Tell me what you think. :)

Summary: What if, in the grand scheme of things, things went
more right than wrong?

Notes:

I added about a decade to Diana's age to fit within the
story (and let's face it, Mimi looks the part). Deal. ;-P

Unless the words "the end" are found at the end of what's
written, there is no need to beta... yet. Everything's
changing, so all I need (and need dearly, at that) are
opinions and insight. I haven't even looked over grammar and
spelling yet and I _always_ do that before sending for beta.
Considering the size and content of the chapters so far,
there will be more than 20 in the final product.

Prologue.

Saudi Arabia, 1932

Harry St. John Philby was sitting in a plush high-backed
chair when a serviceman interrupted the afternoon ritual.
Having just sat down for tea, the British Liaison to Saudi
Arabia was startled. The sugar cube, halfway to the cup,
slipped from the ornate tweezers to clang against the silver
tray before landing on the floor.

"Damn!"

"I'm sorry sir, but there's an urgent call waiting for you
at the radio," said the young serviceman.

"Better bloody well be worth it."

The radio room was in the top floor of the building and
Philby, angry at the loss of the few moments of peace he was
afforded daily, took his time ascending the stairs.

"<Harry! I think we've found it!>" Karim shouted, struggling
to make his voice audible over the terrible connection.

Philby immediately noted the importance of Karim's spoken
Arabic. He obviously didn't want the prying ears of the
radio crew, only recently introduced to the language and
still in training, to follow the conversation.

"<Yes? Where?>"

"<Near the Rub' Al Khali. Ubar.>"

"<Are you near there now?>"

"<No, but I'm sure of the location. We've been talking to
several of the Bedouin trackers we hired yesterday, and one
told us a very interesting story when we asked about strange
lights or unnatural disasters: 'From Qariya strikes the sun
upon the town; Blame not the guide that vainly seeks it now,
Since the Destroying Power laid it low, Sparing not cotton
smock nor silken gown.'>"

"<And you think his story means what, exactly?>"

"<I think it means that there was a catastrophic blast at or
near the lost city of Ubar. That maybe the explosion
destroyed the city, or a least didn't go unnoticed by the
locals.>"

"<How long until you can get there?>"

"<A few days to take on goods and rest the animals, perhaps
a bit over a week to travel. Say a fortnight.>"

<"I'll meet you there, then.">

<"This could be bigger than Kulik's."> Before cutting the
connection, Karim said in English, "Muhammad watch over and
protect you. It will be a hard journey."

Philby would never realize just how prophetic Karim's words
had been.

-----

Moscow, Russia, 1925

Leonid Alekseyevich Kulik was a strange man, if you asked
his acquaintances at the Mineralogical Museum in St.
Petersburg. He kept his own counsel, drank little, and
devoted his life to the Party and his work. Work that had
gotten the attention of powerful people. Including the owner
of the beautiful dacha on the outskirts of the capital city
in which he now stood, kicking the gray snow from his boots.

"<Thank you for coming, Leonid Alekseyevich. I hope your
journey was well?>"

The voice was rough; sandy like a beach, yet soothing as the
winter moon. The man Leonid met was a father figure to the
many who listened to him on the few radios available, or
read the more easily available government newspapers. In
person, however, he was only of middle stature and not
particularly impressive. His angled, commanding features
aside, Leonid was surprised at his apparent normalcy. That
voice, though· his fellows at the Academy had urged him to
be wary of the voice. It could rock you to sleep, or command
your death. Leonid chose his first words carefully.

"<Spassiba, Comrade. Very well. The new trains are marvelous
machines. A tribute to the People's Government.">

It was a bald faced lie, and they both new it. The trains
were ugly, poorly designed and inefficient, fouled and
defaced and soiled by the dregs of the underclass that knew
no common decorum.

The man sitting by the warm fire laughed and waved him into
a chair with one hand; the other kept a firm grip on a tall
glass of vodka. An empty glass and an unlabelled bottle of
the clear liquid sat on a short table nearby.

"<I see you have the politicians' gift of flattery within
you. We shall see if you also possess their gift of secrecy.
Come, sit, drink; we have much to discuss.>"

Leonid moved quickly to comply. Comrade Lenin was a man not
to be trifled with.

"Have you ever been to Siberia? The Stony Tunguska river is
beautiful, I hear."

-----

Washington, D.C., Present

"It's me," she said, when he finally picked up the phone.
She was obviously tired, and her voice held little emotion.
Mulder knew the news wouldn't be good, but remained
optimistic.

"Hi." For the next several minutes he carried the
conversation, telling her about the new files, how her mom
was doing, but finally he asked the important question.

"How's he doing?" he was almost afraid to ask, but knew she
needed someone to talk to, someone upon which she could vent
her frustrations, and with whom she could share her secret
grief.

There was a time in the not so distant past when this
communication had been impossible, when their sadness and
longing had kept them apart. That time was past. Love had
been freely given, and accepted. Vows had been taken. Walls
had fallen, griefs shared, and burdens halved.

This burden, however, seemed to serve no purpose but God's.
A child lay dying. No nefarious plot, no cloaked figures
whispering in shadows. No unnatural illness. No last-minute
silicon cure.

A cancer, yes, but not mysterious. Matthew Scully was dying
of leukemia, and, as yet, there didn't seem to be a damn
thing to prevent it. But, Mulder knew, there is always hope.
Scully had taken emergency leave to go to San Diego to be
with her big brother and his family. In fact, nearly all of
the Scullys were already there, each one undergoing genetic
testing, hoping their marrow might be enough to buy time, or
turn the tide towards remission. Margaret Scully had been
forced to stay at home, bedridden until the day before with
bronchitis. Whether or not she was a donor match was
irrelevant, as she was considered past the age of candidacy,
but to not be able to go to her family in their time of need
was difficult for the proud matriarch.

Scully's reply was soft, deep with barely concealed pain.
"It's over."

"What? He can't be dead! Your mother told me he had several
more months at the very least."

"Oh, God, Mulder," she said as the tears finally took her,
the strain overwhelming. "It's worse. Somehow one of· He's,
he's-" she broke off.

"Scully? Take a deep breath. There you go. Another. Shh...
Talk to me," he soothed her as best he could, stepping away
from his desk, pacing the office, phone pressed to his ear.
He spoke of love and happier things. Words failed him when
next she spoke. Promises fled and hope died in an instant.

"He's HIV positive. Must've been one of the last
transfusions."

Mulder gasped. AIDS. Even he knew what would probably happen
next. Matthew would immediately be removed from the donor
lists ö if there was no familial match, there would be no
further search. Radiation therapy might continue, but
everyone would probably agree that the added stress to the
immune system would be far more debilitating and painful
than even the deadly cancer. Kill the cancer, poison the
boy. Fight the virus and the cancer takes over. Russian
Roulette with hollow-points in all six chambers.

Taking his own advice, he breathed deeply and exhaled slowly
for several moments before speaking again. "I'm visiting
your mom this afternoon. She's doing much better, but no
flying yet. I can drive her there if you want. I'm sure
Skinner'd approve emergency leave. Hell, I'm sure Skinner
would insist on taking driving shifts." He could feel the
small smile on the end of the phone, and his own sadness
lifted ever so slightly.

"No, there's no point in doing all that now. I'm going to
stay for a week or so, then come home. There's no point in
staying here if I'm not needed. Billy and Tara have friends
here, and Charlie's on extended leave. I won't need to come
back for a while. I should save the rest of my vacation
time·"

ÎFor the funeral,' he finished the sentence in his head. Out
loud he asked, "Do you want me to talk to your mom?"

"Please. I know she'd feel better hearing in person. She'll
need someone to fuss at. Mothering is what makes he feel
useful." She hesitated.

"So many children, Mulder. So little time. So precious
little time."

He knew all too well. Now Matthew. The pain was tangible.

"It's about closing time there. Why don't you drive over to
Mom's now, and I'll call you at home later. Ok?"

"Yeah," he responded. He continued, knowing she needed his
support, needed the reassurance. "I love you."

Deep breath, slow exhale. "You, too." Click.

Three thousand miles apart, a man and woman cried for the
loss of a child that wasn't even dead; that wasn't even
theirs.

And that was just the beginning.

End Prologue.

-----

Chapter One.

San Diego

Dana Scully sat slumped in a chair inside the Nurses' locker
room. Everything was a mess. Her nephew lay dying, she
missed Mulder, and she hated being away from her mother when
she was sick.

A few minutes after she hung up the phone she visited the
restroom to clean herself up as much as possible, and
returned to the waiting room to rejoin her family.

Charlie was the first to see her. "Hey sis. How's mom?"

"Mulder says much better. She even left the bedroom
unassisted yesterday."

Then Bill piped up. "You called Mulder and not Mom? Why
didn't you just-"

"Because, Bill," she interrupted, "you know she's not going
downstairs, and the phone on the second floor doesn't work
since the thunderstorm. He brings her dinner every night and
checks on her after the nurse leaves. I don't see anybody
here helping her."

She wanted to say more, but stayed silent, knowing his pain
always manifested itself as anger. It was part of what made
him a good sailor and a warrior, that his natural aggression
could be focused to a task. Unfortunately, it also made him
a complete bastard when he didn't have anything to occupy
his time. So why, she wondered, didn't it bother her in
quite the same way when Mulder showed the same tendencies?
There's a medical paper, she silently mused. "Behavioral
reactional differences to gross psychological trauma to
subjects in inter-familial versus inter-social
relationships." Maybe she could get Mulder's input on the
psychological aspects of the idea.

Cowed momentarily by his sister's words, Bill left the
waiting room, undoubtedly, Scully thought, to harass the
hospital staff some more.

"That was smooth, sis," Charlie commented, a weary smile on
his face. "Make us all feel guilty."

"But why should you feel guilty?" she joked in return,
rubbing her tired eyes. "Bill at least has been home in the
last 5 years."

He clutched his chest in mock agony, glad at the chance to
avoid thinking about the current situation for any length of
time. "Don't be like that, Dane. You know I was on duty in
Riyaad and couldn't get home. Every leave I spent with my
wife and the babies."

"I know, Char-" she was interrupted by the entrance of a
nurse.

"Dana Scully?" asked the nurse.

"Yes," she replied, standing and smoothing her slacks.

"They're ready to start the testing. If you'll just follow
me."

"I'll be back in a few hours, Charlie," she said, kissing
his cheek. "Don't be too hard on Bill. He's got more
important things on his mind than worrying about being
civil."

"I know, sis. I hope you're a match," he said as she turned
to follow the nurse.

"Me, too," Scully replied, stepping through the archway into
the busy corridor.

"Good luck."

-----

Outskirts of Baltimore

Luck was definitely not on his side, Mulder thought as he
sat in rush hour traffic. He'd been in the car for over an
hour, more than enough time under normal circumstances to
reach his destination, and he was barely more than halfway
there.

Another 55 minutes had him through the supermarket to pick
up dinner supplies and pulling into Margaret Scully's
driveway. Three more had him taking the spare key from the
rock in the garden and opening the door to the kitchen in
the back of the house.

After depositing the paper bags on the counter, a quick
check upstairs showed that Mrs. Scully was still asleep, but
the old wind-up Big Ben clock by her bed had its alarm set
to go off in a little more than an hour.

Moving down the stairs, Mulder had to chuckle. "Trust a
Scully woman to regulate her sleep, even when she's sick,"
he murmured.

The meal was simple: a small steak and baked potato, and
some soup in case she wasn't up for a heavy meal. Mulder
popped the potatoes into the oven, and rummaged as quietly
as possible through the kitchen for pans and utensils.

The rest of the meal was easy to prepare, and wouldn't take
much time, so he decided to take a tour of the house.

When he reached the living room, he stopped. It was just as
he remembered. Large windows to the front bracketing the
door, the staircase on one wall that was lined with family
photos. A simple entertainment center setup was built into
the stairwell, containing an all-in-one stereo that belonged
to Billy in his youth, a vcr, speakers, and a television.
The wall the sofa rested against was lined thickly with
pictures and framed cross-stitch samplers that only stopped
at the entrance to the kitchen. Across from the sofa on the
same side of the room sat several more chairs and
disorganized piles of magazines rested upon a coffee table.
The remaining wall housed a fireplace banked by massive
bookshelves, filled with books and photo albums.

A beautiful home, he thought. Clean and well maintained, but
unlike his own childhood residence it felt lived in. Mulder
grabbed several photo albums, and placed them on the table
to look through after finishing dinner. With that, he
returned to the kitchen.

He heard the alarm bell ring softly through the ceiling, and
the task of cooking dinner was finished quickly before he
returned upstairs. The conversation was light as he opened
the trays and served the food. Not much was said while they
ate, but Margaret finally asked the question: "How's
Matthew?" It was, of course, the end of the meal whether
they were finished or not.

Mulder explained the situation fully, holding his new "Mom"
as she cried, rubbing and patting her back to soothe her
fits of coughing.

All in all, he thought, a terrible day.

-----

Saudi Arabia, 1932

Yes, terrible. The brief sandstorm the previous night had
cost the party two camels, a private, and more than a
hundred pounds of foodstuffs, including water.

The good news was that they were fully two days ahead of
schedule, and the caravan should arrive at the site sometime
the next afternoon, if the guides were correct.

Philby was quite pleased by the news, considering the loss
of the camels and supplies, as well as the soldier, as
acceptable.

The radioman signaled for his attention, and he stepped
quickly from one tent to the next, avoiding the fiendish
heat as much as possible.

"Karim, sir. He wishes to-"

"Give me the radio," Philby interrupted. "Yes, Karim? What
is your status?"

"<Two of the soldiers attempted to desert last night, after
hearing some of the stories told by one of the natives.
Something about a plague in the city, and that Allah struck
it down. I had them shot. The rest are loyal. We will arrive
tomorrow, and the base should be ready for your arrival in
two days.>"

"<We should be with you by sundown tomorrow. Your priority
is to secure the site; everything else is secondary. Find
the guide who scared the soldiers. Detain him, interrogate
him, and kill him. I will not have this mission jeopardized
by uneducated natives telling wild fables. Make him a lesson
for the others.>"

"<Yes, sir. Karim out.>"

To the radio man, Philby ordered him to inform the party to
be ready to move out in two hours. It was time to go.

The traveling was slow out of necessity, camels being easier
to obtain and much more cost-effective than the cheaply
manufactured military vehicles. Nightfall brought them to
within 40 kilometers of the destination.

Camp was set up quickly, and Philby took out a small party
to search the area. Less than an hour later his search was
rewarded when several of the guides approached him hefting
strangely colored large rocks.

-----

St. Petersburg, 1927

It was time to go.

Kulik packed the last of his equipment into the trunk, and
began hauling it to the truck waiting outside the building.

Andrey Polya, his assistant for the mission, pulled him into
an empty hallway. "<Are you sure we should do this?>"

"<We are under orders from Lenin himself.>"

"<But Lenin is dead, and the new General Secretary is
merciless. Stalin has already made most of the team
"disappear." You know they are already dead.>"

"<We go for the glory of the Union.>" Kulik replied, moving
back to his trunk. "<Who knows what unusual minerals we will
discover. If our efforts are successful, Stalin will be
pleased.>"

"<And if they are not, not even my cousin's unborn child
will live to remember me.>" Polya replied, reaching for his
own trunk and moving to follow his boss.

-----

Chapter 2

Mulder found himself on Maggie Scully's couch, blinded
momentarily as he awoke to the bright morning light
streaming through the window. After comforting her so late
into the evening, they'd agreed ö rather, he eventually
acquiesced - that he shouldn't make the hour drive back to
the apartment.

Stretching his limbs and rotating his torso, his eyes turned
to face the photo albums sitting on the coffee table,
forgotten from the night before.

His thoughts went back to the last Scully family album he'd
looked through. He'd spent several hours in this same house
exorcising his demons with the help of the Scully women,
grieving finally for a sister taken and a family lost. He'd
decided that night that the past was illusory, and that he
needed to concentrate on moving forward with his life. To
move with the past, not to reclaim it.

That night, and the following morning, sitting at the
kitchen table looking through Scully's childhood photos,
combined to form one of the most influential moments in
Mulder's life - If Sam's abduction was the catalyst for
every important decision of the first half of his life,
those 12 hours in Maryland would affect everything after.

Returning to the present, Mulder leaned over and grabbed the
album in front of him, opening to the front page. The first
picture was in black and white, and at first it looked like
Emily Sim as a teenager, until Mulder realized it was Maggie
in her youth. She was dressed in a gaudy swimsuit, wrestling
happily with another girl considerably younger. The little
girl looked oddly familiar as well, but there was no
familial resemblance to the Scully's. Behind them, there was
a pool, and beyond that the photo was grainy and unfocused,
but the terrain looked arid and dry, like Arizona or New
Mexico.

"Good morning, Fox." At the sound of the voice Mulder
jumped, the album dropping beside him.

"You startled me. Morning," Mulder replied, picking up the
few photos that had fallen, replacing them in the book.
"Feeling better?" At her nod he continued. "I hope you don't
mind - I raided your photo collection."

"Not at all. They're our family records, and you certainly
count as family. Find anything interesting?"

"Just started. These are you, right?" he asked, holding up
several of the black and white pictures and patting the
space beside him on the sofa, inviting her to sit. She
accepted bringing with her a pot of tea and two coffee mugs.

Passing the photo of the pool scene to Maggie, he asked her
to tell him about it.

"Yes! I haven't seen these in years. I grew up in New Mexico
ö my father was an instructor at the New Mexico Military
Institute, and Dana's grandmother worked mornings at the
local library."

Maggie Scully closed her eyes in concentration.

"Let me think... That's Dee Wrigley. I used to sit for her
since her parents both had full-time jobs. That was rare in
those days, but her brother Carlton was a student at
N.M.M.I. Tuition wasn't cheap. Her family moved shortly
after this picture was taken; they were only in town long
enough for Carl to get his four years in and graduate. In
and out. I never heard from any of them again. That was
probably taken in '48 or '49 at the community pool in
Roswell."

"Wait a second. You grew up in Roswell?" Mulder was
astonished ö Margaret Scully, a possible first hand witness
to the Roswell Incident, and he'd never had a clue.

"Of course. N.M.M.I.'s located in Roswell. It's a small
town, more so then, of course, but it was always busy. The
Military Institute, Goddard's rocket testing site. You
wouldn't believe how often explosions would wake us in the
middle of the night." She smiled, obviously lost in her
memories. "Usually one of the experimental rockets
exploding. Ducky and I would go out the next afternoon after
school and pick up fragments. We'd put the flashier pieces
in an old mason jar and make wishes on them."

"Ducky?" Mulder's body went tense.

"That's what some of us called Dee. Her real name was Diana,
but we called her Ducky because ö"

"Because the spaces between the toes on her left foot were
webbed," Mulder finished, feeling numb.

"Yes! Did you know Dee?"

"Something like that," Mulder replied. He had more questions
about Ms. Wrigley, later known as Fowley, but they could
come after he'd had time to form a better set of questions.
He moved the conversation towards safer topics.

"I've never heard you say much about your family."

"Most of them are gone, so the topic doesn't come up often.
The O'Leary's were a close knit group; the entire family
came through Ellis Island at the same time and settled in
Chicago in the early 1800's, spreading from there after the
great fire. My father came out of the army an officer after
the first World War and when he came home he took a
placement as an instructor at the Institute."

Mulder laughed. "Don't tell me your grandmother started the
great fire."

"That was Kate O'Leary. She was my great-uncle's
half-sister. Dana's named after their mother. They rented a
few rooms to another family who happened to be throwing a
big party the night the fire started. My dad always thought
it was most likely one of the drunken revelers but I had a
slightly different theory."

"Which was?"

"There were actually three fires that night if I remember
correctly. One was a mid-sized fire in Michigan. The famous
one in Chicago; over two hundred people died. There was also
something in Wisconsin that killed over a thousand people.
Wiped out the whole town. Can't remember what, though."

"I remember reading about that. It's wasn't a big news item
because it was a small town, but fires raged for days
after... Peshtigo was the name. They never determined the
cause, but a lot of people think it was a comet impact. I
never connected Peshtigo and Chicago and never heard about
the other one." He should tell the guys, he thought. They'd
love the coincidence.

It struck him moments later that he had, in the space of an
hour, come upon two separate but eerily important
coincidences. More contrived than coincidental, he mused
while sipping his tea.

-----

Chapter Three

Perched atop a rise of sand, Philby surveyed his domain. The
added height gave him new perspective.

Though the crater itself had lost much of its shape, covered
or weathered away by wind and sand and time, that acres of
sand were broken by patches of cracked, black glass fused by
tremendous heat was easily apparent. Small dots of glaring
white could also be seen, tiny bits and pieces of what
ostensibly was once a non-terrestrial mass of impressive
size.

He had found his impact crater. His only mistake was in
thinking the thirty to fifty foot wide falling body was
originally a mere comet.

He wasn't the first to make that mistake.

-----

Kulik was quite pleased the father of his country was dead.
Even dead, Kulik had half a mind to assassinate him.

He'd finally come to the conclusion that he, and Lenin, were
the only ones dumb enough to care. But Comrade Lenin was
dead. Only Kulik himself was dumb enough to cross the
continent by train and truck and even boat simply to trek a
hundred kilometers, too much of it on foot, over rivers and
mountains and swamps so dense with disease-dripping
mosquitos you couldn't see your arm in front of you.

"I should have known better! Dumb. Mindlessly, hopelessly
stupid," he whispered under his breath. Walking alone, just
ahead of the rest of the expedition, he was referring to
himself. He swore to begin the journey home come morning, no
matter what they found. "Assuming we find anything in this
hell," he muttered.

The expedition was a success of a failure. For 19 years his
people had known about the mysterious "earthquake" that had
set off seismographs at least as far away as five thousand
kilometers. Only he had been smart enough to research the
event, to learn of the virulent storms and fires in the area
that had raged for days afterwards. To study the reports of
strange lights in the sky for weeks afterwards; reports that
came from as far away as Sweden.

At least he had been right. The Evenks, a nomadic people of
Siberia, had confirmed the circular pattern of fallen trees.
Living in fear of an angry god whose wrath came in the form
of fireballs from the heavens they had kept their stories
almost entirely within their tribe.

Several kilometers later Kulik had completely forgotten his
recent epithets as the geologic wonder before him was
revealed. He walked as quickly as the heavy gear upon his
back and mosquito netting would let him.

The bright green trees of the dense forest faded to reveal-

More trees. Dead ones. He turned and called out to his party
to move faster then swiveled back to the gray and black
broken husks before him.

For miles they spread, parallel to each other, sunk into the
rich soil and bogs and radiating outward as far as he could
see, each and every decaying trunk pointing like arrows out
from a central area as if to say "Go away. This place is not
for you; this place is not for anyone. Leave, now."

It would have been the smartest decision of his life.
Unfortunately, he had long since forgotten his promise.

-----

The thing Scully noticed first upon waking was that she was
alone in bed. Then she remembered why.

She showered and dressed quickly and headed downstairs only
to find a note taped to the coffeemaker. She smiled; only
family could know you that well.

Dane- Looked like you needed extra sleep. Hitched a ride
with Bill to relieve Tara. You can take my car. Dr. called -
some results came back on your tests, but needs to talk to
you. -- Charlie

So that's it, Scully thought. Something contracted as a
result of the X-Files must have skewed the tests. Also
meaning she can't be a donor even if she's a match. Shit.

Trying and failing to reach Mulder at home, on the cell or
in the office, she gave up and called her mom.

"Scully residence."

"Mulder? Why are you still there? Is Mom okay?"

"She's fine, Scully. Even a 'dish,' as Frohike would say. We
had a nice candlelit dinner, and, well, one thing led to
another and I spent the night." His voice took on a fearful
tone. "Oh, Scully, it just happened! Can you ever forgive
me?"

She had no choice but to laugh. "Thanks, I needed that.
Really, how is she?"

"She's fine. Actually got up and made tea this morning.
She'll be fine to fly there in a few days. I'm sure
Mattie'll feel better with Gramma around. How's things on
your end?"

"I'm not sure, really," she replied. "I guess things really
got to me; they left me to sleep in this morning. They took
the samples for testing yesterday. I'm going to grab
something quick for breakfast and head back-

"The doctor wants to see me about some of the early results.
I don't think it looks very good. They must have found some
things in my blood that surprised them."

"To say the least," said Mulder somberly. "I'm sorry for all
the stuff I've dragged you-"

Could he really think her own cancer might be back? She'd
gotten the results of the annual tests back from the
oncologist more than a month ago. "Don't start on the
guilt-"

"I'm not. Really. I know I can't change anything that's
happened. I'm not sure if I even would. But there's nothing
that says I have to be happy about all the shit you've
been-"

"We've been through, Mulder. We. We're a team, remember?"

"Damn good one, too. In fact, I think your mother gave me
ideas for a new case or two for when you get back here."

"I wasn't talking merely professionally you know. My mom?"

"It's a career, Scully. In sickness and in health and all
that. You are my physician of record, you know. We can
discuss the cases when you get back."

"Okay. I should get to the hospital soon. Hey, Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"I love my job."

"Me, too. Go talk to that doctor. Hey, maybe it'll be good
news for once. I'm gonna go do some research on these
cases."

"Be careful."

"Aren't I always? Seriously, the most recent case is more
than 50 years old. I'll be fine."

"That's my line."

"Maybe you're rubbing off on me."

"I'd like to."

"Oh, Scully, marry me."

"Been there, done that, got the certificate."

"I swear, that's an X-File in itself."

"Been there, done-"

"Bye, Scully."

-----

"Doctor Schnare? You wanted to see me?"

Scully had done a lot of background research on Doctor Terry
Schnare, and her recommendation had swayed Bill in his
favor. Schnare was a rarity in the field of medicine.
Mid-forties, graying hair and glasses, his office door was
always open and his home phone number was printed on his
business cards. Specializing in Pediatric Oncology after the
death of his first child, he knew how important it was for
him to be accessible to his patients, and he was respected
not only for his talent but also his dedication. An extra
point that endeared the man even to Mulder, terror of
physicians world-wide, Schnare was a rabid baseball fan.
Office-wide, pennants and posters and other memorabilia were
strewn over the walls.

"Ahh, Ms. Scully; I must say you given us a lot of work."
Seeing the fearful look on her face he smiled and motioned
for her to sit. "It's not your cancer. You're still in
remission."

Scully relaxed but not fully, waiting for the other shoe to
drop. "Is there a problem?"

"Not... exactly. It's not that simple," he said, opening a
file on his desk. "The good news is you're a match."

She leaned forward. "And the bad news?"

"Well, there isn't any; not as such, anyway. I knew from
speaking to you that your were a Federal Agent and the
nurse's comments here stated that due to some classified
cases you might have some genetic abnormalities, but..."

"But what? I'm also a doctor; there's no need to sugar-coat
anything you have to say."

"There's nothing to sugar-coat, Dr. Scully. I have no clue
what you've experienced in the field, but in this ballgame
it seems rather than three strikes out, you and Matthew may
have a grand slam in your favor."

"Explain."

"One: For better or worse you have an extensive medical
file; between that and the records of your entire family, we
have a very trustworthy history to work from. Two: Blood
types match though you are right, your blood does carry
certain abnormalities ö we'll get to that in a moment.
Three: the marrow is a clean match. Again, there are some
genetic inconsistencies but none beyond the norm and none
that rule out your candidacy. The go-ahead run: It seems you
carry the antibodies required to fight off the HIV virus."
Schnare sat back and watched her reaction.

Scully was dumbfounded. Immune?

"Is that possible?"

"Possible? Yes and no. I've been reading up on this since
the lab called me at six this morning.

"Yes, it is possible to be immune. There are people born
every day who are inherently immune to the virus.
Unfortunately, modern science hasn't figured out how to
replicate it, but there are doctors and researchers in every
country working on the problem, and many of them are looking
at those people naturally immune for a solution. It's an
inherited trait, but you're the only one in your family with
the immunity. Lord knows, if it was genetic we wouldn't be
here in the first place. So the first question here is: How
is it that you are immune to this deadly virus? The next is:
Can this immunity be transferred?"

How, indeed. As for the second, one could only hope.

----- Need to add a Scully part to this. :)


Chapter 4

Leonid Alekseyevich was glad Andrey had decided to bring the
particle detector. It was large, needing to be broken down
into pieces small enough to distribute between the packs of
the expedition's members. It was also one of many things
Kulik had cursed for adding to his burden on the long
journey, but it made searching the swampy epicenters
progress exponentially faster than without.

Still, much time had been wasted in the bug-infested swamps
looking for signs of the comet's central mass. In fact,
there were multiple epicenters, each original crater now
little more than stagnant pools of water perfect for
spawning blood-sucking insects. Several interesting pieces
had been found along with what seemed to be a metal tablet
inscribed with an ancient language, but no obvious meteoric
core had been found. Kulik figured that turning the site
over to the University anthropologists would be useful in
gaining favor with the new General Secretary.

He was startled from his reverie by one of his students:
"Izvyenetye, professor-"

"Da?"

"<Professor Polya has found what he thinks are the remains
of the largest mass. He sent me to get you.>"

"<Good, good. Show me.>"

Several kilometers later, Kulik truly walked into hell. His
students ran past him, looking as frightened as if Comrade
Stalin himself were chasing them in one of his rumored
"episodes."

One student ran past shouting "<Don't touch it! It is
death!>"

A few stout-hearted students had stayed behind to wait for
their teacher. Using long branches and walking sticks, they
had his friend and fellow instructor, Polya, pinned on a
small patch of semi-dry land at the edge of the swamp.

"<What's the meaning of this?>" Kulik demanded.

"<He found a stone in the swamp, in a shallow spot near the
center. We were gathering the netting to swing over but he
just walked up and lifted it free. He screamed and dropped
it and we all stepped away. He walked over to one of us and
began beating on him, spitting and screaming the words->"
began the youth closest to him, a doctoral candidate.

"<His eyes->" an undergrad whispered.

Kulik leaned forward to look at his best friend and watched
as a dark film ebbed and flowed over the unfocussed eyes.

"<What was he screaming?>"

"<'Kill me.'>"

Kulik pulled his Red Army sidearm and fired a single shot.

"<Use a net to drag him to drier land and burn him. Burn the
net as well as your sticks. Secure the rock in a sealed
container without touching it.>

"<Where is the one he touched?>"

"<We left him where he fell after the beating.>"

"<You served in the Army under Lenin, yes?>"

"<Of course. As did you professor.>"

He turned over the gun in his hand to the graduate student
and pulled a smaller one from inside his coat. "<Kill anyone
that touches the rock and burn the remains. Burn anything
that comes into contact with the rock. Do the same for the
student you left in the water as you do to Polya.>

"<And kill anyone that disobeys my direct orders.>

"<It will be done, Comrade Kulik.>"

Leonid Alekseyevich knew swamps spawning insects were now
the least of his troubles.

-----

The "borrowed" Geiger-Muller counter had worked brilliantly
and turned a job that could have taken years into mere
months. He had the plates; he could sense their power even
without the bulky device.

But even these "mere months" had been enough to fill volumes
of Philby's personal journals. In that span he'd become a
major international player, even though the rest of the
world had yet to discover that information. Once his first
communiques back to London had been received and his
discovery realized for what it truly was, he'd been
initiated into a group within the government, so secret even
Parliament and the Royal family didn't know it existed: the
British Consortium. Membership begat two things: incredible
information and unbelievable power.

The Russians refused to share data from the Tunguska crash
and little had come from the agents who had infiltrated the
program. For their insolence the Russians could suffer the
same indignities as the British had for years. No
information would be shared. Let the bloody commies find
their own pieces of the primer.

The crater held many more secrets for him to discover, but
the important one was now ferreted away in a disguised
pocket against the frame of his haversack. He would have to
return soon to this place and continue his studies.

But first, plans must be made to search the African sites.

-----

His searches hadn't told him much more than he could have
gotten from a short conversation with Scully. It would have
made his job easier simply to call her, but he knew his wife
had more pressing concerns to deal with at the moment.

About 70 percent of potential impactors are asteroids,
comets making up the rest. More than 150 million objects are
known to pass through Earth's orbit, ranging in size from as
small as a ball-bearing to more than a kilometer wide.

Ten to fifteen marble-sized-or-smaller meteoroids come
through the atmosphere every hour of every day. Acorn-sized
about once an hour, softball-sized twice a day,
basketball-sized once a month. He wondered how these
estimates were calculated.

Then came the larger impactors. A one-mile wide or larger
asteroid struck about once every half a millions years. An
impact of that nature would kill virtually all plants and
animals worldwide no matter where it landed. Block out the
sun, boil the oceans, drown the continents and usher in a
new Ice Age. A half-mile mass would cause roughly the same
kinds of damage to a slightly less catastrophic degree, if
the near-instant extinction of 25 percent of the earth's
population could be considered 'slightly less catastrophic.'
The devastation increased exponentially if the impactor
crashed in a large body of water, such as an ocean. The
force would then be converted to heat and kinetic energy,
boiling water and cracking the ocean floor, smashing through
the earth's crust. Coastlines around the world would be
battered by multiple boiling hot waves, miles high and
moving faster than the speed of sound. The force of impact
on the ocean floor would shift tectonic plates the world
over causing untold damage through earthquakes. The book of
Revelations would seem like a fairy tale in comparison.

The little ones are too small and the others are too big.
"These are not the 'roids you're looking for," he joked to
the empty office. Mulder realized it wasn't as much fun when
the only person hearing the jokes was sitting in a supply
closet on the sixth floor and listening via the bug hidden
behind his Oxford diploma on the wall.

Narrowing his searches yielded better results. One to sixty
meter objects strike the planet maybe once a century.

A small impact would be the right size to start a barn fire,
Mulder mused. Something a little larger, maybe a yard or two
wide would easily be capable of wiping out a small logging
town.

Then it hit him. The size measurements are as likely to be
based on how big the object is in space than after passing
through the atmosphere. A large portion would likely burn
off in the atmosphere. A comet the size of a full size car
or larger might generate a several megaton explosion roughly
equivalent in size to an early atomic bomb, but nearly all
impactors also explode like nuclear missiles - over the
target, not at ground level. First they go from the extreme
cold of space and are super-heated by the friction generated
while moving through the atmosphere, speeding along at up to
ten miles per second. Then they pass through and hit an
invisible wall - the denser, cooler, lower atmosphere and
explode.

High-divers know; one wrong move, one thing out of place and
they might as well be diving into a brick wall instead of
water. They have to consciously position themselves
carefully or suffer serious bodily harm. Comets don't have
that kind of foresight and move at least 20 times faster
than a .44 caliber bullet.

Any fragments not disintegrated by the atmosphere or in the
initial explosion strike the ground at tremendous speed.

He began searching for known impact craters discovered in
the last century. Two good matches; odd since maybe one was
expected in a century and he already knew of perhaps two, if
not three, different impacts from the two found by the
search.

The first match was a spot in the middle of Nowhere, India.
No central mass was ever discovered. Impact believed to have
occurred in 1891, discovered in 1932 by a British expedition
led by a... military advisor and career politician? Strange
that it was not an archaeologist or scientist of some kind.
He mentally noted the oddity for later follow-up.

After skimming the second match he wondered what the
Consortium lackey on duty in the supply closet would do upon
hearing Mulder repeatedly banging his head against the desk.

The second match impacted in 1908 and was discovered barely
half a decade before Wabar. Again, no core was ever reported
found, but Mulder knew it existed. Location: the middle of
Nowhere, Russia. Siberia.

Tunguska.

Mulder realized that, by way of his computer, he'd just
witnessed the birth of a global conspiracy now more than
seventy years old.

Russian consortium founded at Tunguska circa June or July,
1927, British circa Summer, 1932 at Wabar. And the
Americans? Roswell, New Mexico, July, 1947.

The coincidences weren't merely contrived, they were so
obvious Mulder wanted to pinch himself to make sure he
wasn't dreaming. He had a lot of circumstantial evidence but
no corroboration. He had to be certain.

It was time for another visit to Mrs. Scully.





There's a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go on
this story, and sadly, several chap\ters seem to have been
eaten by the bastard laptop, I'm only posting active fic to
the WIP page, so don't worry. I will finish this one.