The Gift
AS8X03 (Originally 8X11)
Originally written by: Frank Spotnitz
Rewritten by: ga

Notes: Mulder's quote on the sin eater in English literature
is from Precious Bane by Mary Webb. Information on the
use and side effects of Carboplatin and Taxol provided by
Aracelis. A thousand thanks to the folks out there who do
episode transcripts and to the inventors of search engines.
And in addition to the beta team for Alternate Season 8,
thanks to Mo for trading insights.

A book I read a LONG time ago (like when I was about 12)
came to mind while writing the blonde woman's action:
The Other Side of the Sun, by Madeleine L'Engle
(incidentally, this is NOT one of her science-fiction works).
It's out of print, hard to find, but has stuck with me some
25 years later...

This episode takes place in the present and in flashbacks.
Flashbacks are in italics.

Spoilers: Many previous episodes are referenced, directly
or obliquely.

If this were filmed as an episode, I suspect it would run
rather long. Consider this the director's cut...

------------------------

June 7, 2000
Squamash Township, Pennsylvania

Mulder's lips barely move; he murmurs the word, audible
only to himself, as if in prayer. "Scully," he says, and pulls
the trigger.

---------------------------

April 8, 2000
BWI Airport

The disembodied voice on the loudspeaker has just called
Flight 2142 to London/Gatwick when Mulder inhales a
familiar scent from behind him--not the one he had hoped
for. Stale Morleys and callous death. Mulder turns and
stops inches from the Smoking Man's face.

"I should kill you, you bastard."

"You've been saying that for years, Agent Mulder. Yet here
I still stand. I'm beginning to wonder whether you truly
are a man of your word."

"When you've never said an honest word in your life..."

"On the contrary, most of my dealings with you have been
strictly honorable; I can't imagine you would ever have
considered negotiating with me if you believed otherwise.
But this is no time for petty accusations. There's work to be
done."

"Yes, there is, and I am on my way to do it." Mulder turns
to walk away.

"Your trip to England is a sham, a pretense."

Mulder freezes at the Smoking Man's words.

"The event in question is not going to occur, certainly not
with any extraterrestrial involvement. You doubt its
validity yourself, and clearly you were not able to
persuade your partner to join you in this venture."

"Leave Scully out of this," Mulder hisses. "You just stay
away from her..."

"I have no intention of approaching Agent Scully in this
instance, although the ramifications of what I wish to show
you speak to one of her most cherished ideals: that of a
cure for all illness. I'd like to introduce you to a great
healer, one whose capabilities are truly remarkable but
whose methods are more in line with your style of
thinking than with Agent Scully's. She has aided in your
quest all these years; surely you can spare some time in
the pursuit of hers."

"The last time you claimed to take an interest in Scully's
work, she almost died."

"How many times has she nearly died for your cause,
Agent Mulder? Yet you condemn me for putting her in
danger. I knew without question that I could prevent any
harm from befalling Agent Scully in that circumstance.
Have you ever been able to say the same?"

Mulder stands silently seething, arms twitching at his
sides, hands balled into fists. The Smoking Man can't resist
a smile.

"Since you apparently have no further objections, let's go.
Your luggage is already in my car."

Mulder glares at the man, holding his ground; neither
moves as the final call for Mulder's flight comes and
passes. Finally, Mulder stalks past the Smoking Man
toward the terminal exit, leading in refusal to follow. He
finds himself standing alone at the doorway for longer
than expected; and his eyes narrow in focus as he studies
the older man. The Smoking Man's voice and posture are
as supercilious as ever. But there is more gray in his hair
and his stride is far slower; his hands shake slightly as he
raises them to light his cigarette. If indeed he stole the
science Scully retrieved in order to save himself, it appears
to be failing him.

------------

September 28, 2000
Mulder's apartment

The lock gives easily, as though it has been picked before.
Doggett shrugs; you'd think, paranoid as Mulder allegedly
was, that he'd have changed the locks on a regular basis.

Doggett enters the living room and just stands for a
moment, looking around and getting a feel for the place--
something he hadn't had the opportunity to do before
Mulder's office was searched. Although she knew better
than to obstruct in any way, Agent Scully had made it
extremely clear that, in her mind, the office search had
been both pointless and insulting. Since she is still in the
hospital in Arizona, this is Doggett's chance for an
uninterrupted look-see at how Mulder lived.

Mulder was no prize housekeeper--the desk, shelves, and
TV top wear a coating of dust, disturbed a couple of
different times recently. And the fish in the tank aren't
dead; they've been fed. Someone has been in the
apartment, then. Whoever took the computer: Mulder- -or
someone impersonating him? No way Mulder would
come back here now, unless it was to turn himself in; not
after taking those files, not after Arizona. Would he send
someone?

A search of the living room reveals Mulder's penchant for
pornography, but nothing relevant to the investigation.
Doggett wanders into the bathroom, remembering
Mulder's medical records. The medicine cabinet holds five
or six prescription-pill containers: Tylenol with Codeine,
Percocet, with various dates on the labels, some several
years old. All are nearly full. One bottle holds a drug with
a name Doggett doesn't recognize-- Carboplatin/Taxol,
prescribed by a Dr. Lev a month ago; this bottle has only a
few pills left. Doggett pockets the container and heads for
the bedroom. In a nightstand drawer, he finds another pill
bottle for the same drug, dated three months earlier than
the one in the bathroom. This bottle is empty.

------------

April 8, 2000
The Smoking Man's car

"Open the damn window," are the only words Mulder
speaks until they are well into Maryland.

The Smoking Man, feeling indulgent, allows Mulder to
brood. Finally, when all that stretches before them is
highway, flanked by fields on both sides, he speaks.

"This healer, this man you are going to see, has his roots in
simpler times, in a farm country era when doctors were
few and superstition ruled daily life. You are, I'm sure,
familiar with the legend of the sin eater."

"As represented in English literature," Mulder replies in a
monotone. "By eating foods passed over the coffin, the sin
eater symbolically took upon himself the sins of the
deceased as part of the funeral ritual, thus relieving the
dead man's suffering in the hereafter. 'I give easement and
rest now to thee, dear man, that ye walk not over the fields
nor down the by-ways. And for thy peace I pawn my own
soul.' The sin eater was a pariah in the community,
tolerated only for his necessary function."

"Here, the English country legend has been badly merged
with half-understood Native folklore, but the individual
described is real. This man attends to sins against the
body-- disease--and thus eases suffering in this life rather
than the one beyond. He consumes the sickness, taking it
upon himself and leaving the formerly afflicted person
well and whole. The people he cures think him a creature,
less than human. But they need him, so they are fiercely
protective of him. They do not welcome strangers. As I
have certain, ah, ties to the community, you will be
allowed in--provided you do not overstep your bounds."

Mulder grunts and continues to stare out the window. He
remembers cancer-eating mutants, fat-eating mutants,
liver-eating mutants. He thinks of psychic surgery. He
wonders what this has to do with the man sitting next to
him.

"Why show me this? What do you expect to gain? Am I
supposed to watch while you're cured of whatever it is
that's obviously killing you, just so you can kill again? No
soul should have to pay the price for you--how many have
already?"

"You do me a great disservice, Agent Mulder. As it
happens, I feel a certain kinship with this soul eater.
Disease is a necessary evil in the greater good that is life;
and this man takes on the disease of others so that they
don't have to suffer for themselves.

"In my work--that which once was my work, mine and that
of men like me--we believed in the greater good of our
goals; but there were certain necessary evils that went
along with the work. Good men, men like Bill Mulder,
didn't have the stomach for these necessities, and were
more than happy to allow me to bear their burden while
claiming the moral high ground for themselves. I
performed a necessary function, though some would
judge me harshly for sparing them the painful realities.
You, too, would dare to judge; yet you have at times been
obliged to perform certain 'necessary evils' in the name of
your truth."

"You and I have very different ideas as to what constitutes
the greater good, not to mention the truth."

"I think you would find that our hopes and dreams are far
more similar than you'd like to believe."

Mulder is reminded of Scully's words after she returned
from her journey with this man, how she saw in him a
longing for something he couldn't have, something quite
human. He pictures his own blind rage at her then and
wonders what she will say when she learns where he is
now.

"She held it in her hand--why'd you do it?"

"Your partner is a doctor and a humanitarian. She believes
in the possibility of a world without disease--a far more
radical and fantastic vision than any you could
contemplate of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and at
least as dangerous. Just imagine that world beyond
disease, where humans could live indefinitely. It would
take only a few decades for the population to grow
beyond the ability of the planet to sustain it. Freedom from
illness doesn't guarantee enough to eat, only that no
opportunistic infection could put an end to the hungry
person's misery. What then? Do you decide when it is a
person's time to die, or who should be born? Could you
make those judgments? Could your partner?"

"Such decisions are the province of a man such as myself,
one well versed in necessary evil. I spared you both by
assuring that no one will have that science. Better that such
miracle cures stay in the realm of the miraculous--random,
accidental in location, and limited in scope. Had I allowed
Agent Scully to keep the science on that disk, I have no
doubt that she would have used it to cure me."

Mulder stares at the Smoking Man.

"I have, of course, every resource available to restore my
health. I choose not to save myself. I am prepared to face
the inevitable when the time comes, and seek only to
ensure the future of my sole remaining legacy, my greatest
achievement."

"And that is...?"

"Why, you, son."

"You are NOT my father."

---------------------

September 29, 2000
Scully's hospital room
MacLaren Regional Medical Center, Arizona

"He is NOT dying." Scully glares at the off-white, hospital-
issue phone as though Doggett could see her through it.

"Then what's with these drugs, Agent Scully?" Doggett
fires back. "The folks at the lab tell me that this
Carboplatin/Taxol combo is pretty nasty stuff."

"I know what the drug is for, Agent Doggett. I also know
that it is generally administered via intravenous drip in a
hospital setting and not in pill form. What I am telling you
is that he was not taking it."

"Then what's it doing in his medicine chest?"

"It's doing exactly what the people who put it there
intended it to do: keeping you from looking for Mulder in
any way that might actually lead to finding him."

Doggett huffs into the phone. "Look, I've got a job to do
here, and I really don't have time for this kind of paranoid
speculation."

"Agent Doggett," Scully's voice is icy. "One of the first
things you'd better learn if you expect to survive in the X-
Files is that those who want you to do your job are vastly
outnumbered by those who intend to make sure you don't.
You may think I'm paranoid, but I'll tell you it's practically
the opposite; that it takes a starry-eyed optimist to even
begin to hope to find the truth when up against a
systematic and personally-directed campaign to protect
the lies at all cost."

"Now, I don't know where Mulder is. But I do know that
he did not go voluntarily, that he is being held against his
will, and that it is because of his work, because of his
threat to the lies, because of who he is, that he has been
taken. And I am going to find him."

Drained by the force of her own words, Scully is unable to
hold back a gasp as she is seized by a spasm in her
abdomen, a lingering effect of the tissue damage caused
by her fight with the Alien Bounty Hunter. Her knees draw
up and she curls herself into a little ball of pain. She
clutches her center and wills her breathing to even out,
silently cursing herself for the weakness.

Doggett, too, curses himself; his next words are much
quieter. "I'm sorry, Agent Scully. You're still in the
hospital; you need your rest. Please understand, I intend
to find Agent Mulder, and I'm going to follow up every
lead I've got until I do. I realize that the medical stuff is
something you're going to know a lot more about than I
do, but without more proof than just you telling me it's
bogus, I can't drop it."

"Okay. Since, at the moment, I'm here in the hospital
against MY will and can't be out in the field, I'll get you
your proof; I can do that with a telephone and a laptop.
But Agent Doggett, when you're looking for leads, look to
the work. It's in the X-Files--maybe not the answers, but at
least the right questions."

"I will and I am; I'm looking at some of Mulder's recent
case notes right now. And I WILL find him."

-------------------------

April 8, 2000
Squamash Township, Pennsylvania

It is dark when they arrive, darker than it ever is in
Alexandria. The car's headlights provide the only
illumination. There is no glow of city light, no streetlight;
thick forest on both sides of the narrow road absorb the
starlight. As the car pulls to a halt near the end of a stone-
covered driveway, Mulder notices a woman emerging
from the shadows, her light-colored hair pulled into a
ponytail under her baseball cap. She crosses in front of the
car, then disappears into the woods.

-------------------------

September 30, 2000
Mulder's office

The notes Mulder left behind are sketchy. Doggett digs
one last time through stacks of files displaced by the task-
force search, but comes up empty. He thinks the full file
must be among those Mulder took, and it was recent
enough not to have made it into the backup database.
Missing woman reappears, lost time, physical condition
markedly changed from before she was taken--sounds like
one of those so-called alien abduction cases. Squamash,
Pennsylvania, a few hours' drive. The sheriff there agrees
to meet with him.

* * *

Squamash Township

Sheriff Kurt Frey is a big guy, a good-old-boy type with a
handshake like an arm wrestle. It's a personal style
Doggett has cultivated in himself, even during his years
with the NYPD, when he found that perps would
sometimes spill things, thinking they were putting
something over on the country boy. Doggett senses that
"Just call me Kurt" Frey wouldn't trust an urbanite, and he
wants the man's trust.

"I appreciate the help, Kurt."

"Shame to have you drive all the way up here on a
Saturday. Hate to say, you're wasting your time."

"Not if you confirm what you told me before."

"Yes, sir. Your Agent Mulder was here, all right. A few
months ago--April, maybe." The sheriff seems to be
remembering this visitor to a place that doesn't get many
visitors. There's no documentation to be found here either,
Doggett is reasonably certain.

"Investigating a missing woman, uh, Marie Hangemuhl."

"Well, she wasn't exactly missing. He wasn't exactly
investigating, either."

This is just about all the confirmation Doggett needs.
Mulder must have been out here doing his alien-buster
routine, and clearly Kurt wasn't having any of it.

"So this Mrs. Hangemuhl is all right, then." Doggett frames
this as a statement rather than a question, needing to make
sure but careful to distance himself from Mulder's
investigation.

"Marie? Yeah, she's fine. It was a false report, domestic
dispute."

Doggett nodded. "And you didn't see Agent Mulder out
here any other time after that?"

"Nope. You know, if you don't mind my asking, Agent
Doggett, what's your interest? I mean, I was actually
surprised that even one FBI agent gave this a thought."
Sheriff Frey regards Doggett a bit coolly. Doggett senses
he's losing the sheriff and quickly cuts to the chase.

"Agent Mulder disappeared nearly two weeks ago. We're
retracing his steps over the last few weeks and, according
to his cell-phone records, he was out this way a week or so
before his disappearance. Do you have any idea why?
Anything out of the ordinary happen here in the last few
weeks?"

"Not that I can think of...no, Sir."

"Well, I'm hoping you can help me figure it out. It's my job
to find him."

--------------------------

Scully's hospital room

By 11:30am (Mountain Daylight Time), Scully has berated
receptionists, clerks, and managers in the records
departments of hospitals in Woodbridge, Virginia (torn
deltoid, lacerations and contusions from attack by
"unidentified" (undead) assailant: x-rays, CBC, tox screen);
McMinn County, Tennessee (multiple snakebites: CBC,
ECG, ABG); Inland Empire, California (mild concussion,
contusions, lacerations from attack by "unidentified"
(virtual) assailant, burns to the center chest from low-
voltage electric shock: x-rays, CBC, ECG, head CT scan);
Winston-Salem, North Carolina (severe lung trauma and
near suffocation, cardiac arrest, as a result of tobacco beetle
infestation: x- rays, bronchoscopies, ECGs, EEGs, MRIs, CT
scans, CBC, sed rate, ABG); and Kansas City, Kansas
(broken jaw, broken wrist, concussion, multiple contusions
from attack by "unidentified" (Scully) assailant: x-rays,
head CT scan, EEG, MRI, CBC, tox screen).

All of Mulder's medical records, except for those
documenting his abnormal brain function the previous
year, have disappeared.

By the time Skinner walks into her hospital room, Scully is
shaking with fury. Skinner nervously eyes the call button
linked to the nurses' station, wondering to himself whether
sedation would be worse for the baby than the steady
stream of stress hormones. The look on Scully's face makes
it clear it is not his decision.

Skinner's eyes are still somewhat red and swollen as a
result of his exposure to the Alien Bounty Hunter's blood,
but he removes the dark glasses he's been wearing, not
wanting even the appearance of hiding from Scully.

"Mulder's medical records--they're all gone. Hospitals all
over the damn country, and they've gotten to every single
one of them." Scully shakes her head, with the edge of an
ironic laugh.

"Scully, it's Saturday. All those records departments are on
skeleton crews. Maybe Monday..."

"I can't wait that damn long!" Scully shouts, forcing herself
to hide the twinge in her ribs caused by her outburst. "Sir,
Krycek couldn't have done this on his own. There HAS to
be Bureau involvement. No one on the outside could have
been in a position to know our every move like this, let
alone orchestrate a coverup on this level."

Skinner studies her closely. She's accused him before of
complicity in the conspiracy against herself and Mulder.
He knows, intellectually, that Scully has come to trust him;
but her words hit too close to home not to feel an
indictment. And right now, if he were Scully, he's not sure
he would trust him either. His gaze falters.

Scully reads his thoughts. "Sir, I'm not accusing you. I
know you didn't do this. And, I know you know this,
but..."

She presses her lips together and takes a deep breath,
letting the words rush out in one exhale. "If I'd been the
one in Oregon, I wouldn't have been able to keep Mulder
from being taken either." She shakes her head quickly to
stop the tears.

Skinner takes her hand and gives it a brief squeeze, then
lets go. "I've been discharged from the hospital. Do you
want me to stay here in Phoenix until you're ready to go
back to DC?"

Instantly, she is all business again. "Is there anything more
to be done here?"

"The Gunmen won't give me a straight answer on the
phone, of course. But no, the activity over Arizona seems
to have disappeared."

"We need to get back; I've got to get out of here." She says
it automatically, but even she knows she's bluffing. At the
moment, she can't make the 12-foot trek from her bed to
the bathroom without moderate to severe pain. Already
today she's been sitting upright longer than she should,
and she's feeling the burn all through her torso.

"Scully, if I have to, I'll stay here just to make sure you
stay. What good are you to Mulder if you kill yourself
when we've just started looking for him?" Skinner throws
her own words back at her.

"No, please, we've lost too much time as it is. I need you to
get back and find out where the satellite data shows
activity next. I need you to give Langly the hospital info
and see if he can come up with the missing records. And I
need you to keep an eye on Agent Doggett."

--------------------------

Squamash Township

The sheriff walks Doggett to the Hangemuhls' door. They
are greeted by Paul Hangemuhl, who eyes the stranger
with suspicion. Reluctantly, he lets the two men into the
house; Marie Hangemuhl joins them in the living room.

Sheriff Frey introduces Doggett, "This is Agent Doggett
from the FBI. He wants to ask you a few questions."

Paul Hangemuhl reacts visibly to hearing "FBI." He shoots
a warning look to Frey and asks, "What's this all about?"

Doggett jumps in. "A colleague of mine, Fox Mulder,
questioned you last spring."

Paul's look this time speaks more of fear than challenge.
"Kurt..."

The sheriff attempts to smooth the waters. "He's not
investigating you, Paul. He's investigating Agent Mulder."

"I'm really sorry to have to disturb you good people about
this. If you could just tell me what you and Agent Mulder
talked about..." Doggett, as well, keeps his voice level and
nonthreatening.

"My wife suffered from kidney disease; she was a very
sick woman. She had what they call a spontaneous
recovery..."

Doggett notices the dialysis machine pushed into a corner
of the room. He silently urges the man to continue.

Marie shyly adds, "He'd heard the stories." Her husband
glares at her and she falls silent.

"What stories, Mrs. Hangemuhl?" Doggett asks gently.

Paul bursts out, "Let me ask you something, Agent
Doggett. Was this Mulder guy sick? Sick in the head, I
mean? Is that why you're checking into this?"

"What stories, Mr. Hangemuhl?"

"I've heard these stories since I was a kid, local legend.
They say there's a creature, a wild man who lives out in
the woods and eats sick people."

--------------------------

April 8, 2000
Squamash Township, Pennsylvania

"We're in time," the Smoking Man says, a touch of almost
boyish excitement infusing his features as he urges Mulder
toward the house.

Mulder pauses at the door to study the medicine wheel
painted there. *Chicken's blood,* he thinks, recognizing the
summons. He kneels to touch the spots where the blood
has dripped, adorning the wheel like feathers on a
dreamcatcher. The blood is still just slightly tacky.

Inside the house, a fragile-looking woman lies on the
living-room rug, naked and shivering under a white sheet.
A man stands to her side near a wall--tense in posture, his
jaw clenched. He looks in challenge at Mulder as he enters
but, apparently recognizing the Smoking Man, he warily
accepts their presence.

"Marie Hangemuhl," the Smoking Man whispers to
Mulder, "suffers from end-stage renal failure.
Conventional medical science has done all it can for her.
Her husband has summoned the soul eater to take away
her disease."

As if on cue, a large man enters, dressed only in a pair of
tattered cotton pants. His skin is richly tanned, his hair
long and mostly black; but his face is so disfigured by
illness and contorted with pain that Mulder can't be fully
certain of the man's ethnicity. He hovers over the woman,
who whimpers and quakes in fear. The man's face twists
still further, in horror and agony, and tears stream down
his face as he cries a wordless, keening cry. Marie's
husband's jaw tightens still further.

The man kneels over the woman and opens his mouth
wide, stretching his jaw past the point of dislocation.
Instinct tells Mulder to spring into Special-Agent action
and stop this before what is obviously about to happen
can happen. He feels a restraining hand on his shoulder
and turns away for a second, to find himself staring into
the eyes of the blonde woman he saw earlier. With her
eyes, she gestures to him to pay attention to what is
happening before him.

Mulder watches, transfixed, as the man begins to consume
the woman alive.

It takes nearly an hour, an hour of blood and the smell of
sickness and the sound of the soul eater's sobs. The act
speaks more of reverence than savagery, and Mulder is
reminded of watching Scully perform an autopsy on a
child.

When it is over, the soul eater lies spent and shaking on
the rug, into which seeps the blood and bile that remains
of Marie Hangemuhl.

The blonde woman gestures to Mulder to follow her out of
the house. The sheriff stands guard outside, apparently
more intent on seeing that the transformation taking place
indoors is not disturbed than on stopping or preventing
the apparent homicide that has just occurred. Some
distance away, a shadowy figure lurks under the trees, a
faint glow and curl of smoke rising from his cigarette.

"What happens now?" Mulder asks the blonde woman, his
voice still very low.

"He will return to his sanctuary to hide his wounds. It will
take several hours. Her sickness, he will digest, and the
rest of her will be expelled from his body. He mustn't be
disturbed; please do not attempt to follow him."

"He will feel all the pain she felt. He feels all their pain."

"Yes."

"How does he bear it?"

"It is his life."

"You take care of him."

"One of us always has."

"You love him."

"Yes."

"How do you bear it?"

"It has become my life."

--------------------------------

September 30, 2000

>From the journal of Dana Katherine Scully:

"They gave me cancer to make you believe. Now, they
claim that you are the one who is ill. But this, I cannot
believe. It simply is not possible."

"First, you couldn't have kept it from me. You would have
experienced seizures, tremors, memory lapses, sudden
outbursts of aggression or agitation, motor-control
difficulties, disturbances in your senses of hearing, sight,
and smell. It would have affected your ability to process
language and altered your personality. You could not
have driven a car; you would not have been safe carrying a
weapon. Medication might have slowed some of these
symptoms, but would have brought side effects--the drugs
they planted in your apartment cause, among other things:
nausea and vomiting, myalgias and arthralgias, heart
arrhythmia, blood-pressure disturbances, hair loss, rashes,
and extreme fatigue."

"It is unlikely you could have hidden this kind of decline
from a casual coworker, one in whose presence you spent
several hours a day. It is utterly impossible that you could
have hidden it from me."

"But I don't believe you would have tried to hide it. At a
different point in our partnership, perhaps--back when
you thought you could protect me by leaving me in the
dark. I know, I've been as guilty of that as you have, with
my 'I'm fine's and my stonewalling. Now that we both
know better, I can't and don't believe you would
knowingly put my life at risk by continuing to be my
partner in the field while in such a compromised state."

"I am reminded of your feelings at your mother's house
after her suicide: that it was staged, like a bad movie
script. It's like that now--my God, Mulder, they had your
tombstone engraved. And every shred of evidence that
proves your overall health has disappeared. Records from
all over the country--all vanished. I've asked Langly to
hack them; but you and I know, these people don't make
mistakes."

"Someone or ones--inside the Bureau and out--went to
great lengths to weave this web. If I weren't sure by now of
the truth of my own body, I'd fear that my medical records
were being manipulated as well, my pregnancy fabricated
as just another reason for you to have skipped out. But
Mulder, I really am pregnant."

------------------------------

April 9, 2000 very early morning
Squamash Township

Afterwards, Mulder approaches Paul Hangemuhl and the
sheriff. Neither is especially interested in talking with him,
and the fact that Mulder possesses FBI credentials serves
only to exacerbate the situation. The Smoking Man
watches from a distance, bemused. Finally, Paul returns to
his house, Kurt to his truck, and each shuts his door
decisively.

"I did caution you about overstepping your bounds,"
comes the voice from the trees. Mulder is already furious
with himself for his rare mishandling of the two men and
is in no mood to hear it.

"What was this display all about? And what does it have to
do with you? Did you get your kicks watching that woman
be eaten alive?"

The Smoking Man gives Mulder a condescending look.
"Don't be ridiculous. I've known Marie since she was a
child; I introduced her to her husband. It's pained me to
see her ill and I've been hoping for a long time that she
would agree to do this. Paul finally forced her into it. It's a
desperate measure, but a man on the verge of losing the
woman he loves is nothing if not desperate--isn't that so,
Agent Mulder?"

"Was there no chip available to save Marie's life?" Mulder
spits out the word "chip."

"She didn't need one; she had this...equally dramatic
alternative. Those chips are not in unlimited supply."

Mulder is well aware that it is a bad idea to pursue this
right now, but he can't seem to help himself.

"What about me? Would I rate one of your precious chips,
if I were sick, if I were dying? You said something before
about ensuring my future--is this it? That if I needed to, I
could come out here and get myself eaten alive?" Mulder
neither waits for nor expects an answer. "Do you have to
have been one of your lab rats to have a chip with your
name on it? Are there any that were supposed to be for
Samantha? Is Marie an abductee?"

"No." The Smoking Man seems surprised at the last
question.

"IS SHE AN ABDUCTEE?"

"No, Fox, she isn't."

Mulder goes still for a moment. When he begins to speak,
it is difficult to know whether he's aware that he's speaking
aloud.

"All those years I searched for my sister, and I found out
you had her. All the others returned, but not Samantha.
Instead, you took her. Why? She was my sister; how could
you?"

The Smoking Man is close enough to touch, but his voice
reaches Mulder as though from miles away. "You know
nothing of it; you were a child. A mere boy. You wanted
her back for your own selfish reasons--the baby sister who
looked up to her big brother. Her destiny was far greater
than that: she was the key to the future as we saw it."

By now, the Smoking Man is himself lost in reverie,
reliving the grand days of the Project. His words rouse
Mulder, who stares at him until he can't look anymore;
then he bows his head and rubs his eyes as though he's
seen too much.

"Of all the children considered, Samantha was the most
promising, but you were close. Several of the Project
members thought you the better choice, since you were
older.... But she exceeded our wildest expectations.... Her
ongoing involvement was vital to the Project. Bill Mulder
had his reservations, which is one reason why it was
decided she was best kept with me. But if anything had
gotten in the way of her continued participation, you
would have been brought in to take her place. You never
knew that possibility existed, I'm sure. You couldn't have
protected her, or yourself. It was she who kept you safe,
until you turned eighteen and were no longer eligible...."

Mulder's head jerks up. He walks, circling, pulling his
hands through his hair and down his face. Then stops, face
to face with the Smoking Man. His voice is deadly cold.

"You took a young girl--MY SISTER--away from her family
and subjected her to years of scientific torture for the sake
of your 'Project.' That's the kind of 'protection' she got from
you: being probed and cut and medically raped and
experimented on.

"Then she disappeared, right after I turned eighteen--was
that a coincidence? Or did you let her go? Throw her away
like she was garbage, all used up at fourteen years old?
She's dead--do you expect me to be grateful that it was her
and not me? I would have died for her. You...you should
die for her."

The weapon is in Mulder's hand, pressed into the center of
the Smoking Man's chest. As he stares down his intended
target, visions in quick succession flash before him in the
Smoking Man's stead: Samantha at age 8, Scully, Skinner,
Krycek, Scully again, his father, Marie Hangemuhl, Scully
again, the soul eater, Samantha at age 14,...over and over.
Mulder closes his eyes against the visual onslaught.

When he opens them again, his gun is pointed at the chest
of the blonde woman.

"It's time," she says.

-----------------------------

October 2, 2001
Skinner's Office

Kimberly is away from her desk, and Skinner's door is
open.

"Assistant Director Skinner, can I ask you something?"
Doggett's manner is somewhat more solicitous than it has
been since the search for Mulder began. Technically, as an
assigned X-Files agent, Doggett now reports to Skinner,
but it is equally likely that Doggett is still keeping tabs on
Skinner at Kersh's bidding.

"What can I do for you, Agent Doggett?"

"Were you aware of Mulder investigating some sort of
abduction-type case in Pennsylvania recently?"

"An abduction case? Not recently, no. Several years ago, he
and Scully investigated a group of women in Allentown
who all claimed abduction experiences and that they had
developed cancer as a result. They all had the same rare
form of cancer, and they all died from it."

*Except one,* Skinner thinks to himself, inwardly
shuddering at the memory. He doesn't know how much
Doggett has looked into Scully's records, whether he
knows about her abduction, cancer, and remission. He's
not sure he should have told Doggett even this much, but
there had been at least as many abductees in the
Allentown area as in Bellefleur. If the ship is on its way
there....

Before he can even process that thought, Skinner is
broadsided by the memory of another Pennsylvania case.
Ruskin Dam. He'd gone there, seen it himself: dozens and
dozens of people charred beyond recognition--and Scully
came so close to being one of them. She'd been there but
didn't know how she got there, seen faceless men and fire
and a ship...Ruskin...Skyland Mountain...El Rico--GOD!
Doggett is speaking again, but Skinner doesn't hear him.

"Well, according to the records I've got, he was out that
way a couple of times at least, last spring and maybe
summer, and around three weeks ago. Not Allentown,
little town not far from there. I spoke with the sheriff, who
confirmed Mulder was out there sometime. But I got the
impression he wasn't telling me all there was to tell."

"Seems worth a follow-up, Agent." Skinner answers the
unheard statements blandly, still too preoccupied to care.
He intends his own follow-up with the Gunmen as soon as
possible; it's just become even more urgent.

-----------------------------

April 9, 2000
Squamash Township

A trap door opened reveals the passageway downward
into a winding catacomb, a candlelit grotto. A narrow
passage opens on a wider space, and there lies Marie
Hangemuhl. Her body is covered in an ectoplasmic sheen
that glistens in the flickering light. Out of sight, but
audible in the strange echo chamber, the soul eater still
weeps.

Mulder kneels and gently wipes Marie's face clean; and
she coughs and sputters back to life. He wraps her in the
sheet the blonde woman hands him, and lifts her in his
arms to carry her home.

One of the sheriff's men agrees to drive Mulder to the
nearest large town. From there, Mulder takes a bus to New
York City; a few hours later, he flies to England.

-------------------------------

October 2, 2000
Outside DC

The view of the night sky from the hill next to the satellite
dish is impressive, considering its proximity to the city,
but Skinner isn't interested.

"Come on, guys. Elect a spokesman and give it to me
straight."

Byers takes over. "What we were most worried about were
those gaps where there was no data indicating activity. It
seemed to imply that the ship was moving out of satellite
range, perhaps docking at a station outside the
ionosphere..."

"The mothership," Langly feels obliged to interject.

"There's a lot of data, relatively, available for the earth's
surface. In space, it would really be a needle in a haystack.
But, we refined the data we had and expanded our focus
to global phenomena. The gaps are filled by activity in
Siberia, Mexico, and Tunisia."

"Nothing in Pennsylvania, though?" Skinner asks.

"Nada. Just before the Pacific Northwest, we see activity in
Kazakhstan. We're continuing to trace back as well as
forward to try to get this whole thing mapped."

"Where is it now?"

"Oklahoma."

Skinner snatches the regional-area printout and is halfway
down the hill before the Gunmen can say goodbye.

-------------------------------

April 12, 2000
Scully's Apartment

Mulder and Scully sit side by side on her sofa, not
touching, not looking at each other. Mulder grips his soda
bottle tighter than necessary, while Scully crosses and
uncrosses her legs several times.

"I should be furious with you, Mulder." She says this
quietly, sounding tired or sad rather than angry.

"You're right, Scully, you should be." Mulder's voice is
subdued as well. He dares to look at her. "Are you?"

"I don't know." Scully rises, taking her mug from the coffee
table. She takes hold of the bottom of Mulder's empty soda
bottle; he seems reluctant to yield it. She strips him of that
small defense and carries the items to the kitchen, buying
herself some time by rinsing the tea from her mug.

Scully is walking slowly as she comes back to the living
room. Not quite ready to sit down and continue the
discussion, she pauses for a moment in front of the CD
player, but appears to decide that the quiet, though
uncomfortable, is necessary. Out of excuses, she tucks one
leg under herself as she settles back on the couch, angling
her body very slightly toward Mulder but just a little
further from him than she had been sitting.

She stares at her hands for a long moment before speaking
again. "Right now, I think I'm more hurt. I feel like this was
another test and I'm not sure what the right answer is."
Scully finally looks at him and there are tears in her eyes.

Anger flickers across Mulder's face but is gone in an
instant. "A test?" he asks, though he knows exactly what
she's saying. This, too, is quiet; neither has raised a voice
all evening.

"I feel like you've been testing me ever since I came back
from my trip with...with him. Testing my loyalty, seeing if
I'll follow you anywhere. That autopsy you had me do last
week, on the girl who drowned in margarita mix playing
Blair Witch in the woods; the crop circles in
England...those aren't cases you'd normally have bothered
with, let alone pushed. And, feeling that way--maybe I'm
projecting some of this--I just couldn't do it, couldn't go to
England, couldn't jump through more hoops after seven
years. And, now, you going off with him like that. I'm
grateful you told me, Mulder, really. It's possible I might
never have found out. I just...what if you HAD killed
him?"

Neither wants to answer that question aloud. They sit
without speaking for several moments.

Mulder finally breaks the silence. "Scully, when I saw him
in the airport, all I could think of was how he used you
and what I would have done to him if you'd died. I didn't
even think about Samantha at first--seems almost amazing.
But then..."

She stops him with a touch of her hand to his. "I
understand, Mulder. And I'm not angry. I'm just...give me
the night, okay?" She kisses him quickly and stands up,
moving away before he can touch her. "But stay here,
please? I want to know where you are and that you're
safe." She walks to the bedroom and closes the door
behind her.

-------------------------------

June 6, 2000
Squamash Township

Scully gasps audibly when she sees the soul eater's
companion.

It is not the same woman who led her to the Buddhist
temple in DC two months previously--a woman who,
incidentally, Scully has not seen since, despite a half-
dozen or so work-related trips to that station at the
hospital and a couple of circuitous driving jaunts past the
temple. The woman here in Squamash is clearly older than
the one in DC. But there is a sameness about them. And,
this woman seems to know Scully, even though they've
never met before. Scully feels rude for staring, but she can't
help herself.

Mulder brought Scully here to see illness consumed, but
as soon as the soul eater enters the room, Mulder looks at
the man's haunted eyes and finds he cannot bear to watch.
With a look to Scully that says "Don't follow," Mulder
makes his escape. He hovers at the edge of the woods,
feeling his stomach clutch and shedding a few of his own
tears in empathy, until it is over and Scully comes to find
him. She says little, lost in reflection herself, as they wait
until the next stage of the transformation is complete.

Mulder again takes the responsibility of bringing the
newly healed person, a 16-year-old boy freed from
leukemia, back to his parents' home. Scully asks
permission to examine the soul eater, but can do very
little--her every touch causes the man intense agony. His
skin nearly burns; his temperature is 108 degrees.

As she prepares to take her leave, Scully again looks at the
blonde woman. "You remind me of someone," she says.

The woman waits to see if Scully will say more. When she
doesn't, the blonde woman smiles in acknowledgement.

"There are many like me," she replies, then gestures
toward the soul eater. "But only one like him."

--------------------------------

October 3, 2000
Allentown Municipal Center

Doggett spends the morning in Allentown, checking death
certificates for all the female cancer victims listed in the
older X-File. Everything is in order: the last of the women
died early in 1997, and there's nothing that links any of the
women to Squamash Township. In fact, there are no cancer
deaths listed in Squamash, and few deaths on record at all.
Curiously, though, there are several in the last few months,
beginning with an unidentified shooting victim. The date
matches up with one in Mulder's cell-phone records. The
subsequent deaths are all of natural causes.

There's no answer at Sheriff Frey's office. Doggett leaves a
message as to the nature of his inquiry and then decides
he'll stop in Squamash on his way back to DC.

* * *

Squamash Township

When he pulls into town late that afternoon, the sheriff is
considerably cooler toward Doggett than he was in the
previous visit.

"So, Sheriff, about this shooting victim you had in town..."

"Yeah," Frey replies. "Late spring, early summer...June, I
think. An unidentified transient. Local woman found his
body in the woods."

"You got no suspects? No motive?"

"No, why?"

"I was under the impression that you don't get many
strangers coming through here, Kurt. I'd think having a
dead one show up would be pretty big news."

"It's happened once or twice over the years--somebody
decides a rural place like this is perfect for dumping a
body. I ship 'em out to Allentown to see if they find a
match with missing persons."

"But you didn't do that this time, Kurt. Says the body's
buried right here in town. You sure nobody knew who it
was?"

"From the sound of things, it was too long ago to have
been your missing agent, if that's what you're driving at."

"No, it's not what I'm driving at. Is the body still buried?"

-----------------------------

Scully's hospital room

Scully interrupts her mother's third "What are you going to
do now that you're...?" phone call to take a call from the
Gunmen.

"Hey, Langly. Got something for me?...Well, it's about
damn time you got the secure transmittal worked
out...Langly, I'm not the technogeek here, and I
don't...What?...I don't shop online anyway...Look, Langly,
just put Frohike on the line, okay?...No, I do
appreciate...Frohike. Yes, I appreciate you too. Can you
just tell me what the hell is going on?...It's the same damn
phone line I've been using...Okay, no hints. You're right,
we wouldn't want a security leak; I won't even ask...No,
I'm doing fine; they should let me out of here in another
day or two tops but I need to be moving on this now...Yes,
I'm glad the fish are well fed. Mulder will be glad
too...Look, I should...No, it's okay. Thank you so much,
really. Please tell Langly again how much I appreciate
it...Byers too, of course...Yes, as soon as I get back."

The security encryption Langly has coded into the
transmittal probably loads immediately on the Gunmen's
gigaflop CPUs, but on her somewhat less than state-of-the-
art laptop, it takes several minutes. Once loaded, the
gatekeeper invokes myriad questions and answers. At
another time, Scully might be alarmed or upset to see just
how much the Gunmen know about her and about
Mulder; but at the moment she's too focused to care. And,
although they have enough specifics to ensure that no one
else could access these files, they have managed to stay on
the side of decorum--with effort, she suspects.

For all that, the encrypted document contains very little,
informationally. The Gunmen have hacked into the
archives of all hospitals where Mulder should have
records; they found none--not a single admissions form,
test result, treatment record, or billing statement. So far,
even the offline backups the Gunmen have been able to
obtain have been tampered with. The Bureau records were
hit, of course--selected pages are missing from those files
that weren't stolen and blamed on Mulder. It's possible
those missing pages would be enough to start an inquiry;
but since Mulder's passcard was used after his
disappearance, any investigation would immediately
target him. They're still cross- checking with the Federal
Employees Health Benefits Program; Special Agents
Mutual Benefit Association; Workers' Compensation;
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (for the snakebites);
and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (tobacco beetles) but,
those being government entities, it's a long shot. Frohike
adds a PS that maybe the Kansas City fight footage will
turn up on "America's Wackiest Home Videos."

They make mention of having cross-referenced her own
and Frank Black's (for the zombie attack) medical records,
which are intact with no anomalies. They do not mention
the fact that they must now know she is pregnant. She
knows she'll have to speak with them about it once she's
back in DC.

Information on Dr. Lev, the MD who "prescribed" the pills
found in Mulder's apartment, is similarly shrouded--but
Langly managed to track down a significant fact going
back to the doctor's internship days: his research
internship, safely described as being on genetic factors in
neurological disease, was funded by Roush
Pharmaceuticals. Automatically, Scully reaches for her,
thinking of Emily -- but it isn't there, she remembers as her
fingers find only skin and her hospital gown.  "I hope
you're still wearing it, Mulder," she prays, and the tears
descend; she blames them on hormones. She dials
Mulder's number just to hear his voice on the answering
machine, hanging up quickly before the beep.

------------------------------

June 7, 2000
Squamash Township

The third house, the white one with the wraparound
porch, has a medicine wheel painted stark red on its white
front door. Mulder and Scully leave their car but stay on
the road, at the end of the driveway, waiting. It is almost
dark, and the soul eater can be expected to respond to this
summons soon.

Mulder turns toward Scully, a pained expression on his
face.

"He can't keep doing this."

"You're right, he probably can't. But Mulder, I have no
explanation for how he does it at all."

"Not medically, no." Mulder hesitates for a moment,
uncertain whether he should say what he's thinking.
"But...what about theologically?"

"What do you mean?" Scully looks at him warily.

"I mean, could this be a form of transubstantiation? That
he, in effect, turns the bodies and blood of those he
consumes into bread and wine, and then back into bodies
and blood?"

"Mulder...just...no. First of all, the concept of
transubstantiation implies that the bread and wine become
the body and blood of Christ, not man. Catholic teaching is
quite clear that there is no parallel in nature to this
transformation, although many Protestant teachings, and
some Catholic scholars, reject the concept of
transubstantiation altogether, saying it goes against logic."

"Since when does logic..." Scully cuts Mulder off with a
look threatening a slow and painful death should he dare
continue.

"If you're implying that this soul eater is a Christ figure:
yes, he suffers for others and appears to heal them, but I've
seen nothing beyond that to indicate he even has a link to
the Judeo-Christian tradition--the local legend makes him
out to be a Native healer. I don't pretend to be an expert in
Native American theology, so the fact that I haven't come
across any direct reference to anything like this doesn't
mean anything either." She pauses for breath, but makes it
clear she isn't through speaking.

"But, Mulder, the other fact of the matter is, if the person
doing these healings wore a collar and vestments and
cured people through the power of Christ, you'd be the
first one to come in here saying it's fake."

Scully stares at Mulder, daring him to defend himself. He
fumes for a moment; then his shoulders slump.

"Look, Scully, I'm sorry I even brought it up. Let's just
drop it, okay?"

Scully appears ready to continue the argument, but
accepts Mulder's apology, if slightly less than graciously.

"Yes, let's drop it." Scully crosses the road and makes a
point of studying the low- hanging pine branches intently.

Several moments later, the soul eater skulks across the
yard. Mulder dashes forward, Scully just behind; they
catch up with him on the third step to the porch.

Mulder looks the soul eater in the eye, fighting the
temptation to wince at the pain he sees there. "Don't go in
there," Mulder says to the man.

The soul eater stares back at Mulder. His mouth hangs
open, torn and bloody and looking itself like a gaping
wound. He moans a soft, inarticulate cry; but his eyes
speak thanks at having been recognized as human.
Encouraged, Mulder reaches for the soul eater's arm, to
lead him to safety. Scully sees Mulder's gesture and goes
to restrain him; but before she can get to him or say more
than "Mul-,"  the soul eater lets out a piercing wail of
agony at being touched.

Sheriff Frey bursts from the house to the porch; he is
armed. Both Mulder and Scully draw their weapons.
Another man steps out onto the porch to join the sheriff,
who quickly assesses the situation.

The sheriff stares the two agents down. "This is none of
your damn business. Now, I suggest you get the hell out
of here and leave us alone." His eyes, menacing, move
from Mulder to Scully and back again.

"I can't do that," Mulder declares, holding his ground,
keeping his weapon trained. The sheriff cocks his rifle.

Mulder's lips barely move; he murmurs the word, audible
only to himself, as if in prayer. "Scully," he says, and pulls
the trigger. He whirls at the last second, and the shots ring
into the side of the house, warning fire. Scully keeps the
sheriff covered.

Mulder hears another rifle being readied behind his back.
He turns to see the blonde woman, who catches his eye for
a moment, solemn and unblinking, before turning and
taking aim. "I love you," she says to the soul eater, and
shoots him through the heart.

------------------------------

October 3, 2000
Squamash Township

Doggett waits until dark to check it out. He isn't surprised
to find the grave disturbed, but he is at how recently it was
done--that day or perhaps the day before, since he began
his inquiry, not when Mulder had been here last. But if the
sheriff had dug up the grave, it wasn't clear that he'd found
the body. The rough casket has a hole in its bottom, with a
tunnel underneath. What's left of the gravesite is marked
with white stones, arranged in a circular pattern with lines
crossing the circle.

Doggett jumps down into the grave to see the extent of the
tunnel. It seems to connect into a network of underground
caves, or bunkers perhaps. They have the impression of
use: someone comes down here regularly, perhaps lives
here. Doggett knows he'll need to get search teams in
ASAP. But, ideal as the setup is, he has the feeling he's not
going to find Mulder here.

One particularly well-worn passageway leads upward to a
trap door. Doggett tries the door, which is unlocked, and
he finds himself in a rustic living room, face to face with a
blonde woman of indeterminate age. She is not armed, but
might as well be; and Doggett raises his hands, identifying
himself and apologizing as he emerges. He moves out of
the house and onto her porch, preparing to leave, when he
realizes that the sheriff had identified her house as the one
behind which the body was found. He calls to the woman
and asks her if he may come back inside and speak with
her.

"Ma'am, the sheriff's report said you found a body in the
woods out here a few months ago."

The woman watches him.

"It was reported as an unidentified transient. Was it? Or
was it your local legend, that soul eater? There was
another FBI agent out here who I think believed it was
some sort of extraterrestrial being."

"You have it wrong. He is of this earth and this earth alone,
part of the land. These things have been this way for
hundreds of years."

Doggett stares for a moment at the fire burning in the
fireplace.

"The body was buried here and the grave marked with a
pattern, a circle with lines crossing it. Can you tell me what
the symbolism is?"

"It's a medicine wheel, a Native American symbol used to
mark a place with healing energy or the resting place of a
healer. The same symbol, painted in chicken's blood, can
be used to summon the healing energy."

"You believe this." When Doggett had questioned Scully
on her beliefs, he'd been accusatory, incredulous. Here, it
is a mere statement of fact. The blonde woman hears his
incomprehension, however.

"To understand what this thing, this man, is, you have to
understand what he can do, his gift. People hate him
because they need him. He looks the way he does because
of their sickness."

"And he was killed last spring--shot?"

It is the blonde woman's turn to stare into the fire. She
speaks to it rather than to Doggett.

"He wanted to die. I knew, we knew what had to be done
to save him. But he can't die. He still suffers; he still wants
to die. He came back a day or two after we buried him. I
kept him here in secret, but now that they know he's back
he will keep suffering."

While Doggett and the woman speak, the soul eater
quietly enters the room, and finally makes his presence
known, whimpering softly. They stare at the
man/creature: Doggett with wonder and horror, the
blonde woman with love. Doggett looks away, gathering
resolve.

"As long as he's here, he'll continue to suffer," Doggett
says. "Let's get him out of here."

Doggett leaves to get his car from where it is parked at the
sheriff's office. When he returns several minutes later, he is
followed by the sheriff and several other men, who use
their trucks to fence his car into the woman's driveway.

Doggett opens the car's rear door and goes to the door of
the house, escorting the soul eater and the blonde woman
to his car. As Doggett shuts the car door, he sees the men's
rifles pointed at him.

"Sheriff," he says loudly, "As a federal officer I'm asking
you and your men to get out of my way."

"You can't take it," the sheriff snarls. "It belongs to us."

"This is a man. He doesn't belong to anybody."

"We have sick people who need what it has. It's ours; we're
taking it. You're free to go." The sheriff gestures with his
head while keeping his rifle pointed.

"No, Sir. I'm taking this man out of here."

Doggett turns toward his car and takes two steps away,
and the men open fire. Doggett falls to the ground, struck
several times in the back. The blonde woman gestures to
the soul eater to escape and watches him flee into the
woods before exiting the car and coming to stand before
Doggett's body, arms crossed. She kneels and rolls his
body over as the men's trucks drive away.

---------------------------------

September 9, 2000
Squamash Township

Agent Crane looks around, taking in the Squamash
scenery: dense pine forest; deserted, unpaved road; a few
scattered houses; an entrance, barely concealed, to a
network of underground tunnels.

*Perfect,* he thinks as he punches numbers into a cell
phone. Seconds later, a phone on a Hoover Building desk
rings; its caller ID shows an incoming call from F. Mulder.

Someone answers the desk phone. "Is that you?"

"Yes," Crane replies. "Everything is going according to
plan."

"Good," the unseen figure answers, and hangs up.

--------------------------------

October 4, 2000 very early morning
Squamash Township

Doggett's hand moves slowly, instinctively, toward his
face, to wipe away the viscous substance covering it. Once
his nose and mouth are clear, he takes a deep, gasping
breath. His hands grasp at the dirt floor beside him as he
attempts to ease himself up to a sitting position, and one
hand encounters a towel, which he uses to clean his face
more thoroughly. Once he can open his eyes, he sees that
he is lying naked in one of the underground rooms. Except
for the slimy substance coating his body, he is unmarked.
He hears crying from nearby, but it does not sound like the
soul eater's whimper.

Rising gingerly, he moves to where the blonde woman
kneels over the soul eater's body. He is dead.

The blonde woman dries her tears and turns to face
Doggett. "He took your death. You freed him." Doggett can
only nod.

-------------------------------

October 4, 2000 midday
Squamash Township

Sheriff Frey startles as though he himself has been shot on
seeing Doggett appear with a cadre of agents from the
Philadelphia Field Office. The two men stare levelly at
each other.

The sheriff decides to take the offensive. "You know you
can't prove anything."

"I know," says Doggett, not breaking eye contact.

Behind them, the field agents divide into teams to scour
the underground tunnels and surrounding woods. The
ASAC calls out, "Okay. You've seen Agent Mulder's
picture. Assume he is armed, but do not, repeat, do not
use deadly force. We need this man brought in alive. Now,
go!"

The search goes on for several hours. There is no sign that
Mulder has ever been there.

___________

October 5, 2000
Scully's apartment

In a fitting division of labor, Langly sweeps an electronic-
bug detector along the upper walls and ceiling, while
Frohike checks out under the furniture and along the floor.
Byers installs a device into Scully's telephone that will
detect any future wiretaps. Scully herself is relegated to
the couch with her feet up.

"Find anything?" she calls after a minute or two.

"Yeah," Langly says. "Your upstairs neighbor has really
crappy stereo speakers."

Frohike straightens up, wiping his hands on his pants.
"Can I get you anything, Scully? A pillow, a vitamin? Any
of a wide assortment of herbal teas--there's peppermint,
lemon,..."

"This is her house, dork," Langly interjects. "I think she
knows what's here."

Scully gives Frohike a quick and somewhat tired smile.
"I'm fine. But thank you for your...obvious consideration
for my...condition. Look, guys, I know you've been in my
medical records so you know what's going on, and, well..."

"Congratulations, Scully." Frohike gives her a quick kiss
on the cheek.

"Yeah, congratulations." "Congratulations, Scully." Byers
looks at her a bit uncomfortably, as though he expects her
to go into labor any minute even though she is only about
six weeks pregnant. They ask no questions about
paternity.

Frohike perches on the edge of the couch. "We brought
you a present," he says and nods to Langly, who fires up
the laptop they brought with them.

Langly passes the computer to Scully, who finds herself
looking at the blips of a heart monitor, pulse rate 74.

"It's Mulder's," Frohike whispers, and Scully looks at him
in shock.

Byers begins the explanation. "It's from a few months ago:
First Person Shooter out in California, when Mulder went
into the game. You knew the protective gear had built-in
sensors to monitor the players' vital signs so that the FPS
programmers would know what gave players the biggest
rush. Anyway, the sensors fed into a database completely
separate from the game, so the records weren't lost when
they killed the game you and Mulder were in. And as I'm
sure you can imagine, the security encryption on
everything at FPS is absolutely impenetrable..."

"If I do say so myself," Langly jumps in. "No way your
guys could have gotten at this."

"They may not even have known it existed," Scully
breathes.

"And Ivan owed us--and you--big time," Frohike
comments. "So here it is."

Byers reaches over Scully's shoulder and keys in a
command, bringing up a menu screen. "There were
sensors in the chest pad, goggles, gloves, knee
pads...basically, the whole outfit was wired. As you can
see, they monitored just about every function that could be
read via an external sensor: ECG, EEG, respiration rate,
nerve activity, eye movement, reflex-response time,..."

"It's a full profile--you could do a brain map and total-
body assessment based on this," Scully says, still reading
down the list of recorded data.

"And since we have your records as well, Scully, we can
compare them with your existing health records from the
same time, as controls,"  Byers finishes.

"And to think how pissed I was at him for jumping into the
damned game in the first place.... Oh, Mulder." Scully
pulls up the recorded EEG and watches it as though she's
seeing Mulder himself and not just waveforms on a
screen--all perfectly within normal range.

*Doggett needs to see this,* she thinks. She's not sure she
can trust him to accept the implications of what this data
means--that there truly is a conspiracy at work falsifying
Mulder's records--or to keep the information to himself.
But she feels she has to.

Scully tunes back into the conversation to hear Langly say,
"So maybe you won't be pissed when you see the 'Scully:
Death Avenger' game out in time for the Christmas rush."

She looks sideways at Langly. "You're kidding, right?"

Frohike grins. "Worried about your image? You should
be--we saw 'The Lazarus Bowl.'"

Under her breath, she mumbles, "I have other things to
worry about," and goes back to staring at the computer
screen.

-----------------------------

October 6, 2000
X-Files office, Hoover Building

Scully's gait is still a little stiff as she walks into the office
for the first time since she'd left for Arizona two weeks
earlier. The office is quiet, and the chaos she'd seen it in
after the task force members searched it has been cleaned
up. She thinks it is empty, but then notices Agent Doggett
asleep, hunched over a notepad. She clears her throat,
trying to wake him without startling him.

Doggett slowly becomes aware of his surroundings, then
snaps to attention once he realizes Scully is standing there.
He rises from the desk chair and offers it to her, with a
"Welcome back, Agent Scully. Please sit; how are you
feeling?" There's a slight pleading tone underlying his
words. Scully doesn't know what he's been up to or what
he's seen in the last several days; but, whatever it is, it's
had an effect on him.

"I'm fine, Agent Doggett. How are you?" She is careful not
to appear to look too closely at him as he stands a
respectable distance away, in a military at-ease that
controls but doesn't completely hide his discomfort.

"Me? I'm good, Agent Scully. Thanks for asking. Oh, sorry
the office is still kind of a mess. I started trying to put
away the files when I got back yesterday and kind of got
caught up in it..." He gestures vaguely, seemingly
apologizing for having spent the night refiling.

"Back from where?" Scully asks, feigning casualness. She
gestures to him to take the other chair.

"Squamash, following up the case there--you know the one
I'm talking about?"

"Yes, the soul eater. Why that one? It wasn't an abduction;
it wasn't really even a case." She is genuinely curious as to
why he'd pursue that lead.

"I realize that, now. Um, that soul eater, Mulder believed it
could do what it was supposed to do, didn't he?"

"Mulder believes in a great many things."

"See, I don't know if you know this, but Mulder was out
there just a few weeks ago. I think he went to try to get that
soul eater to cure him."

Scully feels the flash of anger rising, that Doggett would
suggest once again that there were things she didn't know
about Mulder, and that he'd continue to insist that Mulder
was ill. She senses, however, that there's something else at
work here, that now is not the time to continue that battle,
so she keeps her anger to herself and softens her tone.

"I'm reasonably certain, Agent Doggett, that Mulder hasn't
been to Squamash since late spring. And even if he was
there, which he wasn't, and even if he did need to be
cured, which he didn't, by that time the soul eater was..."

"...dead? Yeah, he was; but then he wasn't. And now he is,
but for real this time." Doggett casts his eyes around the
office. "Agent Scully, have you ever had an incredibly
vivid nightmare, that you know can only have been a
dream but it seemed real?"

"Welcome to the X-Files, Agent Doggett," Scully says with
a tight smile. Then, quietly, "What happened out there?"
She knows she's asking for a leap of faith.

"Uh, nothing," Doggett replies vaguely. Scully raises an
eyebrow but doesn't push him any further. Still, she senses
that even he isn't satisfied with that answer.

Doggett looks at Scully, then looks away before
continuing, speaking as though he's pretending she's not
there. "I remember hearing a blast and at the same time
feeling myself torn apart...then I was lying there covered in
this slimy stuff, and she told me he'd taken my death. But
it can't have happened like that."

Scully stands and takes a few steps around, but notices
Doggett looking at her with concern. She returns to her
chair before she begins to speak.

"A couple of years ago, I was sent on a case in New York.
Kersh wouldn't send Mulder; I was paired with one of the
agents out of the Field Office there, and I was shot by my
fellow officer. The suspect in that case believed that he had
long ago cheated death by letting someone else die in his
place; and he told me to close my eyes and not look so that
he could die in mine. The wound I'd received should have
killed me. But I didn't die, and he did. I don't have an
explanation for it, Agent Doggett, any more than I have an
explanation for how the soul eater did what he did.
They're among those things I've seen but can't deny. It's not
always about aliens; there's a lot of this earth that can't be
explained either."

"But...what do you DO with that?"

Scully thinks that maybe, just maybe, Doggett really wants
to know.

"There are a few choices. You can deny it; you can try to
force it into a 'rational' explanation; you can accept it for
what it is without explanation; or you can go beyond what
seems comfortable or logical or rational and try to find an
explanation there. I spent a long time doing the first two;
and I understand, better than I may seem to, how you feel
and why you feel it. But I can't afford to stay in my comfort
zone, haven't been able to for a while now, even
before...this. And now, I can't afford to let you stay there
either. The stakes are too high; my partner's life is on the
line."

Doggett shakes his head. "I don't think I can do what
you're asking, Agent Scully. It just makes no sense."

"Let me ask you something, please, Agent Doggett. I am
well aware that you are the task force leader on Mulder's
investigation and that the way you conduct it is your
business. But if we're going to be working together on the
X-Files, I need you to be honest with me: Do you believe
Mulder staged his own disappearance?"

Doggett shifts uncomfortably, not wanting to look Scully
in the eye. "It's one possibility, yes."

"But it is your main working premise for this case?" Scully
refuses to let him off the hook.

"At this time, it's the most plausible scenario." It is the only
scenario Doggett has actively pursued, but he can't bring
himself to answer her question with a simple "yes."

"Well, then, according to your own premise, you should
be doing what I'm asking you to do. One of the first things
you said to me concerned constructing a working profile
of Mulder. If he's your suspect, you need to get into his
head, believe what he believes, think the way he thinks,
predict how he'll act. That's standard investigative
procedure--as I'm sure you know, Mulder is one of the
FBI's best profilers and has himself developed hundreds of
profiles that led to apprehensions.

"But I think if you do that, if you really do that, in this case
you'll find that what you now believe to be impossible is
not only possible but likely."

Doggett looks at her with doubt and goes to object; she
holds up a hand, forestalling his comment.

"There are some people I want you to meet with as soon as
possible; they hold some proof you'll be interested in.
And, read the X-Files, Agent Doggett. Read as many as
you can. They'll tell you about cases concerning
phenomena you could never have imagined. But, more
importantly, they will tell you what kind of investigator,
and what kind of man, Mulder is."

Scully rises and goes to the battered file cabinet against the
wall. It takes her only a little longer than normal to find
what she's looking for; Doggett has done a good job
restoring order.

She walks over to Doggett and hands him a seven-year-old
file for a case that took place in Bellefleur, Oregon. She
leaves him to read it.

THE END



