Amor Fati: The Fated Love, Acts I and II

Home/QuickSearch + Categories + Schedule
Rules + FAQ + Links/Lists + Contact

Amor Fati: The Fated Love, Acts I and II

by Touchstone, the PsychoPhile

Title: "Amor Fati; The Fated Love" (A Phile's Conclusion to the TXF Mytharc: the MSW-F Way...or the 'Renegade' version of S9 and beyond)
Note--(I checked the Latin, and there were three possible meanings for 'Fati' for Philes to choose from, probably to give us the chance to decide on our own. I chose 'Fated' for obvious reasons...Cos' Mulder and Scully are meant to be together, of course! But if you're not a shipper, no fear; this is heavily mytharc as well, and the MSR is highly psychological.
Rating: It's classy, but they don't stop at a kiss, either. Hell; what is fanfic for, then, eh? We'll say PG-13 with room to grow on (we may progress to NC-17 on my website version, but that would be more for the occasional spot of language, mild violence or pregnancy details than anything really overt.
Category: Classy MSR-Mytharc-Babyarc, Acknowledges S9 events up to "Scary Monsters", departs before that crap "Jump the Shark", but with a lot of character/relationship backstory and flashbacks to previous seasons. Wordy, Psychological.
Summary: This fic is sort of my renegade mytharc ending encompassing the entire series, old and new Projects. Act One and Two are a sort of alternate ending to Season 9, departing right before 'Jump The Shark'/'William' but still acknowledging the JD backstory events that happened after. Act Three, to be entered next year, is my movie and Act Four (WIP) is a third movie, and my sequel fic, still in progress and to be posted/completed ASAP, is a new series. All are heavily Mytharc, and the MSR is intelli-classy rather than rabid. When I first started this, around 'Existence' through 'TrustNo1', we still thought DD was never coming back. I figured, Scully's gotta leave sometime, right?! So of course, she's going to go straight-line to wherever Mulder is! And William will get to know his father, and about time too. I'm not going to ignore the Rebels or the Invasion, either; I think that is something that was being left on the back burner, and it's damned important. Especially to M&S, now that they have William and his destiny as the new key to the X-Files/the Mythology (i.e. a new improved Gibson Praise). Oh; and some old friends and enemies are more important in here...because I hate how they've been tossed aside like used prophylactics!
Spoilers: Well, at this point if we haven't seen 'em all, we should be ashamed of ourselves, LOL. j/k. But I used from everywhere and anywhere, S1-S9 and the outtakes, DVDs, etc; so if you've missed some eppys, be prepared!
Note on Timelining: I chose to ignore the dates given on the episodes ever since the whole 13 month pregnancy thing, so I've chosen to make TN1 fall in September, not January, and made Scully's departure fall around April, for a couple of reasons, among them:

in TN1, it looked like September outside, unless they were having a much less annoying winter than me, and
they've been apart long enough, right! Heck yeah! So William was born in June, cos I'm not gonna rearrange all of S7-8, but after that, its on my time.

Okay; serious stuff:
Disclaimer: these characters aren't mine, yadda yadda...no reflection on CC's or anyone's vision, yadda yadda and etc... but Goddess, do I ever wish I could publish this thing as a 'Renegade' ending to S9! And do I ever wish they were mine, all mine!!! But certain liberties taken with the mythology are mine, and the Driving Man, the Renegades, and for a large part, William and some later characters (Anda St. Claire Reinhart, Ariana and Jesse Jordan and William's sister) are MINE, ALL MINE!!! LOL
Acknowledgements: Silgil, SADKSM, PMPrometheus, Jellybeanie, and Gstring (Da AmorFati Orgiastic Goof Troupe), I definitely couldn't have done dis witout my goofies!!! TY TY TY for loving me!!! And thank you Shelly-Angel for being my earliest copy editor, Goof for giving MSR pointers and for starting da group, Andi and Rie for the scientific, Scully-angle on my mythy theories, and Jen for being there from the very beginning. We MISS you!!! Thanks also to Trekkie6 and DKS4ever for late copy editing and MSR pointers and nights of fun at chat! LOVE YA! Thanks to everyone who read this from day one, esp SeasonFan for the comp and inspirational gear (OMG!), Togui for the Scully-Mulder angles, and RValles for the lovely character feedback. Thanks also to NewFileFan and NotHappening, FelineFemme and others for reading the newest stuff; without you I would have gone insane! There are too many of you to name, but I love you all, and you know who you are. Muah! Kat
Enjoy, All!!! And thanks! WE'RE BACK! Love, Touchstone, 'the PsychoPhile' (FinelyDetailedInsanity)

"Amor Fati: The Fated Love"
(A Phile's Conclusion to TXF, the MSW-F Way) Act I: "The Longing"
--Prologue--

"Imperishable"
"Missive"
"Core: Visible"
"Resolve"
"Decision"
"peTrie"
"Ruminations"
"Waiting Game"
"Impatience"
"Summons"
"Surmise"
"Avoidance"
"A Conspiracy Of Silence"
"The Ties That Bind"
"All The Little Details"
"Farewell"
"Abode"
"You Say `Either'"
"Godfather"
"Leavetakings" --Epilogue--

Act I: "The Longing"
PROLOGUE:
--"One day, you'll ask me to speak of the Truth; of the miracle of your birth. To explain what is unexplained. And if I falter or fail on this day, know that there is an answer, my child. A sacred, imperishable Truth...but one that you may never hope to find alone. Chance meeting your perfect Other; your perfect Opposite. Your protector, and endangerer. Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of Journeys. A search for Truths fugitive and imponderable. If one day this chance may befall you...my son...do not fail or falter to seize it. The Truths are out there. And if one day you should behold a miracle as I have in you, you will learn that Truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane...but by looking into your own heart. And in that moment you will be blessed...and stricken. For the truest Truths are what hold us together...or keep us painfully, desperately apart."--
(Dana Scully's journal, Sept. 16, 2001: TN1 opening monologue)

(Amor Fati, pt.1: "Imperishable")
Aventon Bus Services,
en route to Central City, Nebraska
April 22nd, 2002
5:52 am
Scully sat tense and unmoving in the gloom of predawn, staring unblinkingly out of the bus's dew-drenched windows at the preternatural changes in light quality as grey dawn threatened approach on the yet unseen horizon. She would have liked to open the window and feel the crisp predawn winds on her face replacing the rustle and squeak of drying plastic and damp cloth, the snorts and grunts of the sleeping passengers, dispel the sickly and fetid air of the bus comprised of stale cigarette smoke, damp wool, eu de baby and diesel and burnt oil. Pervading and accenting all of her senses, however, was the curdling and stomach-twisting need to have this interminable ride over, to find the meeting at the end preordained and unalterable.
Forcing her clenched hand open, Scully unfolded the much-creased paper she held, stained with coffee from one stop in this endless journey and smudged with desperate fingerprints from the last week of horrible indecision. She took a deep breath, and re-read the words that she had committed to memory on first reading, because the reading of them provided much more comfort even than the memory.
>>"I don't know if this is the best course of action for us now, but I know that I will not change your mind. I do not even know if I could, if I have the strength to do so now, having come, finally and forcefully, face to face with the powerful force that masters all my thoughts and better judgment.
>>"My aunt Salianiqua has inherited a motel on sixth street; the only one in that section of town. She says she will rent me the 'presidential suite', a room with a remarkably appropriate number. The place could stand to repair the family's fortunes, and though it is not much, I wish you could see it. The grand opening is on the 25th through the 26th, and I will have to leave town on business the next day.
>>"If you truly believe this is the best course of action, I will follow it. Two has always been better than one, especially as it involves him. I must now commit you to the care of the Boys; they will help take care of the details, as they have for me. Know that whatever happens, I will always be somewhere out there, waiting."

(Amor Fati, pt.2: "Missive")
Scully sat staring at the crumpled bit of paper for long minutes, reading and re-reading the central paragraph and the last over and over as though the instructions contained therein were not already emblazoned onto her brain like a brand. Running her fingers over the last line like a caress, she finally broke her gaze to fold the missive briskly and replace it in her pocket. Her head turned then as if drawn by a gargantuan magnet, and her eyes fell on the cherubic face of ten-month old William, sleeping peacefully in his carrier. Three days until he would meet his father again, for the first time since the days following his birth. The things Mulder had missed...she needed him to know their child, and she needed him for her own reasons, reasons that compelled her beyond any other needs, beyond simple selfish desire. Her very existence was wrapped up in that of these two beings, and she would do what was necessary to be whole again. She knew Mulder felt the same, knew it the way one knows the deepest and most instinctive truths of one's spirit.
Her mind hearkened back to the first e-mail since their disastrous attempt in September, the unexpectedness of it. Two weeks ago, on a night like a hundred others alone in the apartment that had once been her refuge and Mulder's, and was now a fearful place where every word and movement was a matter of public record by those unscrupulous characters that kept them painfully, desperately apart.
One of a hundred such horrible nights, waiting for any word, wondering if Mulder was still alive out there somewhere, wondering when her son would show another facet of his strange new 'talents, waiting to see if he began to develop a telltale lump on the back of his neck... She had just put William down and was sitting on her couch looking out of her living room window at the rain and the darkness, wondering who was watching her now, and what, if at all in her life remained private. Interrupting her uneasy reverie had come a knock on her door. On her back door.
Rising quickly, she crossed the apartment, socks sliding pleasantly on the kitchen tiles, and looked through her peephole to see Byers of all people standing at attention on her stoop. Opening the door with alacrity, she held it for him in silent invitation before asking, "Its past eleven, Byers; is something wrong?"
"Well, that depends on what you mean by that word," Byers replied precisely, concentrating fiercely on the buttons of his soaking trenchcoat so as to avoid her eyes. He made no move to remove it. An awkward moment passed in silence while he dripped on the mat before he cleared his throat and looked up, finally, his eyes darting around the room in pointed fashion. He tilted his head back towards the door, and Scully's heart skipped a beat. --Was there news?-- she wondered in a sudden agony of suspense.
"Just let me get William," she whispered, and quickly crossed the apartment to the crib. She hated the necessity of waking him up again; he would be cranky in the morning, but she had to do what was necessary, and nothing of import could ever be said here in this apartment again. "I just put him down," she explained over her shoulder to the dripping Byers, hands busy with the task of bundling her son into his small blue jumper, fingers fumbling with the infant-sized snaps. William woke and gurgled inquisitively, tiny forehead crumpled and red with sleep and confusion as he tried to understand this abrupt disturbance of his nightly routine. "Shhhh, sweet William, Uncle Byers is here!" Scully soothed, trying to quell the incipient tears as she hurriedly strapped his 'Snugli' to her chest and prepared to lift him into it. She glanced back into the crib, hoping there would be no outburst.
"Gah!" William commented finally, and shoved four of his fingers into his mouth, his forehead smoothing as he decided that the situation did not warrant tears. Scully smiled at her son with a sad radiance, and reached out to lift him from his crib. William's hazel eyes reflected the cerulean blue of his jumper and twinkled back at her with curiosity and good humour as he held out his small arms to be picked up. She fitted him into the Snugli, and he laid his downy beanie-clad head against her chest with a contented sigh, closing his eyes once again. Crossing to the kitchen door with a remote look on her face, Scully wrapped her trenchcoat around them both and snagged umbrella and waterproof diaper bag from the stand. Once one had a baby, one went nowhere without a well-stocked diaper bag.
Byers smiled reflectively, watching her prepare to go out into the night. Motherhood had added a new radiance to the already radiant and prepossessing Dana Scully, and the male response to her was automatic. But it was the ever-present hint of impotent pain and yearning just below the surface that gave her visage its astounding depth. Byers thought, looking into her distracted eyes, that she had never been more beautiful. He cleared his throat again as she returned to the present and stood ready, and tried to push away the sudden contraction in his throat that came whenever he saw the mature pain that lived behind Agent Scully's eyes.
Scully stepped through the door Byers held for her, and turned to lock it behind them. Byers set off through the drizzle in the alley and across the damply quiet Georgetown streets, their beautiful 19th century architecture passing unnoticed as Scully followed in his wake, umbrella at attention. A few minutes later they reached a small park nearby just as the drizzle began to fade, and stepped out into a large open area far away from any trees or structures. Byers turned to face Scully so swiftly that she was taken aback for a moment, and William stirred against her chest before settling back into what she called his 'travel doze'.
"Where are Frohike and Langly?" She asked to break the silence, her voice pitched low so as not to carry on the damp April air.
"We decided that one of us would be less conspicuous than all three at once. I volunteered to bring you this," he answered, and pulled a folded piece of paper from his dry inside breast pocket.
Scully stared at the paper, frozen. Somewhere inside her head, alarms were going off as if to announce some desperate tidings, but she impatiently pushed down the lump in her throat and asked in what she hoped was a steady voice, "What is it, Byers?"
Byers looked at her penetratingly for a moment before answering. "We picked it up through one of our routine scans of our system. Someone knew how to put it there where we would find it, knew how often we scanned and how we rotated our schedule to catch the really nasty spooks." He cleared his throat nervously before adding, "Here. Look at the address. We assumed, rightly I think, that it is meant for your perusal."
He watched Scully's eyes flicker in terrible hesitation before she reached out and snatched the folded white missive from him like a lost vet snatching up letters from home. She held folded paper to her chest for a moment next to William's head, and he saw her take a deep breath and steel herself, fog from her last exhalation floating up into the cloud-studded midnight skies like a ghost.
Scully forced her shaking hands into some semblance of order, marshalling neurons to fire and motor skills to turn to the task at hand. She could almost feel them firing in that peculiar awareness of the workings of her body that she had known in these suspended moments since her cancer had made her aware of the terrible beauty of human mortality five and a half years ago. Synapses jerked and shuddered in reaction to the flood of conflicting messages in her brain as she hurriedly opened the note and glanced at the address printed at the top of the page.
It was EmRenard@goMail.com.

(Amor Fati, pt.3: "Core: Visible")
>>"I was afraid to do this, after the disaster that befell our last attempt," the e-mail read. "But I need to know that you are okay; you and he. I keep an eye out, and I know generally that you are well, but it is not the same as hearing it from you directly. I have to know that you're all right if I am to continue on this path. That it is worth the sacrifice that we are making. You said this to me once before, in your journal, but I did not fully understand at the time. I do now. I need to hear so many things. What he is doing now, what he has learned, who he looks like. I need to hear your voice, but that is not possible, nor is it safe for you to respond to these questions. There is no time."
>>"This is a one-shot-deal." She could almost hear the unspoken 'Dana' at the end of this phrase. "I can continue as long as you are able to answer, and I know that you are going on as I am. Please tell me this is worth the things we will never share. For if it is not, I do not know if I can continue."
>>"Whatever happens, know that I am closer than I feel, that I am in your heart each time you think of me." xxx
Scully stood stricken in the creeping shadows of the park. --Alive. He was alive-- She had hoped, she had suspected...but since her encounter with the rogue agent and the cult in Canada she had lived with the awful sinking feeling that she had sent Mulder away to evade death only to lose him anyway, for the second time. Now to finally have word, and to know that 'Josepho' was telling the truth, that Mulder was indeed still out there somewhere... Time had ceased flowing as she read the e-mail, and now she began to breathe again. Byers broke the silence self-consciously.
"We didn't pick up on the reference right away. But once we read it, we realized to whom it belonged. I volunteered to bring it." His eyes were liquid with sympathetic feeling. He knew about bonds stretched beyond the edges of immediate space and emotion. He cleared his throat savagely for about the third time. "I want you to know that we would never have read it, if we had known. But we got it to you as soon as we were able."
Scully nodded automatically, and her hand fell to William's head pressed between her breasts, while her other held the printout in a death grip. William nuzzled briefly before falling back into his doze, and Scully looked up, eyes glistening and face twisted with the effort to hold back her tears. Byers turned slightly to one side with an embarrassed cough, unsettled by that glimpse into Agent Scully's most vulnerable place, her expression like raw flesh exposed to cold winds and shattered glass. He gave her time to compose herself. When he turned back, she was moving normally again, brushing at the corners of her eyes impatiently as she resettled her mask, determination vying with a bittersweet smile on her face.
He was wrong, Byers thought. She had never been more beautiful than now. His heart wept for these two that he loved as dear friends. He and the other Gunmen had talked long into the night a few times since they had been asked to spirit Mulder away. Scully had been right there; calm, confident, with steel in her voice and eyes while Mulder had railed against the necessity; but they had all known how this would tear these two apart, day by terrible day. Mulder had charged them with aiding Scully in any way they were able, and they had discharged that solemn duty as if oath bound.
Scully's face had changed as he watched her. Her expression was now suddenly one of fierce decision, and Byers was taken aback by the implications of what he read in there. "Agent Scully," he queried tentatively, "what are you planning to do?"

(Amor Fati, pt.4: "Resolve")
Scully looked up at him, her piercing gaze causing him to shuffle his feet in the wet grass. Her glance was sardonic, her mask now well up and all shields once again in place. She was the imperious and noble Agent Scully again, and her eyes seemed to mock him gently from where she stood a few feet away.
"I think you know the answer to that, Byers," she stated crisply. "You knew before you came to give this to me. You've seen Their recent attempts, you know what my choices are. The question is, will you help me; you and Langly and Frohike? Will you do for me what you did for Mulder? I wouldn't ask if there was any other way."
He started at her words. "Yes, yes I know that. We know that, I mean. And of course, we'll do whatever you ask." He paused for a moment, hesitant to voice his main concern; but it was necessary...necessary that Agent Scully consider the risks inherent in the action she was now proposing. He had promised Mulder to do everything in his power to keep her safe, and he would do that, so help him God. He started again, voice a little stronger in his newly reinforced convictions. "I...we just need to know, Agent Scully; are you aware of what you are proposing? Should the deal go sour as it did the last time, there will be no other chance. And your William will pay the consequences." He wished he had not said that at the look on her face. But he barreled on, afraid to stop before everything that needed to be said, was. "We just need to be sure that you have considered every possibility before you make your decision. That's our job. Our sworn duty."
Scully swung her head forward for a moment, shaking it as she smiled at him from under the curtain of her now shoulder-length titian locks. "Byers, you three amaze me sometimes. Only you could say something like that and have it come off sounding serious." She raised her head and turned her smile full on him then. The tears were back in her eyes, but the amusement in her voice was underscored with firm determination and taut with expectation.
"I have considered; I consider the possibilities you speak of every day, and every night. And the answer is yes, Byers. I know what I have to do, now; for me... and for William." Her hand rose unconsciously to trail over the baby's head where it lay inside the collar of her trenchcoat. "With Them watching my every move, They could come after him at any time--I'm still not sure why They haven't tried again since the last time. But William is no safer here than he would be wherever Mulder is; in fact probably less so. He needs both of us...and I cannot, I will not do this alone anymore." Her voice rose to steel again in that instant, and her eyes flashed as she looked into the distance. Byers nodded, slightly alarmed by the sudden changes in her countenance. In the months after the near miss with the train she had seemed so...listless. Now it was as if someone had lit a fire within her. He supposed he knew who that someone was. He and the other Gunmen had seen that fire before; they knew their choices were either to help her or to get out of the way. Byers chose to help. He knew that's what the other guys would choose, too. He knew that's what Mulder would want; if they could not talk her out of it, to assist in any way that they were able. This was something they could do to honour him.
"Ah, I'll tell Langly and Frohike. We'll get the ball rolling. You'll have to let us know once you've got everything set. Then we'll iron out the details." Scully nodded at him, and absently shrugged to adjust the Snugli's position against her chest, eyes once again riveted on some distant point beyond vision. Byers looked down, fumbled for words, and finally seized upon something less than idiotic when he saw her shiver slightly in the gloom. He narrowed his eyes at her. "C'mon, Agent Scully; its chilly out here, and William doesn't need to be soaked. I'll walk you back to your apartment, and then I'll roust the guys out of bed and we'll get to work." Scully acquiesced to his escort, and he left her safely ensconced in her kitchen and closed the door, wondering indeed how safe she really was there, especially now that this thing that her watchers wanted was so nearly in their grasp. He returned to 'The Magic Bullet' and recounted the meeting with his wakeful companions, wondering all the time what they could possibly do to fix it if this turned out to be another trap.

(Amor Fati, pt.5: "Decision")
Dana Scully Apartment
Georgetown, MD.
April 13, 2002
Early Morning
Scully could not sleep that night. After returning William to his bed she had sat up late at the dining room table, staring at nothing as all the variables raced through her mind, chased by snippets of conversation. In her mind's eye she could see again the alarm in Byers' face as she had made her decision; his voice asking her if she had truly considered her course, overlaid with that horrible final instant seven months ago as she had watched Mulder's train speed by, narrowly avoiding the trap that had been set, the knowledge that it may have been a dummy trap all along, that they could simply have been setting her up for this, further trap. After that horrible night, so close and yet so far, she had considered and despaired despite the determination that those events had fostered in her breast. After the most recent attempts to get at William, and after his more recent displays of unique ability, her life had lost all semblance of safety, and she feared even to work for fear that they would one day bust down her mother's door, and she would come home to find that she no longer had the child that she had never thought would be. Her mother watched her every day now, pain in her eyes for her daughter's agony, and Scully could see the struggle in Maggie not to ask her how she was coping.
Scully sighed, and laid her head on the cool oak of the table. She had made the decision months ago; but she had not been able to carry it out until Mulder had contacted her. There would have been no way to arrange it. The emotional roller coaster that began the moment Byers had shown up at her door continued its wild heaving and would not stop, she knew, until she could formulate her reply to Mulder tomorrow.
Scully sat wakeful at her table all night, turning in to her bed to hug one of Mulder's shirts under her chin as the last hours of predawn turned her wealth of red hair ashen, like tears.

(Amor Fati, pt.6: "peTrie"
JAZ'n Java Internet Caf
Georgetown, MD.
April 13, 2002
6:09AM
This particular Internet caf was not exactly teeming with customers this early; it was barely six AM when she walked briskly through the door and moved William's stroller into position next to the kiosk closest to a corner and furthest from any windows. An obviously sleep-deprived young waitress came by with an order pad in her hand, green shirt emblazoned with a busily typing animated coffee cup. Scully looked up from the computer, eyes distant as she logged on to the 'Net. "What can I get for you this morning, ma'am? We're having two dollar espressos and mango-strawberry smoothies for two ninety-nine," the waitress rattled off briskly.
Scully smiled, bemused. "This is the first Internet caf I've ever been to where the service comes to the tables," she commented wryly.
"Yeah, we're pretty popular around here for that reason." She cracked away at a piece of gum before inquiring, "Ya want a smoothie or an espresso, or do ya wanna try one of our amazing chocolate lattes?"
"Coffee," Scully answered, smile even broader now. "Cream, no sugar. And a grape juice for the baby."
"Gotcha," the waitress chirped, and wove her way back to the counter, pad held high as she avoided collision after collision with the computer kiosks. Scully shook her head, and turned back to the monitor before her. She clicked on an icon, then waited for the GoMail page to download. She clicked on 'create account', and typed busily for a moment, falsifying information as she had learned to do off the top of her head without a moment's provocation. GoMail was an instant-account processor, and she should be able to use it in a few minutes. The info page queried her on the name she wished to appear in her address. Scully's smile returned as she typed "Petrie_dish" into the text box and clicked on submit.
"Thank you!" the computer chimed brightly. "Your account is being processed."
Scully watched the screen flicker and the numbers at the base count away; 4%, 16%, 23%. A few minutes passed as Scully contained her impatience before the screen came up again with, "The username, 'Petrie_dish' already exists. Please resubmit your information using the following suggestions."
Scully sighed in annoyance and clicked on suggestion number one, "peTrie_dish1". She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. The more people using the same name as her, the better. The account processed more rapidly this time, and shortly after her coffee arrived and she administered William his juice, the computer informed her that the account, "peTrie_dish1@goMail.com" was now activated. Scully immediately logged on and clicked 'compose'. Then she sat back for a moment to organize her thoughts.
>>"You have no idea what a shock your message was to me. I wasn't sure if you would ever be able to contact me again, or if you were even alive...and the thought made my blood run cold. We are coping. I do not need to tell you how big he is now, or what he is capable of, because you will see him for yourself, soon. Do not argue with me about this. This is something that we must do, now."
>>"They are watching my every move, and they have made several attempts on his life. The apartment is no longer safe, and there is nothing to hold me here anymore. If we want him to remain safe and whole, we are the only ones who can accomplish that task, and we cannot do that if we are apart. I do not do this for my sake or yours, but for his. You do not know how difficult this decision has been, as we both know the risks. But I have considered it for months, and I have come to the unalterable conclusion that this is the only way that we will ever see each other again, the only way that he will ever be safe. He needs both of us...and I need you."

(Amor Fati, pt.7: "Ruminations")
Scully sat before the monitor for several minutes after she had clicked send. She was committed now. There would be no further correspondence on these accounts to waste on hedging...from his end or from hers. She would disable this account as soon as Mulder had had time to read her message. It was the only way to be safe.
A demanding sound from the stroller brought her mind back with a jolt, and she looked down into William's beautiful eyes, young ghosts of another pair of eyes that she knew better than she knew her own reflection; and an awareness of the changing and settling of his features once again come to rest in the vicinity of her heart like a down comforter.
"You look more and more like Mulder every day," Scully murmured, smiling as she admitted in this private moment the thing she could not safely voice to anyone right now. Not if she wanted to keep her son.
William seemed to think her comment mattered very little in comparison to the important business of emptying his bottle of juice, but he spared her a moment of attention. "Ma," he commented indifferently, and returned to the matter at hand.
Scully's smile reached a crescendo of surpassing sweetness. It would be a trial, these days waiting for Mulder's reply, perhaps up to a week on pins and needles wondering if he would refuse despite her exhortations. But her reasoning would prevail over his worries, and he would capitulate--and she would see him before the month was out.
"I promise," Scully told William, running a pensive finger along the backs of his downy baby knuckles. William had grown an amazing thatch of reddish-brown hair in the intervening months, replacing the peach-fuzz he had kept the first four or five months of his life. She often wondered at the action of genes in practice; how Mulder's straight brown hair could vie so successfully against the contentious trend toward curly red-headedness that the babies in her family had been blessed or cursed with. As with her brothers Scully's own hair had toned down to a more muted shade after puberty, and lost its tendency to curl. She hadn't minded losing the curl, but she had never forgiven Melissa for keeping the trademark strawberry Scully locks while she had had to resort to dying hers to combat the darker trend of her mother's contribution to her genes. And now William had the reddish tint, but it was tempered, and had the texture of Mulder's hair. His hazel eyes, though shaped like hers, shifted more often to Mulder's hazel-green than to her hazel-blue. She had often caught her mother gazing into her grandson's face with a bemused expression when she had returned to pick him up in the evenings, and wondered if Maggie Scully had come to the same obvious conclusion. But then, her mother had never felt the texture of Mulder's hair. She wondered how apparent it was becoming to everyone. But for her it was a constant comfort...and a constant source of yearning pain.
"Well, William. Our business is done here. I think we should go for a walk. What do you think?" Scully smiled wistfully at the toddler, then rose from the kiosk stool and kicked off the brake on the stroller. William gurgled cheerfully around the nipple of the bottle as they made their way out of the caf.

(Amor Fati, pt.8: "Waiting Game")
--"I have not written any thoughts here for several months. The truth is I feared letting go of these emotions I keep in such a tenuous hold within--for I knew that were I to release them, with no hope, they would surely destroy me.
--"It is safe now to write these things only because I may soon have an outlet for the emotions that the words will undoubtedly release. For now there is a new hope...and I am waiting. Waiting to hear word. And in waiting I am resolute. This time I will not falter, cannot fail...and so I am able to put my resolve into words. I will see you again. I have made a promise. To him...and to you."
(Dana Scully's Journal, April 14, 2002) xxx
FBI Training Academy,
Quantico, VA.
(and various other locales in the Beltway) April 18, 2002 3:57pm
Nearly a week had passed. Scully was going mad with suspense and anticipation; wondering what he would say. Wondering how she would find him, when the time came.
She had prepared everything, including disabling her GoMail account after the second day, in a welter of worry that Mulder might not have yet had the chance to read her irreplaceable message. Aware of the eyes watching her, she had moved discreetly so as not to alert Them, openly telling her landlord from her doorway that she was going to stay with her mother for a while so that her packing would not seem like too much of a tip-off. She had typed up her letter of resignation, intending to turn it in over a weekend before whenever it was that she left so that she would not show her hand before she was long gone. She would talk to her mother as soon as she heard from Mulder and knew her timeline for sure. Now it was down to a waiting game, hoping that the Lone Gunmen found another and less unexpected e-mail floating around in their system somewhere.
She wondered when John Doggett would call her today. Her erstwhile temporary partner called almost every day to check in on her, and, she suspected, sometimes put Monica Reyes up to the same on his 'off days' to avoid Scully thinking he was stalking her or something. She often wondered at the men in her life who all seemed to take it as some sort of holy duty to watch over her, albeit respectfully, since Mulder's disappearance. Doggett was constantly checking in, Skinner called at least twice a week and came by occasionally, and then there were the Lone Gunmen. She could only shake her head ruefully. Mulder would be pleased even while he was annoyed at the necessity.
The phone warbled at her from the desk in her office. Sure it was Agent Doggett, Scully picked up the phone lazily, one eye still trailing over her computer monitor and the data she was skimming from the term papers in her last class.
"Scully."
"Oooh la la, it's the good doctor herself! Can you come by and give us a house call, pretty lady?" Unexpectedly, it was the gravelly voice of Frohike that Scully heard over the line.
Scully's heart leapt up into her throat. She drew in her breath sharply, held it for a moment, and silently commanded the jitters in her stomach to recede to appropriate levels. "Depends on how bad it is. I have no cure for terminal lust, Frohike," she remarked conversationally, and with remarkable aplomb if she did say so herself.
"Bummer; I was hoping you would be the only one who could help me with my condition. Oh well, one can't give up all one's vices." Frohike's voice settled down to business, urging her to pick up on the clues lying behind his words. "We've come into possession of some further data on that case we referred to you last week. We were wondering if you could come have a look at it..." Frohike's voice suddenly held a grin of sheer triumph... "that is if you have the time."
Scully sat up straight as the tension of the last endless week thrummed up to fever pitch, and she sternly took control over her voice as she answered. "Yeah, sure 'Hickey. I'll stop by as soon as I wrap up here." --Decorum, Dr. Scully; decorum. Don't give Them any reason to suspect anything beyond our usual meetings--
"Great. We always looove to get a visit from the enigmatic Dr. Scully! See ya then!" Frohike signed off, voice tense with meaning and knowledge.
Scully cursed mildly under her breath as she replaced the phone in its cradle. Mulder must have mentioned that 'enigmatic Dr. Scully' thing to the Gunmen during one of their geek-boy, testosterone-laden powwows over the years since they first met the ill-fated Max Fenig. And Frohike had to pick now to rub it in. One thing was sure; those guys could always make her laugh, whether she liked to show it or not. In fact, she would defy anyone not to laugh at seeing their Mutt and Jeff appearance en triad.
Sighing, Scully removed her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose, then moved to rub her temples. It was going to be virtually impossible for her to finish this day with any semblance of concentration or interest when she had the reply she had been waiting for sitting across town tantalizing her. But then, she had learned to be very accomplished at pretending to be present while her mind was far away over the last two years since Mulder's first disappearance. So far, only Skinner and a few others who knew her very well could tell when she was miles away from the scene of the crime.
She wondered if being the consummate professional was worth it, if she was going to tender her resignation soon anyway. She could always leave early...

(Amor Fati, pt.9: "Impatience")
En route to 'The Magic Bullet'
April 18, 2002
4:23pm
"Yeah, Mom. I just wanted to let you know that I'll be there to pick up William a bit late this evening. No, no; there's nothing wrong. Yes, I remember that Bill's in. Yeah, Mom; I'll visit with him."
Scully groaned inwardly. She should be glad of the opportunity to say goodbye to at least one of her brothers and his family, but part of her just knew that he would figure out exactly what was going on, and would react badly. Not that she was going to announce her going with trumpets, but if there was one thing that Bill Jr. was good at, it was zoning right in on anything that had to do with Mulder. The man enjoyed his nephew all the times he'd seen him, but from the beginning she had caught him looking with narrow suspicion into William's face as if searching for clues with which to scold her over her continued relationship with 'that sorry sonofabitch'. Scully shook her head ruefully. Once a brother, always a brother. Older or younger, it didn't seem to matter much.
"Hey, Mom? I have something that I may need to talk to you about this evening...if you have some time before you go out with Bill and Tara. What? No, I mean, yes of course I was planning on staying for dinner. Yes, I'm aware that Bill only comes home once or twice a year. Yes...yeah, Mom. Yeah. Look, I'm almost to where I'm going. I'll talk to you sometime after six, okay?" She beeped off her cell phone and looked distantly out the window for a minute. "Bye, Mom," she whispered, then swung quickly into the right lane and through the last tollbooth to her exit.

(Amor Fati, pt.10: "Summons")
The Lone Gunmen Headquarters,
April 18, 2002
4:56pm
Scully parked several hundred yards up the familiar and wet, garbage-littered street from the Lone Gunmen's headquarters and walked briskly through the alley to their dented and grungy door. Pausing with her hand upraised in the act of knocking, she steeled herself for answers she might not expect, then allowed her hand to resume its descent to the panel. Three sharp raps, and silence. A long silence. Just when she was about to knock again, wondering if there was a malfunction in the Gunmen's video surveillance equipment, the small slot in their door popped open to reveal Langly's ratty features. Scully jumped. "Jesus, Langly!" She breathed.
Langly gave his approximation of a grin, a strained expression more akin to that of a baby with gas, and murmured, "Sorry." He then turned his head back to the dim recesses of the building and called out to the other two. "She's here! Come on in, Agent Scully," he resumed, turning back to her.
"I will, as soon as you unlock the door," she retorted wryly.
"Oh. Yeah. Sure." Langly's head withdrew like a incongruous blonde turtle's, and she heard the unmistakable sounds of the Lone Gunmen's fifty or so locks being unbolted, turned, and drawn. After a moment's fierce activity, the door popped open to reveal the rest of Langly in one of his ubiquitous rock t-shirts...this one sporting the obscure logo of another band she had never heard of.
"'Honey Tongue'?" She inquired as she passed him in the doorway.
"Uh, yeah," he answered in his characteristically nervous fashion. "A-actually, I just like the name. And, all my other ones are dirty."
"Have I ever pointed out that you three live like prepubescent orphans?" Scully addressed this to the room at large as she continued through the warren to the main electronics den of this cozy little underground hovel now so familiar to her. Frohike, standing near one of the consoles, threw her a gimlet glare, while Byers, sitting on one unmade bed just around the bend in the dimly lit far left corner, looked down and nodded.
"On numerous occasions, Agent Scully," he said, his freshly pressed suit looking out of place as always in this untidy atmosphere. He stood up, but it was Frohike that spoke.
"As you may have suspected from our phone conversation, Mulder's surfaced again. We've found him lurking around like an ill-planted seed in one of our less routine system scans. How the guy is doin' this I don't know, as I don't recall letting him in on all our little gadgets, but I think its definitely him."
Langly must have seen the sudden look of worry on Scully's face, for he broke in quickly at this point. "I was suspicious at first myself," he said nervously, moving around the edge of the table to the monitor where Frohike was stationed. "I mean, Mulder's kung-fu was never quite up to par for this kinda thing; that's why you guys always came to us. But we did leave him loopholes. I think he just finally figured out how to use them. If he's done it once, he can do it again. I mean, he's probably got plenty of time on his hands, right?" At the marked silence from Scully, Langly blushed as he finally realized how tactless this last statement was in the present circumstances. Byers broke in at this rather delicate point in proceedings.
"We found the message embedded fairly deeply in the wires, so to speak, but judging from what you've told us about certain cases in your past, I think the subject on this particular e-mail is a pretty good password." He moved aside to let Scully into the crush around the workstation, and tapped once lightly on the mouse to reveal the message where they had it saved as a document. Scully hesitated, caught in a sudden agony of indecision, of fear. What if he had disagreed; what if he said no? He would go to ground again, and she would have no further chance either to get in touch with him or to convince him of the necessity of her decision until he felt he was able to contact her again. She did not think she could keep William safe that long, and she did not think she could hold up much longer on the unending and unrelenting strain, wondering if he was dead or alive, wondering when They would next come after her son. Taking a deep unobtrusive breath, she forced herself to step in front of the monitor and focus on the message posted there. Byers rattled on as she stared at the screen, absorbed in the answer laid out before her.
"We had to destroy the original message, of course," Byers was saying, somewhere in the distance. "We didn't want Them to be able to trace it. We figured you wouldn't mind if we saved it in this way as we did the last one..." His voice trailed off as he saw that Scully wasn't hearing him. Scully hardly noticed. Her gaze was riveted on the screen, glancing over the password, the entire message blooming in her brain and making her heart contract in sudden relief so complete that it left her breathless.
>>"I don't know if this is the best course of action for us now, but I know that I will not change your mind. I do not even know if I could, if I have the strength to do so now, having come, finally and forcefully, face to face with the powerful force that masters all my thoughts and better judgment."
Scully let out a long ragged breath that she didn't even know she was holding and finished reading the message with eyes that stubbornly blurred as she blinked impatiently. Her limbs were trembling as she finished the final passage.
>>"If you truly believe this is the best course of action, I will follow it. Two has always been better than one, especially as it involves him. I must now commit you to the care of the Boys; they will help take care of the details, as they have for me. Know that whatever happens, I will always be somewhere out there, waiting."
Byers cleared his throat and gently covered her chilled hand with his warm one, bringing her back to the present. She looked up to meet his gaze; his eyes were liquid with sympathy and warmth. How come she had never noticed what beautiful, soulful eyes John Fitzgerald Byers had, she wondered. A tremulous half smile ghosted her lips, acknowledging his concern. Scully cleared her own throat then, and forced words past her aching throat.
"Ei 'Aaneiigoo 'Ahoot'e." She murmured wonderingly.
"Yeah, and how many people know about that?" Langly pointed out triumphantly; or at least what passed for triumphantly in Langly's case.
"At least we got our marching orders loud and clear," Frohike commented under his breath. Seeing Scully's 'look', he rushed ahead.
"We figured out the instructions in the central paragraph," he continued. "The only town we could find called 'Salianiqua' is in Northwest Michigan, on the Upper Peninsula. The directions to the motel are specific enough, and I'm guessin' Mulder expects you to know what the "remarkably appropriate number" of the room is." He paused, obviously expecting to be enlightened.
"Forty-two," Scully answered, a thousand thoughts chasing around with the memories in her head. "His old apartment number."
"Aaaah, yes, of course!" Byers broke in, looking both impressed and a little abashed. "Now why we didn't think of that..."
"It's that ESP they have," Langly returned sarcastically, and walked a few paces away from the workstation with his hands jammed deep in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched in self-denigration.
"So I have to check in there between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-sixth, or..."
"Or he'll have to bail, and then you're out there in the middle of nowhere with your little one, wondering what to do next, and no way to get in touch with him," Frohike finished for her, unshaven face creased with anxiety over the unpleasant possibilities that scenario represented. The scar on his forehead, souvenir of the Gunmen's abortive attempt to spirit William away for her a few months back showed up livid in the greenish light of the monitors and equipment. "Luckily," he continued briskly, "we had almost all the arrangements figured out by Tuesday; all we needed was the final destination to have it all set."
"We've set up the dummy accounts for your finances--a little under each pseudonym-to be activated as you use the ID's. Same thing we did with Mulder's estate. We'll have your tickets and your itinerary for you by tomorrow," Byers broke in. "As soon as you have everything set up and have little Mulder Junior in the saddle, you can be on your way." He hesitated. "That is, if you still really want to go through with this?" xxx
Scully looked straight into Byers' eyes, then into Frohike's--indomitable, and set on her course. Langly turned back toward them expectantly, eyes gleaming in an almost predatory fashion in the gloom.
"I have been living like the hunted in my own home for six months," she stated baldly. "I have been afraid to talk to anyone, to leave my child for one minute, even to go to the bathroom or to sleep. I live in fear each day that I'll come home to pick him up from my mother's and he'll be gone, and I'll never know who took him or why. My job is useless to our ends; it holds no interest for me now. And my only alternative to living like this is to choose to live in under the same conditions, in continuing danger, never seeing my family and friends again, and knowing that unless we manage the impossible, they may never see my son grow up, never know if we are dead or alive. It'd be the same thing as now; but at least I won't be doing it alone. I'd feel a hell of a lot safer if I had someone else to rely on; especially Mulder." She nodded once at Byers and Frohike, voice firm with conviction.
"At least if I take this choice, I'll be hunted on my own terms."
In the long silence that followed, Byers nodded, then Frohike. Langly looked down, embarrassed as always by strong emotion. "That's not the only good reason," Byers added, then cleared his throat again, looking embarrassed.
"Yeah, okay," Frohike quickly stepped into the gap. "So you really wanna do this; we'll take care of the details. Its what Mulder wanted, anyway."
Scully nodded, looking down at the grubby floor. "I..." She looked up, catching all three sets of eyes. "I just wanted to thank you guys for everything that you've done for me, for us, in the last year and before." She paused for a moment, her expression earnest with feeling. "I know we don't say it much, but we really appreciate it. I really appreciate it, and I know Mulder does too."
All three Gunmen looked excessively embarrassed.
"All in a days work." Frohike.
"Its nothing you wouldn't do for us." Byers.
"Ya gotta admit, it's a kick in the pants, anyway." Langly. Scully's smile was heartfelt.
"Yeah, well; I'm going to miss you guys," she told them warmly.
Frohike looked down and shuffled his feet like a schoolboy. Byers gave a little bow. "Likewise, Agent Scully," he murmured. Langly just went lobster-red beneath the curtain of his flyblown hair. Scully laughed. It was the first time she had heard that particular sound come out of her own throat since Mulder left.
"I have to go," she stated, a smile still curving her lips. "Do I get a print-out of this, or what?"
"Of...oh yeah, of course," Byers stammered, and strode quickly to the other end of the workstation to hand her a copy of the message. "We have one too, so we can work our magic with the details. We'll give you a call once everything is arranged."
"Thanks." Scully favoured them all impartially with one last smile, then wove her way quickly between the odds and ends to let herself out. "Don't forget to lock up!" she called through the door as she exited, and left the Lone Gunmen staring at the closed portal, bemused. xxx
Back outside, Scully leaned back against the weather-beaten door, letting her breath out and sagging against the metal, right hand braced on the knob to hold herself upright. She lifted her left hand, the printout held in a white-knuckled grip. She was shaking, she realized. She had not realized until now just how terrified she had been that Mulder would not give the reply she needed, that after all the build-up she would be set down hard and forced to live in this Hell again, for who knew how long and with no other recourse.
After a moment, she summoned her strength and forced herself to her feet, made her way to her car...where she sat motionless for a few long minutes, turning Mulder's message over and over in her mind's eye. She could not look at it again no matter how much she wished to sit and pore over it for days; They were watching, and for all she knew, Their technology was such that They could read the printed page from wherever They sat surveilling her. She knew They had cameras inside her car, her office, everywhere she ever spent more than five minutes a week. She had long since ceased looking at anything or saying a word of any importance to anyone while under a roof, behind walls, or in a vehicle.
Long moments passed before awareness of time returned to Agent Scully, whereupon she started her car and pulled smoothly out onto the garbage-cluttered street, heading for the toll road and Baltimore.

(Amor Fati, pt.11: "Surmise")
Margaret Scully residence
Baltimore, MD
April 18, 2002
6:25pm
Scully entered her mother's home with trepidation, wondering how she was going to manage to say goodbye to her mother without actually giving away any dangerous details. For all that her every move and plan was likely known to those who watched her no matter the precautions she took, and she would act accordingly; still she must act as circumspectly as she was able...in case.
Walking into the foyer, she took off her trench coat and hung it on the stand, setting her umbrella beneath it; it had started raining again while she was en route to Baltimore from the Magic Bullet. She walked past the base of the stairs to the living room and saw her mother sitting on the couch holding William. She couldn't help but smile at this tableau of generational content.
"Willie, look at that; it's your Mama!" Maggie Scully said in a perky grandma voice, bouncing the child on her lap. Will broke out into a huge and sticky grin, and extracted one gooey hand from his mouth to reach out to Scully.
"Ma!" He announced. It looked like he had been eating chocolate pudding. Or mud.
"I told you, Mom; we're calling him William or Will, not Willie," Scully chastised, closing the distance across the rug. "What did you feed him? Potting soil?"
"Mr. Cosby's own Jell-o Pudding Snacks," Maggie grinned wickedly. "It's a grandmother's prerogative to feed her grandchild massive amounts of sugar and then turn him over to his mother to deal with. It is also," she continued in a teasing tone, "a grandmother's prerogative to give her grandchild any nickname she so desires; but in this case I'll honour your wishes and stick to calling him my 'Liam'."
"Thanks," Scully answered wryly as she joined them on the couch. Will leaned crazily toward his mother and stretched out his arms.
"Maaa!" He insisted stridently, then began to whine. "Maaaaa...."
"I think I've been voted out," Maggie smiled good-naturedly, and allowed the baby to wriggle free of her arms and into his mother's lap. Scully picked him up and looked into his small round face, resigned.
"Yes, I missed you too, William! Did you have a nice visit with Nana, sweetie? How much junk food did she give you?"
Ignoring the pristine condition of his mother's dress blouse, William buried his face in Scully's bosom and nuzzled as he did whenever he wanted reassurance. Whatever it was that was on his face transferred itself to the pale pink blouse, and Maggie tsked.
"Oh, I'm sorry Dana. Your blouse! I'll go get the stain-remover." She bustled off briskly. Scully watched her go for a minute, holding William thoughtfully. Maggie was back in a moment with a spray bottle and a package of Handi-Wipes. "Here, Dana; let me scrub him off while you take care of the blouse." She took William deftly and deposited him on her lap. The boy began to squall indignantly as his Nana plied the Handi-Wipes, slapping at Maggie's hand with one pudgy paw and rubbing his eye with another, looking very put upon. "I think someone's sleepy," Maggie said conspiratorially to the room at large.
Scully looked up from where she was swiping ineffectually at the brown stains on her blouse. "It sure sounds that way," she answered.
The task finished, Scully looked up to see her mother watching her.
"Are you okay, Dana?" Maggie asked, concern in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine Mom. It's just been a long week," Scully evaded, trying to hide the strain in her voice. "Actually, I was hoping to get the chance to talk to you about something. Where are Bill and Tara?"
"Oh, they went out to pick up a few things; they said they'd be back in a half an hour or so. Why, what do you need to discuss with me?"
Scully took a deep breath. "Mom, do you mind if we go outside for a minute?" She asked. Maggie looked into her daughter's eyes, read the message there, and didn't question it. Holding a still-frustrated William, she stood and held out her hand to Scully, and they walked out of the back door and down to the end of the yard where they sat on the weathered and peeling old bench Charlie had built in his ninth grade shop class. There Maggie turned to Scully and looked at her expectantly, all the while jiggling William absently to distract him from the aftershocks of his small tantrum.
Now that it came right down to it, Scully didn't know where to start. She looked down at her palms, lying limp in her lap, struggling with the words. Another hand appeared in her view, took one of her hands, grasped it, squeezed lightly.
"Whatever it is, Dana, I'm here," Maggie encouraged, and squeezed again. xxx
Scully took a deep breath and looked into William's teary eyes for a second. She couldn't help but smile, seeing his look of red-faced affront, the picture of offended baby dignity. His wounded grey eyes, so like his father's, gave her strength. She was not being selfish. She was doing this for William as well as for herself and Mulder. And it was the right thing to do. She inhaled deeply and looked up to meet her mother's patient, kindly gaze.
"Mom, remember how I told you that I'm being watched?" Maggie nodded, eyes intent on her daughter's face. The first time Scully had warned her mother about this particular detail of her life, Maggie had been incensed and horrified. "Well, there's a reason we had to come out here to talk. They may be watching you too; in fact They're probably surveilling anybody that's connected to Mulder and me, any place he or I ever spent time in." She could see the dawning horror in her mother's eyes as Maggie Scully realized that her home was not a haven, and she rushed on to get it done with before she lost her nerve. "Now, not only does that mean that I am making everyone that I love unsafe, but you may have guessed that William is not particularly safe either..."
"Dana, from all the special instructions and warnings you've given me each time I watched him, I would think I'd have figured that out." Maggie Scully's eyes were hard with anger, but also damp with the full understanding, finally, of how her daughter had been living since her grandson had been born.
Scully nodded, feeling a little foolish. If she hadn't told her mother everything, still she had told her enough, for her own sake as well as for William's. The recent attempts on William she had alluded to only as cautions, though she had repeated the injunctions to her mother almost daily since. She wondered if William had shown any of his unique talents to his Nana. She shivered, and William looked up at them both as if sensing that something unusual was afoot.
Just as Scully was beginning to despair of how she could possibly get this out without tipping her hand to those bastards following her every move, Maggie Scully reached out a hand.
"Its getting too much for you, isn't it Dana." It wasn't a question. At Scully's startled expression, Maggie continued inexorably, the fierce strength that underlay her words very evident. "Don't think you're fooling me, sweetheart. I watch you. I have watched you since Fox left. It's not just that you miss him, is it? It has to do with the reason he left, the reason why we have to be so careful with Will. Those enemies you made in this last decade are watching you, trying to hurt you; you and my grandson. And the strain is wearing on you more every day."
Scully stared at her mother, taken aback. "Mom, I don't know what to say. I had no idea I was that transparent."
"Oh, you're not, sweetheart. But I know my little girl. A mother sees things. You were always very tough, but there are limits to even the strongest person's strength. It's not good for anyone to live like you have been; especially a new mother." Scully looked down, struggling to control the emotions that flooded up at her mother's unexpected insight. But she was truly stunned by Maggie's next assertion. Her mother sighed, looking away over the back fence at the neighbours' house.
"So he's called you, hasn't he; or gotten in touch with you however it is that you two manage things?" She sighed again. "I hated to see you wondering each day, but now you have that light in your eyes again; the light of a woman who has made a decision." Ignoring her daughter's astonishment, Maggie went on. "I have dearly loved watching William his first year; watching him grow and change." She looked down at the baby, who returned her smile serenely. "It has been a blessing." She returned her gaze to her daughter then. "I would have dearly loved to watch him continue to grow; to see him walk, learn to ride a bike, come to family picnics...but I am not so selfish as to ask that you stay here where neither he nor you are safe anymore." Scully was now stunned into absolute stillness, staring at Maggie as her own plans were unfolded before her.
"And even if you were safe, Dana, I would still tell you to go. After last year I never wanted to see you living like that again; frantic with worry every day and sick with grief. You've been alone for so long, Dana, and after seeing how happy you were for those few short weeks when Fox was back--even with the distance that lay between you--to see you in this pain again has been painful for me, as well." She smiled warmly, one woman conferring a cherished secret on another. "Besides. William deserves to know his father, and the opposite applies as well."
Scully broke down then. "Oh, Mom," she said under her breath, and let the pent-up tears fall. "How did you get to be so wise?"
Maggie took her daughter's hand. "Its not wisdom, Dana; its life, and I have had the good fortune to live it. I have also had the good fortune to get to know my grandson while I could. I knew that someday if Fox could not come back to you that you would go to him. I've watched you bearing up under the strain for a while now. I was just wondering when the breaking point would be."
Scully wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, a smile of relief on her face. "Its not just about me and Mulder, Mom. If staying here were still the best way to keep William safe, I would stay. But I can't do this alone anymore; and Mulder agrees, or he wouldn't let me come."
"Oh I know, Dana! I know. I would never believe that of you. But I would also never try to convince you not to go to him. I want you to know that."

(Amor Fati, pt.12: "Avoidance")
At that inopportune moment, Bill Junior's voice could be heard from the house.
"I don't know where she is. MOM?" Came a sailor's bellow, and Bill appeared at the back door. Staring at them for a moment as if sensing a tension in the air, Bill then turned his head back over his shoulder. "Yeah, Tara, they're out here." He came down the hill, eating up the yard in great manly strides, and ended in sweeping Scully up into his arms like a steam train on the loose. "Hey, little big sister! I had all day to get to know William again, but I was wondering if we were ever gonna see you!"
"Hi, Bill," Scully murmured into her brother's chest. She came up to somewhere near his solar plexus it seemed sometimes, and though he generally treated her like porcelain, he also rather engulfed her. She used to wonder how her brothers could be such big men and her sister so tall while she remained far and away the most petite person in her extended family. Charlie had started the family joke--the big little sister.
Above her head, Bill was asking her something about work. "No, Bill, everything is fine," she answered untruthfully, exchanging glances with her mother who was standing catty corner from them holding William with a knowing expression on her face.
"Good," he answered with a self-satisfied sort of approval that she had always hated hearing from him. "I always thought you'd be better off doing what you were trained to do, rather than all of that pointless running around that you were doing the last several years. I told you all along that you would be happier sticking to what you know instead of following that..."
"Can you please drop it, Bill," Scully said with firmly restrained resignation. It was not a question. Bill must have heard the cold warning in her voice, for, wonder of wonders, he did.
"Okay, Dana," he said, releasing her gently. "I just wanna know that you're all right, that you're happy. You know that, don't you?" he reached out, lifted her chin with two fingers. "It's my job to take care of you, you know."
Scully smiled noncommittally. "You always try," she answered with a half-smile, leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken. --Even when you should leave it alone--
Uneasy peace re-established for the moment, Bill took William from their mother with the ease of long practice, and then in his normal take-charge manner escorted and/or herded both mother and sister back toward the house.
Scully no longer bristled at Bill's 'I know what's best for you' attitude, she realized, but she was tired of arguing the point with him. He simply could not see that this was her life, to be lived a she saw fit, and the fact that he constantly questioned her judgment on the matter wearied her beyond belief. But she still loved him, and she knew that this was his way of showing his own love. If he could only learn to let things be, to be less tactless and insensitive...
They entered the house in silence, and Tara came into the kitchen to meet them, holding out her arms to Scully with a glad little cry. Scully, genuinely fond of her sister-in-law, returned the hug though with her customary reserve, and Tara pulled back after a moment to look into her eyes thoughtfully.
"Are you all right, Dana?" she queried, sounding concerned. She glanced up at her husband, looking slightly annoyed. "Has Bill been..."
"Yes, he has," Maggie broke in dryly. "As usual. Dana cut him off sharp, though, and he has since been behaving himself. We'll see how long it lasts."
"Bill, I thought we agreed that you weren't going to do this," Tara scolded. "I thought you wanted to have a nice family reunion without spoiling it with a bunch of drama."
Bill looked defensive at the gang attack. "Okay, okay," he surrendered, holding up his hands. "On my honour, the rest of tonight." He looked down into his sister's eyes, then. "I'm sorry, Dana. I promise, I won't bring it up again."
--Yes, you will-- Scully thought softly as she looked up at him and smiled acceptance of his flag of truce. --When I say goodbye to you, you will-- Mulder had had it easy when he had done this last year; he had had only her and one or two select people to say goodbye to, and most of them had understood without needing the full ceremony. Skinner, for one, who knew the entire situation, knew the stakes they played by. Mulder had been answerable only to himself, to her, and to William. She, on the other hand, had a great many more loyalties, a lot fewer bridges burnt--and therefore a greater task before her than ever Mulder had had to face when he departed. She did not look forward to it. On the first hand, Mulder had been saying goodbye to her and to William, and she was saying goodbye so that she might return to him.
Perhaps she had gotten the better bargain after all. xxx
The dinner went generally without incident, Scully helping Tara and her mother with the food and the girl-chat while Bill and little Matthew set the table and kept an eye on William. Matthew, at four years old quite the big boy, had greeted his auntie with a big sticky hug and kiss before galloping off to continue playing with his toy navy jet. He was a sweet little boy with a massive shock of tow-headed hair from his mother, who groused that she just could not keep it cut.
Remembering a dozen good times and terrible confessions in kitchens like this--Mulder, her infertility, Emily, Scully forced herself to settle in, determined to enjoy the mindless and warm domestic chatter of a kitchen full of people after the oppressive emptiness of her apartment, echoing with the thoughts of the unseen. She rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension, feeling that she could pretend here, for a little while, that the eyes that had taken up permanent residence between her shoulder blades in the last months did not exist, though she knew they were as much in evidence here as anywhere else. Here, in her mother's home. She was not fool enough to believe that she was any less observed in this place than in any other, but yet she felt that she was not being watched as closely, that for a moment she was having what passed for a regular day. It was times like this that illustrated to her fully just how horribly confined and terrifying her life had become, how thick with dread and suspicion the air in her apartment had been since she had been made aware of Their scrutiny.
"Dana, can you carry the salad out please, sweetheart?"
"Yeah, sure Mom." With a shake of her head, Scully released her preoccupation with the past and her present worries and thrust herself fully into this moment.

(Amor Fati, pt.13: "A Conspiracy of Silence")
After dinner, the family moved into the living room and settled in for a get-to-know-you-again session. William began on the floor with Matthew, but after he tried to eat one of the older boy's action figures, he was removed from the scene of abortive conflict and passed from person to person along with the conversation. At one point when Tara was holding him, looking absorbedly into the little boy's face while Bill discussed day-by-day things with his sister, the conversation was interrupted as she looked up and interjected, "I just can't figure out who he looks like, Dana. I mean, as all the features he has that are not from you become more and more obvious, you won't be able to keep your big secret, so you might as well let go of the mystery. You've had your fun."
Everybody turned to Tara who blushed a little, but held staunchly to her question. Scully opened her mouth, at a loss for exactly how to answer as this was exactly the subject that she had hoped to avoid around Bill, but luckily at that moment her mother broke in.
"Well, since we don't have any idea who the options were, it's not likely that we could compare faces anyway, is it?" She asked in her sweet tone of voice, temporising. But the damage was done. Bill broke in with a snort.
"I think it's damn obvious who the father is," he muttered angrily, but surprisingly it was Tara that interrupted him before the tirade could begin.
"I'm sorry I brought it up," she said, blushing more now. "I was just thinking out loud. I'm sorry, Dana," she said, and then turned to her husband, determination in the set of her eyes. "Bill, we don't need to talk about this right now, do we. Especially not when you tend to get so upset about it. Not when the kids are awake to hear it anyway." At this, the choler in Bill Junior's face began slowly to recede, and he nodded.
"Not now," he agreed; but his voice held the promise of future efforts to get to the bottom of the subject.
--I would just like to scream, sometimes-- Scully thought.
After a couple of hours, Matthew began to get cranky, a sure sign of a tired toddler too wound up with unaccustomed stimulation to go to sleep. Tara passed a sleepy William off to his uncle and then picked up her own son gently but firmly and carried him to the foot of the stairs, ignoring his tear-filled protests. "He won't stay in bed or sleep unless I stay with him when he's like this, so I doubt you'll all still be down here by the time he's out," she stated, then smiled at Scully. "Goodnight, Dana. If you're not here in the morning I guess Matthew and I will see you tomorrow sometime."
Scully got up from the couch and approached her sister-in-law, feeling an unexpected surge of emotion. Though she had thought she had had time to get used to the idea, that this was the first goodbye had just now hit her. She hugged Tara goodnight and stroked her fussy nephew's blond head gently, kissed his downy cheek. "Good night, sweet Matthew. May your angel always watch over you." She looked up smiling and met an answering smile from Tara. "He's beautiful," she said, feeling strangely light. "I hope William will be this healthy and happy when he's Matthew's age."
"Oh, he will be, Dana. He will be. God meant us to have our little boys; why else would He have given them to us after so long trying in vain?"
Scully nodded and stepped away, wondering indeed just how much both of these babies had had to do with Miracles. Tara held Matthew out for his daddy to kiss him goodnight, then went up the stairs slowly with him in her arms. "I'll be up soon, Hon," Bill called after her, then looked at his sister shrewdly.
--Here it comes-- Scully thought, bracing herself; but Bill instead turned to their mother and resumed their former conversation. After a while, however, the unspoken began to intrude, and the dialogue faltered. Bill finally handed William over to his mother and reluctantly declared that he was ready to turn in, hugging first she and then his sister goodnight, before mounting the stairs. Scully's goodnight/goodbye hug to him was a little strained, as Scully was not sure why he had not brought up what was obviously on his mind. It wasn't like Bill to be reticent. As he disappeared beyond the landing, Scully turned back to her mother, who was looking at her sadly.
"You don't think you'll be able to see them off, do you Dana?" she asked gently. Her eyes always seemed so knowing, and so calm. Maggie Scully took everything with the same stoicism she had shown for years as a military wife and mother of four unruly children with Irish tempers. Scully smiled.
--I've been smiling more in these past few days than I have in months-- she realized. It was a relief to be able to discuss her secret with at least one other person.
"Mom, I was wondering if I could bring some of my things here; the things I don't have time to worry about? I already told my landlord I was going to stay here for a while."
"Why, sure, Dana, of course you can. And I can take care of all the arrangements that you don't have time for if you need me to." Scully opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment Bill Scully came charging down the stairs, shouting in a low voice.
"So why are you going to stay here with Mom? What is happening with you that you aren't telling me?" Taken by surprise, Scully's answer came in second to her mother's.
"Dana is having some trouble that you don't need to know about, Bill," Maggie intervened smoothly before Scully could answer. "She doesn't feel safe in her apartment right now, and so I invited her to come and stay with me." Scully looked at her mother gratefully. But Bill was not mollified.
"What kind of trouble, Dana?" he demanded. "What did that so-called ex-partner of yours get you mixed up in this time?" Before anyone could get a word in edgewise, he rolled over them, picking up steam. Cold disdain seemed to ripple from his voice. "And where the hell is he now? Skiting off to God knows where and leaving you alone to raise his baby!" At this, Scully flinched, and Bill thrust his chin out pugnaciously. "Don't try to deny it, Dana. You can see it every time you look in Will's face!" The disgust reached a pinnacle in his voice now. "God, how you could have shacked up with that sorry sonofabitch after all he's put this family through..."
"William Scully Junior, you apologize to your sister this instant; and then you apologize to me!" Maggie shouted, incensed. "How dare you speak that way in my house?!"
"I'm sorry, Mom, but I'll speak to her that way because she needs to hear it!" Bill said respectfully, but his hot eyes never left his sister's face.
"Bill, I can't discuss this with you now, here," Scully answered, voice even though inside she was trembling; and not because she feared a confrontation with her brother. If Bill were to guess what she was about to do, he would trumpet it to the skies and whoever was watching tonight, never knowing how many careful plans he would be destroying for a moment of vented spleen. If she could not shut him up now...her eyes begged him to read the need for discretion there; but Bill Junior was not a subtle man, and he did not read subtle cues.
"Dana, what is with you tonight?" he burst out, sounding confused. His voice softened as he worked his way through the puzzle of her actions. "Hugging us all like you're never gonna see us again...you've been acting like a distant observer to Matthew all night long..." Scully could see the moment the realization dawned on his face, and started up, Maggie right behind her, trying in vain to forestall him reaching his final conclusion.
"My God...Dana, you're not going to stay here..." He began, just as Scully grabbed his arm. Maggie broke in stridently at that same moment.
"Bill!" she began, but it was her daughter that finished the thought.
"Bill, I will discuss this with you, but we have to go outside. Please don't argue with me now." Her voice was suddenly Dana Scully steel, and her spine was a ramrod as she thrust all her not inconsiderable will upon her brother, her eyes stony with resolve. After a moment, Bill actually nodded acquiescence, and followed the both of them out of the living room and through the kitchen. On the way Maggie deposited Will in the playpen she and Scully had bought for him when Scully had gone back to work, and pulled it into the kitchen so that it could be seen from the doorway.

(Amor Fati, pt.14: "The Ties That Bind")
"So what the hell was that all about?" Bill blustered once they reached the bench at the end of the yard. "Why the hell couldn't we talk in the house?"
"Well, for one thing, Bill, you can't seem to keep control of yourself when this subject is aired, and the last thing Tara needs is for you to wake Matthew and get him all worked up again," Maggie chided lightly, trying to evade the issue of the surveillance her house was under. He did not need to hear about that at this juncture.
"Okay, sure." Bill had the decency to look abashed for a moment, but then he turned his demanding gaze back on his sister.
"So what the hell is going on here, Dana?" he asked, his demands couched in a lower tone in deference to their proximity to the neighbours' yards. "You're not moving in with Mom, I can tell that from here!"
"Bill; I need you not to ask me too many questions about this right now," Scully answered him firmly. She needed to stick to her guns here, and she knew it. "It's dangerous for you, for everyone involved, but especially for me and William if I tell you everything you want to know at this exact moment." She reached out to clasp her brother's bulky arm, trying to communicate to him with their contact just how important this point was. Her eyes telegraphed the message to him; she could only hope he would listen. "It's going to have to be enough for you to know that I have to go away for a while; I don't know how long. It's just not safe for me and William to be here anymore..."
"My God; I was right," Bill Junior breathed. "You're going to him, aren't you?" His voice once again began to pick up steam and decibels. "Wherever that bastard Mulder went off to, you're going to go haring off after him like some lovesick child, aren't you?" Scully opened her mouth to protest, but as usual, Bill Junior on a roll was at his most overbearing.
"Holy God! How could you do this, Dana? How; when I always thought you to be so sensible? Has working with that guy addled your mind so that you can't see that you're well shut of the bastard? And how in the hell," he continued, infuriated now as he worked up his full gall against Mulder, "could you even think of risking yourself, not to mention Will, in some harebrained scheme to follow that sorry sonofabitch to wherever the hell he's taken himself off to? How could even someone like him ask you to do this? And if this was your idea, how could he let you? When you tell us all time and time again that he knows very well what's at stake?" His face had altered into something dangerous now, something poisonous. His voice reached a crescendo of righteous fury.
"If this Mulder was any kind of man, he wouldn't try to take you away from your family to lead you off onto another one of his wild goose chases--whatever the goddamned fantasy he guilt-tripped you into chasing after this time--he would keep himself and his damn quest as far from you and William as he possibly can! And you! Dana! You always defend him, you never open your eyes up to what he's done, to you, to this family, to your life! Why can't you realize..."
Maggie broke into the middle of this tirade suddenly, eyes suddenly blazing and voice filled with flat and cold motherly disapproval. "William Scully Junior, you apologize to your sister right this instant! How dare you disrespect her like that; and twice in one night? Are you her father? Are you her husband? And even if you had a say in this, your sister is an adult woman, and she has the right to make her own decisions without a lecture from you! Now you sit down here and talk to her without raising your voice, or you may leave my home this instant, and I don't care if you come back until you have something constructive to say! You will be civil in my home, do you hear me?"
Stunned into silence, Bill stared at their mother for a moment, mouth open. "Mom," Scully waved her hand wearily. "It's okay. Not that I don't appreciate your support, but I can fight my own battles." She turned to her brother, her voice harsh with frost and steel.
"Now I want you listen to me, Bill, because I'm only going to tell you this once. I'm not asking for your approval, because I don't need it! You aren't Dad, I don't give a damn what you think of Mulder, and my relationship with him is NONE OF YOUR GODDAMNED BUSINESS!" Her voice rose at the end to an outraged shout as she came up toe to toe with her elder brother.
"The hell its not, Dana!" Bill broke in angrily. They were face-to-face, now, fair skin equally red as they shouted their lungs out, all thoughts of curious neighbours gone to hell along with the peace of the evening. "I'm your family, and..."
"Mulder is my family too! He's been in my life for ten years, and as you so charmingly put it, we have a child. So I'm telling you once and for all, Bill, that you will accept the reality of it right now because it's not going to go away!"
Bill was gaping at her now, hands hanging at his sides as he stared at his little sister in fascination at her red-faced fury. She was always so controlled, he had probably never seen her this openly angry since they were teenagers.
"Now sit down, Bill, and listen to me for a change!" She ordered, pointing at the bench, her voice ice once again in lieu of fire. Bill closed his gaping mouth absently and stumbled swiftly over to take a seat on the bench. He very carefully did not look at his sister as he got his emotions under control. Scully watched until his deep red colour began to fade slowly before she spoke; it gave her time to get her own emotions under wraps. She took a deep breath before she continued in a measured and not quite patient cadence.
"Now, here's how it is, not because I believe that it's any of your business, Bill, but because I want you to know right now so you can stop making these snap judgments about Mulder and his part in my life--because whether you like it or not, he is a part of my life, and that's never going to change. Ever."
Bill seemed disposed to listen, amazingly enough. Scully stared at him for a moment, awaiting further outburst, but there was none. Still wanting to slap him or worse, Scully folded her arms to keep herself from reaching for the gun she was not carrying as she looked him straight in the eye. "Bill, Mulder didn't make this decision; he didn't ask me to come to him. I made the decision, and I wouldn't let him say no.
"How would you feel, Bill, if you had to live the rest of your life without Matt and Tara, knowing that your son was out there somewhere growing up never knowing that you existed? Or worse, tell me how you cheerfully you would live if you were me? Raising Matthew on your own, having no idea where Tara was, not knowing if you or he would ever see her again, wondering just how in the hell you were going to keep her alive in his heart when you could not say if he would ever get to know her, know the security that comes from having both his parents, right there, every day? What would you do, Bill? Would you be able to say no if you could go to her? Would you be able to turn your back on them both, push them away, and go on alone?"
Bill seemed taken aback; he opened his mouth, shut it again, then looked down as if finally stopping to think. It was obvious that he had never tried to apply her situation to his own life. He raised his head, about to reply...and Tara appeared outlined in the yellow light from the kitchen doorway.
"I'd ask what all the yelling's about down here, but I'm pretty sure I already know," she called lightly, gentle voice carrying down from the door as she removed her hand from the frame and walked halfway out into the yard to address the tense scene. Bill looked up, and seeing her, his face softened dramatically. He seemed to be slowly revising many of his preconceived notions right at that moment. Without looking at Scully, without taking his eyes from his wife, he murmured as if thinking out loud.
"I still don't think that it makes him much of a man. He should keep you away, Dana, to keep you both safe." He turned his head up to look at his sister then, demeanor changed to something near humble if that were possible. "But if this is what you really want, what you and William really need...I can't live your life for you." He looked away again. "I just wish our kids could grow up together, know each other rather than living without. I mean, I know that we're in San Diego and you're here, but family's important."
Scully sensed the underlying need in Bill's words, the responsibility he felt to hold the family together, and to protect his only remaining sister from harm. "I hope someday they can, Bill," Scully whispered to him, eyes wanting to fill. She let them, knowing in this moment that it was not important whether or not she shed tears. If anyone was watching now it was too late; her secret was told on the mountain if their surveillance extended further than she had hoped.
Bill was talking again, as if to himself. "From the first time I met that guy, I knew he would end up taking you away from us," Bill muttered softly to his open palms. "I knew it the way Mom knew that I was going to marry Tara when I introduced them. I just didn't want to lose you is all."
He propelled himself up off of the bench then with the air of a man who had made a sudden decision. Taking her delicately boned hand in his warm large one, he spoke directly into her eyes. "I love you, Sis. I love you, Mom loves you, Charlie and Tara and Matthew love you. We all love you, and we'll all be waiting to see you and William again." Then he dropped her hand and turned away to trudge back up to his waiting wife without another word.

(Amor Fati, pt.15: "All The Little Details")
Scully stared after her brother, amazed.
"He's crying," Maggie said from behind her, and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "He doesn't want you to see it...but if I know anything, I know how to tell from behind how a big man looks when he's crying. He loves you, Dana..."
"Oh, God, Mom; I know he does," Scully answered, thick-voiced, and wiped her own eyes with the edge of her palm.
" But I think he needed to hear what you had to say," her mother continued without pause. "I'm glad you finally stood up to him. It's been years."
"Yeah, I guess I still feel guilty about Daddy, and Bill always seems to take on that role..."
"Your father was proud of you, Dana, and I think he would be proud of you now. I know you think that staying with family would be the most important thing to him, but making hard decisions without letting your fear get the better of you was one of the things in this life that he admired most." She sighed. "I often wonder why Bill turned out to be the angriest one of you all; I guess its because he's the oldest son."
"And he's Daddy's namesake," Scully began. Just then, a low squall from the kitchen announced that William had finally woken up. "God, I can't believe he didn't wake up during all that," Scully muttered an aside, and jogged lightly up to the kitchen, needing to engage in some kind of activity to release the tension of the last few moments. When she got to the door, Bill was holding William and patting his rear thoughtfully. In the act of thrusting the tear-streaked little boy toward his mother, he paused to hold the ten-month old up to the light, as if memorizing his face. He stroked William's cheek.
"Hey, it was nice visiting with you, little buddy," he said to the child, and kissed his damp cheek before passing him to his mother. "I don't have to tell you to take good care of him, Dana," he said, looking directly into her eyes over the tousled curve of William's head. "But I want you to tell him I said he'd better take care of you both, or by God I'll find him someday and make sure he suffers." He smiled at her unapologetically. "I may respect your decision, Dana...but that doesn't mean I have to like it...or him," he murmured, then caught Tara's elbow and guided her gently out of the kitchen to the stairs without another word. Tara glanced back at her mother- and sister-in-law with apologetic confusion as they crossed the linoleum to the darkened interior.
"Mom?" Scully called softly over her shoulder as she shifted her son's heavy warmth and patted him absently.
"I'm here, Dana," Maggie answered from the doorway behind her. "Are you and William going to stay the night, sweetheart?"
"I wasn't going to, Mom...but I do have some things here, and William has duplicates of everything." She turned back to her mother. "You don't mind, do you? I didn't mean to cause so much trouble by coming over tonight."
"Dana, you stop that now. What happened tonight was Bill's fault, not yours. He could always stop to listen for a change; I think you taught him a much-needed lesson tonight. And you know that you're always welcome to stay."
"Yeah." Scully looked down. "I know, Mom." She had some toiletries and other sundry items here, as she and Will had stayed at her mother's many times after she had come to pick him up after work. There had been so many nights where Scully had just not felt up to returning to that echoingly empty and oppressive silence where she imagined she could hear the inaudible buzz and whirr of microscopic devices in her walls, appliances, in her bedroom, her bathroom...when the tension became unbearable and there was no feeling of safety to be had there. It seemed she spent a great deal less time in her own apartment since Mulder was abducted and her world had altered forever. During her pregnancy there had been numerous times when she had woken from horrible nightmares of his torture mingled with the half-forgotten memories of her own abduction, and had been unable to rest until she went to his place and slept on his bed or his couch, cradling one of his shirts in her arms as if she could somehow hold him against the terrors that beset their lives.
Scully and Maggie made their goodnights, Maggie kissing William's damp red cheek as she passed them on the way to the stairs. Scully caught her arm as she started up. "Thanks for taking care of all the little details, Mom. I don't know what to say about all this, but you've been more understanding than I think I could ever be."
Maggie smiled a little sadly lay her hand briefly against her daughter's cheek, her eyes filled with empathy and compassion, before she kissed her gently and continued up the stairs. Scully followed slowly and put Will down in the room that Maggie had set aside as a sort of nursery for him, going through her nightly routine slowly in an attempt to wind down from the adrenaline high she had inadvertently gained from her 'exchange' with Bill. Worrying that by volume alone the matter of their disagreement might have been picked up by those watching, she tossed and turned, hoping that nature of their exchange had garbled any details they might glean from the fight-and knowing that despite her caution, they likely already knew she was leaving. She had not told Bill the when's and the where's. It would have to be enough.
It was far too late to worry, but still she did. Was she doing the right thing? Here, their son was a stationary target. Against all odds Mulder had managed to survive by remaining in perpetual motion. Perhaps then that was the only solution to the injustice that pitted so many groups, human and alien, cult and military against the pitiful defences that could be erected by a faithful few around one single, vulnerable child.
In the end she gave up and extracted William from his crib to lay down with him on the small rollaway bed in the room, as if by holding him she could somehow speed her reunion with his father. A week. Seven days. Seven days till she would reach this 'Salianiqua', and look into her own heart again. She feared the end of that time, and she yearned for it. Yearned to feel the comfort and safety that she always felt in Mulder's presence, even in the stomach-clenching horror of many of the moments they had shared. Feared her own overwhelming need to find that whirlwind again; even if it meant facing the storm of emotions that would come when she let go of the iron control that was the only thing that had held her together from flying apart under the strain of these last months. Feared and yearned for it, knowing that the safety was an illusion in the world that they inhabited, but knowing also that there was a safety in their togetherness that could not be had any other way.
Finally asleep, Scully dreamed amorphous, colourless shapes drifting past her sight in frantic motion or in confusing patterns the edges of which her mind grasped, and lost...and then a sudden, startlingly vivid vision of Mulder lying on his back, arms behind his head in some darkened room far away...Mulder tossing and turning alone amidst rumpled sheets as if in tandem with her own restless movements...Mulder sitting on the edge of the bed in jeans and nothing, staring into the dark with his gun dangling between his knees...Mulder holding his head in his hands, frustrated and alone...
In the pale light of predawn Scully awoke with him still in her head, her heart breaking as she acknowledged that this had not been a dream. It had had that flavour of her visions of him during his abduction, her visions of him when he was missing in New Mexico...and though her rational mind said that these dreams were the product of longing and loss, her heart told her that her soul was connected to Mulder's in ways that she did not need to explain to make it real--and in the past few years, Dana Scully had learned to trust her heart.

(Amor Fati, pt.16: "Farewell")
Margaret Scully Residence
Baltimore, MD
April 19, 2002
6:43am
Sipping thoughtfully at a mug of steaming coffee, Scully stared sightlessly out of the dining room window the next day, while the early morning sunlight streamed in to give her slightly mussed hair the appearance of a richly flaming halo as it glanced off of the shoulders of her satin pajamas. Her restless night had told on her; the succession of restless nights. Her face had the look of sleeplessness on it; luckily, she didn't have to do any slicing and dicing today. Maybe she would take a jog around the track between lectures.
A hand settled gently on Scully's shoulder, and she looked up, surprised. It was Maggie. "Good morning, Dana. I thought I'd come down and have a cup of coffee with you, see you off."
Scully smiled into her mug. Her mother was concerned. She would have heard her wakeful rustling around and probably knew she had been up since four.
"I'm fine Mom. I just have a lot to think about."
"Well, don't worry about hurrying back for Will today, sweetie. We'll all go out for lunch, get out of the house and make a day of it. You do whatever you need to do today, and we'll be waiting for you this evening."
Maggie poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot her daughter had brewed, and they sat companionably absorbing caffeine until the time came for Scully to finish getting ready for work. She came back downstairs in her comfortable 'Quantico uniform', reflecting that it was very nice to be able to go to work in more casual clothing after nearly nine years of straight-laced suits. William was lying over her shoulder in the picture of limp baby trust, fingers corked thoughtfully in his mouth. She held him up for a moment and rubbed her face in his terrycloth-clad belly. "You be good for Nana today, sweet William," she admonished gently, kissed him on one chubby cheek, then blew into his belly. "Pppffft! Ooooooh!" She smiled into his grey-blue eyes as he collapsed into a fit of giggles. She walked to the table and handed him over to his grandmother, smiling.
"It's nice to see you smiling, Dana," her mother commented, eyes on her daughter's face as she took her grandson and plopped him into her lap.
"It's a new day, Mom," Scully answered, and let her hand linger over William's silky head for a moment before turning to leave. xxx
FBI Academy
Quantico, VA.
5:16 pm
Scully finished grading the last paper with a snort, and laid it on top of the pile. Someone would find them after her defection was noticed, and another agent, probably Dr. Avondale, would have to take over her load. She regretted leaving her students; they were a promising bunch, but there were more important considerations right now. They were doing fine, would graduate in a couple of weeks. New agents for a new world. She wondered how long the next generation would get to show off their accomplishments.
She stood up, arching her back to relieve the strain of leaning over her desk, and looked around the office slowly, aware that this was her last evening in it. She had really not taken a lot of time to make it her own, for she hadn't really felt that this was her place. Despite the fact that she had a desk and a computer here, good light and a lot of room, Scully still felt that her true office was that 'area' to one side of the desk in the basement she had shared with Mulder for so many years down at headquarters. Now, though, whenever she went down there, a strange feeling of incongruity struck her as she walked through a door that now read 'Agent John Doggett', and 'Agent Monica Reyes'. Not for the first time, Scully wondered why they had never gotten around to putting her name on the door with Mulder's while they were working down there. At first it had been questionable how long she would be assigned to him, and she had felt very much the intruder in Mulder's private domain in that first several months. It had taken her over a year to feel fully comfortable in there, and then they had just gone from day to day without really thinking about it. It had occurred to her occasionally as she gazed at the door, but something had always driven the point from her mind before she could mention it...though she had mentioned the thing with the desk half a dozen times. That had ended up bothering her a lot more than the name on the door, because she felt it meant that Mulder still hadn't quite accepted her presence in his office and his life. Long before her brush with cancer had made Mulder more aware of what she meant to him so that he requisitioned her a small one, the desk issue had stopped really bothering her as more than a bargaining chip. Toward the end, she had understood, and it had stopped being an issue at all. But by then, it had been too late, and Mulder was gone.
Smiling wryly, Scully stepped over to where her soft briefcase hung by its strap over a chair, and pulled out a standard envelope. Carrying it back to the desk, she snagged an interdepartmental mail envelope from her mailbox, then hesitated in the act of slipping the smaller letter into it. Once she put in her resignation, she was committed. After a moment, Scully shook her head and dropped the letter into the larger envelope, closing the flap with the string and addressing it to her superior here at the Academy. She would leave it on his desk. He never came in over the weekend, so her resignation would not be registered in any official channels until Monday, and by that time she would be long gone.
Gathering up her things, Scully took one last glance around the office, leaned over to click 'shut down' on her computer, and then left the Forensics wing of Quantico without a backward glance, dropping the envelope on her supervisor's desk on the way out.

(Amor Fati, pt.17: "Abode")
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building,
Washington DC
April 19, 2002
6:03pm
Walking these halls was strange after so many months down at Quantico. Scully strode down the echoing hallway that lead from the elevator to her old office door with the surety of someone who had tread the same path more times than living memory could retain; the surety that came of instinctive knowledge. As she reached the end of the hall, turned the corner with the boxes of stacked files to face the door at the end, she smiled, running her fingers over the new names there. She still had her key if Doggett and Reyes had gone home for the day. Knocking softly, she waited for a response before trying the knob. It was locked.
Scully fished out her keys, running her fingers lightly over the bunch as she moved unerringly for the right one. As she extracted it from the bundle, her fingers passed over another key, a piece of adhesive on the butt labelling it 'Mulder'. A soft smile curved the corners of her mouths as she caressed that key lightly, not wondering why she had kept it now that Mulder's apartment was no longer his. That key was a part of her; her invitation into Mulder's life. She remembered the exchange, so long ago.
"If we're going to be partners, we should probably be able to get to each other," Mulder had said one day as they were locking up, his face bent over the doorknob as he manipulated the key in the temperamental lock. They had been working together for about two and a half weeks. He had looked up at her then a little hesitantly, his face still full of that idealism and fire that had so drawn her in the beginning, enraptured her like a moth to a flame. She had been amazed and fascinated in spite of herself by Mulder's passion...something she had needed in her own life, had not felt since that strange emptiness had taken her in the last year of medical school. She had nodded.
"Yes, I was thinking that myself, the other day. If something were to happen to one of us, we would need to be able to get into the each other's apartments, make the necessary arrangements."
"Well, I don't know about you, Scully, but I don't plan on dying anytime soon," Mulder had cracked, giving her that goofy grin of his, eyebrows raised in that challenging fashion he had used in those days to entice her to join in his light-hearted sparring. She had raised one of her own eyebrows coolly in mock reproof and he had sobered, nodding thoughtfully. "So, I, I'll have one made for you. Tonight. I'll get it to you by tomorrow."
"Right," Scully had said, smiling. She had smiled so much with him, in those days. They both had, before things had gotten so serious. They really had been terribly naive then, she reflected. And young. They had been so ridiculously young. "I'll have one made for you, too."
"Great, Scully. See you tomorrow, then?"
"See you tomorrow, Mulder." She had smiled to herself as she watched him walk off, already re-absorbed in whatever case they had been working on at the time. Neither of them had failed, though. They had exchanged keys the next day, solemn as priests, and then had laughed to break up the tension and gone back to work. Neither of them had ever mentioned the awkward moment again.
Smiling now at the memory, Scully lowered the office key to the lock and turned it, opening the door and smelling the familiar, slightly dusty smell of the Basement Office with its perennial lack of housekeeping attention and its overload of paperwork. It had been like a second home down here for so long...
The sense of incongruity was strong here, too, as it was each time Scully saw her 'area' cleared off of all but the occasional box of files, looking deserted in the wake of the new desk that now shared floor space with the Mulder's old desk, in a corner that bled slowly out to the middle of the room. The decor had changed, and the arrangement, it was tidier and yet more cluttered with another full sized desk. She hated to admit it, but Mulder had probably been right five years ago when he had commented sarcastically that it would be great to have two desks in here to take up even more of the available space. For a while there, there had been three separate 'areas'. Her departure had eased the congestion a bit, but she still wondered how Doggett and Reyes were handling staring at each other over the tops of their computers like duelists. It probably would have unnerved her, had she and Mulder set up this way...but it had been the principle of the thing that had bothered her, not the issue of the desk itself. She probably had more room to work in in her various 'areas' than Mulder had had in toto throughout the entire office, anyway.
Doggett had left the trophies atop the cabinets where Mulder's baseball and basketball had been, but the disorder of the littered bulletin boards had been tamed into an organized and professional classification in his corner, and Monica's feminine touches were in evidence everywhere; a sprig of flowers on the old desk, a marine life screensaver. The changes were probably subtle to anyone who was an infrequent visitor down here...but the poster was still on the wall, and that made it the x-files office, no matter how the approaches had changed.
Scully was still looking around, wrapped up in the past, when Doggett's voice rolled in behind her. "Hey, Agent Scully! Well, this is a surprise. What's up?"
Scully turned around to see her former temporary partner standing in the doorway in his light blue pinstriped shirt, tie loosened and hands occupied with a Styrofoam coffee cup and a file folder.
"Working late, Agent Doggett?"
"Yeah, well, Monica and I just got this case involvin' a murderer that apparently doesn't leave any evidence that he or she exists at all; no prints, no smudges, no sweat, no footprints...nothin'." He set his
cup down on the corner desk and lifted a hand to finger one of his police reports silently. "I gotta tell ya, I've never seen anything quite this...slick before in my entire career."
"Maybe you have another case of homicidal telekinesis on your hands, Doggett," Scully replied, interest slightly piqued. "As long as his name isn't Robert Patrick Modell, I don't think you'll have too much trouble with it. Just watch your thoughts, make sure they're yours."
Doggett looked at her for a minute as if unsure if she were teasing or serious. "Yeah, well I think you two pretty well established that that Modell guy and his sistah were dead, so I don't think we need to worry about that. But from what I read in there," he waved his hand vaguely in the general direction of the file cabinets, "telekinesis and telepathy are not always somethin' you find runnin' in tandem."
"They're not," Scully answered wryly. "That's what makes this so fun. Reams of endless variety."
"Yeah, reams is right," Doggett agreed, and moved past her to slap the file down on his desk and take a seat. Lifting his cup from the desk's surface, he put his feet up and leaned back to gaze at her over the rim of his beverage. "So what are you really doin' down here, Agent Scully? I'll bet my shorts you didn't just wanna hear the latest update in the battle of the basement agents versus the most recent weird murderer of the week."
Scully smiled. She couldn't very well tell Doggett that she came down here to say goodbye to the place, and to him. He deserved to know, but the last place to hold a delicate conversation was here in the basement. It was wired from here to kingdom come, and had been under surveillance a lot longer than her apartment had ever been. They had gotten watching this place down to a science by now. She wondered if she ought to draw him out to talk to him now, or if she should wait to tell him privately before she left. Better wait. It simply wasn't safe to talk in this place.
"Where's Agent Reyes?" She asked suddenly, changing the subject. "Not putting in the same overtime as you?"
"She's out pickin' up somethin' to eat. I think she's tryin' to turn me into vegetarian." He saw Scully's confused look and elaborated. "She's been eatin' all this healthy lowfat stuff ever since she started tryin' to quit smokin' again, so that she wouldn't gain weight and alla that. Every time she finds a new snack, she for some reason wants me to try it too. I think she's gonna make me eat salad today."
"Salad's new?"
"Gaaah." Doggett waved his hand at her dismissively, but his disconcerting blue eyes were focused penetratingly on her. "So what's really up, Dana? You gotta have had a reason to come all the way down here. Its kinda outta your way, I mean to pick William up an' all."
Scully nodded. "It is," she answered, stalling for time. --Think, Dana, think. What are you going to tell him?- "I didn't think you would be down here at all this late. Don't you have a home to go to, Agent Doggett?"
Doggett was having none of it. He slipped his feet from the desk with a thump and leaned forward, concern painted all over his face. "Is there somethin' wrong with William, Dana? Somethin' you're not tellin' me? I told ya, I'd help whatever way I could, remembah?"
"Yes, I remember." She did. It had been a few weeks ago, right after Their last attempt.

(Amor Fati, pt.18: "You Say Either")
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building,
Washington DC
March 13, 2002
The conversation had run around in circles for hours by this time, with all four of them hashing out the details over and over, discarding theories, turning over motivations. Despite their recent falling out, Skinner had joined them and stood just a short distance away, somehow radiating total support for her while yet managing to sound stern and worried all at once. Never had she been more aware of how much she loved and counted on her former superior than in these moments when he ignored his job and his future, and the pressures put on him by their highers-up for the sake of her and her child, and for Mulder as well, before. He was such a wonderful man, a wonderful friend, and a staunch ally.
Doggett was holding forth about his damned supersoldiers again, tapping on Mulder's old desk with a pencil while he thought out loud. Monica had chimed in with some comment about their military informants, and Scully had felt like this was the last straw all of a sudden. Someone had just tried to take her nine month-old baby from her, she had only narrowly gotten him back, and all they had, still, was the same damned story as they had worked the last time, and the time before. No new leads, no new angles; just a mass of dead ends and one very frightened child. Scully had blown up.
"To hell with your informants, Doggett, and to hell with these damned supersoldiers as well! What I want to know, Agent Doggett, is what the hell, exactly, do these people want with my son! And none of this can tell me! We've heard a lot of conflicting stories, but let's face it; we aren't any closer to discovering the real reasons behind all of this than we were the day he was born!" She had leaned forward over the front of his desk to look into his eyes, while every other eye in the room had focused on her in the sudden silence.
"I don't care how many of these government replicants you talk to, Doggett; they're all going to tell you the same story...and its all going to be a lie." She had leaned back then, back ramrod straight as she enunciated her points clearly and concisely, a scientist stating fact based on a well-tested hypothesis. "They've been telling us the same story for a decade, John, and I for one am starting to lose my patience with it."
"Supersoldiers, Agent Scully," Doggett had insisted gently, and leaned back in his chair to put his feet up on the smaller desk, crossed at the ankles. He had loosened his tie, and voice held that deceptively mild drawl that he took on when he was making a point. "Not 'replicants'; they're called supersoldiers."
Scully had wanted to laugh all of a sudden, remembering herself in her first year on the x-files, renaming everything she could in order to keep it manageable and well-ordered so that it could all fit into her version of the world. She felt the horrible tension drain out of her as quickly as it had leapt up, and she had allowed a small smile to tinge the corner of her lips in memory.
"Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to," she had murmured wryly, amused more at herself than at John Doggett.
Doggett had leaned forward abruptly, chair thumping down onto all five wheels. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he had demanded, sounding slightly offended.
"It was nothing, John. Private joke," Scully had answered, still smiling slightly to herself. The relief of having Will safe with her had been nearly unbearable; she had felt almost giddy. But Doggett was having none of it.
"If you mean, Agent Scully, that these supersoldiers are alien, that just doesn't hold water. I don't care how many similarities they have to these 'hybrids' of yours; they bleed red blood, and that makes 'em human."
"And Mulder almost became one...and it wasn't from exposure to a government lab," Scully had commented, resigned. If Doggett was going to be able to face the challenges of this office, he had to start accepting the extraterrestrial aspects of the job now, before it was too late. She had doubted, had thought it was only a military conspiracy...and by the time she had seen the Truth, it had been too late to save Mulder from the brain disease that would eventually mark him as an abductee in his own x-files. "Did Mulder show any signs of lifelong genetic manipulation by government forces? Did Billy Miles? The Adams and Eves were born into the project. So, supposedly, were many of your 'supersoldiers'; or at least born-again. Billy and Mulder weren't. And yet Billy became one."
"But Billy Miles was experimented on in secret for yeahs," Doggett had countered, tryin to get things straight between them. "Your report and Muldah's said as much, if not in a lab. The government UFOs had been abductin' him and his classmates and puttin' probes and trackers and all that inside 'em since long before you two evah went down there."
"Mulder never had the chip, Agent Doggett. He was never abducted by those government forces, never had any eugenics experiments done on him before he went to Oregon. Yet, simply due to a few alterations in brain chemistry due to his exposure to that ship piece from Africa, he went through the first stages of the same transformation as Billy Miles, had indications of the same virus in his system; a virus related to all the other viruses we've encountered over the years..." Doggett had broken in then.
"Say you're right, Agent Scully, and these supersoldiers are really 'alien replicants'. What purpose could these alien replicants possibly have? I can see a reason for supersoldiers."
"The purpose of the replicants you're talking about is to counter the Consortium's experimentation with hybrids, and later, their own strains of what you call 'supersoldiers'. Its not a new idea; the government has been doing it for years, both projects in tandem, neither set of technicians knowing about the other. The hybrids have the same characteristics as these supersoldiers, replicants, whatever name you want to call them. They can survive under water, they cannot easily be killed, certainly not by bullets, and they are brought about by a virus. Rebel replicants against what you call supersoldiers...and against Alien Bounty Hunters, Rebels against Colonists...
"The alien Colonists believe in 'Purity control'. They wouldn't have condoned the uncontrolled genetic experimentation that might have compromised their interests in this planet. The only reason they allowed the hybridisation experiments in the first place was to garner slaves, drones that would survive the coming viral apocalypse, and those experimental abductions were performed by people. My abduction, which resulted in my having an unsuccessfully hybrid daughter...she bled green blood, Doggett; the ones that abducted Mulder didn't do these sorts of experiments. They did things to his genes, yes; they introduced the virus that was catalysed by the Smoking Man's butchery causing his illness; but there was no splicing, there were no chimeras. Mulder was taken because he had anomalous brain activity...like Billy Miles. Like that boy Gary, who didn't survive the transformation. They all had the same DNA, the same branching. I didn't have it; I was part of a different set of experiments; a human set. For Billy Miles and for Mulder, it was about activating their alien DNA; the alien DNA we all have. They took Mulder because he was susceptible to the change, because of what they did to him before he can even remember.
"Your supersoldiers, my replicants; they're the same. A reaction to the hidden project of the Consortium. The Colonists had found out that they were making the vaccine as well as the more regular kind of 'supersoldiers' against the advent of colonization, and so They sent the Bounty Hunter as a representative to keep the Syndicate in line. Then the Rebels came in and took over, so They had to start producing the replicants to try to get Their shadow government back into their hands."
She paused, looking her one-time partner in the eye. "The supersoldiers project you are following is a front, Agent Doggett. They gave that up long ago in favour of one with some chance of succeeding. A more organic project."
The question was who was running this new Project now that the Syndicate was defunct...and what those Rebels who had put this new version of the invasion in motion were now going to do to stop it. Executing the Conspiracists was just a stalling tactic. She doubted that these interplanetary revolutionaries had simply scampered off to wherever they had come from after they had torched the Smoking Man's companions.
In the silence that had followed, Reyes had leaned forward from her seat in the back corner to ask, "If that were true, Dana, then why didn't these replicants take William away from you at his birth?" She glanced over at Doggett, then back, eyes intent. "I was there. I remember. 'This baby will be born. That's what she said, Dana, and I believed her."
Scully had nodded. "There are factions, Agent Reyes. If the Colonists have replicants, why can't the Rebels? Or maybe the Colonists are scared of William; of what he is...something new, something They weren't expecting. Something They never had a hand in bringing about. Something They cannot control. That terrifies Them. Krycek said it himself when he was here last, before we went down to Georgia..."
"Krycek!" Doggett had leapt upon that name incredulously. "You trust anything that guy had to say, after all that he did to you and to Muldah?!"
"About ten feet shorter than I could throw him," Scully had replied evenly. No one in this room but Skinner really knew what they meant when they talked about Alex Krycek. Skinner had stiffened suddenly next to her. She did not look at him. "But Krycek knew things that we couldn't. He was a mercenary; he played both sides. People like Michael Kritschgau only knew their own side of the story, only knew their part. Krycek got his information everywhere, from every inside. He was a master infiltrator, and he had information we could never dream of accessing." She had looked at Skinner then. He had not avoided her eyes, and she could see the hurt and worry hidden there. When she had spoken next, it was to Skinner that she directed her words.
"Unfortunately, getting that information from him was far to deadly a prospect. He would never give up his biggest bargaining chip to tell us truly why They want Mulder dead, what They want with my son, leader or liability. He died for the intelligence he'd collected, and never managed to sell an ounce of it. If Alex Krycek was a martyr to anyone, it was to himself. And he took his irreplaceable information with him."
Skinner had looked at her for a moment, then nodded slightly, thanking her. She had reached out to squeeze his hand, her emotions very evident to those who knew her. "Or maybe its really Mulder that They want," she had said softly. Grimly. "Now all we can do is wait." It was not a pleasant prospect.

(Amor Fati: "Abode", coda)
April 19, 2002
Scully smiled now, glad to be shut of that horrible time. Pretty soon she wouldn't have to keep William safe all on her own. A baby was a two-person job in the best of times. In her case, she would just as soon have someone to rely on in the day-by-day. But while she was on her own for the most part, she had had a great support structure. She looked at Doggett with a great deal of fondness. Despite their rocky start, he had turned out to be a true blue friend, and able. The night after he'd been eighty-sixed from the Bureau after that fiasco with the oil company, Mulder had said something about putting a full-on rookie in their old office. He had sounded worried; both for his life's work, and for the rookie. Scully had nodded and answered, "Yes, Mulder, but at least he's a rookie with a heart of gold."
"All the better to get himself killed," Mulder had said, sounding concerned. Scully only hoped that it never came to that. She and Mulder had been terribly naive when they had started, and they had survived, if barely, and in much different incarnations than they had started out. She could only hope the same for Doggett and Reyes. This Basement Office could eat a good team up, if they let it. She smiled, looking around the room, then returned her gaze to Doggett where he still leaned forward, concern written all over his face.
"William's fine, John. I guess I just miss this place, sometimes."
"Yeah, well, you were down here for eight years, Dana. You're bound to get attached to a place aftah that long. I just hope I don't end up livin' down here. I sometimes don't think I'm up to it."
Scully heard Mulder's voice somewhere in the back of her mind. "You've paid your dues down there, Scully. More than paid them." Scully grinned openly at Doggett, feeling suddenly free despite her lingering guilt at leaving these two to fend for themselves. They were smart people, they had good head start and a hellish crash course, and they had Skinner to give them the heads up. They would deal with Kersh. She would like to know exactly what the man was playing at, but... At least if she and William were gone, perhaps these two might even have an easier time of it. Her grin chilled slightly. More than likely she would draw the hounds off after her whether she liked the idea or not.
"You'll do fine, John," she managed finally, and hoped she wasn't lying.
At that moment, Monica Reyes entered the office carrying two cartons from the vegetarian deli down the road. Scully nodded at Reyes. "Both of you will do fine. Just remember that the Truth is out there," Her smile became more pronounced now, "and to trust no one. If you know you can trust each other, you're ahead of the game." She turned to go, resting her hand briefly on Monica's arm on the way out. She remembered a day several months back, right after Mulder had left, when Doggett had tried to get her to take the 'I Want To Believe' poster. He had thought she would want to have it when he gave her all the other stuff he had found around the office that Mulder had forgotten to recover. Scully had looked at the poster in its place under that one ridiculous little window for a moment, thinking of the remarkable history that one modest print had had, in all its incarnations. She couldn't imagine that wall, this basement without it. It was a credo. "No, John; its okay," she had said. "Keep the poster. It bel