Through Perversity

Perversely, up until the actual birth, Mulder had insisted on calling the baby, "Scully's."

In his head, he was still trying to kick the habit. In public, there was no danger of him saying her name; his survival skills wouldn't permit it.

"She died," he heard himself say. A lie, of sorts, and he paid the price for the lie as the bile rose in his throat, scorching and searing and reminding him that he hadn't eaten in a while.

Which meant, he realized as looked down at the silent face in the papoose slung around his neck, that feeding the baby must have taken up all his time this morning. How the hell was he supposed to take care of a newborn, if he couldn't even take care of himself?

"I'm so sorry."

Mulder looked up, startled by the softness of the woman's voice and the intensity of her gaze. Why would the waitress be sorry? It wasn't as if she'd done anything wrong.

Oh, hell. What had he said? He scanned back to the brief exchange of words. "Coffee. Full breakfast." Not so much as a please or a good morning. His mom would be rolling in her grave. He forced himself to replay the rest.

The woman behind the counter had said, "Sure thing," before calling his order through to the diner's kitchen and returning with a mug of coffee. Then she'd turned her attention away from the robot man and toward the tiny human baby huddled against his chest. "Hello, darling. Where's your mommy?"

"She died."

It had been an instinctive response. As much a reflex as the words, "coffee and breakfast." No wonder the woman was sorry. Sorry she'd ever said anything. Mulder took a first swallow from the cup and told his stomach to forget about sending it back up. He didn't have the time.

OK, he was going to have to stop that kind of automatic reaction. A cover story was a way of diverting attention, not of attracting it. But it was hard; he hadn't spoken to anyone in almost three weeks. And that was tough in itself, if only because talking was something he liked.

He couldn't even pretend that his son was a good listener; he tended to fall asleep after a couple of sentences. Just like his mom. More perversity, still letting his brain refer to Scully like that. He decided to forget the slip and plough on, see the dialogue though.

Maybe he could justify his lapse into conversation by making it an opportunity to practice the story with an audience. "We're going to stay with my family."

"Sounds like a good idea."

He looked down at his coffee again, relieved that the line which had tested out OK in his head seemed to have worked in reality.

"You need anything?" She waved vaguely towards the baby. He really was going to have to start calling it something other than The Baby soon. "Bottles warmed? Changing area?"

He checked his watch. Not that the time really mattered, there was always another change and another feed due soon and he wasn't going to pass up the facilities of a nice clean restaurant, even if the timing wasn't quite right. "Yeah. Yes, please."

"Do you need formula made up?"

He shook his head. He'd made up a day's supply that morning before leaving the motel. "Just heated."

"You've got ice packs in there with them?"

And Mulder almost laughed, found his teeth bared in a split-second flash that was probably as close to a smile as he'd come since he'd left Scully's apartment.

The woman smiled back, apologetic, her hands raised in a gesture of appeasement. "Sorry, I've got two sons. I just remember when they became daddies."

"No. I appreciate it." Mulder attempted a smile of his own. "Course, if you like changing diapers to demonstrate how it ought to be done, you're more than welcome."

She raised an eyebrow and walked away to put on another pot of coffee.

Mulder sipped at his drink. He really did appreciate her concern. The thought of accidentally poisoning his son was too terrifying to contemplate. And there were so many things that a tiny baby needed. He thought back to the books, Baby's First Year and the like.

Did the kid need vaccinations? What about blood tests – ah, no point worrying about those. And shouldn't he be weighed to make sure he was gaining at the right rate?

And if he wasn't? Then what?

What the hell could he do about it anyway? Like they were going to be able to waltz into some hospital, get what they needed, and stroll back out again.

He couldn't afford encounters with the authorities, not any kind of authority. Because they'd ask, "Where's mommy?" And the next question would be, "Can you prove that?"

The only way of making it through the next few weeks would be to fly under the radar. No speeding. No arguments with motel owners. No hospitals.

And then what? Then, maybe he could poke his head up and start looking for a cover story that would do more than just get him through breakfast. A name, a history that meant it was OK for an unaccompanied man in his forties to be traveling with a babe in arms. A set of papers saying that the child was his by birth and by legal right. Which meant a whole bunch of fictions about a wife and a tragic death.

The fictions, Mulder noted, would undoubtedly seem more plausible than the truth. Whatever the truth was. The baby was studying him again. Appeared to be, he reminded himself. The baby was too young to study anything. Well, except for the magical glow of the nearest lightbulb. Mulder supplied a finger for the boy to squeeze.

When breakfast arrived, the waitress placed it carefully in front of him and waited, her arms outstretched. Mulder stared up at her, not understanding the question.

She nodded at the baby. "Diaper time? Don't tell me you wouldn't like to eat undisturbed, for once."

He tried not to panic. Threat assessment?

Was there a threat? The diner and this woman looked like the least threatening things he'd seen in weeks, months actually. Really, it couldn't do any harm, could it?

She seemed to sense his distress. Her tone was half-teasing, half-soothing, but all reassuring. "Look, there's a counter I can use in the ladies' room. I'll leave the door open, so you can see I haven't run off with him. Cute as he is." She paused and her eyes lit up with another question. "Him, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, OK." He released the baby from the sling and handed it to her, flinched as he felt her arms take the weight from him. "I don't know your name."

"Angie." She smiled down at the tiny bundle in her arms. "And I don't know his, either." She sighed, making tiny cooing noises at the infant and rocking her head from side to side as if she was already singing a lullaby. The child gazed back at her.

"Marty," Mulder supplied, without even thinking about it. Funny, all that thinking he'd been doing and he'd never found a name. And then one just pops out. A terribly inappropriate choice for an innocent, given its history in Mulder's hands. But what the hell, he certainly couldn't call it Will, and Marty sounded a lot more credible than "The Baby." And credible was all that mattered.

Angie gently stroked his face. "Marty, hey? And aren't you just the darlingest little thing? Yes, you are," she insisted. "And you've got your daddy's nose. Yes, you have." She wandered away, talking in cootchie-coo speak and sliding reassuring fingers along tiny legs that kicked in delight at the attention, collecting the diaper bag from Mulder's hand as she walked.

Mulder tracked her every movement, frantic in his desire to snatch Marty back, determined not to succumb to it unless he really had to. She was true to her word, propping the door open so that he could see her standing over the table. But it was so hard to watch and yet not be able to see the expression on Marty's face, or the possible knife in Angie's hand.

Deep, deep breaths, he reminded himself. If she was one of them, then it had been a very quick change act by some morph to take over the place so fast. And a very fast student to look that confident handling the arcane coffee machine that fizzed and bubbled and clearly needed to be poked just right. OK.

And if she was one of them, then she'd found him and the game was already over.

He dared to glance down at his plate for just long enough to memorize the location of the food. He stabbed the fork into the hash browns and started to eat, worked his way through the food with the sightless efficiency of the long-time blind, or the severely paranoid.

He suspected that the meal was rather good, but that was just going from appearances and memory. He'd given up expecting anything to actually taste good weeks ago. At first he'd blamed that on hospital food. Now he blamed it on the way his throat kept going dry at the most inconvenient moments and the way his stomach kept churning, like trying to stay afloat in a sea of nausea.

Still, Marty seemed happy enough about this new arrangement. The change had obviously been completed to his satisfaction and without tears.

Angie eased him carefully up to her face, sharing breaths and pressing skin, nose to cheek, his hands snatching at her hair. She laughed, "Tough guy, huh?" And carefully unraveled his fingers. Shifting him to rest against her breast, she coo'd and ahh'd, and he kicked his feet like he could hear the music playing.

Mulder choked down his reaction. If Scully had been here, then – then, what? She could be the one doing the cooing? She could have seen this? And a tribe of scum could be hunting them down using that fucking chip in her neck and then Mulder wouldn't have the worry of coming up with a long-term plan. Because they'd all be dead or as good as.

Angie moved swiftly back to the table, becoming suddenly solemn as if sensing the man's mood had taken a turn for the worse. Marty sensed it too, starting to cry as Mulder extracted him from Angie's embrace.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She slowly shook her head, asking Mulder to pay attention to her eyes. "He's doing fine, you know."

Mulder shrugged, unsure what she was telling him.

"You're looking after him fine, just fine. Diapers never lie."

He almost laughed, all these years looking for the truth, maybe he'd been looking in the wrong places. The laughter never quite made it to the surface but Marty felt the change, his cries stopping as abruptly as they had started.

"Where are you heading to?"

The reflex reaction took over. "Not much further today." He lied. It was easier that way. For her as well as him.

EARLIER

Scully's request left him off-balance. Actually, he'd been off-balance since the moment she'd told him that she'd been visiting doctors, not merely fantasizing about a child but actively investigating her chances.

He already knew her chances. Zero. He'd known it within a few hours of snatching a vial labeled with her name from a government lab. The Gunmen had given him the name of someone credible, and the man had told him it was a non-starter.

Not that it mattered much at the time. Compared to the idea that Scully had only months to live, the news that her ova had themselves been rendered infertile seemed like nothing. And later? If he could turn back time, he'd have told her. But the time for telling had always been, "Sometime - in the future," and then one day, it had been "Sometime - in the past."

He was going to tell her after Emily's death and hadn't been able to. She knew that he had information on the experiments performed on her, the ones that had stolen her ova, but she'd never asked for details.

And just as surely as she could calmly tell him that she didn't need his comfort, she could surely ask him for anything she did need. He'd always taken it for granted that if she really wanted to know more, she'd just ask.

At least, that was the excuse he'd used. Until the day she'd looked out of an elevator at him, with eyes so betrayed and a fury so white hot that he'd feared that, when the doors closed, he would never see her again.

He'd been wrong about things like that before, and he was relieved to be wrong again. She'd been back in the office the following morning, and had said nothing about the incident in the elevator. He took her lead, tried to act as if it had all happened to two other people.

They'd learned to handle a lot of things that way.

It was a couple of weeks before Scully broke the spell. She was leaving for the day and was halfway through the office door, coat on, bag in hand, before she spoke. Mulder recognized the technique. Scully was ready for a quick getaway, which meant that the subject was both personal and important. "Are you busy tonight?"

"My laundry can't move unaided yet, so I guess not." The joke was weak, he knew, but a straight answer might have frightened her away completely.

"I'd like to." She didn't complete the phrase, so Mulder mentally inserted the word talk, despite how terrifying he found the implications. She started up again. "Do you want to come over?"

Actually, no - he'd sooner stare down the nearest psychopath than hear what she might tell him. "Sure thing. I'll bring food." Food was normal; food was the demilitarized zone to retreat to if the conversation got too hard.

She nodded, her fast footsteps echoing across the basement as she vanished from sight.

It took a long time for night to come. A lot of circuits of the block before Mulder finally pulled in at her apartment. An impossible number of possible scenarios mapped out and rehearsed before he could convince himself that the time was right and that even if it wasn't, then certainly the time was now.

They exchanged pleasantries and platitudes and used the buffer of the food to stop the silence from crushing them. Scully switched on the CD player, a pretense that they were less alone.

"I went to see the doctor."

Mulder filled in the blanks but said nothing.

"The ova, some percentage of them, are viable. I'm to start a course of treatment immediately."

He knew this script, he knew how it had to be played. "And that treatment is incompatible with field work."

She looked confused for a moment and Mulder winced as he realized that he'd already failed. She wanted his congratulations, not his immediate leap to the impact it would have on him. He stumbled over his next words and wondered why, after all those rehearsals, his brain had still failed to tell him just how selfish his first remark was going to sound. He tried again, "I'm really pleased for you."

Scully's eyes were alive and her eyebrows signaled disbelief as if there was a smile hiding somewhere in her confusion. "Mulder. What do you know about IVF treatment?"

Painful, time-consuming, requiring consistent routines and good medical supervision. Then he caught the tease in her voice, and couldn't help but respond by licking his lips. "I've been reading up on it."

Her smile was visible now. "Extreme possibilities, huh?"

Something like that.

She took pity on him, emboldened, Mulder guessed, by his display of nervousness. "I've mapped out a basic diary for the next few months. Most of it, I can handle. And when the work means I can't -" She faltered for an instant, suddenly nervous too. "Just know, I'll never let you down."

Perhaps not, but could he let her down like that? If she could have what she wanted, didn't she have to give it her best shot? Of course, if it failed, maybe it would be for the best. He'd stolen those eggs from a research lab; there was no way of knowing what had been done to them. Emily could have come from the same batch.

Scully's voice cut right through to his heart. "I know what you're thinking. You're scared the baby might not be perfect. But no one is."

But some babies aren't even human.

She carried on. "The Lord wouldn't permit an abomination to be born from love."

"Emily," he injected, feebly.

"Emily wasn't perfect, but I loved her."

Mulder closed his eyes, trying to think of the perfect reply and bitterly aware that there was no such thing. And Scully sounded like all the things that, right at this moment, he wasn't. She was sure of what she wanted, confident of how to achieve it, and strengthened by her beliefs.

He nodded his head, set his mind to look for a bright side that he wasn't sure existed. If he told her not to try, waded in with spiked, skeptical boots and argued that the risks were too great – then she might just send him away. Worse, if he actually succeeded in convincing her, what would she do?

And for one fatal moment he allowed himself to accept that she might not be Scully the Indestructible, that without that glimmer of hope to help her bend further, she might finally shatter. She looked so happy now, so much at peace. So sure.

He wondered about diversionary tactics. "Have you considered adoption?"

"Single women who spend their life drifting between motels aren't strong candidates. You saw that, with Emily. And she was mine. Even if I start doing nine to fives, my age will be against me." She sighed, a deep rumble in her throat. "Even if I could.... I've thought about it. A lot. This is what I want. I have to try."

She had to try. And he had to trust her judgement. She had to try. And he had to let her. "I know."

When he opened his eyes, she was looking at him, calm and intent. He took a slow breath, forcing himself to sit up a little straighter. She rose from the chair and padded off towards the kitchen, offering drinks as she moved, effectively declaring the meeting and the discussion closed.

As soon as he finished his iced tea, he was putting on his jacket. She waited until he reached the door before saying something important, something personal.

"Mulder. I want you to think something over. Don't answer now, just think about it. OK?"

"OK, " he said, edgy, transferring his weight between feet, preparing to run.

"I need a sperm donor. I'd like you..."

Whatever she said next went missing in his confusion. "I... Why?"

"Just think about it."

She locked the door as soon as he left.

NOW

Marty was not so much crying as politely complaining. Soft, unhappy grumbles of discomfort and frustration.

Mulder checked his position in the infant seat and kept on driving. "Look, kid. The thing is, we've got places to go and hide in, people not to see, things not to be caught doing. So there's no point getting annoyed about it.

"Is this because of what that woman said? Your pal Angie? That you've got my nose? Don't sweat it, Marty. People are full of it. Like your diapers. The truth's in there, kid."

Mulder chuckled softly, only vaguely bothered by what it said about his mental state that he'd started laughing at his own jokes. Particularly ones that crappy. He snorted out another mouthful of laughter, turning to the baby, who'd stopped grumbling and had started to coo instead.

Mulder shook his head, caught a glimpse of the smile on his face as he saw his reflection in the mirror. "Well, at least I'm not just talking to myself."

The motel twinkled a greeting and Mulder only narrowly avoided the trap of saying, "Thank you," as it flashed a neon welcome in his general direction.

"OK, Marty. Whose kid are you going to be today?" Mulder slid his hand under the driver's seat to pull out today's credit card and driver's license combination. "John Forrester? Sounds good to me."

John Forrester, resident of New York, driving down to stay with his loving family in Texas. John Forrester had to be out of his mind to be driving this route, but hey, what the hell. At least Mulder thought he could pull off the insane bit of the ID. And he'd last used these cards in New York, a week ago. Perfect. Well, as near perfect as an emergency false identity could get.

He remembered getting the arrangements set up. Some had come through the Gunmen as a trio. Shamefully, he'd then badgered each of them individually, with strict instructions not to tell anyone, including the other Gunmen, and had obtained three more sets.

He sighed when he saw Diane Forrester's face on her driver's license. An escape route built for two. Which was kind of how it was being used, except the second escapee wasn't a redhead and wasn't yet 5'2". "Matter of time, kid. Just a matter of time."

The room was as pleasant as a room with a view through a parking lot to a gas station might be expected to be. "Your..." Scully, he corrected himself. "She thought I chose these places deliberately. But at least I never had a cow fall through the roof of a room I chose. No way. Just never happened."

The baby was studying him again. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, presumably, that once the relevant bits of car were unloaded, normal services would be resumed. New diaper. More food.

Mulder sighed, grateful that the jug was big enough to heat the water for Marty's bottle and for a cup of coffee simultaneously. He held up the bottle of Evian for Marty to see. "You're getting spoiled, kid." Even boiled, he couldn't risk what came out of motel plumbing.

His mind remained locked into overdrive. It had spun off in seven different directions at once and he was having trouble pinning any of the threads down for long enough to see where they were going. Just keeping his head above water seemed ambitious enough.

Marty, fed, bathed and smelling like an ad for Johnson & Johnson, had decided to close his eyes. In Mulder's opinion, the kid, sensing the fact that his sleep patterns were being monitored, was faking it. However, he had no desire to provoke a confrontation.

The babe was easygoing and undemanding, his conduct rhythmically predictable. He ate, he slept, he seldom even cried, just whimpered a little when the frustration got too much.

Pretty much like his dad, Mulder noted. A life simplified to the minimum necessary for survival. Easy to empathize with the tiny bundle.

EARLIER

It wasn't quite fair to say that Mulder remembered nothing of his abduction, of the torture that followed, of his entombment six feet under the North Carolina turf, or of his gradual awakening in a body that didn't feel like his own.

Nor was it fair to say that he remembered every cut they made, every scream he uttered or every moment of sheer blind terror from the moment the Bounty Hunter separated him from the others, through the heart-stopping discovery of "living" in a world comprised of absolute darkness, to finally waking up and finding that someone else, no – something else, was sharing his body.

Reality fell somewhere between those two extremes.

Memory, a fallible sense at the best of times, tended to be both enhanced and clouded by emotion, and frankly there had been emotion to spare.

But not now. He'd learned to live without it.

Scully had been with him when the mist had finally cleared, when the sense of being squeezed out of his own body had finally faded.

His own very personal rendition of the Near Death Experience, perhaps? Or perhaps not. Apparently, he'd been just plain old dead, nothing near about it.

There had been nothing for a life support machine to support.

He'd read about cases like that, and not just in Edgar Allen Poe, either. Medical mistakes that had declared death while a glimmer of life still existed. But surely they were the products of antiquated hospitals and under-trained doctors, not of 21st Century medicine and brightly lit morgues. Nor did they generally involve a three-month burial and a miraculous resuscitation.

Lucky they hadn't done a post-mortem.

Bad thought, he concluded, mumbling obscenities under his breath as his body decided to try to dispose of another meal he hadn't eaten.

Scully ran quickly to his side, offering a stainless steel bowl, which he waved away. She ignored his instruction, talked in professional bedside manner tones and held the bowl under his chin.

Finally, he found energy enough to turn his head away, closed his eyes so he didn't have to look into pools of blue as she leaned over him, dabbing at his forehead with a cold sponge.

"Mulder? Please. What triggered that?"

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. "Psychological," he replied, keeping his breathing even, trying not to tense muscles that still didn't respond properly to direct orders.

"You're going to be fine, Mulder. Everything's going to be fine."

Sure.

Mulder waited until Scully left the room before launching his attack on the doctor. His partner wasn't pleased by his request for privacy, but then Skinner arrived at the door and she agreed, under protest, to join him in a trip to the cafeteria.

"I don't want any more tranquilizers."

"We're committed to giving you the best care possible."

"Then do so. The drugs don't help."

"You've been through a lot. Your body needs time to rest."

"Rest? They thought I was a corpse for three months, how much more rested do you want?"

The doctor flinched, shook his head, as if Mulder's use of the "C" word was in unpardonable bad taste. Mulder had a "D" word too – dead. And a "B" word – buried. He considered which one he was going to use next.

Regaining his composure, the doctor sat down in Scully's usual chair and carefully removed his glasses, found a tissue and proceeded to polish the lenses. "Your body has been through immense trauma. Your mind..."

"Went through it, too. Look, you don't keep someone on a respirator to save them the hassle of breathing."

"You're having nightmares, screaming, you're having trouble eating."

"Move me to a sound-proofed room."

"I discussed this with your partner. And she agreed."

"And I don't." He sighed, knowing what he was asking, knowing that the doctor was scared. "My case is somewhat unusual, right?" Mulder paused, allowing the doctor to acknowledge his words by snorting in his next breath. "Then don't presume to know more about it than I do."

"Mulder."

He stopped pacing for a moment to look across his hospital room. Scully looked as if she needed the bed more than he did.

The argument had been going on for hours, days even. In reality, it had probably been going on from the moment he'd opened his eyes and asked her who she was. He'd said it as a joke that time, a pop cultural memory of too many daytime soaps. He wasn't so sure that it was a joke now.

She was just about swaying on her feet and he wished to God that she'd sit down, but she insisted that her back needed the change to vertical. He'd suggested she check out the bed instead, and she hadn't even smiled. Not that he blamed her, there was little to smile about in here.

Hospitals were damned claustrophobic and this room was getting smaller by the day.

He let his eyes drift to focus on a place somewhere beyond her left ear. "I heard you, Scully. All we've got evidence of is a bizarre medical blunder."

"What possible good would it do to give this to the media?"

Mulder almost laughed. What possible good did anything do? Eight years and what difference had anything they'd ever said or done actually made? He'd been abducted by an alien spaceship, in front of an assistant director of the FBI. And what did the records say? – unlawful imprisonment by unknown subjects.

He'd been tortured and left for dead, presumed dead by people who ought to know better, and buried for three months without air, water or food.

The medical staff pronounced themselves duly mystified, declared him to be the victim of some hitherto unknown coma condition. They'd dug around in his blood, measured every parameter, X-rayed every bone, biopsied tissue samples, checked reaction times and prodded electrodes and fiber optic cameras into every available orifice, plus some new ones they'd drilled for themselves.

A suitable case for medical research.

Well, fuck that as well, he'd already given at the office.

Scully continued with a flurry. "What would actually happen? Best case? A guest appearance on Jerry Springer and another bunch of mail from cranks who think you're the second coming."

He turned to look out of the window, unamused, his eyes glistening with frustration and horror at how unimportant his life had been. Just like all the others then. He sighed, rubbing a finger across the glass to make greasy patterns on its surface. At least he could see an impact there.

His words were little more than a whisper. "The others. The others who were found dead or dying at the compound." A couple had been autopsied, another cremated. "Do you ever wonder?"

Scully's gasp was loud in the silence. Mulder wasn't surprised to hear the door slam as she left the room.

Not surprisingly, Scully didn't come back that day. When she returned the following evening, she had Skinner at her side. She needn't have worried, Mulder had learned his lesson. He'd keep his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself.

Skinner tried to make conversation, his eyes still apologizing as his lips avoided giving anything away. "I hear you'll be out soon, another day or so."

"They're just completing the course of intravenous antibiotics, then I'm free." Mulder glanced at Scully, noted her shudder as he said the words. His mind slid back to a woodland clearing and that last beautiful sight of a lost sister.

Freedom was a relative thing. Meant different things on different days. Not having his arms nailed down with spikes was free. Not lying in a sealed casket was free. Getting out of the hospital would be a feast of freedom. And if he had somewhere to go to, it would be a positive binge.

"What happened to my apartment?" He'd given the bank orders to pay for it every month, but just what had happened after he'd "died"?

"Nothing." Scully sounded ashamed to say it. As if a good skeptic like her should have made sure that a dead man's things were buried at the same time that he was. She squared her shoulders, continuing in a more assertive tone. "Probate takes a long time."

"Luckily," added Skinner.

And Mulder supplied a brief bark of a laugh, suddenly, horribly amused at the idea that he was a lucky stiff.

NOW

Elbow to knee and release.

The weather announcer supplied background noise, and Mulder was gratified that he remembered to look at the right state when the forecast map appeared. Not bad, he hadn't lost all touch with reality then.

Elbow to knee and damn, what the hell was that? He pushed a hand past his head and found the offending object, horrified to realize that it was his own gun. Presumably waiting in exactly the same carefully chosen location he'd selected when he started the exercises five minutes before. He moved it cautiously just out of reach again.

So much for continual vigilance, always prepared. He'd forgotten where his weapon was until it hit him on the head, literally.

Forget about it. Get over it. Make the best of it. His brain launched into its self-preservation mantra. He had no time for self-recrimination, precious little time for anything else.

He threw himself into sit-ups, using the mantra to steady his nerves and force him to maintain some kind of rhythm.

What he really needed was a run, a long, rangey, energy-sapping, mouth-watering run. A mindless oblivion of a run. A run to a place where he could silence the fuzz of background noise coming from his brain for long enough to actually see at least one thought through. Though what good thinking might do him, he had no idea. Just that he missed it, like he missed talking, like he missed.... everything.

Fresh air, he missed that too. Not that DC air was fresh, but at least it was sun-warmed and unprocessed. And how much of that had he had recently? How much of that had he had since that night in Bellefleur and a too-close encounter with a force-field, a light, a Bounty Hunter and an alien ship?

How much of it had Marty had? How much would he ever have?

And the thought brought him up shaky, muscles spasming as he tried to remember just how many sit-ups he'd now done. Enough presumably. Got to listen when the body says no, and, boy, had he provoked his body into saying no.

He lay back, short of air, thought of spawned salmon thrashing in the shallows.

Forget about it. Get over it. Make the best of it.

EARLIER

The couch was uncomfortable, albeit in a familiarly comfortable sort of way, but the bedroom was too silent to enter. Mulder had hoped that returning home to his own place would snap him back to reality.

It didn't, just left him more adrift. Even the fish didn't care that he'd been gone. The world had moved on and the hole he'd once made in it had healed up behind him.

And though it was easy to see how he could rip out a new space, maybe even hurl down the medical challenge of three months dead and still alive, it was hard to see what good it would do. Apart from earn him the place of honor in a freak show somewhere.

What he understood was that his old place had disappeared. Whereas once he'd believed in dancing zombies, now he believed in, what? Karma? Medical science? God? Nothing? Maybe he was a dancing zombie.

He didn't need to believe in aliens anymore, belief suggested some act of faith. But he knew they were here.

What he didn't know was what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

Nothing?

Certainly, that seemed to be the preferred option of old friends and allies. They had their own priorities, developed despite his loss and surviving despite his return. They expected him to act like nothing had happened. They wanted him to accept everything that had happened to them.

Scully had told him that he would never understand what it had been like, and she was right, he wasn't sure that he even wanted to. Their lives had gone on, and his had just - gone.

Mulder stumbled around, looking for the spark that would get him moving again. "I need to go and see Absalom."

Scully just looked at him, not rejecting the idea but not offering encouragement, either.

He tried again. "He's in a Federal prison."

"You're not even back at work yet."

"So?"

"You won't be able to get in."

"But you could."

"And listen to him talk in riddles?"

He'd only been home from the hospital for a few days when he'd had the kind of near miss with the wrong people, that might have sent him directly to the morgue. His apartment was now proving itself good for something, the couch and the TV supplied the ideal environment for brooding.

Even Scully's presence didn't really affect that.

His thoughts wandered back over the events of the past week. A shooting on the White House lawn, Absalom's escape and death, and a midnight date with danger in a census office.

Scully had told him that her new partner was "above reproach," which was interesting because Mulder had never considered himself as "above reproach" and rather doubted that Scully did so either.

What the hell. He was sure she had her reasons for saying that, but he really couldn't care less what they were. Or maybe he did care? He wasn't sure anymore.

The world was full of miracles, his recovery and Scully's pregnancy, and irreproachable Federal agents. Maybe there comes a point where you should just lie back and count your blessings?

Maybe Scully was now counting the distinctly mixed blessings of his return.

Had she really forgotten him so completely that she had honestly been surprised when he'd shown up in the basement office? Was she serious when she warned him that he could get into trouble for "borrowing" evidence? Had she actually considered not sharing the password with him?

All for his own good, of course. All defensive stances adopted and then immediately dropped as soon as he made his intentions clear. A perfunctory dance, not so different from the "old days."

And the outcome, naturally enough, had been a blast from the old days, too - a near miss with death in a government building, and no evidence gathered.

Except the differences kept nagging at him, like they really mattered. Did she still know him? Did she want to?

He was trying to act like his old self, but she wasn't impressed, maybe she knew it was just an act? Or perhaps she didn't want the old Mulder back. Maybe he should just be grateful that she seemed curious enough to check out the new model.

He'd changed, of course he had, but perhaps not in the way she wanted.

It was if he was stuck in that old joke that claimed women marry men in the hopes of changing them, whereas men marry women and hope that they'll never change.

His life had become a parody of itself.

And Scully's had moved on. In a big way.

He bowed his head when he realized that Scully was watching him from the armchair across the room. He rubbed his eyebrow as a disguise, embarrassed that he'd nearly laughed at his own appalling pun.

But he couldn't take his eyes off her, his gaze had simply drifted down from her face and now left him thoroughly fixated on the roundness that told him just how long he'd been gone.

He'd only asked her about it once, at the hospital, a day after he'd woken up, a day when he was still flying high on drugs and confusion. It hadn't even really been a question. "A baby?"

"Doing fine. Tested out great." She had hesitated, flicked a fluff of hair away from bright, moist blue eyes, then added, "Just like you."

What did it mean? He couldn't ask her then, he still couldn't ask.

So tonight she took pity on him. Well, perhaps it was pity, perhaps not, but she read him anyway. Read the question in his posture that his mouth wouldn't say. "I carried on with the IVFs, the clinic had a new approach. Experimental. I volunteered."

Mulder shook his head, another question he wouldn't ask.

Scully replied anyway. "I didn't want to worry you. The odds weren't good."

He nodded, he probably deserved that answer. He hadn't wanted to worry her with talk of stolen ova. She hadn't wanted him to worry that their lives might ever change. He'd told her that, hadn't he – that change was the thing that worried him?

His own interpretation was rather colder, so he tried to disown it, but it still echoed in his head, taunting him. She hadn't wanted him to be there, waiting in her apartment when she returned home after each month's disappointment. She hadn't wanted his arms around her when she started to cry.

She was right, he didn't understand how her life had been. He probably never had.

NOW

Marty had been surprisingly understanding about things, letting Mulder's panicked breathless panting after his aborted exercise session rock him to sleep instead of setting him off screaming. With fresh consciousness, though, there came demands, and now he was ready to demand that everything should be made right with his world.

Mulder hummed as he moved, wishing the adult world was as easy to set right as Marty's. "You've Got Milk," he promised, gathering the baby up into his arms. There was something impossibly soothing about the task of feeding him. A rhythm in the child's suckling that was almost hypnotic.

Almost narcotic, Mulder noted, as his neck shifted in the chair giving him a warning that he was in imminent danger of falling asleep. "Sorry, kid," he murmured, rearranging Marty's body so that he could free up a finger or two and surf between TV channels to keep himself alert.

This wasn't going to work, and why he'd ever thought it might was beyond him. But, at the time, it had seemed like the right option. Hell, when he'd grabbed the baby and run, it had seemed like the only option.

And he could make it work, one day at a time.

Got to keep looking at it like that, one day at a time.

If he tried to think of the future, he was lost. Common sense and percentages said that he stood no chance of survival, and less than no chance of doing anything that might make a difference.

But tomorrow, he could do tomorrow. By the end of tomorrow, there would be a few hundred miles extra on the clock, another pack of diapers used and a few more sit-ups completed. He could do that.

There. Sounded like a plan.

EARLIER

"Agent Mulder."

Mulder stood up straight, determined not to make it too easy for Deputy Director Kersh to assume that he had already given in.

Walter Skinner offered silent support by standing at Mulder's side. A small act of defiance, squashed by Kersh's immediate instruction to, "Please sit, Assistant Director."

Mulder didn't let his eyes move off Kersh. "Good morning, sir."

Kersh looked carefully at Mulder, not every day he met a dead man. "Your recovery has been remarkable." He shifted the papers on the desk, placing a different one on top of the pile. "Naturally, the psychiatric evaluation recommends ongoing support."

Naturally, Mulder agreed, they were hardly going to write him a blank check.

"Report to Section Chief Cantwell, Domestic Terrorism. He has a backlog to clear - until a permanent assignment is made."

Mulder had half expected a reassignment to Alaska, but presumably out of sight wasn't good enough for Kersh. Apparently, he wanted to actually witness Mulder going slowly out of his mind with boredom. "And my request for reinstatement to the X-Files division?"

"Will be reconsidered following an extended period of satisfactory performance, commencing Monday."

"And the case surrounding my abduction?"

"Has reached a satisfactory conclusion."

"Without any charges being brought or any closure of interrelated cases?"

Kersh frowned, cold and amused. "Sounds like one of your X-Files, doesn't it? You're dismissed."

"Gibson Praise is still missing. So is Billy Miles. Absalom, who might have had crucial information, was shot. Howard Salt was..."

"Maybe you misheard me. The meeting is over." Kersh turned from Mulder to direct his next words to Skinner. "Get him out of here, while he's still got a job."

Mulder's life had swiftly settled into a pattern of sorts and somehow that was reassuring in itself. Maybe if he acted "normal" for long enough, he would start actually feeling normal.

It was a leap of faith that his psychology training had already highlighted in flashing neon as dangerous.

But if he stretched the theory far enough, he could claim that behavior modification therapy was as honorable and as reliable a technique as any other. Despite the fact that, some would claim, merely acting like he belonged here was a form of denial. A way of avoiding his experiences that would, at some undetermined point in the future, jump up and bite him on the ass.

Still, better to be the square peg hammering itself into the round hole than not even to try to fit in. And that was all anyone wanted him to do, wasn't it? Fit in.

He was trying, wasn't he? Even if that meant an over-investment of energy and emotion in such a simple act as bringing a doll to Scully.

And it was working. He could go for minutes at a time now, concentrating on the matter at hand rather than drifting down into some flashback of cutting tools and pinned wrists and the sound of screaming machinery. So many images. Until his throat went raw at the memory.

Enough. There was a present to be smuggled to Scully. Why the need for surprise? Why not just give her the doll? Because normal people wrapped up presents in pretty boxes. And he was normal, right? And it was - more - fun. Right. Fun, then.

She was expecting pizza, which asked more questions than it answered, though why Mulder caught himself looking for meaning in her food choices was beyond him. Perhaps it was because he had so little to go on from anywhere else.

When he tried to be the old Mulder, she looked scared. Yet, it seemed as if she wanted him around, wanted him to stop by in the evening, wanted his company here at her apartment, just so long as he left work at the door.

Which was easy, given that his work, as described by Section Chief Cantwell, was going to be a paper-shuffling number, looking at lists of chemical deliveries to miscellaneous addresses and trying to work out if two and two equaled one almighty big explosion.

Section Chief Cantwell hadn't just been briefed to supply him with a mound of paper. There was also a schedule to be followed that would allow him to drift freely among tests, training and recertifications at Quantico, deskwork in a bullpen of an office, and a suitably vague place known as "appropriate research facilities."

"It could have been worse," Scully had suggested when Mulder showed her the notes from Cantwell.

"It could. Don't you find that a little odd?"

"Maybe they really do want to use you."

Mulder had laughed at that, despite the fact that he saw no humor in the situation. "Maybe they really do want to give me enough rope to hang myself."

Scully looked away, and Mulder waited for her to give him another pep talk on conspiracy theories and paranoia. She didn't.

Mulder changed the subject. It was easy not to talk about his work.

Scully, however, was still working on the X-Files, and Mulder had an X-File or two that needed investigation. As of next week, he might be able to push his FBI luck with computer searches and the like, but there would be tight limits.

When he first woke up and dragged the story of his death and recovery from Scully, he'd have given a lot to talk to Absalom. But no one cared what he thought as a hospital patient, and even once he got back home, there were no strings he could pull, no FBI credentials he could wave to get him there. His request was just sat in a waiting list like any other. And then Absalom was dead.

There were other possibilities, though. Like who exactly had shot Howard Salt on the White House lawn? What was the name of the SWAT team member who'd taken out Absalom? Conspiracies might be big, amorphous things, but what if you got lucky and following a tentacle led you back to the brain?

And how exactly was the hunt for Billy Miles being conducted? And where was Gibson Praise? And who'd seen Krycek since that day they'd all spent poring over satellite data in Skinner's office?

And how come Scully was pregnant? What was this "experimental" approach that created miracles? And whose baby was it?

But such questions were not to be discussed. Not directly at least.

So Mulder made a glib remark about pizza delivery guys and hoped that it would tempt Scully out from her happy haze of ambiguity and evasion. Or maybe there was no ambiguity, maybe he just couldn't read her anymore.

Maybe she was content that he'd done his job by providing sperm and expected nothing, wanted nothing, from him? Maybe. Enough with the fucking maybes.

What did it matter?

Scully was happy. The baby had "tested out great."

Yet he had to try to ask, even if he didn't know how, even if it meant lapsing into jokes about sitcoms, married life and pizza.

He didn't get very far before pain overtook Scully and he was in the middle of a medical drama instead.

An hour later in a hospital corridor, he knew his place in the pecking order. Not the husband.

Not even her partner. Doggett had claimed that title while Reyes talked in riddles on the phone. Mulder had been psyching himself up to proclaim himself "the father," indifferent to the biological and legal veracity, or otherwise, of such a statement. Then Doggett arrived.

What's in a name? Or a title? Who the hell was he supposed to be anyway? Reyes had talked to him like he was still on the X-Files, implied that she might have knowledge to share on Doggett's history. Treated him as if she knew that was a hook to draw him in.

Kersh had set the pace at the Hoover Building, addressed him as if he was simply an inconvenience, an embarrassment. As if coming back from the dead was about the dumbest thing an FBI agent could do.

Skinner and Scully? They scarcely talked to him at all. Or at least they didn't talk to the man he'd been. Scully had accused him of seeing conspiracies in photos of a dead man who just happened to be one of Absalom's abductees, and Skinner had taken the same and called it paranoia.

What were they expecting him to see? Nothing?

The Gunmen had seemed almost familiar, but they had their own lives, too.

Everyone had moved, including him. He'd been forcibly moved out of his basement, to where? The domestic terrorism bullpen on the fifth floor. Surely the attic would have been a better choice? Wasn't that where embarrassingly mad relatives in Victorian fiction got sent, out of sight, out of mind?

There was something appropriate about Doggett giving him the latest news on Scully's medical condition. Something about nailing it firmly into his head that he was now a bystander in his own life.

Scully had sent out a message to Mulder soon after, saying that she was just about to go to sleep and that he should go home. After all, he was officially due back at work tomorrow and shouldn't get off on the wrong foot.

To his surprise, Mulder accepted her verdict and went home. He tried not to think of a time when he wouldn't have found that possible.

It was Monday morning, and, fortunately, Scully had not thrown out all of his suits. This was undoubtedly a good thing, despite his inability to understand why she hadn't.

Nor did he really understand why she hadn't given away the fish. Keeping them fed had to be a hassle.

Probate. Maybe she was saving the whole thing for when the legal side was through? A single sweep of the place, moving all of his life into plastic bags and dumping it? And, of course, she was pregnant.

Why did he keep forgetting that? He didn't, he couldn't. But he was having trouble seeing the pregnant Scully as the same woman that he'd left behind. So he kept expecting his old Scully to show up and do things.

Stupid, really. He'd even tried to use her as his getaway driver. He shuddered to think what could have happened.

He slipped into what he remembered as a favorite blue shirt. He didn't seem to have favorite things anymore, but he still had his memories of them. A brief shudder as he fastened the buttons, the scars had almost vanished. Soon, there would be no visible record.

When he arrived at the hospital, he carefully avoided contact with the staff and was grateful to find that there was no one with her when he reached her room. He took a tentative first step through the door.

"Scully?"

"Mulder." She smiled, warm and welcoming.

He dropped gratefully into the chair at her side, slid his fingers over her free hand and looked at the monitoring equipment that surrounded her. "Looks serious."

"Precautionary. I'm past the worst, just bed rest for a few days now." She paused, her expression becoming instantly more businesslike. "You should be at work. It's not even visiting time."

"I wanted to see you."

"Good." Her features softening again. "But you'd better go. There's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."

Fine.

He did as he was told.

Mulder's return to Quantico caused a certain flutter around the place. A confused mix of handshakes, welcome backs and guilty giggles followed him through the corridors. He'd anticipated it, of course, prepared for it as far as he could. That didn't mean he had to like it.

He'd almost conditioned himself to ignore it as he rounded the corner to the elevators.

"Jesus! Mulder!"

"Just 'Mulder' does fine."

"Christ." Nick Parker edged forward, his hand reaching out ahead of him as if he were trying to get up courage to check for a solid object to match up to the vision.

Mulder did the job for him, he smiled and supplied a brief squeeze of Parker's shoulder in reply, a little blast of a long distant ISU past coming back into his life.

Nick shook his head, shell-shocked. "When I went on vacation, you were dead."

"The news was greatly exaggerated."

"They buried you."

Mulder shrugged, incapable of thinking of a reply that wouldn't leave him more of a gibbering wreck than Agent Parker now looked. "Nick. Relax. Don't you dare have a coronary on me. I'm fine."

The men parted with Mulder's claim that he had an appointment to get to, a brief handshake and a nervous exchange of good wishes.

His actual appointment at the firing range came as a welcome break, despite its importance. He needed the right scores here before he'd be allowed to carry a gun again, and it was a relief to see that the duty officer running his session was Ben Taylor.

Mulder donned his earphones and tried to concentrate only on the line to the target and the feel of percussion as the recoil from the Sig Sauer welcomed him back to work. It seemed to go OK, not good, but adequate.

He swallowed nervously when he saw the worried expression on Ben's face, surely he hadn't done that badly. "Did I get the qualifying score?"

The instructor gave him a look that Mulder could only interpret as a, "Well, duh!"

Mulder had known Ben for most of his working life. They'd become acquainted while he was still a rookie getting over his failure to shoot John Barnett. A decision taken because a hostage was too close. A decision immediately regretted because Barnett had opened fire an instant later.

He'd listened a thousand times to the lecture from the instructor back then, the calm voice that had said that sticking to the FBI rule book and not firing in such a situation, despite temptation, was never a reason for guilt.

Ben leaned against the booth, motioned to Mulder to remove the headset. "Of course you qualified, was there any doubt?"

"I'm out of practice."

Ben shook his head. "Sure." He paused, trying to get Mulder's attention. "Look, I've known you for a long time. I've seen you in here - excited, depressed, injured, exhausted, happy and just plain mean. But I've never seen you shoot like that."

Mulder shrugged, as if he didn't understand.

The man sighed. "Like you were going through the motions. I can tell. I know your rhythm. I know the sound of you firing. I know the way you reload. The way you shake your head if you get a move wrong."

"You sound like a stalker," Mulder supplied. A snide edge of abrasive laughter washing through his words.

Ben glared, irritated by the evasion. "And you sound like you need someone to kick your ass."

"Get in line."

The instructor held up his hands. "Maybe it is just practice. Maybe not. But you know you're off. And with the work you do, you can't afford to be. Even if you don't care, you owe it to your partner."

Mulder brought his hands to his face, smelled the powder on his fingers, and took a slow breath before replying, low and fast. "I'm off the X-Files. I don't have a partner. Thanks for the pep talk. Have a nice day." Avoiding the other man's eyes, he picked up his gear and left.

Mulder burned his bridges instantly with pretty much anyone who wanted to talk to him. Everyone, whether they be friend, acquaintance or stranger, seemed to have their own two cents to offer (uninvited) on his life. In particular, on how to get on with it.

So they knew how to handle being abducted by aliens and buried alive? Good for them, maybe they could all get jobs on the X-Files.

Which may have been why, in a momentary lapse in concentration, he followed the voice of someone who claimed to want him. It took a couple of days before he saw that it was just another trick.

Reyes wanted him to validate her visions, or rather she didn't – because she knew they counted. Reyes wanted him to help crack her case, or rather she didn't – because Doggett was doing the work. Reyes wanted him to help Doggett see the light, or rather she didn't – because it would hurt Doggett to drag up old memories.

And somehow, in the middle of the mess, Scully was lying in a hospital bed and telling him that his place was not at her side – that he was supposed to be out there, if only to watch them stumble and fall. Because Doggett was worth it. And Reyes was a woman to be liked.

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

So he played nice, in a game that had no meaning for him. And Scully rewarded him with a smile and her patience as he touched her, and he wasn't sure what that meant, either.

He'd given her the courage to believe. So she said.

But apparently not enough to know that beliefs had consequences, and that consequences required action.

He smiled for her, it was the least he could do.

NOW

The car rolled to a halt with a whimper not a bang, and Mulder was grateful for that mercy, at least. Brake failure, on a downhill roll to a set of lights, could have had far worse consequences. They were scarcely at walking pace when he let the car slide quietly to rest in a convenient bush at the side of the road.

It was almost irresistible to blame it on sabotage, but that would make no sense. Even through the adrenaline fog that was already closing in on him, he could see that. All available intelligence said that they needed Marty alive and were quite content to see Mulder dead.

Cutting the brakes was far too blunt a weapon. Unless...

He turned sharply in his seat, scanned through a full 360 and found no trailing black sedans pulling up behind him, and no assassins in sharp black suits or soft leather jackets walking towards the car with weapons drawn.

Just a couple of passers-by. A little girl holding her mommy's hand and watching them. A man, walking a dog, hesitating about whether to walk on, wait for some indication from the car's occupants, or to approach regardless.

Mulder took the decision out of his hands. If there was some danger here, then it was better for him to be up on his feet and ready, not a sitting duck in an immobilized car. He opened the car door, smiled apologetically at the happily uninterested Marty and unraveled himself onto the sidewalk.

The dog walker took a few steps forward. "You OK?"

"Yeah. The car, however. " Mulder waved a hand over its hood. "Brakes went."

"Thought so. Nice driving, by the way."

Mulder shrugged, tried to recall the self-preservation instinct that had taken over the wheel and steered them neatly to a sideways stop. He'd even remembered that he had a passenger and therefore should take the impact on the driver's side. More surprisingly, he'd even remembered to give the wheel a last-minute twist so that it would stop, angled far enough away from the bush to allow his door to open. Scully would have been impressed. After she'd killed him for getting into trouble in the first place.

The town looked big enough for a garage, but not big enough for two. Mulder reminded himself that he was supposed to arouse the least suspicion possible, what would a normal person do? "Is there a garage near here?"

"Sure thing. Mike's got a tow truck. Want me to call him?" The dog-walker pulled a phone from his pocket and Mulder found himself oddly fascinated by it, remembering a time when he used to carry such a thing himself.

Mulder realized the man was waiting for an answer. "Please."

Mulder heard footsteps approaching the passenger door and spun towards the sound, his hand slipping into his jacket pocket in anticipation of needing his gun. He quickly relaxed his stance, hoping that his movement hadn't drawn too much attention.

The mommy and little girl had arrived, attracted presumably by the combination of the local man and his dog who'd found no danger in the car driver, and the magnetic charms of an infant seat.

"Hi." Mulder offered, sounding reassuringly normal, at least to himself.

The little blonde girl, satisfied that the man no longer qualified as a stranger and was now a friend of the family, leaped into the car to admire the baby.

Marty, to Mulder's great relief, squealed in alarm, loud enough to disillusion even the most enthusiastic admirer. The girl's mother ordered the child back out of the car to stand at her side. The girl was smart enough to see the advantages of a doll over a baby and obeyed.

"Truck's coming," supplied the man with the phone.

"Thanks." His heart already fizzing with adrenaline from the crash, kicked up another twenty beats as he thought of the garage staff and another set of people who would remember them long after they moved on to the next town.

The police patrol car's quiet arrival completed his misery.

The dog-walker smiled at the cops. "Mike's bringing the truck."

Bored, the police officers, finding the stranger's troubles the most interesting thing in town, decided to get out and talk. "What happened?"

"Brakes." Mulder offered, praying that he was going to wake up soon and find this was all just a nightmare.

The dog-walker intervened, talking intently to the two police. "Friend of mine had the same model, pretty near killed him. Brake stuck on, just very slightly, not enough so you'd notice. Ten miles later his brake fluid's boiling and he puts his foot down – and – nothing."

The younger cop paused from chewing for a minute to respond. "Wouldn't be the same friend who got a visit from men in black suits telling him to forget he'd seen lights in the sky - would it?"

"Mock all you want. But these car companies, they keep records of this stuff and it's only when the compensation payouts get higher than the repair bill that they'll admit what's happening."

Mulder, reading the body language of the cops, did his own swift assessment of how this was going to play out. He smiled at the officers, "I saw that movie, too." They nodded back in winking agreement.

Bonding gesture complete, Mulder concentrated his attention on becoming invisible, while the police chatted with their old friend, the dog-walker.

It was only a couple of minutes before the tow truck appeared, the cops doing their good deed for the day by keeping other traffic, such as it was, away from the scene as the truck maneuvered into position.

When the patrol car's radio squawked, Mulder suspected that one of his prayers had been answered. When the men got back into it, he knew it had.

The dog-walker turned to Mulder, obviously disappointed that his Good Samaritan conduct hadn't won him the stranger's respect. Mulder prepared to defend himself, but the Samaritan's question took him by surprise. "You a cop?"

Mulder shrugged. "Was."

"Figures. That where you learned the driving thing, too?"

The chances of this guy forgetting him were, Mulder noted, rather less than zero. Which meant that he'd better try a different approach. "Yeah. So, you know those guys?" Mulder leaned into the car, scooping up Marty with a practiced ease, grinning as the baby immediately made an attempt to capture his sunglasses. "No chance, kid. I'll buy you some."

"I know just about everybody."

Mulder nodded, "Do you work in town?"

"I own the garage. That's my tow truck that Mike's hooking up. I'm Carl." He tipped his head toward the truck, and the "Carl's Motors" sign on its door.

EARLIER

Mulder reread the report of the death on the oil rig, compared it again to the map references that he'd come up with while playing with the new software the Gunmen had sent.

Playing being the operative word. Langly had adapted the AI program to understand the basics of UFO spotting. It was now configured to analyze satellite data, military alerts and newspaper reports, and to pass along, for further investigation, anything of curiosity.

Mulder had, naturally enough, volunteered to babysit it through its training program, his contribution being to add those extra little human touches of knowledge about the world. Like for example, bright lights and multiple helicopter visits being a fact of life for an oil rig.

Looking again at the crewman's death, he wondered if maybe he'd been a little too quick to dismiss the warning. The attitude of the oil company's executives when he called them had hit all the wrong notes, set Mulder's sensors to alert.

"Agent Mulder."

Mulder winced, knowing it was already too late to hide the images on the screen from prying eyes. If this was another of Kersh's gophers, sent in here to give him "the straighten up and fly right" speech - If it was, then there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. "Yeah?"

"You don't know me."

Nor did he want to. The intense young agent facing him across the desk reminded him vaguely of Krycek, first impressions tend to stick.

"I was there, when they found you."

When they found him dead? Another one! How many of them were there that night? Mulder didn't bother to comment.

"That job they did. Faking your death, so you could go undercover. I never guessed. I thought it was for real."

So that's how the more curious souls were rationalizing it. Not a return from the dead, a return from undercover. Brilliant! And how very apt - not many people could claim to have gone six feet undercover for three months.

"I'm sorry, I guess you can't talk about it. Have they got them?" The young agent's words had slowed to a crawl in the face of Mulder's silent blend of apathy and irritation. "The people who tortured you?"

Mulder shook his head, unwilling to argue about the terminology.

"Fucking animals. I can't imagine.... The pictures were bad enough. I mean, they were real, right?"

Even Mulder's apathy couldn't quite survive that. "You saw the pictures?"

"Everyone did..." The agent's voice trailed off, suddenly realizing that he'd allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him.

The room had fallen silent. The other agents in the bullpen were now fully occupied, trying not to stare too obviously at Mulder, nor at the kid who'd drawn the short straw and had been sent to try and tempt him into an explanation, or an admission.

The young agent stammered an apologetic goodbye, and mumbled something about it being, "Good to see you back."

Game over.

Mulder told the computer to shut down. Moving with maximum efficiency, he slid his body into his jacket, pushed FBI files back into their pending tray and swept everything else neatly into the laptop computer's case.

No one spoke until he left the office.

The later it got, the busier the downtown D.C. bar became. Mulder's breathing, already stubbornly self-conscious, moved from measured to tight.

It was hard to put a name to it, this business of being simultaneously claustrophobic and agoraphobic. So he had to content himself with knowing that it was time to go home, preferably before he became too tense to settle his tab and call for a taxi.

Which was too bad really, because the playoff match that had drawn him in here might have been just what he needed to take his mind off things. Off himself at least. Just a bit of silence from the endless loop of isolation and panic that kept running through his brain. And maybe the match would have done the job, if it had actually started. But he'd been here awfully early.

Why the hell hadn't he called the cable company earlier, so at least he could wallow in this depression in front of his own television, in his own home?

Because it didn't feel like home?

Because it didn't seem worth it? Not for how little time he had left.

Fuck. Where the hell had that come from? Definitely time to get out of here, before he did something stupid or humiliating, or more likely both.

He quickly handed over his money and headed for the doors. The blast of fresh air as he walked out caught him squarely between the eyes. He paused, waited on the sidewalk for a few moments to let the light-headedness pass.

Too much drink, too little food, too little sleep. Maybe he should just go home and go to bed. He checked his watch, unsurprised to find that it wasn't yet seven. Going to bed sounded a lot like giving in, a lot like admitting failure.

Sighing, he fished through his pockets and found his phone. Only one person he could call, only one place that he could go to that would be neither home nor away.

"Scully."

Relieved to hear her voice, he did his best to sound cheerful when he responded. "It's me." Even a fraction of a second was too long to wait for a reply. "Your ex partner," he added, not sure if it was a joke or a flash of insight.

"Sorry, I'm just trying to get you onto 'hands free,' how's things?"

"You're in the car?"

"Going to my mom's." This time it was Mulder who took too long to reply and Scully who had to keep the call moving. "Is everything OK?"

No. He kept the reply under wraps. "Sure, just checking in. What about you?"

"Winding down. Filing files. Packing boxes. Weird feeling."

"Is that why you're going to your mom's?"

"Are you profiling me?" A chuckle in her voice that made Mulder's breath catch. "No, it's just I haven't seen much of her lately."

Mulder sobered up quickly. Lately as in the last couple of weeks, since he'd been exhumed? Or lately as in since she became pregnant? What did her mom think of that, her unmarried daughter defying her Catholic upbringing to use IVF? Had Scully even told her?

Not suitable topics for a phone conversation, though he knew that he'd never have the guts to ask her those questions face to face. Best to cut his losses. "Have a good time, then. I'll, er, see you."

"You will."

He quickly clicked off his phone, the habit of never saying goodbye preserved through months of separation.

The cab driver was alert enough not to even try to make conversation with Mulder on his journey home.

Home looked, if not exactly inviting, then at least familiar. The absolute strangeness of the first few days had been replaced by a mere nagging doubt about the place. He had this odd idea, not yet entirely dispelled, that it was a replica, the fish cloned, and the whole place, even down to the scuff marks on paint, duplicated.

A fake somehow. As if he'd stumbled into some parallel universe, an alternate reality so like his own that it was hard to be sure. If he could just think of the right experiments to run, maybe he could confirm it, one way or another.

Difficult though, all the tests he came up with involved interaction. With the world, with other people. Required a shared history or at least a shared perspective.

And his history was being erased. Like building a sandcastle beyond the high water mark. It hadn't vanished overnight, swept away by a single tide. But the edges had become gradually blurred, the holes and pits filled in, the high points collapsing under their own weight. Until it finally became a shadow of itself.

Scully had needed more than a shadow, he understood that.

But if the time before his abduction had faded for them, then it was the time since he'd been returned that had proved the most frightening for him. Six months lost and the story of that time was already being rewritten and made more palatable.

Everything had been spun for plausibility, not substance - starting with his abduction by unknown subjects. The office grapevine was now re-writing it as a story of "possible" torture, and an undercover assignment - one that he'd clearly fucked up, otherwise why would he have been dumped into background checks?

The fact that the files in the X-Files office and at the hospital would tell a different story was irrelevant, just left him as invisible as most victims in the X-Files folders.

His cheeks still carried the scars, a clue for anyone who dared look him in the face. Not that it mattered, everyone had seen the photos and that hadn't told them to get out there and defend the planet! But then why would they? All the pictures showed was a naked man on a mortuary slab with puncture wounds to the limbs, deep scarring on his chest and scabbed over rips on his face. He'd seen worse looking victims.

He studied the room, examining it for clues and finding none. He studied it again looking for a distraction.

He found a suitable source in the PC that Frohike had supplied. Oil rigs, odd assay results from the oil company's own labs, sudden death and cagey management. Just what he needed.

NOW

Carl had suggested that they walk over to the garage, and Mulder was almost enjoying the stroll when he suddenly remembered that he'd left his multiple IDs secreted at various points in the car.

"What's up?" Carl quizzed, throwing his dog's lead in the air so the animal could catch it and bring it back, guaranteeing that the over-enthusiastic labrador would get twice the exercise that he did.

Mulder shrugged, irritated that he was so easy to read. "I left my stuff in the car, credit cards."

"S'Okay, Mike won't let the car out of his sight, and we'll be there in five."

Mulder nodded, well aware that there was nothing he could do about it. Marty made an odd gurgling noise, his expression blank. A fairly obvious clue that a new diaper would be needed soon, but not one other people would catch. Marty was going to make a great poker player.

"So where you headed?"

Mulder braced himself for the questioning and wondered if his poker face was as good as Marty's. He dug through his memory and picked out a place on the map, about 200 miles south, a place with an airport. "Belmont. Meeting my wife there."

"Huh?"

"Marty's too young to fly."

"You're a brave man. How old is he?"

"Five weeks."

"Yeah, brave. See that's where we differ, I'd never have gone it alone with my kids, not even at five years. You got others?"

"No."

"Diving right in at the deep end."

An inspection of the car had confirmed Carl's suspicions. The brakes had indeed been engaged, albeit very slightly, and the fluid had indeed boiled. Not much harm done. "Just bleed it all down and start again, this time with the right regulator fitted," Mike had told him. Not a very time-consuming, nor even a very expensive chore.

The bad news was that lines had been damaged along the way and it would be at least the next day before the parts would be in town.

Mulder sighed, disgusted with himself for not noticing the dragging brake before it had nearly killed them.

"See," said Carl. "It's just like I said. You won't even bother filing a lawsuit. You think you should have spotted something. That's how they get away with this shit."

Mulder nodded apologetically, and felt the urge to tell the man that the shadow world was even uglier than that. "Look, about what I said back there, to the cops."

"S'Okay, you only did it to get them off your back. I can relate." Carl grinned. "You thought you wouldn't be seeing me again."

Mulder shrugged. Carl was rather too good at the game. "So, know any motels around here?"

"My cousin's got a place. Get your stuff and I'll run you out there."

Too late to search for alternatives, Mulder did exactly as he was told.

EARLIER

Mulder was just about all out of favors. Not that it mattered, it wasn't as if he was saving them for his retirement, or even for a rainy day. As long as he had something to trade, even if it was only good will, he could keep going.

Ironically, while dead, he had indeed become a lucky stiff, the final settlement of his mother's estate banishing whatever financial concerns he'd ever had.

Even so, he tried to act as the world might expect from an FBI agent on duty. He made assumptions about other people's cooperation that would force them to specifically reject him. If they wanted to. If they dared.

The men at the oil company's base had no qualms about adding him to the passenger list for the next helicopter flight to the rig.

He'd always had a nose for trouble and this place smelled bad from the moment he set foot on it. Could he have sniffed it all the way from DC? It certainly seemed that way.

Deputy Director Kersh had looked so pleased with himself when he'd announced that John Doggett would be dispatched to the rig. And Scully herself had said scarcely a word, not even when Mulder characterized her as "a pregnant woman." The truth, but scarcely the whole truth.

Mulder had had the time to repent that slip at leisure on the flight down. He knew how it had happened. He kept looking at her and seeing two different women, one his partner and best friend who he'd known for years, and the other one, a woman who was about to give birth. It was his problem, not hers. But he couldn't deny that it was a problem.

That particular mistake would not be repeated. If nothing else, he knew how to be polite. Agent Scully, then.

So why was he the only person who thought that Kersh might send Scully? Scully obviously didn't, nor Skinner and certainly not Doggett. Was he the only person who thought Kersh might be that stupid or that petty? Or was he the only person who could remember the old Scully?

Now, here on the rig, he needed her more than ever.

To Mulder's surprise, Doggett's arrival qualified as a relief. He needed someone from the outside with him.

And if he was going to die, then it wouldn't be alone.

Not the most constructive of thoughts, but then the whole problem with the rig was the lack of opportunity to do anything constructive.

So far as he could tell, the oil was contaminated. Who or what had contaminated it, or when it had occurred, he had no idea.

Except the oil company knew about it. And they were either pleased because it was deliberate, or else didn't understand and therefore didn't care, but still knew that it was worth hiding.

Moreover, despite the oil company's complaints about him jeopardizing a new development, he was looking at an old production platform here. Something that they could sacrifice if they had to? Something that they didn't plan to use for too long? Something that had already completed its mission?

And did that mean that the contamination was both new and deliberate, perhaps even an attempt to take a last, highly profitable, alien harvest from an old field? Speculation made him dizzy. Whether or not he was shutting the door after the horse had bolted, there had to be something he could do.

Quarantine?

Sample and test?

Destroy?

He'd faced a similar scenario before. A parasite deep in the Arctic ice, which he'd wanted studied. The decision had been taken from his hands then, by people who wanted it dead.

The decision was taken from his hands again. The crew decided to destroy the rig, by their own choice or under orders? A nightmare of fire and noise, and scarcely any chance of survival.

And had he died, he'd have gone down fighting, just as he'd promised Scully. And it would have been with Doggett.

Kersh was unimpressed by Mulder's explanations.

"You had no right to be on that rig."

"I was investigating a death."

"Agent John Doggett was investigating a death. You work on cases assigned by Section Chief Cantwell, domestic terrorism."

"The rig was destroyed by an explosion, if you allow me to complete my investigation, we may find out why."

"The only reason we haven't had a billion dollar lawsuit from that oil company is because their interests would not be served by embarrassing the government."

"Which interests would those be?"

Kersh's eyes narrowed, his mouth tight as he barked his response. "Commercial interests, Agent Mulder. You and Agent Doggett have a meeting with the Office of Professional Responsibility on Monday. Don't bother reporting for duty until then. I want your badge and your weapon."

"What am I charged with?"

Kersh rocked back in his chair, feigned deep consideration, pretending to pluck the list from the air. "Let me see. I'll just stick to those charges that lead to summary dismissal. Maybe we could start with dereliction of duty. Unapproved absence. Misuse of Bureau resources."

"I used the company's transport."

"Thereby violating regulations regarding use of Bureau credentials," Kersh suggested triumphantly, before returning to his own list. "Disobeying a direct order to stand down from a case. Interfering in a case assigned to another agent."

Mulder rocked a little as the walls closed in, forced his voice to remain calm. "And why will Agent Doggett be there?"

"Because when millions of dollars go up in smoke, somebody carries the can. You're gone, 'Agent' Mulder. The only question is whether John Doggett joins you."

"He did exactly what you wanted him to." Mulder stopped, a sudden recognition of the obvious. "And so did I, didn't I? You handed me the rope."

"And you did the rest yourself."

"This isn't over."

"But your time at the FBI is."

Mulder nodded, too stunned for the moment to respond. He'd anticipated this, seen it coming every day for the last eight years, but now it had finally happened it didn't seem real. To go out like this, with a whimper, not a bang.

So final.

NOW

Mulder found himself trapped in Carl's cousin's house. Not that there was anything wrong with the place. In fact the worst thing about it was the thought of how much Scully would have loved it.

Would she? Did he know even that much about her? She'd talked about normal lives and happy families, but did she really have any more clue about that than he did? Not much sign of it in the years that he'd known her.

If he were to profile her early home life, he'd have to note the mostly absent father, the mother who liked to be in control, the protective big brother, the sister who left home to escape its confines, and the other brother who didn't even show up at hospitals. Had her childhood actually been that much more real, more loving, more magical than his?

Cousin Janie snapped him out of his daydream when she arrived bearing gifts of sandwiches and orange juice. The description of the place as bed and breakfast had vanished as soon as Janie set eyes on Marty.

Which was why Mulder was now sitting on a comfortable chair on the lawn at the back of her house, studying the contents of her fish pond and tickling Marty's feet. "Thanks. This is..." He waved a hand vaguely at the plants and the water.

"Yeah, it is," was the response, but it didn't come from Janie. Carl had arrived and had sat down in a neighboring chair without Mulder even noticing.

Mulder felt his guts twist. He was losing it, his vigilance and concentration were fading even though the danger wasn't. He blinked, as if he could just clear his eyes, then maybe his head would follow.

The best thing he could do for Marty would be to abandon him in some nice safe public place, where he would be quickly found, and his dad wouldn't get picked up on the security video. If no one knew who Marty was, then the kid wouldn't be in any danger.

And if someone worked it out, then he'd have no protection at all.

Was this how it had been for Gibson Praise's parents? Not for long apparently, Gibson had never lived with anyone for more than a few months.

The trouble was that no amount of vigilance, even if he were competent enough to deliver it, would be enough. What could be more conspicuous, or more memorable, than a strange man travelling with a tiny baby? It was only a matter of time before his luck ran out and somebody stumbled over their trail.

"You look like you can use the sun. How far have you come?"

Mulder shivered, despite the warmth, and frantically tried to remember which cover story he'd been using. John Forrester from New York. But he'd said that he was meeting his wife in Belmont. Whereas he'd told Angie that his wife was dead. Had he given Angie a name? Hell, if they got that close would a name even matter?

He sighed, trying to come up with something vague, abandoning the idea there was a right answer or even a good one. "Seems like we've been driving for weeks. If I'd thought about it in advance, I'm not sure we'd have even tried." There, not only vague, it was truthful.

EARLIER

The first sensation had been of numbness. The emptiness had followed soon after.

If asked, he could have compared it to Scully's abduction and the moment he'd accepted that, with Duane Barry's death, the trail had gone cold. The fact that it still seemed unreal merely served to spice the mix with overtones of Samantha's disappearance.

Which was why it was fortunate that no one dared get close enough to ask. Could there be anything more shameful than comparing the loss of a job to the loss of a real live human being?

Mulder rubbed a hand tiredly across an eye and stared at the telephone, torn between picking it up and dialing, and disconnecting it from the wall. He took neither action, the former would require him to reconnect with the world, the latter would signify that he couldn't. So he settled for glaring and challenging it to ring.

Losing his job seemed fitting somehow. A hangover from his old life, a shadow caught out in the sun and gone. Yet the actual end had been so feeble and underplayed, almost impossible to accept, as if its very mundanity should have ruled it out.

And just as it seemed inevitable that, each time he looked at her, Scully's hands would be drifting protectively over her belly, perhaps it was inevitable that her thoughts would focus there, too. Yet a part of him couldn't help resent the fact that she was as indifferent to his departure from the Bureau as he was.

Was she taking her lead from him?

Did she consider it unimportant, despite the fact that the basement had been his home for years?

Most frightening of all, had she already assumed that his time in the basement was over, even before Kersh said the words? When, then? When she put his name in the drawer? When she buried him?

The sandcastle beyond the high water mark took another hit. The fantasy of making a difference exposed for what it was. History. A history that was being steadily erased.

Sickened by his own pointless self-absorption, he turned his thoughts to her and how she might be feeling. She had a child to think of, it would change her world. It was what she'd prayed for.

Which was why he resented it all the more when she'd packed her things and left the Bureau on maternity leave. She threw around words like desertion and alone, and he wondered if she had any idea about how he felt. And he tried not to hate her for it.

Seeing her back at work, against her doctor's orders, against Skinner's orders had almost pushed him over the edge. Only the fact that, naturally enough, her cause was right and just had stopped him. Instead he turned his attention to helping two agents in trouble, two agents working an X-File.

Skinner's attempt to throw him off the search, given that he didn't even work for the FBI, was mildly amusing. Finding himself under attack from a monster, without a weapon to defend himself, was not.

He had done his duty. He had done what Scully needed him to do. And that was enough.

NOW

With the car repaired, it was time to make tracks. Mulder blushed as he accepted the bag of cherries from Janie. "Sleepless nights, driving and motel food'll kill ya' - you've gotta keep yourself healthy."

Carl had smiled, and had seemed mildly surprised to get his payment by credit card. Mulder smiled in return, cash was the most conspicuous thing of all these days.

Fifty miles later and Mulder slid into analysis, using Marty as a sounding board to force him to clarify his ideas.

"I think Carl knew that we weren't going to meet your mom." Carl's principal claim to fame, as it had turned out, was his old job as a sideshow mind-reader.

"Did you memorize those code words he was telling us?" Mulder let his fingers drum across the wheel, recalling the demonstration that Carl and Janie had supplied of just how a helper could tell her blindfolded stage magician partner exactly which article of a gentleman's clothing, or which item from a lady's purse, she was holding up.

"Could come in useful some day."

Mulder sighed, sheepishly aware that he'd enjoyed the evening too much, drank too much, eaten too much, talked too much. Not about anything important of course. But probably enough that a good fortuneteller, with the unfortunate knack of hearing every nuance, seeing every shift in posture, could glean more.

"I'm sorry, Marty. I couldn't help it. I enjoyed the company too much." Though he did have a half-hearted excuse lined up. There was no chance of Carl forgetting him and Marty, not from the moment that Mulder had crashed his car only yards from where he was walking his dog. There was, however, a slim possibility that if called upon to remember, Carl might now conveniently forget the facts or even recall some new ones.

"Look. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Marty cooed, shameless in his enjoyment of Mulder's embarrassment.

EARLIER

Scully's baby was due soon and though Mulder hovered, he never got close enough to try and land.

Each time he looked into her eyes, he saw tears of joy and sadness and it was hard to know whether to kiss them better or offer her a handkerchief. His protective instincts were excited by her neediness, but his brain was shocked by how easily she'd become an icon, even to him. A chance to make amends for past failures to protect the vulnerable.

It made it difficult to see her as a woman, still harder to see her as a comrade in arms. Yet through her doubts and fears, he kept seeing something more. She was at peace, outrageous as it seemed, given her circumstances, she looked more certain, more comfortable than he'd ever seen her.

He'd woken up on the couch in her apartment, his endurance in the face of all night Werewolf specials on Bravo not quite up to the task. He'd heard her talking, soft and full of love. At first, he couldn't tell who she was talking to, and had assumed it was the baby.

Then he'd realized that it was a prayer, thanking God for her blessings. Thanking God for the baby, and for Mulder's safe return. Asking God for his mercy and guidance in her new life as a mother, and for his love and protection of a child yet to be born.

Mulder knew that he shouldn't be offended that he only appeared in her prayers in the past tense, not as part of her hopes for the future. Really, it was enough. Really, it was.

Maybe she thought that somebody capable of coming back from the dead didn't need praying for.

He slipped out of her apartment without saying goodnight.

They met most days, chatted on the phone, but as the birth approached it was Scully's mother who was taking over. Which seemed fitting. Scully's refusal to go to stay with her family was probably significant, but Mulder wasn't sure what it signified.

When Scully told him that her mom had found a nurse to watch over her, Mulder wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. He understood her need for her mother, but to invite a stranger into her home seemed wrong somehow.

Well, what didn't?

Just how wrong could things get?

He got his answer when he found himself using Krycek to help get Scully out of danger.

Odd comrades indeed, triggering musings of past meetings and strange alliances. Was that what this was all about? Alliances. Ever shifting, based on pragmatism not principle. Human factions, interacting with alien ones?

Why?

He really ought to ask somebody and sit down for long enough to hear the answers. But who? Deep Throat, X, his parents, Diana, even the smoker, all dead.

Almost all of the people he knew from the "other side" were dead. Mulder felt an odd sick empathy with Krycek and he thought he knew why. They'd arrived at the party together and now they were the last two dancers.

Scully was going to have a perfect human child. How? An act of God?

Mulder didn't actually believe in Super Soldiers, and if whatever sprang from Scully's womb was to carry that label then there was just the minor detail of a twenty-year wait before it would matter.

But if all alliances were temporary, then it was Krycek's ability to spin on a dime that disturbed Mulder most.

The gun in Krycek's hand told one story, his inability to fire told a different one. Mulder was ready for the bullet, not hoping for it, but anticipating it. When Skinner took Alex down, Mulder had been stunned. When Krycek argued that it was Mulder's life or thousands, Mulder had been too lost to question it.

Then Skinner fired again and there were no more questions.

Except in Mulder's head, which was where the questions were going to have to stay. He left them there, to be rehashed later in his dreams perhaps. While his conscious mind stayed with more immediate problems, like how to get hold of a helicopter at short notice.

Once the action was over, he had more time to brood and he took it, indulged himself in solitude, avoided congratulatory slaps on the back at the hospital in favor of an all night vigil watching surveillance cameras at the nurse's station.

Why all the fuss from Billy Miles and his friends to hunt down Scully if they had no desire to take the child? Why did others want them stopped? Why did Krycek shift from wanting the baby dead?

And why the hell was Scully so fucking calm? So convinced that her prayers had been answered. He wished he had her faith. He tried to will himself to have her faith.

As it was, he scarcely dared talk to her at the hospital. In his head, he excused himself with grumbles about her other visitors, particularly her mother and her brother. It was no time for him to get involved in a debate about planned parenthood. Or the lack of it.

Federal agents guarded her door, with Skinner, Doggett and Reyes alternating as Agent In Charge, and somehow he couldn't bring himself to walk past them either.

He sighed, annoyed by his own evasion. Actually, the bottom line was, he couldn't bring himself to talk to Scully alone. It had been fine when she'd first been admitted, when she'd been exhausted and dreamy. But now, with her wide awake, he couldn't trust himself not to ask questions.

She was home from the hospital before he did trust himself to be left alone with her.

"I don't understand, Mulder. They came to take him from us... why they didn't."

He was glad to hear her say it, he needed that. But this wasn't just any X-File and he wasn't ready to speculate. "I don't quite understand that either. Except that maybe he isn't what they thought he was. That doesn't make him any less of a miracle though, does it?"

"From the moment I became pregnant, I feared the truth... about how... and why. And I know that you feared it, too."

"I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know." They did know, didn't they? That this was a child born from love. Alive because Scully had faith enough for two. And whatever the mechanism and whatever the future held, that was enough.

"Which is what?"

Talking took them round in circles. He didn't have an answer that carried any scientific weight. He could only reply with what he knew. He still loved her, he would love her child as well. He leaned forward to try and tell her how much these moments meant to him.

Her lips greeted his, welcoming him home. And suddenly the world looked real again.

NOW

Marty looked tired and Mulder needed the breathing space. "You're clean, you're fed, you're grouchy. Just let go."

Marty turned away, like that was just the sort of dumb suggestion he was expecting.

Mulder tried again. "The thing is. I REALLY need a shower. And then I want some sleep myself. And I can't just walk away while you're complaining."

Marty, discovering ungloved fingers, attempted to scratch his eyes. Mulder was too quick for him, forcing tiny angry hands back into mittens, apologizing as he did. "I know, you hate them, but really, it's for your own good." How often had people said that to him?

"OK, I give up. Stay awake. I'm taking a shower. Don't annoy the neighbors." The latter warning was not to be taken seriously, as Mulder pre-empted any action of Marty's by picking up the child and the nest of pillows he'd been lying in, and transferring it to the bathroom floor.

The shower did work, in more ways than one. It left Mulder pleasantly sleepy and Marty actually asleep. He stored that away for future reference, uncertain whether the sound of running water, the muggy air or pure coincidence had done the trick.

His mind drifted back to a couple of days earlier, Cousin Janie's happy gossip and Carl's interrogation that had left them chatting on the porch until midnight. They'd driven more than a thousand miles since then. No wonder Marty was grouchy, Mulder was, too.

He needed exercise and they both needed fresh air. Exercise? He yawned. Not tonight. Marty was asleep in his nest on the dresser. Mulder turned the TV on low and waited for it to lullaby him to sleep.

He'd been stalling for weeks, marking time really, since he left with Marty. The days had already started to merge together and he hadn't even begun to address the problem. If he was serious about hiding Marty away, this was not the method.

If Scully were here then it would be different, if only because they would be less conspicuous. A family.

He sniffed, thinking back to the last message that he'd swapped with Frohike. Today's hotmail account using a name and password based on the power of random selection or at any rate of blending today's date with the odd letters in the front page headlines of USA Today.

The two word message waiting in the Inbox: "She's trying."

And Mulder's shamefully weak reply. "I need her."

He'd had to delete that without sending it, knowing that it might cause a panic reaction. If she came, when she came, it had to be a choice, not a guilty response to him raising the alarm. Worse still, she might have sent Doggett or Reyes as backup.

He'd had to settle for. "We'll be waiting."

He knew she'd come, he just didn't know when, and he didn't know how long he could afford to wait.

Perhaps if he left the country, he could disappear for a while, and wait for her in comfort. Was there a far-off land where an unaccompanied foreign man carrying a tiny baby would be rendered invisible? Somehow, it seemed unlikely.

Hiding places had this habit of being awfully like prisons. Narrow little worlds, devoid of stimulation, physically and mentally barren.

Buried alive with your own thoughts for company, unable to move, to see, to breathe. Until alive doesn't seem like so very big a deal anymore.

Lie back and take it, because the fact is, you don't have an alternative. And if the lights are blinding, then don't even try to close your eyes. Does it matter any more if they've nailed you down, if there's no way to run from the knife that saws through skin and muscle and bone and carves its way into your chest.

And sure it'd be nice to scream, a way of letting off steam, a way to let a posse of bounty hunters know that you're still alive, even if there's more animal in the sound than human. But with dry throat and dry eyes what's the point of screaming if no sound comes out? Why let them know anything?

He could hear the screaming now, and was surprised that he could do it so well against a sawdust dry mouth.

Shakily, he started to move, and found that he could. He started to listen, and heard not himself, but a cat noise of a wail. Not a cat, a baby.

"Marty." He rolled from the bed mumbling apologies, sweat-clammy skin and fear-tightened breathing combining to make the couple of steps to the baby's side a panicked, cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof hike.

They needed a place to hide.

EARLIER

Perhaps there ought to have been a logical progression from the kiss. Had Mulder reached the stage where acting "normally" was second nature rather than a job to be worked at, maybe there would have been.

It didn't surprise Mulder that there was no follow-up from Scully. She seemed blissfully content with what she already had, at peace with herself after eight long years. If there was to be a change, then it would be up to him to initiate it.

Of course, the fact that Maggie Scully had shown up at the apartment a couple of hours later was a convenient excuse to put everything on hold. Bill Scully was carrying her suitcases.

"I'd better be going."

Scully, smiling and gentle. "You don't have to."

Her mother, polite smile and dignified tone. "I'll be here as long as she needs me. Don't let me chase you away."

Bill, protective and tightly controlled. "Yeah, don't let us chase you away."

Mulder mentally added the word "again" to Bill's remark and mumbled, "See you tomorrow," to Scully.

Scully had slowed him down in the doorway with a couple of questions and requests. It had delayed him just long enough for him to see Maggie Scully hand William over to Bill, and to hear the bloodcurdling scream that followed the transfer. So much noise, from a thing so small.

Scully had stopped trying to talk him into staying at that point, given up the losing battle in favor of calming her son.

Which was good in a way, because had he stayed, the subconscious mess of theories still swirling through his brain might have had to fight for space against the emotional reaction he'd felt for Scully and William.

Take all logical connections, however paranoid, and stir. Keep on stirring until it congeals into something solid. Funny how it always came out looking bloodstained.

Anyway, his theories were changing again.

He'd assumed Billy Miles and the others were uninterested in the baby because it wasn't what they wanted. What if he was exactly what they wanted and they were present at the birth merely to validate the fact?

Maybe it was like an FBI agent signing off the right paperwork to prove the custody chain had been maintained when evidence was produced in court? After all, the Bounty Hunter seemed to consider himself a soldier. Maybe the witnesses at the birth considered themselves to be scientists?

If the experiments had been running for years, then maybe they'd had a few false starts and incomplete success stories in the past. Hadn't Cassandra been modified by years of experiments? Wasn't Gibson Praise something special?

What if William was different, and they'd proven the technology to bring him to term and now they had to prove the methodology for raising him?

When, struggling with bees, he'd seen those Samantha clones on that farm, it had occurred to him that though the kids looked human they didn't know how to respond as humans. What had been missing?

They'd taken children like Sam and Emily, and placed them with new families. Yet that could only work if they were trying to raise handfuls of kids, not hundreds or thousands.

If someone wanted to create thousands of special children, what better way than letting their own parents bring them up? Cheap, secure and an easy method if one day you wanted to modify not thousands, but millions.

What if Billy Miles and his friends actually wanted to populate the planet with a new human race? A tougher, more powerful one, with strengths like Gibson's activated?

And what the hell had happened to Krycek, for him to jump from wanting to kill Scully's baby, to helping Mulder to get her away from Miles, to wanting Mulder dead?

Fuck. He could roll that one around for as long as he wanted and it still came out as an indigestible lump. Unless, of course, no jump had occurred.

Mulder decided to refuel on coffee, bemused by how far he'd followed the speculation trail without actually testing his basic assumption. Was William normal or not?

Wasn't it time to go out and actually gather the evidence, before trying to come to a conclusion?

Scully was already looking more like her old self, her weight falling, her hair shiny and soft. Her mother's presence in the house had presumably given her the luxury of sleep and time to shower.

"You look good."

She smiled, just a little shyly, and for an instant Mulder's mind flashed back to the first time he'd seen her standing in the basement office, her hand outstretched in greeting. It was as if she'd been renewed.

Her mother chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen, bag in hand, clearly on her way out. She paused for a moment on seeing him. "Hello, Fox. Would you like a coffee?"

Scully intervened. "He can make it himself, he knows where everything is. You can go shopping with a clear conscience. I know you didn't want to leave me alone."

Maggie nodded her head, unimpressed, her eyes still locked on Mulder. "If you think that's best."

Mulder, concluding that discretion was the better part of valor, headed into the kitchen and didn't emerge until the front door slammed.

He spoke first. "What have you told her?"

"She knows about the IVF."

"And?"

"She's not happy that I didn't tell her what I was doing. I told her that you didn't know either."

"Is she OK with it?" He suggested, uncertain which "it" he was actually referring to.

"She's happy for me."

He nodded, he didn't feel so very differently himself.

They passed time in cautious gossip of feeding times, diapers and the fact that she hadn't actually prepared the nursery to her satisfaction before the birth, not wanting to tempt fate.

Mulder even teased her about the baby's reaction to Bill Scully, and Scully laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd assume you'd coached him. It's as if he knows what you think of people. No, I swear, he laughed at Frohike."

"Wind," Mulder suggested, playing the skeptic and laughing himself.

"Spoilsport," she responded. Then, more subdued, she added, "Even mom noticed. It's as if he's being polite to her, but he never trusts her enough to fall asleep when she's holding him. Guarded, she says."

When William woke up, Scully started to feed him but he didn't seem that interested, so she handed him over to Mulder, who talked in soft singsong and stroked his feet. They drank fruit juice and the baby daydreamed while the adults talked.

In the end, Mulder just had to say it. Maggie could be back at any moment and the conversation would be over before it had even begun. "I think we should have some tests run on him."

Her mouth fell open, then tightened into an angry line as she spoke. "What kind of tests?"

"I don't really know. DNA. Maybe some others."

"You mean a paternity test, don't you?"

"No," he said, even as his body admitted a yes. "We need to know more about him, it might help explain why they left him alone."

"You said it yourself, he wasn't what they wanted."

"What if I was wrong? We need to understand."

"He's a beautiful, healthy baby. That's all I need to understand."

"What if there's more?"

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

He nodded, not actually believing what he was hearing from her lips.

It took three days of cautious approaches, carefully monitored and chaperoned by Maggie Scully, before Scully seemed to relax with him again. He'd been calling a couple of times per day, an hour or so each time. A strong presence but not a constant one.

It suited their hesitant attempt to rebuild bridges.

Moreover, it gave Mulder time to think and to make plans. A suitable lab for the DNA tests. A clinically sterile kit for the samples.

The planning went reasonably well. The thinking was giving him nightmares.

He'd come to think of the nightmare as The Krycek Factor. Of course, it could be as simple as Krycek ran with whoever paid best. Or even that, after years of running, Alex had finally cracked under the strain.

Or it could be that up until the final stages of the pregnancy, the possibility that the baby was an unalloyed success, a perfect human with no weaknesses, was unproven. Therefore killing it, at that stage, would spoil the experiment. And Krycek couldn't do it for himself because he was going to need their help later and pinning the crime on Skinner would absolve him.

In which case, it could be good to keep the Billy Miles lookalike away from the birth, in case Billy did actually seize the perfect child immediately.

And what if Krycek had discovered that Miles and his pals had no plans to take the kid, that in fact the plan was to leave him in the care of Mulder and Scully? Then the decision to kill Mulder could have been based on the conclusion that Mulder might prove just as dangerous a minder as Billy.

Why?

Why fucking speculate, when he didn't even have any evidence of a problem?

Evidence, his teeth nipped at his lip, he had to go ahead and get it. Despite Scully's feelings, or his own, he needed to know.

Scully had dispatched her mom off to church for Mass. Maggie had made plans to have lunch with friends neglected since Dana's big day and was armed with polaroids for the occasion. Then she expected to stop off at home, pick up mail and do anything else that seemed necessary. She'd be back before nightfall.

It was a happy compromise for the women, Scully wanted her own space but admitted that she found it reassuring to have someone around.

Mulder found himself staring at her, wondering if he should have offered to be her "someone" and then wondering why he hadn't.

He'd wanted to be her "someone" for a long time.

He wanted to be her someone now and it was only guilt that was stopping him. Guilt over a crime he hadn't yet committed. Maybe he should become a Catholic, then he could go and confess next week and get himself straight again.

William was a joy, just a little different every day. And holding Scully as the baby nestled in her arms was making him fall in love all over again. With both of them.

Still. There was evidence to be gathered.

They'd been talking about old times and a night in a Los Angeles hotel, a movie premiere no less. Mulder smiled at the memory of Skinner admitting that he was calling from a bubble bath.

"Don't. You don't know how much I've missed them."

"Huh?" he'd supplied, encouraging her onwards as he stroked her arm.

"This last couple of months, I didn't dare get in the tub. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get back out."

Mulder chuckled at the image, trying to imagine his partner, who could run across muddy fields in high heeled pumps, struggling with bath time. He tried to sober up by wondering just how inappropriate actually imagining that picture was. He couldn't quite succeed. "Why not have one now?"

"I'm still so big."

"Nah. Besides, if you get stuck I can haul you out. I swear I won't look."

"Right!"

"And if you ask nicely I might even scrub your back." He paused, serious now. "Go on, Scully. You know you want to. I've got William. Enjoy the bubbles."

She hesitated for a few seconds, but then started to shift in his arms. She turned to face him, handing him the tiny bundle. "If he starts crying..."

"S'Okay, I'll call you if I need anything. And," he added with a quick grin, "You can call me, if you need anything."

He waited until a few minutes after the water stopped running before sliding a hand into his pocket and emerging with a syringe. "Sorry," he said as he uncapped the needle, uncertain if the word was intended for William, or Scully, or himself.

NOW

Mulder wasn't quite sure how to apologize to Marty for his nightmare the previous night. It wasn't so much that he'd woken Marty up, Marty always knew when he wanted to eat.

He just wasn't sure how long the baby had been crying before he'd responded. Worse, Marty had met not a happily, albeit sleepily, attentive dad - he'd met a sweaty, out of it, panic stricken stranger.

What he needed to do was stop running for a day or two, get out of the car, as Scully had once suggested. Literally this time. And not an enforced halt like when the brakes had failed, a deliberate choice, somewhere secluded and safe. For a couple of days.

Was that really more dangerous than just driving?

Not in his present mood, that was for sure. He'd done OK with the whole business of remaining invisible until the last few days, but now it seemed like he'd lost the knack.

His resistance was low, bad food, sleepless nights and too much driving really were catching up on him. Above all, the knowledge that there was no end in sight was catching up on him. He needed to stop and think.

He checked the map and saw the name of a mountain resort that he recognized. Outside their busy season, perhaps their best chance of staying invisible.

A copy of a tourist guide and a few phone calls later and he was able to promise Marty that after another six or so hours of driving, they could stop.

EARLIER

Once Scully's mom returned to her own home, it was easier for Mulder just to come and go from Scully's. He didn't actually move in, but it was a close thing and separating became a little tougher each time.

Goodnight kisses suggested that the hours spent trying to create a nursery out of "some assembly required" furniture and paint were dates. Breakfast meetings implied that their plans, at least for the day ahead, were entwined.

Scully was on 24 hour call from an ever-demanding son and initially grateful for Mulder's assumption of child-minding duties. Even so, she looked more tired every time he saw her. She was a little later getting dressed in the morning, milk stains remained a little longer on her clothes during the day.

She looked as if she was running on a treadmill, never still, even when the reason for it was lost on Mulder. There were times when it was almost as if she wanted to wake the baby up, as if she was looking for more work. Energy expended without anything to show for it.

"You're pushing yourself too hard. Get some rest." He'd have suggested bubble baths, strawberries and cream, and pink champagne, but he knew that she would just think that he was joking.

He'd thrown her out of the nursery when he saw her repainting a wall that he'd already finished undercoating and was waiting to dry. "All that's going to happen is that I'll have to paint it again, over a less even base."

"Since when did you learn to decorate?"

He gathered up laundry and took it down to the machines in the basement, only to find her handwashing sheets when he returned. "Couldn't it have just waited an hour until there was another machine empty?"

"I'm perfectly capable of washing a few bits."

Mulder sighed, wondering how the hell he was going to get soaking wet sheets down to the dryers.

How to say it? Maybe he should go for an all out assault and make some proposal like, "look after yourself and the baby, I'll look after the rest." He backed off from the idea, didn't that sound too much like him trying to co-opt her home?

Instead he contented himself with vague, amorphous suggestions to "rest" and offers to take over a task as soon as she decided that it was her new priority. He knew what she was doing, she was burying herself in work. The fact that it was in her home rather than at the FBI made no difference. She was staving off fear by keeping busy.

Maybe if he'd just waited for a few days before talking to her about DNA tests then he wouldn't have needed to have the work done clandestinely. At least, that was what he hoped, because the results from the first set of tests were due back today from both labs and he was going to have a hard time mentioning them, even if they simply confirmed her faith.

He took the initiative and called the lab, announcing himself as Mr. Jefferson, awaiting paternity information.

"Ah, Mr. Jefferson. I've been trying to reach you. The test needs to be repeated."

"What? Why?"

"I suggest you bring the child and his mother to the lab, and we'll take fresh samples from everyone."

"I'm not following you."

"Sorry, the samples you gave us must have been mis-labeled. The child's sample and yours appear to be identical."

Mulder paused to understand what had been said and decided that he'd rather not. After a we'll be in touch and a goodbye he hung up and immediately dialed another number.

"Frohike. Do you have the results?"

"We've asked them to rerun it."

"Why?"

"Possible cross-contamination of samples. You couldn't have mis-labeled them could you?"

"No."

"That's what I thought. Best guess, either someone switched them on you at the lab or else..."

"He's a clone," Mulder completed, almost inaudibly. He turned the volume back up. "What about the match to Scully?"

"Zip. Nada. Zero. It's like he's your twin."

Scully was still pacing the room and William was still crying and Mulder didn't know which one to try to pull into his arms first.

She didn't slow down as she started asking questions. "How sure are you?"

"As sure as I can be, without you running the tests yourself."

"How dare you do this to me. How dare you."

"Scully?"

"Running tests behind my back. Not trusting me."

"It wasn't that. I had to know."

"You only had to ask, if you wanted to know who the father was. If it wasn't obvious to you who the father was."

"It wasn't a matter of that."

"Wasn't it?"

He was pleading, desperate for her to see the rest of the story. "I wanted to know if he was what we thought."

She snorted out a brief gasp of air. "I thought he was mine."

"He is yours."

"No. No, he's not."

Mulder was scrambling now, trying to get his grip in increasingly treacherous ground. "I always thought of him as ours."

"No, I thought of him as ours. You thought of him as mine. You think I never heard you call him 'Scully's baby'?"

"Please. I don't know what I was expecting from the tests. But I thought it might give us a clue if he was still in jeopardy."

"Get out. Get out now."

He stood up and moved towards her, but she took a sideways step to bypass him, holding up the palm of her hand as a stop sign. He slouched, defeated. "Will you be OK?"

"What? You don't trust me to look after him?"

There was no answer to that because frankly he wasn't sure. No. Of course he trusted her. "I just don't want you to go through this alone."

She'd stopped pacing now, stood up very straight with her arms tightly folded and her head held high.

He gave in. "OK. I'll be back tonight. If you need me before then I'll have my phone with me."

She nodded and he left.

The term twin was altogether less frightening than the word clone. An identical twin, born to a different mother, forty years after the original one. Now it was back to being frightening again.

What a fucking mess. Maybe Scully, ever rational, always compassionate, would have found a way to handle it. Not optimistic about his chances, he rang her doorbell, sensing that this might not be a good moment to barge straight in.

Scully, red-eyed and gray-skinned, opened the door. Her expression lifeless and unreadable, she stepped aside to let him enter.

She seemed to be preparing herself to speak so he stayed silent, and walked carefully to the couch, sitting down so that she had height advantage as well as freedom of movement.

The floor was literally hers, and she obliged by speaking first. "I'm sorry I reacted like that. It isn't your fault."

"I didn't handle it very well."

She held up her hand to silence him. "It wasn't a matter of how you handled it. You told me something that I didn't want to know, I blamed the messenger. I've been talking to my therapist."

Mulder nodded, grateful that she had found someone to talk to. Well aware that he'd failed to be that person.

She cleared her throat. "She believes." Another hesitation. "I believe that I have been the victim of what constitutes a medical rape. My body has been violated and used. Your child was implanted in me to fulfill someone else's agenda."

She stopped again, looked him square in the eyes even though hers were already full to the brim with tears and she couldn't possibly see him. She kept her voice under close control. "I also consider it a violation of you. Though you may not necessarily feel the same."

Fuck. He wasn't altogether certain that he could feel anything right now. Whatever he felt, it would either have to be nothing or too much.

He rose to his feet again, reached for her, she didn't pull away. He said the only word he could think of. "Scully." A prayer, an apology, a question.

They stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms, for a long time.

Mulder spent the rest of the night on Scully's couch. At some point during the evening they'd reverted to default behaviors and had managed to avoid the subject both of William's conception and his future. Just as efficiently, they'd succeeded in ignoring the question of their futures as well.

When he woke up it was around two in the morning and Scully was safely in bed, with William in a crib just a few feet away from her. Almost as if nothing had changed.

Mulder decided to head back to his own place. Maybe grab a couple more hours of sleep, take a shower, change of clothes, then back to Scully's in time for breakfast. It sounded like a plan. And tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of their lives.

He needed to analyze this whole business of cloning though, no way did that fit in with any kind of mass re-population scheme. He wasn't megalomaniacal enough to think anyone would want to see hundreds of Fox Mulders knocking around.

Though actually the same rule could be applied to the question of why someone would want to have two Fox Mulders, or even one for that matter.

Something to do with that mind-reading trick he'd picked up and that had nearly sent him insane? Gibson Praise was surely a better starting point.

Unless it was something personal. What if the conception had taken place while Scully was on her adventure with the cancer man? And if he still had that idea in his head about being everyone's daddy? As if it mattered where the genetic material came from, Fox was still Bill Mulder's son.

Well, it clearly mattered to someone where the genes had come from, otherwise he wouldn't be going to meet his much younger, twin brother, over at Scully's place.

It was early when he arrived back at her apartment, so this time he did take the risk and let himself in. She was nowhere to be seen and he hoped that meant that she was happily asleep in bed. When an hour had passed and she still hadn't appeared he started to get nervous.

He did trust her, of course he did. But she had been through some traumatic stuff and if yesterday had been the last straw....

He cautiously opened the bedroom door and found neither Scully nor the baby. He checked the bathroom and saw no clues there. Back to the bedroom, he checked her closets and the baby's drawers.

Nothing suggested that she'd gone far. Maybe she'd just run out to the store?

At seven in the morning?

A walk perhaps, a little fresh air for the two of them. Where would she go? Was there a park nearby that she might have gone to?

He called her cellular number, but the plaintive bleat from her living room demonstrated that it hadn't been required.

There were no signs of a struggle, nor of forced entry. But then, the place wasn't bolted or chained when he arrived, anyone entering would have needed only a key. Or a way to get Scully to open the door. By looking like someone she knew perhaps? It wasn't as if the morphs had vanished.

He felt lost, helpless. Should he go out looking for her? She might come back at any moment.

He'd almost resolved to doing a quick tour of the neighborhood when he heard a key in the door.

Scully walked straight past him and into the bedroom as if he wasn't even there. She placed William carefully in his crib, kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed.

Mulder followed her in. "Scully? Scully?"

He walked over to her, her eyes were already shut and she was snoring softly. It was as if she'd fallen instantly asleep.

He wasn't sure whether to wake her or not. She was clearly exhausted. She needed sleep.

But it hadn't been right, the way she'd just ignored him. As if she were hypnotized? Or sleepwalking?

He didn't see that he had a choice, so he shook her gently, gradually raising his voice. "Scully. Scully." On the third "Scully" she started to open her eyes, stretching cat-like as she did.

She yawned, and started to roll out of bed, but Mulder pushed her back. She smiled up at him. "Is William awake? I didn't hear him."

She noticed her clothes. "God. I must have been really tired last night." She looked at the clock and realized that it was eight. "He must have been tired, too. That's a record."

Mulder couldn't wait any longer. "Where have you been?"

"What? I've been asleep." Her sleepiness was wearing off fast. "Is something wrong? The baby!"

Mulder quickly shook his head, apologizing for panicking her. "He's fine. But I got here at 6 and you weren't here. You opened the front door about 5 minutes ago. You walked straight past me, even though I was talking to you, and you came in here."

She shook her head, rejecting his accusations.

"Yes, you did, Scully. That's why you're dressed, it's why your shoes are wet."

"What?"

He handed her the shoe, still glistening with morning dew from her travels.

She ran her finger over it. "I don't." She shook her head, not wanting to believe it. "I don't remember."

"Is it possible that this has happened before? While your mom was staying?"

She shook her head again, but then her whole body slumped down onto the pillows, hiding her face.

Mulder sighed. "It has, hasn't it?"

He could see her nod even though the movement was disguised by the bed linen.

"Have you ever sleepwalked?"

A strangled laugh.

Mulder tried again. "Should I ask your mom?"

She shook her head, mumbled a request. "Give me a minute."

He withdrew immediately. "I'll get some breakfast rolling."

Another strangled laugh from the body on the bed.

He closed the door behind him.

The fruit juice and the cold coffee were still on the table when Scully finally left the bedroom, he'd thrown the food away uneaten. Maybe they'd be able to eat later.

Mulder noted that she'd changed her clothes.

She answered a question that he hadn't asked. "He's still asleep."

"A record," Mulder suggested, attempting to force a smile.

"So I suspect you may be right about us both having stayed out all night."

Mulder nodded, not even trying to smile.

"I've let you down."

Mulder shook his head, rejecting the thought as impossible.

She raised a finger to her lips to shush him from coming to her defense. "Not deliberately. I had a nightmare last week, while my mom was staying." She shook her head, snorting at her own words. "I had a dream, it was only when I thought about it the next day that it seemed like a nightmare. But at the time, I felt nothing except peace. Can you imagine?"

He nodded, there was a bleary moment in his memories of Sam's abduction that had felt like that. A voice soothing him, telling him that no harm would come to her and that she would return.

"Someone wanted to run tests on William and I wanted to stop them, but the voice kept telling me that no harm would come to him. I was so scared, they let me hold him all the time they were running their tests."

The silence that followed her words became oppressive and Mulder knew that he had to ask. "And you had the dream again last night?"

"Not quite. This time when the voice asked for him, I let him go, just handed him over."

Mulder sucked in a deep breath. "You trusted them?"

"I don't think I did."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Mulder finally found the words. "It doesn't have to mean anything, Scully. You knew that he was OK after the first test. You might have trusted them."

"How could I?" Her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. "How could I trust them, when I don't even trust myself."

"It's OK. I'll stay here. I'll be here, if it happens again. So you won't have to go through it alone."

Every word she spoke dripped with despair. "No. You don't get it, Mulder. They said next time, I don't need to go with him at all. And I was grateful."

"But."

"Don't try and made excuses for me. I know what I did. I betrayed him." Her voice rising steadily to a horrified crescendo. "And us."

"No. Yesterday, the results of the tests. You were in shock. I never should have left you."

"No. You should leave. You and William. You've got to get him away from here."

"You think we should run?" He stammered to a halt as her eyes told him that was exactly what she was thinking. He tried to sound reassuring, like he was a professional at that kind of thing. "I've got arrangements in place, we can go any time. How long do you need?"

"Just time to say goodbye."

And though her words were ambiguous, her eyes weren't. And it hit him then, that she wasn't talking about the three of them running. She was talking about him taking William. "You don't want to come?"

"I can't, I can't trust myself."

"But I trust you."

"Then don't. If they'd offered me a baby of my own in exchange for William I'd have taken it, do you know how sick that makes me feel?"

He did. And he didn't believe it. "You wouldn't."

She was crying, soft beads of tears sliding along her cheeks. "No. I wouldn't. But I've fallen this far, how long before I reach rock bottom?"

"I'll be there to stop you."

"No." She shook her head, sniffing now. "I know you've been trying to make sense of it all, so have I, I've been thinking too."

Mulder nodded, scared of what might come next, but forcing himself to listen.

"I've been thinking that maybe they're telling the truth about the implant. That they flicked a switch and it prepared my body. And my brain, too. Made me want a child so badly that I couldn't see straight." It was hard to hear her words as she struggled for air, but she carried on, determined to deliver her speech in one hit. "And now, when they press another button, I go running to them, baby in hand."

Mulder shook his head. "I can't believe that."

"Why not?"

Because I don't want to? He paused for a moment to give himself time to think of a reply that wouldn't push her further away. "Let's just say they were capable of transmitting instructions to the implant, there must be something we can do to block it."

"Like what? A lead lined necklace?

"I don't know, something."

Her voice became suddenly matter of fact. "I tried to have it removed, you know."

"You can't. The cancer."

"I can." She paused, the daggers in her eyes flashing warning signals to remind him that it was her life they were discussing now. "I thought I could. But then I had it examined in an imaging scanner, and it's not like the other one, a quick flick of a scalpel and gone. It's as if this one's alive. It has threads into my brain, tendrils down my spinal cord, everywhere. The surgery would kill me."

Head bowed, he closed his eyes. Oh God, what had he done to her?

Her voice, soft in the silence. "So you see now, why you have to run."

NOW

Marty was sitting comfortably in his car seat on the steps of the cabin. The sun was up and the birds were singing. Mulder had picked up a newspaper at the store, five minutes away by car, and full of everything that roadside 7-Elevens usually lacked.

Coffee, sunflower seeds and diapers were not just in stock, but his favorite brands were on the shelves. Since when had he had a favorite brand of diaper? He groaned and buried his head in the box scores, reeling them off for Marty's education.

"You've got to wonder about him starting out like that. He had a dog of a season last year. Now, if I was a betting man, which I'm not, I'd guess he was carrying an injury and they fixed him up over the winter. Trouble is, a chronic injury, even a minor one, it comes back and bites them on the ass later."

Marty clucked in surprise and Mulder spun round to see what had disturbed him. "It's a pigeon, kid. A big one. A man-sized meal of a pigeon." The bird flew away in disgust. Marty cooed.

It was idyllic, no doubt about it. A family size luxury log cabin with everything the aspiring author requiring solitude might need. The proprietor hadn't lied. The keys had been waiting up at the Lodge for a quick getaway, no forms to fill in, no missing wife to lie about.

Trees and grass and a distant view of mountains and absolutely no driving to do today. He'd stocked up with enough to see them through the week, though he certainly didn't expect to stay here more than a day or two. Most of it would keep and what wouldn't, they would just have to eat first. He smiled at Marty. OK, forget the "we," Mulder would just have to eat the perishables first.

It was a place for thinking and more dangerously for feeling. Mulder lay back on the sun-lounger. Marty was snuggled up against his chest and showing off his flexibility by staring at his toes.

It was Krycek's death as much as Marty's birth that had finally shaken the numbness from him, convinced him that there really was a difference between alive and dead. The world had gone from a kind of fuzzy black and white to dazzling Technicolor.

Unfortunately, the return of feelings couldn't have come at a worse time. It was awfully hard to think and feel at the same time. The tears that started to fall had no one origin, some had probably been stored since before the abduction, some were about a future that might never happen. He let them all come.

Marty was a reassuring weight against his heart.

EARLIER

Scully had retreated to the bedroom at Marty's first cry, leaving Mulder to try and make sense of the situation.

It was a long shot, he still hadn't made any sense out of Alex Krycek's enigmatic performance. Was he now contemplating the very thing that had scared Krycek into wanting him finally dead?

Why hadn't he asked Krycek while he still had the chance? Why the show of false bravado about not needing Alex's lies? Simplest explanation first, he'd assumed that death was imminent and he'd rather die dumb that die knowing he was wrong. Really? He sighed, unhappy with that profile of himself.

But hadn't Krycek claimed that he'd always hoped that Mulder would win? So, perhaps it was only his failure that made Krycek finally conclude that he was a liability. To Alex Krycek or to the entire human race? He should have asked.

But he hadn't, and now he was trapped in a spiral of bad logic and ill-formed assumptions.

William was the difference. Perhaps.

Because William was dangerous? Or because Mulder would be changed by Wiliam's birth? He'd survived so many things, led a charmed life really, considering the death and destruction around him. The Cancer Man had said that he was protecting him, Krycek claimed the same thing, and though it seemed unlikely, it also seemed very believable.

His mind flashed back to the months on the ship, and further back still until his brain recalled the jumble of other people's thoughts that had invaded it. And the eerie silence that had followed the smoker's intervention.

The threat had moved on. Bill Mulder had tried to create a vaccine, had wanted to fight back. But there were enemies everywhere. Human factions and alien, replacements and clones, uncertain and unprincipled alliances, until no one could be trusted.

Unless you could read minds, cut through the bullshit and know who the good guys were? And he'd been given that gift once and hadn't been able to handle it. Perhaps Bill Mulder's legacy wasn't supposed to be a vaccine, perhaps it was a son who could find the right people and bring them together. Maybe some of the right people weren't even human.

Perhaps William was another attempt.

He headed towards the bedroom door, eager to bounce his ideas off Scully, but the sound of pain stopped him in his tracks. He forced himself to listen and heard her sobbing, and the baby's quiet wails that were gradually building in counterpoint to hers. He pushed the door carefully open. "Scully?"

She was back on the bed, head buried between pillows again. William lay on a changing mat, half-undressed.

Mulder did a quick assessment and decided to deal with the easiest problem first. He freed the baby from the rest of his clothes. Clean clothes and a new diaper later and Mulder had taken him as far as he could. Had he been fed?

"Scully?"

"I couldn't do it."

"What?"

"I couldn't feed him. I couldn't change him. He's..." Her voice trailed off.

He deliberately chose to avoid looking for deeper meaning in her words. "I've changed him, but..."

"There's a bottle in the fridge, I got into the habit while Mom was here so she could feed him sometimes and if I went back to work..."

Mulder nodded, even though she couldn't see him.

When he returned from the kitchen, heated bottle in hand, Scully was sitting on the living room couch.

He walked into the bedroom and picked up the baby. His brain was already rebelling against the name William. Named after his father. A little too close to home under the circumstances.

He prowled the room for a moment, indecisive, then returned to the living room with the child in his arms. He had to know just how bad things were. He got his answer when she immediately retreated to the kitchen.

The baby drank fast and yowled in protest when Mulder forced him to slow down by pulling the nipple away for a few seconds.

Scully didn't reappear until the baby was safely back in his crib. "I'm sorry," she said sadly.

"It's OK."

"No. It's not. I'll make bottles for you. I'll pick up some formula, too. I can't..."

This time he let himself hear her unspoken words, heard her say that she couldn't touch her son. "Why?"

"Don't you get it, Mulder. I was raped. And every time I look at him, I see you."

NOW

Mulder channel surfed as he cooked, leaving the TV on CNN as the food preparation got messier and having to wash his hands, before as well as after using the remote, became irritating.

Marty was sleeping, and, for once, Mulder thought it was real and not just an act. Fresh air had worn them both out.

"A Maryland woman's appeal for the return of her missing grandson has been given legal backing by a judge in Washington DC. Despite the intervention of the baby's mother."

Mulder picked up a paper towel and moved closer to the TV screen.

The mother, FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, undergoing psychiatric treatment for stress and depression, had failed to convince the court that the child's best interests would be served by granting custody to Fox Mulder, recently fired by the FBI for professional misconduct.

The Judge agreed with the child's grandmother that the lifestyle of the man, thought to be the father, coupled with his refusal to return to DC to allow the family to see the baby, was a cause for concern. The court ordered that the baby be returned to DC pending a custody hearing.

Mulder couldn't even rely on the poor quality of the photo. The 40-year-old man with the 6-week-old baby was identification enough. Why the hell hadn't the Gunmen warned him? Perhaps because he hadn't read any email in the last three days.

He tried to calm himself with reminders that not everyone would be watching the news, and only a minority of that minority would make the match even if they were. And even fewer of those would actually try to follow it up.

Unfortunately, it was exactly the kind of story that could sometimes attract too much interest. A baby in peril, missing with a disgraced FBI agent, unwanted by his unstable mother. He just had to hope that something more photogenic cropped up.

He returned to the kitchen, hoping that by the time the potatoes were ready, he'd be able to swallow.

Scarcely anyone had seen him at this place. The keys had been left in an envelope on the counter at the Lodge, but whoever had been manning the desk had been busy watching TV instead. He'd never have seen the baby, nor even the car seat.

They could have seen the car seat at the store, that couldn't be avoided, but since he was buying bumper packs of Pampers there was no point pretending. Mulder had made a joke about his wife's shopping list and the spotty youth behind the counter had scarcely bothered to acknowledge his presence, even as he handed over his money.

Basically, he was as safe here as anywhere for the next couple of days and he had supplies to see him through. But he was going to have to take a risk, set up a new internet account and see what the Gunmen had to say for themselves. Up until now, he'd used libraries and cafes to read his email, but he couldn't leave Marty alone and he didn't dare be seen with him now, not when the news story was so new.

After some fumbling, he got the connection he needed.

He clicked on the first message, only one line mattered. "Trouble ahead with granny." Too late to do anything, not that there was much he could have done. But at least they hadn't forgotten him.

And from the second, smothered by so much chat about horse racing that he almost deleted it as spam. "You were right, it's in the blood. Place your bets."

He carefully prepared the syringes and rolled back his sleeve, the barrel looked like no size at all compared to his arm and he watched, oddly fascinated as it filled with red. He'd been squeamish at first, but practice and curiosity had overcome his misgivings about doing this to himself.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, his qualms about doing it to Marty hadn't changed. The syringe looked enormous, like he was preparing to steal a whole armful. It was a trade, but it didn't seem like fair one. He was apologizing as he picked up the baby and could taste blood in his mouth from biting his lip before the transfer was complete.

Memories were dangerous things and Mulder's memories were becoming richer and more detailed by the day.

Was that because they were all that he had? Memories and Marty.

He wasn't conscious of any other changes yet, but perhaps that was to be expected. After all, the quantities moving were, of necessity, tiny. He was big, and Marty was awfully small.

Unless he was changing, but it was too subtle for his conscious brain to pick up on yet. What if he'd heard enough of Angie's thoughts to allow him to release Marty into her temporary care? What if he'd known that Carl was the right passer-by to chat with, rather than the woman with the toddler?

Anyway, neither he nor Marty seemed any worse off for it. Or if they were, then he had no way to tell.

EARLIER

The Gunmen were sympathetic but pessimistic.

Byers restated the problem. "If it were just the chip, we might have a chance, but it's not, it's rearranged organic matter around it."

Mulder pushed. "What about blocking signals to it?"

"If we knew what form the incoming information takes, what frequency it uses. If it's broadcast, we might be able to set up some kind of counter-measures, but it could be something else, a visible message in the TV signal, audio added to your phone calls. Anything."

Scully stiffened, paralyzed for an instant, then slumped, like all the air had gone from her lungs and she was deflating. "I can't live like this."

She looked pleadingly at Mulder and he shook his head. Scully's passivity which had so frightened him when he'd first returned had now passed, and with it the aura of calm and joy that she'd radiated.

To his horror, he had what he had thought he wanted, his old Scully had come back. And now he found himself wishing that it had never happened. If he hadn't run those tests. If he hadn't realized that she was missing in the middle of the night.

He sighed, refusing to let that argument immobilize him further. It wasn't as if he'd had any choice, and postponing the discovery wouldn't have made it any better.

Frohike tried to sound positive. "There are people who could monitor your brain while we try blocking things out. We could look for pattern changes."

Scully had obviously already thought of that. "That could take forever."

Byers responded, "I don't see that we have a choice."

Scully replied with thunder in her voice, "I've got a choice."

Mulder winced, hearing exactly what she wasn't saying. The combination of exhaustion, unimaginable stress, hormones and this debate, that had turned her body into public property, was too much to bear, even for a woman who prided herself on her strength. Perhaps especially for such a woman, because if she didn't start bending soon, she was going to snap.

He kept his words simple. "Please try it."

Langly, who'd been left, literally, holding the baby, chose the silence that followed Mulder's remark to enter the room. "I think I may have something."

Relieved by the interruption, they followed Langly into the other room where a freshly prepared microscope slide of the baby's blood was displayed on the computer screen. Langly continued, "It's a long time since I did biology but that doesn't look normal to me. And before you ask, yes, I did wash my hands first."

Things, too awkwardly geometrical to be truly organic, scuttled in tight formation across the screen. The group gathered around, shuffling position and peering at the monitor so everyone had a clear view. Byers frowned, trying to think of the question that this picture might answer.

Scully locked eyes with Mulder. "Nanites."

He blinked an acknowledgment.

Mulder was surprised to find his nightmares filled with Alex Krycek. There were so many other possible subjects available. Still, Krycek it was, and that was probably significant in itself.

Bottle-warming duty was so low on his list of stressors that he didn't even think about why he was doing it. More particularly, he didn't brood over Scully's decision to stop breastfeeding. That was her choice and the alternatives were there.

In any case, Scully's initial horror at contact with the baby was already moderating in favor of a big sister's quiet interest. Which bothered Mulder more by its overtones of incest than anything else. And that didn't matter much, the chances of any change in Mulder and Scully's relationship had been put on indefinite hold.

This was enough, and almost too much.

Scully still cooed as Mulder gave the baby his bottle. Mulder noted that she had stopped referring to him as William as well. She still relaxed against Mulder as he supported her body, molding himself to her in a way that pillows never could.

Mulder's voice was soothing, even though his words were not. "I think Krycek planned to take the baby."

"He's dead."

"Krycek only took precious things. If he was important to Krycek then he's important to someone else."

"That's why you have to leave."

Mulder sighed, determined to talk this through, even though the conclusions had already been drawn. "He says he kept me alive."

"Didn't kill you when he had the opportunity, perhaps. There's a difference."

"Not to him. He didn't want to kill me the other night. That's why Skinner had time to stop him. I think it was a sudden decision. It may have been something that Knowles said. He knew that he had to take the baby himself, perhaps to keep him away from Knowles. But that if I was alive, I'd hunt him down."

She tensed in his arms and he rolled his hands along her sides as if the stroking might steady her, or himself.

It still seemed right to him, even spoken aloud. "He wanted me on his side, but knew that wasn't possible. So he had to kill me instead, to stop me from leading the wrong people to him."

"He didn't even try to explain."

"He wanted to, even with the gun on me, he wanted to talk, but he knew that I wouldn't listen." Mulder's hands stopped moving.

And Scully supplied the conclusion. "Because I was one of those wrong people."

NOW

Mulder loaded the laundry into the machine. It was the first time he'd done his own washing since they'd run. There were a lot of firsts about staying in the cabin.

The first time they'd spent more than a day in one place. The first time Marty had slept through the night. The first time that, legally speaking, they were fugitives.

Scully had to be absolutely distraught. To have her new family stolen from her, and then to lose her old family, too. He could imagine the whole thing, terrifyingly easy to see how it would have played out in court.

Did they ask her about rape counseling? Did they ask her about paternity tests? Did they ask her why she would give her son away? Did they ask her about her disgraced former partner? Did they add two and two and come up with a completely different nightmare?

He blinked to clear his eyes and took deep breaths to steady his nerves. He couldn't think about this, if he did, he would have to run to her. And he couldn't. Not until she told him to.

What now?

He added the powder to the laundry and headed outside to meet his visitor. To his confusion there was no one there. Hadn't he heard something? What? Over the sound of the dishwasher and the CD player, and his own panicked breathing, how had he heard someone approaching who had to be at least a hundred yards away?

He checked that his gun was loaded and close at hand.

The jogger ran on, sticking to the distant footpath, like Mulder had seen maybe half a dozen others do since they'd arrived here.

Coincidence.

He must have just wanted an excuse to go outside, or maybe it was the wind, or a cat, or nothing.

Besides, Marty wanted a drink. Which was odd. Hadn't the baby been happily sound asleep last time he looked? Hadn't that been why it had seemed like a good moment to do laundry and tidy up?

Mulder headed for the refrigerator to pick up the next bottle. No, that wasn't quite right, the baby wanted a drink, not food. He boiled water instead, mentally apologizing to Marty for the time it was going to take to cool.

Marty gurgled as Mulder entered the room, and was delighted rather than disappointed by the contents of the bottle. Mulder was relieved by this new knowledge of what the baby needed.

Which begged the question really, how had Mulder known? Marty hadn't made a noise, so there were no clues in his tone. The timing gave no guidance, their routines weren't yet that rigid and it had certainly been long enough since the last bottle.

It was happening then. He could hear people, a jogger and Marty at least. Or perhaps he could just hear Marty and he was passing on the information?

He remembered Scully's observations from the first days. "It's as if he knows what you think of people."

Maybe the baby had always been able to hear him.

Marty cooed and tried to steal a button from Mulder's shirt.

EARLIER

Scully's initial assumption was that the nanites had been injected into the baby during one of her mysterious nighttime excursions. And that it was the nanites that would control his future.

Mulder was doubtful, his instincts telling him that if that were the case, why clone him? Why make Scully give birth? Surely if the magic was in the nanites, why not use any baby? Why involve the very people who might delve deeper?

Byers looked guilty, but he sounded scared as he pulled Mulder aside for a private word. A friend forced to hurt a friend. "If they hadn't used Scully as the mother, how would you have treated him?"

As an experiment? As a stranger? As a responsibility, grudgingly accepted, rather than a life to be defended whatever the cost? It was a tough question, so Mulder didn't answer.

Byers had obviously been thinking, had probably rehearsed this attack. Maybe he'd even discussed it with Frohike and Langly, only to find that he would have to do the initial assault single-handed. "But now, you think of him as her son."

Mulder nodded. "And I could never let him down." Maybe someone would tell him something he didn't know. He turned, shrugging apologetically as he did, and headed back towards the main group.

"I think this may be related to my father's work."

Everyone turned to face him, and Mulder didn't look away, braced himself to keep talking. "Bill Mulder thought he could find a way to fight them. I may have been one of his experiments."

Scully mumbled a gentle, "Mulder," as if she could somehow absolve him from his father's sins.

But he just shook his head and carried on talking. "The only special talent I've ever had, nearly killed me. I heard people's thoughts. But I went into some kind of overload. I think the same thing happened when I was a kid, and they found some way to switch it off."

He frowned, plucking the words out of the air, testing each phrase as he said it. "I think that's why they wanted a clone, to pick up the skill that I was supposed to have. I think the nanites are an attempt to control it, to protect him from himself."

Scully looked up at him. "Why?"

"Because the lies run so deep that no one knows who to trust. When those men died at Ellis Airbase, it wiped out their corruption and violence but it also destroyed a generation of alliances, and no one dares make new ones."

Scully made a willing sounding-board, presumably glad for a new focus to the discussion. "If they need someone who can read minds, why not use Gibson?"

"Because he's not a little kid anymore, he's spent most of his life with the bad guys. They can't trust him."

"Who are they? Who made him?"

"I wish I knew." A vague ghost of a smile formed and passed. "But then I'm not a mind-reader."

Frohike intervened. "But it'll be years before the baby could be useful."

Mulder waved a hand in vague acknowledgment. "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

The group debated possibilities over coffee and pizza, determined tests and methodologies. Working through the night and into the next day, trying to understand and plan.

The nanites "died" instantly on contact with other people's blood, cracking apart and crumbling to dust. But they were happy enough to treat Mulder's blood as home, at least on a microscope slide.

It looked as if the nanites were being manufactured within the child's body. A modification to the pancreas appeared to be the likeliest source. So far as they could tell, with the tests they could run here, the nanites were the only oddity about the child. There wasn't even any sign of an implant.

Mulder frowned as they prepared to run yet another test. "How come I'm getting bruises from these needles and he isn't?" And the baby had to have been through ten times the number of tests that he had, and the kid was perhaps a twentieth of his body mass.

Scully was biting her lip. "He seems not to care. He jumps when he feels the needle enter, but that's it." She hesitated, remembering something. "The other night, he scratched himself with a fingernail, but by the time I'd wiped the blood away, there was no mark."

"The nanites?"

"For a super soldier."

Mulder theorized that the nanites were patrolling the baby, as protective of him and as organized in their repair work as white blood cells attacking intruders. They drew extra samples and planned further tests, Mulder vetoing more than he approved, until he finally called a stop to proceedings, at least for the night.

Byers drew him aside again, determined to follow through on his earlier remarks. "We need to dig deeper, you know that. You don't know what you're dealing with."

"A newborn baby." Full of possibilities and dangers.

"If he'd been born in a lab, if your genetically engineered clone looked like opening Pandora's Box then you'd..." Byers stammered over his words, though he'd clearly been preparing them for hours. A single glance from Mulder would stop him in his tracks. But that response never came, so Byers stumbled on. "You'd think of a way to deal with him." Even Byers couldn't say kill. "At least, you'd want to know what you were up against."

Mulder nodded. Perhaps this was where Bill Mulder had stood decades before, with him, with Sam? Hadn't Spender and the others sacrificed families - their own and other people's? Fat lot of good it had done anyone. "I hear you, John."

Byers swallowed uncomfortably, but said nothing.

Mulder shrugged. He could see his friend's dilemma. The fear of the unknown. He shared that fear with Byers. Just how far might he one day have to go to defend the child? To die for someone was one thing, to kill was something else. No way to know until the time came.

Right now, it was time to break for the day and to get some rest. Mulder gathered the baby into his arms and thanked the men for their help. Scully was carrying too many bags as they prepared to leave. Frohike took over her burden, escorting them all to the car.

Frohike had something to say, but Mulder pre-empted it by squeezing him on the shoulder and shaking his head. They smiled apologetic goodbyes.

That night in Scully's apartment, Scully said the words that Mulder didn't want to hear, and also the words that he needed. "When you leave, don't warn me, don't say goodbye. And I'll work with the Gunmen on the implant. I promise, I'll try."

And though he'd promised her that there would be no goodbyes, with Scully safely asleep, he'd kissed her hair before picking up the baby and leaving.

NOW

So now what? If he thought that he could read people's minds, shouldn't he put that theory to the test, and, if so, how? Stroll into town and see if the jumbled thoughts of a crowded bar would hospitalize him again?

A stupid idea. It might satisfy his curiosity, but it wouldn't improve their situation.

There was no point in him deliberately sticking his head above the parapet. And equally no point in pretending to himself that he could just keep running.

He needed a new identity and he needed it now.

Despite his misgivings, he plugged the PC back into the phone line and sent a one line message. "I need a woman. Any ideas?"

The woman wouldn't be permanent, but she needed to be a volunteer and she needed to be trustworthy. He'd thought about calling Scully's mother but had discarded the idea as not merely naive but impossibly risky, for all of them.

At least, if he was right about what was happening to him, or Marty, or the both of them, then he would be able to check the honesty of anyone claiming to want to help. And there were a lot of claims being made back in Washington.

He knew that both Scully and the Gunmen had been under pressure from more than one source. There were people who wanted to discuss Mulder's whereabouts, who were making promises, who claimed that they were willing to offer help and protection.

It wasn't just Scully's family who was asking questions and attracting attention to the difficulty of hiding a baby. The FBI, particularly Doggett and Reyes, wanted to hear more. Then there was Skinner, who knew enough to care but wasn't sure how to show it.

The buzz surrounding the birth had led MUFON members to Scully's door. Among them were dying women who'd had implants removed and who had nothing to lose but who saw maybe a last chance to make their suffering count by helping. And all those nameless people who appeared to have an interest including, Scully believed, at least one of Billy Miles' "friends" who'd attended the birth.

Then there were the professionals in sharp suits, who talked about new identities as if they were US marshals running a witness protection scheme. And would-be leaders of new alliances who offered Mulder, Scully and their child safe passage and a good life in return for just a little cooperation. Even Marita had come out of the woodwork.

Mulder was not ready to place his trust in people or organizations, though if he was right about Marty, then there might come a time when he could do that.

But even now, he could imagine trusting a person, provided it was the right one. If only because he had to. A family, even a fake one, could be invisible for a while.

If they could come up with a way of organizing an identity parade of the suspects, Mulder was confident that he, or maybe Marty, could pick a favorite.

If they could come up with such a list.

If they could even find a way to handle the logistics.

And under all the bravado and the bluster there was one vague hope in Mulder's heart, which he wouldn't admit, even to himself.

Perhaps Scully was free now. Perhaps she could come herself.

The shortlist was short and didn't include Scully.

They had disguised it with puzzles and multi-layered cross references that only Mulder would get. But no matter how creative he got with his interpretation of the clues, it didn't include Scully.

It did however, include someone whose name he recognized as belonging to Billy Miles' high school class. And as she was only five hundred miles away, that seemed like as good a place to start as any. Was this the woman who Scully had remembered from the birth?

No matter, he would know her soon enough.

Marty was disappointed to find himself back in the car seat and Mulder knew just how he was feeling. The thought of another full day's drive was bad enough. Not knowing what would be waiting at the end of the road almost paralyzed him, made it hard even to keep his foot on the gas.

He was within fifty miles of her house when he saw a motel sign. Should he check in for the night and go to her fresh in the morning? Or just keep on driving?

Anxiety over the outcome outvoted caution and common sense, he drove on.

They were only about a hundred yards from her home when he stopped again.

"OK, Marty. Are you with me on this?"

The baby, who'd dozed happily after his last feeding was wide awake now.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Mulder carefully removed the baby from the seat, and maneuvered him into the sling around his neck. They approached the house at walking speed.

There was no sense of danger here, so much so that Mulder was having trouble concentrating as he exited the car, uncertain what he'd been expecting to feel. He was disappointed that he couldn't feel anything wrong, except his own nervousness.

Marty yawned against his breast and Mulder took that as a message to quit stalling and get on with it.

A tall woman in her early thirties answered the door, dark hair and intelligent eyes that brightened as she looked at him, and a smile that blossomed as she spoke. "Agent Mulder, what a lovely surprise. I was hoping it was you."

Mulder shook his head. "Have we met?"

"No. But I've seen him before," she supplied, smiling admiringly at the baby. Her voice took on a new urgency. "I'm glad you came. I think you need our help."

"Our?"

She led him deeper into the house, talking as she walked. "They say they just want us to be able to help ourselves. But there have been so many lies."

"And you need someone who can recognize the truth?"

She sighed. "It's not safe for you here."

Mulder nodded, knowing that was the truth, whereas the rest of the words he merely believed.

She kept moving, and started to climb the stairs. She turned to him. "I'm already packed."

Mulder stared at her, confused, couldn't find a reply.

"I've been packed since I heard that you'd had to go it alone. They haven't been able to get that thing out of Dana's neck, have they? I'm sorry."

"You know about that?"

She directed him towards the bedroom, and a set of matching luggage. "The others removed mine the last time I was taken. They had great plans for you."

She shrugged, as if embarrassed to be saying this, and Mulder wondered if that was because he was supposed to already know all about it. "After they tested you, they lost interest. They thought you couldn't hear their voices anymore. So they were just going to use you as a host. See how things are when no one can trust anyone and everybody lies?"

Mulder wasn't sure if it was her matter of fact tone that scared him or the idea that she was, apparently, totally honest.

She paused for a moment. "You don't know nearly as much about this as you ought."

And Mulder laughed, she could say that again.

She smiled at him, puzzled. "You wouldn't even compromise enough to talk to them? Not to any of them? You really are the last boy scout, aren't you?"

"Apparently."

"Then help me get the luggage in the car. I suggest we get down to Mexico and then find a flight, maybe via Buenos Aries, to Europe. It'll muddy the trail and it's better than letting you get accused of kidnapping by concerned citizens. It'll buy you time."

It would.

Time for Marty to learn to crawl. Time for him to start to think. Time for the Gunmen to come up with a way to get that thing out of Scully.

She waved a hand to catch his attention. "I suggest you feed..."

"Marty," he supplied.

"I thought..." She stopped arguing, obviously deciding that there was nothing in a name. She brushed a hand across the baby's cheek, and Mulder surprised himself by following Marty's lead and not flinching.

She smiled, "He's lovely," then shook her head, getting back to business. "If you feed Marty then I can fix some food for us. Then we should go. Are you up to driving, or should I take the first shift?"

"We'll need passports, cards, driver's licenses.

"In my purse."

He shook his head, and felt, more than ever, like the boy scout who didn't know enough.

She shrugged, "Like I said, I've been ready for you."

He smiled. The decision had been taken. The road forked here and he would follow it, to its logical conclusion, as he always did.

The shark dies if it stops swimming.

Another swim, then.