Title: Refuge of Lies Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Summary: After the EL Rico Massacre, CancerMan and Diana Fowley slowly rebuild The Project. Content: M/S angst. X-File. SPOILERS::: One Son, Memento Mori, Redux, Patient X, Red and the Black, Pine Bluff Variant, Mind's Eye, and The End. Plus, any other episode that deals with the mytharc. PRE-BIOGENESIS Notes: This is a planned plot story. I never sit down and plan out exactly what will happen, but this time, I have. Please tell me what you think of it. ====== REFUGE OF LIES ====== . . .you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter" --Isaiah 28:15 ====== Her dreams were silent movies at night; images played across the screen of her mind and she was helpless to watch as comedy and tragedy unfolded before her eyes. When she woke, it was three o'clock in the morning and she heard a buzzing. Her eyes were bleary with heavy sleep, but she walked through her dark room without stumbling. It was her computer. She didn't remember leaving it on, but maybe she hadn't completely shut it down after writing her reports. The e-mail icon flashed at her, but she wasn't sure why it had buzzed. It was still making an intonation, a friendly sounding thing that was almost sarcastic. If computers were sarcastic. . . She tapped the mouse and the computer downloaded her message. Her blood froze and her fingers clawed on the mouse. Invisigoth. Had to be a coincidence. . .had to be another server, another strange Gothic type with the dark mascara ringing her eyes and the tongue ring muffling her speech. Esther. . . There was no message but the e-mail had an attachment, and after a moment of consideration, Scully saved it and called up the program to run it. A newspaper article. She squinted at the small print, then glanced around her apartment for her glasses. They were resting on the stereo system, and she slipped them on quickly, then went back to her computer. COLOMBIAN DRUG CARTEL KILLED MYSTERIOUSLY Bogotá Colombia -- Bogotá Special District Police announced yesterday that the the deaths of six known drug lords were still being investigated. While the public is convinced the mysterious illnesses are related to international drug trafficking, medical officials say that the viral nature of the disease is not conducive to weaponry, nor could it be used reliably to harm others. . . Scully licked her lips thoughtfully, her eyes flicking back to the e-mail address with the so-innocent name. Invisigoth. What had happened to Esther that night. . .the trailer in the dark and the AI asking for the virus, and that music echoing up into the stars. She wanted to become one with the Artificial Intelligence, and something had gotten through. Scully shivered and glanced to her mantel clock, noting the time. It was too early to be considering this, she thought. Her mind had a tendency to believe the unbelievable when waking from silent dreams and black and white nightmares. She saved the message and printed it out, then folded up the paper and shoved it into her briefcase. Walking shakily back to bed, Scully slipped under the covers and pushed the mystery out of her mind. Think about it later. ==== --Puerto Gaitán, Colombia-- The Meta River twisted brown and slow next to the compound, its journey taking it through the heat of noon on the Llanos Plains. Scruffy trees clung to life in the midst of an ocean of grass. The brown flat-ness of the place was depressing and practically uninhabitted. CGB Spender spit out the dead husk of his cigarette and placed a fresh one between his lips. The sudden gust of wind blew out his lighter, but it only took a moment to be breathing in the smoke again. He coughed and shifted his feet, then glanced back to the horizon. An arm snaked around his and he glanced down to meet the dark brown eyes of Diana Fowley. "How can we continue the Antarctica Project down here?" she said, shaking her head. "It can work. We have the money, thanks to our contributors, and the cost estimates for a refrigeration storage facility aren't extreme." "I still think we're heading in the wrong direction with this." "You haven't been on the Project as long as I have." "And look what happened. You need fresh ideas, new perspectives. At least, that's what you told me eight years ago." "It's the truth, Diana. You know what's at stake here. You were one of the few who understood what we're up against. And the threat has risen to a whole new level." She frowned and glanced to the dinghy white buildings, with their façade of windows and patios and courtyards. Beneath them lay the heart of the New Project, the endless maze of corridors and test rooms and laboratories. "I think you're seriously underestimating what we're up against. The rebels burned our people, and our 'friends' didn't care. The Colonization Timetable is still operational-- you know that." "While the unforseen affects of this black oil are most discouraging-" Diana threw up her hands in frustration. "I can't believe you. Don't you see what they're doing? They've been jerking us around for decades, letting us think that they wouldn't wipe us all out, when all they're doing is biding time until they can get the alien rebels under control." His face turned steely and cold. "We'll do it this way. We've made our deal, but that doesn't mean we have to be ignorant about it. I've managed to contact the rebel faction. We give them the means of destroying all previous phases of the Project, and in return, they provide us with the alien DNA." Diana felt a chill steal through her, images of the faceless rebels closing in on her friends, killing off the people she had worked with for eight years. And now, millions of unsuspecting people, waking in the night to the call, the beacon signal that would lead them to inevitable death. "I can't believe you're doing this," she whispered. "I can't believe you're going to play both sides. What if our colleagues find out you're talking to the other side? We're history." CancerMan's face split into a jack-o-lantern grin. "Trust me. The only way to make it out on top is to side with the winner. And since we don't know who's going to win, we side with them both." ==== The office was cold when she walked in that morning, and she quickly stepped over to the air conditioning box to turn up the thermostat. Since she was the first to arrive, she got to determine the temperature. No doubt Mulder would complain around eleven o'clock and she would end up turning it down, but for now, she relaxed in the relative warmth. The coffee pot hadn't been cleaned out, so she didn't even try, simply walked onto the elevator and snitched an FBI mug from the second floor, filling it with the rich dark brown of gourmet coffee. It was a kind of ritual. The second floor had an office pool, and each week, one of the agents or file clerks would buy the coffee for the morning and brew it early. It was always something exotic and Mulder and Scully always came up, lured by the promise of caffeine with taste. She walked quickly back to the basement office, ducking out of sight when a woman rounded the corner, feeling ridiculous for stealing coffee, but such were intraoffice politics. When she strolled back into the office, she caught Mulder fiddling with the temperature control and shooed him away. He sat down with a scowl in his chair, then handed her a file folder. "Martha Riggs down in Records asked me to give you this. She said you requested it?" His eyes were questions and she knew he was curious, but she was hesitant to confide. "Just some medical stuff," she said truthfully. He nodded, looking down, the matter closed. She hadn't lied to him (he had sifted through the contents unashamedly) so he didn't figure it was something that important. Besides, she liked reading the most recent medical information to keep up with the enormous amount of discoveries that occurred every day. He was used to her carrying around the American Journal of Medicine, and asking for other articles. "We have a few cases here, Scully," he said, diving right into the work. "One about a haunted house, which I really think has some potential. These people are faithful members of the local church even, and-" He paused to look up at her, noting the absolute lack of interest coming from her chair. She was glancing at the file folder, her mouth hanging open in shock. "Scully?" he said, waving a hand before her face. Her head snapped up and she shut the folder quickly, almost blushing. "As I was saying. . ." he muttered, turning to the slide projector. Scully kept a careful rein over the feeling of doom that was building inside her, diligently listening as Mulder laid out his theories on the haunting in Madison, Georgia. But Georgia was far from her mind. ==== --Madison, Georgia-- The tips of his fingers were white against the dark background of the soil; he held them out and watched his hands shake. A voice made him glance up, clenching his fists in frustration and looking to the large, Victorian style home. Its massive doors had been repainted recently, and the iron bars over the windows were dark and new. The wooden shutters were dark green and the steps leading to the porch had pieces and corners chipped off. The crime scene, as it was being called rather jokingly, was a field in the front yard, about ten feet from the road, and twenty from the door. Mulder put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene, noting with frank apraisal as Scully finally seemed to concentrate on the work. He tried to forget the way his hands shook. She was bending over the bone remains of something which the family had found earlier that morning in the thick grass, right before they were going to mow. They were fearful of vengeful ghosts, and Mulder was inclined to agree, but Scully's obvious disdain for the case came through in her lack of attention. She inspected the shoulder bones and hip sockets, then shook her head. "It's a cat," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Looks to me like it was run over." Her eyes seemed to say -- don't tell me ghosts drive cars now. Mulder nodded and rubbed his neck, frustrated again with the lack of hard physical evidence. They had spent the night before in the house, the family just down the hall, both of them in the same guest bedroom. The dead might have walked that night, but neither of them saw a thing. And heard none of the screams of agony that the Huelitt family was reporting. Mulder was beginning to wonder if one of the Huelitts was making it up. Now, to add to Scully's general disapproval of the case, they were both tired and snappy at each other. Scully stood and brushed the dirt from her pant legs, her gloved hands white against the dark of her suit. She carefully removed an extra large evidence bag, then scooped up the cat's bones into it. She handed it wordlessly to Mulder, who made a face and took the bag. "Yum. 'Dem bones, 'dem bones. . ." he muttered. Smiling, she patted Mulder's arm. "Let me know if you need me again, Mulder." He watched in betrayed silence as she climbed into the car and started the engine. When the car was gone from sight, blocked by the trees and a curve in the road, Mulder turned to the group of official civil servants clustered around the house. "Can I get a ride to the police station?" he asked, shrugging. ==== Scully felt like a nervous cat, one which was about to be flattened like the poor animal she'd discovered that morning. While Mulder worked over the deadend of a case in Madison, she was at her computer, searching through internet sites and connections she had made after Emily's death. Almost every place she had visited was red flagged, the bright warning signs of another child she did not know. Except this time, the scale was massive: the drugs being shipped and the lab equipment and the reported number of elderly deaths due to hormonal imbalance. She had figured that the Consortium would need another elderly home to impregnate the women, and since they had a bad mortality rate, something could be discovered. Not only that, but a few random places she had visited were reporting cult suicides by burning, little groups of about twenty or so, found singed to bones. It was the back door into the Consortium. When it had finally dawned on Scully that Mulder had probably been mostly right about everything the government was doing, she had put out feelers everywhere, made subtle inquiries into the medical and engineering profession, and established her own contacts. Websites that kept detailed records of the amounts and types of drug shipments, black market operators that were asked for a large number of medical equipment, construction crews with strange directions and an unknown contractor. . .just to name a few. Mulder kept too much from her. If some police department somewhere found something about Emily or the other fetuses, she wasn't confident that Mulder would tell her. And now, she'd been e-mailed this article about an unknown virus, her contacts were reporting some suspicious stuff, and large quantities of medical supplies were being moved across the globe, through holding companies and warehouses that had no real board of directors. The worst news of all. . .three microbiologists had disappeared, two pre-natal doctors had been lost at sea, and thirteen virologists were either reported missing or presumed dead. She was going to be sick. This couldn't be happening all over again. Two months ago she and Mulder were relaxing, thinking it was close to over, that whatever the government had been doing on the side. . .they couldn't do anymore. Everyone was dead. Guess not. It looked like they were rebuilding, and rebuilding quickly. With money from where? and contacts how? Scully realized she had no one to go to, not Mulder, not Skinner, not anyone. This was so far out of the realm of known experience for her. . . but she had to have the facts, the hard evidence. If she told Mulder, he would be the type to jump on the next flight and leave her in the dust. It was her duty to be sane, rational, thorough. She would find out all the information, all the different sides, and evaluate the outcomes. Scientific method. It was as simple as that. Decision made, Scully picked up the phone on the bedside, pausing to control her breathing. She dialled 115, which connected her to an international operator, then asked to be connected to an English speaking officer at the Special District Policia. When the unaccented, precise English came onto the line from Bogatá, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, this is Agent Dana Scully from Washington, DC. Can I have a moment of your time?" ==== The whole day was a bust. Nothing happened, and the family finally just gave up with ever understanding what was happening at their house. No one had gotten hurt. It really wasn't FBI jurisdiction; he was doing them a favor anyway; could he please leave? Mulder shook his head and agreed. He hadn't even really meant to come to Georgia for such an obvious nowhere case, but when Scully had expressed no deterrment whatsoever, he figured she wanted to be there. Right. He should have seen what she was doing. Go along with him, let the poor guy think he knows what he's talking about, nod your head and smile. He wanted to shake her. So condescending, the entire case, all of the plane ride down, her head in those medical journals and her mind focused on some internet fascination. So ready to smile and pat his head like he was a child and she the all-knowing adult. He knew this case was a distraction, in the kindest sense possible, and he had hoped it would get them back on track. An easy thing to let them have fun and solve a good detective story. It was the closest they ever got to a vacation, solving these easy, regular mysteries. Plus, his hands were shaking, tremors moving through them at irrational times. He was afraid to let her see, afraid to walk into a situation where his gun could slip and she could die. But she was blowing him off. Had she let him bring her down here for her own purposes? Scully always told him when they were wasting time, never had any doubts. Maybe there was something in Madison besides ghost stories that his partner was investigating. He thanked the police officer for the ride back to the motel, then strode up to his motel room, shaking his head and grabbing his keys from his pocket. The door opened easily beneath the slight pressure of his hand, and he frowned, trying to remember if he'd left it unlocked. He found Scully sitting on his bed, her legs crossed and her laptop downloading and balancing on her knees. She flipped the lid down when he came in, and gave him a hard-pressed smile, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Why am I wasting your time, Scully?" he said, more fed up with her attitude than anything else. She looked back at him in shock, already having dismissed his presence from her mind. "What?" "Would you like me to exchange your ticket for an earlier flight? I'd gladly pay for the extra expense, if this is not the place you want to be." Her eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to say something, but he was on a roll now, already feeling better for blowing up. "Does this case not merit your attention, Scully? Would you rather I get us a nice murder to solve, where we're both not sleeping and not eating and basically killing ourselves but never even appreciated? I could do that, Scully." She looked like he had slapped her, and she was quickly on her feet, toe to toe with him, bristling like a mad cat. "What the hell is your problem, Mulder? I thought you wanted me to stop contradicting you, to shut up with my *science* and my *reason* and just *believe*, right?" He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder, tight and bruising. "This is a *haunted house* Scully. This is not aliens, this is not government-conpsired death and destruction. When it is, I'll let you know." He acted like he was talking to a child, to a green agent that didn't know the difference. She shook her head and shirked his hand, stepping away from him with a sulky look. "Exactly, Mulder. A haunted house. This doesn't even merit our consideration. You're above this Mulder. We have better ways to spend our time than to watch a teenager spook her family." Mulder sat down in the chair by his bed and pulled his tie off, then shrugged out of his jacket. "You didn't object, Scully. I talked for a week before coming down here, waiting for you to say, 'Mudler this is crap, leave it alone.' But you didn't. So we came." "You're saying this is my fault? Mulder, you do whatever the hell you want. I can't stop you." He looked at her as if she were not supposed to be there, talking to him. This wasn't Scully. This wasn't the person he knew, he respected. She knew better than that. She knew she had complete and utter influence over him. "What's going on Scully? What's happening here?" She met his eyes, found the darkness in them full of uncertainty and regret. "Nothing, Mulder," she sighed, taking off her glasses to rub her nose. "Nothing. I'm just tired. And this is ridiculous. Let's just go home." He watched her movements warily, understanding that she was avoiding his true question, but knowing that it was probably for the best. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what was happening to their partnership. Something in them was cracking, but as long as they these had moments of clarity, where everything was suddenly so petty and not worth it, they were going to be okay. She walked over to him and took his hands with her own, her body between his knees. "The flight's at six tomorrow," he said, rubbing her wrists with his thumbs. He had known it would come to this. She wondered whether she should be grateful or disgusted. Had he drawn out their decision, their argument, for nothing? For fun? She closed her eyes and nodded, letting it go. "Thanks." "Scully. . .promise me something?" She bit her lip and sighed. "I'll try." "If it gets bad. . .if whatever you're dealing with is too much, please come to me. Please let me help you." She smiled sadly at him and leaned forward to softly kiss his forehead. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of her sleepy scent. "I can promise that, Mulder." She pulled away and gathered her things, leaving the laptop in his room but taking her disk with her. He watched her smile in goodnight, then shut the connecting door behind her. He was grateful there was no click of the lock. At least they weren't completely shut off. At least he had her promise. ====== ====== It took Mulder all of five minutes to decide that snooping after Scully on the laptop was not really snooping, nor invading her privacy, so he turned it on and connected the phone cord. There were no new Bookmarks, but he hadn't expected Scully to be that stupid either, so he clicked Back on the off chance the computer had a memory of it. Nothing happened. He called up the Retriever program that he'd installed on his hard drive for no real reason; it was a program that could find the logs of where the person last online had been. Some morally conscious software company had designed it for parents of teenagers or small kids, a way to let the adults know where the children had been. There were five sites listed in a sort of search mode, and he clicked on the first one, waiting while it loaded. A newspaper article on the disappearance of Dr. Mike Chapman, head virologist as Johns Hopkins for the past thirteen years. Nothing conclusive in the investigation, but it looked as if his Cessna had crashed into the sea. Mulder frowned, but carefully recorded the details in his mind, repeating the name to himself over and over, certain that there would be a pattern emerging after a while. The next three sites were the postings of medical findings on rare forms of hormone imbalances, with new cases listed and the treatment prescribed. Each medical history of the individual patients were listed on separate webpages, and two were the lighter blue color that let Mulder know she had looked them up. Both were children, girls of about four, with roughly the same symptoms of Emily, blood deficiencies or some kind of disease. The site was purely medical and gave no names, just pertinent facts, but it was all legalese doctor sounding words that made no clear sense to him. But it evidently had to Scully. Something in this was crucial. What was she checking up on? Had she found more Emilys, had she discovered another little ring of elderly women being impregnated and then the children committed to a government project? The next site confused him, though. A national webpage for Colombia, featuring the cultural highlights and good tourist attractions. She hadn't done anything specific with it, only seemed to browse. Mulder sighed and shutdown the laptop, then ran his hands through his hair. He wasn't sure what she was doing, and the internet sites hadn't helped any. He had to get some sleep. The flight was early tomorrow. The bed creaked as he lifted himself from its soft depths, then sprang back into some semblance of a matress as he walked to the sink. He rinsed out his mouth and coated his toothbrush with the thick Colgate, trying not to let his mind race with questions. His toothbrush nipped his lip and the Colgate stung the raw part of his mouth. He glanced to his reflection in the mirror and noticed his hand was trembling again. He cursed and slammed his hands into the counter, toothbrush flying to the corner and his eyes closed tight with rage and fear. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be getting tremors. He needed absolute control, needed a clear head and steady hands. They'd put him on inactive status, make him sit behind a desk, then quietly do away with him when his hands got too shakey to write anything. "Mulder?" He jerked his head around as she came into the room, her brow furrowed into a mask of concern, lips parted to question him. Mulder quickly grabbed his toothbrush and rinsed it off in the sink, but his hands were still trembling. "Mulder? Are you angry. . .your hands are shaking. . ." He glared at her with one hand clenched around his toothbrush and the other jammed deep into his pocket, but his eyes were begging her to simply leave him alone. "Mulder?" "Nothing, Scully. I just was thinking too much." She looked far from convinced, but shook her head and tugged his toothbrush from his hand. "Come with me to get dinner, Mulder. We have eaten yet. Maybe that's why you're freaking out over here." She smiled at him and grabbed his now free hand, leaving his toothbrush on the counter and tugging him out the door. He concentrated hard on keeping his hand as still and immovable as possible. The less she knew, the better. ==== The plane ride was quiet, and Mulder slept, his head pressed into the window and his jacket draped over him. She watched his hands twitch, then still, then begin trembling again. She wondered when this had started and why he hadn't told her. But she had no right to confront him, not when her entire investigation was being conducted behind his back. It still made her uneasy, to know she could do such a thing so easily. She felt not guilt about actually keeping it from him, just this sense that it wasn't *right* -- he was her partner. Softly, she touched his shoulder, causing him to rouse from his sleep and glance over at her with still hazed eyes. "Come here, Mulder. You're crushing your head into the window." He was still deep enough into his sleep to not question her, and leaned over to slump in her lap, the middle seat between them. She was stunned for a moment, thinking he would lean against her shoulder like he normally did, but soon put her hands into his hair, soothing him back into sleep. His fingers curled around her knee and she felt his weight heavy on her legs, like something was being returned to her. It felt warm, comfortable, and she let her fingers glide through his hair. He might not notice it when he woke, but she would be able to tell; his hair would stick up in funny places and his eyes always had that catnap-look, appeased and drowsy in the sun. She felt him move against her, then his cool lips pressed to her thigh. Scully let herself laugh as it tickled, and hoped he didn't drool. ==== --Puerto Gaitán, Colombia-- Diana feld cold whenever she happened to look over and see them, the puckered scar tissue over their lips and eyes, ears sewn up tight and then sealed. They sat in the conference room with no sense of humanity coming from their blank faces, but she supposed that was no fault of their own. They weren't human, anyway. Spender was calm, as always, the smoke hanging about the room in a cloud despite the special venting she had made the construction crew install. Diana hated smoke, hated the bitter sour smell of it and the taste of it in the back of her throat whenever they kissed. He made love to her out of some kind of perfunction, a desire to have complete control over everything. It was his power. He thought she was blindly in love with him, thought she would do anything to save her life from the coming age, the passing destruction. And she thought she would too. She thought she would do anything for him, for life to continue on with her still in it. She was saving humanity from extinction, and it was a thankless job. What hurt her most. . .Fox would never understand. He almost had, almost believed everything she was trying to tell him, and then he was gone. Scully was back and he was gone. She didn't hate Agent Scully, didn't wish ill of her. Agent Scully had something that Diana had given up, something that the female agent had forgotten could be so good. And it looked like Scully knew it. She wished them the best, but she would use any means to keep them away from the real truth, the real horror. Even seduction and murder. CGB Spender grabbed her shoulder tightly as she walked into the conference room, then introduced her to the men before them. The men? The aliens. . .the enemy. "You know what we're here about. Your . . .associates stole a certain, ah, package from our facilities last year, and we're all here to strike a deal concerning this unfortunate turn." The non-faces before her morphed suddenly into smooth features, all the same, all of Spender. She turned to the real one and her lips parted in a certain sense of doom. They were playing with them. The oily, gravelly voice she had known almost her whole life came from the new lips of the man sitting before her, his eyebrows thick with grey and his hands wrinkled beyond age. "We have this package. What do you have?" CancerMan looked over at her, amusement in his eyes, nothing more. Panic seized her as she realized that this was all a game to him, that everything was a game -- life, other people's hopes and dreams and loves. It all meant nothing. "We can exterminate the previous Projects. All of them. Everyone. No problem." "What good is that to us?" "It would slow the inevitable, enough for you to keep trying. We know they're coming, and they're not going to stop just because you're setting fires. They have something much more effective than we had ever thought. Monsters. They have monsters." "Monsters. Yes, we know. Brothers, in a word. And why should we give you the package back?" CancerMan leaned in close, his eyes sharp and emotionless, but his voice was thick with anger and a kind of helplessness that made Diana want to vomit. They were losing, they were losing. "Listen, that alien fetus is the *only* way to stop them. We're light years ahead of any research you may be doing. We get the DNA and we can find a *cure* for this thing before they get down here. We work together. You postpone it, and we scramble to find a way to *really* stop it." He sat back, breathing hard, recognizing that he had just lost it, just revealed much more than he should have. But it was all the truth, all the horrible, gut-wrenching truth. If they didn't get that DNA back, all the deaths of decades ago would be for nothing. He could not have that. His life was nothing without the Project. "We give you the package, you give us the means to start more fires?" CancerMan let out a grin, recognizing the perverted humor in the question. "Yes. You start more fires." ==== The office was cool for summer and the sun peeked over the window ledge with a child's curiosity, sprinkling beams of clear light over the piles of work they still had to do. Georgia was fast going down the drain, with Skinner on their case for going down there for nothing, and the family calling up again to lodge a complaint against Scully for her lack of 'professionalism' which Mulder could not really defend her against. He did though. He wasn't about to tell Skinner that Scully wasn't doing her job, not for something petty like Madison, with nothing happening and no one getting hurt. The phone rang shrilly in the light air of the room and he snatched it up. "Is Agent Dana Scully there?" Mulder frowned. The voice sounded accented, almost Spanish, and the phone line was cheap and frizzing with distance. "I'm sorry, she's in a meeting right now. This is her partner, Agent Mulder. Can I take a message?" "Yeah. This is Policia Inspector Linius Martinez, and she called recently about getting the details on an outbreak." "An outbreak. Right." Mulder pretended he knew exactly what was going on. "And do you have that information with you now?" "I'd like to fax her the complete autopsies of all six men, plus the initial findings and speculations of the forensic team out of Bogatá. Do you have a secure fax line there?" "Of course. It comes directly into our office. No one else sees it." "Thank you, Agent Mulder." He offered his own thanks and gave him the number, discreetly trying to fish for more information from the police inspector, but not getting anything concrete. They hung up and Mulder waited a long fifteen minutes before the fax machine hummed to life and began spitting out a cover sheet. He read the formal police document: flowery words about keeping all information away from the press and the non-disclosure contract Scully was agreeing to by receiving this information. When the full twenty pages had come through, Mulder carefully began to read, his indignation flaring brighter and brighter as he read. She had kept this from him. Something this important and she had kept it from him. ==== Dana walked angrily from AD Skinner's office, then to the elevator with quick strides. She tapped her foot as it plunged down, empty but for herself, then pushed out of the lift with her chin high. She felt like a child though, a child who had just been scolded by Daddy for making faces at her brother. In essence, it was exactly what she had done, made faces while Mulder pretended to take everything the family said seriously. He had been professional, and she had not. Of course, Mulder had tried to back her up, lied completely to Skinner, and she felt oddly comforted by his support, even if it was misplaced. She stepped through the office to see Mulder sitting on the edge of his desk, facing her door to catch her the moment she walked in. His hands were trembling and he held a thick sheaf of papers, the top sheet a cover page for a fax. He was looking straight into her eyes. When he handed her the papers she looked down at them in apprehension, wondering what had gone wrong now. It was from Colombia, Inspector Martinez, and it outlined the stages of the disease and the symptoms, plus the various medical reports and forensic evidence. Scully could see from just a cursory examination that this unknown virus was suspiciously like the smallpox outbreak that occurred at the school a year ago. The same outbreak where bees had been released and plagued upon the children at the school yard. Those bees had caused a reinvented disease as old as time, but the bee that had stung her had caused something entirely different. She had no idea how the virus had been transmitted this time, but she was betting it was beestings. On the last page, a blurred photograph caught her off guard. She glanced up, the photo burned into her retinas so that Mulder's face was blanked out with the greyish blob of Agent Diana Fowley. He was waiting for her to explain, his hands still shaking. Was he that mad at her for keeping this quiet? "I didn't expect this," she said softly. "Why don't you explain it to me," he said back, sitting very stiffly on the edge of his desk. She sat down on the chair before him, once again feeling like a truant child, but calmly looked at the faxed sheets. "I got an e-mail from. . .from Invisigoth. An article about the deaths of six members of a drug cartel due to an unknown viral agent. It was strange to be getting the e-mail, then even more weird was the e-mail address." "Invisigoth. Like Esther?" She nodded. "I don't know if it was someone who knew about that and was trying to warn me, or if it was really her. I didn't think she had escaped the trailer before it fireballed, but she could-" "Or she downloaded into the AI," Mulder said. Once again, Scully shrugged off this uncomfortable idea. "I was wondering about it then. I contacted Inspector Martinez and told him a bit about our experiences with the black oil, and the bees, and he said it sounded very familiar, but he'd get me the details. After that, I started. . .panicking really. I checked out some sources of mine. . ." She paused, looking at his hands, watching them tremor in his lap. "Everything was coming up bad, Mulder. It's all starting again. They're rebuilding somewhere, and fast. I've found out that those drug lords were killed as a sort of test. Another drug lord further south has been paying out a lot of money to an unkown American man and this was the reward, the proof of the man's claims. I can only guess it's CancerMan. CGB Spender." "How do drug lords fit into this?" "It was a staging. Some benefactors in Japan are talking excitedly among themselves of this great new weapon, and China got wind of it, some of their intelligence reports are buzzing around the White House. He's got all these benafactors, all these companies and groups of people who hate the US, and they're pouring money into the project." "So, he's using them?" Mulder said. She licked her lips, glad he was back in the game, no longer focused on what he saw as her betrayal of trust. "I'm pretty sure he is. He tells them he has a weapon in the making that is superior to everything the United States has, and so they sink their millions into the project, after he demonstrates it, of course." Mulder rubbed his chin. "And now, what I'd like to know. . .why did you keep this from me?" She shut her mouth tight and looked to the floor, her enthusiasm for all she had discovered quietly crashing into his stern rebuke. "I didn't even know anything was going on. . .I had to satisfy myself first, Mulder. I had to bring you all the information first, so that I knew what I was up against." "And when exactly where you planning on telling me any of this?" "After I looked over this fax, after I could figure it out. Mulder, it does me, nor you, any good if I'm confused. You spout endless theories off me, like bouncing a ball against a brick wall, and I can't do anything but wish I could catch the ball. Don't you understand how frustrating that is?" His face was stoney with disapproval, but she could see that glimmer of guilt that said he knew what she meant. "You come at me with half of the truth and watch while I scramble around and try to apply some kind of science to it, because that's my job, then you decide to drop the bomb, to give me all of what we're dealing with, and then smirk when I can't combat you. It's just like levelling a city, Mulder. How in the hell do you expect me to fight back when you take away all my weapons?" He blinked, then laughed, but his body was slumped into the desk in a form of defeat. "That's the most metaphors in one single sitting I have ever heard," he said, glancing up behind his shaggy bangs to see her. She sighed and sat next to him on his desk, giving in to the urge to lean against his shoulder for a brief moment. "I should have told you. But I guess, I just wanted you to listen, and I knew you wouldn't." He took one of her hands in his, rubbing her palm with his thumb, stroking the pads of her fingers. "I'm listening now, Scully." It was the closest she was going to get to a promise, and she appreciated his effort, was even glad he had laughed at her. It kept the mood from being as tense and oppositional as it could have been. They were partners. Together in all things, even in arguments. She watched his fingers trace hers, and frowned. "Are you still mad at me?" she asked, reaching over to touch his palm and then the fingertips that shook. He curled his hands into fists and dropped her hand, turning his face. "No. . ." Mulder's mind searched like mad to find an excuse, anything, to explain it away. "Mulder. . .Mulder, we can beat them, you know. Maybe we never will get to rest. . .maybe not. But we can head this off before they start experimenting on anyone else." She gave him the excuse, already planned and executed. And, best of all, there was no need to convince her his trembling hands were nothing. He took a deep breath, guiltily playing into her concerns, for the first time in his life, purposefully lying to her. "I just get so tired of it. . .so tired." As he sat there, with her silence as a balm, he realized that his words weren't completely lies, simply an exaggeration of a truth. Sometimes, the constant running got to him, but mostly, he lived for it. Scully was the one who wanted a 'normal' life. "You're tired of it, aren't you, Scully?" His words were almost accusing, but his tone was too gentle for her to be offended. "Yeah." He slumped further into himself, trying to hide his still trembling hands with his tie, and thinking fast about all the deeper meanings, signals, she might be receiving from him. Geez. Conversations with Scully were like negotiations with an unkown nation, where the diplomats had closed faces and secret alliances. He never knew how his words would be taken or if her heart had laid pitfalls for him. She slipped her hand into his, pulling it to her and kissing his knuckles. "Mulder. . .You're not mad. You're not even slightly emotional." Her fingers rubbed his right hand while she reached for his other left, then she held them both on front of her and watched the shaking with a practiced eye. He licked his lips and looked up at her. "I. . ." She met his eyes, hers cool blue and drowning him. "Mulder. This is serious." "Isn't there some kind of medicine to make it stop?" She shook her head. "Nothing I can give you. I'd have to write a perscription and it would go through the Bureau Records Office because I'm not a practicioner." "And they'd know." She nodded. "I'll just make sure the target is big," he said, gesturing to his gun. Her face went pale. "Mulder, you don't need to be shooting anything." "It's not bad enough to make me stop, just bad enough to make me wonder." She bit her lip then shrugged. "There's not much we can do. I could take you to a clinic and get someone there to write you something." He shook his head. "Maybe later. We've got a lot to do." Scully kept one of his hands in her lap, then shook her head. "What? What can we do? We don't know where they are." "We'll find them." He sounded completely confident. She wasn't so sure. ====== ====== Satellite photos were strewn all over his coffee table, with some areas highlighted in yellow, some circled with red pencil, and still more were glossy with color. Scully pushed away from the table, her brow wrinkled with an intense headache and her back cramping from sitting hunched over for so long. She rubbed her head and closed her eyes, hearing Mulder getting them drinks, the ice slapping into Coke and the fizz and hiss of the carbonation melting off. Suddenly the cold glass was pressed to her neck and her eyes jerked open. He was smiling at her and holding out her drink, a little smirk in his grin. "Thanks." "You fell asleep," he noted, and sat down next to her. She shrugged. "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night." "Dreams?" he asked, concern knitting his lips into a pout. "No. The heat. My air conditioner is sucking in air from outside and not cooling it off." "So, basically, it's broken." "Well, the fan works, and I didn't think it'd be too bad. I'm getting soft though. In the summers, my family always went to the lake, and the cabins had those big box fans that blew steadily all night long. It was hot, but we were okay." He grinned. "You *are* getting soft, Scully. You can sleep here tonight. Bed or couch?" "Do you sleep in your bed, Mulder?" she asked, eyebrows raising. "Some, but-" She shook her head. "No. I'm going to encourage the bed-sleeping habit. I'll take the couch." Mulder sipped his Coke and winked at her. "I guarantee 100 percent satisfaction." She smiled and shook her head, reaching over to place her glass on the coffee table, carefully avoiding the photos. "How did Byers get these, Mulder?" she said, picking up one of the glossy color photos that showed the South American continent in extreme detail. "He said he had a contact in the CIA, someone who regularly requests sat-imags, so he wouldn't be suspicious. I think, though, that Langley wired them off the direct link." "He hacked into the CIA mainframe?" "No. . .that's illegal, Scully," he said sarcastically, eyebrow raised. She shut up and glanced around his apartment. He was right, good idea not to talk. Who knew what was listening? "Right. Friend of his. Have you found anything?" Mulder shook his head and sighed. "Nothing. Maybe something. I don't know. I can't tell anymore. All the dark lines are blurring with the dark patches of forest or plain or lake. I can't tell." "Well, the uh. . .CIA contact. . .marked the compounds for us. We just have to narrow it down." Mulder glanced over at her, eyebrow raising and his hands reaching out to pick the photo from her hands. "Right. Go for it, Scully." She frowned at him and sat back again. "Maybe tomorrow." He smirked and rubbed his hands through his hair. A growl split his lips and Scully glanced over at him. He was staring at his hands, which had begun to shake again, the muscles quivering like mini earthquakes. She reached over and covered his hands with hers, tightening her grip on them. "It's almost like my hands are stuttering," he said, disgusted. He flexed his fingers beneath her light grip, and she gazed down at his hands, seemingly transfixed. "Is it nervousness, Mulder?" she said, frowning. "No. I'm not nervous." "Maybe stress. . ." "It's never been a problem before." "Well, some things are cumulative. . ." He sighed. "I don't care. I just want it to go away. . ." "Let's go to the clinic, Mulder. We'll get something-" "Is that a good idea? What if someone checks or. . .I can't let anyone know, Scully." "They'd shut us down. . ." she said quietly. "I don't want to put you in danger though." She gripped his hands and shook her head. "I trust you, Mulder. Let's just go on." Mulder took a deep breath and awkwardly reached forward, pulling her into a tight grip. She was surprised, but hugged him just as hard, the connection between them like a cord tightening until she felt tears in her eyes. She closed her lids and forced it away, biting her lip. He rubbed her neck through her T-shirt and pulled back, smiling at her. He wanted to say something, but there were no words this time. She simply watched him watch her, his hands steady again and soft on her shoulders. The heat came suddenly, almost like an afterthought, and he watched her tongue lick her lips with a sense of unreality. He could kiss her right now. He could kiss her. His thumb came distractedly to her cheek and stroked, soft and light, his eyes focused on her but far away. He was wondering, thinking, trying to make up his mind, not sure if this was what they needed- Her lips pushed into his and her tongue touched his mouth quickly, then darted away, as if she hadn't meant to be so forward. Mulder's hands dropped to her waist and they just watched each other, breathing. The taste and feel of her mouth was burned into his own, and he could trace the shape in the dark. His fingers came up to her mouth and did just that, tracing the full upper lip that was warm and heated against his hand. No trembling, no tremors. "You cured me," he said softly. She slumped into him like her strings had been cut, her forehead resting against his chest. "I wish I could. . ." she said. He wasn't sure if she was regretting the meeting of their lips, but he regarded it almost like the fulfillment of a long held promise. Mulder opened his mouth to say something, but he felt her tense in his arms, and shut his mouth. Say nothing, he told himself. Just let it go, let it happen. "I think I'm going to fall asleep," she murmured. "Go ahead, Scully." She pulled her feet onto the couch and he leaned onto the cushions to watch her face as she let her eyes close. He could tell that she was trying hard not to open her eyes and look up at him, and the flickering of her lids made him want to touch her skin. Her hand came up and slapped his arm, her lips quivering. He watched her eyes open and she smirked at him. "Stop it, Mulder. I hate it when people watch me." "Shh. . ." he said, trying to hide his laughter. "Sleep, Scully." "Right, like I can sleep with your eyes on me and those photos still sitting there. Both are haunting." He grinned. "You've always managed to sleep quite nicely when I've had my eyes on you." She jerked up, out of his casual embrace and rigid on the couch, her eyes like ice in the Arctic, small and cold and so much more beneath the surface. She shivered, but felt ridiculous for welcoming Mulder's touch and then jerking away from it. She had wanted his attention, but now that she had it, his words and his manner made her uncomfortable -- words and a manner that he'd had for a long time. He stared down at his hands for a moment, thinking that he'd somehow done something wrong, until he realized that he had done everything as he normally did, and she was the one acting strangely. Of course, maybe he should have been acting differently because this was definitely a *new* situation for them both, at least together, and his old ways had never gotten him very far with her anyway- "Mulder," she called, and snapped his fingers in front of his face. He blinked and looked at her, all prepared to explain it all away, but she merely shook her head. Forget it, she seemed to say. His hands were shaking again. "Do you want to quit for the night, or keep looking?" She glanced to the piles of photos and the huge stack they still hadn't gone through. His hands were quivering on his thighs and he seemed almost oblivious to them, but she could detect the irritated ticking in his eyebrow. "Let's keep looking. I'd feel better with a solid plan, a place to go." He nodded and picked up a thick sheaf of related-area photos, all of eastern Colombia, concentrating on that section on the country because of the location of the deaths. Scully figured that bees had been the trasmitters, and so they would need a place nearby to be bred and raised. She took the papers from him and settled back onto the floor at his feet, her back pressed into his legs and feeling warm. It was her concession to their kiss, and he knew it for what it was. He was going to take advantage of it, too. Mulder carefully laid one hand on her shoulder and rubbed it, like it was a thoughtless gesture, something that was habit. She tensed only once, but soon relaxed, and his mind wandered to other things. ==== --Puerto Gaitán, Colombia-- He stood tall and stiff before the endless plains of Colombia, his cigarette ever ready in his lips, wrinkled hands thrust deep into suit pockets. Diana stood off to the side, one hand over her mouth against the smell of burning flesh, her eyes wide with fear and loathing. Her impeccable taste did not waver though, and her white dress shirt was open two buttons down, throat exposed. He lifted a hand and caressed her collarbone, making her eyes flash to him. His gesture caused her to shiver, but she followed him back inside the compound. "What have you done?" she said, once they were alone in the conference room, the video feed allowing them to see the horror. "I sold my soul long ago. This--" CancerMan motioned to the screen. "--will make no difference with the piles of sin I've already accumulated. Don't try to save me, Diana." "That's not what I meant. One of those people out there could be the next step, could be the right person we need to establish a cure. . ." "No. They're not. Their lives mean nothing to the Project any longer, except as payment. Once we have the DNA, then we're back in business. This isn't about saving the planet anymore. It's about saving ourselves." Diana looked at the screen, forcing herself to be a witness to their deaths. It was the very least she could do to allow them some decency. Their deaths were for the common good, and the fire licking their bones clean was a puritive measure. Fire would be their salvation. She saw the rebels turn and glance to the moniters, their faces once again that blank nothingness, inspiring more fear than the black hood of the executioner. If she had known back then what this would entail, she would never have agreed. Or maybe, frighteningly enough, she would have gone along anyway. Back then, she had been sick to death of Mulder's insistence in the order of things, in the rules of their partnership, in the trust that was so crucial to him. She had been sick of it, sick of the Bureau taking her for granted, sick of Mulder being the golden boy and her just the sidekick. Maybe if she had stuck it out, *she* would be the respected partner of Fox Mulder, not Dana Scully. She would be the one who had kept the man sane and grounded, and more effective than any team of agents out there. Or maybe not. Diana knew that the end had come. It was only a matter of time before the final scourge would come, and she knew the race to the cure was a long one at best. They didn't have the time, and quite obviously, CGB Spender wanted only to preserve himself. He'd been loyal to the human race far too long. He was siding with the winners, and he would come out on top. Somehow, he still thought he was right. If he survived, he and Diana, the human race would survive as well. She truly knew the horror of being the last woman on earth, and they would repopulate the world. . .or die trying. Hell, maybe he was so blind as to think he could repopulate the world himself. "Don't you think they're going to notice that the killings are taking place, that the Project is being destroyed?" she said helplessly. "I hope they do. If they think the rebels see us as a threat, they'll want to deal with us, and we can get more than just that alien fetus. We'll have the technology and the science for it." "For what? What are you trying to accomplish with the Project? I thought we were trying to stop the Colonization. . .killing off what could only be our best ally in this war is not a smart choice." "We are trying to stop Colonization. . .but the rebels have no regard for human life. If they win, we're slaves again, mindless drones. If the aliens win, we're exterminated by the gestated monster. But if we play the two forces off each other, they're eventually wipe each other out. And we'll be the winners." Diana's mouth dropped open, seeing the very truthness of it simply because she was desperate to find some goodness in their actions. "You said the rebels have no regard for human life. . ." CancerMan nodded and looked back to the screen, the orange halo tinting the sky and the flames eating into everything. "How much regard do we have?" she whispered. The fires raged on, and Diana was glad the sound had been muted. The images alone were enough to feed her nightmares for life. ==== The alarms were sharp in his head and he wondered aimlessly--what have I done wrong now? His eyes went around the room, searching for the alarms, thinking that maybe his dream was not as great as it had started out to be. There was Scully, smiling, surely a fantasy, and the lights shimmering in the window, and the Rabbi from Robin Hood: Men In Tights with his long ringlets. Yes, a dream. But where was that alarm? "Mulder!" He jerked awake, sweating from the heady rush of blood surging through him, his strange normalness with the rabbi making his sweat taste like metal. He wasn't sure how it was that his dream made his sweat taste like his gun, but he knew it to be true, even as he knew that Scully was shaking him from sleep, and hard. "Mulder, get the phone." He rattled from sleep like a bear coming from hibernation and picked up the receiver with a clusmy fist. "Mulder." "Uh. Agent Mulder? This is Inspector Martinez. You sent some pictures down?" Mulder snapped from his haze immediately and sat up, Scully coming to sit beside him on the couch. "Yes. The pictures. Have you found something." "Yes. The woman, Diana Fowley?" "Uh, hold on. My partner is going to get on the other line." He motioned for Scully to get the portable phone, and she grabbed it quickly, bringing the black phone to her ear and listening. She caught the tail end of Martinez's question. "-time is it there?" "Uh, three in the morning." There was silence and then a grunt of something Scully was afraid sounded like approval. "What have you found, Inspector?" she said quickly, rolling her eyes. "The pictures Agent Mulder sent down. . .we got a match. The woman, Diana Fowley, has been spotted twice in the Bogatá International Airport, and we think we followed her to the Compound you theorized." "You found it?" Mulder said, his eyes meeting Scully's over the darkness of the room. His hands were shaking and she thought maybe there was a good excuse for it. "Think so. We held back a lot. Didn't follow her all the way because there's no one on the roads out there. It's a tiny place that used to be a farming community, called Puerto Gaitán. If you fly down here, I can take you out there." "We'll be right down," Scully said and hung up her line. Mulder nodded and got directions from the Inspector on the layout of the Special District, then hung up also. She was in the hall when he found her, his travel bag in her hands, already packed, with his passport in the side pocket, her eyes excited and almost feral. Mulder took the carryon from her and shook his head. "You ready, Scully?" His eyes were twinkling. She pushed him aside and headed for the couch to gather her briefcase and keys. "Come with me, Mulder. We can leave from my apartment." He snatched the photos and stuffed them deep into his carryon, following her quickly. ==== The airplane was relatively empty, what with summer being the off-season for the Central American tourism industry, and they were able to spread out. They didn't though. She stayed in the window seat, her blue eyes looking out as the ocean curled beneath them, and he stretched his long legs into the aisle, which was only about two feet wide. She watched the flight attendant wheel the cart down the aisle, still far at the back, the plane cramped and tight even with all the empty seats. It was the kind of plane that made her feel claustraphobic and anxious. She twitched with every drop in altitude, and winced whenever the plane tilted. It was like being in a school bus, but without the nice broad windows to show you that the wheels were still on the ground. She had hated buses in elementary school too, the big yellow cheese stinking up the block with fumes and body odor. Mulder took her hand at one point and squeezed it tightly, his eyes still closed as if he knew instinctively that the roll of the deck beneath them and the jump as they experienced turbulence was not like the pitch of a boat. She could handle a boat. "Are you awake, Mulder?" "Yes." "Do you think we're going to find it?" "Yes." "You don't sound that excited." "I think they'll be gone," he said, eyes still closed. "Why are we going then?" "Because there's always the off-chance I'm wrong." She smirked. "There's always that chance, Mulder." "We've had this conversation, Scully. I'm mostly right." "Driving, that is. You're mostly right when we're driving. And that's just luck." His eye cracked open and he rolled his head to look at her. "Am I gonna have to kiss you again?" She gaped at him, and her open mouth was too much of a temptation for him to pass up, not after knowing the sweet delights of her heat. His lips latched onto hers with a wet force that turned shy and soft when his bravado ran out. When her little fingers brushed his chin and he realized she wasn't pulling back, he ran his tongue along her lips, then thrust to her teeth. She made a noise of surprise, and he traced her lips this time with his fingertips, pulling back to watch her. The flush on her cheeks and the freckles across her nose were bright against her face. "Mmm. . .Mulder you have to stop doing that." He frowned. "Why?" Her eyes were on his lower lip, blurred by the close proximity and slightly unfocused. "You do that. . .makes me off-balance." "Well, hell, Scully. I'm glad you felt *something* cause I sure did." She blinked and pushed away from him, breathing in unsteadily, but he caught her arm and wouldn't let her move very far. Her face was a mask of concentration, brow curled and eyebrows knitted together. It was her shielded face, the one she threw up when listening to victims' stories, or coming up with some kind of rationalization for his theories. He tapped her forehead and gave her a pout. "Scully. . ." It was like a whine, and she was trying to ignore it, but he could always get her to follow him, even without that look. He was being stupid now, but he didn't care. He leaned in and kissed her very very lightly, almost missing her lips entirely, closing his eyes to the feel of it. "What are you doing, Mulder?" she murmured. "Trying to make you off-balance. Is it working?" "Mulder, stop." He pulled away immediately, sighing, sure now that he had been *very* stupid and she was going never speak about this again, and things would go on. And on and on. With nothing happening. She snatched his hand before it could leave her cheek and tugged. "Not while we're working. It's a nice distraction, thanks, but I'd like to be in full possession of my senses when this plane crashes into the ocean." He stared at her for a long moment, then a wide grin split his lips like a watermelon, his mouth stretched to show his teeth, his eyes dark and dancing. She liked it too much and turned her eyes from the beauty of seeing him joyous. "There's no way we could crash right now, Scully. You've got me high." She was startled and looked over at him, eyes that surprise iceberg blue again, lips parted just slightly. He was tempted, but restrained himself. Scully shook her head. "You're needed on earth, Mulder. Come on back down and help me plan. We need to figure out what we have to do." ====== ====== --Bogatá, Colombia-- The streets were rich with dirt and bicycles, the people browned and always moving. The taxi was one of those old, Lincoln Mercury types with dented fenders and chrome bumpers that rattled into potholes and out of them like a tank. Mulder kept one hand on the roof to keep from knocking his head and let Scully use his arm as a shield against the same bouncing. The air was so dry and dusty that she coughed and felt it hardening in her lungs. The place was bright for a morning so saturated with the red dirt, but it was a cliched Mexico that she took in with one eye. She watched Mulder with the other one, her mind scrambling to make sense of all he had done and intimated on the plane. Things still felt off-balance for her, and the taxi ride wasn't helping. She closed her eyes and tried not to get carsick. In the Special District Policia Department, Inspector Martinez met them with a dark look and a shake of his head. "We've lost six men out there, Agent Mulder. What the hell is going on?" "What do you mean?" Mulder asked, throwing a panicked look to Scully. "We sent out six officers, actually two at a time, to make sure no one was leaving. First two were in the middle of a radio transmission to the dispatch when their mike cut out. Next two were never heard from. The last two we were in constant contact with for four hours. Then they said something about a fire, and then nothing." "You haven't sent anyone else out there?" Martinez turned to look at him with cold, dead-fish eyes that stared and burned his soul. "No one would voluntarily go out there and I'm not about to order someone to his death." Mulder nodded, his jaw twisting as he thought. "Well, we're volunteering. You want to draw us a map?" Martinez dark eyes looked over at Scully for a brief moment, then turned flinty again. "No. I'll take you out there." ==== The roads were worse, but she was calm, her stomach rock solid. Mulder looked green, and he held onto the door handle with a tight, white-knuckled force. She patted his arm and looked back to the plains surrounding them, bouncing smoothly with the ruts and and rises, holding onto the dashboard as the Jeep took on the road at 55 mph. Mulder was in the backseat, alternately clutching her headrest, then back to the door, trying to close his eyes against the onrush of scenery. When they got fifty miles from the last known contact with the other police officers, Martinez slowed and pulled out his rifle, causing Scully to throw a worried glance to Mulder, then pull out her own weapon. Mulder's was already balanced across his knee, the safety on. He nodded to her and they drove slowly across the plain, swishing through high grass that grew between the tire tracks of the road. He glanced back and saw a neat line where the grass had been effectively mowed down by the heat of the car's undercarriage. Scully crawled into the backseat next to him, then carefully held a hand to his forehead, checking for fever just in case. He just eyed her until she finished, and then nodded to his hands. They lay trembling on his thighs, the quivers causing his muscles to twitch and shiver. She clasped his hands firmly and leaned in close enough to whisper in his ear. "I trust you, Mulder." ==== --Puerto Gaitán, Colombia-- Diana stood in the hallway, her heart pounding madly in her ears, in her limbs, in her eyes. The fire was hot and forceful against her brittle skin, and the roar of it was like being in an angry den of lions. It hissed too, like asps, and she couldn't make up her mind which way to go. On the right and on the left the fire snaked toward her, an evil malignant force behind it. The old man was long gone, and his hastiness had caused her to be left in the midst of the destruction. He had sold his soul, but she had been the forfeit. The faceless men appeard from the smoke, their hands clenching the long fire shooters that made her tremble just seeing them. They advanced toward her, not really menancing, and not really friendly either. "I. . .I can tell you where he went. You could have him. . ." she said, her voice high and strained with fear. He had sold her. She would sell him. They kept walking, coming at her. She wondered how it had gotten so out of control. One moment they were debating whether or not to give the rebels the last frequency to call the others, and the next he had stepped out of the room and then nothing. Gone, just like that. God, no, please, don't let them . . . God would have nothing to do with her now. She was beyond saving. He must have sensed her waning belief in the validity of their work, must have realized she would sell him out to make it all stop. Diana had been thinking about calling Mulder, or maybe Scully, get them down here and make them stop CancerMan. She had almost done it, too. And then he had left the room with the formula for the call frequency and she had waited there, watching the videos. The fire had become ever closer, ever closer, and she had stood, panicked, and ran out the doors. He'd been gone a good hour before she realized he had cut his losses and left her to be burned. He still hoped the aliens would come down from the sky like gods and wreak vengeance upong the rebels. He still had faith that he could beat them both. They were still coming, not hurried, as if this was a leisurely stroll through a meadow, with her a butterfly they intended to catch as some point. The face was coldly blank and the hand was relaxed on the firestick. She knew it was over. Diana Fowley closed her eyes and opened her arms and crucified herself in the fire. She screamed as long as the breath was in her to do it, and then the screams were soundless as the fire chewed down her throat and into her belly. She would birth only death, and the sightless remains of a horror she had helped to create. Her soul was snubbed from existence. ==== The breath was taken from her in one blazing sight, fire and carnage strewn like a battlefield dressing, the compound nothing but the blackened bones of a beached whale, the singed reminders that hell has been unleashed upon the world. Scully stood awkwardly by the 4-wheel drive Jeep, her mouth closed tightly to keep the smoke from damaging her lungs, and one hand over her nose to dampen the smell of rotting, burning flesh. Mulder was walking amidst the ruins, and his face had a strange slackness to it, his hands shaking again. Inspector Martinez was bowed in prayer over the charred bodies of his six police officers; four had been found on the road outside the compound and two just inside. She put her hand to the door, her head tingling with the shock of it, her mind pulling her to get out of there, to flee the area. Scully shook her head and watched Mulder sift through the debris, stepping carefully over bones that were black and twisted. There were more in the field beyond the structure, and she had a feeling that some kind of massive extinction had taken place, to ensure the destruction of the Project. She would never know the details, but she could tell that the rebels had been there, had set the place on fire. They had been there, they had burned. A strangled noise broke her thoughts from her and she looked up to see Mulder kneeling in the ash, his hands hovering, afraid to touch. Scully picked her way through the skeletal remains of both people and the building, and over to his side. "Diana," he breathed and she peered down at the remains. Black hair was partially melted to a high forehead, the skin still partly there, but red and angry and pussing. Her hands were blackened and her chest was bones and charred guts, like a grilled chicken over the spit. Scully felt disgusted at herself for the comparison as soon as she thought it, no matter how deep her mistrust and dislike of Fowley went. Shaking her head to dispel her thoughts, she took Mulder's hand and pulled it away from the remains. "Don't. . ." He looked back at her and there were tears in his eyes. She wasn't as sad about the death as him, but it made her hurt, to know that fire had consumed something so slowly, so agonizingly. "What happened?" he asked. Mulder looked into her eyes, but saw they were darkened with concentration, her pupils tiny pinpoints of blackness. She was clutching his hand too tightly, but he held on, frightened by the otherworldness in her gaze. She stood, taking him up with her, but her hand now gripless in his, her body moving away from him. "Mulder," she said tightly, and it seemed as if it took every ounce of strength in her to say his name. He grabbed her shoulders, but her eyes were fast becoming focused on something else. "Muh. . ." She tried it again, but there was this horrific noise in her head, like a wail from an abused child, over and over screaming in her head. She had to go, she had to leave. "Martinez!" he called out, following Scully back to the Jeep. The police inspector looked up at him and his face a storm of fury. "I've already called for back-up and the medical teams. Forensic will be here too." Scully had the keys in her hand now, gripping them tightly, somehow slithering out of his hand and into the Jeep. Mulder grabbed the passenger side door and flung it open as Scully started the engine. "We're going to check something out, Martinez. We'll be back," he yelled. Scully had already put the vehicle in reverse as he slammed shut the door. He was afraid. She was being tense and strange; her eyes made him think she was under some kind of drugs, but she was choking on her every breath, like it was a fight. "Run, run, run," she whispered under her breath. She drove recklessly and hard over the pitted road, and he held onto the dash and his seatbelt with all his might. "Scully!" he called again. "Scully, slow down!" She couldn't even hear him anymore, couldn't see him really either. She had to get out of there. She had to go, had to leave. She whimpered with the screaming in her head and floored the Jeep, hands tight and white on the steering wheel. Mulder felt fear stab through him at her pitiful noises, like a dog being beaten to death. It filled him with a powerless rage, and he knew that something was happening to her. Something at the compound had affected her. As they drove, he smelled smoke, stronger and stronger as they moved away from the burned compound. It didn't make sense; they were going away from the scene- And then he saw the cloud, the brightness. Fire. He grabbed the steering wheel from Scully's hands, fighting every inch to take control of it. She was being called, being pulled. Oh God, make it stop. He glanced to the road and the redness leaking into the sky like blood in the water, then forcefully shoved her aside, using his hip to push her into the door. She made those whimpers again and he shuddered, but kept pushing. She was crushed against the door, his hip digging into her thigh, one of his legs over hers, his other foot pumping the brakes slowly as he wrenched the steering wheel. Her face turned to his and she shuddered. "Muh. . .Mulder, Mulder, Mulder." It was a begging for help, but it was as far as she could fight. She still had her hands on the wheel, clutching it, keeping him from turning. The Jeep stopped, but they were less than twenty feet from the fires raging, the smell of burning flesh like rotten meat. Mulder grabbed her waist and wrestled her to the other side of the Jeep, holding her hands in one strong grasp and wrenching the wheel around to make a turn with the other. They had noticed by now; the frequency had brought another. They were stepping towards the Jeep, the faceless men with the fire sticks that burned like the Olympic torch but hotter and brighter and scarier. Mulder floored the gas and spun out, the engine choking with his panic, and he scrambled to put it in reverse, watching the blankness of the men advancing on them. Scully wriggled in the seat, biting his hand and kicking his side with her feet. She whimpered again and shivered, her muscles cramping as she strained to escape. She had to get out of there, out of there, had to leave. Had to leave. "Scully!" he roared and his snarl made her pause just long enough to let him turn the Jeep around and jump back along the road, away from the fire breathers with no faces. She was shivering now, her body had grown clammy to the touch, her eyes rolled back and lids half closed. He slowly released her hands, but she surged forward, hands clawed and reaching for the wheel. Mulder grabbed her again, using his left foot to drive and his right leg to pin her back in the seat. It was awkward, but he managed to put miles between them and the fire before grinding the Jeep to a stop. He had to make sure she wasn't going to die on him. She was shaking like she had hypothermia, and he grabbed her head to keep it still, running his hands down her cheeks and drying the tears. "Make it stop," she whispered. She then curled tightly into the fetal position, her head buried deep into her arms, forehead touching her stomach. He had to get her away from here. As far away as possible. "Mulder!" He glanced back down at her, new panic surging through his blood. Her hands were reaching out to him, and he grabbed them. "Go back. Please go back." He shook his head. "Hell no. We've got to get out of here." Her sweat was making her hair dark, and she shivered again. "Go back, destroy the . . .the screaming. It won't stop." "The further we can get you away from here, the better, Scully. I'm driving us directly to the airport--" "No! No, please. It'll keep on screaming, screaming at me. Mulder. . ." Her face contorted then and she heaved, vomiting onto the floorboards, her hands in tight fists. "It's making me crazy. . ." she whispered. That did it. Mulder turned the Jeep around and charged it back across the plain. The burning line of grass and the smudge of smoke against the sky grew brighter in the windshield. Scully inched over to his body and laid her head in his lap, her teeth grinding, eyes shut to ward off the pain, the neverending scream. She was coming. ==== He left her handcuffed in the backseat, then placed one of her own cuffs on her leg and then snapped the other around the metal loop at the floor, used originally to hook on the seatbelt. She wasn't going anywhere. He had parked the Jeep behind a grove of scraggly trees, hidden by the smoke broiling over the area just as much by the light tan of the car's paint. The difference between the high grass and the color of the Jeep wasn't much. Mulder crawled forward on his belly, his eyes intent upon the scene. The rebels were still burning, as more and more cars drove down the rugged roads and into the death trap. None of them tried to turn around, and as they burned, they did not scream. It made him sick. He could see the cause of the 'scream' as Scully called it. The device was standing in the middle of a circle of fire-stick wielding rebels, looking innocently like a radio. There had to be some kind of frequency on the thing that scrambled the implants, a pre-arranged signal only abductees would respond to. How could the rebels have gotten it? The precise frequency would be needed to call in everyone, just a wavelength off, or a difference in amplitude would get them nothing. Mulder wiped his hands on his jeans and measured the distance between him and the little radio. Too far. Even without his hands shaking, he could never hit it. He needed to be closer. He circled around the large ring of fire, then crept up to where most of the flames where, a spot devoid of the rebels. The fire there kept everyone away, and it was fast starting to sap his courage. Fire. He shivered and closed his eyes, which immediately called up Diana's half-charred face and clenched fists. He puked in the grass, then rolled away from his vomit, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Scully. He had to take this thing out for Scully. She would fight until she got back here, and be burned along with everyone else, just to take the screams away. Mulder crept closer, slipping in between the fires, sometimes jumping over burning grass to make it closer to the deadly radio, cursing when he singed his hand on a backdraft. And then he was fifty feet away, the smell of flesh-burning so thick that he almost couldn't smell it anymore, and the smoke so bad it teared up his eyes and kept him from seeing straight. He lay in the grass, breathing hard through his nose, wheezing as he tried to catch enough oxygen. His hands trembled, but he used the ground as his support, placing his cupped hands out in front of him, eyes blinking rapidly to clear them up. It was right there, right there, but he had to get it with his first shot and then run; he was too close to the other fire-starters to get off anything else. The sound of fire was loud enough to cover his wheezing, but not a gunshot, especially not if all the lambs to the slaughter began running away instead of running towards their death. One shot. One shot. He closed one eye to line up his barrel, then switched eyes. Somewhere about the middle, his depth perception was telling him, and he watched in sick horror as his weapon trembled. A small shake could make the bullet just enough off to only skim the sides or top of the screamer-radio. Or miss it entirely. That'd be bad, and he'd probably die anyway. It didn't look like he'd make it back, what with how close he had to be. He hoped Scully could get out of those cuffs, or drive the Jeep to safety. He cursed silently. He would *have* to make it, or this would be for nothing anyway. If he died, she would be stuck and they'd burn her too. One shot. Mulder closed his eyes and offered up a brief prayer, certain that if there was a God, He could not deny him this one one thing. This one thing. This one shot. He remembered her hands on his, her trust, the steadying influence she always had on him anyway, and the smile on her lips when he had kissed her. He watched the fire, watched the smoke being curled and eddied by the slight wind, and watched the barrel of his gun shivering with his hands. He took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger, then turned and ran for his life. ====== "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." --Isaiah 30:15 ====== Scully was tumbled to the ground, hands cuffed behind her back and crusted with blood, one foot angled sharply back into the Jeep. She had tried to escape, but in her delirium, had forgotten or ignored the bonds. He hurried over to her and all he could do was shove her back into the seat and slam the door. Mulder jumped into the front seat and started the engine, then raced out of the grove, managing to run over one of the fire-starters chasing him, the flash of heat singeing his eyebrows. Another sprayed an arc of fire onto the Jeep, but Mulder was going too fast for it to catch properly, and the wind motion plus the lack of oxygen in the smoke-choked air put it out. He bounced over the roads and drove straight for Bogatá, ignoring the slamming pictures inside his head and the thud of his heart as it tried to keep up with him. Halfway up the road, he saw ambulances at the Compound, and Martinez standing off to the side, directing things. Mulder swung over and screeched to a halt beside an ambulance, ignoring the shout of startled men before him. "Inspector!" he yelled, scrambling out of his seat to open the back door. Scully slumped out and into his arms, lifeless and pale. He worked furiously at uncuffing her and cradled her into his arms, then ran into Martinez with Scully's body pressed between them. Martinez looked at him in horror, then grabbed his arm and hauled him to the ambulance, shouting things in Spanish to clear out the charred bodies in the back. Then the paramedics were surrounding him and pushing him into the ambulance, allowing him to set Scully down onto the stretcher, asking him things he couldn't understand. Martinez jumped in and began translating and Scully's eyes opened in the middle of all of it and he was watching only her. He buried his head beside hers on the white sheet and clutched her hand tightly, afraid to touch anything else. "Mulder," she said, her throat working to swallow past the smoke. He pulled back to see her eyes again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She looked ready to pass out again, but her mouth opened. "You made it stop." Relief poured into his face like being doused with a bucket of water, his eyes grew clear and sharp again and he breathed out a long, ragged sigh. She was unconscious again. ==== There was silence and quietness everywhere, like a blanket had been pushed over her ears and choked out all the sound. Her eyes opened and she was alone, the room dulled with blue paint and grey chairs that looked more comfortable than the bed she was in. She struggled to remember, but the silence in her head was greater than the silence of this place. A man came to the door and then moved forward until the light shone on his features and she could tell who it was. "Mulder." He smiled brightly and pushed into the room, coming to her side. Saying his name released the memories and she clutced him tightly when he bent down to hug her, shivering with the coldness of her thoughts. She winced and glanced to her wrists, noting the white guaze stretched over them. Handcuffs. He fingered her sheets, then sat down in the grey chair, pulling it in close to her bed. "You're doing good, Scully. We were just waiting for you to wake up." "No brain damage," she whispered, grinning at him. Her voice was raw from smoke inhalation but she sounded all right. He sighed and shook his head. "You had me scared." She took one of his hands, carefully avoiding the brush of her wrist along his, still smarting from the shock of that pain. The cuffs must have bit through her skin pretty badly. She must have been crazy. "I had me scared," she admitted and wished he would kiss her. That's what she needed right now, the heat of his lips forcing hers to surrender. He leaned over and brushed his mouth along her forehead, stroking her cheek with one finger. Close enough, she thought. "Are we still in Colombia?" He nodded. "I want to leave," she said. "I'll get plane tickets. The doctors here aren't so strict with checking yourself out. We can be out of here in minutes. All you've got is some cuts on your wrists and a bit of smoke inhalation. Your lungs are good." "I want to leave right now." He blinked and nodded. "Let me go get you some clothes. Are your jeans okay?" She froze, her hand tight around his. "Don't leave." He shook his head. "They're just in the car, Scully. I'll get the papers and we can be out of here." Scully shook her head at her own panic and nodded to him. "Yeah. Get them. Jeans are great." He kissed her forehead again and slipped back out of the room. She closed her eyes and fell asleep without realizing how tired she was. ==== People looked at her strangely as she boarded the plane; they thought she had slit her wrists, but she didn't care. The wounds were still too tender to take the bandages off. Mulder led her to the very back of the plane, passing the four rows of first class and into the tightly spaced seats. Four other people were onboard already, and Mulder couldn't help wonder if CancerMan was flying out of here. His remains hadn't been found at the burned out compound. Fowley's had been shipped back to the States already, but he didn't know who would arrange the funeral. She had no family, and he didn't want to have to do it. Scully took the window seat to let him stretch his legs, and they stowed their carryons under the seats, ignoring each other. Mulder pushed back into the seat and yawned, his eyes blinking. He was exhausted but he didn't want to fall asleep, not without knowing if Scully was going to be okay. He glanced over at her and found her looking at him, a concerned glimmer in her eyes. "Are you okay, Mulder?" He snorted. "I'm fine." "You got burned." He nodded and flexed his hand slightly, trying not to pull on the skin. It was a second degree burn and it hurt, but it was healing nicely. "I don't know if I said it. . .but thanks." He looked surprised and confused. "I mean it, Mulder. Not only for shooting that thing, but for listening to me." They had talked about what happened, filling in the gaps between them, understanding things. She had heard how he had to cuff her to the Jeep but she didn't remember it. All she could clearly remember were the screams in her head and seeing Mulder, trying to tell Mulder. If he hadn't turned the Jeep around, despite the wrongness that action seemed to instill in him, she was sure she would be dead. "Well, you're welcome. . ." He wasn't sure what else to say. So he leaned forward and kissed her. She pushed into it, parting her lips for him immediately, running her tongue along his lower lip while he stroked into her mouth. They pulled back as reality intruded and passengers filed past them. Mulder took her hand and held it tightly, cradled close to his chest. "I'm sorry about Diana. I know she was important to you." He shook his head. "She used to be. As you know, I have trouble letting go of the past. I think that's happened with her. I wanted to trust her, and I ended up sacrificing my trust with you." She stayed quiet, listening to him. She wanted to say something, anything, but he had that look in his eyes that meant he had a very important speech coming up. "I didn't do it on purpose, Scully, but I think I was trying to get your attention and didn't know it. I think I might have been a little frustrated with. . .with us. And she showed up. . ." Scully nodded tightly and looked out the window before turning back to him. She was going to stop avoiding things. "A lot of times, Mulder, I make you think that I'm disgusted with this, with what we do or chase down or have to investigate. I go extremely opposite of you to make sure that you're still paying attention to me. . .I think. If I told you I believed you, what would you need me for?" Her science had tied her to him when she'd been assigned, and now, she had this idea that only her science kept them together. He opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand. "When we were in that Jeep and I knew the only way to make it stop was to go back. . .I looked at you and tried to convince you of it. Never before in my life have I understood you so much than at that point. Trying to make some believe, wanting someone to believe me so badly. . .and not just anyone, but you. You had to believe me. Or I'd die." She shivered and looked out at the airport from her window, seeing the wing and the yellow lines on the tarmac. "You trusted me. I think I need to start believing you more, Mulder. I need to start really trusting you." When she turned back to him, his grin was childish and wide, his teeth flashing in the dull light of the airplane, his hands on the armrest between them. "Then this is the first thing I want you to believe," he said. She frowned, about to tell him it didn't work like that, when he leaned forward and kissed her very gently. "Believe that I love you," he finished. She grinned weakly and leaned into his chest, fingering his shirt. "That's an easy one. Because I love you too." ==== "Are your hands shaking?" she said, pushing her toes deeper into his calves to keep them warm. The coffee table bit into the back of his legs but he wasn't about to move. He shook his head. "Not now." "Were they recently?" "Yes." "We need to get you some medicine." "I don't want it to get out." "We'll be careful." He watched her feet burrow into his crossed legs and pressed further into the back of the couch to settle closer to her. She was fiddling with her hands in her lap, her elbow digging into his side on occasion, and her mind working hard to come up with something to talk about. He could see it working, those blue eyes darting around the room for some kind of thunderbolt from heaven to tell her what to say. He was amused because she didn't have to say something, but she thought she did. "I don't want to do it," he said. "What?" she said, startled by his sudden words. He had interrupted her concentration. "I don't want to go anywhere to get medicine. I don't want anyone to know." "*I* know," she said, her toes kneading his leg like cats do with their claws. "Well, you're not just anyone," he replied, arching his eyebrow and nosing her cheek. She smiled and resettled against him, so that her head was in his lap, her legs pulled up onto the couch. He stayed absolutely still for a moment, then let his hands fall into her hair. It was darker red than he usually thought, but maybe that was just because he could touch it. "That's true," she said and ran her thumb thoughtfully along his knee, brushing away hair that got in her mouth. He tucked it behind her ear and settled his hand on her shoulder. "It'll go away eventually." She sighed and her forehead wrinkled. Mulder reached out a finger and smoothed her brow with his gentle touch. "It might not, Mulder. It might get worse." "Let's leave it alone for awhile." She nodded, her eyes closing with his soft hands heavy on her shoulder and head. "Scully?" "Um?" "You falling asleep on me?" "Yeah." "Good. I'll wake you up when I can't stand it anymore." She roused a bit and licked her lips. "Stand what?" "When I can't stand not talking to you." She melted a bit and turned her head to see him, lacing her hands behind his neck. "Come here, Mulder." Scully pulled him down and kissed him lazily, her tongue swirling in his bottom lip. He smiled into her kiss and hugged her hard. "Now rest, Scully. I promised your mom I'd watch out for you." She traced his chin, thinking for a moment, then turned back to pillow her head on his lap. "Wake me when you can't stand it, Mulder," she whispered, then closed her eyes. ====== end all adios RM