D-day + 30

6 July 1997, 10 p.m. Burlington, Vermont

Scully,

It's a good thing you won't see this letter - you would need a cryptologist to decipher my handwriting. Of course I seem to recall that you never have thought highly of my cursive script. Right now, however, I'm on a bus rattling down Route 7 heading to points south. With luck I should be in Savannah by late tomorrow night. I am so tired I ache, but I don't dare sleep. We pulled off a coup, Scully. At least I hope it's a coup and not a pile of day-old shit. If Skinner ever finds out what I have done, I won't have to worry about Cancer Man. There is a trail of broken, bent and mangled laws lying in my wake across five states. The bastards are scurrying around like angry wasps from a disturbed nest, but they are looking for outsiders or even a coup within their ranks - not a dead man.

Using the scraps of information I plundered, Byers hacked his way through a labyrinth of computer networks hidden behind a perfectly innocent Department of Transportation systems network until he stumbled across a back door someone carelessly left open. I won't even pretend to understand what he did or how he did it. Anyway, he jumped in and then he and the guys spent the better part of thirty-six hours dodging defenses and safeguards gradually moving towards the main file directory.

Alarms went off when they finally broke into the main directory. Byers was rather closed-mouthed about what happened then, but said they managed to grab a few files before abandoning ship. He did mention leaving behind a rather nasty little virus. It won't destroy files, but it randomly changes file names around and will continue to do so every fifteen minutes until eradicated. It will also create a wormhole which should destroy any trace the system tries to place on their hacking. Why did I hear a silent 'I hope' coming from the other end of the phone line?

Would you be terribly surprised to learn that your name figures very highly in the research notes of a small, remote clinic in southern Georgia studying the mating habits of the Urocyon cinereoargenteus? Either some bastard in Cancer Man's organization has a damnably cold sense of humor or we're on to something. Have any relatives among the fox population, Scully? The clinic records clearly show a lab animal registered under the name, Scully. By the way, your namesake is the proud mother of a litter of eight cute little grey fox kits.

If I had known that fur turned you on, I would have borrowed my mother's fur coat years ago. It's the little things I don't know about you, Scully that drive me nuts. At first I thought this file was too good to be true; the ideal bait to sucker in anyone left to care about you, but Byers told me that the defenses were too elaborate to waste on bait. As a ruse Frohike pilfered a bunch of files listing grant numbers and access codes to research projects on several potentially profitable ventures. Byers is hoping the clinic will just assume this was a routine pirate raid, but he sounded just a little frightened. I haven't heard that same note of fear in his voice since the Thinker pulled his little coup.

He gave me the name of the clinic and a whole series of scientific names and file numbers before he cut the connection. I haven't heard from the guys for nearly two days now. I'm worried.

Have I just destroyed them, Scully? Is it my fate to lure my friends into taking risks for me that ultimately destroy them? If we succeed in this game, Scully, I may have to give serious consideration to trying to persuade you to find a safer partner. You have already paid too high a price for your loyalty and friendship. I wish I knew whether it was more than just friendship, but I am almost as afraid of your answer as I am of my own.

Meanwhile I'm sitting here on this bus, heading south, trying to remember how to pray. I think it would help if I believed there was anyone out there listening.

You are my faith Scully.

I am out here in the shadows on the simple trust that you believe I can find the answers to the doom that is closing in on both of us.

If one day I find the courage to tell you that I may face my own oblivion from their experiments, will you be able to forgive me for hoarding this secret? It would do no good to tell you. Why burden you with something you cannot cure when you are bravely defying the cancer that is eating its way towards your brain?

The journal I was not supposed to read said you needed to know I was out here, following my leads, pounding on the gates of heaven or hell for answers. How could I take your hope away by revealing my own selfish need to find the truth? I am a mirror image of your journey. Where you go, I shall follow, in their time.

It's getting too dark to see the paper.

Good night, partner.

Mulder

*********

July 6, 1997

It was important that I see Skinner, to warn him of Blevins' likely deeper involvement in the game.  Oddly, Mulder and I had never given him enough credit to consider him as anything more than a minor Consortium flunky. But I feel there is a strong possibility that he may represent more than we thought. I could be wrong, but Skinner had to know.  I also admit that I needed to see him. This self-imposed exile is wearing me down, and I needed to feel his comforting presence, at least for a while.

We met for a late dinner in a crowded Georgetown restaurant popular with investment bankers and stockbrokers. We blended in with our dark suits, and I was confident of our anonymity.

As with the other dominant conversation of my week, we spoke in vaguely concealed codes. Yet this discussion was warm, with an undercurrent of compassion and mutual understanding.  For the short time we were together, I drew strength from the calm passivity of his gaze.

We spoke of my "uncle" and his new promotion. How he wanted me to join his firm.  How I had avoided making up my mind just yet. We spoke of my "friend," who has lupus.  How she is doing-- fine, for the time being.

He then told me about his nephew.

His young nephew had been traveling lately, working on his thesis about law enforcement. He communicated to the family only sporadically, when it was convenient. He always did have a selfish streak. He had actually sent a draft of his thesis home to his father, who forwarded it to Skinner for his opinion. Skinner thought the information his nephew had gathered was quite interesting and may shed light on how efficiently different law enforcement organizations work together.

But it would still be a long time before Skinner's errant nephew would make it back home again. He still had much work to do. And Skinner's edits would take some time to organize.

At least, I said softly, trying desperately to blink back tears, at least you know he's all right.

We worry now and again, he responded. But we have to let him live his own life.

I left for home with a sense of hope in my heart that has been missing for far too long.

**********

7/6/97

I now have enough information to at least temporarily cripple the smoker's networks. It is the first step in being able to bring Mulder back when he has found Scully's cure.

The contact information that asshole Sanderson left floating around on his hard drive for Mulder to find has proven to be a Rosetta Stone of sorts. I have quietly -- very quietly -- followed the web of consortium agents into nearly every critical agency in the government. Using old fashioned surveillance (with the indirect assistance of some of Mulder's "friends") and electronic tracking, we now have enough information to shut down what I estimate to be a significant portion of the consortium's U.S. operations.

I am not naive. This is clearly a conspiracy of international proportions. And that's the catch. The information we have, while damaging, is probably not enough to do more than temporarily set back the shadows' activities.

They have been clever. They are using closed-cell networks of agents-in-place. It is clear to me that none of the consortium's double agents know of more than 4 or 5 others. There are what I've designated controllers -- people like Sanderson who manage large groups of cells. We have so far identified four other controllers: 2in Defense, 1 in the ATF and 1 more in the Justice Department. Thanks to Scully we have been able to verify that Blevins is the second controller in Justice. He has not been as sloppy as Sanderson, but I have enough information on him to buy leverage at some point in the future.

It is not clear if any of the controllers know of or contact each other, although we think they do not. More troubling, we have been completely stymied in our efforts to discern to whom all the controllers report. We must trace this network up at least one more level of power if we are to inflict any lasting damage on the organization. Most troubling of all: a lot of the leads to the next level are dead-ending in the UN. They are not consistently leading to the same office, but no small number is leading to or through the SRSG. Mulder's contact looks more and more dangerous.

We are still hunting, but the prey is elusive, and time is running short. Scully's latest medical report gives her a prognosis of 2 months. It is time to hear from Mulder.

**************

D-day + 33

9 July 1997, 1:30 a.m. Sour Springs, Georgia

Scully,

You would be proud of me, my most skeptical partner. Your voice of reason and skepticism keeps ringing in my ears. You see, Scully, while I might not always follow your advice, I do remember it. Since I can't have you at my side, I have to do the next best thing - recall some of your more eloquent lectures on method and reason and try to follow them. I miss the raised eyebrow, folded arms and looks of sheer incredulity that usually accompany the lectures, but I suppose I can't have everything.

A quick trim and a change of clothes in the bus terminal bathroom erased the disreputable ruffian who fled Vermont and replaced him with a spectacled professorial type in battered but clean jeans and a white shirt. I have become the epitome of a yuppie professor complete with neatly trimmed beard and pipe. No, I haven't taken up smoking, but the prop seems to put people at ease. Stereotypes are so useful in creating disguises. I still want to claw the bottom of my face off, but the beard actually looks rather nice now that it's trimmed. Maybe I'll keep it.

I haven't exactly broken all my bad habits. The Sea Breeze Inn here in the quiet hamlet of Sour Springs, Georgia, would have been a four-star motel in the Fifties, but now the best things about it are the price (low) and the fact that the bed doesn't sag. It must advertise on the cockroach circuit, however. I have killed eight of the Sherman tank varieties so far. Big fuckers. One of them actually took a direct hit from my shoe and merely looked up at me as if to ask: 'who the hell are you?' I don't think I stopped pounding him until he became one with the carpet.

As I said earlier, you would be proud of me. I did not rush headlong into disaster in my usual inimitable style. Instead, I have carefully scouted out my objective and its defenses, eavesdropped shamelessly on local gossip and spent nearly two days poring over old newspapers in the local library digging up information on the center.

The locals think I'm researching a local folk legend involving a Spanish pirate who buried his treasure, along with four of his men, on an island accompanied by the usual bloodcurdling curse. In the intervening three hundred years the island has become part of the mainland and its exact location is now unknown. The curse has magnified so that there are now at least a dozen angry ghosts guarding the treasure that binds them to this earth. Every disappearance, every strange illness is blamed on the pirate curse. Fascinating case of mass hysteria passed down from one generation to another. Useful as well for the center. Any lapse in haz-mat security and the resulting calamity will be automatically blamed on the curse.

If I find your cure I may drag you back down here and do some serious treasure hunting. You would love this place. It would confirm all your suspicions that unbridled belief in the paranormal addles the brain. Consider it my treat.

Oh, you were wondering what I found out about the center? Patience, partner, I'm getting there.

The Bio-Rescue Research Center showed up five years ago, bought 150 acres of scrub land and poured close to two and a half million dollars into the local economy. They hired all local labor to construct the labs, offices and living quarters for the twenty-odd scientists and guards residing there now. Their supplies(except for the really high-tech and bio-hazard stuff) are all bought locally. The BRRC is highly regarded here. If the locals knew I was here with intentions on invading their beloved benefactor, I would probably end up as gator food.  Puts extra incentive on not getting caught.

Thanks to a couple of loquacious construction workers who drank enough beer to sink a battleship, I have been able to draw a fairly accurate map of the center. According to these men, the BRRC had to pay double the going labor rate because one of the favored locations of the fabled cursed treasure was right on the site. After his eighth beer, one of the men confided that he had seen ghosts wandering around the meadow late one night when he left his bunk to find a friendly tree.

Five-foot tall, grey ghosts, Scully! I know, I can hear your exasperated sigh, but what if there are aliens here? Yeah, I know, I'm clinging to the words of a drunken man who saw something in the fog five years ago, but what if?

As always Scully, wherever there is a benefactor greatly beloved by the community, there will be heretics who claim the hero is the devil, not a saint. They whisper of strange experiments and mutated animals found in the nearby swamps. They speak in hushed voices about a thick gray smoke that clings greasily to cars and windows when the wind shifts and blows across the facility. Whispers are all I heard, no one speaks aloud of their doubts. It's just animals after all. How can anyone measure the welfare of animals against the welfare of people in need of the money this center spreads around in the local stores?

I am reminded of the studied ignorance of the Germans living near the concentration camps.  What is the price of human souls these days? Or the price of ignorance?

In the past two days, I have become convinced that part of the answer to what was done to you lies within the walls of the Bio-Rescue Research Center. This is a place of secrets, zealously protected. It is time some of those secrets see the light of day.

Tomorrow night I'm going in. Time to put to the test what Frohike has taught me about security systems.

Until tomorrow then,

Mulder

*********

July 6, 1997

Human beings see in three dimensions because of the refined, interconnected relationship of one eye to the other. The eyes work in tandem, focusing together on a distant point, jointly bringing it into focus, relaying to the brain a measure of distance -- how far away an object is, or how close. Yet each eye has a separate optic nerve, separate cornea, separate lens. A person's two eyes can even be two different colors.

When the eyes have trouble focusing, either together or separately, we can fix the problem with corrective glasses, contact lenses, or even surgery. In the most severe of circumstances, when one eye is lost to an accident or disease process, we resilient humans can still see with one. But the world loses depth, images become flattened, perspective distorts along the edges.  We can make do, we just have to recognize that what we now have is functional, but imperfect.

This morning I awoke to an astounding amount of congealing blood on my bedclothes. The clinical part of my nature marveled at the sheer volume of it and how I could have possibly slept through the tremendous nosebleed. Blood was matted in my hair, dried on my face and neck, adhered my nightshirt to my skin. I blinked repeatedly in stunned confusion.

And blinked again.

And again. I couldn't seem to fully grasp the details of the tableau or bring the images into proper focus. I stumbled into the bathroom and cleaned myself hurriedly, unable to look in the mirror at the surely gruesome sight.

Even cleaned, with my glasses on, I couldn't comprehend what had happened. My bed looked like the scene of a murder. Perhaps in the next few weeks, one morning when I don't wakeup, it actually will be.

Today is Sunday, thankfully not a workday. A day of rest. A day of reflection. A day of facing the truth.

My meeting with Skinner seems like a dream and the glimmer of hope I felt is long gone. Both have faded into the distance, their promise of relief a tantalizing mirage. Heat lightning in a summer sky, teasing with a promise of rain never to be fulfilled. There is nothing now but an
endless, yawning black, waiting to pull me in forever.

If I've again been flirting carelessly with denial these last few weeks, I'm being punished for that transgression now. When I finally braved the bathroom mirror, I was forced to confront the terrifying image of reality. The sclera of my right eye was awash in vivid red. Burst capillaries had flooded the white, leaving a bloody sea completely surrounding a dim blue cornea. For a moment, I simply stopped breathing.

Dammit! Why now? Why when I'm finally given confirmation of what I knew in my heart to be true -- that Mulder is alive, and possibly succeeding? I need to see this through. I *can't* die before Mulder returns. I need to feel his arms around me again, telling me that we have succeeded, that all our sacrifices have been vindicated by the truth. I need to tell him.... I need to tell him so many things.

Mulder, we've always left so much unspoken. When Skinner left us alone that fateful night, we knew there was a good chance we'd not meet again, but we refused to say it aloud. That's so like us isn't it? Never admit the possibility defeat. Perhaps you knew the same thing I did -- that if either of us had shared precious words, fate would not give us another chance. By saving them once again, we were hedging our bets. We might get another chance. The embrace we shared embodied that hope.

But I had temporarily forgotten that we won't have another chance. Even if I'm alive when you return, it won't be for long. I want to survive until then more than anything.

Maybe it's good that you are far from me tonight. If you were here and opened your arms as refuge to me, your strong Scully would fall into them and disappear, dissolving into miserable tears of regret.

**************

D-day +34

10 July 1997, 11:30 p.m. Bio-Rescue Research Center

Scully,

It all comes down to this moment in time. I'm perched in a tree writing this by the light of a very inconveniently full moon. God, it's like daylight out here. No one in their right minds would be foolish enough to try to break in when the moon is this bright. On the other hand, lunacy has always been a habit of mine.

I've been up this tree since just after twilight, watching the guards patrol a fenced perimeter and trying to memorize their patterns. Apparently the manual for guards does not mention looking up for intruders. Good thing since I really don't look much like a squirrel and I doubt if they'd believe I was just an abnormally large tree fox.

Someone has been careless. If I am very careful and nimble I can crawl to the end of a branch and from there make a flying leap over the fence. When I first climbed the tree the branch looked as wide as a bridge and sturdy as a rock. The longer I am up here staring at it and listening to the snap, crackle, pop of small creatures frying themselves on the fence, the more insecure it looks. Meanwhile I am providing a late-night snack for a swarm of very thirsty mosquitoes.

I can't help but wonder if I can pull this off. I don't exactly have a good track record in doing this sort of thing. Maybe this is payback for all the times I've ditched you thinking I could handle everything myself. This time you won't come riding to my rescue if things go wrong. You may never know what happened or why.

Now I am alone.

We are both alone and this is wrong. We always function better as a team. Even when we argue and spit bitter words at each other, there is still a connection between us. Challenge one, face both.

Scully, would you think less of me if you knew how afraid I was? Not for myself, though I'll admit to an extreme reluctance to experience pain. I am afraid that I won't be fast enough or smart enough to find the answers you need. You have put your trust in a very frail knight, my lady partner.

Do you realize that in all the times I have broken into secret facilities I have never once been afraid before I went in? I believe I always felt that somehow I was protected by the righteousness of my cause. Of course as things began collapsing around my ears, as they usually did, fear and I became very intimate acquaintances, but I always began the operation feeling as if I was invincible.

I am drawn to this place like a moth to a flame. All or nothing. I must believe that salvation for you, my Holy Grail on this strange quest, lies before me or I will never screw up the courage to leap this fence. I am not invincible this time. I am going in knowing what the cost of failure will be for you.  I have to believe you are with me, whether you are by my side or not, and together no one has ever stood against us.

Keep believing in me Scully. It is all I have to cling to now. Your faith in me is my shield and my comfort. Righteous anger at what was done to you blazes around me and I want to go in like a fiery angel of vengeance. However, as much as I would like to kick some butt tonight, stealth is the better part of valor. You need the cure, not a dead or captured partner; a silent mystery swallowed up in darkness leaving you to wonder as your life dwindles away.

The guards have just been relieved. Time for this Fox to live up to his name. Pray for me, Scully. God and I haven't talked much since Samantha was taken. He'll listen to you. If he'd just listen hard enough and provide a miracle for you, I'd forgive His silence of the last twenty-four years.

Maybe I'm that miracle.

Couldn't resist just one last megalomaniacal phrase.

Bye for now,

F. M.

P.S. Somebody out there - please let this work for Scully.

**************
D-day + 35

7/11/97

My main point of contact with Mulder has evaporated. In a rarely scheduled information "drop" I was due to hear from him yesterday about the outcome of his excursion to the southern lab. There has been nothing but a very troubling silence, broken only by a visit from my smoking master.

I have seen very little of the smug bastard since Mulder's "death." I have had only one assignment from him in the past five weeks, and that seemed to be more to remind me of my bargain than to actually accomplish anything of import for his group. The fiction of Scully's miracle still hangs between us, but increasingly not even he seems to believe in it.

On the morning after Mulder was to have staged his incursion, the smoker drifted into my office.

"Well, Mr. Skinner." He stood looking at me for a long moment. "Been busy, have we?" Oddly, for the first time since our confrontation over the DAT, he actually seemed nervous, as though for once he didn't have all the answers.

"You would know." I was in no mood to play games. "You haven't exactly required my 'services' lately." I deliberately turned my attention back to the file on my desk.

He remained standing in front of my desk for another minute. "And how is Agent Scully doing?"

I met his gaze again, this time allowing my contempt to show through, "She's dying, actually. Do you have something for me?"

"Not yet, Mr. Skinner, not yet." He left my office stinking of smoke.

It was an odd encounter. I could only hope it meant that Mulder had achieved his objective. His continued silence was troubling, but surely the smoker would have thrown it in my face if he had Mulder. Suddenly, for the first time since the charade began, I felt a small measure of hope.

****************

11 July 1997, 6:00 a.m. Sea Breeze Inn

Hey, Partner,

I'm alive.

Now before you raise your eyebrow and give me your patented exasperated glare for stating the obvious, you need to know that that simple statement is tantamount to a miracle. I may have to start believing in God again.

The damn place was set up like a giant Venus Fly Trap with me as the fucking fly. Easy in, damn near impossible to get out. The guards were just inattentive enough, the door locks just a hair shy of being impossible to pick and the security system state-of- the-art but just a smidgeon less than air-tight. In other words, I was suckered by difficult, but not impossible barriers.

Thank God (or whoever) I am as paranoid as they come. Unfortunately it took its own sweet time to kick in. I was so caught up in the thrill of beating the system, I didn't notice how fast I was moving into the heart of the center. Like a fly to honey. I let my fucking ego take over. By the time it occurred to me that I shouldn't be getting through the security safeguards as easily as I was, it was damn near too late.

The trap snapped shut as soon as I accessed the main computer files. I really didn't even notice because I had run into several files with your name attached. You make an absolutely delectable lupine, Scully. They even had a description that would make any male fox's heart turn lustful: soft brown eyes, silver-tipped thick fur shading to a soft cream color on your breast and legs, a petite, but muscular body, narrow feet and a long bushy tail with a cute little dark gray tuft of hair at the end. Be still my heart.

Coupled with that stunning description and an attached description of mating habits (prefers nocturnal mating and has a tendency to play hard-to-get), is a rather human medical chart. You are buried under three layers of lupine physiology, but you are there. I can't make sense of any of it, except to recognize certain key phrases like nasal carcinoma, metastasize and Delta test group along with the dates that correspond to your abduction and return and the onset of your cancer.

By the way, I owe Frohike my life, and if these files are useful a tall, possibly yours as well. Before we started this mad charade he crammed, mostly by rote, the essentials of creating chaos in a networked computer system into my thick skull. For ten minutes I had the computer chasing its tail as it tried to figure out where I was. Meanwhile I downloaded as much as I could as quickly as I could. I don't know whether these files will be of any use whatsoever, but I'll be damned if I was going to leave them behind.

By this time, alarms were going off all over the place as the computer finally gave up and called for its human backup. I inserted the special disk Frohike had given me and let 'er rip. Frohike hadn't been too forthcoming about what the disk contained, but he assured me that once activated the nice little virus it contained would nestle quietly among the stored files until someone tried to execute the restore programs.

Scully, remind me never to let Frohike near my computer. I have a hard enough time finding my files as it is.

Obviously Plan A (slip out as quietly as I slipped in) was now completely out of the question. I really hadn't come up with a Plan B so I improvised.

Quit wincing Scully. My improvisations aren't that bad.

OK, so trashing the computer probably was a bit over the top, but I was getting a bit irritated with it. I know it wouldn't affect the stored data, I trusted Frohike's little virus to do that job, but I wanted the damn thing out of commission. Eluding human guards was going to be quite enough excitement, thank you very much. Besides it felt really, really good ripping wires out and generally creating mayhem.

Scully, have you ever seen a mainframe take a bath before? Made for some nice fireworks. Especially when the lights went out. All those live wires thrashing about in the water resembled a nest of very angry snakes spitting sparks. I suppose I should feel bad about the first two guards who came hurtling into the room, but I don't think they had very friendly intentions towards me.

It was them or me, Scully. The only way I could have stopped them from charging into the room was to step out of hiding and surrender. One of them had time to scream before he died. I think I'm going to hear that scream and the sound of flesh sizzling in my nightmares for awhile.

Once the computer was down, the center was plunged into total darkness, except for the dim emergency lights. Now it simply became a game of fox and hounds between me and the remaining four guards. I trashed a few other rooms, released a few of the foxes being held for research purposes and generally made a mess of things. I left some graffiti on the walls announcing that this was a raid by the Wildlife Liberation Brigade.

OK, OK, not very original, but I was rather pressed for time.

Thank God for an eidetic memory. I had memorized the general layout as I came in, but I hadn't expected to be dodging guards going back out. I knew if I didn't get out before the guards gave up and decided to call for reinforcements, my head was going to be mounted on Cancer Man's wall as a trophy. I must have played hide and seek with the guards for nearly an hour before one of them decided to call for help. While they all stood around the main exit, the one with the emergency light, waiting for their intruder to be stupid enough to try to leave by the most obvious route, I broke through a shuttered basement window (I love basements) into a tool shed.

Finesse was not in my game plan by this time so I pelted full speed towards the fence with three guards chasing after me. I decided to try my hand at pole vaulting using the extension pole on a pair of limb cutters I had found in the tool shed. I let go of the pole and tumbled over the fence seconds before the pole hit the fence and that entire section of fence lit up. Blinded the guards long enough for me to disappear into the woods, helped along by the spray of gunfire. Amazing the incentive automatic rifle-fire provides.

The rest of the night was spent in running away as fast and as hard as I could. I managed to slip back into my motel room just as the sun was beginning to be a problem. For the past two hours, I've been laying in the middle of the floor trembling with exhaustion and relief. If Cancer Man himself had come in I wouldn't have been able to raise a finger to defend myself.

I am still shaking so bad I can barely read my own handwriting, but I needed to feel you close to me; to let you know that hope may lie within my hands. As soon as I can stand again, I'll get cleaned up and then try to contact the guys.

We may have won a battle, but this damn war isn't over yet. If the guys aren't available I'll find a way to get this disk to you somehow. It's about time Skinner made himself useful as well as ornamental.

I miss you, Scully, but I can't come back from the dead yet, not until you have the cure in your hands. When you're well again, I can comeback and the three of us can confound our enemies. I wish I believed in miracles.

I am surviving, but it's lonely out here without you. Do you ever think of me? Do I haunt your dreams with the unspoken possibilities that lie between us as you do mine?

I can pour my soul, my dreams out into these letters which you will never see, yet I cannot face you with the same honesty. You deserve that honesty, but as well as I think I know you, I cannot predict whether it would confirm the bond we share or shatter it. So, here in the safety of the shadows, I write of things I dare not speak of, knowing you will never read these truths that I can no longer hide from myself.

I am so tired, but for the first time I dare to believe that there is hope in the dawn of a new day. I'll sleep when I know this disk is safely on its way to you.

Until then,

Mulder

***********

11 July 1997, 5 p.m. Atlanta, GA

Scully,

The disk is on its way.

I am becoming extremely alarmed at the silence from Frohike and the guys. This isn't like them. Even their emergency 'use-once-and-forget' number doesn't respond. Have I traded their lives for yours? I seem to be doomed to make those kind of choices in my life: my sister, my life and now my friends.

Before I return from the dead, if I return, I will destroy these letters. They have been a comfort out here alone in the shadows, a link to you and a constant reminder of our bond, but they will only be a complication between us if you should read them. I do not want there to be the slightest chance you will ever read them. You have never indicated that you understand what I have sacrificed for you and, if I have anything to say about it, you never will. What I want between us does not involve your guilt or your pity. I have made my choices, knowing the risks, and to me alone belongs the blame. Unfortunately, others always seem to pay the price. I have offered my life, my sanity, even my soul, but they seem to be valueless coins in this twisted game.

Your sister once told me that the men responsible for your abduction and subsequent coma would face an equal or greater horror. Little did she realize that I am one of those whose fate she foresaw. My horror is watching you die by inches, defiant yet increasingly brittle as you grudgingly yield ground before the cancer's advance. My horror is seeing my friends destroyed because they tried to help.

Four years ago you were the wild card that was meant to bring me down, but instead strengthened my hand and validated my quest. Now I am the wild card that redraws the rules by which we have played up to now. With all that we have lost, we have bought our places in this game of theirs.

We will no longer run.

We will take the offensive.

Until now, when we are casting all of our hopes, our future and our very souls into the single roll of the dice, I have never really understood the old Spartan adage: come back with your shield or on it. Always sounded a bit harsh - victory or death doesn't leave much room for a middle ground. Now, however, I have come to understand that sometimes there is no middle ground. We have no middle ground.

So, I have cast the dice. The disk is sealed in a package addressed to the alias Skinner set up in case of emergencies. Barring an act of God or the failure of FedEx to live up to its motto, it should be in his hands tomorrow and then into yours.

Now it is time for me to fade back into the shadows. I will watch the lost and found ads in the _Post_ for your signal that the news is good. This very weary hound of yours would like to come home and lay his head in your lap.

I've got miles to go before I sleep tonight. When I know you are safe, I'll burn these ramblings from my heart and come back to you.

Mulder

**************

D-Day + 40

7/16/97

Mulder's silence, it turns out, was a communications problem with our middle men. A one-use, emergency address I set up received a FedEx package 4 days ago with a disk. I have copied it and shipped it to the lab that we intend to use, and have received preliminary word that the information is "startling, but highly promising."

I have heard nothing from the smoker, which confirms my analysis that this lab can be trusted. Now I have to get Scully to the West Coast.

There is a case that requires her type of forensic expertise, but it involves women who are being brutally murdered and their reproductive organs mutilated. It is the type of case of which nightmares are made, and I would rather not inflict that on Scully. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of bypassing this particular opportunity. It is time to begin using the information I have to pressure Blevins. It would be better if he assigned her to this case, rather than me. I still cannot be sure when the smoker is scrutinizing my moves.

I called her into my office to explain that "Blevins" had requested her assistance in this case. I was mildly surprised when she protested the assignment. I suddenly realized how tired she'd looked in the past weeks, and it occurred to me that she didn't want to leave town because she was afraid Mulder might come looking for her and miss her. It was the clearest indication I've seen yet of the bond between them. It was almost as though she could sense that he had completed his part of the drama and was waiting in the wings for his cue to come back.

In the end, of course, she accepted the assignment. Scully remains an agent to her core. I think she also realized that I wouldn't be asking her to take on such a horrendous case without a very strong reason. It will be an exhausting and difficult week for her. I have arranged for one of the scientists from the lab to be assigned as a "consulting scientist" to the Seattle Bureau, and he will begin Scully's treatments while they work on the case. The lab assures me that the treatments shouldn't affect her physically, but it is an untested regime.

I can do nothing now, but wait for word that Scully is cured. We have traced the consortium's networks as far as we can within the U.S. government. A lucky break a week ago uncovered a Senator's aide who apparently controls the 5 controllers of whom we are aware. I remain convinced that the aide is reporting to Marita Covarrubius, or whoever she reports to, but the proof remains lacking.

When we know that Scully is well, I will go to the smoker and offer *him* a deal: I will take down his networks quietly and with no implication of Ms. Covarrubius. In exchange, Blevins, who I will have to leave in place for the time being, will allow the "resurrection" and reinstatement of Agent Mulder to pass with no interference. Moreover, the smoker will provide me with information about the bee project, and its purpose. That, at least, is what I intend to bargain for.

Now we wait.

**************

D-day + 44

July 17, 1997

The last few days have flown by in a surrealistic blur. I am simultaneously living an excruciating nightmare and an unbelievable dream.

Blevins has sent me to Seattle as a specialist on a serial murder case, the horrors of which I haven't experienced since Donald Pfaster. Someone is killing young mothers and mutilating their reproductive organs -- a perverse, vindictive act, one borne of some unnatural hatred. If there was ever a time I felt close to being incapable of doing my job, it is now. If I can just survive one more day on this investigation, I tell myself. Only one day becomes another, and then another.

Yet the horrific murders of five women are not the most unbalancing part of my life at the moment. Before I left, Skinner told me a Dr. Steven Conrad would be contacting me here in Seattle. Conrad was going to lend his expertise to the case, he said. What I didn't know at the time, and what I was too upset to ask, was in just what context.

I didn't want to come here. Not so much because of the awful nature of the case, but because I was nearing the end of my strength. My tumor had ruptured slightly, damaging my right eye and beginning an assault on my brain. A future rupture would probably put me in a coma, if not kill me.

I simply could not face the thought of dying before we've seen the end of this game, but that was becoming a distinct possibility.

But then I realized coming here would be the best option. If I was meant to die before this plan has been fully realized, I want to do it as far away from my loved ones as possible. I simply could not face the thought of Mulder returning to find me in a coma, one from which I had no chance of waking. But all that began to change when Dr. Conrad walked into my life.

In his laid-back, gracious, West Coast manner he introduced himself to me in the hotel lobby the second day I was here and, in typical Seattle style, asked me to join him in a cup of coffee. In the hotel bar he revealed his story, the story of his lab, and the story of some new information that had been forwarded to him by, as he said, "a anonymous party with a stake in emerging cancer research."

What he showed me was unbelievable. What I understood was earth-shattering. A new, synthetic biochemical compound with fantastic, if unproven, possibilities. I had to consider his offer.

Conrad's institution is open and free, much as he and his staff are. I sensed no taint of government involvement, no clue that this treatment was bartered at Skinner's expense or grudgingly given through blackmail. But if I am wrong and have been deceived, it won't make much difference at this point.

I've been receiving a series of injections each night for the past four days. Conrad himself comes to the hotel to deliver the treatment because the aftereffects have included some nausea and intense fatigue. I don't look well, and I don't even feel well, but it seems the tumor is shrinking.

I may be getting better.

This is the first time I have uttered the words aloud, fearful of cursing this unexpected turn of events. They feel good on my tongue.

I have not yet consciously thought about what this might mean to Mulder's and my relationship. If he is able to someday return to find my life has been miraculously spared, we will have the opportunity to put right all that has been wrong between us -- the opportunity to face our own, more intimate truths. I dare not hope for that day just yet. That incredible possibility must linger in my dreams for a while longer.

**************

D-day + 50

26 July 1997, 9:30 p.m. Spokane, Washington

Just a short note this time, Scully.

I'm waiting for a bus that's already two hours late. Saw you on the news tonight nearly obscured behind the local Bureau chief. You are looking tired. That was a wicked case Blevins put you on. You did a good job, partner. The local Bureau should be grateful, but I suspect they resent your brilliance which saw the significance in the little details they overlooked or discounted. I can see your fingerprints all over the meticulous forensics work they used to lay the foundation of a good solid wall of evidence. So what if the Bureau spokesman concentrated on the "team" effort. Hell, without your forensics evidence, a killer would still be walking free.

Always did believe you could play hardball with the boys in Violent Crimes and win. It occurs to me you might not *want* to disappear back into the basement when (I am thinking positive) I return. That thought scares the hell out of me - isn't doing a whole lot for the 'keep a positive attitude' shit either.

A woman killing other women because she can't have children. Damn that bastard!

Have they told you that your chances of having your own children are slim? Did Blevins get some kind of obscene pleasure in sending you out after that poor sick woman? If I ever learn that he knows about them stealing your ova, I swear I will strangle him with my bare hands.

Aside from the excruciating silence from you and Skinner, I have been clinging to one piece of good news. Langley finally surfaced long enough to answer the damn phone and assure me that the Lone Gunmen were back in business. Seems a rogue hacker managed to slip past their defenses while they were in hot pursuit of a cancer treatment program in Sweden. Hey, that's what they told me. Purely medical research. Naked female bodies had nothing to do with the reason they were hacking into the site.

Anyway, while they were hacking, someone hacked them. Crashed their entire system and sent them scurrying into deep cover. They are convinced the MIBs are behind the whole thing and spent the better part of a week hiding out. Then it took then a couple of days to repair the system.

Please, Scully, if the disk was a dead-end, tell the guys. Give me a chance to keep looking. The truth is out here, I know it. I won't give up, not now. We're in the game now. We're players and I'll be damned before I let the bastards win. I don't like losing (I may be used to it, that doesn't mean I like it) and I know for certain you absolutely despise losing.

I think my bus is being called. Heard some gobbly-de-gook that might have contained the word N'Orleans.

Die and see the country - that's the Mulder motto.

Impatiently yours (now and always),

Mulder

*********

7/26/97

Scully, it would seem, is on her way to recovery. A discretely anonymous posting to one of the general news lists I subscribe to describes the remarkable shrinkage of a brain tumor in a Jane Doe patient on the west coast. The reporting scientists were guardedly optimistic about this treatment regime's possibility for a full cure.

Not only that, but she did an outstanding job on the Seattle women's murder case -- her forensic examination and evidence analysis provided the key evidence that led to the arrest of Margie Gillman. Scully remains in Seattle for the time being, preparing the forensic evidence testimony that will be used in Gillman's trial. This also allows her the time to complete her final treatments. The hours she worked on the case will provide me the perfect excuse to place heron paid administrative leave to "recover" once she returns to DC.

She is completely exhausted -- physically and mentally. Her relief at her recovering health is tempered by her clear impatience to see Mulder again, and to return to the X-Files. She is aware that I am ready to begin moving against the consortium. I have also made it plain that she is to stay as clear of those actions as possible. It is my intent, although I have not told her this, to cover as much of Mulder and Scully's involvement as I can.

The Consortium must believe that the two of them were driven solely by a need to cure her cancer. It must seem that I alone was interested in the deeper conspiracy. It may become obvious, eventually, that Mulder, Scully and I conspired against the consortium, but I want any retaliation to focus solely on me. Mulder and Scully have earned their freedom.

They have completed their parts of the drama. I have only one final scene to play before the cast can be reunited.

I based my entire offer to the smoker on the premise that publicity is what the Consortium most fears. Of the gambles we have all taken, it was perhaps the greatest. But my past experience with the man over the DAT would clearly indicate that the shadow of anonymity is that which They most want.

My meeting with the SOB was less than completely satisfactory. After the months of degradation of being the chain smoker's servant, there could have been no real satisfaction unless I had made him crawl. He did not. But we have won this battle.

I will begin dismantling as much of the consortium's network as we know about. With AD Jameson's help we will use a standard series of covers to explain the unceremonious removal of a number of high ranking agents and officials in the Department of Defense, Justice and the ATF. There will be vague allegations of influences by foreign powers, or people will seem to be taking early retirements. The Bureau, in collaboration with DoD, has established a debriefing center in an undisclosed location. I have no faith that the consortium's agents will actually be debriefed, or that wider action will be taken to root out further agents.

I cannot care any longer. We have temporarily halted the Consortium's activities. It is a hydra -- it will simply grow new heads, establish itself in new areas. But for now, we have cured Scully, Mulder will return shortly, and I am no longer the servant of the smoker.

As Mulder would insist, the truth is still out there, and we have bought ourselves a little more time to look for it.

**************

D-day + 55

July 31, 1997

It's five-thirty in the morning, and I am currently gazing at the most beautiful sight in the world -- Life.

Boats on the harbor in the distance are beginning to stir, as is the population of the city below. A cool, sweet breeze flutters through the hotel room window, caressing my face like a lover's fingertips. The sun is not far from wakening, and I plan on watching it break the surface of the horizon. An eternal rebirth from darkness that today includes me. I plan on doing this much more often. I plan on doing many, many things. My cancer is gone. Dr. Conrad's injections have shrunk my tumor into oblivion, according to the preliminary findings. Of course I need to see my oncologist and verify the results with other institutions, but it's gone. I feel it. I know.

Despite the elaborate secrecy behind the mysterious appearance of Dr. Conrad and his miracle cure, I know exactly where it came from. Mulder. I don't know how or when or at what price, but my salvation is due to him and his relentless determination to follow his own path. He is fierce and wonderful and completely, utterly insane. When I see him again, I don't know whether I'll hold him so tight that he'll beg to breathe or throttle him until he coughs up the truth surrounding my cure. Perhaps I'll do both.

*When,* not if, I see him. There is no doubt in my mind now. For the past two days I've been bombarded by e-mails regarding the "restructuring" of the Bureau hierarchy, the latest wave of resignation notices, and a surprisingly long list of upcoming early retirements. Skinner has been cleaning house. We could never have achieved this margin of success without him. For so many things, Mulder and I will always be in debt to him. His integrity is unmatched, and I will forever hold him in the highest regard.

I fly back to D.C. this afternoon to begin my new life. But first I have to set the wheels in motion for Mulder to begin his. He is a rare and beautiful man who can't possibly know how much I've longed for him. We have many things to discuss, he and I, and the dawning of many new days to see.

**************

D-day + 56

8/1/97

Scully has activated the pre-arranged signal that should bring Mulder home. She has requested, and I have granted her 3weeks of leave. I did not ask her where she -- where they --would be. They will need this time together. Time to adjust to the fact that she is not dying, and he is not dead.

I envy them the surety of their partnership. Together they are a force that is nearly unstoppable. The balance and tension of their relationship is electric, vital, alive. I know what Blevins was hoping to accomplish when he assigned Scully to the X-Files. It should have worked, and yet, he, the Consortium's tool, unwittingly created the tool of its destruction.

I do not know the exact nature of their personal relationship, and I will not speculate, nor interfere. What they have, whatever it is, is necessary to their work, and to the larger work in which we are engaged. And who am I to interfere with anyone's happiness? It is a fragile thing, as I discovered.

The shutdown of the networks is nearly completed. The removal of that many agents from the Bureau alone has created a minor manpower crisis in certain regional offices, and I am spending half of my work week in meetings about recruiting and reassignments.

My part in carrying out the consortium's dirty work has been swept under the same rug that hides Blevins' involvement, and the role of Ms. Covarrubius. I am ambivalent about my continued presence in the Bureau. I am as culpable as the smoker in some ways. I cling to my belief that I always acted with the larger picture in mind -- the uncovering and disabling of the smoker's organization, but there must come a time of judgement for me, too.

But the war continues, so for now, I do, too.

I was unable to get any useful information on the small-pox infested bees. In our final bargaining session he gave me the location of what he claimed to be the central colony of the bees. But when our teams arrived there, there was nothing but deserted fields of ginseng.

The smoking man has disappeared.

He will be back, and I will be waiting.

*****************

_Washington Post_ Classified Ads

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END

 

Author Notes:

Joyce speaking: Well, I assume if you have gotten this far, you might be interested in how three writers got together to create this story.

It all started rather innocently when I wrote a short piece based on my interpretation of the events of Gethsemane from Mulder's POV. I sent it to Meredith and MCA for editing. It was a nice enough stand-alone piece, but something was missing. The more I thought about it, the more I felt it needed the POVs of the other co-conspirators. Since I had rather cleverly, though completely unintentionally, chosen editors who speak the voices of Skinner and Scully, I decided to shanghai them into this story.

This whole collaboration has been a wonderful experience. Weaving three different voices together into a single tapestry proved to be easier than any of us had thought it would be. Starting from the single premise of Mulder's letters, MCA and Meredith expanded and enriched the story beyond my wildest dreams. E-mails stampeded back and forth like crazed lemmings. I can't remember when I've had so much fun writing a story.

MCA here: Joyce may *claim* it all started innocently enough, but I think she had evil designs from the beginning. Actually it was all quite eerie (spooky even). When Joyce sent me her original draft for editing, she jokingly suggested that I consider taking the story from Skinner's POV. I laughed and began reading her great story. Then it happened: I started *hearing* Skinner and he simply would not shut up until I wrote what turned out to be the first two entries from his POV. I sent them back to Joyce as a joke and she took them *seriously*!

Seriously, this has been a wild and wonderful ride, the chance to work with two authors I not only admire but *like* has been rewarding beyond the telling. I only hope you had half as much fun reading as we did creating!

Lastly, this is Meredith. Ditto to what these guys have already said better than I could! I was supremely flattered to have been asked to read Joyce's piece in the first place, so when she recruited me to write for Scully, I was even more tickled. Working with MCA and Joyce was a rewarding experience that I won't soon forget. It was a fun, thrilling, challenging and eye-opening project that I hope brings some measure of closure to the fourth season. I thank them for including me, and thank you for reading.

Since this is something entirely new for all of us, please send us your reaction. Did this work or did you find the change back and forth between the different styles disruptive? Let us know. We're not begging, but we implore fervently.

Joyce  (mab49@earthlink.net) | Meredith (meredith40@juno.com) | MCA
 

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