be
laughed off. He didn't want their memories to be dismissed.

But she couldn't bring herself to verbalise her reply.
Hearing the agreement emerge from her mouth in solid tones
would add too much weight to the elusory beliefs that
drifted in her head. Instead she spoke through her eyes.
They told him that she too had been anticipating that
moment.

Before the non-verbal conversation could be continued,
Scully turned away and opened the car door. Stepping out
into the cool air was just what she needed to kick off the
greyness that clung to her. Her heels clicked decisively
against the asphalt as she moved to the back of the car.
Mulder emerged soon after and opened the trunk, making no
comment on what had transpired in the car. Together, silent,
they walked to the manager's office.

Once inside, Scully left her partner to deal with the
mundane task of checking them in while she pulled out her
cell phone and called the local police department. They had
been alerted to the FBI's arrival, and were reasonably
amenable in providing her with the necessary information
regarding the detective in charge, and the location of
Theresa's body. She was surprised to learn that Detective
Miles - Billy's father and the one who'd led the previous
investigation - wasn't on the case, but the puzzle was
quickly solved when the officer she was speaking to informed
her that Detective Miles had died of a heart attack two
years earlier. She thanked him and ended the call.

A few moments later Mulder joined her with the keys to their
rooms. She jumped straight into it. "Theresa's body is being
kept at the morgue of the local hospital. It's about ten
minutes from here - I want to examine her straight away."

Mulder nodded. "I'll come too." Scully arched an eyebrow and
Mulder said with a puzzled look. "Is that a problem?"

"No... of course not." She maintained eye contact for only a
brief moment before dropping her gaze to focus on the
movements of her hands as she returned the cell phone to her
coat pocket.

Still curious, Mulder vaguely began, "I know I don't usually
watch you..."

Her warm smile interrupted him. "I'm glad you want to come,
Mulder." It was as close as she dared veer towards her true
emotional response, and as soon as the words had left her
mouth, she replaced their warmth with her standard
professional cool. "Let's go, then."

An imperceptible feeling flashed through him and briefly
reflected itself on his face before he moved to follow her.
He knew that some undercurrent had been exchanged between
them with those few words, but he chose not to examine it
further right now. Instead, it was added to the teetering
pile of implicit emotions that was slowly beginning to clog
up his relationship with Scully. Safely stored away until
the day when it would all come bursting to the surface.

With a quick request to the man behind the desk, Mulder
dealt with their bags and joined Scully at the car. She was
waiting by the driver's side and without a word he tossed
her the keys, which she caught neatly. Silence was their
companion one more time as Scully started the car and then
drove them to the hospital.

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

Raymon County Hospital
Bellefleur, Oregon
September 17
4:12pm

The morgue's chill forced them to move quickly. Theresa's
body was already on a guerney, a sheet concealing her from
view. The hospital was too small to have proper autopsy
facilities, so Scully had to content herself with what was
available. There was no other room in which she could
perform the post-mortem, so with a grim look she pulled the
lab coat on over her coat and doubled-up on the gloves.

Mulder was at Scully's side when she slowly started to pull
the sheet back. The first glimpse of Theresa's face caused
her to hesitate and Mulder sensed what she was thinking.
Neither of them could obliterate the memory of the young
girl's fear from their consciences and seeing her pale,
lifeless face in front of them now couldn't help but incite
feelings of guilt and sorrow. But Scully was too
professional to linger on the brief emotion and with a
smooth motion she pulled the sheet all the way off the
woman's body.

The naked body is a powerful thing. Mulder had to look away,
unable to distance himself as easily as his partner could.
Although he had dealt in death a thousand times before, this
time it was different. In his memory, Theresa as a young
woman, vital and alive, held sway.
Remodeling that vision to incorporate the nude corpse that
lay on a cold, steel tray was going to take some adjustment.
Dealing with it would take even longer.

However, right now there was no room for sentimentality.
Scully finished cataloguing the basic details of the body's
weight and height and then directed her voice to him,
pushing him into action.

"Let's turn her over, Mulder."

He realised that she'd been looking at him and he wondered
what she'd thought of his averted gaze. Soberly he stepped
closer and helped his partner flip Theresa's body.

The moment he saw the marks a rush of adrenalin pushed all
other thoughts aside. Excitement lit his eyes as he met his
partner's look. They didn't need to say anything; the import
of what they were looking at was intimately understood.

"They must have taken her again."

Scully was peering closely at the small raised bumps,
reassuring herself of their authenticity. Upon hearing
Mulder's comment, she dropped her gaze from the woman's back
to the floor and he could see the breath fill her lungs as
she took a moment to decide what to say.

In the end, she came up with nothing. Unable to confirm or
deny his belief, she guarded her silence, making eye contact
with him for a few brief seconds before she turned back to
the body and continued the autopsy.

Mulder stayed the whole time. Mutely observant as Scully
verbally recorded her findings on tape. The X-Ray she took
at the start of the proceedings had soon been developed, and
stuck to the lightboard. He only had to glance at the normal
looking skull silhouette to find the answer to one of his
questions. No implant. Scully met his eye, and shared the
conclusion without comment. Immediately afterwards, she
returned to the post-mortem and he continued to carefully
watch her. He could see that her attention was focused
solely on the work she was performing, all her concentration
directed towards finding a solution within Theresa's body.
His gaze was careful, letting his eye study her beauty for a
sneaking moment. With her hair pulled back, the bulky
plastic glasses and overlarge lab coat, she was hardly the
epitome of appeal, but his standards were far from normal
and his attraction to her was firmly rooted in elements far
deeper than looks. The intensity with which she tackled any
autopsy went hand-in-hand with the passion that she devoted
to other facets of her life; a perfect fusion that wrenched
him closer to her every day. Her physical beauty was nothing
more than a fillip - a mighty fillip, he had to acknowledge
- to her seductive personality. Which was why he could look
at her at a moment like this and be hit with the strength of
his feelings for her. Struck so powerfully that he was
rendered silent and watchful, unable to vocalise any
thought, no matter how important or mundane.

Scully's voice beat a steady refrain in the quiet room. Her
observations were recorded on the tape while her gloved
fingers continued to probe the flesh that lay exposed
beneath her. One hour passed, then a second, as she pursued
her detailed examination of the causes behind Theresa's
death. Mulder refrained from speaking for the duration of
the autopsy, choosing to absorb her words and make his own
conclusions based on what he was hearing. By the time she
was finished, he knew exactly what Scully's assesment was
going to be.

She pulled off her gloves and switched off the recorder
before bringing her gaze up to meet his. "Although there are
a few scratches and bruises on her, none of them is
significant enough to have resulted in her death. I have to
attribute it to natural causes." Scully's voice was
emotionless, although her eyes betrayed her deeper feelings.
"Her body functions just stopped, Mulder." She pulled the
sheet back over Theresa's corpse and started wrapping it up
in a technical series of twists and knots that would
identify the body as being the subject of an autopsy. A
nearly insignificant injection of feeling altered the sound
of Scully's voice as she continued talking, "As for the
*reason* behind the cause... that, I can't tell you."

Mulder stood up from the chair he'd been sitting on and
moved closer to her. "Did you detect any kind of internal
injury that might have been a result of some kind of
experiment?"

Scully shook her head. "Apart from the cause of death,
everything else was at it should be." Her eyes flitted
towards him then away as she quickly added, "There was no
sign of cancer either."

So, she had looked for that. Mulder immediately understood
the enormity of that admission for her but he knew with
equal certainty that it wasn't something she'd want to
discuss. His hand landed gently on her shoulder as a small
sign of acknowledgment, but it was the only reference he
made to her comment. It was a long time before he started
speaking again. Long enough for Scully to complete the task
that had been occupying her hands and her mind so that when
he did finally broach his speculations, she had already
discarded the lab coat and was ready to move on.

"They must be running different kinds of experiments."
Mulder walked towards the morgue's exit as he talked and
Scully followed closely behind.

She cut in with a softly-spoken question. "Who's the 'they'
this time, Mulder?" It was both a prod for clarification and
a reference to the vacillations he had undergone in the last
year, but she hoped that he didn't read her words as an
insult. They had experienced too much together for her to
come down on his views or deride his beliefs.

His reply was blunt. "Aliens, the Smoking Man... It doesn't
matter who "they" are, Scully. Someone is out there doing
these things to innocent people and we've got to try and
stop them."

She stopped walking, forcing him to halt as well. They faced
each other and she responded emphatically, "I know that,
Mulder." Their eyes joined, passion shining out of the
crystal blue and melding with the intensity that flowed from
the other side. Scully's strong voice soared under and over
the look. "I'm in this with you, Mulder. I want exactly what
you want." It was a renewal of the vow she had made to him
time and time again. An affirmation that he needed to hear
to remind him of her place by his side.

She needed no reply, so she started walking again. As if
pulled by a lead, Mulder jerked into movement the moment she
moved away from him. It was her voice more than her words
which started circling through his head. That voice which
she could simultaneously infuse with warmth and toughness,
and thread with emotions that altered every time she spoke.
It was as nourishing to him as her strength and her
presence. He knew with a flash of comprehension that if he
ever grew deaf to her voice, he would be lost forever.

But Scully had quickly put the exchange behind her. She
continued to stride confidently ahead of him, holding the
hospital door open as she patiently waited for him to catch
up. He quickened his pace and brushed past her as he exited
the building.

The bright lights of the hospital interior had lulled them
into believing that it was still daylight, but stepping
outside quickly brought the reality home. Dusk was seguing
into night as the agents walked towards their parked car,
and with nothing more explicit than an exchanged look they
decided to finish up for the evening. A quick stop at the
police station briefly interrupted their trip back to the
motel, but before long they were back in their rooms and
ready for some food.

Scully volunteered to drive back into town and find them
some take-out, knowing that the solitary drive would give
her the much-needed opportunity to devote her mind to the
case. In Mulder's presence it was often difficult for her to
clearly formulate her own views, and she'd learned that
taking some time apart from him was a good way of
unravelling the thin cord of logic contained within the
insanity of his ideas in order to form the basis of her own
theory.

As she pulled out of the motel parking lot, Scully's mind
involuntarily turned back to the last time she'd seen Billy
Miles. She had been stationed behind the "watching" side of
a two-way mirror, staring at him in perplexity as he was
supposedly hypnotised. Back then, she hadn't believed in the
effectiveness of hypnosis, and had found the story Billy
told while in that state a troubling one, more for its
delivery than the content, which she had automatically
assumed to be false. Now, her feelings were different. Her
most recent experience under hypnosis had managed to at
least convince her of the possibility of its effectiveness,
even though she would never be a full convert to its use, or
the trust to be placed in it. Examining Billy's "statement"
from this perspective - and taking into account all that she
had learnt in the six years since that moment - she was more
inclined to believe certain aspects of his story. Of course,
no alien spacecraft had been responsible for the events that
he had recounted, but it was obvious that *something* had
happened that night in the woods that had led to the deaths
of three teenagers. Her guess was that the shadowy
government had faked the abduction with their "beyond top
secret" technology, subjecting the teens to similar
experiments to which she herself had been an unwitting
contributor. And just as her own experience from three years
ago had manifested itself this year in the form of cancer
and a child, Billy and Theresa had finally received their
fateful boomerang. The government's involvement was now an
unquestioned given; the experiments she ran on her blood at
the height of the cancer's attack proving that theory
without a doubt, but their motivations and objectives
remained as much as a mystery to her as everything else
about this case.

A sign on her right indicated her rapid approach to the
town, prompting Scully to ease her foot down on the brake.
Switching her mind away from its analysis of the case was an
easy task as her empty stomach reminded her of her current
purpose. Her eyes began to scan the main street for take-out
signs, while her thoughts settled elsewhere. With an
inherent skill that she'd honed to a fine art many years
earlier, she two-tracked her musings, simultaneously
contemplating the various food outlets, while also listening
to the undercurrent of other ideas that bubbled steadily
away. Splitting her concentration like this was a necessary
ability in her life, especially when one thought in
particular had a habit of underscoring every other
consideration in her head.

Mulder.

Mulder in all his guises. His face, his voice, his presence
- it all beat a steady refrain in her mind throughout every
second of her life. He was as inescapable in this intangible
form as he was in her daily life. He chased her through her
dreams and guided her through her darkest times. Never
relinquishing his hold, while she clung tightly with equal
force.

For some reason, the grip was particularly strong tonight.
Maybe it was the lingering memory of his weighted,
meaningful look as she had been performing Theresa's
autopsy. His gaze had stroked her skin with such intimacy
she had found it difficult to maintain her focus on the task
at hand. She had felt rather than seen it - being the
subject of Mulder's attention was a position to which she
had become keenly perceptive - and even now the feel of his
eyes fastened on her was fixed in her memory and clung to
her skin.

She pulled up to the curb and turned off the engine, but
remained unmoving in the car as her mind shifted Mulder into
focus. It was useless to try and push these thoughts away
once they had decided to take hold, so she allowed herself a
brief moment of indulgence.

Remembering the near-touch of his lips against hers was a
rare luxury since that fateful day in his hallway, so that
bringing it to the fore gave her an almost sinful pleasure.
She closed her eyes and allowed the moment to play itself
out, relishing the vibrancy of the tactile details: the feel
of his arms wrapped around her, his soft t-shirt warming her
cheek, his palm against her skin, the stroke of his thumb,
and the sensation of mouths barely connecting... The last
one she wasn't so sure about; couldn't say if their lips had
actually met or if this was a recollection that she'd
created. What she was certain about - what she allowed
herself to think about freely - was the meaning in the
expression that he had given to her with all the humility
and reverence of an offering to the Gods. It was the gift of
love, and she had tried to return it in her own futile way,
unsure if the ability to expose that part of her was still
something she was capable of. His response had implied his
understanding.

And then, there'd been the bee.

As always, Scully was brought back to reality with a jerk.
The violence of her re-emergence mimicking the abruptness of
the bee sting that had interrupted the long-anticipated
kiss.

In a way, she knew that she should be thankful for the
interruption. The inclination to kiss Mulder that night had
been a result of heightened emotions brought on by her
threatened departure. It hadn't been grounded in the
dispassionate logic with which she would hope to make such a
decision. It had been purely rooted in the feeling of the
moment, the culmination of years of so many missed moments,
and the need for sexual fulfilment.

Turning the memory over in her mind, she couldn't help the
puny, yet insistent worry which demanded to be heard. Maybe
it had been the best non-decision she had ever made.

Her hands quickly released the seatbelt, and opened the car
door, firmly steering the tantalising memories back into the
corner of her brain reserved for such evanescent moments.
Stepping out of the car, she moved swiftly towards a nearby
hamburger joint, determined to leave all Mulder thoughts
behind her.

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

Easy Ride Motel
Room 12
September 17
7:19pm

Scully's arms were laden with food and drinks when she
arrived outside Mulder's door, so she used the only limb
available to announce her presence, gently kicking the door
with her shoe. It opened almost instantly and his hands
quickly reached out to relieve her of the most precarious
parts of her load. She followed him into the room and was
struck for the first time by just how closely it resembled
the motel room they'd been in when they'd last been in
Bellefleur. Scully stood pensively at the entranceway as
this memory ran its course and before long, Mulder was
standing in front of her with a sardonic expression on his
face. She knew what he was thinking and just pushing her
mind in that direction caused her cheeks to flush slightly
and her gaze to dart from his direct look.

He lifted the last of the parcels out of her hands and
dumped them unceremoniously on the table behind him as he
continued to study her. "I've got the weirdest feeling of
dŽjˆ vu, Scully."

Scully shot him a look that did nothing to deter him, so
instead she resigned herself to pursuing the recollection
with him. "Only this time I've got all my clothes on."

Mulder beamed widely and after a moment's pause, Scully
returned the smile. She was glad to have it out in the open.
It was a memory that had been a persistent background image
in her head since they'd arrived in the town and she'd been
certain that Mulder's thoughts had veered in the same
direction. Now at least they could talk about it.

She moved closer to the food and started to pull it out of
the bags, undercutting the room's edgy atmosphere with a
brief spurt of mindless chatter. "I couldn't find Chinese,
so I hope you don't mind a burger..." It wasn't really a
question, and Mulder chose not to reply. Instead he watched
her with eyes sparked with humour and understanding.
Eventually, she settled down onto the armchair with food in
hand. Mulder took her cue and sat down on the bed, still
eyeing her with undisguised interest.

Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. Unwrapping the
burger's packaging, she asked the question that had needled
her on and off for the better part of six years, "So tell
me, Mulder - what did you think when your partner of five
minutes walked into your room and stripped to her
underwear?" She struggled to maintain a tone of levity, but
found it impossible to keep the seriousness completely at
bay, waiting with interest for his reply.

Mulder dropped the French fry he'd been about to put in his
mouth and pondered her with an equal mixture of lightness
and intensity. "What did I think?" A momentary pause, then,
with a smirk, he popped the fry in his mouth and replied,
"If I remember correctly, it was something like 'What a hot
bod!'"

Her surprise rapidly turned to a chuckle. Mulder added
almost immediately, "I'm only a man, after all, Scully."

With a wry expression, Scully answered, "I can see that."

Mulder lifted his eyebrow at her and allowed the comment to
hang in the air. His joking response had been a gut
instinct; a reaction to the seriousness of her question and
a deflection of his real feelings, but he knew that she
expected more. Minutes passed before either of them chose to
speak again and by the time Mulder's voice interrupted the
silence, all trace of humour had disappeared. He told her
the truth.

"It was the first time I'd seen you show any fear..." He
watched as her face tightened in hurt, and quickly carried
on. "That's not a negative, Scully. I know you think it is,
but to me, that was when you became a real person." She
shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but didn't speak. He
looked at her, and the image of his new partner appearing,
panic-stricken, at his door danced in front of him. That
woman who had opened herself up to him, the same woman who
sat in front of him now... The many faces of Dana Scully.
"But mostly I was shocked." His voice dropped, the words
muted yet powerful. "I couldn't believe that you would trust
me so much. That *anyone* would trust me so easily." He met
Scully's gaze and she felt words rising to the surface.

"I wouldn't now." Her voice was equally soft.

"Wouldn't trust me?"

She quickly corrected him. "No. Wouldn't trust a stranger so
quickly." Scully turned her head away and looked out the
window, her eyes seeing back into her past. "I was so naive
then, Mulder. It was my first time out in the field so I
felt I had to prove myself, but I also had to rely on you as
well as my own intelligence. I trusted everyone and
everything." Then a memory from the present assailed her.
"You told me that my scientific rationalisations had saved
you--" She continued to avoid looking at him. They hadn't
once talked about what had happened in the hallway before
the bee-sting, and she hadn't intended on bringing it up
with him tonight. But the parallel had only just occurred to
her. "You've done the same for me." Finally her head
swivelled back and she narrowed her gaze on him. "You've
taught me the value of trust, Mulder." Underlining the
comment, she added emphatically, "You've taught me what's
important."

Mulder's response was silence, for which she was grateful.
The gates had been opened now, and so many more comments
came flowing out to wash over the sucking space that
separated and bound them. "Not just trust... The importance
of belief, and values, and persistence. You've taught me
about open-mindedness - I've seen things that I could never
have seen before... I've learned to consider other
possibilities because of you, and your refusal to back
down." Her lips twitched upwards in a quick grin, "You drive
me insane sometimes, Mulder--" He smiled back at her. "But
you've made me a better person." She stopped speaking
abruptly, suddenly aware of the gravity of what she was
saying. Her gaze dropped heavily to her lap.

Mulder's meal lay forgotten. If she'd been physically
closer, he would have touched her, but the space that
separated them was perhaps a blessing in disguise. His
emotions fell into the same slots they'd been in just a few
months earlier when he'd been on the point of kissing her.
The fact that it was Scully who was revealing her deepest
feelings to him, rather than the other way around as it had
been last time, only made his response more intense. He
couldn't face her, worried that if he did, everything inside
him would shatter. Instead, he kept his eyes angled
downwards and clamped down the reaction unfurling beneath
his skin.

Scully brought her head up and watched him steadily. She
didn't need eye contact with him to understand his response
to her words. His body language was enough. It scared her,
and filled her with a soaring warmth at the same time.

A taut hesitance gripped each of them as the room's mood
subtly altered. All trace of flippancy had vanished, and the
sobriety that emerged in its wake was gently welcomed by the
pair. Scully's soft voice rose once more.

"Six years..." It was a statement and a question, all rolled
into one.

His eyes lifted to meet hers. "Six years..." His reply was
tempered with a knowing look. Everything else was left
unsaid.

Scully felt the beats of her heart reverberating through
her. Her breathing slowed. The one thought that was clear in
the twisted assortment of feelings running through her head
was a perverse appreciation of the physical distance
dividing them. Even though every fibre of her body was
screaming at her to draw closer to Mulder, she knew that to
do so would be wrong. Not here. Not tonight. With equal
clarity she acknowledged the significance of the exchange.
It was just one more brick being added to the bridge they
were slowly building. Their union was inevitable - she felt
this strongly - but rushing it would only result in
destruction of the carefully laid-down path. Something that
neither of them wanted.

Mulder pushed aside the cold remains of his dinner and
stretched out on the bed. He directed his gaze towards the
ceiling and said, "It must have been hard for you..."

Scully listened keenly, powerfully aware of the rarity of
this type of comment from her partner.

"... Your first field assignment and you're stuck with a
wacko and his bizarre alien theories. Did you think that the
powers-that-be were out to get you?"

Scully smiled, relieved at the note of humour that Mulder
had introduced to the conversation. "The thought never
crossed my mind." Her voice was deadpan, but the lingering
smile gave away her intent. Mulder caught it as he glanced
quickly at her, returning the look with a wry grin of his
own.

"The paranoia hit later, right?" He plunged back into the
comfortable zone of self-mockery, pleased to be skirting
away from the emotional exposure they'd briefly encouraged.

"That's right." She fell with equal ease into the familiarly
harmless territory. Lending a reminiscent trace of gravity
to her voice, she backtracked to the question he'd asked. "I
guess it *was* difficult ... But it was also a challenge,
and I appreciated that. As far as field assignments go, I
could have done a lot worse."

Mulder's head swivelled to the side and he fixed her in his
view. "Such as?" he gently prodded.

Her eyes rested on him for a moment, both gauging his
intention and simultaneously reflecting on the question.
"Well, I don't think I would have been too happy if that
case with the rabid cats in the basement had been my first
encounter of the X-Files." That produced a broad grin on her
partner's face, but no reply. So she continued, deliberately
maintaining eye contact as she spoke. "And I didn't do too
badly on the partner front either."

Mulder let the deeper implication pass, shrugging the
comment aside with a lighthearted reply, "So it hasn't all
been bad, then?"

"No... it hasn't." Beneath her words hid a thousand
admissions. She knew Mulder could read them, so she didn't
bother to disguise the truth that trickled through her
words.

His acknowledgment was silent, but present, nonetheless. He
then watched wordlessly as she began to gather the remnants
of their food together and place them neatly in the plastic
bag they had come from. He couldn't tear his eyes from her
as she moved fluidly about the room, her attention seemingly
focussed on the detritus in her hand. A long-lost memory
suddenly flashed through him and with an abruptness that
obviously startled her, he interrupted the momentary
silence.

"Your hair was a different colour then."

Scully faced him, one hand still gripping the discarded
hamburger packaging, with a look that was a blend of
bafflement and humour. "I can't believe you remember that."

The surprise she felt was mirrored in him: he couldn't
believe he'd remembered that, either. But he didn't share
that revelation with her. Instead he simply shrugged.

She pushed the paper packaging into the plastic bag and then
tied it up with a violent tug. After dropping the bundle in
his wastepaper basket, she came back to the chair and sank
down into it.

With a grimace of self-deprecation, she drawled, "I guess
you could say that I was going through a "stage" back then."

Mulder adjusted his weight so he was resting on his elbow,
and leaned closer to her, "A stage, Scully?" His voice
dripped with the ambiguous tone - at once intimate and
mocking - that he employed so often with her.

Scully brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear and
Mulder had to smirk at the unconscious gesture.

"I decided that people would probably take me more seriously
if I were a brunette rather than a redhead."

Mulder didn't hide his surprise. "I can't imagine people not
taking you seriously, Scully. No matter what your hair
colour."

She gave him a sidelong glance, "Believe me, Mulder, if
you'd gone through your entire life with red hair then you'd
appreciate just how often you *don't* get taken seriously.
You'd probably get sick and tired of having any anger you
felt dismissed as nothing more than your "Irish
temperament", just like I did."

He heard the sarcasm in her tone and chuckled softly. "Yeah,
I guess I would. But then again, I don't think I'd look
nearly as good with red hair as you do, Scully." He raised
his eyebrow to her and was rewarded with a tucked away
smile. He continued,"So, did it work?"

Scully frowned. "Did what work?"

"Dyeing your hair. Were you taken more seriously?"

At that, Scully almost laughed. "No, not really."  After a
moment's consideration, she added, "Although I did get
promoted to the X-Files."

They both saw the humour in this and smiled simultaneously.

"Yeah, they were definitely taking you more seriously,"
Mulder said sarcastically. "Sending you down to the basement
to investigate paranormal phenomena..." He leaned back
against the pillow and allowed the silence to swell around
them. He was enjoying this; casual, interesting conversation
with his partner wasn't something that either of them
usually made the effort to encourage. Their exchanges were
more likely to be filled with details of the case at hand,
with only the occasional diversion into personal territory,
and it was a pleasant change to indulge in more reflective
memories with her.

With that in mind, he cast his thoughts over other aspects
of their first case, and came up with yet another question
he'd always wanted to explore with her.

"So, do you ever wonder what happened during those nine
minutes we lost?"

Scully fixed him with her customary "yeah, right"
expression. and answered forcefully, "I don't believe we
ever lost nine minutes, Mulder."

In a cocky gesture, he crossed his hands behind his head and
grinned at her. "Well, I do." He ignored the look she
directed towards him. "And I also wonder what they did to
us... or made us do." He lowered his arms and sat up. "Nine
minutes, Scully. A lot can happen in nine minutes."

Images flew through Scully's head: her hand against his
skin; the feel of his lips...

Mulder watched her, fascinated by the play of emotions
across her face and eyes. The thoughts his words had
inspired were clear to him in the way she avoided his gaze.
His comment had been designed to rattle her, but her body's
response had thrown him equally off-kilter. He bit back the
gently needling remark that his brain had supplied, deciding
that enough was enough.

In a dismissive tone, he finished, "They probably just made
us sit through the highlights of George Bush's re-election
campaign..."

Scully gave him a small smile which was completely lacking
in humour. Getting to her feet, she said, "I'm going to bed,
Mulder." She walked to the door. "See you in the morning."

"Night, Scully." She'd already closed the door behind her.
Mulder fell back onto his bed and closed his eyes. Without
bothering to remove his clothes, he switched off the light
above his bed, and closed his eyes. He was in for a long
night.

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

The next morning, Mulder and Scully began the day with a
clean slate. No mention was made of the previous evening's
discussion - avoidance was a common tactic they shared that
wasn't going to be abandoned this late in the game.

They decided to concentrate on the interviews in the
morning, before moving to the location of Theresa's death in
the afternoon. The hours quickly passed as they gathered
more information from each source. The Bellefleur police had
provided them with the basic details relevant to the case
but little more. Skinner had smothered any possibility of
local investigation as soon as he'd been informed of the
case so all the local officers had gathered for Mulder and
Scully were a few addresses and the location of the body's
discovery.

The pair spoke to Billy's boss and a few of his workmates
and uncovered some intriguing facts. For the past couple of
years, Theresa Nemman had been a close friend of Billy's,
although no-one knew for sure just how intimate their
friendship was. His workmates were eager to point out that
Billy had always been a bit of a loner; he'd never discussed
his past with them although everyone had known the details -
it was a small town, after all. The agents then interviewed
Theresa's father, who bore little resemblance to the
blustery, overbearing man they'd met six years earlier. His
daughter's death appeared to have wrought a huge change on
him and he was unable to answer their questions with any
coherence. He knew that she and Billy had become friends in
the last couple of years, and he'd also become aware of her
increasing agitation in recent months, but that was all the
help he could give them. It was a difficult exchange as Dr.
Nemman tried in vain to hold back his tears and anger, and
Scully and Mulder left his house feeling drained and
emotional.

Their next stop was Billy's apartment. The super let them in
before tactfully withdrawing to allow them the privacy they
needed to filter through the debris of a life and to try and
uncover some answers.

A superficial examination of the bedroom and living area
produced enough information to provide the agents with a
clear understanding of Billy's state of mind before his
disappearance. His bed was encircled with piles of magazines
concerned uniquely with UFOs and the paranormal. Newspaper
articles were scattered on the floor, and stuck to a
corkboard on one wall; with a cursory glance, their
consistent subject matter was apparent - all were reports of
missing people, both from the area and further afield. In
his bathroom, Scully found a bottle of sleeping tablets that
was half-empty; going by the date the prescription had been
filled, she quickly gathered the seriousness of his
insomnia. Paradoxically, he'd also kept a packet of No-Doze
by his bedside, leaving Scully to ponder just how he'd used
the two in combination.

Mulder had moved into the other room. The television
dominated the smallish space whose only other furnishings
were a comfortable looking armchair, and a table and
deskchair. There was a letter on top of the table, which
Mulder began to read. Within a few seconds, he had called
his partner over.

Scully drew up beside him and followed the direction of his
gaze. The letter began, "Dear Agent Mulder," and she felt
her heart thump in shock. She continued reading:

"I hope you remember who I am. I know it's been a long time
since you last saw me, but I have never forgotten the help
you and your partner gave me six years ago.

"I'm writing you to ask you for your help again. I am
desperate and no one here would ever believe me if I tried
to tell them that I can feel the force pulling me again.
It's like the last time. I remember it now - it was so vague
to me when I woke up the last time. This time it's clear,
and I know what's going to happen.

"Please help me. I don't know who else I can ask. Please
help. Please."

The letter ended with a sentence that was crossed out, and
was marked throughout by similar evidences of a person
trying to find the right words to record. Mulder sighed
loudly and pushed the letter away. Scully couldn't think of
what to say. A pall of guilt had hit her partner, and no
words could erase the negative emotion. Soundlessly, she
continued searching the apartment, allowing him the time he
needed.

Mulder's face was a picture of black gloom as he listlessly
moved around the apartment in Scully's wake. His keen eye
picked up the important details, but his mind remained
distant from the actions of his body. A cursory case follow-
up would probably have staved off the events which had now
taken place, but he'd never even given Billy Miles or
Theresa Nemman a second thought in the intervening years,
and now he couldn't restrain his feeling of responsibility
for Theresa's disappearance.

"I don't think there's anything more we can do here,
Mulder." Scully's hand brushed gently against his upper arm,
even as her voice remained strictly professional. He allowed
its influence to wash through him, while his eyes traced the
surfaces of Billy's life, typified by his furnishings and
decorations. He gave Scully a signal of agreement and they
left the apartment behind them and moved to their next
destination: the site of Theresa's death.

That morning, the police had started to describe the
location in meticulous detail but the officer had only
needed to narrow it down to a particular forest before the
partners had immediately realised the connection. Mulder had
cut the man off mid-sentence after sharing a quick look with
Scully and explained to the surprised officer that they knew
exactly where he was talking about. The memory of that
particular clearing was something neither of them had been
quick to forget.

Foreboding settled heavily on the two as they now drove to
the forest, each agent wrapped up in their thoughts on the
case. Scully finally broke the silence with a question.

"Do you still think Billy Miles is dead?"

After thinking deeply, Mulder shook his head. "Something's
going on here, Scully." He wasn't deliberately avoiding
answering what she'd asked, but the facts of the case were
starting to jump out of place for him, and he needed to try
and put them together in some kind of order. "Why is this
happening again after six years? What is so important about
these two people that they need to be taken and killed?"

Scully considered the problem and gave it a scientific spin.
"What if it's some kind of follow-up?"

"To see the results of their experiment?"

She nodded. Then, as her mind continued to reflect on the
matter, she frowned and changed her mind. "No, it doesn't
make sense. Why would they kill Theresa if they wanted to
see the results of whatever had been done to her? They might
as well keep her alive and do another check-up in a few
years time."

Mulder followed her line of thought, "Unless further
development wasn't ever going to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Her body had no sign of illness or other problem, did it?
Maybe the aim of the tests they were running on her was to
find a cure." The possibilities leapt through his mind with
such speed that Mulder was having a hard time keeping up. In
frustration, he abruptly careened to the side of the road
and stopped the car. Scully looked at him in surprise but
the astonishment soon disappeared as he buried deeper into
the plausible and implausible reasons behind the young
woman's murder. "It could be anything, Scully. We've seen so
much..." He met her eyes as the events of the past year
played out through his head. She had no idea about which
particular incident he was referring to, but she answered
his look with a knowing gaze. "This could be linked to what
happened to you at that dam in Pennsylvania. Theresa may
have been killed by more rebels, intent on destroying the
plans for colonisation." Scully had no reply to give, so
Mulder plunged onwards. "Or maybe it has something to do
with what we saw in Antarctica."

"What *you* saw, Mulder." She gently interjected. For her,
Antarctica was a blurry dream with imagery she would never
be able to reconcile with her scientific background.

Mulder ignored her comment and continued the idea. "The
vaccine I injected into you destroyed that whole system."
The shuddering ship had almost claimed the partners as its
final victims and even now, Mulder could recall the panic
that had coursed through him when he'd realised that Scully
had stopped breathing. He shook the memory out of his head
and kept talking. "For all we know, it may have been a
delicate network that we completely annihilated - maybe
Theresa and Billy are innocent victims of a mass withdrawal
by the alien colonists?"

Scully knew that he was serious, but his last words had
severely tested her limits. She couldn't go that far with
him. They had journeyed to a certain point together in six
years - their beliefs had become so much closer - but there
was still a line and for her, he had just crossed it. Her
frustration radiated out of her eyes. She didn't want that
chasm to open up between them again, not after everything
they'd been through. But he had to know that she could only
follow him so far.

Mulder read her expression and stopped speaking. His gaze
dropped as he comprehended his error. He'd jumped too
quickly and without even needing to say anything, she'd
reigned him back in. He still believed his idea was a
concrete possibility, but he knew he'd need to provide his
partner with more proof than that to convince her. It was
one of the most important lessons that he'd learned from her
and it would be unfair to disregard it now. With a humoured
grin, he pulled back onto the road and concluded, "I guess
we should wait and see what we find in the forest."

"I think you're right." She bestowed him with a smile.

Under his breath, yet loud enough for her to hear, he added.
"And maybe we'll discover what happened to Billy Miles."

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

Collum National Forest
Northwest Oregon
September 18
1:31pm

He'd come during the day because it was the only time he
felt safe. His feet had led him straight to the spot, and
his memory recognised it instantly. This was where they'd
had that picnic. His mind went back to that day - the
celebration of their graduation.

Ray had been high with excitement; running around and
screaming like a lunatic as the rest of them had looked on
and laughed. He'd had high expectations placed on him by his
parents and had spent most of the year in a gloom of stress
and depression. So that night, it had been released from him
in a burst of hysterical energy. The smoke from their
campfire had attached itself to Billy's clothes and hair,
hiding the aroma of pot that he knew his dad would be better
off not detecting. At some point during the night, he and
Peggy had drifted away from their friends, eager for some
intimacy after long spells of deep looks and embarrassed
flirting.

Then, suddenly, it had all changed. Peggy and he had just
arrived back at the campfire when their world blew apart in
a blast of light. That was his last memory. Apart from what
had been dredged up during his hypnosis sessions, his life
had been obliterated from his mind for three long years.
Until the night when he "woke up" back in the forest with
Theresa cowering in fear beneath him.

And now he was back. He stood in the very centre of the
clearing, knowing that this was where he had brought his
friends to be killed. His body shivered uncontrollably
despite the warm sun beating down on him. His gaze dropped
to the ground - this was where Theresa had been found. He
knew that by sense alone. He hadn't seen her body, hadn't
dared venture anywhere near the forest until now, but he
could feel the exact spot where her life had been lost. He
crouched down and felt tears run down his cheeks. He should
have stopped her. He could have tied her up, or hit her, or
done something to stop her leaving his apartment. But he'd
been too scared for his own life. He'd already lost so many
years... he couldn't bear the thought of having it all taken
away from him for good.

Voices appeared from nowhere, striking fear into him
instantly. As he listened more closely, though, his terror
was rapidly quelled. The sounds were very human; two people
obviously absorbed in a conversation and with absolutely no
idea that he was nearby. Billy quickly got to his feet and
started searching the surrounding forest for an indication
of where they were coming from. Once he'd picked that, he
set off in the opposite direction, hiding behind some
shrubbery to spy on the new arrivals.

When they emerged he couldn't believe his eyes. It took him
a moment to place the pair, but once he'd remembered who
they were, he had to restrain himself from shouting with
joy. At last, someone who would understand him. Someone who
believed him.

Scully and Mulder were scouring the area for clues when
Billy Miles emerged from the forest. Mulder was the first to
react after a moment of shock rooted each of them to the
spot. He strode forward and placed a hand on Billy's
shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Billy stared at him wild-eyed. Then, unknowingly imitating
Theresa's gesture from years ago, he held his arms out and
pleaded, "You have to protect me."

Mulder looked first at Billy, then at his partner. She met
his glance with surprise still clinging to her features. She
joined Mulder and said to the stricken man in front of them.
"We won't let anything happen to you, Billy."

Billy's face collapsed into tears and it took all of Mulder
and Scully's combined strength to lead him back up the
hillside to their car.

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

"We'll have to keep him in protective custody." Mulder's
eyes were directed towards the restroom that Billy had just
entered. The diner was filled with a class of screaming
children on a school excursion, but the noise didn't dampen
the intensity of the agent's words.

"Can we do that?"

"We've got no choice, Scully."

They spoke in restless whispers, cramming a conversation
into the first minutes they'd had alone since picking Billy
up in the forest. Scully bit gently on her lower lip as she
considered the position they'd now found themselves in. They
had located the main suspect, but Theresa's autopsy had
offered no evidence of murder, so Billy couldn't be put
under arrest. And it was obvious that he was scared.
Whatever he was running from - whether real or imagined -
was destroying his life and they had to do something to
help.

"We can keep him in the motel with us tonight, then take him
back to Washington tomorrow." Scully glanced at her watch.
"We've still got a few hours to gather any remaining
evidence." Her eyes briefly met Mulder's. "All we've got
right now is supposition and ambiguity - we can sort that
out just as easily back home."

With a set jaw, Mulder sighed what was almost a whistle.
"He's got to have the answers, Scully. That's our only
hope."

If she had a reply, it was abruptly cut off by the opening
of the men's room door. Billy emerged looking slightly less
frightened than he had when they found him in the forest but
all the other body language signals indicated that fear was
still very much his companion. As he walked back to where
they were seated, his eyes darted nervously from one side of
the diner to the other. He was on the lookout for something,
and his obvious distress provoked an exchanged glance from
Mulder and Scully. Something had happened to this man, and
they needed to find out what it was.

Billy slid into the seat next to Scully and dropped his gaze
to his hands. She looked at him with concern. "Do you want
something to eat?"

He shook his head, his eyes still fixed downwards. Mulder
allowed a few seconds to pass before leaning forward and
interrupting the silence. "Billy, what happened to Theresa?"

No one spoke as they all waited for the truth to emerge.
Billy shrunk further down into himself as if to protect his
body from physical attack, and remained tensely quiet.

Scully's low voice cut through. Her fingers delicately
rested themselves on his hand as she urged him to tell them
what had happened. "You have to trust us, Billy. We want to
help you."

His instinct was to pull away from the touch, but he fought
it down, wanting to submit himself to her comfort. He turned
his eyes towards the agent and saw the concern on her face;
genuine emotions had long been distant to him and he felt
his reluctance melt away. Trusting them would save him. He
had to believe that.

Mulder sank back into the booth, understanding that the next
move had to come from Billy. His gaze never wavered from the
other man's face, except for the brief glances he shared
with his partner. One of which contained added significance
when Billy finally began to recount his story to them.

"It started again recently. Just a couple of months ago." He
swallowed and closed his eyes, forcing the fear to remain at
bay. "We both felt it at the same time, in the same way. It
would happen at night - we'd wake up from our sleep and feel
the need to go into the woods." A pause. A tear crept down
his cheek. "But we resisted. We knew what it meant..." As he
drifted into silence, Mulder took up the story.

"You knew it was a death sentence. That if you followed the
pull, you'd be killed." He didn't need to see Billy's nod to
know he was right. "So why did Theresa go, Billy? She knew
what was going to happen to her."

"You don't understand what it's like." His voice remained
hushed, but a sudden anger had leapt to the surface.
"There's no way of fighting it. It takes you over and you
can't resist."

Mulder turned his eyes towards Scully. She didn't meet his
look, not wanting to acknowledge the similarity to her own
experience. Her face remained firmly directed towards Billy,
who continued his explanation of what had happened to his
friend.

"Theresa tried to stop it - she came to my place because she
thought I'd be able to help her, but I couldn't. I didn't."

"The scratches." The murmur escaped from Scully's lips and
she knew that Mulder had come to the same conclusion. Now
they knew the reason behind the superficial wounds on
Theresa's body.

Mulder had one more unanswered question. "You saw the light
again, didn't you, Billy? Just like in 1992?"

An eerie calm descended on Billy's face. His response was
imbued with resignation; a static recitation of fact with
complete lack of emotion. "Yes. It was in May, earlier this
year."

Case closed. Mulder's eyes met those of his partner, a dull
understanding emanating from his expression. He could trace
this story from beginning to end if he wanted to, but he
knew that no one would ever bother to believe it. He
couldn't guess at the motives, couldn't dig for the
consequences, but he could form a clear structure in his own
mind. One that at least satisfied his own curiosity, even if
it achieved nothing else.

Scully knew they'd hit that familiar brick wall once again.
The foot-slamming stop that jolted her emotions and her
intellect every time.  Mulder had his answers; Billy had
provided him with the details he'd already intuited. Leaving
her rigidly cemented in her beliefs as he leapt ahead to the
finish. Her eyes narrowed as she connected with Mulder's
gaze.  She could see his desperation, could glean just how
badly he wanted her to follow him and his beliefs. She
pulled her gaze away and stared out the window, unable to
satisfy him. Or herself. It was their usual stalemate.

A gasp at her side quickly pulled her attention back to
Billy. The flash of red that she saw trickling from his nose
was enough to send her tumbling back into instant memories
of her own nightmare. She couldn't move, noting in a dim
corner of her brain that Billy's hands were the ones that
grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser, not
Mulder's. Her gaze darted to her partner and saw that he had
been just as immobilised as her by the unexpected nosebleed.
His eyes were fixed on hers, with panic openly displayed in
the irises. She had to look away, turning to Billy and
softly asking if he was all right. His expression was a
mirror image of Mulder's and, she assumed, her own; fear
stretched across his features and his knuckles were white as
he pressed the napkin against the blood.

"This keeps happening..." Billy whispered anxiously. His
eyes moved from one agent to the other, "I know what this
means; Theresa told me about the nosebleeds. It means
they're getting closer - they're going to take me..."

Neither Mulder nor Scully replied, choosing to silently make
eye contact in acknowledgment of the truth of his words. The
three sat without speaking as they waited for the bleeding
to stop. When it had, and after Billy had made another trip
to the restroom, the agents led him outside to the car.

Mulder accosted Scully as she went to open her door. "If we
examine him, I'm sure we'll find more implants."

"I didn't find any in Theresa's body."

He responded immediately. "Maybe they were removed after her
death."

"You're dealing in a lot of maybes, Mulder, when *maybe* the
truth is a lot simpler."

He put his hands on his hips and glared at her in
frustration. "You couldn't determine a reason for her death,
Scully. If you can come up with a scientific explanation
that fits all the facts, then I'll listen." She pursed her
lips, no reply forthcoming. "Until then, I'm putting my
faith in his story."

Her anger dissolved. She placed her hand on his arm and
allowed the depth of her feelings to shine out of her eyes.
"You know I can't do the same. This is who I am, Mulder.
This is who I need to be. For me, but also for you. If I
lied about this just to please you then it wouldn't be
helping either of us." She took a breath and emphasised her
last words. "I need proof. I can't accept his story without
evidence, Mulder. You know that."

Her words resonated with truth and he could do nothing but
accept them. To convince her, he would need more. Convincing
himself required so little. He nodded and she moved away.
They sank into the car in silence and drove Billy back to
the motel.

They spent the next few hours apart; one of them staying
with Billy to ensure his safety, while the other attempted
to tie up the numerous loose ends. With very different
objectives, they each achieved some degree of resolution so
that by nightfall all was ready for their departure in the
morning.

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

Easy Ride Motel
Room 11
September 18, 1998
8:48pm

The phone rang beside Scully's bed and she picked it up on
the first ring.

"How's it going in there?"

Scully diverted her eyes from the book she'd been reading
and glanced at the bathroom door. "Just fine. He's just
taking a shower at the moment." She could sense Mulder
nodding on the other end of the phone line and waited
patiently for him to speak.

"Do you want me to come and relieve you yet?"

Scully looked at the clock beside her bed. "Why don't you
wait another half hour--" She stopped speaking abruptly,
startled by an unexpected noise.

"Scully?" Mulder's voice was tinged with alarm.

She was off the bed, the phone still clutched to her ear. A
low rumbling had started emanating from outside and her
senses were instantly on the alert. "Mulder..." She didn't
finish immediately, craning her neck in the direction of the
window. Making a snap judgement, she directed her attention
back to the phone. "I think you'd better get over here."
Without waiting for his response, she dropped the phone and
swiftly moved over to the bathroom door.

"Billy? Are you all right?" She knocked and waited for his
reply. There was complete silence. "Billy...?" Anxiety crept
through her. Still, he remained silent. She tried the
handle, but it was locked. From memory, she recalled that
the lock had been an extremely secure one so she didn't even
contemplate trying to break it down. She pulled her gun out
and took aim at the door knob. "Stand away from the door!"
She had no idea if he could hear her, but she would rather
err on the side of caution than shoot the man she was meant
to be protecting.

Before she'd had a chance to fire, two events happened
simultaneously that stopped her dead in her tracks. Just as
Mulder's fists started pounding against the locked motel
room door, a sudden and blinding light burst into the room,
completely engulfing her with its visceral illumination. It
was coming from outside but its intensity managed to blur
the distinctions between the exterior and interior of the
motel. Scully closed her eyes against the harshly invading
force and shouted as loudly as possible to her partner.
"Mulder - go around to the back!!"

She thought she could hear his receding footsteps, but she
couldn't be certain. Her hearing was being overwhelmed by
the painfully loud humming which had grown in strength with
the light. With difficulty, she moved towards the window
which faced the back of the motel. It felt as though she
were walking through a gelatinous pool and covering that
small distance took all the energy she could muster. Once
she felt the window sill, she allowed her eyelids to peel
gradually open, adjusting in incremental degrees to the
light that continued to pulsate around her.

What she saw rendered everything she'd ever believed totally
invalid.

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

To Mulder, that run around the long motel building felt like
a dream. The kind of nightmare where your feet are plunged
so deeply in mud, it takes five minutes to move ten inches.
The rooms appeared to stretch endlessly in front of him as
he sped towards the end of the building, mocking him as they
deliberately elongated themselves.

In his haste, he missed seeing the heavy toy that some child
had left in front of one of the doors. His foot caught
underneath it and his body tumbled roughly to the ground.
When his back connected with the earth the wind wasn't just
knocked out of him, it was pummelled from his lungs. After a
few moments he was able to get back to his feet, but he knew
that precious minutes had been lost. He sprinted as fast as
he could to the end of the row of rooms and finally rounded
the corner. He stopped still. He couldn't believe his eyes.

Nothing. Absolutely zip.

The empty field stretched out in front of him in pristine
condition. Not a leaf out of place. Like a rebellious
teenager caught skipping school, it openly challenged him to
uncover its secret. He stared at the grass, the sky and the
moon in frustration. He knew that something had happened -
he'd heard the panic in Scully's voice - but once again, the
proof had been denied to him. He kicked a stone angrily and
swore with all his energy. "Dammit!"

In the distance he could see the figure of his partner,
silhouetted against her open window like some mythological
being. With a sigh of resignation, he started to jog slowly
towards her. It wasn't until he was a few feet away that her
expression fell into focus and what he saw there added
sudden speed to his lethargic steps.

Close to her, his breath almost disappeared. She looked like
a statue; a cold shell of the living person. Her face was
ashen, even her eyes appeared to have been dulled, and the
only way he knew she was still alive was by the steady rise
and fall of her chest.

She'd seen something.

"Scully?"

No answer. No acknowledgment of his presence, no movement at
all. He tried again, "Scully, what happened? Where's Billy?"

When she still failed to respond, his eye began to scour his
surroundings, hoping to find the answer she was unable to
give. The first clue he saw was the pane of glass lying flat
on the ground just a few inches away from where he stood. He
looked up, assuming its trajectory, and was greeted with the
sight of an empty window frame. His ear detected the sound
of running water and when he moved close enough to see into
the bathroom through the windowless frame, he saw that the
shower was running. And that no one was in it.

Stepping back quickly, his eyes darted around, searching the
ground beneath him. He glanced back in his partner's
direction and saw nothing but an empty room behind her. He
returned his attention to the grass and examined it in
minute detail, stepping carefully around the unshattered
glass as he strode further into the field that stretched out
in front of him. There was no sign of anything. No
mysterious circles, no tyre tracks, no footprints... The boy
that he and Scully had promised to protect appeared to have
vanished without a trace.

Scully's voice - finally stirred from its hibernation -
drifted out to him. "Billy's gone."

Mulder turned back to look at her, knowing without needing
to ask exactly what she was saying. He made a snap decision
to abandon his cursory examination until he had a full team
of officers with him, and decided to focus instead on
finding out exactly what his partner had seen. In a slow jog
he retraced his steps, and was back in front of Scully's
door within minutes. He let himself in.

She was still standing at the window, her face slowly
registering an expression of sorts. Swiftly, he moved
towards her until he stood directly in front of her. He
searched her face, her eyes, her body for some kind of
signal of what she'd witnessed, but everything had closed
down. He shifted closer so that their faces were a hair's
breadth apart. "Scully...?" He implored her to talk.

She blinked a couple of times and he could see her eyes
beginning to focus on him. She hadn't even realised he was
there until that moment. He tried again. "Scully, what
happened?"

Her gaping mouth spoke of her incomprehension. He stood in
front of her and willed her to speak. His hands reached out
and lay gently down on hers, his fingers caressing her skin
with a rhythmic smoothness. The feel of him appeared to cut
through the layers of stupefaction in which she was
enmeshed.

"Mul..." The name petered out before completion, her voice
so soft he could only tell that she'd spoken by the movement
of her lips.

God, he wanted to shake it out of her. He wanted to draw the
words from her so desperately that he feared he might damage
her in the process. His gaze dropped to his fingers, where
his skin connected with hers. His attention zeroed in on
their linked hands as he intensified the touch, running his
fingers along hers with a motion that mimicked a warming
caress. Following the movement, he suddenly observed
something that added fervour to his attempts at inducing the
words from her: the time displayed on their respective
watches differed by five minutes. Adrenalin pumped through
him. He lifted his head and gazed wordlessly at her, moving
his hand from her fingers to her cheek. Their foreheads were
separated by an infinitesimal margin of air. So close he
could see the rainbow of colours that made up the blue in
her eyes.

"Tell me," he breathed.

Her lids lowered and hid her gaze from him. He hated her for
concealing the emotions, but shoved the feeling aside as his
concentration fell to her lips. Watching with bated breath
as she spoke the words that would finally unite them.

"It looked..." The statement remained chained inside her
throat. Scully swallowed and pushed it out, her eyes
squeezed tightly shut as though in pain. "It looked like a
UFO."

Shock didn't cover the emotion that Mulder felt in response
to those words. Nor did happiness. Or joy. What he felt was
an ungraspable rush of feeling, so fierce he had visions of
it lifting him off the ground. Never - for as long as he'd
known her - had he ever anticipated that she might one day
say anything close to the admission she'd just spoken. Her
voice had been shaky, infused with doubt and a conflicting
certainty. It filled him with elation. Realistically, he
knew he should question her - should push her to provide him
with details and other unequivocal assertions of fact. But
he couldn't. They would have plenty of time for that later.

Instead, he wrapped his hand behind her neck and guided her
head towards him. With a tenderness that was complemented by
an all-too-recent memory, he pressed his lips against her
cool forehead, closing his eyes and imbuing the kiss with
the intensity of the emotions he was currently experiencing.
She had saved him, and gratitude was only one layer of the
sentiment he felt for her.

Her eyes were still closed when he pulled away from her, so
he allowed his gaze to examine her with unshielded
intensity. His hand slid from the back of her neck to its
side, allowing his thumb to gently stroke her jaw. His other
hand lifted to her shoulder, where it sat comfortably as he
waited for her to come back to him. With a soft murmur, he
interrupted the silence. "Are you OK?"

Her eyes slowly opened and gradually her gaze lifted to meet
his. It was hazy with confusion and he could see that the
shock still had her firmly clasped in its grip.

She started to reply, "I'm not..." The rest of the sentence
remained locked away. The words she'd spoken hung in the air
between them, melting whatever distance separated them.

Scully inched away from him, needing to sit down. Her legs
led her towards the bed but before she got there they let
her down. Without warning, her knees buckled and she was
clutching Mulder's arms. Mulder caught her and slowed the
fall, but she still ended up in a tangled mess on the floor.

"Scully..." His face anxiously examined her, his hands
brushing her hair away from her skin.

She felt the bed behind her and leaned gratefully into it.
"I'm OK. I'm OK," she murmured. She closed her eyes, but had
to open them again almost instantly when the darkness was
cracked wide open by the memory of the light. She felt
Mulder's hands on her skin. Against her cheeks, her arms -
he was everywhere. She could sense his worry purely through
his touch, and it added its own thread to the chaos that was
churning through her.

Her brain fought its way out of the fog, emerging from the
state of shock she'd been in with a new-found clarity and
the sense of having just made a huge mistake. She couldn't
believe she'd uttered those words. In her desperation, she
concentrated on what she'd said, preferring to castigate
herself for that, rather than contemplating what she'd seen.
What she'd seen was an ungraspable concept that had to be
ignored by necessity. The slipperiness of the memory gave
weight to her decision to push it aside. She couldn't
articulate something that her mind was unable to define.

"I don't know what I saw, Mulder." Scully's clear voice
answered the question he hadn't yet asked.

A pause. Then, the reaction: "Dammit, Scully - don't do
this." His anger was barely repressed. "What you mean is
that you don't *believe* what you saw. Don't confuse the
two." He picked up her arm and brandished the evidence in
front of her, "You lost five minutes, Scully. That's proof."

Only because his hands continued to caress her skin with
such gentleness did his words seem soft, despite their harsh
tone. She glanced at her own watch, then at Mulder's. She
made a half-hearted attempt to refute his claim, "My watch
is probably slow..." His shaking head cut her off before she
could continue.

"No. We keep our watches in sync, Scully. You know that."

She sucked in a ragged breath as the truth of his words
became apparent.

Mulder angled her head so that she couldn't avoid his gaze.
"I need the truth from you." He didn't hide the hurt from
her. It was openly displayed in a voice that was rough with
desperation.

His aching need rendered her both powerless and powerful.
Scully couldn't turn away from him, even though she wanted
to run right back to Washington. Their lives were constantly
being punctuated by these moments: flashes of revelation
that added structure to their bond, while simultaneously
pushing holes into their spirit. Normally, they would walk
away from the consequences. After her abduction, her
cancer... after everything, it would all get wiped under the
carpet and deliberately forgotten about as they struggled to
continue with their lives. But from the wild look shining
out of Mulder's eyes, Scully knew that they couldn't do the
same this time. She couldn't avoid his questions, nor could
she bury the repercussions. This was the elemental truth
that had led Mulder from his sister's abduction to this tiny
Oregon town, and he was determined to finally uncover it.

"Tell me what you saw." Intimately, possessively, he ran his
palm down her cheek. His eyes delved deeply into hers as he
begged her for the truth. "Please, Scully..."

The magic word. Scully had to tear her gaze away, his
intensity too much for her to take in. A struggle began to
twist through her gut, the indecision leeching into her
blood while determination fought itself out of her brain.
Saying the words would bring those still-deniable images
into the open, thus granting them the gift of substance. A
gift to Mulder. A Trojan horse for her.

She stayed quiet. Silence meant guesses - hypotheticals,
suppositions, and unsubstantiated theories. It meant
retaining her dignity, and losing Mulder's respect.

But in the end, determination won out. She breathed in and
started to speak in a quavering voice. "There was a
light..." She stopped and waited for his reaction, her eyes
peering upwards at him through lowered lashes. His mouth
twitched in a hint of relief, and with no movement, he
encouraged her to go on. "I couldn't see very well - it was
so bright."

Mulder felt a twinge of anxiety. He didn't want this to be a
repeat experience of her session with Dr. Werber. In his
newly-sceptical frame of mind, he'd been able to easily
classify that experience as a fake, influenced maybe by her
uncharacteristic display of emotion and intensity during her
hypnosis. However, her next description quickly drove that
fear from his mind.

"But I could see the... the ship." The label sounded
ludicrous to her ears, but right now, vocabulary was the
last thing on her mind. As the recollection continued to
unfold, she found herself needing to confide in him. With a
conspiratorial whisper, she admitted, "Mulder, I've never
seen anything like it."

Mulder heard what she was saying behind her vocalised words.
The confession that lay underneath spoke to him more clearly
than what she offered him on the surface. Her facial
expressions added still more details to what he was slowly
beginning to understand. A slow transformation was taking
place within his partner; a permutation of the belief system
that she'd built her whole life on. Recently, he had
experienced his own loss of faith, and witnessing the same
process occurring to his level-headed partner drove a
stabbing pain through him. He channelled all his energy into
supporting her - his eyes clung to her without moving, while
his hands imparted more feelings than he could begin to
catalogue - and slowly, she continued her recitation.

Her eyes stayed half-closed as she allowed the memory to
resurface. "It was completely translucent, like the webbing
of a frog, only it was more of a milky colour. I could see
the shadows moving inside it. It was round, and not very big
- about the size of this room. The surface texture looked
spongy, from what I could tell." Certainty had grown in her
voice as she continued relate the ship's appearance. It was
as if one part of her brain had made the decision to shut
itself down - its opposition to the portrait she was
painting was subdued and easy to ignore. Her eyelids lifted
and she found her gaze fixed to the knot in Mulder's tie.
She let it rest there as she kept talking. "I could see
Billy. He was suspended in mid-air, caught between the motel
and the ship. He looked like he was asleep." Her mind
continued to jerk back and forward between the past and the
present. Billy's face leapt in front of her, while Mulder's
hands firmly rooted her to this point in time. "And then it
swallowed him."

"Swallowed him?"

Now she looked at him. Almost to be rebuffed by the strength
of his responding look. Her gaze meandered briefly to the
window before being pulled back to his. "There was no door.
He appeared to be taken in through its walls. I can't
explain it, Mulder, all I can do is describe it."

He waited for more, but she stayed silent. "And then it was
gone?"

Scully nodded. "Just like that."

Mulder stood up and studied her. Now was the time to
challenge her. If there was just one aspect of the memory
that she was hesitant about, he knew it would persist in
haunting her. He paced the room with deliberate steps,
mulling over questions in his mind. Eventually, he launched
in. "Did you see anyone, or anything, apart from Billy?"

"No. Only the silhouettes."

"And the light source came from the ship?"

Scully's brow wrinkled. "I guess so... It's hard to say. It
was everywhere."

"If the light was so bright, how could you see what was
going on?"

The element of disbelief in his words stopped her short. Her
gaze flew at him with shock underpinning its depths.
Betrayal was in her voice. "Mulder...? How can you--"

He shook his head and quickly crouched back down beside her,
grasping her hand again. "I believe you Scully." Mulder
clutched her fingers more tightly as he forced his assertion
into her now wary eyes. "But you know as well as I do that
I'm predisposed to believing you. So right now, you need to
think of me as your lawyer. A defence lawyer... just leading
you through the testimony that you're going to have to give
to everyone else."

The testimony she was going to give to everyone else...?

Everyone. The local PD, the Bureau... God, Skinner. She was
going to have to sit in Skinner's office and calmly tell him
that yes, she really did believe that a UFO had abducted
Billy Miles.

Scully felt the blood drain from her face; rapid-fire
visions of mocking, laughing and dismissive authority
figures danced before her eyes. The future as she would now
know it.

Not if she had a say in it.

"It must have been a hoax," she stated firmly, guiltily
avoiding Mulder's eye.

His fury slapped at her hotly. "Bullshit!"

One word, spoken in fiery anger. It made her flinch, but she
refused to deliver the backdown he wanted. "I can't say
those things, Mulder."

"Yes you can." His gaze bored into her, refusing to let her
languish in her zone of comfort. "It's the truth, Scully."
Their touchstone word; the one, heavy syllable that bound
them more tightly than any written contract. He knew that
she understood the history of that particular word, and that
it wasn't something to be taken lightly - by either of them.

"Otherwise you'll be lying." He remembered what she'd said
to him outside the diner, and brought her own words back to
haunt her. "You'll be lying to please yourself, Scully. And
*that's* not going to help either of us."

She glared at him with an accusatory look, implying that he
wasn't playing fair. He softened his voice and added, "Trust
your judgement, Scully. Just as I do." It was a serious
sentiment, spoken with strength. He allowed a few seconds to
pass as the words sank in, and then persuasively added, "All
I can say is that in all the literature I've read, I've
*never* heard of what you've described."

She took in the comment with widened eyes and an open mind.
Her head fell back against the bed, and her gaze moved away
from him as she contemplated his words. His input added
strength to her recollection; if tangible memories had
formed the basis for her commitment to him and his quest,
they had now provided her with her own belief to cling to.
But his support was the final touch that she needed. It was
through a union of their knowledge, their emotions and their
beliefs, that they might finally be able to embrace a common
truth. Scully knew that she needed to focus on what she'd
seen. She knew also that while she could never reject
science, the point had come where she was prepared to
acknowledge its limitations. How could something as
unquantifiable as memory be analysed?

Six years ago, she had walked into Mulder's basement office
and been forced to defend her rigid scientific take on life.
He had challenged her to explain her beliefs, and had
confronted her with ideas she'd never contemplated. She had
been unbending. He had been unrelenting. But over time, they
had lent their views to the other. Mulder had learnt to
temper his natural enthusiasm for all the alien myths and
stories, while she had allowed a few concessions to modify
her strict scientific principles.

Turning her head back in his direction, Scully fixed her
partner with a look replete with meaning.

"Mulder, when I first met you, you said something to me..."
The sentence fell into a whisper as Mulder's gaze slipped
out of focus, recalling that initial office meeting. Scully
saw the flicker of understanding suddenly shine forth as the
words she was recalling came back to him and it pushed her
to continue. "You suggested that when science can offer us
no answers, we should turn to the fantastic as a
plausibility." She was calm as she quoted his statement from
so long ago, although she was unable to keep the faint
tremor from her voice. "You still believe that." There was a
long pause as she built up the courage to continue.

"I now feel that this idea has merit."

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

Easy Ride Motel
Room 11
September 18
9:13pm

She had piled words on top of the essence of what she was
saying, diluting the meaning to the point of insignificance,
but Mulder had already scratched through to the heart of her
meaning. He knew what she was telling him.

"Scully, are you saying that you believe in the existence of
extra-terrestrials?" It was a knowing allusion, but there
was no humour in his voice; he strained to keep an even
tone, hoping to excise the meaning from his question.

It cut to the bone. Scully felt her automatic response
mechanism build within her and she was unable to stop it;
exasperation moulded her expression, resistance flew through
her mind, and her mouth opened with the negative answer
ready to tumble out. Then, she caught up with herself, and
swallowed back the reply, wiping her face clean and allowing
the puzzlement she felt to be seen. "I don't..." She
stopped, shook her head and started again. "No, that's not
what I'm saying." She cut off his frown with a hurried flow
of words, "I can't just ignore everything that I've believed
for my entire life, Mulder." Her eyes punctuated her
rebuttal. "What I'm saying is that it does appear plausible
that there might be answers beyond the realm of science...
In this case, at least."

Mulder sat back on his heels and after a long moment,
nodded. Scully absorbed his acceptance without comment,
feeling the need growing within her for her own
reconciliation. The statements she had made to Mulder had
fallen out almost without thought, but now her brain had
realised the depth of her admission. Closing her eyes, she
turned the words over in her head. The recollection of what
she had seen intermingled intangibly with the echo of what
she had just said.

That... thing... she had seen. All her training told her it
was an impossibility; the distances needed to cover to reach
Earth too great for any kind of space ship, particularly
such a small one as this. It had to be a figment of her
imagination, or a government creation, designed to
perpetuate the lie... These were the ideas that she had so
strongly believed in every other case. But this time, they
just didn't hold up. Because this time, she had truly opened
her eyes.

The past year had been a time of re-evaluation for both of
them, each partner faced with stronger and stronger
challenges to their perceptions than ever before. She had
discreetly flirted with Mulder's version of the truth,
introducing a degree of openness to her perspective that had
only led to more friction between them than closeness. Yet
for her, it had paved the way for this moment. Preparing her
with small indiscretions for this radical break with her own
beliefs, and because of that, she knew that it *would* be
possible for her to admit to others what she had seen. With
Mulder's support, anything was possible.

It had been a year sliced open with pain - for both of them
- and yet the end result had been her vow to fight on, to
stay by his side. With that commitment had come the implicit
acknowledgment of reaching a common ground. A shared enemy
against whom they would fight. A dual goal to achieve in the
near future. And now, they had briefly connected like the
rings of two circles, overlapping not once, but twice in
such a short space of time. One touch purely sexual, the
other purely intellectual; the twin sides of their
attraction meeting in separate spheres. And Scully knew that
just as she could not deny the truth of the feelings
exchanged in Mulder's hallway, nor could she now refute what
her intellect was telling her to be true.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her, his expression
fraught with concern. She nodded - telling him she was fine,
telling him that she had accepted the truth - and his face
relaxed into a smile. Without speaking, Scully got to her
feet and moved towards the bathroom, fervently hoping for
some kind of proof that would add a stroke of physical
reassurance to her unverifiable memories. She wasn't
disappointed, although she was surprised.

Water continued to pour out of the showerhead, but that
wasn't the sight that caught Scully's attention. The window
located directly above the bathtub was missing its pane of
glass, but when she leaned forward to examine the inside of
the tub, the shattered remnants she expected to find were
non-existent. Carefully she stepped back, eyeing the shower
faucet but making no move to destroy the crime scene by
turning the water flow off. She turned to face Mulder whose
gaze briefly took in the window before settling back on her.

"It's out there." Mulder jerked his head towards the window,
his toneless voice answering the question she hadn't yet
asked. Before she had a chance to reply, he added, "In one
piece."

"What? That's impossible, Mulder. It must have broken when
it hit the ground. And how can it be on that side, anyway?
If there was some kind of force, it would have pushed the
window *in*, not out."

Mulder put his hand on his hips. "If it was strong enough to
pull Billy out of here, then I guess it was strong enough to
pull the window too." He raised a hand and gripped one of
her shoulders. "You should be happy, Scully. You've got your
proof." His gaze encompassed everything around them before
adding, "This is more evidence than is usually left behind."

"Apart from messy rooms and scattered papers?" Her attempt
at humour failed dismally, with Mulder taking her comment
seriously.

"That's not unequivocal proof of an alien presence; any
human can do that. An unbroken window that's on the outside
without any evidence of human tampering, on the other hand,
*is*."

She gave a weak smile. "I'll be sure to mention that in my
report."

He studied her intently, suddenly aware of her fear, and
quickly made a decision. "Look, Scully. If you decide that
you can't go ahead with this, I'll support you in that
choice. I won't like it, but I'm not going to force you to
put your ass on the line if you don't think you can take the
heat."

Her shock showed clearly, before softening into something
more difficult to discern. "Mulder I can't ask you to cover
for me on this one. Moreover, you shouldn't even be offering
me that choice... " Her voice had suddenly sunk to husky
depths, and its pitch sung through him like liquid fire.

He moved closer to her, placing his free hand on her bicep.
"There *will* be heat, Scully. I just want you to be sure."

Looking up at him, Scully suddenly became aware of just how
close their bodies were. Without thought, she raised her
hand and placed it delicately on his chest. "I am sure."
Then, she added quickly, "I'm ready for any heat." Her eyes
gave details that words could never properly cover, and a
quick smile darted across his face before he pulled away and
walked slowly out of the bathroom, fully aware of the gaze
that followed him.

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

Easy Ride Motel
Room 12
September 19
2:48am

Mulder turned the shower on and quickly tossed his clothes
aside. Two hours of intense and scathing questioning at the
hands of the local police had done nothing to enhance his
rapidly souring mood and although he knew the decision to
find the nearest all-night liquor store and buy himself a
bottle of Scotch had been a foolish one, right now sensible
thought was far from his mind. He was incensed at the way in
which the officers had treated Scully's statement on Billy's
disappearance; being dismissed for holding views on aliens
and UFOs was something he was all too used to for himself,
but seeing Scully go through the repressed jeers and open
derision that he had become accustomed to was a different
matter.

The water heated up and tossed curls of steam around his
body that clung in tendrils to his skin. He stepped into the
shower receptacle and plunged his head under the steaming
water, willing the liquid to wipe away the feelings that
were plaguing him. Mere seconds passed before he realised
the futility of that hope. With nothing to distract his
brain, it was supremely natural for him to focus on the
persistent thoughts.

What had happened in his partner's motel room would be
forever seared on his memory. Shutting his eyes brought
Scully leaping into view; her face hovered in front of his
closed eyes, her expression full of significance. His own
words emerging from her mouth had sounded like pearls of
profound wisdom. She had recited them like a vow, and in an
instant their separate worlds had finally been married.

It was a moment that should have given him a sense of
unadulterated pleasure; Scully had finally admitted that
there were more things in heaven and earth that she had ever
dreamt of in her philosophy, and he had been right there to
witness this dramatic shift. But although it was a moment he
had wanted for so long, it had disturbed him more than he
ever would have expected.

His reliance on Scully's impartiality and scepticism had
become so complete that to be confronted with the opposite
of that was more than just disconcerting. It shattered his
own belief system just as dramatically as Kritschgau's cool,
detailed words had done little more than a year ago. Mulder
knew that he needed Scully's restraint both on a
professional and a personal level, and he feared that
without her guiding force, everything would slowly loosen
and dislodge itself from the only dependable aspect in his
life.

Like the hot water seeping into his skin, an understanding
slowly gained entrance to his consciousness: as much as he'd
wanted Scully to believe in the existence of alien life, her
acceptance of this belief would unquestionably alter the
dynamics of their partnership, which would in turn affect
their relationship. A relationship that had already been
shaken up so many times that it had now reached the point of
near explosion.

Mulder couldn't contemplate this idea any longer, and with
an abrupt snap of the wrist, he turned the faucet off and
stepped out of the shower. He dried himself haphazardly and
went back into his room, pulling on a pair of boxers and a t-
shirt before settling back on the bed. Before his mind had a
chance to wander further, there was a knock at the door.

It could be no-one else.

Mulder's eyes travelled to the door. The knock had been
tentative, which was unlike her, but he knew it was Scully.
No-one else would be on the other side of his motel room
door at this time of night. Her lack of confidence piqued
his curiosity, and he picked up the remote control and
silenced the droning television as he invited her in.

"It's open, Scully."

Her movements were hesitant as she entered. After she'd
closed the door behind her, the female agent remained
standing near the entrance, her face uncharacteristically
nervous. She had changed out of the suit she'd been wearing
when he last saw her, and in its place was the more
comfortable ensemble of well-fitting grey track pants and a
loose black t-shirt. In her hand was a collection of pages
that Mulder assumed to be her report.

Stepping forward, Scully lifted the report towards Mulder.
"I'd like you to read this."

His startled look said it all. In all the time they'd been
working together, Scully had *never* invited him to look at
her reports. And he'd never asked. It had been an
unacknowledged "no go" area; he knew that she needed to be
able to record her observations without fear of being
influenced or hampered by him, and he had always respected
that need.

She understood his surprise and waited patiently for him to
digest her request. After a long period of taut quiet,
Mulder reached out his hand and took the report from her.
She felt a physical sensation of departing tension as the
pages left her hand. It was the passing of the baton, in a
sense, and there was no-one she trusted more with this most
important of tasks. As Mulder began to read, Scully gently
sat down on the bed. He was sitting with his back pressed
against the wall, his feet flat on the bed and his knees
pointing skywards; she lent against his legs, relaxing into
the feel of him against her back.

As his eyes travelled along the page, Scully could
practically see the words forming in his head. She had
sweated over this report more than she'd ever needed to in
the past, and each sentence was burned into her memory like
images of death. Bowing her head, she studied her fingers,
while her mind played over every statement as Mulder read
it. His breathing was the only guide she had, and it was all
she needed. The intakes of breath clearly told her when he'd
reached a particular passage, while his acute silence filled
in the rest of the blanks.

It was easy to read what was on show. Much harder was the
task of guessing his feelings - those he was keeping to
himself. Scully wasn't even sure if she wanted that insight;
right now she was too wrapped up in contemplating her own
tattered emotional state. The writing of the report had been
the first jump in what she knew was going to be a long
downward spiral. So much of what she'd based her entire life
on had been completely decimated by what she'd seen that
night, and writing it down had only made the struggle more
difficult. Whereas once, she fought Mulder, now, she was
fighting herself. And while it made winning so much easier,
it also meant she would also end up the sole loser.

Scully finally broke the steady gaze she'd been directing at
her hands, and turned to face Mulder. As she watched, he
reached the final page and lifted his eyes to meet hers.

The connection held as they shattered within.

Mulder was the first to sever the eye contact, pushing the
pages aside so that they fluttered on top of the remote
control. Without comment, he pulled his knees away from her
back and swung his feet onto the floor, pausing only for a
second before standing up. Her eyes followed him
questioningly. He glanced quickly at her, then moved his
attention to the bottle in the corner of the room.

In a low, rumbling tone, he said, "I need a drink."

She almost smiled. It tweaked gently at her lips, but was
gone just as quickly. He didn't see it, and she was glad.
Instead, she cut the silence with her usual mixture of
reprimand and inquisition. "Mulder..."

He knelt down and picked the bottle up. "I knew I bought
this for a reason." The comment was just loud enough for her
to hear, but it was directed mostly towards himself. He
stood upright and grabbed the two plastic cups located on
the table next to him. Turning back to face his partner, he
added, "You've written your report, Scully. That counts as
case over in my books." Tossing her a rapid look, he
separated the cups and doused them in heavy drops of
alcohol. "Sorry I can't offer you any ice." He shrugged and
came back to the bed, holding the drink in his outstretched
arm.

She stared at it for a long time before lifting her eyes and
meeting his gaze. Challenge blended with need - it shone out
and made her decision for her. She grasped the cup and
nestled it in her hand. Mulder gulped down a mouthful before
placing the drink on the bedside table, then manoeuvred his
body back into its earlier position. Her back started to
whisper against his knees, then surrendered to leaning its
weight completely into him.

"You're going to give this report to Skinner?" His tone was
measured, but they both knew it was a disguise.

"Are you saying I shouldn't?" A quick sip of the liquid in
her hand reminded Scully of her distaste for strong spirits.
She stood up and moved to the bathroom, putting a physical
distance between them that mimicked the tension their words
were generating. She felt his eyes on her back, his doleful
stare, as she topped the Scotch up with a healthy dose of
water. She heard the dull swoosh as Mulder swallowed another
mouthful.

"No, that's not what I'm saying."

She turned and walked back to the bed, reclaiming her former
position with a near-sigh. Another sip as Mulder continued
to speak.

"I just want to make certain you're sure about this,
Scully." His hand reached out, wrapping itself around her
own.

"I know what this means." The whisper crept out, but the
words were deceptive. She faced him silently, taking in his
touch and his gaze, then - in a quick, mercurial moment -
tightly clutched his hand, not caring if he felt her
desperation. She needed something to hold on to. Something
to put her back up against.

"Tell me I'm wrong." Her eyes pleaded with him. "Mulder, I
don't know if I can do this."

"You're not wrong." He answered softly, but with conviction.
For a moment he broke eye contact as he glanced down at the
report. "Everything you've said in here, Scully, it's all
true. It's no hoax."

"How can you be so sure?" The brittle fragility of her voice
gave an indication of her fears; it was the only outward
sign she allowed to permeate through her defences.

Six years slid through Mulder's memory. "Because you have
fought against this for so long. And so valiantly, Scully--"
There was more, but he stopped, bringing his thoughts
together, "I know you," Amongst the intensity, a weak smile
was exchanged. "And I know your uncompromising standards.
The scientist in you would never allow you to put this down
on paper unless you believed it."

"The scientist in me would never believe this, period."

"You're more than a scientist, Scully."

Her eyes bored deeper into his. She felt her breath catch;
in the journey from his lips, the warmth behind his words
translated to something more significant. Something that was
acknowledged in his gaze, and starting to spread to his
expression.

Scully manoeuvred her thoughts in another direction, her
fears from earlier resurfacing. "But I am a scientist, and a
doctor, and an FBI agent. I can't just start going around
claiming I've seen a UFO, Mulder - I'll be the laughing
stock of the FBI."

A shadow of hurt flickered across his face. "Well, I'm an
FBI agent, too. And an Oxford-trained psychologist... and I
managed to do it for twenty-five years."

Her gaze fell away from his. It didn't travel very far,
choosing to examine their interconnected hands. As she
replied, her fingers delicately stroked against his palm,
her focus riveted on that one spot. "I don't know how you do
it, Mulder. I don't know where you get your strength from."

"My strength?" His voice pulled her attention back to him.
The incredulity contained openly in his tone caused her to
arch an eyebrow inquiringly. Mulder answered straight away.
"It wasn't difficult at first, Scully. When you don't care
about anyone or anything apart from this one crazy belief,
then it doesn't matter what other people think about you."
He lifted their joined hands up and clasped her hand between
both of his, tugging her closer to him with the action.
"Then I met this woman who suddenly made me care about
something other than UFOs and conspiracies."

<Diana, he's talking about Diana.> Scully concentrated on
that one thought, ensuring that her other feelings remained
firmly closed off.

"A woman who believed in me for reasons that I still have
yet to fathom. She gave me the respect that no other person
had deigned to offer me, and she did it willingly and
without question. She told me once that she admired me for
my passion and that put me on a high for weeks."

She couldn't keep looking at him. Not when he was saying
these things to her. Not when he was shedding himself, layer
by layer, right in front of her eyes; in the very spot where
she had guilelessly revealed herself all those years ago.
The unbreakable union that their eyes managed to maintain
through six years of every possible emotion couldn't
continue. She had to sever the gaze now because if she
didn't, she would lose herself.

It only made him draw nearer. She could feel him against her
skin, even though his face remained inches away. His
continued outpouring breathed against her cheek, gently
caressing her. "She made me fight for what I believe in; but
she made the fight worthwhile. She gave me strength, Scully.
You give me strength. You've shown me what it means to be
strong. When you were in the hospital you fought that cancer
to its death because you refused to bend to the will of
anyone or thing out of your control. If I have demonstrated
any degree of strength over the past six years, I owe it all
to you."

Pools of meaning swam underneath his words, and she
understood it all. She drew in a shaky breath and lifted her
eyes. Seconds lengthened and wrapped time around them like a
cocoon as they continued to take in and offer feelings that
could never be expressed in words. Scully lifted the hand
that wasn't enclosed in his grasp, and placed it tenderly
against his cheek. She stroked with her thumb, while lifting
her other hand out of his gentle grip. His face was nestled
between her fingers, his eyes still firmly attached to her
gaze. Words were superfluous.

With a deliberation born out of years of restraint, she
inched her face closer to his. Delicately she kissed his
cheekbone, and felt his lashes flutter against her skin. Her
lips then found his mouth, where she placed a soft,
meaningful kiss before drawing back to renew the eye contact
between them. His eyes contained a confused blend of
emotions, the sharpness muted by the effects of the alcohol,
but the intensity underlying it clearly visible. His finger
traced the edge of her hairline; the sweet, light touch
causing her eyelids to briefly close. He answered her kiss
with a gentle one of his own, his lips barely grazing
against the skin of her mouth.

Scully lowered her head, unable to tear the smile from her
face. Her hands had fallen to her lap, but she could still
feel him under the tips of her fingers. The need to explore
further tugged mercilessly at both of them, but it was with
equal strength that they fought the urge down.

"We can't..." Scully murmured.

"I know." His fingers catching hers, like a kitten playing
with its ball of wool.

Her eyes lifted. "But we will." Her voice was solemn.

He smiled in reply. And nodded.

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

~ Epilogue ~

X-file number 30007895
Addendum to Dana Scully's report (September 19, 1998)
October 13, 1998

In the month that has passed since the events that this
agent witnessed in the town of Bellefleur, Oregon, no
further evidence has come to light that either substantiates
or refutes my allegations of alien involvement.

Billy Miles' body was never found, nor was any evidence
given to support the local police department's theory of him
escaping the protective custody being granted to him by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

For the record, I would like to strongly state my
astonishment and anger that the Bureau has decided not only
to close down the investigation into the death of Theresa
Nemman and the disappearance of Billy Miles, but to also
relocate the file into these events from the X-files to an
unknown division due to what Assistant Director Jana Cassidy
has described as the "ludicrous" assertions made by this
agent in the report from September 19.

In the six years that I have been involved in the X-files
division, my reports have always been treated with respect
by my superiors and have been entered on record as the
accepted version of the truth of the events that my partner
and I have witnessed and investigated. The decision to
discount my initial report on the truth of Billy Miles'
disappearance leads me to suspect that the previous respect
with which my reports were treated had more to do with their
rebuttal of the views of Agent Mulder than any belief in my
own views as put forward in those reports.

This fact saddens and angers me, particularly when I am very
aware of the unresolved nature of the deaths of Theresa
Nemman, Ray Soames, Peggy O'Dell and Karen Swenson, along
with the disappearance of Billy Miles. Deaths and
disappearances which warrant further investigation by Agent
Mulder and myself, but which I know will be swept under the
carpet by the Bureau in its continued attempts to deny the
truth that is evident in these events.

End of addendum.

~~~~

Note from the Director (October 14, 1998):

Special Agent Scully is to be suspended without pay until
further notice.

~~~~

End of X-file number 30007895.

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