DISCLAIMER: All of the characters excepting Dr. Elizabeth
Sykes and Detective Lauren Alvarez belong first and foremost 
to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and the beloved 
Fox Network. Concepts centering around the mytharc, including 
Purity Control and the search for Samantha belong to the 
aforementioned, and I adamantly do not take credit for them. 
TITLE: An Eye For An Eye 
AUTHOR: Flyerfly 
RATING: R for suggestive and X-rated dialogue. 
CATEGORY: MSR/UST
SPOILERS: CLOSURE SUMMARY: When a woman from Mulder's past 
asks for help on a case in Philadelphia, Mulder and Scully 
are thrown head-first into the investigation of a strange 
set of ritualistic murders. But they get more than they 
bargain for when a few twists and turns force them to look 
carefully at how their actions affected their past cases 
and what the consequences of those choices mean for the future. 
NOTE: This fic is meant to come before "all things" which I, 
incidentally, do not believe to be the sight of M&S's first 
sexual encounter. Therefore, I intend not only to portray 
this encounter, which I believe has not been depicted in 
any episode, but will also pave the way for the convoluted 
"Super Soldier" mythology that springs up in S8-S9. That 
being said… 

Quantico Medical Facility 
March 25, 2000 
11:28 A.M. 

The sunlight streamed lazily through the window pane, filtered 
slightly by the pristine Venetian blinds, and coming to rest 
upon a lengthy table situated in the middle of the room. 
Glancing up through her medical goggles, Dana Scully turned her 
attention from the specimen lying on the table to the eight 
students busily taking notes at arm's length in front of her. 
The light danced playfully about her face, illuminating her fiery, 
red hair and the dissecting tools she bore in her hands. 

"The deceased is a Caucasian male," she began, "twenty-five 
years of age and in perfect physical condition...," she 
paused as her green, surgical gloves clasped a small blanket 
covering the man's torso, "...that is, except for one minor 
detail." Scully pulled the blanket from the corpse, revealing 
a rather erect penis, still frozen in position from the 
setting in of rigor mortis. A miniscule smile formed at the 
corners of her mouth as the eyes of her students dilated in awe. 

"He was found dead at his apartment on Saturday, having taken 
an overdose of medicine to treat his erectile dysfunction. 
Further investigation revealed that he died of a brain 
hemorrhage, specifically regulated to the hypothalamus...," 
she smirked at her students, 

"...the pleasure center of the brain." 

"O.D.'d on Viagra," laughed one of her students, "what a way to 
go!" As the rest of the students chuckled, her response was 
curtailed by a knocking on the door leading to the hall of the 
facility. Scully smiled as her eyes took in the shape of her 
partner, Fox Mulder, waving excitedly to her through the glass. 
He smiled back, his deep, mysterious eyes twinkling at the sight 
of her. His visit was unexpected, but a happy one. She needed a 
break from the monotony; the mundane nature of the hospital was 
a far cry from the excitement of field work. She was beginning 
to regret having accepted Agent Lowell's request to have her 
administer to his classes while he was away visiting his family 
for the duration of his month-long Easter vacation. 

Placing the instruments back upon a tray beside the slab, Scully 
murmured an "Excuse me" to her students as she grabbed for the 
doorknob. 

"And I thought I had trouble getting up in the morning," Mulder 
smirked as he motioned with his thumb towards the deceased. 
A sigh escaped Scully's lips as she shook her head disapprovingly.  

"Mulder, what are you doing here?" she asked him, silently hoping 
that he had come to drag her away for some quest for the paranormal. 
She drew her goggles atop the base of her head. 

"I don't know," he said, lifting a finger to his cheek, "what am 
I doing here?" He mumbled something unintelligible to himself as 
Scully grew increasingly impatient. 

"Mulder, my students are waiting..." He cut her complaint short, 
and put his hands up in a gesture of defeat in order to hasten 
the conversation. 

"Okay, okay. You don't have to twist my...," looking through 
the window and smiling to himself, "...arm. I just received 
a phone call from an old friend of mine, Lauren Alvarez. 
She's a detective at the Philadelphia Police Department. She's 
working on a case right now that I think should be of some 
interest. If you can tear yourself away from Prince 
Charming over there then meet me at the airport at 5:30 tonight." 

"But, Mulder," she whined as he turned his back to her, "my 
students?" He waved her off with a flip of his hand and called 
back without turning around, "5:30." 

Philadelphia Police Department 
2:48 P.M. 

Lauren Alvarez, an exotic looking woman with flowing, black hair 
sat at her desk, pen in hand, writing a memo to herself. For 
months now this case had been eating away at her, resonating 
somewhere deep inside. She hated this guy with every core of her 
being, this sick murderer who seemed to enjoy dispensing pain, 
inflicting the worst imaginable horrors on his victims. She 
couldn't wait for him to kill again. She had to find him, to take 
him out before he hurt another. 

"Lauren?" Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone 
calling her name. She looked up from her work. There he was, 
slightly older, somewhat changed, but still very much the 
dashing man she had known. 

"Fox," she greeted him warmly, "how are you? It's been so long." 
Scully's eyes searched Mulder's at the sound of his first name. 
"An old friend, huh?" she muttered under her breath, "she looks 
pretty spry to me." Mulder shrugged his shoulders as Detective 
Alvarez approached. 

"Hello, Lauren," he said as he placed his hands around her 
extended palm, caressing it as though it was a familiar position, 
"You look well." Scully feigned a cough as she struggled to divert 
attention to her presence. Mulder released Alvarez and motioned to 
Scully, "Lauren, this is my partner, Scully." 

"Special Agent Scully," she clarified, and extended her own hand, 
shaking that of Alvarez. 

"Well," Alvarez said, using a tone quite obviously less amiable 
than with the one she greeted Mulder, "I'm glad you're both here. 
I have something very interesting that I would like to show you." 

"I'll bet," Scully scowled as Alvarez led the two to an inner 
office. 

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked the partners, 
raising a coffee pot as an offering. 

"No thank you," Scully answered a little too politely, "Perhaps 
you could just show us what is so pressing, the reason why we 
flew out from D.C. on a moment's notice?" 

Alvarez lowered the coffee pot and turned off the lights, 
reaching for a projector button. 

"These are the bodies of three women, all in their mid-twenties, 
all quite beautiful, taken over the course of four months." 
She flipped slowly from one crime scene to the next. "In each 
case, the victim was beaten and stabbed forty times. A single 
eye and tooth was removed from each of the victims. The weapon 
has not been found at any of the crime scenes."

"What are you thinking?" Mulder asked, "Religious radical?" 

"That was my initial inclination," admitted Alvarez, "but 
listen to this. The medical examiner stated that the cause of 
death was diminished oxygen to the brain through asphyxiation 
but there are no signs of strangulation on the bodies. I 
honestly don't know what to think. I really want to nail this 
guy but I feel as though I've exhausted every possible lead. 
That's why I called you in on this, Fox." 

Scully shuffled uncomfortably at the sound of his name. She 
felt as though she were intruding upon some secret meeting 
to which she was not privy. Mulder turned his glance from 
the longing gaze of Alvarez to the frustrated gaze of Scully. 

"I guess you should get going to the morgue," he said to her 
as he walked toward the door, "I need a full report on all 
of the victims." 

"And where are you going?" she asked him. 

"To get something to eat," he answered shortly, "All this talk 
of cutting into things has made me hungry." 

Philadelphia City Morgue 
9:12 P.M. 

The footsteps of Fox Mulder echoed sadly throughout the poorly-lit 
hallway, his lengthy, tan coat trailing flawlessly behind. In one 
hand, he carried a brown paper bag. The other was tucked neatly 
away in his pocket. He pushed wide the double doors at the end of 
the hall, revealing Scully bent over one of the victims. She 
looked up, weariness blanketing her eyes. He smiled in spite of 
himself. He loved seeing her like this, so together, so methodical, 
so in-control. He raised the bag and waved it slightly from 
side-to-side, "I brought Chinese." 

"Thank goodness," she answered, removing the latex gloves from her 
hands and throwing them in the waste container, "I'm starving." It 
never ceased to amaze him. She could stand there, hour after hour, 
cutting away at the remnants of a human being, and still retain her 
appetite. "What'd you find out?" he asked, placing the bag on the 
countertop, "Anything interesting?" 

The incandescent lights flickered on and off, humming with the dull 
sound of dying bulbs. Scully approached a lab stool and sat, the 
corners of her white lab coat conforming to her body beneath her 
weight. She placed her hands at the sides of her hips, arched her 
back, and rubbed gently. She had been on her feet for nearly five 
hours. "Well," she began, eyes closed, "there was only one recent 
victim, killed three days ago. The others have already been buried." 
Mulder moved in silently behind her and placed his hands on 
her shoulders. 

"Let me," he said. Normally she wouldn't allow it, but his strong 
hands felt so good to the touch that she simply couldn't help 
herself. She continued, "I examined every inch of her and 
everything seems much in line with what Detective Alvarez has 
already told us. The clean incisions suggest a very sharp knife, 
perhaps used for skinning animals or ceremonial purposes." She 
felt her eyes roll back into her head as his hands traveled to 
the small of her back. The warmth enveloped her. "I did, 
however, notice a few strange details." 

Her brief stint of pleasure was abruptly halted as Mulder 
removed his hands from her body. 

"What did you find?" he asked. 

Scully opened her eyes. His face was a mixture of curiosity and 
determination. She sighed inwardly. "The tox screen showed that the 
victim contained high amounts of alcohol in her bloodstream. In 
addition, there is a fracture present in both the left and right 
radius of the victim, as though she was attempting to fight off her 
attacker while being bound. However, there is no sign of 
any binding material on either of her wrists or forearms. Or 
her entire body, for that matter. No rope burns, no wire cuts...
not even a trace of tape." 

Mulder shifted his weight from one foot to the other, 
"Anything else?" Scully opened the bag and removed a fork, 
twisting it playfully about her fingers. 

"Yes," she replied, "one more thing. The epiglottis was swollen 
significantly, about two times the normal size for a woman her age." 

"What are your thoughts?" he asked her as she opened her sweet and 
sour chicken. 

"It's quite probable that the swollen epiglottis caused the 
asphyxiation," she stuck one on her fork, dipped it in the sauce, 
and popped it in her mouth, "As to how the epiglottis came to be 
swollen...I simply don't have enough information to go on at 
this point. More extensive tests will have to be run." She 
pulled the fork slowly from her mouth, her tongue caressing 
the sweet, sweet sauce. 

He watched her as she ate, smiling with longing in his heart. 
He spoke softly, "Don't forget to save room for dessert." 

She threw him a questioning look, her eyes alight with the 
possibilities hidden in that one, simple phrase. He flashed 
her a smile and pulled something from his left pocket that had 
previously been obscured from view. "Fortune cookie," he said 
playfully, beaming ear-to-ear, "Don't you want to know what the 
future holds?" He tossed her the single-serving dessert, 
hermetically sealed in a plastic package. She caught it in her 
palms and opened the wrapper with her thumb and pointer finger. 
She cracked the cookie, pulling the thin, white paper from one 
of the halves. She lifted it to her eyes and read aloud, 
smiling at the irony, "You will find great pleasure..." 

"...in bed," Mulder finished. 

"What?" she questioned. "It doesn't say that Mulder." She turned 
the paper around for his viewing benefit, as if she needed proof 
to fully convince him, "See?" 

"I know, Scully," he answered, "Didn't you ever play that game with 
your friends?" He looked at her inquisitively, "Whenever you get 
Chinese, you're supposed to read your fortune and then add 'in bed' 
to the end of the fortune. You know, for fun? You do know what 
fun is, don't you, Scully?" She scowled at his sarcasm as she 
asked, "And what does your fortune say, Agent Mulder, or are 
you too afraid to fight the future?" 

He grinned. Maybe he was rubbing off on her after all. He pulled a 
second cookie from his right pocket and held it up for her see, 
"Let's find out." He opened the cookie, read it, and let out a 
mock gasp of fear. "What does it say, Mulder?" Scully asked. 

"Nothing important really," he answered, "Confucius says that you 
are the sexiest Special Agent ever assigned to the X-Files." He 
crumpled up the fortune and threw it discontentedly in a 
wastebasket. 

"Call me as soon as you're finished," he yelled to her, making an 
exceptionally hasty departure. As soon as his back was out of view, 
she picked the fortune from the wastebasket. Straightening it, she 
read aloud, "The answers to the questions that you seek are written 
in the stars." 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mulder angrily pushed aside the door leading out into the 
parking lot. The force of his blow knocked the frame against the 
wall, sending a loud "thud" cascading throughout the starlit sky. 
He paced forward and back, eyes to the pavement, with one hand at 
his hip and the other at his forehead. "Get ahold of yourself, 
Fox," he thought aloud, "It's only a stupid cookie, a simple, 
generic saying that has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. Hell, 
I could have just as easily gotten one that said 'Blue is your 
favorite color' or 'Cleanliness is next to godliness'." He glanced 
up. An elderly couple was watching him intently. The old woman 
whispered something in her husband's ear. "What are you looking at, 
Grandma?" he yelled to her, nodding his head for emphasis, "You've 
never seen a guy talking to himself?" Placing her hand on her chest, 
she permitted a barely audible, "Well, I never" to pass her lips as 
she and her husband hurriedly advanced into the darkness. The street 
lamps twinkled in the night, surpassed only by the amazing light 
of the distant stars. He looked up. "The answers to the questions 
that you seek are written in the stars." A sigh escaped his lips. 
He remembered the freedom that he had felt after he had found the 
truth, the sheer relief at finally putting closure to the greatest 
search of all - the search for his sister. "Samantha," he called to 
her, "I know you're up there, watching me." He felt that if he 
looked hard enough, he could even see her beautiful eyes, two 
beacons of crystalline light staring down to Earth, watching him, 
guarding him. "I'm so sorry Samantha," he cried suddenly and without 
reserve, "I'm so sorry for losing you! If only I could have found 
you sooner, if only I could have stopped them from performing those 
horrible tests! Then you'd be here with me, right now, instead of 
up there!" He pointed accusingly at the night sky. He felt the 
absence - Deep Throat was gone, so was his father, his mother...
Samantha. And what of Scully's sacrifices? She had given up a sister, 
her eggs, a chance for a normal life. And all for what? How many 
more had to die? How many more would have to suffer so that he 
could find the truth? This last thought was unbearable. He suddenly 
felt as if all the sadness of the world rested on his shoulders, as 
if the very night was swallowing him whole. He fell to his knees and 
wept like a child, his tears falling damp against the cold, 
dark ground. 

Liberty Bell Inn 
March 26, 2000 
6:17 A.M. 

Fox Mulder awoke from an uncontrollably restless sleep to the sound 
of pounding on the door. Mulder stirred groggily as his partner's 
voice came from behind the thick, wooden frame, "Mulder? Are you 
in there? It's me." 

"Uhhh," his head circled from side to side as he squirmed in the 
uncomfortable blue chair that had served as his bed for the night. 
Maybe he was still dreaming. 

"Mulder, it's me. Open the door." 

Maybe not. Mulder was still attempting to make sense of his 
surroundings as he heard the door behind him open and close. 
"Mulder, it's me." The pounding moved from the door to his head. 
It was as if he were drowning and her words were muted by the water. 
He tried to open his eyes but the intense light emanating through 
the window pane shone with a painful ferocity. He quickly shaded 
them with his hands. 

"Scully, what time is it?" he asked her. 

"Nearly 6:20, Mulder," she answered, "I was worried about you. 
I tried to call you last night after I finished the autopsy but 
your phone was off the..." Her words were cut short as she glanced 
at the fuzzy, blackened television screen, "Mulder, what were you 
watching last night?" He hurriedly grabbed for the remote control 
that lay underneath a half-empty bag of David's Sunflower Seeds 
on the table next to his makeshift bed. 

"Sorry," he answered, hastily turning off the set, "I was following 
up on some leads." 

Scully glanced at him hard, her gaze shooting straight through 
him. He looked like shit. The dark bags hung deep underneath his 
reddened eyes and his scruffy hair was completely unkempt. He was 
dressed in his suit from the previous day, sans jacket, tie, and 
shoes. The collar and cuffs of his shirt were unbuttoned and 
hung limp. 

"Mulder," she asked, "are you okay?" 

"I'm fine, Scully," he blandly responded. He walked over to 
the dresser where a third of a bottle of Whiskey sat opened. He 
reached for some ice that he had gathered in a bucket the previous 
night, but all that remained was water. Instead, he obtained a 
clean glass and poured the Whiskey straight from the bottle. He 
turned around and looked at her, "Thirsty?" She folded her arms 
and shook her head "no." He raised his glass, "Here's to you, 
Scully." He smiled and threw back his glass, taking a long 
draught of the liquor. "You know that's not going to help," she 
told him, point-blank. 

"Yeah," he answered, "but it sure beats the hell out of talking." 

"Listen, Mulder," she started, "why don't you put the drink down. 
I have some information regarding the case." 

"So do I," he answered, gesturing to the numerous files strewn 
about the bed and floor. "I brought them from Washington," he 
explained, "When Lauren first told me the facts regarding the case, 
I was reminded of some similar unexplained murders that were 
brought to my attention earlier this year." 

"What did you find out, Mulder?" she inquired, her head 
cocked to one side and her lips drawn into a slight, tight frown. 

"You first," he countered. His smile was an obvious façade, but 
Scully was not willing to test his stubborn nature. 

"Well," she began, slipping easily into the role of orator of 
scientific knowledge, "it appears that the asphyxiation was, in 
fact, due to the intense swelling of the epiglottis. The swelling 
initiated a cascade of biological events in which contact between 
the brain and the lungs was severed. Oxygen was unable to bypass 
the esophagus. The brain was deprived of oxygen for an extensive 
length of time, literally destroying the brain cells one by one." 

Mulder's sweet smile had rapidly disappeared, replaced with a 
stoic look of intellectual interest. "So what you're telling me," 
he said to her, "is that what killed this girl was a giant case 
of choking." 

"In layman's terms, yes," she answered. She glanced once more at his 
ruffled appearance. Her view traveled slowly from his soiled socks, 
up his wrinkled pants and shirt, coming to rest on his face. Her 
gaze met his. Even after a steady night of drowning his sorrows, his 
face was still beautiful, filled with the handsome rigor of a 
passionate man leading a passionate quest. Feeling the uncomfortable 
tension in her veins, Scully turned her attention to the notes 
folded neatly in her hands. "It is analogous to the sensation 
you get when food 'goes down the wrong pipe,' only on an extreme 
level. By all accounts, the victims died within ten seconds of 
the initial swelling." 

"And what of the alcohol found in the victim's bloodstream?" he 
questioned, "Should we be staking out the bars for all the men 
out there who make an attempt to pick up a pretty woman?" 

"No," Scully answered, "the alcohol is not composed of ethyl 
groups, compounds that form the molecular basis for the products 
of fermentation, which comprise drinking alcohol. The alcohol 
appears to be the product of some sort of chemical reaction, 
perhaps caused as a side-product of whatever it was that 
caused the epiglottal swelling. I don't think I need to tell 
you, Mulder, that this is indicative of premeditated murder." 

"It's more than that, Scully," he said suddenly, dusting the 
sunflower seeds from the chair and onto the floor, "It's 
much more than that." 

She squinched her face in disgust of the sty-like conditions 
and looked at Mulder inquisitively, "Then what is it? What 
have you found?" 

Mulder picked up a stack of files from the floor and sat back 
down on the chair. He threw a couple in Scully's general 
direction. "Do you see anything that these girls have in 
common?" he questioned, raising the glass to his lips. 
Scully quickly leafed through the three files in her hands. 

"Other than the obvious – that we have three very beautiful, 
very dead women – no." She closed the files and threw them 
haphazardly on the floor. She felt that he was leading her 
to the threshold, but that he, himself, had already 
journeyed inside. It seemed he always knew the answers but 
contented himself by playing these games. She peered into 
his eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

"The names, Scully," he said bluntly, "look at the names." 
Mulder pointed to the three files she had thrown on the 
floor, "Those were the most recent victims, Christina 
Andrews, Rene Bartholomew, and Erica James." 

"What do you mean, the most recent?" she asked, "Were 
there others?" He handed her the other stack of files on 
his lap, "Six others, to beprecise." Scully flipped through 
the stack, reading the last names of the victims aloud, 
"Judas, Johnson, Matthews, Phillips, Jameson, and Simone." 
She glanced up at him quickly. He could see that she 
understood and he nodded his head accordingly. 

"The Apostles," he stated matter-of-factly, "or derivations 
of their names. And look at the dates they were killed. The 
women are killed in threes, three deaths occurring over the 
span of four months, each dying of asphyxiation under 
similar circumstances." 

"And how many months have passed since the first murder?" 
she inquired. 

"Eight," he answered. 

Scully appeared despondent, "So that means that we have 
precisely four months to find a religious radical who 
intends to kill three women with the last names of Judas, 
Peter, and Thomas, or some derivation thereof?" 

"That's right," he answered, "shouldn't be too hard should 
it? Just your everyday Apocalypse." He smirked at her and 
chuckled allowed. 

"What is it?" she asked brusquely, half fearing the answer. 

"I was just thinking that we finally stumbled on a case that 
you are more prepared for than I. Faith, God, religion...I 
was just wondering what it's like to play the skeptic." 

Philadelphia Police Department 
7:46 A.M. 

Lauren Alvarez was seated at her desk. One hand lightly 
pressed against her cheek, supporting the weight of her 
elegant face. The other hand, fingers intertwined with a 
half-chewed pencil, nervously drummed against the well-
polished wood. Her long, coal-colored hair fell in 
graceful tendrils below her shoulders. She uneasily stared 
out the window of her fourth-story office. The city looked 
so beautiful from this height, so peaceful. From up here 
she was oblivious, immune to the danger and destruction 
that daily traversed the streets below. The sunlight shone 
with an overwhelming warmth. She longed for the days of her 
youth, for the little bit of land from whence all of her 
memories sprang forth. There were no street lights there, 
no roads, no buildings - only green pastures that went on 
forever and lakes as blue as the summer sky.

Her pleasant stream-of-consciousness was dolefully interrupted 
by the sound of three short knocks upon her door. "Come in," 
she called, still rhythmically strumming her fingers upon 
the surface of the desk. The door opened, exposing the frame 
of Fox Mulder. She greeted him with a smile. 

"How are you, Fox?" she asked him. She crossed one of her long, 
slender legs over the other, drawing attention to the slim-
fitting, blue skirt that graced her hips and accentuated her 
eyes. She thought she noticed his gaze depart from hers, if 
only for a brief second. She enjoyed this thought immensely. 
Her smile broadened as she recalled another distant memory: 
the excitement of the city, the smell of the rain as it soaked 
her clothes, his gentle, but firm touch... 

"Please sit down." She gestured to a comfortable-looking 
leather chair that graced the opposite side of her desk. 
Mulder gratefully returned her smile and advanced towards 
the chair, fully revealing for the first time his fiery, 
red-headed partner. Alvarez's smile began to fade as she 
glimpsed the immaculate Dana Scully enter. Stony and tight-
lipped, she seated herself in the seat next to Mulder's. It 
appeared that this visit would not be for pleasure. Alvarez 
decided to get right down to business. 

"So, what have you found, Fox?" She listened to his harangue 
with little interruption from his partner. Lauren stared at her, 
hard, concentrating. What was the link between this skeptical, 
rational scientist and Mulder, the epitome of all unconventional 
thought? She squinted her eyes. Maybe there was something 
there more than partnership, more than friendship, perhaps? 
Scully certainly loved Fox. She could tell that right off the 
bat. Evaluating the lies of untold numbers of criminals had 
given her the ability to read the body language of the agent. 
The longing looks were certainly infrequent, but the eyes, the 
piercing, crystal, blue eyes completely gave it away. But what 
of him? Her attention focused on Fox as he continued his tale. 
His mouth was moving but she couldn't hear the words that were 
escaping his lips. Did he feel the same way about her? Even 
knowing him as well as she did, it was still difficult to be 
certain. He had become well adept at hiding his emotions. She 
shook the thoughts from her head and focused on what Fox was 
saying - something about the Apostles and a serial killer? 
She wasn't sure if she had heard correctly. "What was that, 
again?" she asked, interrupting his informational lecture. 
"Scully believes that the killer has been administering some 
sort of unknown toxin to these women. Nine have been found so 
far that have been killed in the same sort of conditions, all 
with last names that are derivatives of Apostalic names. We 
believe that in the next four months he will attempt to kill 
three more women." 

"And after that?" she interrupted again. She was not comfortable 
unless she was conducting the interrogation. She noticed that 
Agent Scully sent Fox a strange look, maybe one of precaution? 
She wasn't sure. 

"We don't know," he answered quietly, "maybe he'll rise again." 
His voice trailed away as the drumming of her fingers on the 
desk cascaded across the room. 

8:17 A.M. 

"Scully," Fox Mulder called to his partner who was now, by this 
time, a good ten feet in front of him, "Scully, hold up, where's 
the fire?" Following the meeting with Lauren, Scully had dashed 
from the elevator, chin up, eyes forward, and arms waving back 
and forth at her sides, synchronized with the motion of her gait. 
He thought she looked as though she was commissioned for some 
secret mission and carried the importance well on her dainty, 
but strong, shoulders. She continued on. Mulder had to jog in 
order to catch up with her. He grabbed her right arm and spun 
her around, forcing her to face him. 

"Scully, what's going on? Is something wrong?" 

Scully looked up at him. He took in the sight of her, chin 
quivering, eyes dilated. His eyebrows furrowed with concern.

"Mulder," she said abruptly, "who is that woman?" 

Mulder was taken aback. "You know who she is, Scully," he 
answered, "Detective Lauren Alvarez of the Philadelphia Police 
Department." Scully scoffed in reply, turned, and began her 
steamy descent down the marble stairwell outside of the 
department building. 

"Scully," Mulder called to her again, "Scully!" He didn't 
have to catch up with her this time. She suddenly turned on her 
heels and faced him. Venom stained her lips as she released, in 
one instant, all of the pent-up emotions that she had held at 
bay since their departure from Washington. 

"Mulder," she repeated, "who is that woman?" 

"She's just a friend, Scully, a friend from my past. A woman 
who I trust with my life." 

"I don't trust her," she told him blandly, "I don't trust 
her at all. Were you or were you not present at that farce 
of a meeting? She doesn't give a damn about this case Mulder, 
or who will get hurt if she continues to neglect her office." 

The furrows of concern deepened into furrows of anger. The 
rage built up inside of him so rapidly that even he was caught 
off guard. "How can you say that, Scully? You don't know her 
at all. Do you know how much she wants to find this murderer? 
Probably more than you and I combined. For you and me this is 
a simple side job, but for her this is life. At the end of the 
day you can go home to your religion and I can go home to the 
X-Files, but she has nothing else."

"Maybe that's the problem, Mulder," she countered, "Did you ever 
stop to think that maybe she wants something else in her life?" 
She looked at him accusingly. 

"Like what, Scully?" 

She paused, calming herself. Was he really that unaware of 
feminine affection? She sighed deeply and replied softly with 
force, "Like you, Mulder." 

He contemplated this possibility. It was certainly feasible. 
He remembered that night after the rain. Her tight, white shirt 
was soaked, her long, black hair curled slightly from the presence 
of the moisture. He remembered leaning in, feeling her tongue on 
his lips, she tasted so good. He remembered that she invited him in. 
He had held her between his arms. She felt as good as she looked. 

"Mulder?" Scully's voice pervaded his thoughts, "Mulder, why are 
you smiling?" He quickly gathered his composure, "Scully, whatever 
our past may have included, I am positive that it will not get in 
the way of this case." He forcefully grabbed her arms at the elbows, 
rubbing her soft skin between his fingers. His demeanor visibly 
changed. He was sorry, indeed, for the unfortunate outburst. 
"Scully," he seemingly cooed now, "you know where my heart lies," 
she searched his eyes for an answer, "with the X-Files. I will never 
let anything come between that." 

Scully appeared crestfallen for a split second, but recovered 
quickly. She smiled at him, "That's all the assurance I need, 
Mulder." 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Four stories above, an unseen figure viewed the proceedings, 
watching the two partners engage in some form of disagreement. 
The curtains closed as the figure departed from the window, 
leaving the office in complete darkness. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He watched as the tall man and his red-headed companion departed 
from the Philadelphia Police Department. He could tell that she 
was very upset about something. Their disagreement appeared as 
though it could be heard overtop of the already deafening din 
of the city street. What a strange contrast she put forth - 
such an angry look for an angelic face. But he could tell that 
she was just deceiving the public. The cross about her neck was 
no match for the sinful passion in her heart, as reminiscent of 
Lucifer as her fiery hair. He was a sinner, too. He reveled 
in sins of the flesh, coveting one woman after the next, but 
her especially. He could see that. The agent had no moral 
compass. He repeatedly put her life on the line, even though 
his feelings of desire for her were great. Yes, they would 
be forgotten on the Day of Judgment, sinners trampled beneath 
the hooves of the Four Horsemen. They would be made to suffer 
for their sins, he was sure of that. They would be the chosen 
ones that would bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. 
They would be made to suffer. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mulder watched as Scully departed. Her arms were still at her sides 
and her navy-colored suit accentuated the curves in her lovely 
hourglass-shaped figure. She looked good from behind, Mulder 
decided, damn good. He loved the way she looked, the way she 
walked. He especially loved the way she challenged him, contested 
him, forced him to look at his theories from another point of 
view, even if her science could not account for everything that 
they had both seen. He had thought of her, daydreamed about her. 
She pervaded his thoughts in the morning and his dreams at night. 
He wanted so desperately to act impulsively, to transgress the 
barriers that they both had set between their achingly platonic 
relationship. But he was waiting for something. He didn't know 
what it was but he needed to wait, of that he was certain. But 
if he were to express his feelings, would she reciprocate? He 
thought that she felt the same way he did. They had had warm 
moments – the infrequent touches, the long kiss at New Year's – 
all moments that had made him temporarily forget the horrors 
that they had been through. But even through those horrors, 
she was there. He had cried on her shoulder, and she on his. 
He had saved her life, and she, his. They had shared the loss 
of family and the loss of her ability to bear children. Now he 
wanted to celebrate a new loss, a loss of his propensity to be 
alone. He couldn't bear going home to that apartment by himself, 
waking up in the morning and not having her beside him. He had 
to do something, just what he was uncertain. 

His musings were interrupted by the sound of the ringing of his cell 
phone. He followed her figure until she disappeared into the 
distance, reached into his chest pocket, and produced his cell 
phone. He flipped it open, "Mulder." 

A familiar voice spoke softly from the other end of line. 

"Sure," he responded, "I'll meet you there." He closed the phone and 
replaced it in his pocket. He gazed one final time into the distance 
where Scully had withdrawn and then walked towards the garage w
here he had left his rental car. 

Liberty Bell Inn
10:22 A.M. 

"Please connect me to Assistant Director Skinner." Scully glanced 
around the room that had served as her home for the evening as she 
waited for the secretary to patch her call through. It reminded her 
vaguely of somewhere she had been before, but she couldn't quite 
put her finger on it. The off-white blanket that covered the double 
bed, the comely lamp that illuminated the small television set – 
it all looked so familiar. 

"Skinner," Scully heard the A.D.'s voice state brusquely. 

"Hello, sir," Sully responded. It was good to hear his voice. It was 
so odd, their relationship. When she was first assigned to the 
X-Files, she would never have imagined that Skinner would have 
become what she considered to be a friend. He had assisted her 
and Mulder countless times, at personal risk to his own position. 
She felt a kindred devotion to him. He was like a father to her, 
and their relationship followed suit, sometimes adversarial, 
but more often caring. 

"It's Scully. I wanted to bring you up to speed on the case. Mulder 
and I have connected the three murders in Philadelphia to six other 
murders. In each case, the women died of asphyxiation under similar 
circumstances. All of the women had last names that are derivatives 
of Apostalic names." 

"Do you have any theories on this point?" he interrupted. 

"Yes," Scully continued. She was well used to his interjections. 
"Agent Mulder believes that a religious radical is attempting to 
murder twelve women with Apostalic names, recreating martyrdom, 
perhaps in an attempt to become closer to Christianity." 

"Yes," he said, "but what do you believe?" 

"Honestly sir," she answered, "I'm not sure that I know. I believe 
that Agent Mulder's hypothesis is certainly plausible. On a more 
personal note, I have difficulty reconciling anyone who believes 
he is justified in connecting murder with a Christian 
rationalization." 

There was a significant pause at the other end of the line. "Agent 
Scully," Skinner said, "I need to ask you a question." He sounded 
tense. Scully was worried. 

"Go right ahead, sir," she responded. 

"What are you two doing there?" he asked, "I know that Mulder is an 
adept profiler but I really don't see any connection here to the 
X-Files." Scully bit her lower-lip. What are we doing here? She had 
asked herself the same question ever since their arrival in 
Philadelphia. She remembered their meeting with Detective Alvarez. 
She had flagrantly attempted to draw attention to herself the entire 
time. Scully knew the meeting wasn't about the case, but was about 
Mulder. She had seen the disappointment in Alvarez's eyes when she 
noticed that Scully would be present during the discussion. 

"Agent Scully?" Skinner invaded her thoughts. 

"Yes, sir," she answered, "Could you repeat the question?"

Il Ristorante Cantriosilla 
11:59 A.M. 

Fox Mulder sat at a table for two situated at the back of the
restaurant.  Next to the table, a large bay window overlooked a
beautiful park with plentiful oaks and weeping willows.  In the center
was a large, marble fountain.  Goldfish happily swam about, living out
their lives in peaceful oblivion beneath the crystal-blue waters.

Mulder adjusted his tie and checked his watch.  Twelve o'clock.  From
the corner of his eye he saw two legs in a short, blue skirt approach
his table and halt in front of him.  He looked up and saw Lauren's
supermodel features beaming back at him.

"Long time, no see, stranger," she said, taking her seat opposite him.
 He smiled inwardly.  Punctual as always, he thought to himself.

"Nice to see you, too, Lauren," he replied as a waiter approached with
a bottle of Red Merlow and angel-hair pasta, "I took the privilege of
ordering for you."  She smiled.  She loved that about him, the way he
just took charge of a situation.  He liked to be in control.

"Thank you, Fox," she said, "It looks delicious."  She placed the
pressed napkin atop her lap and crossed her legs.

"It certainly does," he mumbled to himself, but inadvertent blushing
revealed that she had overheard.  She picked up her fork, spiraling
the spaghetti about with her spoon.

"It's been awhile since we've had a pleasant lunch, hasn't it Fox?"
she said to him, sucking the pasta between her ruby-red lips and
exposing her tongue.

"It certainly has," he answered, pouring the Merlow into two wine
glasses, "What has it been, seven, eight years?"

"Nine, I think," she answered.  She took a sip of the wine.  "It's
been a long time, Fox. Look at you, brilliant, although underestimated
agent of the most prestigious agency in the United States."

"You're not doing too bad yourself, Lauren," he responded, taking a
bite of his lunch, "carrying out the work that you've longed for, a
respected detective. What more could you possibly want for yourself?" 
She began to blush again.

"Well, Fox," she said, "that is precisely the reason that I asked you
here today."

Mulder placed the fork on his plate and folded his hands.  "What are
you talking about, Lauren?" he asked her, "I thought you invited me to
discuss the case?"  She chuckled aloud, "Oh, Fox, did you really
believe that I asked you to join me at a romantic, Italian restaurant
just to talk business?"  Mulder noticed for the first time the two
candles that were perched in the middle of the table of the dimly-lit
room.  He thought about the discussion that he and Scully had had
earlier in the day.  Maybe she was right.  Maybe this was a bad idea.

Mulder started to respond, but Lauren held up her hands in an effort
to silence him, "No, Fox, don't say anything.  Just let me say what I
need to say."

Lauren took a deep breath as she replayed the dialogue that she had
practiced in her mind on so many previous occasions.  "Fox, there is
something missing from my life.  I've known it ever since I left you. 
I may have my work and my health, but I need someone to share my life
with.  I need you, Fox."

He sighed, a long sigh of consternation and exhaustion.  "Lauren," he
said gently, "I don't think you know what you're saying.  You left me,
remember?  You couldn't deal with, what was it that you said, 'my
obsession with my sister,' remember?"

"Oh, Fox," she interjected, "that was so long ago.  I was only a girl
then.  I'm a woman now, a woman with needs and desires."  She took his
hand in hers.  "I need you, Fox," she said, "I love you."  Mulder
shook his head and put his other hand over hers, "You don't love me,
Lauren..."

His words were cut short as she placed her forefinger over his lips,
"Shhh," she cooed, "you don't need to say anything."  She wrapped her
hand around the back of his head, running her fingers through his
hair.  "Don't say anything."  She pulled his face towards hers, and
threw her lips over his, soft at first, but harder, and harder still. 
He responded at first, and for a split second it was like being with
her all over again, like they were never separated.  For a split
second, he wanted her and kissed her back.  In his mind's eye,
however, he saw Scully arguing with him outside of the department.  He
saw her angry with him, fighting with him, fighting for him, and all
of a sudden he drew back.

"Lauren," he said, "I can't, we can't.  This is wrong.  I'm sorry, but
I just don't feel the same way about you."  He searched her face.  She
seemed upset, hurt.

"Oh," she mumbled, "I'm so sorry, Fox."  She got up awkwardly and
stumbled from the table.

"Lauren," he called to her, "Lauren, wait. We need to talk."  He
hurriedly got up from the table and ran after her.  He opened the
front door to the restaurant and looked both ways down the street, but
she was nowhere in sight.  Mulder put his hand on his hip and shook
his head in disgust.  "Way to go, Fox," he said to himself and
retraced his steps into the restaurant to pay the bill.

Liberty Bell Inn 
4:13 P.M.

Scully was startled from a restless sleep by the sound of three knocks
upon the door.

"Scully, it's me, open up." 

She lay on her side, still wearing the skirt and jacket of her black
suit.  She had fallen asleep so suddenly that she hadn't even had time
to put on a change of clothes.  The exhaustion caused by the late
night at the morgue had finally settled in.  Three more knocks,
"Scully, are you there? Open the door."

"Coming," she called, throwing her legs over the side of the bed.  She
stood up, smoothed out her suit, and checked herself in the small
mirror beside the bed before advancing towards the door.

"Jesus, Scully," Mulder scolded her, "what took you so long? I was out
here knocking for five minutes.  If I was Skinner, my head would have
frost bite by now."

"Mulder," she scoffed, curling the corners of her lips in response to
the joke, "I could ask you the same thing.  Where have you been?" 
Mulder's eyes averted her gaze.  It seemed as though he was attempting
to make up his mind about something.  "Mulder?" Scully questioned
again, "Where were you?"
Mulder shook his head and decided to tell her the truth, "I went out
to lunch with Lauren."  Scully's demeanor instantly changed at the
sound of Alvarez's name.  Her eyebrow arched as she responded with a
simple, "Oh?"

"Yes, Scully," he answered jerkily.  He felt for some strange reason
that he owed her something resembling an explanation.  His words began
to get jumbled as he quickly endeavored to explain himself.  "Right
after you left, Lauren called, Scully.  She asked me to meet her for
lunch to discuss the case, but when I got there, well...she didn't
really want to talk about the case.  I think you were right, Scully, I
think she..."

Scully held up her hands in disgust.  "Stop, Mulder," she told him, "I
don't need to know about this.  This isn't my business."

"But, Scully," he started, "I want you to know..." 

"No," she interjected again, "I don't want to know."  Scully shrugged
her shoulders, "Besides, I need to talk to you about the case." 
Mulder seated himself on the edge of her bed.  He looked tired.  He
stared at her through sad, weary eyes, "What do you want to tell me?"

"I contacted Skinner today," she began, "I informed him of the
progress we've made in regards to the connection between the murderer
and religion.  He wanted to know how much longer we planned on staying
here."

"And what did you tell him?" Mulder asked. 

"I told him that I wasn't sure," Scully responded, "but then I
received a phone call from Agent Sykes in the microbiology unit.  I
sent the blood work of the victim to her after the autopsy and asked
that she conduct the tests first thing.  She told me that there is
something very strange in her blood, something that she didn't feel
comfortable telling me over the phone.  Mulder, I need to return to
Washington right away."

Mulder slowly nodded his head.  "I'll go with you, Scully," he told
her, "There's nothing else to be done here for the moment."  He yawned
and lay back on the bed, arms folded behind his head.  "I'm so tired,
Scully," he confided.

Scully sat next to him on the bed, "I know, Mulder, it's been a long
day."  He sat up and looked at her.  Her face was inches from his.

"Scully," he tried again, "I want to tell you what happened at lunch
today."

"Mulder," she said, "you don't owe me anything...," but he stopped her
in mid-sentence.

"No," he told her authoritatively, "I'm going to tell you something,
something I've been trying to tell you for years."

Scully braced herself.  Her fingers clutched the edge of the bed
tensely.  She could feel her heart run a marathon in chest and her
face began to feel flush.  For years they had danced around the
subject.  There had been plenty of gentle flirtation on both sides,
but neither had the inclination to make the first move, to test their
relationship beyond the safe confines of friendship.  Was this what he
wanted?  Was he going to make the leap of faith for which she wasn't
prepared?

"What is it, Mulder?" she asked anxiously.  He fiddled nervously with
his tie and took a deep breath.

"Come on, Fox," he said to himself, "you can do this."  He stared at
her, long and hard, gaining strength from her beauty and
determination.  He prepared to initiate the most difficult discussion
of his nearly seven-year relationship with his enchanting partner.

"Working on this case with Lauren has brought back a lot of memories,"
he told her, "memories of happy times, memories of sad times, many,
many memories."  He smirked as scenes of her flashed through his mind.
 "She and I were, as you may have guessed, romantically involved seven
years ago.  I was just a young, naïve agent, having come across the
X-Files.  After the dissolution of my relationship with Diana, I was
heartbroken, wearing my heart on my sleeve.  I stumbled into one
relationship – well, I suppose you couldn't really call them
relationships – after another.  One night while browsing through the
National Archives, I met Lauren.  She was an intern at the F.B.I.,
doing profiling research for a serial killer that was terrorizing New
York City.  She was as young and passionate as I was, and we instantly
clicked.  In comparison to my relationship with Diana, my tryst with
Lauren was much shorter, but just as exciting."

He paused to take a breath.  Scully opened her mouth to ask exactly
what Lauren and his relationship had to do with her, but thought
better of it.  She inhaled and allowed him to continue.

"Today Lauren asked me to lunch to discuss our past, and our
collective future.  She told me she loved me, that she wanted us to be
together, that she needed me.  She even tried to kiss me, and for a
minute, I wanted to, too.  But then I thought of you, Scully.  I
thought of how you warned me of her feelings.  I thought of how you
protected me against my own madness.  I thought of your endless
devotion to my cause, of all that you've given up to help me on my
quest.  I thought of how your brilliance saved my life after I was
exposed to the alien virus.  But most of all, I thought of how you are
always there for me.  I thought about how when you were abducted, and
when you were injected with the virus from that bee sting, of how I
could never imagine living without you."

Scully swallowed hard.  "Mulder," she said quietly, "I don't quite
know what to say.  I mean, you are so important to me.  I couldn't
imagine not having you in my life either.  That's why I fought so hard
when you almost died, I couldn't bear losing you."

He smiled at her and looked about the room.  "You know, Scully," he
said, "it seems like every turning point in our relationship comes
when we're sitting in one of these rink-a-dink motel rooms."  A spark
flew across Scully's brain.  No wonder the room looked so familiar. 
It had the same set-up as the room in which she stayed while
investigating her first X-File.  A scene from her past flashed through
her mind – it was the first time she met Mulder and they were
investigating the strange deaths of teenagers in Bellefleur, Oregon. 
Mulder's talk of puncture wounds on the backs of abductees had
frightened her into believing that she was abducted when she had
experienced what he called "lost time."  She had run into his room
wearing only a bathrobe and had shown him three puncture wounds on her
back.  She recalled her relief when he explained that they were merely
mosquito bites.

She smiled fondly at him, "I remember," she said, "You had me
convinced that I was going to turn out like Billy Miles."

He chuckled, "It didn't take long before you were undressing yourself
for me, did it Scully?"

"Oh, Mulder," she cried, striking him lightly on his firm forearm.  He
grabbed for her hand as she struck the blow.  He held it tightly, but
sincerely.  He gently stroked her knuckles with his thumb.

"That night," he reminded her, "I bore my soul to you, a complete
stranger.  I explained to you about the fate of my sister and my quest
to find out what had happened to her.  Scully, I knew instantly that I
could trust you.  Even if you didn't believe in extraterrestrial life,
you believed in me, and I believe in you."

He shifted uncomfortably.  He couldn't stop now.  "Scully, Lauren's
talk of love today forced me to recognize my own feelings, feelings
that I've had for a long time but have never been able to express
before.  I don't love her, Scully, and she doesn't love me.  I don't
believe she knows what true love is, and I used to think that I never
would experience it either.  But now I know what love is, Scully,
because you've helped me find it.  All this searching for the truth,
and I've been denying it for seven years now, burying it like the
Syndicate buried the truth."

Scully arched her eyebrow and shot him a quizzical look.  "Mulder,
what is it that you're trying to say?" she asked.

Mulder breathed deeply and grabbed her other hand.  He held them both
up, supported by his.  They looked as though they were standing at the
base of an alter, professing their love for each other through vows of
eternal devotion.  "What I'm trying to say, Scully," he told her, "is
that I love you."
Scully looked aghast, mouth slightly ajar, eyes wide with fear and
uncertainty.  She was silent for what, to Mulder, seemed like an
eternity.  She lifted her palm and placed it against his forehead, as
if checking for a temperature.  "Mulder, are you feeling okay?" she
asked him.

"Well," he mumbled to himself, "that went well," and then to her, "I
think I've alienated myself enough for one night."  He stood up, "If
you need me, I'll be next door...hanging myself."  He gestured to the
door and began to walk towards it.

"Mulder, wait," she called to him, "Don't go. Please come sit down." 
He turned back to face her.  He looked good, his long tie
complementing his eyes.  She patted the empty space next to her on the
bed.  "I'm sorry. I didn't know what to say.  You kind of caught me
off guard."

He plopped down on the bed next to her.  "No," he told her, "I'm
sorry.  That was something heavy to have just dropped in your lap like
that."  He started to stammer as his emotions began to get the better
of him.  "It's just that I'm sick of carrying out this charade day in
and day out.  I know how I feel, Scully, and I think that you feel the
same way, too, but I need you to say it, to tell me how you feel about
me."

She sighed, a long sigh of distress and confusion.  "Mulder," she said
slowly, "this isn't anything new.  Believe me, I've thought about the
possibility of a relationship between us for quite some time.  To be
honest, I'm very much attracted to you, not just physically, but on an
emotional level, as well."  For once, her clinical detachment sounded
so sweet to his ears.  She continued, "You're intelligent, humorous,
caring, passionate..."

His smile began to deteriorate into a frown.  "...but," he continued
on her behalf.

She took up the rest of the sentence, "...but I'm not sure if we
should take our relationship to the next plateau."

"Scully," he questioned, slight irritation arising unconsciously in
his voice, "What exactly is it that you're afraid of?"  He looked
deeply into her eyes, hoping to find in them the truth to the deepest
recesses of her soul.  Scully nervously twitted her thumbs as she
carefully prepared her every word.

"I'm afraid of you, Mulder," she finally told him, "I'm afraid of what
will happen when I become attached and you decide to leave.  What
would it be like if we could not remain friends?  I just don't think
that I could handle something like that."

He took her hand in his.  She had never before seen him so serious. 
Not even a smile penetrated his dower demeanor.

"I would never let that happen, Scully," he said defiantly, "I would
never risk losing the greatest partner or friend that I have ever
known.  But you cannot let your fear of the future stop you from
fighting for something good, something so easily obtainable."

She looked fondly at him, the man for whom she had given so much and
gotten so much greater in return.  His deep, hazel eyes penetrated
every core of her being, and she finally knew in heart what was true.

"Mulder, I do share your feelings.  My feelings for you are so great
that they are almost tangible, but I am still afraid..."  He didn't
let her finish the sentence.

"Don't be," he told her, leaning in closer to her body.  His lips
inched along her face until they reached her ear.  "There's nothing to
be afraid of," he whispered to her, playfully twirling her soft,
sweet-smelling hair between his fingers.  He pulled back and once more
peered into her eyes.  She reached up, placing her palm aside his
cheek as he coupled the nape of her tiny neck with his strong hand.

"I'm not," she told him, for the first time fully assured, "not
anymore."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
He saw the red-headed woman respond uneasily to whatever it was that
her partner had confided in her.  She had felt his head, causing him
to rise and walk toward the door.  He ducked behind a bush, hoping
that his dark robes would render him impenetrable to the gaze of the
lanky agent.  He hid for several minutes until he was sure that it was
safe.  He summoned his courage and approached the window that peered
into the tiny room.  They were both sitting on the bed, now.  He could
feel their intentions, their longing – it was hot and sinful, like a
burning iron branding an animal.  She placed her hand on his face, and
he, his on her neck.  He watched as they drew closer, about to
consummate their proud and dangerous transgression.  He turned his
head as the screech of tires forewarned an approaching observer.  The
headlights shone fiercely about him, like the column of fire that
separated the Deliverer from impending doom at the hands of Pharaoh. 
He ducked from view of the window and advanced into the darkness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
Scully leaned in, yearning to quench the fire in her lips.  He pulled
her closer with the hand placed so subtly behind her neck.  "Mulder,"
she breathed.

"Scully," he softly replied.  Her eyes widened as she caught the
glimpse of a shadow at the window, illuminated by the headlights of an
advancing vehicle.

"Mulder," she cried louder, pointing to the figure, "someone's out
there."
Mulder turned his head violently, grabbing for the gun at his hip.  He
stood up and ran to the door.  "I'll kill you," he mumbled, angered
more by the interruption than the threat of danger, "I don't care if
it's J. Edgar, himself."  He opened the door and surveyed the
surroundings, looking left and right.  He turned around and closed the
door behind him.

"Nobody's there, Scully," he told her, repositioning himself at her
side, "Now where were we?"

"Mulder," she cried, pushing his chest away with both hands, "I know
what I saw.  There was someone there."

"Well," he said, a smile appearing at the corners of his mouth, "maybe
we ought to give him a good show, what do you say?"  It was no use. 
The interruption had effectively destroyed the mood and any chance he
had for getting closer to her.

"I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully told him apprehensively, "but I'm tired. 
I think I'd like to go to bed.  We have to fly back to Washington
early tomorrow."  She threw him a ticket for the 7:30 A.M. flight back
to D.C. that she had bought earlier in the day.  "See you bright and
early," she told him, advancing towards the door to walk him out. 
Mulder got up from the bed and took one final look at Scully as he
walked dejectedly to his room to spend another night alone.

J. Edgar Hoover Building 
March 26, 2000
9:00 A.M. 

The plane ride back had been hell.  She couldn't recall why she had
decided to place their two seats next to each other.  Then she
remembered.  She had purchased them before Mulder so genuinely smeared
his feelings like a doormat for her to step on.  She recalled that his
sarcasm when she had asked for the window seat was more abrasive than
usual: "Why bother, Scully?  It's not as though you'll see anything of
interest that cannot be explained away by scientific means.  It's a
warm, sunny day, I'm sure there's plenty of weather balloons floating
around just waiting to be mistaken for U.F.O.'s."

She was used to the droll humor, that was normal.  It was the silence
that she had trouble reconciling.  For as long as she had known him,
Mulder was hardly recognized as someone who could remain silent for
more than two minutes at a time.  But he had remained silent the
entire hour that it took to land at Dulles, excluding of course some
rather suggestive comments to the flight attendant after having
one-too-many shots of Absolut.

She couldn't stand him being angry with her, but she could hardly
blame him either.  What was barring her from acknowledging her
feelings?  Sure, she had told him that those feelings existed, but she
was hardly entirely truthful.  If she could have acted impulsively,
even for one moment, she would have torn off that tie and thrown him
down onto the bed...but she just couldn't do that.  No, she had to
think of all the reasons why a relationship between them wouldn't work
out.  Mulder was right, she needed to stop thinking, to stop ending
the relationship before it was even initiated.  If she were to not
allow anything to happen between them, it would be like failing before
any difficulties were even broached.

"Agent Scully?"  

Her decision about Mulder would have to wait for another day.  Agent
Sykes was addressing her.  Scully was standing in the microbiology
unit of the F.B.I., patiently lingering about to view what it was that
was so important that it could not be spoken of over the telephone.

"Yes," Scully answered, "It's nice to see you, Agent Sykes.  It's good
of you to have run the tests so quickly."

"You're very welcome," Sykes replied, "but I should be thanking you. 
I feel very privileged to have been brought in on this case."  Sykes
ushered her into a secluded room at the back-right corner of the
office.  Scully noticed that Sykes had locked the door behind her and
closed the blinds of the large, front windows.  She cradled a manila
folder in her arms, like the mother of a newborn child.  Scully shot
her a questioning look.

"What is it, exactly that you found?" she asked. 

"I think you had better sit down," Sykes responded, tossing the folder
lightly on top of her desk as she took her seat. Scully's eyes widened
as a familiar name leapt from the pages.

"Purity Control," she read aloud. 

Mouth slightly agape, Scully's gaze turned quickly from the papers on
the desk to Agent Sykes, herself. "How do you know about Purity
Control?" Scully asked her, and then scolded herself for questioning
to rashly.

"Please sit down, Agent Scully," Sykes beseeched her, "and I will tell
you the whole story of my involvement."

Scully obliged, taking the seat opposite Sykes and folded her hands
carefully on the desk.  She looked up through wary eyes and urged the
agent forward, "Please continue."

"Do you recall the name Dr. Anne Carpenter, Agent Scully?" Sykes
asked.

"Of course," Scully responded without a moment's hesitation, "Dr.
Carpenter was head of the Georgetown University Microbiology
Department.  She aided me in an investigation regarding...regarding
the homicide of a scientist working in developing gene therapy." 
Sykes arched her left eyebrow as Scully shuffled uncomfortably in her
chair.  She felt like the victim of some voyeuristic joker, like
cameras were set up at each angle of the room in order to record her
every word.  Her gaze diverted this way and that, plagued by the
thought of unseen eyes watching her movement.

"What you meant to say," Sykes corrected her, "is that Dr. Carpenter
aided in an investigation regarding Purity Control, that she assisted
you in analyzing the sample and in doing so discovered an extra base
pair that she defined as extraterrestrial in origin.  This base pair
contributed to the formation of a fifth and sixth nucleotide in the
sample's genome, and for some unknown reason, several gaps existed in
the sequence itself."  Scully took in a deep breath, wondering exactly
how much she should trust this woman who seemed to know as much, if
not more than she.  Scully braced herself for the windfall.

"If I may be so bold, Agent Sykes, how is it that you came by this
knowledge?" she inquired.

"Hours before she was in the accident, Dr. Carpenter called me.  She
informed me of what she had found, that she believed that by acquiring
such knowledge she had endangered the life of herself and her family. 
She was under the impression that she was being followed.  She saw
shadows wherever she went.  I, of course, thought that she was
suffering from deep paranoia, but the deaths of her and her
family...Well, I suppose it turns out that her paranoia was well
founded."  Sykes shrugged her shoulders, "Anyway, Dr. Carpenter told
me that if she were to die that I should be alert to any specimen that
would turn up in the future.  She told me to follow your work closely,
Agent Scully.  I suppose you assisted me in that respect by contacting
me.  At any rate, I have a vested interest in seeing this through. 
You see, Agent Scully, Dr. Carpenter was my sister and I am convinced
that her accident was no accident, that she was, in fact, murdered for
her discovery of the base pair in Purity Control."
Scully digested what Sykes had told her.  "I understand what you have
confided in me, Agent Sykes," she began, "but what does Purity Control
have to do with the blood samples that I sent to you?"

"That's just it, Agent Scully," she answered, "the genome isolated in
the blood samples is identical to that of Purity Control, with one
minor exception."

"And what would that exception be, Agent Sykes?" Scully asked, still
unsure if she was being fed lies.

"Like I said," Sykes told her, "the genome that comprised Purity
Control contained gaps, missing base pairs in the sequence, something
completely unheard of in any organic organism found here on Earth. 
Annie was attempting to divine the reason for this before her untimely
death.  She had little success, but she was able to hide a sample away
so that I might carry on her work.  For the past six years I have
tested and analyzed every pair in the genome and have come to the
following conclusion: the chemical composition, that is, the elements
that comprise the base pairs found in Purity Control, are unknown in
origin and are highly electronegative.  In fact, they are twice as
electronegative as the strongest electronegative Earth element,
fluorine.  You are aware of what causes electronegativity, are you
not, Dr. Scully?"

"Yes," Scully answered, feeling as though she was back in the
classroom, waiting anxiously for permission to begin her chemistry
exam, "electronegativity is essentially a pull of electrons from a
chemical bond.  It is a property of an element whereby an atom
attempts to become more stable by obtaining the fullest amount of
electrons possible in one orbital, eight to be precise."

"That is correct, Agent Scully.  I can see that all of those years of
acquiring medical knowledge were not lost on you."  Sykes smiled
warmly at her as she continued the briefing, "It seems that the
elements present in the nucleotides of Purity Control are so
electronegative that the electrons of one nucleotide effectively repel
the electrons of the neighboring nucleotide.  Compounded with the
already highly negative phosphate and deoxyribose backbone, this
leaves no possibility for stabilization within that region in nature,
generating the gap in the genome.  In other words, the gap between
nucleotides is twice that of the organic Earth gap.  Only after this
interval are the electrons far enough apart that the charge becomes
dissipated enough to have another base pair."
Scully sighed, unsure of what to believe.  She had been misled so many
times in the past, she just hoped that this time an investigation
would bear fruit.  She said to Sykes, "That is all extremely
interesting, but you still have yet to tell me what is the difference
between Purity Control and the blood samples."
"Agent Scully," she answered, "the blood samples that you sent to me
contain the extra base pair, the fifth and sixth nucleotide, but there
is no gap between them."

Scully countered, "But I thought you said that there is no conceivable
stabilization if two nucleotides were adjacent to each other."

"I said in nature, Agent Scully."  Sykes looked at her hard, waiting
for her to grasp the serious nature of what she was saying.

Scully's eyes widened as she realized what the doctor was intimating,
"But that would mean..."

Agent Sykes nodded her head in profound silence.  "Yes, Agent Scully,"
she completed the thought for her, "That would mean that someone has
figured out how to control the sequence, that someone has genetically
engineered Purity Control to alleviate the gaps, and that your murder
victim is the product of this genetic engineering."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
"Mulder," the voice greeted her gruffly from the other end. She had
let the phone ring seven times and was about to hang up when he
finally answered.

"Mulder, it's me," she answered, relieved at finally hearing his voice
after accepting his harsh sentence of silence, "where are you?"

Mulder watched himself in the mirror behind the counter.  He watched
as the reflection raised its cell with one hand and a glass in the
other.  His hair was disheveled and all that remained of his mandatory
suit ensemble was a wrinkled, uncuffed, Oxford shirt and a pair of
gray pleated pants.  "I'm washing my hair, Scully," he told her, a
mixture of relief and anger at hearing her voice so soon after their
little heart-to-heart, "where are you?"

"I'm at the Bureau's Microbiology Department," she answered, "and
there is something that I need to discuss with you in person."

"Working on your chemistry, Scully?" he asked her, draining the glass
until all that remained were the "rocks" to his scotch.

She couldn't help but scoff.  'I suppose I deserve that,' she thought.
"You're partially right, Mulder," she answered coolly, dismissing the
usual obligatory reprimand for fear of angering him further.

"Well, spill it, Scully.  What is it that's so important?" 
"I can't tell you over the phone," she replied, "Meet me at my place
in an hour."  Normally the offer to come to her place would have
inspired some suggestive commentary but now...he wasn't sure.  Mulder
stumbled clumsily to his feet and dug in his pocket for some rumpled
bills.  Upon throwing them on the counter, he departed into the night.

Dana Scully Residence
10:00 A.M. 

"Once more, Scully, this time in English."  Fox Mulder was seated on
Scully's comfortable, cream couch in her cozy apartment.  His long
legs rose nearly to his chin and his elbows rested lightly on his
kneecaps.  His head felt like a lead ball and the only thing capable
of providing a modicum of support were the palms of his strong hands.

Scully entered the living room carrying a mug filled with black coffee
between both hands.  "You know, Mulder," she berated him, "this would
all be a lot easier to understand if you weren't suffering from a
severe hangover."

He looked up at her, his hazel eyes dancing with boyish mischief
despite his tired condition.  "Thank you Dr. Scully," he replied, "but
somehow I don't believe that."

Scully feigned shock and dismay, "What are you saying, Mulder?  That
you don't believe that science will provide easy answers?"

Mulder chuckled in spite of himself, smiling like the master who
foresees checkmate in the movement of his apprentice, "I want to
believe."

Scully's smile betrayed her affection. "At least he's talking to me
again," she thought, "at least that's something."  She placed the mug
on the coffee table in front him and watched as he took a couple of
swigs.

"Feeling better?" she asked. 

"Couldn't feel better if it rained hearts and honeybuns," he responded
dryly.  He took another gulp of coffee.  "Why don't you just tell me
what you found again," he asked her, "but this time slooowwwlllyyy..."

Scully picked up the manila envelope that lay beside the mug on the
coffee table.  She had confiscated it from Dr. Sykes, warning her that
if she kept it, they might dispose of her and the evidence as they did
her sister.  Sykes initially protested, but finally relented,
realizing that the only way to bring her sister's killer to justice
was to live and to work with the two agents.  Scully opened the folder
and explained the contents -slowly- to Mulder.  After a solid half
hour, she was sure that he had fully grasped the meanings of
extraterrestrial elements, nucleotides, and electronegativity.  Sure,
it took a little longer than usual, but she had to admit, he was the
sharpest damn drunk that she had ever met.

After the crash course in biochemistry, Scully closed the file
excitedly.  "Do you know what this means, Mulder?" she asked him,
"This means that we finally have hard evidence, conclusive scientific
facts that prove what is going on here."

"And what is going on here, Scully?" he asked, anticipating her
answer.

She didn't know how to respond.  The evidence was there, like she
said, but was she to believe it?  "I don't know exactly, Mulder.  But
what I do know is that genetic engineering has brought about the
fusion of the Purity Control and human genomes, and that fusion
product was found to comprise the genetic makeup of the victim."

"And I'm willing to bet the farm that it's found in the other victims,
as well," he told her.

"Mulder," she asked, "do you really believe that?" 

His eyes, more lucent now than the previous half hour, shone with the
intense excitement that appeared whenever he began to connect two and
two together.  "Guess what time it is, Scully?" he asked her.

She looked at the beautiful gold-encrusted watch on her left hand.  It
had been
a Christmas present from her mother that came with the cute little
note "Don't forget to take some time for yourself, Dana."

"It's nearly 10:30, Mulder," she answered. 

"Wrong, Scully," he told her, "It's just about that time where you and
I roll up our sleeves and get digging."

"What are you talking about, Mulder?" she asked, worried that he still
wasn't over the effects of his early morning binge.

"It's exhumation time, Scully," he answered, "You bring the coffee,
I'll bring the shovels."  He stood up from the couch, grinning through
the pain in his head, "And you say I never take you anywhere."

St. Anne's Cemetery 
5:52 P.M. 

Mulder stood by an open grave, patiently waiting for the enormous,
yellow crane to finish pulling the casket from the ground.  The gentle
crescent moon shone brightly on the proceedings, a misplaced light in
the midst of the dark of dusk.  He looked much better now, even
somewhat well-rested.  The wrinkled shirt and pants were replaced with
his usual working outfit: well-pressed shirt, gray pants, gray jacket,
monochrome tie.  Over his suit was a long, jet-black duster that
flowed past his long legs to his knees.  His hair was neatly combed
back and the only sign of his drinking exploits were the remnants of
barely noticeable thin, red lines in his eyes.  He reached into his
pocket and produced a handful of sunflower seeds as Scully approached
from the darkness.
The headlights from the crane illuminated the highlights in her
beautiful hair.  She looked professional as always -elegantly bearing
a dark, form-fitting pants-suit- but damn good, he decided.  He popped
a couple seeds in his mouth as she halted in front of him.

"What'd she say?" he asked her. 

"Alvarez said that she would work on getting permission for the
exhumation of the other two women that were killed in her
jurisdiction," she answered, grazing quickly over the name of the
esteemed detective, "The other five victims lie buried in various
locations throughout the east coast ranging from Maine to Maryland.  I
have contacted Bureau agencies in each of those states and have
arranged for the exhumations.  They will notify me as soon as they
have collected the samples."

She sighed a deep sigh of weariness.  She was worn out after having
spent the day being bounced around from one government lackey to
another.  But her day wasn't over yet.  She knew what would come next.
 She would spend hours working on the body and after that, there would
be the blood work of not just one dead girl, but nine all together. 
He had been busy, too, of course.  He spent the entire afternoon
attempting to get permission for the exhumation of the only victim
buried in D.C..  Still, she noticed with some degree of bitterness
that he had managed time to shower, shave, and dress.  She looked down
at herself, still wearing the same clothes from her meeting with Dr.
Sykes. "I need a long, hot bath," she thought to herself.

"Good," he replied simply, and "Ah...here we go, now the fun begins"
as the casket was lifted from the earth and placed on a waiting
gurney.  Four medics placed the casket into the back of an ambulance,
secured it, and closed the doors behind it.  "Let's go, Scully,"
Mulder commanded as he jumped into his government-issue automobile. 
Scully complied and soon the two were following the ambulance at close
range, driving in deafening silence towards Quantico.

Quantico Medical Facility 
6:13 P.M. 

Scully pulled at the microphone that hung from the ceiling of the
frigid examining room, drawing it closer to her mouth.  The room was
immaculate.  The white-washed walls had recently been scrubbed and the
powerful stench of chlorine indicated the complete absence of
contamination.  She had become so used to that smell through the years
of her intense training.  It had become second nature, a hollowed
ground that made her feel secure in her medical abilities.  It was
medicine that made her feel in control whenever Mulder's paranoia
seemed to suggest that others within the government contained complete
power over her and all of the rest of the civilians on Earth.

"Victim is a twenty-seven year old Caucasian female," she began,
initiating the examination, "Extent of decomposition suggests that she
has been dead for well over two weeks.  No signs of sexual assault are
implicit on the exterior of the body, no bruising or other abuse.  The
removal of the right eye and a single incisor is consistent with the
supposed ritualistic murders of the three victims in Philadelphia. 
Forty puncture wounds on the body lend credence to this theory."  She
reached for the charts containing the victim's information produced
from the initial autopsy after her death.  They had been faxed over
from the D.C. morgue earlier that day and now lay on the linoleum
counter at her side.  "Coroner's report states that victim died of
asphyxiation due to unknown circumstances.  Toxicology shows an
abnormal presence of alcohol in her system days after she was found
dead."  Scully picked up the tools that lay on a cart beside the
examination table and prepared to make the first incision.  "I will
now reopen the stitches," she said into the microphone, and then under
her breath, "Okay, let's see what you're hiding."  She leaned in to
make the cut when a voice from behind startled her into cognizance.

"Agent Scully?" 

Tools in hand, Scully turned around and faced the young, light-haired
agent.

"Agent Scully," he repeated from behind his almost
too-neat-for-protocol suit, "there's a call for you on line one."

"Thank you," Scully called, "I'll be right there."  She placed the
tools back on the cart and flipped the switch on the microphone to the
"Off" position as the agent departed into the hallway.  She placed her
surgical gloves in the nearest trashcan and went across the hall to
pick up the line.

"Scully," she said, twirling the cord listlessly between her fingers. 
No one responded. "Scully," she said again, this time with more force.
 Once again, there was no answer.  "Is anyone there?" she asked and
after gaining no response for a third time, she slammed the phone back
on the hook.  She was shaking her head as she re-entered the examining
room.  Her anger quickly turned to shock as her brain began to process
exactly what she was viewing: nothing.  The body was gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
"And then I came back and she was gone."  Scully had just finished
telling Mulder of the strange phone call and the body-napping as tens
of agents scampered crazily throughout the hall.  "Mulder," she asked
him, "How does a body simply disappear?  I was gone for less than a
minute.  I don't know how someone could manage sneaking a body out of
here in that short amount of time, nor do I know why anyone would have
the inclination."

"They're hiding something, Scully," he told her, "They're hiding
something and
I think you know why." 

"Purity Control," she answered. 

He nodded his head, "That's right, Purity Control.  They're afraid of
exposing the truth, Scully."

"The truth about what, Mulder?  We hardly know anything.  All we know
is that a woman was murdered in Philadelphia with the genetic makeup
of Purity Control and that she may be connected to the murder of this
woman in Washington.  But how do we know that for sure?  We have no
proof now to make that connection.  I was barely able to start the
autopsy.  I didn't even get the opportunity to take a blood sample. 
How are we going to perform a genetic comparison?"

Mulder brushed past her and crouched onto the floor near the head of
the examination table.  "They didn't get everything, Scully," he told
her, picking up a piece of black hair between his thumb and
forefinger.  He stood up as Scully appeared at his feat.  "Looks like
you're going to get that scientific proof after all," he told her,
"now the question is are you ready to face the truth?"

6:32 P.M. 

Scully pushed the "Fast Forward" button on the VCR as Mulder rejoined
her in the surveillance room.  "How's it going, Scully?" he asked her.

"I've almost found it, Mulder.  I'm up to 5:40 now," she told him, and
then asked, "Did you get a trace on the phone number of my mystery
caller?"

"I couldn't, Scully," he replied, "your mystery caller doesn't exist."
She shot him a quizzical look.  "What are you talking about?" she
asked him.
He pulled up a vinyl chair and sat down at her side.  "The phone
records show no evidence of an incoming call," he said, "Whoever made
that call placed it internally, from somewhere in the same hall that
contains the examination rooms."

She gazed at him as he stared intently at the television screen. 
"Push 'Play'," he commanded her, "we're up to 6:12.  He should be
making an appearance right about...now."  Mulder pointed at the male
figure with light hair as the camera caught him walking through the
door behind a crouched Scully.  "Does anyone recognize this man?" he
asked the various agents and surveillance men that had congregated in
a semicircle behind the pair.  Mulder turned around in time to see
every man shake his head "no."  He turned back and faced Scully.  "Can
you get me a printout of this guy," he asked her.
"Sure," she answered, "I'll take care of it, Mulder, but what good
will it do?  He never once looks up at the camera.  All we have to go
on is a Caucasian male of average height that has light, sandy hair. 
That description could fit any number of men in the D.C. area, let
alone the eastern shore."

"Yeah, Scully," he countered, "but how many of those men are walking
around with a woman who has been dead for eight months?"

Scully's ears perked at this last remark.  "Eight months," she asked,
not sure if she had heard him correctly, "Mulder, did you say that she
had been dead for eight months?"

"Yes," he said matter-of-factly, "eight months. The girl you were
performing the autopsy on was named Katrina Judas. She was the very
first victim, killed in D.C. eight months ago next week."  He stared
at her with a look of mock dejectedness, "You can check her file if
you don't believe me."

"Mulder, there was no more than two weeks worth of decomposition
present on that girl," she said, her eyes widening with dismay and a
twinge of fear, "how is that possible?"

"I'm guessing good genes," he answered.

J. Edgar Hoover Building 
March 27, 2000
12:20 A.M. 

Scully contemplated the discussion she had had earlier that day with
Mulder in the surveillance room.  What were the ramifications of these
tests, the fusion of unknown and human genomes?  She thought about all
she had faced because of Purity Control, because of the X-Files. 
There was the death of Deep Throat.  Although she hadn't known him as
well as Mulder, his death still affected her deeply.  He had died in
her arms, warning her with his last dying breath to "Trust no one." 
Then there was the terrible kidnapping by Duane Barry.  She still
couldn't remember exactly what happened during her mental absence.  It
was locked away somewhere deep in her memory.  Maybe they ordained it
that way, or maybe she simply didn't want to remember.  She was so
relieved to have been brought back from an early death, brought back
by the love of her mother, Melissa...and Mulder...only to have
discovered that damn chip in the back of her neck.  Then the terror
started.  She faced death a second time upon the removal of the chip
as she developed the cancer.  Then she found out that her eggs had
been removed, leaving her barren.  Compared to everything else, this
was by far the worst blow.  She had always held a special place in her
heart for children.  She desired a baby more than anything else,
watching her god-child and her nephew grow up with the slightest bit
of envy.  But eventually she was forced to face the realization that
her fondest dreams could never be achieved.  And then Emily appeared. 
Her precious child, born from the experiments that had taken away her
hopes of carrying a little baby of her own.  But those barbaric tests
destroyed her in the end, too, just like they destroyed everything
else in her life.  Except Mulder.  The Smoking Man had tried to
destroy him on several occasions, both physically and emotionally, but
he had never succeeded.  Scully knew that Mulder blamed himself for
everything that happened in her life since she was assigned to the
X-Files, and sometimes she couldn't help but wonder what would have
happened if she had never walked into that dingy basement.

But then she would have never met Mulder, and that was something most
unacceptable.  He was at once the craziness and stability she needed
in her life.  He was her constant, her touchstone when the world
seemed too difficult.  And now he had told her that he loved her.  "I
will talk to him," she decided, "after all of this is over, I will
tell him the truth, tell him how I really feel.  I will tell him that
I cannot imagine my life without him in it, that as difficult as it
was going to be, not just for me, but for the both of us, that all I
really want is for him to take me in his strong arms and make me feel
safe."

"Agent Scully," the voice of Dr. Sykes startled her from her reverie,
"the tests are in.  Would you mind following me into my office?" 
Scully complied and advanced once more into the doctor's familiar
surroundings.

"What did the gel show?" Scully asked.  Dr. Sykes simply handed her
the thin piece of paper that contained numerous numbers and black bars
representing the genetic code found in the hair sample.  Scully
compared it to the second sheet that Sykes handed her.

"They're the same," she said simply, "genetic matches," but the look
on her face betrayed the terror that she felt, not just because of the
genetic experimentation that was being conducted, but as a religious
woman whose faith in the certainty of the soul was being tested the
more she continued the investigation.

"Almost identical," Dr. Sykes said, "but mutations...err...rather
alterations have been made in the chromosomes that are responsible for
physical features, hair, eye color, et cetera."

"So," Scully said, processing what this information all meant, "the
two women are genetically the same person, clones, except for the way
they look."  Dr. Sykes nodded her head.

"And that means," Scully finished the thought without realizing how
Mulder-like she was beginning to sound, "that someone wants them to
look differently, but why?"

9:48 A.M. 

Scully took the keys from her purse and prepared to unlock the door
leading to her office, but it was already open.  She deftly replaced
them in her already much-too-overcrowded handbag and turned the knob
to the basement room.  She was quickly greeted by Mulder who looked as
if he had spent the entire night in that very room.  She remembered
how after she had finally left the Microbiology Department, she had
settled into her bed, muscles aching from weariness.  But there was
too much on her mind and getting to sleep proved more difficult than
anticipated.  She tossed and turned for what seemed an eternity until
sweet sleep finally overcame her.

She threw her belongings in a pile on his small desk. "What are you
doing here already, Mulder?" she asked, although she was pretty sure
that she knew what the answer would be.

"I've been going through all of the files of the victims, tracking the
movement of the killer through the eastern coastal states.  How did
the tests go last night?"

She handed him the gel results.  He placed one overtop of the other. 
"They're the same," he said, and then asked, "What does that mean?"

"That means, Mulder, that the latest victim in Philadelphia and the
first victim in D.C. contain the exact same DNA, that they're genetic
clones of one another.  No two humans have the same DNA in nature,
Mulder, excepting identical twins.  Normally I would say that these
two women must be twins of one another but there was a discovery made
by Dr. Sykes that leads me to believe otherwise."

"And what is that, Scully?" he questioned. 

"Dr. Sykes was able to analyze every section of the genetic code of
Purity Control over the past six years, Mulder, and with the
advancement of the Human Genome Project, she was able to determine the
sites of DNA that contain the chromosomes responsible for physical
features – eye color, hair color, et cetera.  The DNA analyzed in both
of the victims shows, like I said, the exact same genetic code except
for the base pairs that code for physical features."

"So what are you telling me, Scully?" he asked her, "That whoever
–what was it you said– fused Purity Control with humans has been able
to manipulate the genetic code to change physical features?"

Scully hesitated.  "I don't know, Mulder," she finally said, "that
kind of technology is supposed to be at least a couple of decades down
the road, but I guess we'll know more once we get the results of the
tests from the other victims."

Mulder shook his head angrily, like one who was not about to be
defeated.  "Not gonna happen, Scully," he said, doing his best Dana
Carvey impression of President George Bush.  He changed his voice back
to his normal intonation in order to address the severity of his next
comment, "They bodies are missing, Scully, every single one.  They
were all stolen last night."

Scully pulled out her chair from its normal position in front of his
desk and
sat down. "Stolen," she repeated, her words a mixture of disbelief and
awe.  Her eyes widened, amplifying the azure-ocean quality of their
hue.  "Mulder, how do nine bodies just disappear?" she asked him,
"It's simply not possible."
He opened his mouth and prepared to answer the question but Scully
held up her hands in a seeming gesture of defeat, preempting any
far-fetched theory that he might feel obliged to develop. "Even if
'someone' wanted to disappear nine bodies," she said, "how could they
possibly discover our intentions to exhume the bodies, and
furthermore, how could they pull off such a massive grave-robbery in
so many different states in one night?  Without anyone seeing a thing?
 It's simply not possible."

"Scully," he softly chided, a thin smile appearing vaguely on his
lips, "I thought that by now you'd be a little more open to extreme
possibilities."
She curled her mouth in a tight circle of disapproval as he continued.
 "At any rate, I finished reviewing the tapes from all of the
surveillance cameras in Quantico.  After you left the room to answer
the phone, the Yellow-Headed Man made another appearance.  He was
dressed in medical garb so it was relatively easy to bypass any
guardsmen.  Apparently he fit in so well that nobody saw him come in
or go out, besides you and the cameras, of course.  He covered the
body with a sheet and rolled it onto a gurney into an elevator."

Mulder stood up from his chair and pushed "Play" on the television
that sat conveniently ready for viewing in the corner of the room. 
Scully viewed the Yellow-Haired Man on the elevator camera, and then
in some sort of garage as the image changed over.  "The elevator led
to the basement floor, the parking lot, where an ambulance was waiting
to carry the body."  He pointed to the time recorded by the camera in
the left corner of the screen.  "6:14 P.M.," he said matter-of-factly,
"Just like you said, Scully, the body-napping was executed in less
than a minute."

A troubled look crossed her face.  "There's something that bothers me
about this, Mulder," she told him.

"You mean other than the fact that there are nine missing dead clones
with the genetic makeup of extraterrestrial elements?"

"Yes," she replied with a sneer.  Almost instantly her expression
became serious again, "The Yellow-Haired Man never once looks up at
the camera.  It's almost like he knows that he's being watched."

"I thought of that," Mulder replied, "Coupled to the fact that he was
able to gain access to both Quantico and an ambulance, I'd say that
chances are pretty good that he's a worker there."

"But Mulder," she reminded him, "you just said that no one in that
facility remembers ever seeing him."

He had to smile.  She never ceased to disappoint him.  He began to
wonder if there would ever come a time when she would just accept what
he told her on blind faith alone.  He chuckled to himself, knowing
full well that today would not be that day.

"Maybe it wasn't him that they were seeing," he said nonchalantly. 
"Then who?" she asked, honestly confused. 

"Maybe he changed his appearance, Scully." 

"Changed his appearance," she said, "What do you mean, like put on a
wig."

"Not exactly, more like put on the semblance of a whole new person." 

She arched her eyebrows with a genuine look of fanciful incredulity,
"and then I suppose he reversed time with one look from his 'magic
eyes of rotation,' making the other eight bodies vanish without a
trace before they were even buried."

He beamed, "Extreme possibilities, Scully, I'm not discounting
anything."

"Now that we're on the subject, Mulder, what did happen to the bodies
of the other victims?"

"They didn't even make it to the examination table," he informed her, 

"The bodies were taken before permission for exhumation was even
granted."

"By who, Mulder?" she asked. 

"I think, Scully," he answered, "the appropriate question would be 'by
what?'."

"What do you mean, 'by what,' Mulder?" 

"Scully, how do you explain what is going on?  Purity Control, clones,
body-snatchers, I mean, you can't possibly think that it's all some
big coincidence."

"Mulder," she scowled, "I'm still not entirely convinced that they are
clones, at least not until further evidence can be provided in regards
to the other seven women.  As for the missing bodies, it's possible
that the murderer knows of something on the victims that could
potentially implicate him.  I'm sure he's just covering his tracks."

He scoffed.  She was grasping at straws, now, "By sneaking into a
high-security medical complex?  Even if that were true, how could he
steal nine different bodies in seven different states in one night?"

"Maybe he has accomplices."  The faint impression of a frown could be
detected on her pretty face as her cheeks began to redden.  Even she
didn't believe that explanation.

"Extremely doubtful, Scully.  He's a serial murderer.  They aren't
generally known to play well with others."

She could feel the discomfort like the gaze of a thousand eyes.  The
discomfort turned to rising irritation.  "Well, what are you
suggesting then? That not only can our Yellow-Haired friend morph but
he can be in seven different places at once, too?"

"Of course not, Scully, that's a little far-fetched, don't you think?"
 He smiled at her.  He savored the feeling of challenging her beliefs
as she did his.  "No, that's not what I'm suggesting at all.  I think
the reasonable conclusion is that the nine victims are the product of
some scientific experiment headed by someone in the government capable
of controlling the technology to fuse alien DNA with human DNA,
someone who is able to pull off nine murders when the subjects are no
longer needed and then can carry away nine bodies without anyone
batting an eyelash."

"You're right, Mulder," she said, putting a hand against her cheek and
granting him a gaze of false reverence, "why didn't I see that
before?"

He ignored the look that he had fully expected to see, "There's
something else, Scully."

"What's that?" she stated curtly. 

"I was able to extract the license plate from the parking lot
surveillance tape.  I put out an A.P.B. on the ambulance but it, like
the victims, has disappeared.  I have a witness from Baxter's Brewery
across the street who reports seeing a forty year old with long, dark
hair and a scar over his right eyebrow driving away in an ambulance at
6:14 P.M..  His description, and that of the Yellow-Haired Man, is
currently being sent to every agency on the east coast."

He stepped away from the television and grabbed the coat from his
desk.  Putting it on, he turned to her, saying, "Why don't you go over
the tapes again and see if there's anything I missed."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. 

"I'm going to go see if I can't track me down some dead bodies." 

Washington, D.C. 
Undisclosed Location 
10:35 A.M. 

Mulder rapped loudly on the heavy, steel door in front of his face. 
He lowered his hand and stepped back into full view of the omnipresent
surveillance camera, waiting for approval and admittance into the
room.

"Who is it?" he heard a semi-deep male voice crackle through the
intercom.

"Avon calling," he responded blandly, "I'm here to refill your blush
samples."

From behind the frame he could hear the sound of numerous locks being
turned and chains being slid. Frohike opened the door wide and greeted
him by saying, "Maybe you should try using some on your palely ass,
Mulder."  He was wearing his usual drab garb, a grayish tee-shirt,
jeans, and a red pullover vest that provided the only color to the
otherwise dreary ensemble.

"You know, Melvin," he said, gesturing with a thumb towards the six
locks on the inside of the door, "you are the most paranoid son of a
bitch that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting."

Frohike smiled, "Coming from you, Spooky, that's one hell of a
compliment."
Mulder glared at Frohike for the rebuttal and then proceeded into the
room which maintained the cozy decorum of a breeding zone for computer
geeks and mathematicians.  Langly was seated in a relaxed position,
chair bent back and legs crossed over a counter, reviewing a tape
about the NASA conspiracy regarding the staged lunar landing of Apollo
11, while Byers combed quickly through the most recently reported crop
circle findings in Manchester, England.

"Hey, Mulder," Langly called to him, too engrossed to even look from
the television screen.

"Nice to see you, too," he muttered under his breath as Byers
approached, folders in hand.  "Hey, Mulder," he said, "what brings you
to our neck of the woods?  Working on something interesting?"

"I don't know if you can handle it," Mulder baited them, "It looks
like you've got a lot on your plate as it is."

"Oh, this?" he asked, pointing to the reports, "just you're everyday
run-of-the-mill falsified alien landing sites, generated by the
government in order to deflect attention to the true crisis that faces
the American people."

Mulder nodded his head solemnly, "Boy bands." 

"Worse," Byers said, "the generation of a microbe so lethal that it
could devastate the entire population of Tokyo in less than three
hours."

"A real bummer, Mulder," Langly chimed in, eyes still intent on the
T.V., "Make a mental note.  Don't go visiting Toxyo anytime soon."

"Well," he antagonized, "if you're not up to the challenge, all you
had to do is say so."

Frohike plopped himself down on a chair. "Damn it, man, why don't you
just come out and tell us what it is that you've gotten yourself into.
 What do we have to do to bail out your ass this time?"

"Jesus, Frohike," Mulder said, "what the hell crawled up your ass and
died? Get up on the wrong side of the child's-size bed or what?"

"Don't mind him," Byers said. 

"Yeah," Langly chimed in, "he's just pissed off that you didn't bring
Agent Scully with you."

"Speaking of Scully," Frohike said, his ears perked at the sound of
her name as his eyes gleamed with less-than-honorable intentions,
"where is your tasty little red-headed partner?"

"She's back at the Bureau," he told him, "I was afraid that if we were
in the same room together, she would never be able to look at me the
same way, that if we were on a stakeout together, it would be the name
of 'Melvin' instead of 'Mulder' that she would cry out.  And I just
couldn't handle that kind of
blow to my ego." 

"Since we're on the subject, Mulder," Langly asked, "how are things in
that department going?"  Then he added, a toothy, boyish grin
appearing beneath his large, black, box-shaped glasses, "Did you know
that your initials spell out 'S&M'?"

Byers, shook his head, disregarding the last comment, "Yeah, Mulder,
have you told her how you feel yet?"

Mulder sighed. "I tried, boys," he told them, "I really tried, and I
thought that we were truly getting somewhere at one point."  He
suddenly looked very tired. "Listen," he said, "I really don't feel
like talking about this right now.  Besides, we have more important
things on our 'to do list' than Scully."
Frohike smiled, "She's number one on my 'to do list', Mulder." 

"Easy there, big fella," Mulder responded with a smirk, "I've got
another project that I need you to saddle."

He thought anxiously of the discussion that he and Scully had had the
day earlier in the hotel room.  Since then, the awkwardness had
dissipated and they had gone back to their regular working
relationship.  But that was not what he wanted at all. "What do I have
to do to get on her 'to do list'?" he wondered to himself.  He pushed
all thoughts of Scully from his mind for the time being with a gentle
shake of his head and proceeded to the matter at hand.

"What do you have for us, Mulder?" Langly asked excitedly, finally
giving Mulder his full attention, "Government conspiracy?  Killer bees
spreading alien viruses?  Artificial intelligence turned murderers?"

"Been there, done that, boys," he told them, "what I have is much more
interesting, and you won't even have to get dirty doing it either."

"Aww," Frohike sneered, "and I was hoping that I'd have to get all
dressed up and purdy, too."

Mulder opened the left flap of his coat and removed several pictures
printed from a security surveillance system with his right hand.  He
threw the pictures in a heap on the desk nearest to him and proceeded
to brief the trio: "These pictures were taken last night at Quantico
Medical Facility, approximately 6:13-6:14 P.M..  They captured a
Yellow-Haired Man in the process of stealing a body from an
examination room on the third level.  He transported the body to the
basement parking lot where the victim was then transferred to a
waiting ambulance.  A Black-Haired Man was seen driving away with the
body."

Byers picked up the photos and started strumming through them lazily. 
The first several depicted Scully standing over the body, apparently
preparing to conduct an autopsy.  The next showed her leaving the
room, followed by the entry of the Yellow-Haired Man of which Mulder
spoke.  The next picture was of the Yellow-Haired Man and the body in
an elevator, and the last were of an ambulance by driven away by the
Black-Haired Man.

"What exactly is so important about the body, Mulder?" Byers asked. 
Mulder took numerous copies of files from his right pocket, handing
them to Byers. "Do you know this is?" Mulder questioned him.

"Of course," Byers said without the slightest hint of hesitation,
"It's a representation of DNA."

Langly peered over the shoulder of his friend, "Yeah," he said, "but
what kind?  That doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before."
Byers agreed, "I've never seen it either, Mulder.  Where did you
obtain this wellspring?"

"You don't happen to remember a little gem called 'Purity Control,' do
you boys?" he asked them.

"Purity Control...Purity Control?"   Frohike placed a finger aside his
lips as he thought aloud, "Wasn't that the code name of that bacteria
you found in that flask...what was it that you told us, that you
thought it was alien?"

"Bingo, Frohike, you got it on the first try." 

"Well, I'll take this as my prize then," he said, picking up one of
the first pictures of Scully and placing it in a pocket for
safe-keeping.

"You're a sick one, Melvin," he told him as Frohike licked his lips. 

"Right back at you," he replied. 

Mulder glanced toward Byers who asked, "What does Purity Control have
to do with this DNA sample, Mulder?"

"The DNA sample is a fusion product," he answered, "constructed from
the genomes of the alien bacteria found in Purity Control and the
human genome.  That same sample was found in two separate women in two
separate locations, who
were killed by the same murderer." 

The room grew silent.  Frohike, Langly, and Byers all glanced at each
other, the smiles on their faces lengthening until they could no
longer control themselves, bursting into spontaneous laughter.

"An alien based genome," Langly said, more of a statement than a
question, "right. Where do you come up with this stuff, Mulder?"

"Yeah," Byers chuckled, "not even we could come up with a theory
so...so..."

"...weird," Frohike finished for him. 

"I was going to say farfetched," Byers replied, "but weird works,
too."

"OK," Mulder said, "we've all had our little laugh for the day.  Now,
are you going to help me or not?"

"Sure," Langly answered for the three of them, "we wouldn't want to
pass up such a...monumental discovery."

"What do you want us to do?" Byers asked, stifling another bout of
laughter.

"I need you to go through all of the workers at Quantico," Mulder
commanded, "Get me a background check and see if anyone would be smart
enough to carry out this whole genetic fusion thing.  Cross-reference
with anyone who might have come in contact with any of the victims." 
He pointed to the last photocopy that contained all of the names of
the nine victims. "Then see if you can find any information on either
the Yellow-Haired or Black-Haired Man."

"Anything else, 'O Great Leader'?" Frohike asked as Mulder turned his
back and started walking towards the door.

"Yeah, Frohike," he answered, turning back to face the
geniuses-in-geeks-garb, "be gentle with that picture, you don't want
to rush the first time."  Then turning to leave, he called out an
"Adios, amigos," and with a wave of the hand, he was gone.

J. Edgar Hoover Building 
11:01 A.M. 

Scully was seated elegantly in a chair facing the television that was
propped against the wall opposite the office door.  Even from behind
she appeared poised and in control.  Her legs were tightly closed and
fell at a "ladylike" diagonal over her seat.  Her arms were folded
neatly across her body and her elbows rested gently on the sides of
the chair.  She was the very model of his ideal, total perfection – at
once the peak of professionalism and effeminate vulnerability. "Hell
if she couldn't hold her own, too, though," he thought affectionately.

As if sensing his presence in the room, she swiveled in her chair,
turning to face him without even standing up.  Her face carried a
dubious look of extreme boredom which wore away obstinately at her
beguiling features.  "That was quick," she called to him, propping her
head by placing a fist against her temple.

"Apparently not quick enough, Scully," he answered, noting her obvious
distaste for her latest assignment.

"Mulder," she stated, the slightest touch of irritation in her voice,
"I've been through these tapes like you asked and I still have yet to
find anything relevant."  She coupled the statement to an immediate
question, "Where were you?"

"I just went to visit Manny, Moe, and Jack," he said, "They're going
to try and dig up some information on our missing assailants."

He walked towards her and pulled his chair next to hers.  She turned
around and faced the T.V. as he seated himself haphazardly on the
chair.

Scully sighed a deep sigh of resignation.  "Mulder, I can't help
feeling like we're wasting time with this.  I just don't know what you
expect me to find.  We have little to no chance of tracking down
either the Yellow-Haired or the Black-Haired Man and those bodies are
long gone by now.  If someone took the trouble to steal nine bodies
then I'm sure he disposed of whatever trace evidence was left on
them."

Mulder leaned in closer to the set as Scully continued her harangue. 

"Not to mention the fact that..." 

Mulder wasn't listening now.  He held up his left hand without
removing his gaze from the surveillance view of the ambulance. 
"Scully," he interrupted her, "push 'Rewind' on that tape for me."

She shot him a quizzical look.  "Mulder, what do you see?" 

He watched the tape for another few seconds as a look of excitement
crossed his face.  "There," he said, "did you see it that time?"

Scully shook her head. 

"Rewind it again, Scully," he said, "but this time watch the driver's
side mirror."

Scully did as Mulder commanded.  A few seconds elapsed as they watched
the Yellow-Haired Man climb into the driver's side of the ambulance. 
As soon as his door was closed, Mulder hurriedly pushed "Pause."

"See it now?" he asked.  

Scully saw, indeed.  The mirror depicted a man sitting in the driver's
seat, or rather, what looked like two men fused together down the
center of the body.  The left half of the Yellow-Haired Man and the
right half of the Black-Haired Man stared back at her, a real-live
"Two-Face" torn from the pages of a Batman comic book.

"There must be some glitch in the camera," she said, "It's possible
that the light reflected off the mirror at such an angle that it
caused what appeared to be a fusion of the men sitting in the driver's
and passenger's sides."

Mulder shook his head.  "Scully," he said, "we saw the Yellow-Haired
Man climb into the driver's seat."

"That doesn't mean that he didn't climb over to the passenger's side."

"As soon as he climbed in, he disappeared and the Black-Haired Man
appeared.  Now what does that suggest to you?" he asked.

"It suggests just what I said," she answered, "cheap lighting and
camera tricks, nothing more than mechanical chicanery - an accidental
parlor trick."
"I think it's more than that." 

She braced herself.  "Okay, Mulder, I'll bite.  What do you think it
is?"
"I think that the Yellow-Haired Man is the Black-Haired Man, that they
are one and the same person.  I believe this man, whoever he is, has
morphological capabilities not unlike those that we've seen before. 
Remember the alien Bounty Hunter had the ability to change his
appearance, as did Jeremiah Smith?"
"You know, Mulder," she said, "I was never fully convinced that those
men had the ability to change their physiology."

"Not men, Scully," he corrected her, "aliens." 

"So what are you saying?" she asked, "That the man who stole that body
from Quantico wasn't human at all?  That he was an alien?"

"That's the logical explanation, Scully," he replied. 
She shot him a sideways glance.  "And I suppose," she said with a tone
teeming with disbelief and sarcasm, "that next you're going to tell me
that the connection between kidnapper and the kidnapee is Purity
Control."

Mulder opened his eyes wide with a look of surprise, and then settled
into an overtly calm demeanor.  "Imagine, if you will," he said, a
thin smile crossing his face, "an F.B.I. agent not unlike any other. 
Skeptical, cunning, beautiful, but determined not to believe the truth
until scientific proof is in her grasp.  Today, she has found herself
on the opposing side, today she has found herself in the position of
believer, proponent of truth.  Today she has entered 'the Spooky
Zone'."

"Mulder," she scolded, her face betraying a look of mild
entertainment, "I may be a proponent of the truth but I certainly
cannot endorse this highly irrational concept of yours.  If you can
logically explain to me the scientific basis for what it is that you
are purporting, then perhaps I will consider it a possibility."

"Scully, what more scientific proof do you need?" he asked,
"Everything in that folder on your desk is screaming out the truth but
you obstinately refuse to take a leap of faith, and it would not even
be a large leap at that.  Just look at the evidence.  Science has
concluded that the composition of Purity Control is identical to not
just one dead woman, but two who live hundreds of miles away from each
other.  Now would it be such a leap to say that the other seven
victims contain the same genes as well?"

"Perhaps not, Mulder," she answered, "Maybe you are right and the
government is conducting cloning experiments that we should not even
have the technological capabilities to carry out.  Now what?  What is
our next course of action?  It may not be such a outlandish conjecture
that nine clones exist, possibly twelve if the Apostalic connection
holds true, but I am simply not about to believe that our killer is a
morphing Two-Faced alien based upon faith alone."

He looked her up and down, sizing her up coldly.  "Maybe I was wrong,"
he finally said, "maybe it was wrong of me to think that you would
believe me, just this once, simply because my faith in this belief was
so strong."  He shook his head sadly, "You once told me that you had
the strength of my beliefs, Scully.  Why can't you just believe me
now?"

Without saying another word, he stood and stormed abruptly out of the
room, leaving Scully sitting speechless in solitary contemplation.

Washington, D.C. 
Undisclosed Location 
4:12 P.M. 

"Back so soon, Mulder?" Langly asked as he opened the steel door to
the headquarters of The Magic Bullet.

"Well," he said, passing by the lanky blonde, "I was going to catch a
flick but I said to myself, 'Hey, why don't I go find out who's behind
the serial murder of nine women and prevent the future murder of three
more before fire and brimstone fall from the sky and the Four Horsemen
roam the earth' instead."

Mulder stood behind Frohike and Byers who were seated next to each
other in front of two different computer screens.  The sound of
clicking resonating from the keyboards reverberated off of the largely
unfurbished walls.  He placed his hands on his hips and asked them
collectively, "What've we got?"

"We've got nothing, Mulder," he said with an amazingly strait-face,
"but as to your after-hours conquests, well, that will have to remain
a...what's the word I'm looking for...an irritation all your own."

"Hey, Frohike," he replied, putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning
closer, "get a haircut."

Frohike mumbled as Langly resumed his seat opposite the other two. 
"I've been working on tracking down anyone who works or who previously
worked at Quantico with exceptional medical knowledge specifically
regarding microbiology and genetics," he told Mulder, "I've just
finished compiling a list of the fifteen leading researches in those
fields."  He handed Mulder a list including the fifteen names, the
history of their medical training, and the more publicized projects to
which their names were connected.

"Dr. Elizabeth Sykes," he read aloud, "Six years at Quantico as a
practicing microbiologist.  Had a prominent career and much success,
with work ranging from the identification of specific motor proteins
in chemical synapses..."  He smiled. "Whatever that means," he said,
and then continued with the briefing, "...to providing assistance with
the Human Genome Project.  She became a full agent in 1982, and has
been working at the microbiology unit in J. Edgar ever since."

He looked up above the printout at Langly.  "I think this Sykes woman
is the same agent who discovered the link between Purity Control and
the victims," he mused, "I think I'll have Scully take a look at this
list."

Frohike looked up through his large, round glasses with a gleam in his
eye.  Mulder pointed at him.  "Don't even say it," he told him.

"What?" Frohike asked, raising both of his hands in an inquisitive
gesture.
"Whatever it was you were going to say," Mulder answered. 

"I was going to say that I'm still cross-referencing the close
contacts of the victims, but now I thinking about some four-letter
words I'd like to say instead."

Byers turned around in his seat and looked at Mulder, hoping to steer
the discussion back to the findings that they had spent the better
part of the day researching.  "I've been attempting to discover the
link among the victims," he said, "but it is a difficult task because
the background of all of the women is extremely convoluted."

"Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?" he asked Byers. 

"Perhaps too much of a coincidence," he answered, "What better way to
erase a person from existence than to destroy his entire past?  Not
only have the victims' bodies been disposed of, but almost their
entire life has, as well."

"Maybe the objective isn't to erase them," Mulder proposed, "Maybe
these women simply do not have a past.  If they were genetically
engineered, synthesized in a lab, then perhaps there is no past that
needs to be destroyed."

"I thought of that," Byers answered, "Several of the names on Langly's
list worked for the same medical facility at one point or another in
their life, a place called 'Chimera Genetics.'  This facility, Mulder,
was the foreground pioneer in genetic engineering.  Chimera technology
led to the first fusion experiments conducted between rodent and human
cellular membranes, which led to the discovery of the modern
Fluid-Mosaic membrane model – the model for which we base our beliefs
on how the cellular membrane is composed.  Back in the days of the
rodent-human fusion, Chimera wanted publicity, it thrived on it
because it was backed solely by grants from the American Medical
Association."

"The A.M.A.," Mulder stated. 

"Yes," Byers continued, "but for the last twenty years or so, Chimera
has been a covert operation.  Grants were no longer needed as Chimera
began to be backed by private, confidential donors.  Today, no one
except the experts working there knows what experiments are being
conducted."

"Sounds like Chimera has moved on from rodents to a higher species,"
Mulder said.

"Yeah," Frohike concurred, "and we're not talking about Langly." 

Langly shot him a look of disdain while Mulder thanked the Gunmen for
all of their assistance.  "Great job," he told them, turning to leave,
and said, "Frohike, have those results faxed to me by about 7:00
tonight."

Without waiting for a response, Mulder walked out the door. 

"Jesus," Frohike called after him, "Who died and made you Assistant
Director?"

Route 1S 
4:20 P.M. 

Mulder fiddled anxiously with the radio knob as he waited for the
stoplight to turn green, finally settling on "Heartbreak Hotel" by
Elvis Presley.  He felt as though he was on the verge of something
big, something that he was sure Scully would be afraid to admit.

"Scully," he said aloud, realizing that he had left her quite abruptly
in the basement of J. Edgar.  He picked up the cellular phone that was
seated on the passenger's side as the light changed color.  Inching
along, he dialed Scully's number as cars flew past him on the left.

"Since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell," he mouthed, in
sync with the lyrics.  By the time she picked up he was singing the
chorus softly to himself: "I've been so lonely, I've been so lonely,
I've been so lonely I could die."

He could almost see the quizzical expression on her face as her voice
rang through the phone, "Mulder, is that you?"

"Yeah, Scully," he said, "It's me." 

"What are you doing, Mulder?" she asked, "Where are you?"  There was a
pause on the other end of the line, "And what is that in the
background?"

"Karaoke," he replied simply, and then asked her, "Can you meet me at
my place in fifteen minutes?"

"Why?" she asked, "Did you find something out from the Stooges?" 

"Just meet me there.  There's something I need your help with." 

"Sure, Mulder," she answered, "I'll be there." 

She pulled the phone from her ear, about to turn it off when she heard
a soft, yet insistent voice, "Scully?"

"Yes?" she asked, replacing the receiver once more against her ear. 

He gulped down a lungful of air, and hesitated, "Um...never mind," he
said, "See you in fifteen."

Fox Mulder Residence
4:53 P.M. 

Mulder glanced around the room.  It was exactly as he had left it. 
Files were strewn on the floor and a blanket still lay on the couch
which had served as his bed the night before he had traveled to
Philadelphia.  The descending sun was shrouded by dark thunder clouds
and the light from his fish tank provided the sole illumination.  He
walked towards the tank and grabbed for the flake-food bottle that was
hidden behind a picture of he and his mother.  He opened the yellow
cap and poured some into the water, watching peacefully as the fish
fed.  They were so content, so carefree.  Sometimes he wished for the
same sort of blissful ignorance.  He replaced the food and picked up
the silver frame that encased the picture of his mother.  He touched
her face lightly with his finger.  He remembered how much Samantha had
looked like her.  She had the same striking features – the pronounced
chin, high cheekbones, and flowing, dark hair.  He placed the frame
back on the table as a fist rapped loudly on his door.

"Coming," he called, and walked across the room to answer it,
stumbling over a pile of dirty laundry as he did.  He unlocked the
latch and opened the door, revealing Scully in a stunning red suit
that highlighted her ruby lips and fiery hair.

"Come here often?" he asked with a smile, extending his arm in a
gesture that told her to advance.

"Only when overcome with an overwhelming desire to vacuum," she
answered.  She seated herself on his couch, after removing several
items of clothing from the cushion.  She gazed up at him as he
approached her.  "What was so urgent that it couldn't wait until
tomorrow, Mulder?" she asked.

He seated himself on his "bed" next to her and pointed to the file
that lay overtop twenty others on his coffee table.  "That, Scully,"
he answered.  He opened the front portion of the manila folder,
revealing the lists compiled by the Gunmen.  "I need you to look
through that list for me.  It's composed of the fifteen people from
Quantico who are the most likely to be connected to this case.  They
all have a deep background knowledge of genetics and several are
connected to a laboratory facility known as Chimera Genetics."

"Chimera?" she repeated. 

"Yes," he said, "have you heard of it?" 

"Yes," she answered, "When I was an undergraduate student, I worked
with a professor performing chromosomal identification techniques in
fruit flies.  During that time, I researched many scientific journals.
 At that time, I noted a strange occurrence.  Many of the journals
that I researched involving genetics originated from work compiled
from Chimera.  I remember asking my professor if such an occurrence
was customary and he informed me that Chimera was the foremost leader
in experimentation involving genetics."

"But did you know, Scully, that in 1983, all grants provided by the
American Medical Association to Chimera Genetics were withdrawn due to
'questionable experimentation techniques?'  After '83, funding was
provided by private donors and no works have been published by Chimera
geneticists since that time onward."

"What exactly are you driving at, Mulder?" she questioned. 
"I'm saying," he told her, "that someone is using Chimera as a
resource for something other than to simply perpetuate knowledge in
the field of genetics.  Someone is using Chimera for personal gain."

"Mulder," she said, "With all of the regulations established by the
scientific community, I don't see how someone could have gotten away
with using Chimera as a personal guinea pig for all of those years. 
Chimera must have been checked out by someone in authority.  Besides,"
she added, somewhat indignantly, "all scientists have a duty to report
their findings, and if duty isn't a strong enough motivator, then the
desire for prestige and monetary gain provides the incentive.  I
simply do not think it is possible that Chimera has been operating
under selfish motivations."

He shook his head.  "You're wrong, Scully," he said, "Do you know what
a Chimera is?"

Scully nodded. "Actually, I do.  In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a
horrible beast that plagued mankind, part dragon and part ram.  It was
destroyed by the Corinthian hero Bellerephon with the aid of the
winged horse Pegasus.  The term has been adapted for medical use. 
Today, a chimera is known as a fusion
product generated from two different genomes." 

"That's right, Scully," he concurred, "And do you know for what
experimentation Chimera Genetics is most famous?"

"Yes, I do, Mulder," she answered, "Chimera scientists proposed the
modern-day theory of the Fluid-Mosaic Model of the cellular membrane,
a semi-permeable barrier composed of proteins and phospholipids."

She cocked her head to the side and gazed at him, long and hard. 
"Where is this going, Mulder?" she asked.

"I believe that Chimera is the site of the experimentation being
conducted on Purity Control, experimentation that led to the formation
of human-alien hybrids like the nine missing women.  Like the
mythological beast, geneticists are engineering the fusion of Purity
Control with humans, generating two separate entities that are able to
coexist and function as a unit."

She looked at him, her eyes betraying her disbelief, "That's a little 
farfetched, don't you think?" 

"I don't think so," he answered, his voice alive with passion, "Langly
told me that the first experiments that led to the perpetuation of the
Fluid-Mosaic Model included fusing rodent membranes to human
membranes.  What if, Scully, these scientists have figured out a way
to not only combine our cells to that of rats, but our entire genome
to that of the bacteria found in Purity
Control." 

"Mulder, that kind of technological capability is decades, even
centuries down the line."

"Then how do you explain the gel results, Scully?" 

She stammered, feeling somewhat defeated, "I don't know." 

"And what about that list of geneticists at Quantico, Scully?  It
can't just be a coincidence that eight of the fifteen most qualified
in their field spent at least three years researching at Chimera."

Scully picked up the list that still lay atop the open manila folder. 
"Oh my God," she said suddenly, her eyes and mouth widening to double
their natural size.

"What is it?" he asked her. 

"Mulder," she said, "I recognize these names."  She pointed at the top
two on the list of qualified geneticists.  "Dr. Elizabeth Sykes," she
read aloud, "Mulder, she's the woman who informed me of Purity Control
in the women's bloodstreams in the first place.  And Dr. Anne
Carpenter, she was the sister of Sykes who originally isolated the
base pairs in the Purity Control DNA sequence.  She was killed for our
work, Mulder, killed because she discovered the truth that lay hidden
Purity Control."  Her eyebrow arched as she completed the last
thought, "Why would Agent Sykes make me aware of the Purity Control
connection if Chimera was carrying out the genomic fusion in the first
place?"

J. Edgar Hoover Building 
5:16 P.M. 

"Inform her that Agent Scully is here and that the matter is urgent." 

Scully straightened her posture and puffed out her chest, attempting
to look as important as possible.  She was having extreme difficulty
convincing Ms. Donnelly, Agent Sykes' secretary, that she needed to
see the good doctor.
"I'm sorry, Agent Scully," Ms. Donnelly said, looking up through a
stack of papers that needed to be filed, "but Dr. Sykes told me that
she was not to be interrupted at any costs, that includes convening
meetings with Special Agents who have neglected to make an
appointment."  She turned her attention once more to the work at hand.

Now Mulder was growing impatient, as well.  "If we neglected to make
an appointment, Ms. Donnelly, then it is most likely due to the fact
that our confidence in your ability to correctly pencil us in is
somewhat lacking."

Ms. Donnelly scowled.  She was about to coldly respond to his
completely unnecessary commentary when she was interrupted by the
sound of the opening of Dr. Sykes' office door.  "It's okay, Angela,"
she said, "Please send them in."

Mulder stuck his nose up in the air and turned away from the
receptionist, a small "Hmm," escaping his lips, as if to say, "See, we
told you so!"  Ms. Donnelly watched as the two agents walked into Dr.
Sykes' office.  "Asshole," she muttered as soon as Mulder was out of
earshot.

Mulder and Scully entered the room and Sykes closed the door behind
them.  "To what do I owe the pleasure, Agents?" she asked as she
gestured to the two leather seats in front of her.  Scully waited for
the doctor to be seated behind her desk before she started her
interrogation.

"Agent Sykes," she began tartly, "some very intriguing details
regarding the case have come to my and Agent Mulder's attention,
details that you neglected to tell me when you first brought my
attention to Purity Control."

"Such as?" she questioned, her dark eyes hardening into an unfamiliar
firmness.  They seemed as stormy as the night clouds visible through
the window behind her.

Mulder took up the reins.  "Like the role that Chimera Genetics has
played in bringing about the creation of human-alien hybrids."

Sykes' eyes flashed as thunder shook the night sky.  "How did you hear
of Chimera?" she asked.

"So you don't deny, then, that there is connection to Chimera," Mulder
said,
his eyes twinkling with the rush gained from catching the perpetrator
in a lie.

"Of course not," Sykes answered, "I was simply hoping that it would be
unnecessary to bring Chimera's role in all of this to light."

"Why don't you tell us everything," Scully interjected, "from the
beginning.  Please do not leave anything out."

Sykes shifted in her chair and fiddled nervously with a letter opener
that lay on her desk.  "Chimera used to be a highly respected lab,"
she began suddenly, eyes shifting from left to right, "the most
prestigious forum for genetics research in the country, perhaps in the
world."  Her eyes began to warm as a smile crossed her lips.  She
looked at the ceiling and sighed inwardly.  "Those were the days," she
said, "results had to be gleaned from the work.  A.M.A. grants were at
stake and at times the pressure seemed unbearable.  But pressure
produced amazing results.  Chimera scientists identified the intricate
workings of mitosis and meiosis, the first motor proteins, and
developed the theory of the Fluid-Mosaic Model of cellular membranes. 
Perhaps you've heard of it."

Mulder shot Scully a glance.  She was smiling.  He smiled, too. 
"We've been informed of the Fluid-Mosaic Model," he answered.

Sykes continued where she had left off.  "In the early eighties, it
was discovered that a select group of geneticists were conducting
experiments that, at the time, seemed far too outrageous.  Working
under the project name 'Saving Grace,' the scientists implemented the
fusion of various types of DNA, including rats, birds, snakes, and
mammals.  The experiments were seen as an abomination by the
scientific community and kept largely under wraps.  The A.M.A.
withdrew all support to Chimera, stating that manipulation of nature
would lead scientists down a path that was largely unethical. 
Unfortunately, they were right."

Scully glanced at her thoughtfully.  "What is your connection to this,
Agent Sykes?" she asked.

"There were eight of us," she said simply, "eight of us who were
willing to pursue the work for the betterment of science and humanity,
even if our work was continuing through the pockets of some secretive
governmental officials.  Of course, at the time we didn't know that
they were using us to carry out their own dastardly plans, creating a
human-alien hybrid that they could control and would use in order to
fight the future."

"And what about your sister, Agent Sykes?" Scully questioned, "How was
she connected to Chimera?"

"My sister was a go-between," she answered, "we all were, except for a
select few who actually proceeded in carrying out the actual fusion
and birthing of the twelve clones.  My sister worked on developing and
identifying the human genome.  When you appeared with Purity Control
in 1994, she had honestly never seen anything of that nature before. 
I, on the other hand, was part of the team that assisted in conducting
research on the alien bacteria.  Because of my understanding of Purity
Control, the geneticists who worked for our backers were able to
completely manipulate the alien genome.  Because of me, they were able
to create the hybrids."

She paused briefly and then continued, "When my sister was killed,
Agent Scully, I began to realize just what depths these men would go
to in order to ensure their dominance over our creations.  I knew that
I had to stop the project, stop these men from creating walking
weapons that would be used in order to maintain their control.  It's
what my sister would do, were she still alive."

"Well, that certainly explains why you steered me towards the Purity
Control connection," Scully responded, "but I'm still confused as to
why you didn't just tell me outright about Chimera."

"I was afraid, Agent Scully," she answered, "I have a family of my own
now, husband, children, responsibilities.  I saw what those bastards
did to my sister.  I was simply afraid of sharing her fate."

Sykes sighed again as she pulled a photograph from her desk drawer. 
"I figured that this would all come out eventually," she confided to
the agents, throwing the photo across the desk for them to see, "It
was inevitable.  So I brought this from home when Agent Scully first
sent me the blood samples.  It is the eight of us who worked on the
project together at Chimera."

Mulder's eyes widened as he plucked the photo up from the desk with
his fingers.  "Oh my God," he breathed, horrified with the image he
saw reflected back at him.  Looking completely unchanged from the day
he had seen her in Philadelphia, Lauren Alvarez stood smiling next to
Dr. Sykes, looking exotic and beautiful.

Scully looked incredulous.  Her eyes appeared as expansive as the
night sky and her mouth formed a large "O" that wordlessly expressed
her disbelief.

"Mulder?"  It was a simple question but it articulated plainly
everything that she was feeling – bewilderment, empathy, skepticism. 
What could he possibly be thinking, and how was Lauren connected to
the murders of nine women?

"That woman," he asked, pointing to the pretty figure of Lauren
Alvarez, "who is that woman?"

"Oh, her?" she questioned, "That's Maria Valesquez.  She was the head
geneticist of the project, by far the most advanced of all eight of
us."  She looked wistful.  "Her intelligence was unmatched," she said.

"What did her job consist of?" 

"Maria had the responsibility of putting our individual projects
together.  She
essentially took the human genome work of Anne and her group and the
Purity Control genome of my group, put them together, and raised the
twelve fetuses."

Mulder folded his hands and sat back in his chair, attempting to
absorb all that he had heard.  Scully continued where he left off. 
"Agent Sykes," she said, "When I first came to see you, you gave me
the impression that you were unaware of the connection between the
murders and the blood samples that I asked you to analyze.  Now you
are telling us that not only were you aware of the connection, but
your own two hands assisted in securing its ties, that you are
partially responsible for the generation of these beings that are not
human, and yet, not alien either.  How can you sit there so brazenly
and ask us to accept what you have told us on your word alone?"

"Agent Scully," she said smugly, "you above all people should know
that in our line of work, you can never be too careful to whom you
divulge information, or what the extent of that information should be.
 Discretion is not merely a tool, it is a necessity.  I was only
acting out of the best interests of all concerned."

Mulder awoke from his daze with a gentle startle as the humming of his
cell
phone whirred from the inside pocket of his jacket.  "Excuse me," he
said softly, standing up and proceeding towards the hall to take the
call.

"With all due respect, Agent Sykes," Scully continued, "I believe that
your motivations were less than respectable."

Sykes scoffed at the arrogance of the skeptical scientist.  She had
all of the evidence at her disposal.  Why was her refusal to believe
so adamant?  "I have already admitted as much, Agent Scully.  My
family is my life.  The thought of losing them…I couldn't live with
the guilt.  You couldn't possibly understand, Agent Scully.  My
children are everything to me."

Scully's face grew pale and she began to shrink away like a frightened
child hiding the truth about who broke the cookie jar from his
parents.  Agent Sykes had unwittingly touched a deep nerve.  She would
never know what it was like to bear children, to carry a child as part
of her body and then, after nine months, feel his soft body against
her breast.  Scully slowly regained her composure and attempting to
appear as in control as possible, she recaptured the courage to ask
the doctor one more question, "Why even call our attention to the
experiments, then?  Why make us aware of this project that someone is
so obviously attempting to hide after nearly two decades of work?"

All emotions were wiped away from Sykes' face.  Holding back the tears
and the crack in her voice, she sullenly answered, "Agent Scully, you
were right.  It was partially my doing, the existence of
these…these…creatures.  If it weren't for me, they wouldn't be alive
right now, and someone wouldn't be attempting to exterminate them one
by one.  I told you about the hybrids because I want you to find the
bastards that did this.  My conscience will never fully be cleared,
but if you and Agent Mulder can make it right, as only you can, then I
will be able to look my children in the face, assured that their
future is bright and secured."

The door opened and Mulder leaned his head in.  "There's been another
murder," he said and once again closed the door, leaving the two women
looking at each other in grim determination.

Flight 983A 
9:45 P.M. 

Mulder walked gracefully down the center aisle, followed by a
struggling Scully, greatly encumbered by the large overnight bags that
draped each arm.  "Mulder," she lightly whined, lifting the bags to
his eyelevel.  He turned sharply around at the sound of his name and
gazed at the pathetic picture before his eyes.  He couldn't help but
laugh.

"Mulder," she said, "it's not funny." 

He walked towards her, still chuckling softly.  It was good to laugh,
if even for a moment.  If anyone could get his mind off of
Lauren's...err...Maria's involvement in the creation of alien-human
hybrids, it was Scully.  He took the bags from her hands and
immediately began to wince.

"Jesus, Scully, what'd you bring?" he scolded her. 

"What's wrong?" she asked, making her voice sound as though she were
talking to
a little child, "Are those bags too heavy for my big Macho Man?" 

His smile broadened, "Big is right, Scully." 
A small smirk crossed her face. "Mulder," she reprimanded. 

She followed his lead as he made his way to their seats. 
"...C...D...E...oh, F, here we are, Scully," he called aloud.  He
placed her bags in the overhead compartment and opened his arm in a
gentlemanly gesture.  "Ladies first," he told her.

She grinned gratefully.  He knew how much she hated not being able to
see where they were going.  She always needed to feel as though she
were in control, even if she was incapable of piloting an aircraft.

"Are you sure you don't want the window seat?" she asked, knowing full
well that he would say "No."

"No, that's alright," he answered, "You take it. I need to stretch out
my legs anyway."

"Just make sure your big feet don't trip the stewardess." 

A mock expression of hurt graced his face.  "I believe they prefer to
be addressed as 'flight attendants'," he told her, and then added,
"You know what they say about a guy with big feet, don't you, Scully?"

She smiled broadly, now.  "Yes, Mulder," she said, "I think I do.  I
believe they say that a man with big feet is completely narcissistic
and suffers from delusions of grandeur in order to compensate for his
abnormally small..."

Her final words were obscured by the sound of the pilot speaking over
the
intercom.  "Hello, this is your Captain speaking, and thank you for
flying American Airlines..."

10:15 P.M. 

Mulder had his arms folded over his chest and was leaning back in the
second-class chair, hoping to glean some sliver of comfort so that he
could be overtaken by sleep and forget, at least for a short period,
all of his many woes.  Scully turned her attention from the overcast,
obscured night to the bent figure of her handsome partner.  She stared
at him, contemplating whether or not she should initiate the
inevitable discussion.  They had to talk about her, about Lauren, or
Maria, or whatever her name was.  She had to know what he was planning
on doing once they arrived in Philadelphia, but even more so, she felt
the desire to understand what mental distress he was tormenting
himself with.  She thought of leaning in, of putting her chin on his
shoulder and just holding him, to let him know that she was there and
everything would be alright.  As long as she was by his side, she
would never let any more pain enter his life.  And she knew that he
gave her the same protection in return.

"Take a picture, Scully," he said suddenly, maintaining his position,
not even opening his eyes.

"What?" she blurted out, confused as one waking from a blissful dream.

"Take a picture," he repeated, "It'll last longer."  He opened his
eyes and turned his neck to face her.  His face was only an inch away.
 She backed up and leaned against the window, startled by their sudden
proximity.

"I suppose now would not be the most opportune time to ask if you're
awake," she said.

Mulder rolled his beautiful, hazel eyes, revealing the dark circles
beneath them.  "It's a shame you didn't get any sleep," she said, "It
looks like you could have really used it."

He smiled a devilish grin.  "Is this your way of asking me to join the
Mile-High Club, Scully?" he asked.

It was her turn to roll her eyes.  "As tempting an offer as that
sounds," she replied, "I'm afraid I'll have to pass."  She took a deep
breath as she continued, "But I'm glad you're awake, Mulder.  We need
to talk."

"Are you breaking up with me, Scully?" 

"Mulder, be serious for a moment, please," she pleaded.  His face
immediately dropped from humor to a look of stoic professionalism that
appeared whenever he was explaining some remote theory to her that
only he would take seriously.  But this time, he wasn't leading the
discussion.

"Go ahead," he urged her, shaking his head in a gesture of support. 

"I think we need to talk about Lauren," she said bluntly.

Mulder sighed and faced the back of the chair in front of him.  He had
been
expecting the conversation since they had left Dr. Sykes' office, but
he had silently hoped that Scully and he might sit in hushed peace
until their arrival in Philly.  "Must we?" he grumbled.

Scully dismissed the comment and proceeded onward, "Mulder, I know
that this is
very trying for you.  I mean, you weren't even aware that Lauren was a
scientist, let alone the leading geneticist in a conspiracy to
generate alien-human hybrids and then dispose of them once their
usefulness had run its course."

"I'm aware of the details, thank-you," he replied drolly, his voice
dripping sweet with sarcasm.

Scully breathed deeply and paused.  "I'm sorry, Mulder," she said,
"but we need to decide how we are going to handle the investigation. 
Do you want to interrogate her after we arrive at the airport or would
you like to visit the crime scene first?"

"I'll handle it, Scully," he told her, "I'd like to interrogate her by
myself when the time is right."

"When the time is right?" she questioned, her voice growing noticeably
incensed, "And when, pray tell, will the time be right?"

"I'll handle it," he said again in a tone so commanding that even
those on the other side of the aisle were wondering what it was that
the tall, handsome man in the black suit was going to take care of.

Scully turned back to the viewless view of the window and Mulder faced
the opposite direction.  She knew now was not the time to press him,
that he was dealing with too much at one time.  But even he was not
going to stop her from digging into the past of Detective Lauren
Alvarez.

Philadelphia Police Department 
March 28, 2000
9:14 A.M. 

"Long time, no see," Mulder quipped as he walked through the station's
large double doors and found Detective Alvarez standing in the middle
of the busy room.

"Yeah," she answered simply, attempting to decide whether or not to
embrace the man that she still loved but who no longer loved her in
return.  After an awkward silence and some uneasy shuffling of the
shoulders on both his and her part, she decided against it.  Instead,
she opted for the purely professional approach, so as to mask her true
feelings from him.  He was always so good at figuring out what she was
thinking.  She was sure that even now he was sizing her up, examining
her psyche, silently exploring her feelings with his amazingly
perceptive profiling abilities.

"So, where's the body?" Mulder asked abruptly.  When she had called to
tell him of the murder, he had asked her to put the body under heavy
guard.  He didn't want this body to disappear like the other nine. 
Scully wanted hard evidence to present to the Bureau heads and he was
going to do everything in his power to ensure that that would happen.

"That's one hell of an icebreaker, Fox," she muttered under her
breath, mildly surprised by how easily she had allowed it to slip out.
 Embarrassed, she glanced quickly at his face to see if he had heard. 
His eyes told her that he had.

"She's at the morgue," Alvarez hastily answered in an attempt to
divert attention from the previous comment, "under tight security,
just as you asked.  We will not be losing this body, Fox, I can
personally assure you."

Alvarez couldn't help but notice that Agent Scully rolled her eyes at
her last statement. "What was the motivation," Lauren wondered,
"jealousy?"

"Is there something wrong, Agent Scully?" she asked innocently. 

"Oh no, Detective Alvarez," she said calmly, "I was simply thinking to
myself that your personal assurance wasn't enough to stop the bodies
under your jurisdiction from being stolen in the first place."

Alvarez smiled, the angry grin of a wife who has been scorned and
insulted by her husband's impetuous, young mistress.  "And if I do
recall correctly, Agent Scully, one of the victim's bodies was stolen
out from right under your nose.  In fact, the body-napping occurred
while you were working on her.  Isn't that
right?" 

Mulder frowned externally to show his disapproval, but in his mind he
could hear himself saying, "Please, ladies, don't fight over little
old me!"  He wished that Frohike were there so that they could make
hissing noises and make witty references to catfights.  Instead, he
heard himself say aloud, "Scully, why don't you go and conduct an
autopsy on the victim.  We need solid proof if we're going to find the
murderer before he strikes again."

Scully complied, although she thought it better if they were to
interrogate Alvarez together.  After shooting the detective a final,
noticeable glare, Scully took her leave.  Mulder's gaze followed her
as she walked out of the room.  Her glossy, red hair bobbed up and
down, in perfect sync with her gait, and her arms hung loosely at her
side.  After she was out of sight, he turned his eyes back towards
Alvarez.  "Lauren," he said solemnly, "we need to talk."
Lauren opened the door to her office as Mulder trailed behind.  He
secured the door tightly behind him and she could tell that something
was terribly amiss.  "If this is about my conduct at the restaurant
the other day…" she began, but he stopped her in mid-sentence with one
nod of the head.

"I'm not here to talk about that, Lauren," he interrupted, "Or would
you prefer to be called by your true name?"

She shot him a quick sideways glance as she sat down in her desk
chair.  "What are you talking about, Fox?" she asked, her eyes
askance.

"I think you know what I'm talking about, Maria."

Her mouth dropped.  She felt as though she had been punched in the
stomach and was carrying out some fruitless effort to breathe the air
back into her lungs.  Suddenly realizing her blatant reaction, she
attempted to regain composure, but it was too late.  She knew that he
knew.

"Fox," she stammered, "how did you find out?"

"About what, Maria?  About your hand in generating alien-human hybrids
whose very existence was held a closely guarded secret by you, the
other seven geneticists who created them, and the governmental
money-lenders that backed your research?"

She was stunned, visibly distraught.  He knew everything.  "How did
you find out, Fox?" she repeated.

"That's not important," he answered, "Right now I want to know why."

"Why what?" she asked.

"Why would you go along with something so diabolical?  Why would you
not only mask the truth, but actively perpetuate a complete falsehood,
the one thing in life that I detest more than anything else in this
world?"  He looked tired and his face fell to his chest.  He truly
looked hurt.  "I can only assume that after you created these
monstrosities, someone, most likely your same backer, paid you to
leave, not only Washington, but your former life as well.  None of the
other scientists had to create a whole new lifestyle because they were
simply researches but you, you are the one who created them, saw them
grow from fetuses into full-grown beings.  That is why you had to
leave town, that's why you were made to find a new career, that's why
you have to generate an entirely new identity.  Who's pulling your
strings, Lauren, the same men who paid you off to create these beings
and then keep them a secret?  What are they're names?  Who are they?"

Her large, brown eyes began to well up with tears.  "I don't know,
Fox.  I never saw them.  They always sent some middleman in to do the
work for them.  I swear to you, I have no idea who they are."  Tears
were streaming freely down her face now.  "It wasn't the money, Fox,"
she blurted out between intermittent sobbing, "They told me I was
advancing science.  They told me that I was going to save the world. 
They said the only way to protect against the oncoming invasion was to
create these beings who would be able to survive the onslaught.  They
wouldn't just combat the aliens, they would be the next step on the
evolutionary ladder.  Humanity is obsolete, Fox.  The only way to
secure our future is to genetically alter our offspring, to create men
with the strength and wisdom of the alien race."

"Then why were those women killed, Lauren?" he asked, "If those women
are our future, why kill them?  Why cover up the work that has been
done?"

Lauren wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.  "They were only the
first, Fox," she said softly, "There were twelve of them, all
generated under the project named 'Saving Grace'.  They were
genetically identical, but created to look different in their
appearance.  They were to function in normal society.  They were given
names, vocations, and homes.  They were meant to find families,
reproduce, and go about their everyday lives.  This way no one would
suspect that they were anything but human.  Their offspring would be
immune to the attack of the aliens.  They would survive.  But now
something has gone wrong.  For whatever reason, the initiator of the
project, whoever he is, must have decided that they must not be
allowed to survive.  I was unaware of the deaths of the other subjects
until the three turned up dead in my jurisdiction.  Something must
have gone wrong, terribly, terribly wrong."

Mulder looked at her with a mixture of empathy and hatred.  "It was
wrong from the beginning," he said.  He stood from his chair, and with
a final look of disgust, he turned on his heels and walked out of the
door.  Alvarez buried her face in her hands and sobbed like a child.

Philadelphia City Morgue
11:12 A.M.

Dana Scully flipped off the iridescent bulb that lightly illuminated
the otherwise dark room.  Even with the windows open, the examination
room seemed uncannily murky, as obtuse and pervasive as the foul
stench of death that permeated every corner.  She pulled at the
blood-stained latex gloves that masked her hands and glanced at her
watch.

"Nearly quarter after," she said aloud, tossing the gloves
absent-mindedly in the waste container, "I wonder what Mulder's
doing."  The autopsy had taken considerably less time than she had
anticipated.  The reason for this was the curious nature of the
findings that she had gathered from the victim, named Haley Thaddeus
McKenzie.  She was sure they would be of great interest to Mulder, and
in response to this thought, she pulled her cell phone from the
counter where she had securely placed it, just in case Mulder needed
to call her first.  She dialed the number she had dialed so many times
in the past as she glanced at the body, still laying peacefully on the
table slab.  The phone rang twice before Mulder answered.

"Mulder," he said.

"Mulder, it's me," Scully replied, and then inquired, "Where are you?"

Mulder was stooped down on a hardwood floor, removing scraps of hair
from the crime scene, lest this body be taken for evidence, as well. 
"I'm at the victim's residence," he answered, "Where are you?"

"I'm at the morgue," she informed him.  

"Scully," he asked playfully, "answer me truthfully.  Do you see dead
people?"

"Listen, Mulder," she said, "There's something very odd about this
murder."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like the fact that this victim, Haley Thaddeus McKenzie, was not, as
far as I can tell, killed by whatever it was that killed the other
nine women."

"What are you saying, Scully?" he asked, "That you don't think that
this murder is related to the others?"

"I'm not saying that at all," she replied, "What I'm trying to tell
you is that the increased amounts of alcohol found in the other
victims were not found in this girl.  The tox-screen reported nothing
unusual, nothing in large enough amounts to do anything other than to
gradually destroy her kidneys, anyway."

"Well then, Dr. Scully, to what do you attribute the cause of death?"

"The cause of death appears to be due to the insertion of a sharp,
thin object into the base of the back of the neck, directly between
the second and third cervical vertebrae.  I would associate this
stabbing with the large loss of blood as evidenced by the scene of the
crime.

Mulder stood up and gazed at the chalk outline on the floor,
surrounded in all directions by the bright, thick red blood which
seemed to be distributed to every corner of the bedroom.  "Yeah," he
said, "I'm looking at it as we speak." He had seen a lot of
despicable, disgusting events in his history as an agent, but this was
unlike anything he had ever seen.  Mulder began to feel queasy upon
looking at it.  "Scully, it looks like a butcher set up shop in here."

"I figured that would be the case," she answered, "It appears that the
murderer struck the neck with such force that it perforated the
internal carotid artery."

"Scully," he said, "serial killers aren't known to switch up their
murderous tendencies.  They are incredibly methodical, creatures of
habit.  The very definition of a serial killer is one who murders in a
set pattern.  Nothing suggests that this victim is linked to the
others.  The name isn't even Apostalic."

"That's not necessarily true, Mulder," she answered.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that her name is derived from the Twelve," she explained,
"There are two followers mentioned in the Bible with the name 'Judas'.
 One is surnamed 'Iscariot', the betrayer, and the other is named
'Thaddeus,' the middle name of the woman who was killed.  In addition,
the latest victim had something interesting carved in her back – Rev.
1:3."

"I'm assuming that is a passage from the Gospel."

"From the Book of Revelations," she quoted, "Blessed is the one who
reads aloud and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message
and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near."

"If that's true, Scully," he said, "and if this woman is the tenth
victim in a series of twelve, then why would the murderer suddenly
switch the method by which he killed his victims?"

"I don't know, Mulder," she replied, "Maybe he ran out of whatever
chemical it was that he was using to generate the reaction, or maybe
this victim struggled more than the others and was able to defend
herself and attempt an escape.  Maybe his only option was to stab her
from behind."

"I don't think so, Scully," he answered, "Before the murder of this
woman there were nine victims, all of which died in the span of little
over eight months.  Suddenly, there is another murder committed before
the week is out, and not only that, but she is killed differently from
all of the others."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm saying that maybe the killer is becoming more desperate," he
answered, "that perhaps time is not on his side anymore and he needs
to kill the rest to usher about whatever act he hopes will befall upon
the death of the twelfth martyr."

"If that is so, Mulder," she said, "then we need to find the other two
test subjects before he strikes again."

Mulder agreed, nodding his head though Scully couldn't see the
gesture.  Scully shifted uncomfortably at the absence of sound from
the other end of the line.  "Mulder," she said suddenly, "Do you mind
if I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Scully," he answered, "I do have a rash there but the doctors
assured me that it would go away on its own."

"Mulder," she sighed, "Why do you think that Lauren called us in on
this case?"

The silence at the other end was deafening.

"What do you mean?" he finally managed to get out.

"I mean, how would Lauren know that this victim was connected to the
others?  You didn't even know that they were linked at first glance,
yet she seemed assured that this woman was the tenth victim."

Mulder had thought of that, too.  "I don't know," he said forcefully,
"but I intend to find out."

Liberty Bell Inn
March 29, 2000
10:13 A.M.

Scully looked up past the data in her hand through her golden-framed
glasses.  She was sitting cross-legged on the motel bed wearing
crème-colored suit pants and a white blouse with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the center.  Her golden cross hung limp across her neck,
exposed by the V-neck of her shirt.

"Scully, it's me," she heard Mulder's voice call, having had his very
three insistent knocks go unanswered.

Scully put the papers aside, throwing her glasses hastily on top of
them.  She rushed to the door and threw it open, exposing Mulder
wearing the suit from the previous day, minus the jacket.  The top
button of his Oxford-shirt had been unbuttoned and his tie was undone,
hanging loosely about his neck.

"Mulder," she said breathlessly, "where have you been?  I've been
trying to get in contact with you all night but your phone wasn't on."

"I know, Scully," he answered, "it didn't turn itself off."  He walked
into the room and plopped down into the chair by the window.  He
looked very tired.  Scully seated herself back on the bed and leaned
back on the headboard.  She folded her arms crossly in front of her.

"So, why'd you turn it off, then?" she asked, "Where were you?"

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.  "I was trying to
hunt down the truth," he replied, "After our conversation, I went back
to the precinct to find Lauren.  I wanted to make an attempt to get
her to divulge some more information, to see if she could tell us the
names of the other two subjects that she created."

"And?" Scully urged.

"And nothing."

Scully gazed at the figure of the emotionally and physically drained
man who sat before her.  "Maybe he should remove himself from this
case," she thought, though she knew he would never stand for that. 
Still, she could see that he was too closely connected to Detective
Alvarez, that whatever hold she held on him in the past still had some
influence today.  He was taking this very hard.

"You mean she wouldn't tell you?" Scully asked.

"No, I mean she couldn't.  At approximately 11:50 A.M. yesterday,
Lauren said she was going out to grab some lunch.  She never returned.
 No one has seen from her or heard from her since.  That was nearly
twenty-three hours ago, and there's still no word on her whereabouts."

Mulder opened his eyes and sat up.  He could see in hers that her
heart went out to him.  They always retained that soft, teary effect
whenever he was experiencing some traumatic event that carried the
possibility of destroying his determination and hope for the future. 
He had seen that look in her eyes when his father was killed, and when
they watched as the hybrid that he thought was his sister went over
the bridge by the Potomac.  And then again when they had planted that
"alien" in the Arctic, and managed to persuade him that he was conned
into playing the pawn in a game of disinformation all those years,
that Samantha was never really abducted by aliens.  She had stood by
him, even with the cancer racking her body, and had lied to the Bureau
heads about his supposed death, all to implicate Section Chief
Blevins.  And here she was, three years later, still standing by his
side.  He could only hope that he had provided her with some of the
same comfort that she had given him.

"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, "I know this must be hard for you, and
it's not going to get any easier."

"What do you mean, Scully?" he asked, crossing one leg over the other,
now fully alert to what she was saying.  She looked terribly uneasy
and he expected the worst.

"Before we left Washington, I put a call in to Byers.  I asked him to
look up any information possible on Detective Alvarez, or her alias,
Dr. Maria Valesquez."

Mulder shook his head angrily.  "Scully, I told you that I would take
care of it myself…"

"I think you should hear me out," she interrupted him.  He sat back in
the chair and folded his hands together.

"What did he find?" Mulder asked.

"It seems that Dr. Valesquez's career in medicine can be traced back
many decades.  She graduated with honors from Yale in 1977. 
Immediately following, she immersed herself in studies at Harvard,
graduating in 1981 after presenting a very impressive thesis to the
faculty regarding the possibilities of stem cell research twenty years
down the line.  In 1982, she gained a position at Chimera where she
worked on and published several studies in reference to the role of
chromosomes and their effects on aging.  In 1983, private donors took
control of Chimera and continuing with the policy established by their
secretive work, no more work of Valesquez's was ever published.  Late
in 1990, Valesquez left Chimera under odd circumstances.  It seems
that several fires were reported earlier in the year and damage was
done sequentially to the facility.  They were concluded to be the
result of arson and many suspected Valesquez, but only circumstantial
evidence could be found and the case was dismissed.  By 1991, she had
changed her name and identity, probably in an effort to hide from the
men who had backed the project and suspected her.  She had moved to
New York and was in training to become a member of law enforcement
when an internship moved her unexpectedly back to D.C., where she
began working at the Bureau and met you."

"That's all very interesting, Scully," he said while she paused to
take a breath, "but what does it have to do with these murders."

"Mulder, you've got to see the connection," she answered, "I mean, the
women who were created under her hand are now dying, by her hand as
well, I suspect.  She was accused of starting those fires in
Washington, maybe she came across something for which even she
believed that humanity wasn't ready.  I believe that she is trying to
destroy all of the evidence now, just like she tried to destroy the
evidence then."

"Then what about the Two-Face, Scully?" he asked, "If Lauren is
guilty, then why is a Yellow-Haired Man and a Black-Haired Man running
around stealing the bodies of dead women?"

"I think," she replied, "that the question you should be asking is if
she isn't guilty, then why did she run?"

Mulder looked deeply saddened.  "I just can't believe that she's
capable of this," he said sorrowfully.

"There's more, Mulder," Scully replied, "I had those samples that you
sent from the scene analyzed.  The DNA matched the DNA of the hair
samples that we gathered from the other two victims."

"So this woman is a clone of the others then?"

"It appears that way," she answered. "and if you are correct and the
murderer is becoming more desperate, then we have to find the killer
quickly, before she strikes again."  Scully looked at Mulder, guilt
plastered across her face.  "I've put out an A.P.B. on Detective
Alvarez," she said quietly.

Mulder looked at her hard and then stood up swiftly.  "Let's get
going, Scully," he said, "I don't want you to miss all the action when
they pick her up."  He departed quickly from the room.  Scully sat
speechless for a moment, then stood, grabbed her coat, and followed
him.  She closed the door silently and locked it, not daring to look
back.

Interstate 95
10:42 A.M.

"Thank you."  Scully turned off the cell phone, closed it, and placed
it back into her coat pocket.  She turned towards Mulder who was
expertly weaving in and out of traffic on the crowded highway.  "Dr.
Sykes said that she does not know the names of the last two subjects,
nor can she provide us with any information regarding their present
whereabouts."

"That's as much as I expected, Scully," he answered, "She did say that
she was only responsible for the work on the Purity Control genome."

"And you believe her?"

Mulder smirked and switched into first gear, turning his head to
glance at her as often as possible.  "Don't you?" he asked.

"I don't know what to believe anymore," she told him truthfully,
"We've been jerked around so often that I don't who's telling the
truth and who's lying."

"You know, Scully," he said, "you should really have a little more
faith."

She turned from him and looked out the front window, expressing a
barely audible scoff so that he would be aware of her displeasure. 
She crossed her arms over her chest and then turned towards him again.

"Why stick shift, Mulder?" she asked.

"Hmm…what's that?"

"I said, why did you rent a car with stick shift?" she repeated, "Does
it make you feel like more of a man?"

"C'mon, Scully," he said, "you know you like a man who can handle his
stick."  A broad smile was now quite visible on his lips.

She turned to the front of the car.  Something was playing across her
mind, evidenced by a thin smile on her face.  Her eyes danced merrily
as she chuckled softly.

Mulder looked at her.  "What is it?" he asked her, smiling at her
present condition.

"Oh, it's nothing."

"No, really," he prodded, "you can tell me."

She appeared as though she was deciding whether or not to say what it
was she was thinking.  She mulled it over a little while longer until
she finally complied.  "Okay," she said.  She leaned in close to him,
almost whispering, "Sometimes, at night, I lie awake…"

She never got to complete the sentence.  The cell phone buzzed in her
pocket.

"Excuse me, Mulder," she said, "I have to get this."

Mulder stared at her, a painstaking look coming over his face. 
"Wh..wh…wait, Scully," he stammered, "let it ring.  We don't ever talk
enough.  Why don't you finish what you were saying?"

She shrugged her shoulders and put the phone against her ear. 
"Scully," she said, and then, pointing forward, she directed Mulder to
"watch the road."

He turned his attention to the car in front of him in time to see the
driver slam on his brakes.  Mulder narrowly missed destroying his
security deposit as he listened to Scully's end of the conversation,
"Uh huh…sure…okay…we'll be right there."

She put the phone away as she turned towards Mulder.  "You better turn
the car around, Mulder," she instructed him, "there's just been
another murder."

Ben Franklin Drive
11:12 A.M.

"What was her name?" Mulder asked, pulling back the blue tarp that
covered the face of the newest victim.  She was laying facedown on the
sidewalk of the busy street flanked by newspaper stands and
Mom-and-Pop stores.

"Elizabeth Peters," responded a nearby detective who was taking over
the investigation in Alvarez's unexpected absence, "She was twenty-two
years old, a receptionist at a legal firm four blocks from here. 
According to the women she worked with, she was well-liked and without
any known enemies.  They know of no one that would wish to do any harm
to her."

"Well they certainly hit the head on the nail there, didn't they?"
Mulder replied, and then crouched on the ground, he glanced up towards
his partner.  "Scully, come look at this," he instructed, and she
instantly crouched beside him.  He pulled the victim's long, wavy,
brown hair off her back with the swift movement of a surgically-gloved
hand.

"There," he said, pointing towards her neck.  He was motioning towards
the same puncture wound that had been found on the previous victim.

"Another stabbing," Scully said aloud.  

Mulder replaced the hair and then stood up.  Scully followed suit. 
"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Scully," he said, "I don't think it's an accident where the victims
were stabbed."

"Neither do I, Mulder," she answered, "It's well known that striking
the carotid artery in the neck will induce massive blood loss,
correlating in a relatively quick and easy death."

"Sure," Mulder replied sarcastically, "who wouldn't know that?"

Scully scowled.  "What do you think the answer is, then?" she asked.

"We've seen this before, Scully," he reminded her, "Remember when we
first met Jeremiah Smith?  The being who wanted to kill him carried
the same weapon that I found in my summer home up in Quanachataug. 
The only way to kill Jeremiah was to strike a single blow to the base
of his neck."

Scully looked doubtful.  "Let me save you the trouble, Mulder," she
said, "Even if these women are alien-human hybrids and can, therefore,
only be killed in the same manner as Jeremiah Smith, only the last two
victims have been murdered by a blow to the neck.  How do you account
for the deaths of the other nine?"

Mulder had an answer for that, too.  "I think that you were right,
Scully, that whoever created these hybrids wants to destroy the
evidence.  Dr. Sykes told us that the mission of the hybrids was to
'go forth and multiply.'  I believe that they are now being
systematically terminated.  Perhaps there were found to carry 'faulty
wiring,' that the geneticists could not engineer them to behave
specifically as they wished.  Whatever the motivation, I believe that
the same people who had the scientific knowledge to create them also
had the advanced knowledge to destroy them.  At first, that person was
using a special chemical that he had synthetically produced.  It would
be easy to do, considering he knew enough about putting them together
in the first place.  The murders were committed using the chemical
because its presence would most likely go unnoticed and the women
would be buried before any connection would be made among them and the
other victims.  But since our involvement in the case, the murderer
has become more desperate, because we are coming closer to the truth
everyday.  He now knows that it has become a greater liability to
allow them to live rather then to cover up their murders.  An attempt
to steal the last body hasn't even been made."

A frown marred Scully's otherwise striking features.  "Mulder," she
said gently, "you keep saying 'he,' but if everything is as you say,
then you must allow for the possibility that Detective Alvarez is both
the alpha and omega, here, the creator and the destroyer, that it is
by her doing that these women are dying.  She is still missing."

"I can't talk about this right now," he replied defiantly, anger and
irritation at once arising in his voice.  He turned and walked
fiercely towards their rental.

Scully turned towards the officer and hastily commanded, "If you find
out anything about the victim or of Detective Alvarez's whereabouts,
please call me on my cell phone."  With that, she turned and raced
towards Mulder.

"Where are you going?" she called to him, but he had gained, by this
time, such a significant lead that he could not hear her words.  He
paused at the car door only long enough to unlock it.  "Where are you
going?" she asked again when she was close enough so that he might
hear.

"I'm going to go find that last name before another body turns up," he
replied.

"How exactly are you going to do that, Mulder?" she asked, "We've been
on this case all this time and we still have no idea of whom we're
looking for.  She could be anyone.  How are you going to find her
name?"

"I'm going to pay a visit to the Three Wise Men," he answered, seating
himself in the driver's seat.  He started the car and then suddenly
turned it off again.  He took the keys from the ignition and alighted
from the chair.  He tossed them to Scully, saying, "On second thought,
you keep the car.  You're going to need it."

"Why?" she asked, "What is my assignment?"  

"I need you to stay here in case the killer finds his next victim
before I do."  He waved his hand and a yellow taxicab pulled up
alongside of him.  He opened the door.  While entering, he turned
towards her and quietly suggested that she "Get a warrant and search
Lauren's apartment."  With that, he closed the door and the cab drove
quickly and haphazardly down the road.

Chimera Genetics
917 Titan Avenue
March 30, 2000
12:29 A.M.

"Langly, can you hear me?"  Fox Mulder, dressed in black from head to
foot, adjusted the communication device on his tight-fitting shirt. 
He lightly touched the barely-noticeable piece that rested in his ear.

"Loud and clear, Mulder," the slightly nasally voice answered back. 
Langly was underground, crouched into a fetal position, and flanked on
all sides by wires of every shape and size jutting into a modern day
Gordian knot.  He was joined by Frohike who was seated on his right,
carrying a small, high-powered flashlight that, next to the glare from
Langly's suped-up laptop, provided the only source of visible
illumination.

"Ten more seconds and we'll have you on visual, Mulder," Frohike
informed him.

"Great.  I always knew that I would make it to the small screen," he
replied.  Mulder glanced anxiously at Byers who was performing lookout
duties.  His usual well-tailored, gray suit was replaced with a long,
black duster.  Mulder smiled through his anxiety.  He looked so out of
context – no tie, jacket.  He paced precariously back and forth,
apprehension evident in his face.

"You better hurry up, Langly," he said, "the guards will be returning
to their posts at precisely 12:30 A.M., that's only 26.45 seconds from
now."

"I'm working on it," Langly replied, his fingers clinking furiously on
the keys, "Wait, wait, here we go."

"Main security cameras have been overridden," Frohike informed the
group.  He watched the computer screen as the image of Mulder came
into view.  "Big Brother's watching, Mulder," he told him.

"Langly," he instructed, "watch Frohike's hands for me.  I don't want
him to get all voyeuristic up there on me."

"I can't promise you anything, Mulder," he said.

"Yeah," Frohike chimed in, "I can't help it.  You're too much of a
sexy bitch."

The light banter was cut short by the sound of Byers' voice over the
line.  "I have a visual confirmation on the guards," he said, looking
at his watch.  It read precisely 12:30 A.M.  His view was slightly
obscured behind the bushes where he was positioned, so he cautiously
eased his head around.  He watched as the guards double-checked the
padlocks on the building and searched the grounds for any trespassers.
 Byers ducked his head back behind the bush.  After a couple seconds,
he felt confident that they were gone and he summed up the courage to
look a second time.  He watched as the guards finished their search
and turned to leave.

"They're on the move, Mulder," Byers told him.

"So am I," he said, "Wish me luck, boys."

Mulder advanced towards the side entrance of the facility, sheltered
by the shadowy sheath of darkness.  "I want that door unlocked by the
time I get there," he told them.

"We're already working on it," Langly informed him.  He gazed back at
the glowing screen.  "Double password protected," he said to no one in
particular, "whatever they've got in there, they want it kept under
tight raps."

Frohike watched as the security camera picked up Mulder next to the
door.  "I'm at the entrance," Mulder told them, "I'm a little
disappointed it's not open yet.  I was told you guys were the best in
the business."

"You get what you pay for," Frohike retorted.

"You've got one minute and fifteen seconds until the guards complete
their rotation," Byers told Langly.

"Don't rush me," Langly said, booting up a password program, "See,
we're already through the first lock."  He beamed, waiting for the
approbation of his friends.  Instead, all he received was a simple
"About time" muttered by Mulder under his breath as the steel clasp
holding the door in place jutted to an unlocked position.

"Forty-five seconds and counting," Byers said.

"Plenty of time," Langly replied while hacking into the second lock.  

"For me, yeah," Frohike said, "but for you, I'm not so sure."  Langly
smiled, but his friend noticed the look of concern on his face as the
computer recognized the requirements for the next lock.

"Uh oh," Langly breathed.  It was a nearly inaudible slip and Mulder
would certainly not have been able to hear it, were it not for the
state-of-the-line communications equipment provided by the Gunmen.

"What do you mean, 'Uh oh'?" he hissed, his voice rising a little
louder then preferred for someone breaking into a high-security
facility.

"No biggie, Mulder," Frohike assured him, "The second lock is a
numerical password, twelve digits that change variably every minute. 
We'll have it up soon."

"We don't have a minute," Mulder's voice came back angrily.

"That's good," Frohike said, "because I said it changes every minute. 
If we spent more than a minute cracking this code, more alarms would
go off than the time Langly tried to steal 'Debbie Does Dallas' from
Blockbuster."

"Well you better hope you get it done in under a minute, then," Mulder
told them, "or you'll be enjoying Debbie from a six by six foot cell."

"It's okay, Mulder," Langly said, simply willing the computer to read
through the possible numbers as quickly as possible, "we've already
gotten through eight of the digits."

"Twenty seconds," Byers called.

"Langly, get this high-tech piece of shit open right now!" Mulder
whispered uneasily into the microphone.

"Two more to go, Mulder."

Byers pulled a pair of binoculars over his eyes.  "They're approaching
you, Mulder," he told him, "They are relatively fifty yards away from
the main gate."

"Langly!" Mulder exclaimed.

"Got it," he replied as the second lock pulled away and Mulder ducked
hastily into the doorway.

Mulder barely breathed a sigh of relief before he asked them, "Where
am I going?"

"Head straight down this hall, Mulder," Frohike replied, "and make a
left...now."  The lanky figure on Langly's computer screen turned down
a dark hallway.  "Duck into that room on the right," he told him,
"number 82."

Mulder did as he was told.  He saw the camera in the corner of the
room follow his movements.  Somehow, it made him feel secure knowing
that his three friends were there with him.  The room was an expansive
laboratory composed of lengthy counters filled with instruments used
to conduct research.  Magnetic stirrers swirled in 1000mL Erlenmeyer
flasks and the gentle humming from a device that said "Cytometer" on
the front panel offered the only noise in the room.

"Now what?" Mulder asked.

"There should be a computer in there where the team stores all their
research," Langly responded, "Find it and hook us in to the terminal."

Mulder walked slowly around the room, gazing from this way to that. 
"There's at least ten of them in here," he said, "How do I know which
one is the right one?"  As soon as the words were out of his lips, he
noticed a small office that was situated in the back of the room.

"Dr. Cynthia Rochester," Langly read aloud.

"Why does that name sound so familiar?" Mulder asked.

"She was number three on the list of geneticists that we gave you,
Mulder," Frohike replied, "Right behind Dr. Elizabeth Sykes and the
esteemed Dr. Maria Valesquez."

"This has got to be it," Mulder said, pulling out a device closely
resembling a handgun with an exceptionally long, thin needle on the
end.  He quickly picked the lock and replaced the device in his
pocket.  He slowly opened the door, revealing a beautifully furnished
office, complete with an oak desk, a well-stocked bookcase, and
several green plants.  Mulder seated himself in the plush, leather
chair and placed his hand on the keyboard.  "Here we go, boys, get
ready to lock and load."

Mulder drew out some well-placed wires hidden behind his back that
were given to him by Langly along with the microphone and earpiece. 
"Place it in the hole to the bottom left," he heard Langly command.

"Oh, Langly," Mulder said, "I love it when you talk dirty about my
hard drive."

Frohike smirked and Langly continued with his directions, "Place the
other end into the hardware on your wrist."  Mulder looked at his
right hand.  He had been given the cumbersome box-like device and
simply told that it would "come in handy."

"It'll give us access to whatever it is that's hidden in there,"
Langly explained, "We'll be able copy, erase, or implant anything that
we want to, right from the comfort of our own uncomfortable
underground hideout."

"The wonders of technology," Mulder sighed.
  
Mulder booted up the system and hooked the computer to the device on
his wrist.  The screen flashed a lovely azure, signaling that it was
ready for use.

"I can't see," Langly whined.

"Well, zoom in, damn it," Frohike said gruffly.  Langly did as he was
so kindly asked and overrode the surveillance camera controls.

"Simon says take one step left, Mulder," Frohike's voice called over
his earpiece, "Your fat head is blocking our view."

Mulder let out an irritated smile.  "Fat head," he mumbled to himself,
"Melvin, why don't you kiss my…"

"Watch it, Mulder," Frohike pre-empted him, "Think of Byers and his
virgin ears."

Mulder stepped to the side and allowed Frohike and Langly to get a
better view.  The first screen consisted of a white, rectangular block
that was password protected.

"No problem," Langly told Mulder, clicking away at the keyboard. 
Mulder watched as the black circles appeared at the typing prompt, and
almost instantly, the screen was gone.  In its place was a screen with
numerous icons, some personal items -email, links- but mainly word
processing folders.

"Give us a minute," Langly said, "we'll get what we came for and then
you can get your ass out of there."  Through the device on Mulder's
hand, Langly accessed the folders.  One would open, he would browse
through it quickly, and then it would be gone, another opening up in
its stead.

"Do a search for Project Saving Grace," Mulder instructed.  Langly and
Frohike glanced at each other, a delighted look appearing on both of
their faces.

"When have you ever touched a computer, Mulder," Frohike asked, "other
than to store your porn, that is?  Why don't you just leave the
hacking to the professionals?"

"Just do it," he answered.  The tone in his voice intimated that he
was no longer fooling around, and Langly thought it best that they
comply.

"Alright," he said, "but I don't see what good it'll do…"  His words
were cut short as the image of a three-dimensional helical structure
on a black background popped-up in a window, followed by a file
hundreds of pages long entitled "Project Saving Grace:  An analysis of
the progress in DNA hybridization over the past two decades."

"Oh my God," Frohike said under his breath, as Langly chimed in, "How
did you know?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
Byers put the binoculars to his eyes.  He watched in despair as at
least ten camouflaged-colored jeeps rolled up to the facility,
followed by three long, black cars.  He watched as soldier after
soldier jumped from the jeeps, each carrying a loaded semi-automatic
rifle.  He ducked behind a bush for cover as the security guards
opened the gates.  Several men in well-tailored black suits emerged
from the black automobiles.

Byers picked up the collar of his suit and held it inches from his
mouth.  "Mulder," he said, "we've got trouble.  You've got to get out
of there right now.  Did you hear me?  You need to evacuate the
building as soon as possible."

"Why, Byers?" he heard Mulder's anxious voice over the line, "What's
going on out there?"

"They know you're here, Mulder," he answered, "They're coming for
you."

A tall, slightly overweight man with gray hair stepped out from the
back seat of the first black car.  He closed the door behind him, then
pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket.  He pulled one from
the case and gracefully, with one single motion, placed it between his
lips.  He grabbed a golden lighter from the other pocket, engraved
with the inscription "Trust No One," and pulled back the covering.  He
protected the lighter from the night wind with one hand and drew the
cold metal against the flint with the other.  He lit the cigarette,
replaced the lighter in his pocket, and took a few long drags to get
the fire burning.

A man dressed in camouflage garb approached the smoker.  "What are
your orders, sir?" he asked the man in the suit.

"Bring the intruder to me, Captain," he said amidst a cloud of smoke,
"I want him alive, damaged if necessary, but alive."  He took a couple
of long drags as the captain walked away to carry out the orders. 
"Oh, and Captain," he called to him as the captain turned to listen to
the rest of the smoker's commands, "If he gets away from you, you'll
be filing away the rest of your prodigious career as a desk clerk in
Guam."

"Yes, sir," the captain replied, one hand raised to the forehead in a
salute and the other holding on to the gun at his side.  And with
that, he was gone.

The Smoking-Man took one final drag and a threw the cigarette on the
ground.  He squelched the flame with a single swipe of his
highly-polished, expensive shoes.  "Now if only I could squash Mulder
this easily," he thought to himself as he viewed the proceedings, "if
only."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" Mulder yelled into the microphone, "I'm
going as fast as I can, but I am not leaving here without these
files!"  He watched as the bar on the "Copying" command traveled from
zero to one hundred percent.

"Mulder," Byers told him, "It's not safe to stay in there any longer. 
The soldiers have entered the building and are coming your way.  You
must get out.  Whatever is on those files won't matter if they get to
you before you can read them."

The percentage bar continued to increase.

"C'mon, c'mon," Mulder willed under his breath.

"He's right, man," he heard Langly say, "You've got to get out of
there now.  They're already at the first hallway."  Langly watched
helplessly through the vantage point of the lens of the surveillance
camera.  The army of green and black seemed never-ending.

"Get the hell out of there, Mulder!" Frohike's voice raised well above
its normal pitch.

"There!" he exclaimed, relieved that the copying procedure had finally
come to completion, "Did you get it?"

Langly checked his screen.  It read 'File Copy Completed'.  "Every
last bit," he answered.

Mulder unplugged the device from the computer console.  He could hear
the footsteps treading heavily in his direction.  "Be my eyes and
ears," he said nervously, "Where am I going?"

Langly pulled up a map of the layout of the building that they had
used earlier to gain access to the laboratory.  "There should be a
door behind you, Mulder," he said, "Go through it in turn right down
the hall."

Mulder turned instinctively towards the sound of the lab's main door
slamming open.  He heard what sounded like a hundred guns being
simultaneously cocked.  He turned back and opened the door, ran
through, and shut it as quickly and quietly as possible behind him.

"Now what?" he asked.

"The stairs, Mulder," Langly answered, "Go down one more level. 
That'll be the basement."  Mulder complied and ran down the steps. 
Upon reaching the bottom, he threw open the door and gazed into
another unlit hallway.

"Straight," Langly told him, "and make a left at the fork.  Go all the
way to the end, through the door, and out the side.  Byers will have
the car waiting for you."

Byers was already seated in the bulky, dingy van.  "I'm already
there," he said, advancing towards the side entrance with the
headlights turned off.  He waited for what seemed an eternity until he
finally saw a door open and a tall, lanky figure dash out into the
shadows.

"He's coming your way," Frohike said.  Mulder advanced towards the car
and opened the passenger's side.

"The Eagle has landed," Byers said as Mulder seated himself and the
car began to inch away.

Mulder glanced at him, visibly tired from the impromptu workout.  "The
Eagle has landed?" he asked, "Couldn't you come up with something a
little more original, Byers?"

Byers shrugged.  "I always wanted to say that," he replied, "Didn't
you ever want to be an astronaut?"

Mulder thought about the time one of his excursions with Scully had
led him to Mission Control to save a shuttle and its crew from the
angry entity that was carried within the person of Marcus Aurelius
Belt.  He shuddered at the thought of all those who had died in the
Apollo missions and the Challenger explosion.  "Not really," he
answered, then said, "Let's go pick up Wally and the Beave.  I'm sure
they're anxious to see what they almost got me killed for."

Washington, D.C.
Undisclosed Location
1:42 A.M.

"This is amazing, Mulder, this diskette is the motherload.  It
contains everything about Project Saving Grace since its inception two
decades ago."  Langly was once again seated at a computer screen, but
this time it was the state-of-the-art machinery located in the Lone
Gunmen's headquarters.  Langly, Byers, Frohike, and Mulder were all
gathered around the screen, attempting to go through the hundreds of
pages of files as quickly and efficiently as time permitted.

"Look at that," Byers said excitedly, pointing to a picture of what
looked like a coiled ladder, "It's the entire hybrid genome, every
nucleotide broken down into its most miniscule parts.  If we can
analyze this, it's possible that we could determine what the compound
was that was used to kill those women."

"And below it, there," Frohike added, "they've put case studies of
every female hybrid that was created through the experiments.  They've
got their names, addresses, occupations," he smiled at Mulder,
continuing, "sexual encounters.  Everything down to their favorite
foods."

"Listen to this," Langly said, reading from the text, "'Project Saving
Grace was initiated in 1953 when the discovery of deoxyribonucleic
acid by scientists James Watson and Francis Crick generated new
possibilities in the fields of genetics and microbiology. 
Implementing the work of both privately and publicly-funded
scientists, the collective head of the project was able to carry out
the work of extrapolating the secrets hidden within both human DNA and
the DNA recovered from an extraterrestrial biological entity (E.B.E.)
that was recovered dead, but otherwise intact, from a crash site in
New Mexico. The work progressed without the benefits of tangible
recompense until the takeover of Chimera Genetics in 1983 by private
donors, men and women unknown to the world, erased from history. 
Their names will never be known to the masses, but they have donated
their resources, their wealth, and their lives to the pursuit of one
goal:  to preserve life as human beings know it, to maintain humankind
against the coming destruction.  This savior of the world will not
come in the form of the Son of Man, sent from Heaven to smite the evil
and retrieve the worthy in the name of everlasting salvation. 
Instead, the savior will come from earth, the product of the ingenious
who will fashion a new man, a synthetic hybrid, from the blood of man
and his future exterminators, the extraterrestrials'."

"That's all very interesting," Mulder said, "but it's nothing that I
don't already know."  Byers, Langly, and Frohike all raised their
eyebrows and cocked their heads to the side.  "You guys can handle all
the DNA analysis and the historical background of the project," Mulder
said, "All I need to know is the name of the twelfth hybrid."

"No problem," Langly said.  He leafed casually through the pages until
he came across the section that contained all of the experiments'
information.  "I'll print you out a copy, Mulder," he said, and did
so.

Mulder grabbed the page as it emerged from the printer.  "Julia Marie
Thomas," he read aloud, "She lives right here in D.C.."  Mulder turned
and walked towards the door.

"Where are you going now, Mulder?" Frohike asked.

"I'm going to halt the Apocalypse," he yelled back, "hold all my
calls."

Julia Thomas Residence
696 Massachusetts Ave.
10:12 A.M.

The loud banging of the garbage truck stirred Mulder from a peaceful
slumber.  The sunlight from the cloudless day shone in through the
dashboard window of the car that had served as his bed for the night. 
"Aw, shit," he said, closing his eyes until they adjusted to the
morning light.  He rubbed his lids and then the back of his neck which
was incredibly sore due to the uncomfortable sleeping position
mandated by his upright pose.  "What time is it?" he asked himself
aloud, and then looked at the watch on his hand, "10:15, great."

He had spent the better half of the early morning staking-out the
apartment that the database had said was the living quarters of the
twelfth and final experiment, Ms. Julia Marie Thomas.  He had watched
the lights in her apartment turn on and off at approximately 2:30, and
then waited patiently to make sure no one went in or out without his
knowledge.  He guessed that he must have drifted off to sleep sometime
about an hour later.  He was just so tired.  He had gotten more sleep
in that one sitting than he had had from all the other days combined
since he had heard about the case.  He was debating whether or not he
should get up and check on her suite when he noticed an old, white van
with the insignia "Rappaport Telephone Company" drive up and park on
the side of the road.

He watched the back of the man as he descended from the vehicle.  He
was covered in the company's dark, blue suit with the logo stamped on
it and a blue cap which concealed his face.  Only a small portion of
his long, black hair could be viewed underneath the hat which adorned
his head.  He opened the back doors and pulled out a small set of
tools from the floor.  He closed the door and entered the apartment
building.

Mulder stepped from his car and followed him, relieved to have the
chance to be able to stretch his legs.  He walked towards the front
stoop and up the stairs, being sure to maintain a careful distance
from the viewpoint of the worker.  Putting a hand on the front door
knob, he noticed that the "9" in the address "696" had become
partially unhinged and was hanging upside down.  "666," he said
thoughtfully, "I wonder if that's a bad sign."  He shrugged it off,
opened the doors and entered the building, coming at once to a fork in
the road.  He looked long and hard in each direction but did not see
the man that was the object of his pursuit.  A woman approached him
from the right hallway.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he stopped her, pulling out his badge, "did you
happen to see a man walk this way?  He had blonde hair and was wearing
a blue suit?"

"I saw a man wearing a blue suit," she answered, "but he had blonde
hair, not black."

"What did the suit have on it?" he asked.

"I think it had some kind of patch," she answered, "some phone company
or something."

"Which way did he go?"

"Towards the elevator, down the hall," she told him, and pointed down
the hallway.

"Thank you," he replied hurriedly as his pace picked up from a
fast-walking stride to full-out jogging.  He ran towards the elevator
and watched as the number five was lit.  He looked down at the paper
in his hand.  "Apartment room 552," he said to himself, and looked
left and right for the stairwell.  He pushed open the door underneath
the "Exit" sign and ran up the steps, two at a time, until he reached
the fifth floor.  He ran down the hallway, glancing at the numbers on
the doors…549, 550, 551, 552.  The door was already slightly ajar.  He
pulled the gun from his hip and placed both hands on it, straightening
them in front of his body.  He kicked the door open and advanced into
the room.

"Federal agent," he screamed, "don't move."  He looked around the
room.  No one was there.  "Federal agent," he said again, "I'm armed."
 He circled what looked to be the living room, mentally taking in
every possible detail.  He walked towards the coffee table, spotting
something on the edge.  He put his index finger into the red puddle
and lifted it back up again, revealing fresh, bright, red blood.

"Come out right now," he said, "I know you're still here."  Beyond the
couch, he could see a door open, leading to another room in the house.
 He walked towards it, eyes straight ahead.  As he walked, he was
suddenly stopped as his foot got caught on something.  It was the body
of a beautiful redhead, laying in a crumpled mass from where she fell
to the floor.  He bent down and touched his finger to her neck,
feeling for a pulse.  There was none.  She was already gone.

Lauren Alvarez Residence
4077 Pierceford Crossing
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"That's the one."  Scully turned and looked in the direction that the
man in her passenger's seat was pointing.  "That is the residence of
Detective Alvarez."

Scully put her hand to her jacket pocket and felt inside.  The warrant
papers that had taken all night to obtain were now resting there
securely within her grasp.  She patted them once or twice and then
unbuckled her seat belt.  "Let's go, Detective," she said, portraying
her usual calm, disaffected demeanor.

They stepped from the car and began walking towards the door. 
Grabbing on to the side railing for support, Scully proceeded up the
front steps, followed at close length by the investigator.

"Detective Alvarez?" Scully called, rapping loudly on the screen door,
"Detective Alvarez, this is Special Agent Dana Scully.  We have a
warrant to search the premises.  Open the door now or risk federal
condemnation."  Scully waited for an answer, but there was no reply. 
She nodded to the detective as she grabbed for the gun at her hip.  He
nodded back in response to the signal.  He opened the screen door and
held it back for her as she raised her gun towards heaven.  With one
deft move, she kicked the door ajar and walked into the house, her gun
leading the way in a threatening horizontal posture.

"I'll check down here," she told the twenty-or-so officers clad in
bullet-proof vests.  She looked over in the detective's direction. 
"Take some men and check upstairs," she commanded.  He obliged and
proceeded towards the second floor while she scoped out the rooms
downstairs.  She checked every conceivable hiding space, every nook
and cranny, but Alvarez was nowhere to be found.  She walked towards
the front door and saw the detective descending the stairs.

"She's not upstairs," he informed her.

"She's not down here, either," she responded, pointing towards the
papers and objects strewn about the floor, "and by the look of the
uncharacteristically disheveled appearance of this house, I'd say that
she cleared out in a hurry."  She turned towards him.  "I want your
men to search everything," she instructed, "leave nothing overlooked."

The detective put a hand to his hip.  "You know," he said, "this would
be a lot easier if I knew what we were searching for."

"Yes, it would," she answered, turning to search a different room,
"I'll let you know when I find it."  She walked forward, through the
hall and past the cozy kitchenette.  She entered a room that she had
glossed over earlier in her search to find Alvarez.  It was by far the
most intriguing of all the rooms she had seen.  There was a baby-grand
piano seated on a Persian rug next to a large bay window.  Opulent
vases and ethnic works were strewn in a seemingly flawless and
cohesive style about the room.  A majestic oaken desk was situated in
the corner of the room and a lovely fireplace was positioned opposite
the piano.

Above it, a mantle was filled to the brim with pictures.  She gazed
through them, intrigued at the prospect of gaining some insight into
the mind of this brilliant woman, much like herself, who desired so
greatly to change her course in life that she gave up her career as a
trained scientist and devoted her life to law enforcement, instead. 
She glanced over the pictures, from left to right, but the final
picture on the end of the mantle caught her eye.  A young Alvarez
gazed longingly into the eyes of a tall, handsome man, which were
filled with a familiar passion that Scully had come to rely on so
faithfully over the years.  He had one hand about her waist and a
drink in the other.  She had her arms folded about his neck, a gesture
of the intimacy that Scully was afraid to feel.  It was a photo of
years past, of the hopes of youth for the future.  Now that the future
was here, Alvarez was looking to the past.  After all these years, she
had held on to the hope that she and Mulder would be together again. 
"No wonder they shared a life together," Scully thought wistfully,
"she must share the same passion as he, to have held on to this
picture for so long, to have let a dream dominate her thoughts after
the passing of so much time."

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of crinkling underneath her
feet.  She stooped down and picked up the picture that must have been
neglected in Alvarez's hurried attempt to leave her home free of
incriminating evidence.  It was a faded photograph of Alvarez, lying
on a bed in some sort of medical facility.  There were all sorts of
wires hooked up to her and she was surrounded by five men in crisp,
white labcoats.  Scully turned the picture over.  Her mouth dropped as
she read the inscription written in black ink from a fountainpen.  It
read, "First successful experiment of 'Saving Grace', Maria Valesquez,
1963."

Julia Thomas Residence
696 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington, D.C.

"Damn it!" Mulder said to himself, shaking his head in
self-deprecation, "I should have prevented this."  He stood up and
seated himself on the couch, contemplating what course of action he
should take next.  He picked up the cell phone from his pocket,
prepared to call the Bureau and to have the body taken from the house,
when it rang unexpectedly in his hand.

"Mulder," he answered.

"Mulder, Langly, here."

"Langly, what do you want?" he asked.

"Mulder, we found something that I think you ought to know."  Langly,
phone held up to his right ear, looked across the desk at his
companions.  They nodded in assent, urging him forward.

"Well, what is it?" Mulder questioned.

"It's about Project Saving Grace," he replied, "We were going through
the pages of files after you left.  Eventually, we came across a
section that contained references to experimentation that paved the
way for the twelve women that were created, hybrids of less stable
composition who were considered 'successful experiments,' but who were
in all actuality more alien than human."

"Just spit it out, Langly," Mulder said, putting his free hand to his
head.  He had had, by all accounts, a trying day and he was growing
the slightest bit impatient listening to the long-winded explanations
of his friend.

"Mulder," he began uncertainly, "the disk gave reference to the
initial successful clone, a woman of high intelligence and extravagant
beauty, one who would be useful in the future to generate clones from
her own DNA."  Langly once again looked about the room, unsure of
whether or not to continue.  Mulder sensed the hesitation in his
voice.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It was Lauren, Mulder," he answered, "she was the first successful
experiment.  They fashioned her from the Purity Control and then used
her intellect to carry out the work."

Mulder felt as if he had been punched in the stomach.  "Are you sure?"
he managed to eek out.

"Positive," Langly answered, "it's all right here.  I think you should
come over and look at the evidence."

Mulder glanced up at the mirror opposite from where he was sitting. 
"I can't do that right now," he said.

"Why not?" Langly asked, "Where are you?"

"I'm bringing down a murderer," he responded, and with a smooth,
cat-like motion, he was on his feet.  He turned around, threw his cell
on the ground, and faced the Yellow-Haired Man that he had viewed in
the mirror, lifting his gun directly in front of him.

"Stay where you are," Mulder said, "or I swear by all that is holy
that I will shoot you where you stand."

"What is holy is not a matter for you to decide, Agent Mulder," the
man answered, "Only God in his awesome glory shall deign who shall be
worthy."  He folded his hands in a pose of peaceful meditation. 
"Blessed are the meek," he said, "for they shall inherit the Kingdom
of God."

"Don't give me your solemn, prayerful bullshit," he said, "I'm going
to send you straight to Hell, you murdering son of a bitch."

"One of us shall visit the Dark Realm," he answered, "but it will
surely be thou."  The Yellow-Haired Man began advancing towards him,
only a few yards away.

"One step closer and I'll shoot," Mulder warned, but the Yellow-Haired
Man kept proceeding.  Mulder pulled back the trigger, firing one
round, then another, then another, but the Yellow-Haired Man continued
his advance.  He fired off six or seven rounds before the
Yellow-Haired Man had him in his strong grasp.  It was only then that
Mulder saw the gaping holes in his chest, spilling over with a green
liquid.  As he clenched his eyes in pain, the Yellow-Haired Man threw
him against the wall.  Mulder hit his head hard and went down.  He
looked up through his stinging, red eyes at the Yellow-Haired Man.  As
the darkness came, he saw his hair change from blonde to black, and
then grow long and wavy, as Lauren's face appeared above his, like
some angelic vision.  "I'm sorry, Fox," he heard her say, as he
drifted out of consciousness, "but there was no other way."

Lauren Alvarez Residence
4077 Pierceford Crossing
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Scully placed the phone against her ear.  'Beep…beep…beep…'  "Still
busy," she said, "shit."  She closed the phone to put it back in her
pocket when it rang unexpectedly.

"Mulder?" she asked hopefully.

"Agent Scully, it's Frohike.  We've got a problem."  No catty remarks,
no suggestive comments.  She could tell that there was something
really the matter.

"What is it, Frohike," she asked, "I've been trying to get in contact
with Mulder but his line's busy."

"I know," Frohike answered, "we were talking to him when the phone
went dead."

"Talking to him about what?" she asked, "Where is he?"  She was
growing increasingly concerned, and a little impatient, both of which
showed greatly in her voice.

"Agent Scully," he explained, "last night the boys and I helped Mulder
sneak into Chimera Genetics.  Within one of the databases there, we
found evidence of Project Saving Grace.  Mulder copied a diskette of
all the information and we began going through it this morning.  There
were references to all the deceased victims who were created through
the project."  He looked up at Byers and Langly, and continued, "We
discovered that those twelve women were not the first created through
the Project, that there were additional experiments conducted, women
created who were not completely hybridized."

"Let me take a wild stab in the dark," Scully interrupted, looking
down at the photograph in her hands, "Lauren Alvarez."

Frohike looked puzzled.  "How did you know?" he asked her.

"Lucky guess," she answered, "Listen.  I want you to go find Mulder
and tell him everything you know about Lauren Alvarez."

"He already knows," Frohike told her, "We had just finished telling
him of our findings when we lost contact with him."

"I want you to go look for him, anyway," she said, "I have a terrible
feeling that something's wrong.  I'm going to finish up here, and grab
a few hair samples for analysis back at Quantico.  Then, I'm taking
the first flight out of Philadelphia.  I should be back in a couple
hours."

She hung up the phone and placed the picture in her pocket.  She
turned towards an officer, saying, "Find me a brush, comb, anything
with a hair sample, right now.  I need to get back to Washington as
soon as possible."

Washington, D.C.
Undisclosed Location

Frohike placed the phone back on the receiver.

"Why didn't you tell her about the gunshots, Frohike?" Langly asked.

The concern showed plainly upon his face.  "I didn't want to worry
her," he answered.

"Yes," Byers interjected, "But don't you think she has the right to
know?  I'm sure you would all agree by know that it is best to keep
Agent Scully apprised of the situation at hand.  Besides, you know of
her feelings for him."  He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the
next, "It's as obvious as the fact that the atomic bomb was dropped,
not to win the war, but to detract from the falsified death accounts
of Theodore Roosevelt."

"All the more reason not to make her worry," Frohike said, "Anyway,
she's four states away.  What is she going to be able to do from
Pennsylvania?  Let's just go check out the address of this…what's her
name…Julia Marie Thomas, ourselves.  God knows the last thing he needs
is to get the feds involved."

Langly and Byers nodded their heads in agreement.  They grabbed their
jackets and walked out the door, being sure to fasten the seven or
eight locks before they were gone.

Julia Thomas Residence
696 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington, D.C.
2:12 P.M.

Twenty men in blue suits and badges were stationed about the room. 
Some held evidence kits in their hands, dusting for fingerprints,
while others meticulously fingered through various documents and
books.  Two men in jackets that read "Coroner" on the back stood in
the corner of the room taking photographs of the dead woman.  Langly,
Byers, and Frohike were seated on the couch as Scully entered the
apartment, weariness draining the color from her face.  Frohike jumped
to his feet as soon as he saw her.

"Agent Scully," he greeted her, "how are you feeling?"  Concern was
evident through his plastered smile of familiarity.  "How do you think
she's doing," he
kicked himself, "what kind of stupid question is that?"

"Fine, thanks," she answered solemnly, forcing a smile to her lips in
gratitude
for his compassion.  "How long have you guys been here?" 

"We left right after we talked with you," Byers informed her, standing
up next to Frohike, "we found Ms. Thomas' apartment as you now see it
when we arrived."  He gestured to the disarray on the carpet and
furniture.

"We've been here since then," Langly said, now standing, as well.  He
motioned with his thumb to a short, stocky gentleman in the corner of
the room with a gleaming badge on the lapel of his jacket and a
notebook in his hand, "Chubby over there held us here for questioning.
 He said we looked 'suspicious'."
Langly appeared highly offended. 

"Can you believe that?" Frohike asked, bearing the same astounded
impression.
Scully smiled sheepishly.  "Hard to believe," she said dryly.  She
nodded towards the sofa. "Why don't you guys sit down and I'll get
this all sorted out," she said.  They did as she commanded and she
turned to face the officer in charge.  He grinned at her as she
approached.

"Well, hi there," he said, placing a hand on his hip and leaning
against a table with the other hand, "what's a lovely lady like you
doin' in a nasty place like this?"

"Avon calling," Scully said sardonically, pulling the badge from her
pocket and raising it to the detective's eye level.

He sighed loudly.  "So you're from the Bureau, huh?" he said, "Who the
hell called you all out here?"

She folded her identification and replaced it in her jacket.  "I have
reason to believe that the events which transpired here are connected
to a series of murders that my partner and I are investigating," she
said.

"And why isn't your partner here to ask all the important questions? 
Are you sure you'll be able to handle this investigation all by
yourself?"  He continued on after receiving no response but the
crossed arms and sullen stare of the angry agent.  "Anyway, we didn't
find anyone here, no one except those three jokers over there," he
said, pointing to the Gunmen.

"Those three are harmless," she told him, "colleagues of mine, and my
partner's.  I believe that he was here, investigating the case I spoke
of before."

"The only trace of anyone being here at all is that woman on the floor
and that blood on the wall," he replied.

Scully's heart leapt to her throat as she ruminated over the
possibilities.  Regaining her composure, she looked at him and
demanded, "I want every piece of evidence to go through my hands, I
want to see everything.  If the body of a male was not found, then
that means that Agent Mulder is still alive."

"Either that or they carried him off to dump the body." 

"He's alive," she said forcefully, as if the strength of her words
would ensure his safety, "And I'm going to find him."

J. Edgar Hoover Building
5:45 P.M.

Dana Scully greeted Skinner's secretary, Holly, and seated herself in
one of the waiting chairs outside his office, folding the edge of her
skirt beneath her.  She smoothed out the hem, then crossed her legs
and folded her hands on her lap.

"The Assistant Director will be with you momentarily," Holly informed
Scully, who nodded in response and twiddled her thumbs.  "What the
hell am I going to tell him?" she thought to herself, the anxiety
clearly evident through her uneasy body language,

"That we were unsuccessful in tracking down the murderer and now she's
not only killed the twelve women that she created from cloning
experimentation with alien DNA, but now she absconded with the Mulder,
too?"

Scully glanced at her watch.  "Quarter till," she thought to herself. 
She had been following every lead possible for the last three hours
but every tip had turned up another dead end.  The A.P.B. proved
useless.  No one had seen or heard from Lauren since noon the previous
day, and now Mulder was missing, possibly dead.  "No," she told
herself, "you can't think like that, Dana."  She drew the golden cross
at her throat back and forth between her fingers, "He needs optimism
right now.  He would never give up on you, you can't give up on him
either."

Skinner's voice brought her back into consciousness, "Agent Scully,
please come in."

Scully awoke sharply from her daydream and glanced up at the man who
she had come to trust as a friend after nearly seven long years of
trials by fire.  "Yes, sir," she answered, leaping gracefully to her
feet and walking into his office with the dignity befitting a queen.

"Please have a seat, Agent Scully," he said formally, gesturing to the
chairs that were situated in front of his desk.

"Thank you, sir," she responded in kind.  He seated himself in a
half-lounge, half-professional manner, one leg crossed over the other
and his arms folded neatly over his lap.  He leaned back in the chair.
 His blue eyes sparkled through his wire-frame glasses, an odd paradox
to the cold, thinly-drawn mouth that she had hardly ever seen smile.

"I'm sure you're aware of why I've called you here today, Agent
Scully," he initiated the conversation.  The pleasantries were now
officially terminated.

"I have my suspicions, sir," she responded, her face bearing no sign
of any knowledge that would be detrimental if placed "on the record,"

"It has come to my attention that Mulder has been officially deemed
'missing' as a result of this case that you and he are pursuing."

"That is correct, sir," she replied, adding, "but I am working in
conjunction with the Bureau and local authorities in an attempt to
find him.  There is an A.P.B. out on the woman who I strongly suspect
to be his abductor.  Within a few short hours, I will have scientific
proof that I believe will connect her genetically to the victims that
she has murdered."

"You mean you found her blood at the crime scenes?" he asked.

"No, sir," she said unfalteringly, "there were no samples collected
from the scenes other than that of the victims'.  However, we were
able to confiscate a hair sample from the suspect's home, and another
blonde hair from the latest crime scene.  I believe it could lead us
to her and her accomplice."

"And what are you comparing the strands to in order to gather your
'genetic connection?'"

Scully hesitated briefly, biting her lower lip.  She pondered whether
or not she should answer the question truthfully before she had all of
the lab results back.  Why make claims that could turn out to be
unfounded?

"Agent Scully?" Skinner questioned, the corners of his eyes drawing up
into a look of suspicious curiosity, "Is there something else you're
not telling me?"

"No, sir," she answered quickly and seemingly forthright, "of course
not."

"And you will let me know the instant that the results are confirmed?"

"Yes, sir," she said stoically.  

"Good," he replied, "then I suggest that you expend the rest of your
efforts on tracking down your partner."

"Thank you, sir," she stated more for formality's sake rather than due
to the fact that he had been entirely helpful.  She rose from the
chair and walked towards the door.  Her hand was on the knob as he
called to her, "Agent Scully?"

She looked back.  "Yes, sir?" she asked.

He swiveled towards her in his chair, leaning forward with both feet
on the ground.  His body language conveyed the serious nature of what
he was saying.  "I don't want you to worry.  I will put every
available man on the streets.  You have the Bureau's full resources. 
We will find him."

"I know, sir," she said, sounding very tired, "thank you."  She smiled
as best she could, but it was obvious that her heart was not in it. 
She would not feel the tremendous weight lifted from her soul until he
was back, safe and sound, and throwing pencils into the ceiling.  She
opened the door and closed it behind her, leaving Skinner alone
feeling the twin agonies of anxiety for him and compassion for her.

"You better get your ass back here, Mulder," he said aloud, worry
apparent on his weathered features.  He leaned back in the chair and
gazed toward the door after Scully.  "Good luck, Dana," he said, "I
hope to God that you find him in time."

Quantico Medical Facility
8:29 P.M.

"There's still no sign of him…Well, she couldn't have very well walked
out of there with a body without anyone seeing.  They can't be far…I
know the witness said that it was a man with blonde hair, but I'm sure
that the woman fitting the description I gave you is the brains behind
the operation…I want every building within a five mile radius searched
tooth and comb…I want him found alive…Call me if there are any new
developments."  Scully closed her phone and placed it in her jacket as
Dr. Sykes approached her, still wearing her safety goggles.

"The results are in," Dr. Sykes informed her, holding up the
transparent P.C.R. that was in her hand and pulling the goggles on top
of her head with the other.

"What's the verdict?" Scully asked, as Sykes stepped next to her to
show her the results.

"This was taken from the strand of hair that was found in
Philadelphia," she said, holding the results in her left hand to the
light so that Scully could see more clearly, "and this was taken from
the sample that you gave me from Ms. Thomas' apartment."

"They're identical," Scully said matter-of-factly.

"You don't seem too astounded, Agent Scully," Sykes told her, "I, on
the other hand, am a little taken aback.  I was under the impression
that the person believed to be the owner of the blonde strand was a
male accomplice."

"He was."

She arched her eyebrows and shot Scully a look of incomprehensibility,
"But the sample that you took in Philadelphia was from Maria's home,
was it not?"

"It was."

"So what are you suggesting, Agent Scully?" she asked, "How do you
account for the fact that a man and a woman have the exact genetic
composition?"

Scully put a hand to her hip as she contemplated the medical training
that had taught her that such an occurrence was possible.  "Well," she
said, craning her neck to one side, "I suppose that the most likely
explanation is that the Yellow-Haired Man and the woman you know as
Maria are identical twins.  Perhaps he is working in conjunction with
his sister to carry out the murders of the women that she created."

"Agent Scully, they do not exactly contain the similarity of
appearance inherent in family members, let alone that found in
identical twins."

"Well, that could be determined by running some more tests," she said,
"Besides, there are other possibilities, as well.  Maybe the
body-snatcher was invited into Maria's home, exposing his hair and DNA
to that which was obtained."

Dr. Sykes looked extremely doubtful.  "There's another possibility,"
she said softly, eyes looking downward.

"What is that?" Scully asked through questioning eyes, wondering if,
once again, Sykes knew more than what she was telling.

"I happened upon something while going over these latest results," she
began, "I placed the transparencies down on my desk, which had the
files pertaining to the murder victims of the Project strewn about. 
It was then that I noticed the similarity."  She looked at Scully,
unsure of whether or not the notoriously skeptical agent would even
listen to her admittedly obscure hypothesis.

"What similarity, Agent Sykes?" Scully prodded.

"The genetic similarity between Maria and the clones," she said
quickly, brushing her hair back behind her ear, "Although Maria's DNA
is not identical to that of the Twelve, it is somewhat comparable, a
quarter, to be exact."

"What are you saying?" Scully asked.

"I'm saying that Maria is three-quarters Purity Control and
one-quarter human, and that this genetic mixture gives her
capabilities altogether different from regular human beings – healing
capabilities, immunity to diseases and bullets," she permitted a
lengthy pause to ensue before she completed the thought, "…the ability
to change physical appearance at will."

Scully appeared incredulous.  "Dr. Sykes," she said, voice full of
professional distaste, "I believe that I do not have inform you of the
corporeal impossibilities of what you have just said."

"It would account for the fact that the body-snatcher had easy access
into the building.  Maria worked here for a period of time.  She would
know her way through these halls like the back of her hand.  She could
easily phone you from down the hall, take the body, and make off with
it before you even realized that it was gone."

Scully scoffed loudly.

"It would also explain how a sample taken from Washington, D.C. would
match exactly with a sample taken from Maria's home in Philadelphia."

Scully suddenly remembered the reports of the arson incidents at
Chimera.  She had initially believed that Lauren was responsible, that
she was attempting to do away with the bodies that she had created out
of some feelings of guilt or a desire to do right.  "What if it's
true?" she thought, eyeing the woman before her uneasily.  What if
Sykes was right and the Yellow-Haired Man was Lauren?  Mulder had
believed that the Yellow-Haired Man had morphed into the Black-Haired
Man at Quantico.  What if Lauren was also another product of this
morphing capability, a sort of multiple personalities present in one
physical body?

She shrugged herself away from her reverie.  "What are you thinking,
Dana?" she thought, "You know that this is an absurd notion."

"Thank you for your input," she said to Sykes, "and for your speedy
examination of the hair samples, but now I need to go find my partner
before the Morphing Ms. Maria destroys him before I can reach him." 
She turned on her heels and departed before Sykes could convince her
of the truth in her words.

Dana Scully Residence
8:49 P.M.

Fox Mulder awoke groggily from his forcibly-imposed unconsciousness. 
The first thing he became aware of after coming-to was not the odd
position in which he was situated, but instead the painfully present
throbbing that traveled from the back of his head all the way to the
top of his eyebrows.  He cringed in absolute pain as he attempted to
open his eyes and adjust them to the darkness of the room.  He opened
them slowly, seeing, at first, only the floor through his half-closed
eyelids.  He shut them quickly after a sudden flash of burning ache
shot across his forehead.  After a minute, he had the presence of mind
to have another go at it.  His eyelids fluttered once, and again, as
the black and gray objects in front of him began to take form – a
comfortable, lightly-colored couch, an elegant-looking lamp, a
familiar kitchen.  It hit him like a bolt of lightning:  he was in
Scully's home.

"Scully," he said aloud with apprehension in his voice.  He wondered
where she was, if Lauren had gotten to her yet.  He looked left and
right, all about for her, but she was not there.  In his mind's eye,
though, he could see her as clearly as if she were standing right in
front of him.  Experiencing a momentary stream-of-consciousness, he
saw her seated on the bed next to him.  He was bearing his soul, and
she reached out to him, like he always knew she would, placing her
tiny, soft, milky hand over his.  He had been surprised then by the
strength that seemed to emanate from her, but now he knew the power of
which she was capable.

Thinking of her face now seemed to give him strength and in a moment
of extreme clarity, he saw fully for the first time the danger to
which he was exposed.  As he lifted his head from the floor, he became
aware that his previous leaning condition was due to the fact that his
hands were tied to some sort of wooden shelf against the wall.  His
arms were spread wide and his feet were tied together.  The rope which
bound them hung tightly about his ankles and was fastened to the wall
with a single nail.  His body shook violently as he tried to free
himself from his constraints.

"Stop your struggling," a male voice called from the other side of the
room, "It won't do you any good."   Mulder attempted to fix his eyes
on the figure as he approached, closer and closer, step by step.  He
squinted as the figure stepped into the sliver of moonlight that was
projecting from the eastern window.  It was the Black-Haired Man from
the surveillance photos.

"I guess now wouldn't be the best time to read you your Miranda
rights, would it?" Mulder quipped.

"The Day of Reckoning is at hand, Agent Mulder," the Black-Haired Man
told him, "You have been judged."

"Okay," Mulder said, "I admit it.  I was the one who tore the tags off
of those pillows, but I had every intention of putting them back."

"You have been judged," the Black-Haired Man said again, "and you have
been found guilty."

"Well then, would you mind telling me what crime I committed?" he
asked.

"Murder, Agent Mulder," the man answered stoically, "murder."

"That's horseshit," Mulder replied angrily, "I didn't kill anyone." 
He glanced at the binding about his arms and feet and then glanced
into the face of the Black-Haired Man.  "Well, not yet anyway," he
said.

"You have been found responsible for the murders of many men, Agent
Mulder.  The one you called 'Deep Throat.'  It was your hand that
brought about the premature death of one that would have been able to
stop it all before it starts."

Mulder felt as though he had been punched in the stomach.  He looked
once more at the floor.  The death of the informant –rather, the man–
who had come to play such a fatherly role in his life had always
played heavily upon his conscience.  It was his youthful impetuosity
that got him captured in the first place, which resulted in the
ultimate of sacrifices:  Deep Throat's life for his.

"Before what starts?" he asked angrily, "Why are you doing this?" 
When he looked back up, he was staring into the face of the
Yellow-Haired Man.

"There were others, were there not?" he asked Mulder, more of a
statement than a question.

"You know, this whole 'This Is Your Life' scenario is all nice and
good fun, but why don't you shut the hell up and answer some of my
questions for a change?"  Venom filled every word.

The Yellow-Haired Man continued, "Your tireless quest to find 'The
Truth' got your partner's sister killed, did it not?  Not to mention
the fates of your father and the infamous 'Mr. X', too."

"Why don't you untie these ropes and I'll add another to the list."

"And then there's the matter of your sister," he said, "You were
unable to save her when you were a child for the pure fear of facing
the same harm.  And then as an adult, you could not find her in time,
to save her from the tests, and ultimately from her mercy-killing. 
That death, too, is on your hands, Agent Mulder."

Mulder watched as the Yellow-Haired Man changed shape into the woman
he thought he knew so well so long ago.  "I'm sorry, Fox," she said,
"but you have been found guilty.  There's nothing that anyone can do
about it now, not even me."

"Lauren," he said, his voice full of emotion, "You can't do this.  I
know you won't let them hurt me.  It's not in you."  His face
contorted, his inner pain reflected by his outer features.

"I can't stop them, Fox," she said, sounding truly sorrowful, "He has
decided.  I must follow through with His orders."

"Whose orders?" he demanded.

"The Father's," she answered, "the one you know as the man with the
black hair.  He is the Creator, and the ultimate judge to whom we all
must answer.  It was through my spirit that He was able to fashion the
Twelve.  It was His inspiration in my lowly hands."

"What kind of Creator would desire to destroy the product of His
work?" Mulder questioned.

"When mankind desires to place himself above the Father, He must
strike them down, lest they destroy His vision for the world."

"So that is the point of all this, then?" Mulder asked her, "A modern
day Sodom and Gamorrah?  He will destroy them before they destroy His
vision?  Where is the free will in choosing man's destiny for him?"

"Some must be sacrificed to save the fate of the whole," she answered,
"The Twelve were initially meant to be the Noah of the New Order. 
They would survive the coming flood and live to usher in a new world
of peace and prosperity.  Humanity would not just live on, but thrive.
 Yet, the Father, in His infinite wisdom, decreed that man must not be
tampered with, that he must live as he is.  If he survives the
onslaught, he was meant to live on.  If not, then he shall languish
forever in eternal life.  Therefore, the Twelve had to be destroyed
and the Son, who carries out the desires of the Father, removed the
mistakes that my science created."

"So then, as the Holy Spirit, it was your job to carry out the
creation that the father was unable of performing himself?"

Lauren nodded her head in agreement.

Mulder arched his eyebrows and smirked thinly through his despair. 
"Do you honestly believe all that theological bullshit you just
espoused?" he asked.

"That was always your problem, Fox," she said, returning the same sad
smile, "You never could believe in anything greater than the
extraterrestrial.  How do you think our life began?  With the Big
Bang?  There are some things for which science cannot mandate."  Her
smile turned into a frown as she informed him, "Your lack of faith is
your undoing."  She leaned in towards him and kissed him gently on the
cheek.

"Would you betray me with a kiss, Judas?" he asked, her lips still
fresh on his face.

Her face backed away from his, inch by inch.  Her dark eyes penetrated
his.  It was as though she was attempting to catch a final glimpse of
his soul before he departed from the Earth.  "Don't be afraid, Fox,"
she said finally, "Your death will usher in the Second Coming.  The
Kingdom of God will reign free on Earth.  Your sacrifice will never be
forgotten."

9:02 P.M.

Scully watched as the brown doors opened, revealing a single passenger
in an overtly neat pinstripe suit and carrying a leather brief case. 
She walked in, turned around, and pushed the button for the
appropriate floor.  She stepped away from the doors and settled
herself in the left corner of the elevator, grossly aware of the
unabashed eyes that followed her from her hair to her legs, and back
up again.

As the doors opened, she instructed him rather abruptly to "Take a
picture."  The doors closed again on the man with the pinstripes,
whose frown, which betrayed the guilt of a caught man, was evident
even though his gaze was fixed to the floor.

Scully grabbed the ring in her pocket and fumbled for her apartment
key as she advanced through the dimly-lit hallway.  She thumbed
sorrowfully past the one that read "Mulder" with marker on taped-on
white paper.  Her tired eyes contained a sadness reserved for those
occasions when their separation generated the consequential period of
anxiety until their inevitable reunion.  She speculated if this time
it would be different.  The possibilities had played in her mind all
day - while she was in Skinner's office, while she listened to Dr.
Sykes, and on the road home when the radio deejay served as her only
companion.  She wondered if he was safe, if he was still alive.  "He
has to be," she thought, "I can feel his presence.  He feels so near
to me.  He can't be dead, not before I get to tell him how I really
feel."

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the
small scratches on the door lock, evidence of forced entry.  She
applied the key to her lock, the force of which was great enough to
open the door seemingly of its own will, as if she were being beckoned
into a childhood haunted house.  Sensing the danger beyond the
doorway, Scully moved her coat deftly with one hand and grabbed for
the gun at her hip.  She pointed it skyward with the right hand as she
slowly opened the door the rest of the way with her left.  She placed
her left hand on the gun, straightened it in front of her, and
proceeded into her home.

She walked straight into her living room, caution guiding her every
movement.  Seeing no one, she turned to the left towards the hall to
her bedroom and advanced.  Through the moonlight pervading in from the
window, Scully noticed the dark figure of someone spread-eagle against
the wall.

"Federal Agent," she yelled, "stay where you are."  She walked closer
and closer, and the shape began to take form.  The first thing she
noticed was the height, followed by the broad shoulders, and lanky
form.  Next, his dark hair, and the familiar outline of his
silhouette.  It was him.

"Mulder," she cried, placing the gun back in its holster and rushing
hurriedly to his side, "You're alive!"  She noticed for the first time
the gag in his mouth, and proceeded to remove it.  As she worked with
the bonds in the back of the gag, she saw a look of fear roll over his
beautiful eyes.  Grabbing once more for her gun, she turned just in
time to see a man with blonde hair come upon her with a look of rage
in his eyes and a large object raised above his head.  The object came
down quickly, glimmering in the light of the moon.  She barely felt
the intense pain on the base of her head before she crumpled into a
massive heap on the floor.  The last thing she saw before the darkness
took her was the face of Mulder, ever present in her mind and in her
heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
"Scully, are you okay?  Can you hear me?  Dana, it's me, please wake
up."  The sound of his voice stirred her into consciousness.

"Ow," she whined in response, followed by a series of lethargic moans.
 She  instinctively grabbed for the shooting pain in her head, but her
arms would not move in response to her voluntary commands.  She lifted
her head slowly and gazed towards her arms.  They were spread about as
if she were about to embrace someone, tied to the wall in the same
manner as Mulder's.  She turned to the right and looked at Mulder. 
The concern on his face had given way to a broad smile as an
oddly-placed chuckle rolled off of his body.

"Mulder, what the hell is so funny?" she asked him angrily.

"I'm sorry," he said between bursts of laughter, "but I'm just so
relieved."  The chuckling quieted down as his voice became serious. 
"You were out a long time, you know.  You had me worried there for
awhile."

"My head feels like shit," she said, "It's like someone's playing
tug-of-war with my brain and center of the rope is beginning to fray."

Mulder's face squinched up in disgust.  "Thanks for the graphic
imagery," he replied.

She shot him an angry warning look as he continued, "What were you
thinking running at me like that, anyway?"

"I was rescuing you," she answered truthfully.

"Good work," he replied.

She ignored the comment.  "Mulder, we have to get out of here," she
said, looking about her once safe home to see if her abuser was still
present.

"If you have any ideas, Scully, I'm more than willing to hear them
out."

Scully bit her lip.  She didn't say a word.  What could they possibly
do?

"Well, maybe if you use that nail to saw through your ropes, you can
free your hand and rip that shelf above you off the wall and use it to
knock the phone from my jacket to call someone and get help."  She
looked at him hopefully.

Mulder returned her gaze with one of dubious cynicism.  "Who do I look
like," he asked, "MacGyver?  Maybe for my next trick I can create a
makeshift gun out of paperclips."

If she were able to cross her arms, she would have done so.  "You
know," she said, "that's not helping.  Why don't you try coming up
with an idea to get us out of this mess?"

"You're the brains of the operation, Scully," he replied, "I'm just
the beauty."

"Neither of you are going anywhere," a deep, throaty baritone
interrupted the nervous repertoire, "Your services are still
required."

"What services?" Scully asked the man with the blonde hair angrily,
"By whose authority do you keep us here?"

Mulder nodded his head towards the ceiling.  "The Head Authority,
Scully," he informed her.

"What are you talking about, Mulder?" she questioned.  She was
honestly confused, having missed out on Lauren's briefing about the
Trinity's upcoming plans.

Scully's mouth widened in terror and surprise as the man's hair
changed from blonde to jet-black.  "I am the Father," the Black-Haired
Man said, "I have found Fox Mulder guilty of murder, and you shall
share his fate as punishment for working in collusion with him."

"Found guilty of murdering whom?" Scully asked, as the man's hair
changed once more to blonde.

"I am the Son," the Yellow-Haired Man introduced himself, "I have come
to hasten the coming of the Second Kingdom by cleansing the Earth of
those that would attempt to fight the future."

"What does that have to do with Mulder being accused of murder?"
Scully asked.

The blonde hair grew longer and changed to black again as Lauren's
face appeared before her own.  "You and Mulder have not only
contributed to the murders of Deep Throat, Melissa Scully, Mr. X,
William Mulder, and Samantha Mulder, but your defiance in the face of
the plans of the Father will generate the murder of free will if you
continue on your current path."

Scully's eyes hardened into two impenetrable sapphires as she
practically spit out the words, "And how, exactly, are we capable of
committing such an act?"

"The future is not predestined, Agent Scully," Lauren told her, "We
cannot hope to know how we will act when the future becomes present. 
If you expose the Truth you so desperately seek to know, you will
bring about hopelessness and despair upon the Earth.  When They come
for colonization, there will be no resistance.  Unless man discovers
the Truth for himself, and desires to fight to maintain his right to
exist, he will roll over and die.  That is why you cannot expose the
Truth.  That is why you must pay for your sins, past, present, and
future."

Scully glared at the woman that she had distrusted from the beginning.
 "That is positively the most ridiculous, convoluted assessment of
religion to which I have had the extreme displeasure of being privy,"
she fumed, "If there is no predestination, as you claim, then how can
you possibly know for certain how man will react if the Truth is laid
at his feet?  As one who espouses the belief that God created us all
to choose our own path in life, I am offended by the fact that you
think that we could generate mass despair if people knew the Truth, or
that you are willing to destroy the path we have carved for ourselves
in order to prevent what you fear the most.  How can you blame us for
defending our right to live as one of God's creations?"

"The Bible warns of false prophets, Agent Scully," Lauren replied
curtly, "Your entire existence at the Bureau has been manufactured, a
carefully thought out plan to perpetuate the lies that They want the
public to believe.  After all you've experienced over the years, after
the complete absence of proof that has been your fondest, yet most
elusive of goals, I should think that by now you'd begin to at least
question whether what you think you know is the most complete and
inalienable of Truths.  What good would it be to expose what you've
discovered if it turns out to be nothing but lies?"

"I came into the X-Files believing that all unexplained phenomena had
some discernible cause, that everything could be explained by simply
unearthing the scientific reasoning behind the matter.  When my
religion faltered, my science kept me grounded.  I relied on it, and
my hope for a better life in the next world to dictate what I thought
was right and true.  Now I know the real truth – man cannot live
without faith, the faith that Mulder has in his desperate quest for
what lies behind the unexplained.  I have faith in him and his
beliefs, and others will, too."

The Spirit transformed once more into the Son.  His yellow hair shone
wildly in the moonlight and a hollow deadness collapsed over his
crazed eyes.  "There will be no others," he said softly, slowly
drawing out each and every word, "You will never again see the light
of day.  You shall pay for the sins committed in the eyes of the
Father with the most supreme of sacrifices.  'A life for a life! 
Anyone who inflicts an injury on his neighbor shall receive the same
in return.  Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth'."

The Yellow-Haired Man picked up a silver, cylinder-shaped object from
a nearby table.  Pushing a button on the side, a deathly "swoosh"
filled the silent room as a thin, sharp blade appeared from the
center.  His eyes gleamed in the darkness as he advanced towards the
two partners, "Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.  Limb for
limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth…"

Scully's cerulean eyes widened in fear. He came closer and closer, his
footsteps thumping softly on the off-white carpet. He carried the
weapon in his right hand, which was raised with a menacing intent. He
advanced towards Scully, the glistening point shone deadly in the
moonlight.

"Take me," Mulder yelled unexpectedly, "I'm the one you want, I'm the
murderer, take me!"

"Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." 

"Take me, you fucking bastard! She has nothing to do with this! I'm
the reason that she got mixed up in all of this, take me!"

"Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." 

"Answer me you sadistic piece of half-bred alien shit!" 

The Yellow-Haired Man turned towards Mulder. "You shall both die," he
said, smiling coldly, "But I'll grant your request. You shall be the
first to be reunited with the Father."

Scully's blood turned cold. "Please, don't," she cried, "don't do it,
I can't lose him!"

The Yellow-Haired Man placed his left hand on the weapon, interlocking
it over his right. He raised the weapon above his head.

"By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you
return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and
to dirt you shall return..."

Scully screamed as he lunged at Mulder. 

"No, Mulder!"  

Scully watched helplessly as the weapon began its descent.  Mulder
closed his eyes tightly as he prepared to make his peace with the
world.  It was as though time had stopped short altogether.  He
cherished his final seconds with Scully, but wished desperately for
the end, so that his reunion with her in the next life might be
hastened.

It was strange feeling.  He felt no pain, and the seconds ticked away
slowly, slowly, as if each minute was drawn out into the span of a
century.

And then it came.  He felt the sharp, searing pain, but it was somehow
different than what he had imagined.  He let out a cry of anguish, and
he felt his eyes roll back into his head.  What was it that was so
strange?  It was not registering.  All that he felt was the pain
running through his head, down to his chest, and through his arm.  He
could not concentrate, to think clearly enough to reason out the
problem.

He gazed up through his half-closed eyelids, expecting to see the
Yellow-Haired Man glowering over him with the contented expression of
a fresh kill gleaming in his eyes.  The shapes fuzzed over, became
clear, and became fuzzy once again.  He narrowed his lids and focused
his eyes through the throbbing in his arm.  It was the Son's crazed
visage into which he was staring, but there was something different. 
He couldn't figure it out.  What was different?  He concentrated
again.  This time he understood.  It was the eyes.  It wasn't the
crazed, blue eyes of a madman into which he was looking, but the soft,
warm, chocolate eyes of the woman he once loved.

The Yellow-Haired Man's face was distorted in anguish and confusion. 
"What are you doing?" he asked aloud, "You're going to ruin
everything!"

His face changed over into that of Lauren's.  "I won't let you," she
said, "I can't let you do this.  I love him, I won't let you hurt
him."  Her left hand grasped her right wrist fervently, pulling the
weapon back from Mulder as much as possible.

Mulder was once again staring into the face of the Yellow-Haired Man. 
"You can't stop me," the Son said, pushing with all his might against
the inner force holding him back, "We won't be defeated."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder noticed Scully struggling with
her binds.  She glanced at him.

"Are you okay, Mulder?" she asked, wondering how much longer the
mental battle within the Trinity would rage.

He looked at the source of his pain.  His arm was bleeding profusely,
but he had no other injuries.  He nodded his head in assent.

"She stopped him," Scully explained to the best of her ability, still
tugging at the ropes, "He tried to get your neck, but then he pulled
back at the last moment and struck your arm."

"We can play catch-up later, Scully," he told her, gesturing towards
the binding, "For now, how's it going with those ropes?"

"I think I can…yes…if I can just…"  She wriggled beneath the knot as
the Yellow-Haired Man approached her.

"No you don't," he said, "You're not getting away that easily."  But
once again, some internal force pulled him back against his will.

Mulder shot her an anxious look.  "Clock's ticking," he informed her.

"Thanks," she answered wryly as the ropes on her left hand
simultaneously frayed and gave way.  "There!" she said exuberantly. 
She glanced over at him.  "Couldn't have done it without you," she
told him, reaching to untie the ropes on her right.

"How'd you do it, Scully?" he asked amazed as she continued to work
away.

"Oh, I just sawed through the ropes with the rusty nail that was
holding them," she answered, "Remember, my plan from before that you
thought was destined to fail?"

Her right hand was now free and she bent down to work at the ropes on
her feet.

"You can gloat later," he said, "Just get me the hell out of these
things."  He shook his hands violently through the ropes.

She pulled her legs free from the constraints and gave a quick look in
Lauren's direction.  She and the Yellow-Haired Man were still battling
it out.  She debated whether she should attempt to disarm Lauren or
free Mulder first.  She ultimately decided upon Mulder.

She ran towards him, keeping a careful eye on their assailant.  As she
worked on his ropes, she informed him, "They took my gun."

"It won't do any good anyway," he replied, "I tried shooting them
already.  Nothing doing.  The only thing that will stop them is a jab
to the back of the neck.  Somehow, we've got to get that weapon out of
her hands."

"That won't be necessary," a throaty voice answered.  Mulder, still
tied up, looked towards the direction from which the voice had come. 
Lauren was gazing back at him, a sad look in her eye.  "It's okay,
Fox," she told him, "I'm in full control, now."  It was true.  The
struggling had ceased and it appeared that all traces of the
Yellow-Haired Man were gone.

"I'm sorry, Fox," she told him before he could get a word in edgewise, "I'm so sorry. I 
never should have agreed to a pawn in their game of human preservation. I never should 
have allowed Him to kill the Twelve, or to try and kill you." She walked towards him. 

Scully glanced quickly around the room. She picked up the vase that had been a gift from 
her sister on the day she moved to D.C.. Melissa had said that it had some sort of holistic 
value, that the earthenware had been obtained from a center of peacefulness under the 
astronomical sign of her birth. It was to bring her the serenity and security of her home. 
"Stay where you are," Scully warned her, "or I will be forced to take aggressive action." 

Lauren continued walking towards her. "I did try to stop it, Fox," she told him, "Before I 
met you, and you changed my life, I realized that I was the only one who could stop them 
from taking over, so I tried to destroy the creations of my own making by burning them 
and all the technology that birthed them to the ground. But they survived the ashes, 
survived to carry out their mission: to produce offspring capable of living through the 
onslaught. But he knew I was responsible, so I had to leave Washington, to become 
another person with another profession, to become anonymous in order to survive." 

"Stop right there, or I swear to God that I'll kill you." 

Mulder, still tied to the wall, gazed into Lauren's eyes, searching for the soul of the 
person that he once knew. "Who found out about you, Lauren? Who was the one behind 
this madness that spawned you?" 

She smiled fondly. "The Chimney-Man," she said, "the man who raised me after I was 
created. He may not be my father genetically, but he loved me like no other." 

"Dick van Dyke was your father?" Scully asked sardonically. 

Lauren glared at her. "Of course not," she seethed, "The Chimney-Man was my pet name 
for him because he smoked so much." 

Scully's mouth dropped in surprise as she looked at Mulder. He nodded in acceptance. 
Nothing surprised him anymore. 

"You can put that down," Lauren said, turning her attention to Scully, "I'm not going to 
hurt Fox. And even if I did, a little vase wouldn't stop me." 

"If you want me to trust you, why don't you tell me where my gun is?" 

"It's on the kitchen table." 

"You're coming with me," Scully commanded, "Walk in front of me." 

Lauren complied, although she saw no reason to go about obtaining a weapon that was 
entirely useless against her. Lauren took her position in front of Scully and walked slowly 
into the next room. There was a look of extreme displeasure on her face. As the passed 
through the doorway, Scully could see her firearm lying on the table, right where Lauren 
said it would be. 

"Sit down, on your hands," Scully told her, and Lauren did as she so politely asked. 
Scully placed the vase on the table, grabbed quickly for the gun, and kept it raised at 
Lauren's head. She slipped off the safety and patted her down with the other hand. She 
felt a hard object in her pocket and picking it up, she discovered the cold, metallic stiletto 
weapon with which Lauren had threatened Mulder. Pushing the button on the side, Scully 
discovered that the point was still wet with blood. "I don't care what Mulder thinks about 
her," she decided, "She's still a murderer." Scully gestured with her head towards the 
doorway. "You first," she said. 

Lauren walked out of the kitchen, followed by a menacing-looking Scully with a gun in 
one hand and the stiletto in the other. "Put your hands in the air," Scully said, "Slowly." 

As Lauren lifted her hands, her black hair shortened and her pretty, thin features became 
thick and strong. The Black-Haired Man turned around quickly, arms flailing out towards 
Scully. 

From the other room, Mulder gasped as he heard three rounds fired and the ensuing 
sounds of a scuffle. He heard someone drop to the floor, sounding like a pile of bricks 
against the muffling softness of the carpet. 

"Scully!" he cried, "Scully, are you okay?" 

He watched in dismay as the Black-Haired Man emerged from the other room. "Your 
partner is dead," he said, his voice hissing like a venomous snake, "And you will soon 
join her." 

"You bastard!" he spit the words out like a bad taste in his mouth, "What the hell did you 
do to her?" 

"I only did what was needed to be done," the Black-Haired Man replied, "It is written 
that one shall die at His left, one shall die at His right, and He will pass with them. After 
the third day, He will rise again, bringing redemption to the world and the ascension of 
all souls on the Second Coming." 

"What the fuck does that have to do with us?" Mulder asked 

"This is Golgotha, Agent Mulder." 

"The place of the skulls?" Mulder said, "Isn't that a little facetious for the Son of Man?" 

The Black-Haired Man advanced towards him. He was now directly in front of Mulder, 
face-to-face with the enemy. "You know, she asked to sit on my side in Heaven before I 
took her," he said, only inches away. 

He thought of Scully, how if there was a God then there was nobody more worthy than 
she to be seated at His right hand. "Yeah?" Mulder replied, "Well you can see me in 
Hell." With those words, he summoned up all his disdain and spit on his forehead. 

The Black-Haired Man wiped the spit of his brow, planted his feet, and punched Mulder 
squarely in the jaw. The force sent his head careening against the wall. After carefully 
moving his jaw about to see if it was broken, Mulder glanced back up at the Father. He 
stared at him, eyes hardened and challenging. After a minute, he positioned his head to 
the other side. 

"What are you doing?" the Black-Haired Man asked. 

"I'm turning the other cheek," he said, "Isn't that what your Son instructed?" 

"Yes," he said, pulling the stiletto from his pocket, "but He was just following my orders, 
and one must always honor his father and his mother." 

Mulder watched the weapon rise high above him and for the second time that night he 
prepared to meet his end. But this time, he faced the future with open eyes. He was not 
afraid to go. If his life was over, then at the very least it would be ended in fulfillment of 
his mission – to find out the truth behind the disappearance of Samantha. So many had 
died so that he could find the answer to those questions he sought. Both of his parents 
were gone, so was Samantha. And now Scully. She wasn't part of his immediate family. 
She held no genetic ties to him, no blood relations. But none of that mattered, because 
their relationship transcended familial bonds. She was his stability, his security, his 
humanity, and now that she was gone… 

"You can kill me now and it won't matter," Mulder told him, a peacefulness coming 
upon him that he hadn't felt for seven long years, "Too many others know the truth, even 
if it is only bits and pieces. You've been too messy, made too many mistakes. They will 
figure it out. It's only a matter of time." 

"There's nothing to figure out, Agent Mulder. Your demise will ensure the events of the 
future. Colonization will come and there will be no one alive that shall tamper with fate. 
If survival comes, it will not be at the price of the degeneration of the human species." 

"Only the people who are in a position to tamper with fate desire that," Mulder said, "you 
know, like the Smoking Man that created you? Regular humans like me and…well…like 
me don't want to become like you. But they should be allowed to have the information 
that you have, to prepare for the future by taking means alternative to those imposed by 
the people behind Chimera." 

"I do not wish it." 

"So what," Mulder responded, feeling the anger rise once more within him, "you just let 
them all die, like you let Scully die? To what ends? To preserve humanity, even if it 
means Armageddon?" 

"You are a chosen people, Agent Mulder, we must keep you pure." 

"At any cost?" 

"At any cost," he stated definitively as the stiletto came down, aimed to pierce Mulder's 
heart. 

Without warning, the Black-Haired Man's knees buckled beneath him. Mulder watched 
with a mixture of awe and relief as the Father fell to the floor next to a bedraggled-
looking Scully. Her white blouse was soaked with blood, a victim of multiple stabbings, 
evidenced by three distinct red, circular wounds. Her hair was tousled, her skirt ripped, 
and burgeoning bruises on her face indicated physical assault. 

"Scully!" he cried out to her, unable to describe his elation in any other words at seeing 
her alive. She had managed to crawl her way into the room undetected, being completely 
incapable of standing on her feet due to her injuries. With a quick blow to the back of the 
knees, she was able to knock her assailant to the floor. Unfortunately, she knew the 
advantage her surprise attack had given her would not hold out long against her strong 
opponent. 

"Scully!" he called out to her again, this time in fear that the Father would dispense of her 
right before his eyes. "Get the weapon, Scully," he encouraged her, "Get the weapon. The 
back of his neck!" 

Feeling the sudden burst of adrenaline cascading through her veins, she wrestled 
furiously with him for the sharp stiletto. She could not let him win, risk letting him take 
Mulder away from her again. She grasped his clenched hands in hers, pulling at the 
weapon. The two rolled over each other, banging into the coffee table and sending the 
porcelain lamp careening to the floor. He was on top of her now. He turned the stiletto 
towards her and prepared to make his final cut. 

"This time you're going to die for real," he seethed, as the stiletto inched closer and 
closer. She threw her hands in front of her as the weapon descended. Creating a shield for 
her body, she pushed his hands away with hers, but his strength was too much on her 
weakened state. He saw the fear in her eyes as he pressed closer and closer towards her 
neck. Holding his hands with her left hand, she reached out with her right and felt for the 
broken lamp shards on her carpet. Finding one, she grasped it tightly and struck it sharp 
edge across the face of the Father. He dropped the stiletto on the floor as his hands 
reached up to cup the newly-formed scratch in agony. Scully watched horrified as he 
removed his hands and a green liquid oozed to the floor. 

"Scully, his neck!" Mulder screamed. 

"Uhh," she moaned as the unbearable burning sensation began to collect in her eyes, like 
the burning juice of an onion that will never wash away. Summoning her last bit of living 
energy, she grabbed the stiletto and got to her knees. Inching her way behind him, she 
held her left hand over her eyes and jabbed with the right, praying to God that the blow 
would strike true. 

She glanced up at her partner. "Mulder," she breathed with her final breath as she 
collapsed on her side, her blood staining the pristine carpet. 

He looked at the stiletto that was still hanging out of the base of the neck of the Father. 
He watched as the Black-Haired Man was transformed into the face of Lauren. Her face 
was contorted in pain as she whispered, "Fox," as though she was frightened of what her 
future portended. She fell forward and her body instantly began its disintegration into a 
green goo. He turned his attention back to his savior. 

"Scully!" he cried, "Scully, wake up!" 

Somewhere, deep in her subconscious, she thought she heard him call her name, 
beckoning her back. She felt completely at peace, though she wondered from where he 
was calling her. She let the light envelope her as all thoughts went blank. 

St. Catherine's Hospital 
Three Days Later 
4:32 P.M. 

The light which seemed to emanate from every direction was gradually becoming more 
and more concentrated into one distinct object. It appeared that the light was sucked into 
the center of the great white place as Scully's eyes began to focus more intently on the 
area around her. She began to make out the rough edges of a wall…no…it was a ceiling, 
and the light was pouring out of a rectangular fixture situated in the center. She closed 
her eyes and opened them up halfway. They still burned and she was aware of an 
immense throbbing in her forehead. She blinked them a couple of times, clenched her 
teeth, and opened them wide in an effort to determine her surroundings. It was useless. 
She couldn't make out anything beyond the light. 

"It's okay, Dana," she heard her mother's voice at her side, "it's okay. You're in the 
hospital. You're just fine now, close your eyes." 

Scully did as her mother commanded, following her orders as though she was still five 
years old. She gradually became aware of the fact that she was lying on an uncomfortable 
hospital bed, wearing only a flimsy sheet of what passed for patient garb. 

"Mom?" she asked, "what happened?" 

She felt her mother's soothing hand brush her hair against her head, starting at her aching 
forehead and working towards the back. "You were found at your apartment," she told 
her carefully, "you and Fox both." 

"Mulder!" she cried, remembering in a flash the events of that terrible night. She 
remembered the Black-Haired Man beating her to the floor and stabbing her with the 
stiletto. She remembered touching her wounds with the tips of her fingers and seeing the 
large amounts of fresh, red blood that gushed from her body. She remembered passing 
out into unconsciousness as he bent down to see if she was dead. She remembered 
waking up to the sound of Mulder's soothing voice, of forcing herself to make her way 
into her living room in order to save his life as her own strength waned with every 
passing minute. She tried to sit up but her mother held her back. 

"No, Dana," Maggie said sternly, "lay back down. Fox is fine. They found him tied up, 
calling for help, after the sound of gunshots alerted your neighbors to an intruder." Scully 
couldn't see her mother's grim expression. "Thank God you're okay, Dana," she blurted 
out, "You're my only daughter left." She felt her mother's hands drift down to her 
shoulders as her grip suddenly got much tighter, erupting into a healthy embrace. 

"I know, Mom," she said, returning the hug, "I know." 

After about a minute, Scully heard the sounds of two light raps at the door, followed by 
the sound of its squeaky hinges as it was opened. "Hello," she heard a familiar voice say, 
"Would you like me to come back at another time?" 

She felt her mother pull away. "Hello, Fox," she heard her say, "No, that won't be 
necessary." Maggie kissed her daughter lightly on the cheek and whispered, "I love you" 
in her ear. 

"I love you, too, Mom," Scully responded as Maggie stood up from the seat where she 
had spent three fretful nights watching diligently over her surviving daughter. She walked 
towards Mulder and clasped his large hand in her tiny palms. "I'll give you some time 
alone with her," she told him, a thin smile pervading her worried expression. 

"Thank you," he answered as she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. 
He walked slowly towards her bed and sat down at her side. 

Her hand lay at her side on the poorly-padded bed. He reached over and grabbed it, 
holding her palm in his as though he was afraid to let her go. Their fingers intertwined 
and he lightly stroked her hand with his. She turned her head to face him though she 
couldn't see past the stinging. 

"How are you feeling?" he asked her through an intensely affectionate smile. A mixture 
of concern and elation showed at the corners of his eyes. 

"Like I was run over by a giant flukeman," she responded, returning a weak smile. 
He chuckled warmly. "Well you look amazing," he told her, brushing back her hair 
behind her ear. 

"Yeah. And Melvin and I have been having a passionate affair." 

"Please, Scully," he said with tenderness in his voice, "I just ate." He bent over her and 
looked at her longingly. Brushing a wisp of hair away from her face, he permitted an 
awkward silence to pass slowly by as he tried to determine his next course of action. 
Caressing her cheek, he confided in her, "I thought I had lost you." 

"Mulder..." she began, but he interrupted her. 

"Shh," he whispered, putting a finger to her lips, "It's okay. I know you're afraid of 
ruining our relationship, of pushing our friendship beyond what is F.B.I. procedure, but 
I've got to tell you, I was never a stickler for protocol." She smiled broadly as his face 
became serious. "Since our first case together I knew that I could give you my complete 
trust, that I could bear my soul to you. That's something I've never been able to do 
before. Since that time, I have developed a level of intimacy with you that I have never 
achieved with anyone else. You've shown me a side of myself that I never knew existed." 

"You always knew it existed, Mulder," she told him, "You just never let anyone see it." 
His voice became strong, almost insistent. "Scully, when he told me you were dead, I 
didn't care about living anymore. What is life but sharing experiences with someone you 
care deeply about? If I couldn't share my life with you, then I didn't want to live. And 
then when I saw you alive, only to watch you die for real in so much pain, trying to save 
my life…Well, I realized how much I've taken your presence in my life for granted." 

"Mulder," she said, her eyes watering, "it was you who gave my life meaning. You've 
taught me a drive for living that I never would have found within myself." She wanted to 
be able to look at him, to see his face. She reached up and felt the small stubble about his 
cheek. "You taught a passion for life that I would have never known." 

Mulder leaned in closer. She felt his soft lips against his, tender and passionate. She took 
him in greedily, seven years of pent-up flirtations erupting in one hot-blooded moment of 
sexual ecstasy. Her lips were warm and moistened by the time he finally pulled back. 

They both breathed heavily, attempting to recover the air lost from their lungs as desire 
overruled involuntary biological action. She felt his hot breath against her cheek. Once 
again, she felt the urgent desire to see him, to gauge the truth of his words in his eyes. 
She braced herself and opened them wide. She saw his smile, his strong, handsome 
features, and his eyes, his beautiful eyes filled with…love. She bit her lip as a single tear 
rolled down her face. Putting his palm against her hot cheek, he wiped it away with his 
thumb. 

"What's wrong?" he asked. 

"It hurts so much," she mumbled as he reached in and pressed his lips against hers. 

Fox Mulder Residence 
April 23, 2000 
2:25 A.M. 

Mulder held Scully in her arms. He grinned boyishly with a familiar paradoxical look of 
machismo and tenderness. 

"I'm so glad you asked me to drop by," she told him, leaning in to invite a long kiss. 
"I always have time for you, Scully," he replied, accepting the invitation, "as long as we 
make it quick. I have a meeting in a half hour." 

"Oh, Mulder," she scolded, slapping him playfully across his shoulder. 
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in to him. "Just kidding, Scully, I know you 
like it nice and slow." 

She kissed him on the mouth and then ran her lips down his cheek to his neck as she 
unbuttoned his shirt. He grabbed her forcefully by the back of her head and threw his lips 
hungrily on hers. He reached to untuck her blouse from her skirt and lifted it over her 
head. He touched her body but instead of feeling soft skin, all he felt was something wet 
on his hands. He drew back from her and held them out in front of him. His palms were 
covered in blood. He looked up expecting to the excitement of the moment on her face 
but all he saw was the pain. He followed her gaze to her stomach. She stuck her fingers in 
one of the three wounds on her torso. She lifted it up for him to see. 

"Blood," she said, the confusion apparent on her face. Her eyes rolled back in her head 
and Mulder could tell she was about to faint. He caught her as her body fell backwards. 
"Scully!" he cried, "Scully, wake up!" He looked up from where he was squatting on the 
floor. Lauren's face stared back at him. She held the stiletto high above her head. 

"I did it for you, Fox," she said, "They all died for you." She brought the blood-soaked 
weapon down again. 

Mulder awoke with a jolt as he clutched the cushions on the sofa. "Scully!" he called out, 
but no one was there. His back was soaked with sweat and his favorite gray shirt clung to 
his body. He threw his legs over the side of the sofa and rested his elbows on his knees. 
He put his palms to his face and shook of the uneasiness that came part and parcel with 
the sleepiness. He was used to having nightmares but never like these. 

The ringing of the phone shook him gently from his reverie and he bent over to pull it off 
the hook. 

"Yeah." 

"Mulder," a voice asked uncertainly, "it's me. Did I wake you?" 

"No, I was up. I was having a little trouble sleeping." 

Scully bit her lip hesitantly. "Mulder," she asked, "would you mind coming over here? 
I'm having a bit of the same problem myself." 

"I'll be right over," he said. He put the phone back on the hook and grabbed his keys off 
the coffee table. He stood up and walked out of the apartment. 

Dana Scully Residence 
3:12 A.M. 

"Thank God you're here." Scully allowed herself to be swept up in a soothing embrace as 
she unlocked the door and found Mulder at the threshold. 

"Scully, what's wrong?" he asked, deep concern apparent in his voice. He threw one arm 
around her back and drew her close to him with the other, resting it lightly on the back of 
her head. She gazed up at him. She was shaking violently through her beige robe and her 
beautiful blue eyes were wide with terror. 

"Nightmares," she said simply, "terrible, terrible nightmares." 

With feet planted, he led her gently, swaying from side to side. The danced a quiet, 
intimate dance as he comforted her, "Shh, it's okay, I'm here." His mere presence - the 
smell of his cologne, the calm, gentleness of his touch - was enough to reassure her. 
She stepped back, folded her arms in front of her body, and cleared her throat, 
embarrassed by her actions. "Thank you," she said uncomfortably, "Please, come in." 
She extended her arm, directing him to be seated on the sofa. As he positioned himself, 
he noted the switching and sliding of various locks on the door, highlighting her achingly 
apparent uneasiness. She approached the couch and seated herself by his side. 

"Tell me about it," he commanded, spreading his arm across the top of the sofa and 
folding one leg over the other. 

"It was horrible," she confided, "I was here, in this room, talking to you on the phone. 
You were explaining to me about the massive outbreak of reported close encounters 
within the last couple of months. Then I saw a shadow on the floor and when I turned 
around to look, it was…it was her, Mulder." 

Mulder sighed deeply and looked down at the floor. 

"I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully stammered. 

"It's okay," he responded, looking into her eyes. He placed his hand over hers, "Go 
ahead." 

Scully squared her shoulders and took in a deep breath. "I saw it again, Mulder. I see it 
every time I close my eyes. All I can see is her, standing there in my apartment, holding 
that weapon dripping with blood. I can sense her anger towards me like a hot flame. Then 
I feel the weapon. Over and over I can feel it going into my body, quick and painful. I try 
to scream out to you for help but I drop the phone. It happens in slow motion. I see the 
phone falling down and down, farther and farther. I can hear you calling me but I can't 
answer. The last thing I see every night before I wake up is her, Mulder, and the last thing 
I hear is you." 

Scully gazed into his eyes. Piercing and blue, they penetrated every core of his being. It 
was a strange feeling, having someone know him so well. He felt desperately unsettled, 
but somehow uniquely comforted at the same time. He shifted uneasily as he began to 
open up. 

"I have the same dream, Scully. I can't escape it. I just keep replaying it over and over 
again in my head. At first I thought it was because I couldn't face the truth of Lauren's 
true nature, but then I began to discover the real reason why I have been so haunted. It's 
the thought of losing you." 

Scully blushed slightly and looked towards the floor. "Oh, Mulder," she responded 
sweetly. 

"I mean, just think about it, Scully," he grinned, "what would I do without someone there 
to constantly deliver one harangue after another regarding the scientific foundation for 
the composition of unexplained extraterrestrial entities? I might actually succeed in 
getting booted once and for all from the Bureau, and then who would Skinner have to 
take out all of his sexual frustration?" 

She smiled fondly, but his grin soon began to fade into a dismal frown. 

"Scully," he asked straight-faced, "do you think that I deserve to be punished?" 

"Mulder," she said, a shocked expression appearing on her face, "why would you say 
such a thing?" 

"Lauren told me that it was my fault, Scully, my fault that so many people have suffered, 
and I must admit that I have to agree. If it wasn't for my ceaseless quest for knowledge, 
my father might still be alive, and certainly my mother. Deep Throat would be attempting 
to deflate the Smoking Man's Syndicate, and X would be by his side." She heard sorrow 
in his voice and regret in his eyes as he continued. "Not to mention the pain I've inflicted 
on you, Scully. You getting stabbed is just the latest example. If it weren't for me, you 
never would have been abducted, you could still bear children, your sister would be alive, 
and you wouldn't have found yourself facing death…what…it must be about two-
hundred times by now." He shook his head in an outward sign of his self-denigration. 

"Maybe she was right, Scully. Maybe my victims should gain retribution for my sins. 
Maybe 'An Eye For An Eye, A Tooth For A Tooth' is just as good a code of conduct as 
any." 

Scully chuckled softly. "I never had you pegged for the obey-the-word-of-God-type, 
Mulder," she gently teased. 

"Scully, I'm serious," he responded. She could tell by the look on his face that he was. 

"You know, Mulder," she replied, "a wise man once said, 'An eye for an eye would make 
the whole world blind'." 

He nodded thoughtfully. "Gandhi," he said matter-of-factly. 

"That's right," she answered, "and look what happened to him. He got to be Mahatma of 
a whole nation. There must be something to what he says." She draped her hand lightly 
on his forearm. 

"Listen, Mulder," she said sincerely, "You are not to be blamed for the death of anyone. 
Deep Throat, your mother, especially your father. They all made their own decisions in 
life, just as you made yours. They chose a path, and it led to a destructive end, but you 
are still here, and I am still here, and nothing they can do can ever change that. I left 
medicine to find my place in the world, to do some good in my life before I die. I could 
not have fulfilled that promise to myself if I had found anyone else in that dingy little 
copy room." She grabbed both of his hands in hers and held them tightly. 

"Don't feel sorry for me, Mulder," she said through a brave smile, "You are not some 
harbinger of death, sent to make my life a living hell." She chuckled warm-heartedly, 

"That's Skinner's job." She looked into his hazel-green eyes. The warmth from them 
seemed to overtake her entire body. Her face and voice suddenly became solemn. 

"You've made me feel more alive in these short seven years than I've ever felt my entire 
life," she told him. 

Without warning or any inhibition, she leaned into him and bestowed him with a long, 
hot kiss on the lips. Her hands moved from his up behind his back, and then behind his 
head. She strummed her fingers through his hair as she beckoned him towards her. She 
twisted her mouth and ran her tongue over his. She felt a surge of heat run through her as 
she felt his hands press against her back. "Mulder," she moaned breathlessly as she drew 
back to look into his eyes. They were filled with a mixture desire and affection. She saw 
them glance back at her, down her neck and towards her chest. She looked down. Her 
robe had come slightly open during their brief exchange. She grabbed his hand and put it 
between the open flaps. "It's okay," she told him, guiding his hand down the contours of 
her shoulder, "I'm ready." 

"Are you sure?" he asked, aware that they would be crossing the boundary from partners 
to something more, never to go back again. He wasn't willing to pressure her into 
something that she was unwilling to handle, even if it meant forgetting his desire to have 
her, to hold her in his arms, to wake up next to her. 

"I'm sure," she answered, leading his hands down her body. At his touch, the robe fell 
listlessly at her waist. She stood up, for the first time fully in touch with her feelings for 
him, ready to commit to him bodily as she had mentally and spiritually. Her hands pulled 
him up from the couch and led him into the bedroom. 

10:28 A.M. 

Mulder opened his eyes groggily, attempting to divine his surroundings from the 
accompanied haze and confusion of sleep. The Sunday morning sunlight poured in 
through the windows, illuminating the bright, white décor of the room. He sat up and 
removed the tousled spread from his waist. He suddenly remembered. He was in Scully's 
apartment. 

His mind flashed back to the previous night. He had never before experienced someone 
so fully – intellectually, socially, and now physically. Their partnership had been one of 
equality. She provided the sound, scientific background to his unconventional, seemingly 
irrational theories and methods, though he had always considered himself the conduit 
through which she could begin to explore other channels for which science provided no 
answers. In that respect, he was the teacher, and she the student. Yet, last night she had 
surprised him. He had long lusted for her in his heart, but could never take the initiative 
until she was willing to let go of her fears. But last night it was she who had taken his 
hand and guided him to the next level of their relationship. He remembered how good it 
felt to feel her soft skin caressing him, wordlessly informing him that there was nothing 
to fear. She taught him a kind of peacefulness that he hadn't experienced since he had 
found the truth behind his sister's disappearance all those years ago. It was as though he 
had hidden a piece of himself far away in the darkest crevices of his soul and in one 
moment of illumination she had found it and made him complete. 

But that was last night. How would she feel about their actions now? If he knew Scully 
like he thought he knew her, she had most probably been contemplating the pros and cons 
of their sexual relationship for hours now, if not longer. He turned his body and looked at 
the other side of the bed. She was gone. Was she feeling remorse? Did she regret letting 
herself transcend the safe confines of a strictly platonic relationship? 

He stood up and looked for the jeans that he had worn to her house. He discovered them 
laying in a crumpled ball on the floor behind a little table that bore the weight of a lamp 
on it. He picked them up, shook them out straight, and put them on. He then found his 
gray shirt, and put it on as well. As he looked at himself in the mirror on the opposite 
wall, he thought he heard sounds coming from the adjacent room. He cocked his head 
slightly and listened again. He slowly began to decipher the sounds of a keyboard 
clicking. 

He walked out of the bedroom and followed the noises. Scully's back was facing him. 
She was seated at a corner desk, typing away furiously at her laptop. As he approached 
her, he contemplated how he should handle the situation. Should he talk about what 
happened or just ignore it and act like nothing happened? He shot an apprehensive glance 
in the direction of the door. Maybe he should have gotten up early and left. Maybe there 
was still time. 

Scully turned around in the chair and stared at him. She was wearing the pair of oversized 
reading glasses that proved as necessary as the computer itself whenever she was writing 
up a case file. She removed them deftly with one hand and pushed back her fiery red hair 
with the other. "Is she waiting for me to say something?" he wondered. He was still 
attempting to make a decision as to what his next course of action would be when a 
pleasant smile crossed her face. 

"Happy Easter," she said simply, pushing a plate of deviled eggs towards him that lay 
beside her on the desk. 

"Happy Easter," he responded, unsure of what to say or do next. By this time he was 
standing next to her. He took a chance, leaned in, and kissed her on the cheek. Pulling up 
a chair beside her, he grabbed an egg, bit into it, and asked anxiously, "How are you?" 
"I'm fine, Mulder," she replied, "How are you?" Her right eyebrow arched greatly on her 
forehead as she asked the question. 

"Fine," he answered, "Just fine." 

Scully looked at him for a moment as they sat in silence. After a minute she reached out 
her hand and placed it on his knee. "Well, this is a little awkward, isn't it?" she asked. 
Mulder threw his palms in front of his face, covering his eyes and mouth. "Thank God 
you said so," he moaned, the words somewhat muffled by his hands. He rubbed his 
forehead and slid his hands down his cheeks and off his chin. "I was worried I was the 
only one." 

"You're not," Scully answered, patting his hand, "We'll just have to get it better next 
time." 

"Next time?" he questioned, looking up into her smiling face. He returned the smile, 
grateful for the humor to replace the desperate feeling of uneasiness. "I don't know, 
Scully," he said, "I don't think that it could possibly get any better than last night." He 
looked as though he had just won first prize at a science fair. 

"Modesty becomes you, Mulder," Scully answered, still grinning. 

"So let me get this straight, just to avoid all potential confusion and embarrassing 
situations on my part in the future. We are planning on making this a new addition to our 
daily schedule, right? Days in the field, nights in bed?" 

"Well, we're more harmful to them together," Scully replied, "isn't that what Lauren 
said? Isn't that why she tried to kill us, to stop us from exposing the truth? And if we can 
only stop the future by getting close, then isn't that what we should be doing?" 

"I can think of a few things I'd like to be doing right now." His eyes gleamed with a 
mischievous intent. 

"Anyway, that's what I'm looking into as we speak," Scully said. For the first time, 
Mulder became aware of what was on the screen. It was the DNA information that he had 
confiscated from Chimera. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, turning his attention to the compound, "the case is over. 
What are you looking for?" 

"Answers, Mulder," she replied, "I'm looking for answers. If we can just find something 
to destabilize the bonds in the nucleotides, we could potentially protect ourselves from 
the future colonization that Lauren spoke of. I mean, she was initially using some 
chemical compound to kill her victims, before she ran out of time and resorted to 
stabbing. That must mean that there exists an organic compound, here on this Earth that 
has the ability to destabilize, maybe some…I don't know…maybe some sort of material 
with magnetic properties, something that would disrupt the electronegative charges found 
in the samples of Purity Control." 

Mulder leaned over and placed a palm to her forehead. "Are you feeling well, Scully? 
You seem a little sick." 

She shook his hand roughly off her head. "I'm fine, Mulder. Isn't this what you always 
wanted? For me to believe you? This time I would have to say that the evidence 
overwhelmingly indicates Purity Control is of extraterrestrial origin, and that Chimera 
scientists have the ability to combine human and alien DNA. Now, even if all that shit 
about alien invasion and colonization turns out to be a load of trash, at least we will 
possess the power to halt the generation and disposal of clones that were created for God 
knows what by God knows whom." 

"Maybe we shouldn't possess that power, Scully. Maybe it isn't ours to decide what the 
future holds. Maybe that would make us as guilty as those men that financially back 
Chimera." 

"What are you saying, Mulder?" she asked, somewhat astonished, "Are you saying that 
you want to give up and let time here run its course?" 

"No," he answered, "I'm not saying that at all. As long as I have the strength I will keep 
fighting with you to make the truth known. I don't believe that there is one outcome 
predestined by the beginning of time. Every choice you make in life changes your future, 
whether it be selecting the Bureau over a career in medicine or electing to have a hotdog 
instead of a hamburger for lunch. I think that what's really important in life is the trip 
along the way, the people that you meet and the experiences you gather from those 
chance encounters." He looked hard into her crystalline eyes. "Whatever the future holds 
for us, Scully, we'll face it together, without hesitation, without fear for the future 
because it's constantly changing. We change it, and together, we will make a better 
world." 

Scully smiled gratefully as he leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. "Thank you," 
she whispered, "Thank you." 

"For what?" he asked softly. 

"For opening my eyes," she said, looking through his hazel-green eyes and into his soul, 
"For opening them to you." Gazing out the window into the morning sky, they held each 
other tightly in anticipation of a future bright with the hope of two people, remotely 
opposite, yet finding themselves journeying on the same path of faith. It was a future 
bright with the strength of each other. 

*THE END*