Title: Drawing Lines 
Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the whole freaking myth-arc belongs to
CC, 1013, and Fox. Definite infringement is always intended, but not
really meant with any real threat. We all know that. Like I could make it
as good as good and suspenseful as CC. . .never.

SPOILERS:::::Two Fathers, the Full Disclosure, the entire myth-arc is all
packed into this emotionally charged roller coaster.

CONTENT:::: This is UST, and Mulder/Fowley hints, even though I hate her.
And it's. . .long been repressed.


~~~~
Drawing Lines
~~~~

"There has to be somewhere to draw the line."
--dana scully, colony

~~~~
Chapter One
~~~~

"Oh, I changed it to trust everyone, Scully. Didn't I tell you?"
--fox mulder, colony

~~~~


Fox Mulder breathed in slowly through his nose, then chewed on his bottom
lip, feeling a strange kind of excitement well in him with her words.

"I wouldn't bet against him."

Kersh merely glared, Skinner's own glare in his back, the resounding words
of Spender ringing in the air like bells on a wedding day.

Or bells tolling a death.

Mulder shivered and looked to Scully, wondering still, unsure of where
they were on this whole thing. She hated him now, he knew that, hated his
wild mood swings of trust and paranoia, the way she always got caught in
the fallout.

"You have the X-Files. Temporary basis only."

Kersh turned his back on them and sat down, his dark face glowering,
Skinner's exultant in contrast.

His stern military profile came back quickly, a kind of wash over that was
almost humerous, but Mulder was too anxious to sit still.

He jumped up, hearing Scully rise slowly from her chair, the scrape as she
followed him.

At the doorway, he turned and saw Skinner, then Kersh, and Scully a few
steps back, looking almost reluctant.

When he spoke, it was to everyone in the room.

"You won't regret this."
~~~~

Mulder dashed for the elevator, then waited impatiently as Scully trudged
up behind him.

The doors closed and he felt as if the world was closing down on him too.

"Now that you have the Bureau, are you still in this, Scully?"

He glanced at her, saw her tongue dart out across her lips.

"I guess I have to be."

He squeezed her elbow as the doors opened to the dim hallway stretching
before them.

"No. This has to be your choice. Your decision."

Scully jerked her elbow from his grip and stared him right in the eyes,
fire flashing so bright and deep within her that he stepped back.

She turned purposefully and strode through the hallway to their office.
~~~~

He plowed into her as she stood there, fixated in the doorway.

"Having second thoughts, Scully?"

She glanced back to him, shock written into her face, and then stepped
slowly aside.

The color drained from Mulder's face as he saw the blood.

"Spender."

Scully started forward, her medical instincts kicking in slowly, her body
crouching over his still form.

Mulder beat her to the prognosis.

"He's dead."

Scully looked up, fear lacing her eyes.

"We could be dead next," she whispered.
~~~~

The old man gave a slight sigh of relief when he was out of the building,
making it to the Pentagon via the underground tunnel.

There were others left alive, those who had decided for some reason not to
be taken up into space with the original ones, he knew where they were
hiding out.

They could rebuild, regain time, stop this from happening. 

Bill Mulder's ideas had been foolish in the beginning; they were foolish
now. 

Hopefully, Fox Mulder knew that.

The man took the cigarette from his lips and snubbed it with his shoe.

He lit another and inhaled it gratefully.

God, please let Fox Mulder understand his foolishness.

Otherwise, he was next to go.
~~~~

Scully sat in the dark, shaking her head at his excitement.

Mulder paced his living room, running his hands through his hair, then
slamming the basketball into the wooden floor with quiet desparation.

"I need to tell you some things, Scully."

She was already staring intently at him when he brought his head up to see
her.

He sat down in an armchair, pushing the ball away and letting it roll
across his uneven floor.

"I think Diana's dead," he said.

There was no flicker in her eyes, no twitch to her mouth, nothing.

"I know you're thrilled," he said softly, and Scully felt immediately
awful for being thrilled.

She could see the pain in his eyes.

"I'm not thrilled, Mulder."

He shook his head. "I sent her on ahead. To the Base."

Scully glanced up at him, frowning. "That base was a trap, Mulder. You
sent her on ahead . . .? What, where you going to come later?"

He looked up at her, straight into her eyes. "And you. . .I wanted to take
you with me."

She glared at him. "To be tested on?"

"No, to be saved."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have come with you, Mulder. Never."

He stood and grabbed his basketball, slamming it back into the floor with
a raw anger she hadn't seen in him before.

He stopped just as suddenly as he had started and moved over to where she
stood.

"I would have made you," he whispered tightly.

She slapped him.

Hard.

And it felt good.

He stared at her a moment, then pulled away, watching her.

"It was supposed to be a ticket away from the destruction, away from the
madness they planned to unleash."

She sat down. "You're going to have to tell me everything, Mulder.
Everything. I may be able to talk in your riddles, but I sure as hell
can't explain them."

He glanced to her, then settled back into the chair, balancing the ball on
his stomach.

"Cigarette-Smoking Man came into Diana's room while I was snooping."

"Snooping for what?"

"Proof of your accusations. I didn't find any. But I did find him."

Mulder closed his eyes, then proceeded to tell her everything, his jaw
already aching.
~~~~

The first emotion she remembered feeling was hatred.

Hatred because he had chosen Fowley, chosen her to go along with him.

And then her, then Scully.

"I. . .I don't understand this. Why'd it all get messed up? The Rebels
burned them all, but somehow, Spender gets murdered?"

She pushed the ice pack onto his cheek, frowning at the bruise already
appearing.

Mulder shook his head.

"Sorry," she said softly, watching him wince.

"I don't know. The whole thing is all convoluted, twisted in on itself
until no one is completely innocent, no one completely guilty."

Scully licked her top lip from habit, then shook her head.

"Wait. We need to figure this out before we go further Mulder. Because,
from what you said, it sounds to me like we've been on the wrong side this
entire time."

He stared at her, his mouth slack.

"They tested on you, Scully. You keep reminding me of that, remind
yourself!"

She glared at him. "I know what they did, Mulder. But the way you tell it,
we've been fighting against our own salvation. A salvation you, yourself,
were going to force me to."

He shook his head. "What are you saying? I can't believe you're-"

"Mulder! Listen to yourself. Accusing me, when *you* were going to quit,
*you* were going to give up and sell out. Why should I trust you? Or
anyone?"

He stared, numb and dumbfounded.

"You don't trust me?"

"No, Mulder. You don't trust me. I tell you about Agent Fowley, and you
deny it, you ignore what I'm saying because you think I'm jealous or
making it personal."

"She's not in on this!"

"That man was coming to her apartment!"

"He was looking for Spender!"

"In *her* apartment, Mulder?"

Scully swore at him and stormed for the door, more furious at him than she
had ever been. 

They'd had arguments before, but this one wasn't resolving itself.

He caught up with her, spun her around to face him.

"Convince me. Prove it to me," he hissed.

She glared.

He pulled her back into his living room, to the couch. 

"I want to believe, Scully."
~~~~

~~~~
Chapter Two
~~~~

"Mulder, I think I'm in danger."
--dana scully, colony

~~~~

"Fine. Proof, you want proof. Just don't interrupt me."

He nodded and sat back down, letting her have the floor.

"First, starting at the beginning. She left you."

Mulder winced, gave her a glare of barely repressed anger.

"She did. For another assignment, supposedly. Yet, she meets up with every
chapter of MUFON and gathers information. The minute she arrives in
Europe, she already knows about MUFON, about its importance, Mulder."

Scully stood there for a moment, look for the light to dawn in his eyes.
He remained resolute.

"She leaves you on the X-Files, with the cover story of being
anti-terrorist, sends you nothing about what she's really doing, and she
already knows about a group of people that you yourself never discovered
until later."

"How-"

She held up her hand, shaking her head. "Frohike told me how far along on
the X-Files you were when Fowley left, Mulder. You hadn't anything
substantial, nothing at all. Just some strange occurences. How could she
have known of MUFON unless she was working with the enemy? You told me
long ago, in a powerless motel room, with a storm raging outside, that
they had controlled every aspect of your life, ever since your sister's
abduction. How can you not think they controlled this too?"

"Am I to assume you want me to answer this?" he said forcefully.

She glared at him and turned her back, stalking to the door.

He jumped up and grabbed her, pushing her back to his couch.

"Wait, Scully. Wait. I'll shut up. I swear. I'm listening. You're right.
She shouldn't have known about MUFON. But she found out."

Scully's eyebrow rose and she spun back around.

"She abandoned the X-Files, Mulder. She let go of them like a plague. So
why is she suddenly finding UFO's fascinating?"

"Because she believes in them."

Scully shook her head. "You're being blindsided by her, Mulder. Here's my
next point."

She sat down, forcing him to find his chair again and settle into it.

The room was dark and musty from the lack of sunlight, and she searched
out his face to establish some kind of contact with his eyes.

"When I was looking into CancerMan, I came across some other things.
Things I didn't tell you about because I didn't think you'd be so blind to
her, Mulder."

He looked at her, jaw clenching in an effort to be prepared to debate her
claims.

"Mulder, she officially requested that you and I be taken off the X-Files.
In writing, on paper, signed by AD Kersh, and a psuedonym that I connected
back to CancerMan. She cited that you were becoming, and had always  been,
personally involved, and that I was only fueling your unhealthy desire to
discover a truth that simply did not exist."

At her words, his head jerked up a bit, looking straight at her, like a
deer caught in her headlights.

"She wrote that precisely as you said? The part about fueling an unhealthy
desire?" he whispered, finding a connection she didn't understand.

Scully nodded.

He winced. "Those were her exact words when she left me. . .the X-Files.
That she was fueling and unhealthy desire."

Scully hemmed, then decided to keep making her points.

"In her report about Gibson, she denied everything. She pulled her gun on
you to save herself, and she made you look like ranting lunatic. I know. I
read her report. You sounded even more assinine than you usually do."

Mulder rolled his eyes at her but stayed silent, refusing to rise to her
bait.

"She's been going over some of our other cases, I saw too. The files you
reconstructed, Mulder . . .she has them, or copies of them. She's been
debunking it, in a way that even *I* can't do. I was witness to each of
the events she's so calmly labelling and referencing, Mulder. She wasn't
there. And yet she presumes to-"

"I gave the files to her," he whispered.

Scully glared at him, aghast, furious.

Stung.

It was as if he had given over the most secret part of her over to her
enemy.

He had laid her own personal thoughts bare to a woman who only wanted to
destory them both.

"Why?"

"She was helping me. . .helping  me. That's all she wanted to do, Scully.
She had to play it safe so they wouldn't know."

"She had to play with your mind so *you* wouldn't know, Mulder."

He shook his head, then slumped back into his chair.

"You don't understand, Scully. . ." he whispered.

She sighed and steepled her fingers above her forehead, closing her eyes.

"CancerMan was coming to meet her, Mulder. Her. Not looking for Spender.
Spender wasn't there, wouldn't be there, wasn't *going* to be there.
Accept that, Mulder."

Mulder shivered. "You don't understand. . ."

"I understand all too well."

"I married her."

The room pitched into blackness as the sun disappeared into the earth,
swallowed whole by trees and dirt and loam.

Scully stared at him, feeling her face grow hot, her body uncomfortable.

"Do you hate me?" he said softly.

She didn't know what to say, didn't know how to change things.

"Yes," she said.

She heard a kind of choked scream come from him, but she stayed absolutely
still, bowing her head.

"No. Mulder, no, I don't hate you."

"You do." 

His tone accused her, but his eyes were closed, and she wondered if he
would ever look at her again.

"For a second. That you could let that happen. But it's not your fault. .
.do you believe me?"

"Not all the way," he said. "But I want to."

"No, I mean, do you believe that Agent Fowley is working for them?"

His eyes opened in the darkness, a shot of brightness in the gloom, as if
he were being born again, right there in his eyes, right before her eyes.

"I don't know. But I believe you more than anyone."

Scully shifted on the couch.

That would have to do.

Otherwise, she was in trouble.

The whole world was in trouble.
~~~~

~~~~
Chapter Three
~~~~

"We bury our memories so deep after all that has been destroyed."
--william mulder, colony

~~~~

"What about Emily?" she said softly, looking at him as the street lights
flickered over his face.

Their car was silent and smooth, an instrument of precision under her
body, energy being cycled through the engine with top performance, the
interior lush and springy, leather that wrapped around her frame, clung to
every cell, yet did not stick or peel from her skin when she moved.

It was exquisite, there in his car with him, listening to the thrum of
wheels on the interstate as they moved.

He glanced briefly to her, and his movement was in slow motion, a turn of
his face to see her eyes, his fingers gripping the wheel with anxiety.

"What about Emily?" he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"How does she fit in? Why did they have to create her?"

Mulder felt his muscles tighten as he thought on her question, more afraid
that he understood the answers, than afraid that he *had* the answers.

"Emily. . .she was never meant to be, Scully. They took you, gave you the
cancer, all of that, to keep me down. . ."

"Mulder. . .you're so arrogant." she hissed and turned her face.

He felt shame rise to his cheeks and she snatched her hand, steering
easily with one finger on the wheel.

"Scully. . .I'd take it all back in seconds. In an instant. If we were to
expose them, all would be lost. Everything they'd tried to accomplish,
everything they had killed for. They had thousands of deaths on their
hands; they could not be in vain."

"They took innocent lives, Mulder. You're not thinking about joining them
are you?"

Mulder shook his head. "If only for what they did to my sister, I never
could."

"You were going to go with them, at the Base."

He licked his lips. "I thought it was the end. Final colonization. I
wanted you safe."

"You wanted Diana safe."

She felt the car swerve as he put both hands back on the wheel.

"There's a difference, Mulder, between safe and free. I would choose
free."

"Even dead?"

"Even dead."

He rolled his head around on his neck, shrugging his shoulders and pushing
his own betraying thoughts from his mind.

"You were going to go with them," she said again. "As if everything that
has happened didn't matter anymore."

Mulder swallowed thickly, knowing that the issue was going to come up.

"You went to her apartment and discovered some kind of answer, and you
simply accepted it as truth. Truth."

"He really believed it to be the end."

"Shows how much he knows," she snorted.

Mulder quieted, realizing her anger was deep, his betrayal a kind of raw
pain that could fester in her before he could heal it.

"The rebels burned them all, burned them all," she whispered, seemingly
fascinated.

"Maybe all. I don't know how many people were in this group. Obviously
they brought their families."

"Well as soon as we get there, and I do the autopsies, we'll have some
kind of an idea on who was there that night, in that hangar."

Mulder glanced to her, then sighed deeply.

"They were trying to obtain perfection, Scully. The perfect solution to
their problem. That was what Emily was a product of. This group's efforts
to mix alien and human DNA and create a life that would still be standing
after everything was destroyed."

She looked over to him, then let out a long low shudder, shaking her head.

"After everything's destroyed, who would want to remain standing?"
~~~~

The Air Force Base was frighteningly empty, the bunkers long deserted, the
tarmac grown over with grass and weeds.

One lone yellow flower twisted along the pavement, the fight for life
evident in its crawl.

Burn patterns were still on the concrete, black smudges of soot and ash
and grease, from where the body fat had burned bright.

They'd been circled, they'd been rounded up like cattle and set aflame.

The rebels had exterminated everyone, everything, wiped it all out.

Mulder knew that this had bought some time, that with Cassandra Spender's
death, with all their deaths, the timetable for colonization had been
stopped, slowed, something.

"If I had just shot her then," he whispered, closing his eyes to the
death.

Late at night, the new day and new life about to approach, these men and
women, these families, had met their death, been burned alive because of
the sins of their fathers.

Mulder knew that he should have been one of them, that he had been one of
the faithless.

He looked to Scully, who was kneeling down and taking samples of the ash,
looking at the burns, the afterimages of a gruesome death.

"They're slowly destroying the project, Mulder," she said softly, looking
up at him.

"There's something we're missing, Scully. Something about this that made
it all stop."

Scully closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath, trying not to choke on
the smell of burnt flesh filtering in between the dust motes and sunlight.

He squatted next to her.

"You saved me, Scully. If you hadn't made me go with you, I would have
been here, burning."

She looked up at him. "I should have been dead on that bridge Mulder.
Before all this happened, I should have been dead. Someone. . .something,
saved me."

"What? What keeps us safe?"

Scully shut her eyes. "We take what we're given, Mulder. We take this
opportunity to discover the truth, the real answers, to keep this from
happening again. This is our job, now, Mulder."

He looked at her. "Scully. . .I don't even know what side we're supposed
to be on."

"Not theirs."

"Not the rebels either. They have as little regard for life as these men
who were burned."

"CancerMan isn't dead, Mulder. He killed his son. . .there's someone to
fight against."

"Should be we fighting, Scully? Should we *even be fighting*?"

She stood, her body tight and tense, her hands the yellowish-white of
surgical gloves but smeared with ash, her entire frame speaking authority,
conviction.

"Yes. If only for what they did to your sister, Mulder. If that was the
only reason. . .but there are so so many more. So many more."

She turned on her heel and strode across the hangar, back into the
darkness of its shadows, leaving him troubled.
~~~~

When she came in, it was one in the morning; she looked exhausted.

He stood quickly, ignoring the surprise and slight annoyance on her face,
coming over to her and grabbing her coat and briefcase.

She was still in scrubs, and her coat tugged on the green shirt, exposing
her collar bone before adjusting again.

He remembered sights of her collar bone in the decontamination shower, in
the ice in Antarctica, other places that were nearly as awful, almost as
unforgiving.

Mulder pushed her to the bed, ignoring the looks she was giving him,
making her settle into its embrace with a sigh.

He pulled her tennis shoes off, dumping them on the floor, then quickly
yanked her sweaty socks from her feet, making a joke about the smell that
illicited not even a noise from her.

"Thanks, Scully," he said, and put his hands to her shoulders, digging his
fingers and thumb into her tightly tensed muscles.

She groaned at his first touch, wincing.

"Easy Mulder. . ." she said, squirming under his hands.

He leaned back, putting his weight into his legs, and not on her back,
watching her facial expressions.

"What did you find?" he said after a moment.

"We've been busy on tracking down dental records, DNA samples, all that.
We've identified some of the children, by association to parents, making
guesses, and then confirming those guesses with the labwork. We're not
done by far. I just need a few hours of sleep before I go back in."

Mulder shook his head. "More than a few, Scully. I'm gonna need you."

She sighed. "For what?"

"I want to dig through some files on some of the names that you faxed me
earlier."

"You haven't been doing that on you're own?" she said, raising up a bit on
the bed to see him.

He shook his head. "Oh, I have. But I'm not getting anywhere. You're
better at it than I am."

She groaned as his fingers became ferocious again. "Jeez, Mulder. Softer."

He nodded and pushed her back down on the bed.

The bed sank under her, and she relaxed into his touch, feeling the
night's hands reach out to her, smoothing away her fear and distraction,
and putting her into a kind of dream phase.

She felt soft like Silly Putty, like clay to be molded into whatever shape
Mulder's fingers led him.

The bed was jiggling a little as he dug into her muscles, and she felt
crushed for a moment as he tried to loosen her shoulders.

She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew, he was sitting
gingerly on her legs, saying something.

"What?" she murmured, trying to pull herself awake.

"I'm just trying to get levarage, Scully. Unless, you wanted me to. . .?"

The leer could be felt through her head.

She swatted at him, then closed her eyes. "Mulder, I'm so tired, I didn't
even realize until you said something."

He grinned and ran his fingers up her back, through her shirt, his fingers
hot on her cool skin.

She shivered and suddenly became very aware of his hands, the way they
trailed down her back, rubbing into her muscles, making her skin sensitive
and aware.

She felt loose, free, like her body was falling away to someplace far from
her.

All she knew were his hot fingers, the whisper of his breath along her
hair when he bent over her, the quiet shuffle of his legs along the
bespread as he inched upward, finally settling on her bottom.

It made her alive, everywhere, every sense, every cell, attuned to the
touch and feel of him.

She drifted in the haze of sensory overload, felt the water of his touch
lapping over her brain, her muscles, causing her to fade away.

Mulder felt her slump, felt her zone out and slip into sleep, so he
settled beside her, taking care not to wake her.

Her face was turned to him, eyes closed, lips parted, her arms above her
head, her hair tousled.

She looked for the world like a woman who'd had love, over and over, then
fallen into an exhausted, content sleep.

He wanted to touch her.
~~~~

~~~~
Chapter Four
~~~~

"If the pursuit of this case seems like insanity to you, then step away."
--fox mulder, colony

~~~~

The motel room was dark, her skin bright cream in the paleness, and her
body still and heavy on the bed as he massaged her back.

He leaned in and smoothed his fingers over her forehead, the sweat
slipping along the pad of his thumb.

She stirred slightly, her fist clenching suddenly, her mouth twitching.

He sighed and moved forward, placing his mouth so tantilizingly close to
her skin that his breath kind of jumped in his lungs and skipped across
her face.

He wanted to kiss her.

Her mouth closed, and she sighed; her hands relaxed.

He moved back, closing his eyes.

"Do you still love her?" 

His eyes flared open to meet her calm gaze, her clear eyes.

She wanted to know.

She really wanted to know.

"She left me, Scully."

"And so that's your excuse."

He frowned. "I didn't say I-"

"No, you didn't say it. You shout it."

Mulder turned on his back, looking to the ceiling, away from her.

She wasn't accusing, she was just telling him she knew his dirty secrets.

"I care about her, Scully."

He saw her mouth purse slightly, then her head shake on the bed, as if she
were pushing these thoughts away from her mind.

"I have to sleep, Mulder," she murmured and pushed up from the bed,
intending to make it into her own motel room.

He caught her wrist, pulling her down with a strength found in panic.

"Scully. . .you understand, right?"

Her head was turned toward him, her body poised to leave, shoulders tensed
for a conflict.

"No, Mulder. No, I don't understand."

She wrenched her arm from his tight grip and left him sitting there.
~~~~

Dana Scully sighed into her pillow and glanced once more to the alarm
clock, then pushed away her covers.

She hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep, thanks to the tulmutuous
emotions raging through her head.

She saw those bodies, remembered Mulder's face as he refused to believe
her, heard his voice on the phone as he wanted her to go to the Base.

Stepping into the bathroom, Scully checked her face for sleep lines, then
washed her hands in the sink, pressing her body flush to the counter to
see herself in the mirror.

Weariness underwrote her features, depression and melancholy twisted her
mouth.

She brushed her hair back into a loose ponytail, then used clips to catch
the wisps. Grabbing a sweatshirt, Scully moved back into the motel room,
anxious to leave.

She thought she trusted Mulder, thought he trusted her, but he refused to
think Diana had evil intents, denied that Scully could be right.

She shivered, and wished she could push it away.

When she opened her door, Mulder was standing there, rain streaking down
his face and soaking his hair, his eyes squinting against the sting of the
storm.

She stared at him for a moment, then backed up, letting him in her room.

Wordlessly, she handed him a towel, allowing him to pat his leather jacket
dry and run it through his hair.

"Rain's not good for leather," she said finally, merely watching him.

He nodded.

"I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say."

"Oh. So you *do* think before you speak."

His head jerked up to see her and he frowned, making lines wrinkle across
his forehead.

She wanted to raise her hand and smooth them away.

"Scully. . ."

She simply waited.

Sighing, he shook his head, then sat in the rickety wooden chair, towel
clutched in his hands.

"I still don't know what to say. But I don't want to just let this go
anymore."

She shrugged and looked to her watch. "Mulder, you'd better find something
to say quickly, because I need to be out of here in a few minutes."

"I'll come with you," he said, rising hastily.

She stared after him, unbalanced.

"What?"

"Let me get my keys. You haven't had much sleep."

With that, he was back out in the rain, battling for his own door.
~~~~

Dana closed her eyes, shifting her body to the feel of the tires on
pavement, and the engine's low powerful thrum as they made for the morgue.

She yearned for sleep, but found that her mind was still spinning, her
head filled with images of burned skeletons, children aflame, and Mulder's
face when it all came back down on them.

And her body felt his breath, floating across her cheek as his hands
wrapped around her muscles just a few hours before. . .

Their attraction was a spiritual thing. . .but at times, she was sure it
was purely physical, sure that if his hands were to come any closer, or
his body brush hers once more, that she would lose herself in him.

Lose herself.

It wasn't at all what she wanted.

And he wanted Diana. His own actions had made that abundantly clear.

"Penny for your thoughts," he whispered, breaking into her disasterous
frame of mind.

She glanced at him. "I don't come cheap, Mulder."

His eyebrow rose and he nodded slightly. "All right, a promise of dinner
for your thoughts."

She wanted to smile.

"Just trying to understand all of this, trying to come to terms with what
we've seen."

"We've seen?"

"Yes. We. Mulder, just because I use science doesn't mean I'm *blind.*"

He shook his head. "We've had this conversation before, Scully. Besides,
that's not what I meant. I'm surprised you even want to be with me on this
anymore."

She glared at him, but his eyes were firmly on the road.

"I told you, Mulder. This is personal now. When has it not been?"

"No. . ." he said softly, then turned so that his eyes pierced right into
her soul, striking it.

"I meant, I'm surprised you'd let *me* be with you on this."

"What do you mean?" she said sharply, fear lancing through her.

"I betrayed you. And I see that in your eyes. . .every time you say
something, I can feel that."

"Mulder-"

"No, you're right. I did betray you. I didn't even realize it. If you
hadn't been there, Scully, hadn't made me come after you, we both would
have-"

"Stop Mulder. You didn't betray me with that. I know that."

"Then why do you look at me like I have?"

She bit into her lip, wondered just how much truth he was prepared to deal
with.

"You don't trust me, Mulder. You just don't trust me."

His mouth fell open, and his fingers clenched on the wheel. He had to
divert his attention as the car hydroplaned into the other lane, but he
wrenched it back on the road.

"What do you mean? How the hell can you even say that?" he fumed, his eyes
as thunderous as the sky outside their car.

She grew silent, her usual defense.

Emotions stormed across his face, his jaw tightened with his anger.

"You are the *only* one I trust, Scully. What do I have to do to prove
that to you?"

She felt brittle inside, too afraid to let that vulnerability out in the
light, where he could crumble it with a word.

"After all that's happened, after Antarctica. . .?"

She nodded, finding a quiet place inside of her that was devoid of his
voice, or at least, his voice with that wounded, betrayed tone to it.

"Scully!"

She jerked from herself and looked up to him.

"Scully. Don't say something like that and then crawl back into that
little hole in your mind."

"Well, I expected  you to say something more substantial than rail at me,
Mulder."

"I *trust* you."

She said nothing at all.

"Scully. . .I don't know how to make you believe me."

"I don't either." she whispered.
~~~~

~~~~
Chapter Five
~~~~

"We all draw our own lines."
--fox mulder, colony

~~~~

Mulder followed her down the long hall, watching her shoulders move as she
stepped, ignoring the rift growing between them.

She had ended the conversation as soon as they had stepped from the car;
her entire demeanor was changed. She was ice cold again, her eyes
revealing nothing, her mind sterned to keep a scientific profile.

He could see that she was no longer thinking about herself, or him, only
that there were fifty or so burned bodies just beyond those doors that
needed her absolute attention.

Mulder was going to follow her right on through.

She pulled scrubs from a locker and pushed him to the corner to change,
giving her some privacy so she could do the same.

Once they were attired, Scully led him into the large morgue suite, where
the charred remains were being studied and analyzed.

One of the men looked up at her and nodded, and he saw that she had earned
the respect of the entire crew, just within the hours she had worked.

Immediately she was absorbed in the work, and he watched in fascination as
the identities of the numerous husks became known.

He saw that her work was an art form, and she a master.
~~~~

"I'm tired just looking at you, Scully."

She glanced up from the electron microscope, confusion in her eyes, then
her mind registered his presence and she grimaced.

"I'm almost finished."

"We've been here for thirteen hours, Scully. We both need some sleep."

She tossed her head, as if to say that sleep was ridiculous, and glanced
back to her notes, working at some fragments she had discovered embedded
into a leftover remain.

"Well, then, Mulder. I hope you've been making good use of these past
thirteen hours."

He perched on the edge of the table, receiving a glare as his weight made
it shake, then gave her a bright, fake smile.

"Yes, and I was finished being productive six hours ago."

She merely nodded, once again lost in the things she was seeing and
understanding.

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her from the scope, making her eyes
swing around to meet his in surprise.

"Scully. Listen, we have the identities of all the adults, but for a few
males. And there are others working on the children. You need to take a
break, sleep."

She looked at his earnestness, and the genuine concern in his eyes, and
then let her shoulders slump.

"You know. . .don't you?" she said softly, not meeting his eyes.

"Know what?"

"We didn't find Diana. I had the female remains examined first, with her
in mind, but we didn't get anything. All the females are accounted for."

His face grew somber and he glanced around at the huge labyrinth of men
and women and tables and slides and bodies, watching the effort and the
control and the horror, all in one surreal landscape.

"I know, Scully. She wasn't burned. Neither was CancerMan."

"Doesn't that say anything to you?" she said, shaking her head.

"Yes. It does," he answered and leaned in closer to her.

"What then? What does it say? That she's taken him hostage and is learning
all his secrets so she can run and tell you? Is that what your-"

"Scully. Stop. "

She shut her mouth, then waved a weary hand his way, closing her eyes.

"I'm too tired for this conversation," she muttered and sat down heavily
on her stool.

He took her hand and brushed a thumb over her eyes, making her look at him
in bewilderment.

"I see what you're saying, Scully. I believe you. I trust you. I think I
always knew in my heart that she wasn't for real."

Her mouth dropped open, but she recovered quickly, her eyes brightening
even through her fatigue.

"You agree with me about Diana? That we shouldn't trust her. . .?" 

Scully was trying to comprehend his abrupt turn around.

"I. . .We have to draw the line somewhere, Scully. Who we trust, what we
let each other get away with. This is too much evidence against her, too
much proof of her betrayal. Most of all, if I had to choose. . .Scully. .
.listen to me," he said, and moved closer to her.

She felt the table hard and cold against her, and his physcial presence
close and yet gentle, the scent and heat of him like bubbles around her
skin.

"I'm listening," she said and lifted her chin to see right into his eyes.

"If I had to choose, Scully, I would always, always choose you."

His words were whispers, but like cannons through her.

She felt tears threaten, either from his brief declaration, or from
working for hours on end, and she ducked her head to hide her eyes.

He darted in quickly to her body, then gave her a soft kiss on her
hairline, his lips pressing tightly into her skin, etching his touch there
for eternity.

She glanced up and smiled.

"We do have to draw lines," she said.

He nodded. "But we can also erase others. . ." he added.

His fingers came to circle her shoulders, then slowly, he cradled her
head.

She felt him slip forward, and then his mouth was brushing hers in
infinite tenderness.

As warmth banished the cold from her bones, she discovered that they
weren't erasing lines, but making all new ones.

He pulled back, fingers smoothing down her cheeks, a slight hesitancy in
his eyes.

Her mouth was parted and he raised a thumb to close it, smiling gently.

"We still have lines," he said and took her hands.

She nodded and let him lead her from the cold, out into the parking lot,
and into the sunshine.
~~~~

end all
adios
RM