Title: Tabula Rasa
  Author: dtg
  Email: dgoggans@earthlink.net
  Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~doggans 
  http://xf-extensions.com/
  Feedback: Worth its weight in gold
  Rating: PG-13
  Archive: Of course, but please let me know first. 
  Summary: "If a man is the 
  sum of his experiences, then 
  who will he be without them?" 
  Timeframe: The present, but without the baggage 
  of any episodes past Je Souhaite. They're still with
           the Bureau, Mulder does not have a fatal brain
           disease and Scully has no interest in artificial
           insemination. I live in denial. <g>

Notes:     This was my first WIP, but I have a feeling it 
           won't be the last. I know not all readers enjoy
           having a story posted in chapters this way, but
           I can tell you that it makes the writing 
           process a lot more inspiring, at least for
           me. Having that deadline just seems to knock
           the cobwebs loose and forces you to focus. In
           my case, it was the difference between writing
           again or hanging up my quill. I hope you'll 
           decide that was a good thing.

           Many thanks to my patient betas Dawn and Sally,
           with cameo kudos to Vickie and Lorraine, my 
           draftee editor. You guys are the wind beneath
           my wings.
SYLLABICATION: tab...u...la ra...sa 
  PRONUNCIATION: tby-l rs, -z 
  NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. tab...u...lae ra...sae (tby-l rs, -z) 1a. The mind 
  before it receives the impressions gained from experience. b. The unformed, 
  featureless mind in the philosophy of John Locke. 2. A need or an opportunity 
  to start from the beginning. ETYMOLOGY: Medieval Latin tabula rsa : Latin 
  tabula, tablet + Latin rsa, feminine of rsus, erased. 



  Chapter One 
  Basement office
  Friday, 7:20 pm 
  The past five weeks had been among the most frustrating Scully could recall, 
  and they weren't over yet. Forty-two days of effort, however fruitless, still 
  had to be accounted for. Unanswered questions had to be addressed, if not 
  explained. And the fact that she and Mulder seemed unable to agree on much of 
  anything they had observed was making the process excruciatingly slow. 
  "How do you plan to justify the helicopter?" she asked, waving one of the 
  larger expense forms in his general direction without actually looking at him. 
  She was finding it easier to hold her temper if she didn't see his reactions. 
  Heavy sigh. "Transportation?" He drew out the syllables as if English were her 
  second language. 
  And that damned pencil tapping was really starting to get on her nerves. 
  "There were a number of other options, and---" tap tap tap "Mulder, you are 
  driving me insane. Put. The pencil. Down." 
  He looked blankly at the yellow number two in his hand, then snapped it neatly 
  in half and lay the pieces on his desk. Silence descended for a long moment. 
  "Scully, go home." 
  "Excuse me?" She honestly thought she must have misheard him. 
  He leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes with both fists. "I'll finish 
  the report. Go home and forget about this place for a few days." 
  Leave it to Mulder to switch gears in the middle of an argument. Off balance 
  now as well as irritated, she could only blink at him for a moment. "And what 
  would you be doing while I'm having this relaxing weekend?" 
  His gave her a weary smile. "Rethinking my career choices." 
  "That's not funny." 
  "Wasn't meant to be." He stood up and stretched until his back popped. "Have 
  dinner with your mom. Go shopping. Forget I exist for a few days." He came 
  over to her desk and perched one hip on the edge. "I'm serious, Scully. We 
  will kill each other if we stay in this room much longer." 
  "The thought has crossed my mind." 
  "And mine." He picked up the file she was working on and took it back to his 
  desk. "I'll see you Monday." 
  They had already come perilously close to letting this intrude on their 
  personal relationship. He was right about them needing a little distance. She 
  shut off her laptop and slipped it into its case. Mulder was already making 
  notes on a legal pad, referring to the folder he'd taken from her. She paused 
  at the door. "Call me if you need anything." 
  "Night, Scully." 
  He didn't look up and, after a moment, she closed the door softly behind her. 
  An hour later, she was in peach-scented bubbles up to her chin, sipping merlot 
  to a Chopin sonata when the phone rang. She switched the wine to her left hand 
  and picked up the cordless from the floor next to the tub with her right. It 
  was Mulder, of course. 
  "Just wanted to make sure you got home okay." He still sounded tired, but the 
  tension was ebbing. 
  She smiled for the first time in days. "I'm soaking in a hot tub. Are you 
  home?" 
  "Just got here. The report's on Skinner's desk." He yawned in her ear. 
  "Go to bed. You're asleep on your feet." 
  He chuckled. "Shows how much you know. My feet are on the coffee table and my 
  butt is on the couch." 
  "Bed, Mulder." She tried to sound stern, but her mood had lightened too much. 
  "That's where I'm headed. I'm just working up the energy to make it that far." 
  Another yawn. "Night, Scully." 
  "Good night, Mulder." She clicked off and let her head drift back against the 
  porcelain rim. Suddenly, a weekend without him felt more like a penance than a 
  break. 
  Happily, the time flew by. Saturday was taken up with cleaning and laundry and 
  long-neglected errands. On Sunday, she followed Mulder's advice and spent the 
  day with her mother. 
  Mulder made no attempt to contact her. It wasn't until she was getting ready 
  for work Monday morning that she allowed herself to wonder why. 



  Basement office
  Monday, 7:54 am 
  Finding the office dark and empty at this time of day was nearly 
  unprecedented. Coupled with his silence over the weekend, it was enough to 
  drive her straight to the phone. 
  His voice mail picked up on the third ring, and she told herself he had just 
  overslept. He was probably in the shower, rushing to catch up with the clock. 
  She made a pot of coffee and sat down to read her emails. 
  Twenty minutes later, he still hadn't arrived. She called again and left a 
  message. 
  Ten minutes after that, she was on her way out the door. 
  She called twice more from her car on the way to his apartment, her worry 
  mounting with each unanswered ring. She parked in front of his building and 
  got out of the car, glancing automatically at his windows. 
  Mulder was standing at the living room window. 
  Concern warred with embarrassment, and she thought seriously of driving back 
  to the office before she made an even bigger fool of herself. Concern won out. 
  She walked calmly into the building, waited for the elevator and strolled to 
  his door. 
  It was locked. She tried the knob again, certain that he'd seen her coming. 
  "Mulder, open the door." Pause. "Mulder, come on. Let me in." She knocked, as 
  if that would be harder to ignore than her pleas. She was digging her keys out 
  when the door opened. 
  Mulder stood looking at her with the oddest expression on his face. He said 
  nothing for a moment, making no move to let her in. 
  "Mulder, are you all right? What happened? You didn't come to work and I was 
  worried." She was babbling and she knew it, but he was behaving so strangely. 
  "Mulder?" 
  He seemed to study her face. "Do you know me?" 
  "Cute, Mulder," she quipped, moving to step around him into the apartment. 
  Then something in his eyes brought her up short and made her heart begin to 
  pound. He was looking at her without a hint of recognition. And he was not 
  smiling. 
  "Is that my name?" 
  It slammed into her with the force of a bullet. "You're not kidding." 
  He shook his head. "No. I'm not." 
  She took him by the arm and led him carefully to the couch. "Sit down." 
  He obeyed wordlessly, and she sat down on the coffee table in front of him. 
  When she reached for his face to examine his eyes, he jerked away. She 
  understood why, but it still felt like a slap. She lowered her hands and 
  leaned back. "I'm sorry. I'm a doctor and I would like to make sure you're 
  okay." 
  His wary expression tore at her heart. "I feel fine, I just can't remember 
  anything." 
  She took a breath. "Do you know how you got here?" 
  He startled her with a chuckle. "I assume I have a mother somewhere, but I 
  suppose you mean here here. I woke up on this couch. Before that, I have no 
  idea." 
  It was so Mulder that she wanted to cry. "How did you feel when you first woke 
  up? This is important, Mulder. Think about it before you answer." 
  He was quiet for a long moment. "Normal. I felt normal." 
  "No dizziness? Pain?" She reached up carefully, waiting for him to nod his 
  acceptance before touching him. His skin was warm and dry, but not feverish. 
  His pupils were even. 
  "No, nothing. For a moment, I thought I was just foggy from sleeping too long. 
  But then..." He shrugged. 
  There were no bumps on his head, no signs of trauma. The size of his pupils 
  would seem to rule out drugs, but there was only one way to be sure. "You need 
  to go to the hospital. I can't do a thorough examination here, and there is 
  obviously something very wrong. We need to find out what happened." 
  He was nodding before she'd even finished speaking. "You'll go with me?" 
  "I'll take you, Mulder." It bothered him when she used his name, she could see 
  it in his eyes. "I'll take you." 
  "I'd like to clean up first." 
  He did look as if he'd spent the whole weekend on the couch: rumpled clothes, 
  jaw dark with stubble, hair sticking up all over his head. 
  "Not yet, M--," she censored herself, but not quickly enough. "Not yet. There 
  may be trace evidence on your clothes." 
  Mulder glanced down at himself as if he expected to see it. He looked at her. 
  "Evidence of what?" 
  "Of what happened to you." She held out her hand, and he took it without 
  hesitation. But when she looked into his eyes, she found no trace of him 
  there. 



  George Washington Univ Hospital
  10:30 am 
  Mulder not only agreed to be examined in the ER, he paced the waiting room 
  until his name was called. An orderly led them to a treatment room where 
  Mulder resumed his pacing. Scully sat down in a molded plastic chair next to 
  the gurney and watched him. 
  "You need to relax, Mul--" She swallowed the last syllable as Mulder stopped 
  pacing and looked at her. 
  "You have to call me something, right? I guess Mulder's as good as any." He 
  offered a little half-smile. 
  "Mulder's a great deal better than most," she whispered, touched by the little 
  boy bravado she knew so well. 
  The door opened to admit a man in blue scrubs. He smiled at Scully and held 
  his hand out to Mulder. "I'm Dr. Lawry. And you?" They shook hands, and Lawry 
  motioned for him to sit on the gurney. 
  "That's the question," Mulder replied dryly. 
  Lawry produced a penlight and flashed it in Mulder's eyes. "Dr. Scully says 
  that you woke up this morning unable to remember anything. Is that right?" He 
  put the penlight in his shirt pocket and stood back, arms folded over his 
  chest. 
  "I don't remember anything." 
  "Who's the president of the United States?" 
  "W." 
  The doctor chuckled. "And what's today's date?" 
  "Saturday, July 5, 2003." 
  Lawry picked up the chart and made a note. "How old are you? When's your 
  birthday?" 
  Mulder's calm veneer was showing cracks. "I don't know," came out with a 
  definite growl underneath. 
  "I know this is frustrating, Mr. Mulder, but we have to establish the extent 
  of the amnesia. I'm going to order a CT scan to rule out brain injury, though 
  I see no indication that you're suffering from one." Lawry's tone was stern, 
  but he patted Mulder's shoulder kindly. "You need to be patient with us while 
  we do our jobs." 
  Mulder looked slightly chastised as the doctor left the room, and Scully felt 
  an overwhelming urge to hug him. She settled for coming over to stand next to 
  him. It hadn't escaped her notice that, amnesia or no, he still seemed calmer 
  when she was near. "You doing okay, Mulder?" 
  He scrubbed at his face with both hands. "If I've been worse, I'm not sure I 
  want to remember." He dropped his hands and looked at her. "He called you Dr. 
  Scully. Is that how you know me?" 
  The misery in his eyes made her forget her own for a moment. "We're... We work 
  together. We've been friends for a long time." 
  "We work together? Where?" 
  "The F.B.I." 
  His eyes widened. "You're kidding." 
  She shook her head. "You're a Special Agent with the F.B.I., and we're 
  partners." 
  Mulder was impressed. "I carry a gun?" 
  She had to smile at that. "When you haven't lost it. Or dropped it." 
  "So, I'm clumsy as well as Special?" He managed to smile, too. 
  "You have your moments." 
  The door opened and a young man in green scrubs came in pushing a wheelchair. 
  "Hop aboard, Mr. Mulder. We're going to get your head CT." 
  "I'll see you when you get back." She gave his hand a pat. 
  Mulder hopped down from the table and settled into the waiting transportation. 
  He gave her a thumbs up as the man wheeled him out of the room. 
  It was the first time she'd been alone since this nightmare began, and 
  reaction now set in with a vengeance. Her legs felt like rubber, and she 
  barely made it back to the plastic chair. The CT scan was a precaution. He had 
  no symptoms of physical damage, but there was still the possibility that this 
  had been caused by a cerebral event of some kind. She actually found herself 
  hoping for an aneurysm. At least that could be treated. The alternative was 
  even more disturbing: that someone had done this to him, or that he had 
  unknowingly done it to himself. 
  His symptoms had more in common with emotional trauma, a kind of hysterical 
  amnesia, than with anything physical. To treat that might take years, if it 
  would even respond to treatment. 
  Or maybe that seemingly indestructible spirit had simply reached its limit. 
  His mother's death was only a few months in the past. The answers he'd finally 
  uncovered regarding his sister's disappearance, while unsatisfying for Scully 
  personally, seemed to have been enough for him. His quest was over. What if it 
  had been all that was holding him together? 
  His teasing comments Friday night came back to her. From this new perspective, 
  their implication was chilling. 
  A young woman poked her head into the room. "Dr. Scully? There's a phone call 
  for you." 
  She'd told no one where they were going. The hospital must have contacted the 
  bureau. She followed the woman out into the hall. 
  Of course, it was Skinner. "Yes, sir. I was waiting for more definite news 
  before I called you. Mulder is having a CT scan, and we'll know more after the 
  results are interpreted." 
  "What's his condition?" 
  "He has a kind of amnesia." She brought him up to date with the few facts at 
  her disposal. "I will be staying here with him until we have some answers." 
  She heard papers being shuffled on the other end of the line. Skinner cleared 
  his throat. "Keep me apprised." 
  "Yes, sir." She replaced the receiver and leaned back against the wall. The 
  phone was in a small enclosure, affording her privacy to compose herself. 
  Somehow, telling their boss had given it all a reality that took her by 
  surprise. 
  Mulder was back in the treatment room when she returned, lying on the gurney 
  with his eyes closed. Thinking he'd fallen asleep, she moved quietly to the 
  chair and carried it over next to him. 
  "How long before we hear anything?" His eyes were still closed, but he'd 
  turned his head toward her. 
  "It could be awhile. Go ahead and rest." 
  He sighed and nestled his head against the pillow. His left hand lay at his 
  side, palm up. She touched his curled fingers, smiling when they wrapped 
  around hers. 
  She was nodding off herself when Lawry coughed pointedly from the foot of 
  Mulder's bed. She hadn't even heard the door open. 
  "The CT is clean. I think the next logical step is to have him evaluated by a 
  psychiatrist." 
  "Him is capable of taking part in this discussion." Mulder opened his eyes and 
  sat up, his arms resting on his raised knees. "So, you think I'm pretending I 
  can't remember?" 
  "Not consciously, no. I believe that you can't remember, I just don't find a 
  physical cause. What does that leave?" Lawry's arms were crossed over his 
  chest, his feet braced apart. Defying them to come up with an argument against 
  such irrefutable logic. 
  It left a great many things, Scully knew. Not many of them within the realm of 
  conventional medicine. She stood up. "You're releasing him." 
  She hadn't meant it as a question, but the doctor apparently took it as one. 
  "I'd prefer that he spoke with our psychiatric resident. The longer he's in 
  this state, the harder it may be to treat." 
  Mulder waved both hands. "Once again, could we stop referring to me in the 
  second person when I'm right here?" 
  Scully turned her attention fully to him. "Do you want to talk with the 
  psychiatrist, Mulder? It's up to you." She shot the doctor a glance that dared 
  him to dispute her. He simply nodded. 
  "I want to get out of here." 
  Lawry shrugged. "It's your choice. I'll sign you out." 
  Mulder scooted off the gurney and brushed the lint from his trousers. "I had 
  the distinct impression that you have an alternative treatment in mind." 
  Whatever else may have happened to him, the man was as observant as ever. "I 
  think we need to approach this like any other investigation. If we can find 
  out what happened to you, we might be able to reverse it." 
  "I hear a 'but'." 
  The thought had only just occurred to her. "I just wonder if you're going to 
  wish we'd left well enough alone." 
  Chapter Two 
  George Washington Univ Hospital
  Monday, Noon 
  The door opened for the third time in ten minutes, and they both looked up, 
  hoping to see Dr. Lawry bearing the promised release forms. 
  "Anybody here looking for a shrink?" A young man in jeans and a well-worn NYU 
  sweatshirt grinned from the doorway, then strode over to Mulder. "I'm David 
  Klein, the psych resident." He extended his hand, and Mulder gave it a 
  cautious shake. "I understand you're trying to avoid me, Mr. Mulder. Say it 
  isn't so." He traded Mulder's hand for Scully's. "And you must be Dr. Scully. 
  It's a real pleasure to meet you both." Back to Mulder with a sly wink. 
  "Although you and I could be old college sweethearts, for all you'd know." 
  Scully's mouth dropped open. "Dr. Klein, I don't know what you think you're--" 
  "Just kidding, just kidding." His eyes were twinkling. "I use humor as an 
  icebreaker." He leaned in and stage whispered, "This psych gig is just paying 
  the bills 'til I break into show business." 
  Mulder's surprised chuckle was obviously what the doctor had been shooting 
  for. "So, did that earn me a few minutes of your time? I promise, I won't drop 
  a net over you, no matter how loony you sound." 
  "That's comforting." Mulder looked at Scully and shrugged. "Take your best 
  shot." He sat down on the gurney, but Klein took him by the elbow and tugged 
  him to his feet. 
  "Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of my office. I so rarely get 
  to use it, what with most of my patients being in restraints." He winked at 
  Scully. "You sit tight and I'll have him back in half an hour." 
  Scully followed them out into the busy hall, watching until they disappeared 
  around a corner. 
  Dr. Lawry breezed past her at that moment, looking rather pleased with 
  himself. She ignored him and headed off to find some very strong coffee. 

  Klein's office was not much more than a closet. A metal desk with two chairs 
  facing it took up most of the space. Shelves along one wall were jammed with 
  journals, hardcover books and manila folders sticking out at all angles. 
  "Sit, sit." He gestured at the chairs. "We'll make this quick and painless." 
  Klein dropped into the desk chair, making the springs squeak in protest. He 
  folded his hands on the desk and waited for Mulder to get settled. "No 
  bullshit, now. How do you feel?" 
  Very direct blue eyes bored into his own. "I'm a little... confused." The 
  words carried a sense of deja vu, and his mind clung to it. 
  "That has to be the understatement of the century." Klein's expression 
  sobered. "How do you feel about being called Mulder? Is there another name 
  you'd prefer?" 
  He allowed another chuckle to bubble up. It felt good. "Like what? John Doe? 
  No thanks, Mulder is fine." 
  Klein leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. "Okay, Mulder it is. What 
  do you remember about this morning when you woke up?" 
  "Like I told..." he searched for the name, "...Scully, it's as if didn't exist 
  until I opened my eyes a few hours ago, except that I seem to know things. I 
  know this is Washington, D.C. I know who's president and that today is July 
  5th, 2003. It's Monday. The problem is, I don't know that I know until someone 
  asks me a question. Then, the answers just pop into my head." 
  "What's your name?" 
  He had to smile. "Sorry, that one doesn't seem to work." 
  "Too bad. It would have saved a lot of time." He flipped to a blank page in 
  his notebook. "I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Just answer to the 
  best of your ability." 
  It turned out to be just a longer version of the session he'd had earlier with 
  Lawry: checking his orientation to time and place, having him add a series of 
  numbers in his head, asking him to remember a series of words interspersed 
  with more questions. Klein recorded his responses, nodding occasionally. 
  When the questioning ended, the doctor continued writing in his book until 
  Mulder began to fidget. "So, what's the verdict?" 
  Klein set the notebook aside and picked up a thick file from the desk. He 
  flipped it open and began to read, "Ph.D. in psychology from Oxford 
  University. I.Q. off the charts. No obvious--" 
  "Trying to impress me with your credentials?" 
  Klein closed the file and looked at him. "I wish. This file is yours, Mr. 
  Mulder, as are the credentials." 
  "Mine?" Questions toppled over one another in his head. "Scully said I was an 
  FBI agent. I don't understand." 
  "You are. I just can't imagine why you'd choose to take this kind of abuse," 
  he thumped the voluminous file with his knuckles, "over a $200 an hour private 
  practice. I was just wondering how many times you have to be shot before you 
  start to rethink your career choices?" 
  A kaleidoscope of images flashed through his mind, too quickly for him to see, 
  but the sensations that accompanied them were overwhelming. The room took a 
  spin to the right and the edges of his vision went a hazy gray. Klein was 
  around the desk, squatting at his side before he could blink. Fingers pressed 
  hard into his bicep. "Tell me your name." 
  The pressure on his arm increased to the point of pain, and the images 
  receded. "Mulder. She said my name is Mulder." 
  "You're all right, just take it easy for a minute." Klein stood and walked out 
  of his visual range, reappearing a moment later with a glass of water. "Drink 
  this. Slowly." 
  Mulder sipped the cool liquid, holding the glass with both hands. After a 
  moment, he looked up to find the doctor seated behind his desk once again. 
  Mulder set the glass on the edge of the desk and let out a long, shaky breath. 
  "I want to see that file." 
  "How do you feel?" 
  He ignored the question, shock rapidly giving way to outrage. "What was that, 
  another test? To see how I'd react? Is any of it even true?" 
  "It's true. And yes, I was trying to provoke a reaction." 
  "Well, it worked." Mulder clamped his shaking hands around the armrest to 
  still them. 
  The doctor returned to his notebook. "Dr. Scully is listed as your physician, 
  and I assume you'll want her to be here when I go over my diagnosis. If that's 
  not the case, please say so." 
  The words seemed to leap from his mouth of their own volition. "I'd like her 
  to be here." 
  When Scully took her seat next to him a few minutes later, he was embarrassed 
  by how much better he felt. She gave him a reassuring smile before facing the 
  doctor. "The nurse said you wanted to see me." 
  "Did Dr. Lawry give you the CT results?" She nodded. "Then you know we're not 
  dealing with a physical injury, but that only rules out the more common causes 
  of a condition such as this. My assessment confirms that there is no 
  impairment whatever of Mr. Mulder's cognitive abilities or of his ability to 
  retain information." 
  "I would beg to differ," Mulder interjected. Two pairs of eyes swung briefly 
  in his direction, then turned back to face each other. 
  Klein continued, "All that's missing are the memories of his own life. That 
  fact alone is significant." 
  "I see." Scully and the doctor exchanged meaningful looks. 
  Mulder felt his face heat up. "So, what does it mean? What are you saying?" 
  Scully turned to look at him finally. "He believes your amnesia is 
  hysterical." She turned back to Klein, and he nodded his confirmation. 
  Out of nowhere, Mulder was seeing a page of text in his mind, complete with 
  yellow highlighting and pencil notes in the margins. He read them aloud, 
  seeing the words as clearly as if he were holding the book. "Hysterical 
  amnesia is characterized by a sudden onset of memory impairment in the absence 
  of organic pathology. The reaction can follow traumatic events, in particular 
  head injury, and can be provoked by physical or psychological stress. Most 
  commonly, important personal information is forgotten, and the recall of 
  events during a circumscribed period fails. This often bears relation to a 
  traumatic episode, i.e. a car accident. Less commonly a generalized amnesia is 
  present and the patient is unable to recall anything about his or her past. 
  During the period of memory loss cognitive skills are entirely intact." 
  Klein wordlessly handed Scully the textbook he'd had open on the desk in front 
  of him. She read a few lines, then looked up at him. "Did you show this to 
  him? All it would take is a glance. He has a photographic memory." 
  "I found the reference just before you joined us. It's been closed on my desk 
  until now." 
  "Could I see that, please?" Mulder took the text that lay open in Scully's 
  lap. He read the words again, this time from the page before him, then flipped 
  the book shut to read the cover. "Abnormal Psychology." He looked up at Klein. 
  "Psychology 101. You probably read it your first year at Oxford, and you just 
  recited it from memory. Verbatim. You are a textbook case, Mr. Mulder, of one 
  of the rarest forms of amnesia." He held up his right hand, popping up a 
  finger for each point. "One: abrupt onset of symptoms. Two: no physical 
  trauma. Three: total absence of personal memories, and finally: cognitive 
  ability completely intact. Everything you've learned is still there." He 
  grinned. "When you're back to normal, I promise you'll find this case as 
  fascinating as I do." 
  "You're telling me this is a temporary condition? That I could just wake up 
  tomorrow and everything will be back to normal? Whatever that is?" He wasn't 
  completely sure at this point that he wanted to know. 
  Until Scully touched his hand, Mulder didn't realize that he was halfway out 
  of his chair. He sat back down, and she turned to the doctor. "On what do you 
  base your conclusion?" 
  "Gut instinct, as much as anything. I know that isn't what you wanted to hear, 
  but sometimes it's all we have to work with. Take him home and let him resume 
  his normal activities. I promise you, there's no better treatment than 
  exposure to familiar places and people." He opened a drawer and pulled out a 
  business card. He wrote something on the back and handed it to Scully. "That's 
  my home number. If you need to reach me during the day, just tell the desk who 
  you are. They'll put you through." 
  Scully navigated the hospital paperwork maze on his behalf. All he had to do 
  was sign 'Fox Mulder' where she pointed and listen to the nurse's 'patient 
  release information' speech. After what seemed like days, he followed her out 
  to the car. 
  She turned left out of the parking lot, but he remembered pulling in from the 
  opposite direction. Either she was heading away from the way they'd come, or 
  his sense of direction had disappeared along with his memory. A few minutes 
  passed in silence, and then she turned onto the freeway, heading east. 
  "Where are we going?" 
  She accelerated to pass a string of slower vehicles. "Some friends of yours." 
  She glanced at him, smiling. "Friends of ours. I don't feel comfortable using 
  Bureau resources just yet." 
  He waited for her to elaborate, but she kept her focus on the traffic ahead. 
  Fifteen minutes later, they turned off the freeway onto a narrow street lined 
  with dilapidated commercial buildings. Scully turned down an alley in the 
  middle of the block, maneuvering around mounds of trash and skittering urban 
  wildlife. She parked next to a flight of open metal stairs. "We're here." She 
  got out, and he followed. 
  At the top of the steps was an oversize steel door, flanked by video cameras. 
  Mulder counted eight separate deadbolt keyholes running above and below the 
  doorknob. "These friends of ours seem a little paranoid." 
  Scully pressed a red button mounted next to the door. "You have no idea." 
  Static hissed from a speaker above the door. "What's the secret word?" 
  Mulder had to chuckle. "Are they serious?" He wasn't sure why, but he 
  whispered the question. 
  Scully whispered back, "I'm afraid so." Then, louder and directed at the 
  speaker, "If my math is right, it's 'D'." 
  Apparently, it was right. Bolts slid and chains rattled on the other side of 
  the door. The knob turned, and a tall, skinny man with blond hair to his 
  shoulders peered out. "What's up?" 
  "A lot," Scully told him, and he stepped back to let them in. 
  "You been on a stakeout all night, or what?" He sniffed the air in Mulder's 
  direction. "You're ripe, buddy." 
  Mulder raised his eyebrows at Scully, and she shook her head. 
  She came directly to the point. "I need you to check Mulder's credit cards to 
  see if he went somewhere over the weekend." 
  "Uh, can't you just ask him?" 
  "Agent Scully! To what do we owe the pleasure?" A short man with gray hair and 
  glasses appeared from behind a bank of electronic equipment. 
  Scully turned to Mulder. "Wait here. I need to talk to the guys." 
  The three of them went into a huddle across the room, too far away for him to 
  make out what was being said. Every so often, one of 'the guys' would give him 
  an odd glance. He knew Scully was probably telling them about his 'condition', 
  but that didn't explain the looks he was getting. It was frankly starting to 
  tick him off. When they all turned to look at the same time, he couldn't 
  contain himself. "Amnesia is a very short word. Somebody wanna let me in on 
  what else is going on?" 
  Scully walked over to him. Her audience trailed behind, and she stood with 
  Mulder waiting for them to catch up. "Mulder, this is Melvin Frohike," she 
  gestured toward the short man, "and this is Langly. They're going to help us 
  do some investigating." She smiled at the two men. "It's what they do best." 
  Langly mumbled a 'Hey, Mulder'. Melvin Frohike held out his hand, and Mulder 
  shook it. "You're looking pretty good, buddy. Considering." He rubbed his 
  hands briskly together, turning to Scully. "So, let's get moving." 
  The little man sat down at a counter that ran the length of the cavernous 
  room's back wall. In front of him was a bank of computer monitors, and a 
  single keyboard. He cracked his knuckles and went to work, with Scully 
  hovering at his back. 
  Mulder watched for a while, thinking he should be more interested in what they 
  were trying to accomplish. It crossed his mind that no one had needed to ask 
  him which credit cards he carried, not that he could have told them. 
  Apparently, his life was an open book to everyone but him. He felt very sorry 
  himself all at once, horrified to find his eyes tearing up. "Shit." He'd 
  practically whispered the word, but Scully was at his side in a heartbeat. 
  "Come on, Mulder. Let's take a break." She linked her arm through his and led 
  him away, calling back over her shoulder. "I'm going to make some coffee. Yell 
  if you find something." 
  He thought he had himself more or less under control by the time they reached 
  the kitchen, but Scully sat him down at the large rectangular table and handed 
  him a glass of water. She sat in the chair next to him and watched him drink 
  the water in shaky gulps. 
  Don't touch me, please. I'll lose it if you do She looked very much as if she 
  wanted to, but folded her hands in her lap instead. He drained the glass and 
  set it carefully on the table. 
  "Better?" 
  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Sorry. I don't know what 
  happened out there." He scrubbed at his face with both hands. 
  "No, Mulder. I'm the one who needs to apologize." She took his hand, 
  tightening her grip when he shivered. "You need to rest. This can wait." 
  "Scully!" Langly skidded to a halt in the doorway. "We got it!" Then he took 
  in their clasped hands and Mulder's face, and started to back out of the room. 
  "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt." 
  Scully turned back to Mulder. He squeezed her hand and nodded. "It's okay. I 
  think the hysterics are over for the moment." He made his lips turn up in a 
  smile that probably didn't fool her, but she squeezed back. 
  "I'll be just a minute." 
  Langly was shifting from foot to foot in the doorway. Scully gave Mulder one 
  more long look, then got up and followed him out of the room. 
  Mulder took a few more deep breaths and went after them. 
  He found Scully and Langly leaning over the little man at the computer. 
  "What's up?" 
  Scully turned to look at him, worry plain on her face. He gave her another 
  smile, a real one. "What did they find?" 
  The little man turned in his seat, grinning. "Delta flight 589 out of Dulles, 
  10:55 Friday night." 
  He scooted his chair out of the way so Mulder could see the screen. 
  "Buddy, you seem to have spent your weekend in New Mexico." 

  Chapter Three
  Monday, 5:20 pm 
  "Okay, I'm impressed," Mulder conceded. "Wanna tell me how you got that?" 
  "An ill-spent youth, my man." Frohike was beaming. "And a little help from my 
  friends." He turned back to the keyboard. "Watch and learn." 
  Langly rolled his eyes. 
  Scully watched the three of them huddle around the computer as Frohike held 
  forth. Hacking 101, interspersed with asides to Mulder and debates with Langly 
  on the finer points. Mulder was full of questions. "That's just the 
  reservation list? Can you verify that I was actually on the plane?" He was 
  leaning so close that Frohike was practically in his lap. 
  The little man was in his element. "Piece o' cake." Keys clacked for a moment, 
  and he waved triumphantly at the screen. "There you are, buddy. Row 18, seat C 
  on the aisle." 
  Scully walked over then and read the display. Mulder had used his own name, 
  not an alias, which ruled out all of the reasons she'd come up with to excuse 
  his not having told her he what he was doing. And of course, he couldn't tell 
  her now, even if he wanted to. "Can you check car rentals? Motels in the 
  area?" 
  Frohike glanced back at her. "Not for another day or so, at least. Most credit 
  card charges take a couple of days to show on the system. Right now, all I can 
  tell you for sure is that he boarded at Dulles and landed in Farmington, New 
  Mexico." 
  The words sent a chill down her back. "Farmington?" 
  "Yeah," Langly piped in. "Gotta be a decent sized airport for that plane. Have 
  you heard of it?" 
  She nodded woodenly. "I've heard of it." 
  Mulder's head came up, zeroing in on whatever he'd heard in her voice. "Heard 
  of it how?" 
  She looked at Frohike, remembering the night he'd come to her with an empty 
  bottle of Scotch in one hand and his broken heart in the other. In their 
  mutual grief, they'd found common ground for the first time, and a bond that 
  surprised her still. Not once in that long night had she mentioned the name of 
  the town where Mulder had disappeared. She hadn't told anyone, in fact, but 
  she could see that Frohike had just made the connection. "We were there on a 
  case, Mulder. It was a long time ago." 
  Frohike turned quickly back to the keyboard, but not before she caught the 
  look in his eyes. He cleared his throat. "This is gonna take hours. You two 
  are welcome to hang here, but you'll be stuck with Langly's pasta surprise for 
  dinner." 
  Mulder's stomach growled right on cue, but he was too busy glancing between 
  Scully and Frohike to notice. "As appealing as that sounds, I think I'd prefer 
  a nice, juicy explanation." 
  Frohike stopped typing. 
  She met Mulder's gaze head on. "So would I. That's why I think we need to give 
  the boys time to work. I'll take you back to your apartment and we can find 
  something to eat." 
  He watched her for a long moment, then turned to study Frohike's frozen 
  posture. "You two need to work on your poker faces." 
  Scully recognized the half smile as it lifted the corners of his lips. She'd 
  seen it hundreds of times over the past seven years, in interrogation rooms 
  all over the country. He knew there was something they weren't telling him, 
  but he wasn't about to ask the question outright. Mulder's approach was 
  subtle, but lethal. He'd let them believe they were safe, for now. There was 
  no better snare than a false sense of security. 
  Her advantage was that she knew what he was up to. "I'm starving, Mulder. 
  Let's go." 
  The smile made its appearance, and he turned back to Frohike. "You can breathe 
  now, Fro'." He patted the little man's shoulder, then stood up and made for 
  the door. 
  Frohike spun his chair and caught Scully's eye with a questioning glance. She 
  shook her head in warning, then aimed a similar look at Langly over the little 
  man's head. They all turned their attention to Mulder's receding back. 
  Mulder was oblivious to the excitement he'd caused with a single word. He 
  halfway to the door before he seemed to realize that no one was moving behind 
  him. He turned around. "I thought you wanted to go?" 
  Scully got quickly to her feet. "I'll be with you in a minute. I just 
  remembered a call I need to make. I'll meet you at the car." She fished the 
  keys from her pocket and tossed them to him. 
  Mulder caught them easily without breaking their gaze. To her surprise, he 
  just shrugged. "Okay. I'll be outside." 
  The moment the door closed behind him, she turned to Frohike and Langly. "I 
  don't want you jumping to conclusions and sharing them with Mulder right now." 
  Frohike looked wounded. "I wasn't going to say anything." 
  "Well, I was!" Langly protested. "What's wrong with telling him when he gets 
  it right? How's he gonna know when he comes up with a real memory if we can't 
  say anything?" It was almost, but not quite, a full-fledged whine. 
  "It doesn't work that way." She noticed Frohike's slumped posture and found 
  herself unable to resist the urge to touch him. "And especially you," she said 
  kindly. "No hints about what Farmington, New Mexico might mean." 
  He shrugged. "I can't tell him what I don't know." There was understanding in 
  the little man's eyes, and a promise. 
  "Keep digging, guys. I'll call you in the morning." She had nearly reached the 
  door when Langly called after her. 
  "Don't you have a phone call to make?" 
  She turned and gave him a pitying look that was probably very much like the 
  one Frohike turned on him. "I'll talk to you in the morning, guys." As she was 
  turning back to the door, she saw Langly's baffled look change to a grimace as 
  Frohike's punch landed on his shoulder. She let herself out, shaking her head. 

  Mulder was sitting behind the wheel when she got back to the car. She walked 
  around to the driver's side and he rolled down the window. "Mulder, you can't 
  drive." 
  He raised one eyebrow. "I don't drive?" 
  She opened the door. "I didn't say that. I said you can't drive. It's not safe 
  until we understand more about what's going on." She stood back and waited for 
  him to get out. Scooting across the console with those legs was out of the 
  question. 
  They waged a silent battle of wills for a moment, and then he unfolded himself 
  from the car and walked around to the passenger side without further comment. 
  His silence lasted until she asked him a direct question. "I want to stop and 
  pick up something for dinner. Is pizza all right?" 
  "You'd know better than I would." He kept his attention on the fascinating 
  guardrail zipping by outside his window. 
  Pizza, then. His favorite was only a couple of blocks from his apartment. When 
  she pulled into the tiny parking lot, he looked up at the sign and nodded, but 
  said nothing. 
  "Mulder, I'll be about fifteen minutes. You want to wait here?" Another nod. 
  'Luigi' was a round-faced, pleasant woman with an accent that placed her 
  birthplace much closer to Brooklyn than Naples, but she always greeted her 
  regular customers by name. She had apparently seen them pull up and was 
  sliding Mulder's usual into the oven when Scully entered the shop. 
  "Where's your other half?" she smiled up at Scully. "Hope he's not changing 
  his order, 'cuz I just popped 'er in the oven." 
  Scully smiled back. It was impossible not to. "He's waiting in the car, Milly. 
  It's been a long day." 
  Milly nodded in understanding. "That boy needs to slow down." She jerked her 
  chin at Scully's weary smile. "You, too." 
  Bells tinkled from the door, and a young couple in jogging suits came in. 
  Milly reached over and patted Scully's hand before she turned to her 
  customers. "You guys are early tonight! Somebody have the day off?" 
  Between phone orders and walk-ins, Milly didn't return to Scully until she had 
  the pizza box in hand. "Ten fortysix," she said. 
  Scully already had that amount in her hand. The prices hadn't changed in the 
  five years she and Mulder had been coming here together. Milly accepted the 
  money and slid the box across the counter. But she didn't let go when Scully 
  tried to pick it up. She looked up into her customer's eyes. "You take care." 
  The kind concern in her voice put a sudden lump in Scully's throat. "I will," 
  she whispered around it, and walked out the door to the merry tinkle of bells. 
  Mulder leaned over and opened the door for her, then held out his hands to 
  take the pizza box. He sniffed deeply at the pungent aromas wafting up. 
  "Mushrooms?" 
  Scully slid in behind the wheel and closed the door. "With onions, sausage and 
  hot peppers." Half of it, at least. Her portions were minus the onions and hot 
  peppers. 
  "Smells good." It was his last comment until they were seated on his couch 
  with the pizza spread out on the coffee table. They stared at the food for a 
  moment. "I should have gotten Pepsi or something," Scully announced. She 
  pushed up from the couch, but Mulder's hand landed lightly on her wrist, and 
  she stopped. 
  "Talk to me." 
  She settled back down and looked at him. "What do you want to talk about?" 
  "You know who I am. I want you to tell me." 
  Klein had taken her aside this morning while Mulder waited for the paperwork, 
  and he'd told her this was coming. Use your judgment, he'd said. When the 
  initial shock wears off, he's going to start asking questions. Tell him what 
  he wants to know, but tread carefully with anything that could be disturbing. 
  'Anything disturbing.' She'd almost laughed out loud. 
  "We work in a division called the X files, and the cases assigned to us are 
  often paranormal in nature." 
  "I ask you who I am, and you answer by telling me what I do for a living. A 
  psychologist might call that significant." 
  "You want to know who you are, Mulder, and your work is a big part of the 
  answer." 
  "Sorry. Go ahead." He lifted his left hand, waving her on. 
  "You're not married. You have no living relatives that I know about. You're 
  the most intelligent man I've ever known, and you're incredibly driven. 
  Sometimes, that single-mindedness gets you into trouble." He raised an 
  eyebrow, and she pulled her legs up beneath her, mimicking his posture. Their 
  hands rested together on the back of the couch. "The work we do is dangerous, 
  but it's important." She held his gaze and waited. 
  He raised both eyebrows this time. "Is that the Reader's Digest condensed 
  version?" 
  She smiled in surprise. "The PG version, yes." Klein had told her what had 
  happened during his interview, so she knew Mulder was aware that 'dangerous' 
  was certainly an understatement. "We'll save the details for after dinner, 
  okay?" 
  He unbent his leg and turned back to the cooling pizza. "I'm holding you to 
  that." He picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite. 
  Her appetite, she discovered with her first bite of gooey cheese, was 
  surprisingly intact. Before she started on her second slice, she went out to 
  the kitchen and got them each a glass of tap water and a handful of paper 
  towels. Mulder was quiet again, his light mood having dissipated as quickly as 
  it came. He didn't ask them, but questions danced in his eyes every time he 
  looked up at her. 
  When the pizza was gone, he leaned back again, wiping his fingers with a wad 
  of paper towel. Every line of his body screamed exhaustion. "I need a shower." 
  He stood up and headed for the bedroom door. "Don't think I've forgotten about 
  the story you're going to tell me," he called over his shoulder. "I won't be 
  ten minutes." 
  "I'm not going anywhere." She began picking up the debris from dinner. 
  There was no way she intended to leave him alone tonight, though she had no 
  idea how to convince him to let her stay without having to tell him why. 
  Someone had done this to him, she was convinced of that. And whether it was an 
  old enemy, or something new he'd stumbled into, Mulder was in danger. She 
  picked up the last of the mess and walked out to the kitchen. 
  The shower came on just as she finished washing up the glasses and silverware 
  they'd used. The box wouldn't fit in his wastebasket, so she laid it on top of 
  the lid. 
  She walked back to the living room and sank into the couch. The soft drum of 
  water against the wall above her head soothed her. Mulder was standing under 
  that rush of water, not five feet from where she sat. Smiling at the image, 
  she allowed her eyes to drift shut. 
  *Blinding white light and the smell of antiseptic. A massive machine hovered 
  over her, surrounding her with the blue scent of ionized air. It hummed in her 
  ears. Vibrated her skin and seeped straight to her bones. A scream clawed its 
  way up from her belly, but something stopped it in her throat. Her limbs were 
  leaden and lifeless, barely registering in her perception. There was nothing 
  left but her mind, and that would soon be gone, too. She closed her eyes and 
  let it come. And with her last shred of awareness, she heard it. A voice 
  rising above the humming din. It was screaming her name over and over and--* 
  Her eyes snapped open, but the sound was still there. She pushed herself 
  upright, clothes sticking to her sweaty body, chilling her almost as much as 
  the screams that seemed to echo from all directions. 
  Mulder. 
  She stumbled and nearly fell twice on her way to his door, shoving it open 
  finally, clinging to the doorframe for balance. Knees rubbery with shock, she 
  called his name into the dark room. There was movement, but the screams had 
  stopped so abruptly, it was as if someone had thrown a switch. 
  Switch. Turn on the light. Feeling like an idiot, she moved shaking fingers 
  along the wall, found the light switch and flipped it. 
  He was huddled against the headboard with the comforter tangled around him. 
  "Mulder?" He curled tighter into himself and turned his face to the wall. 
  Scully crossed the room slowly, speaking softly as she approached the bed. 
  "Mulder, wake up. You're having a nightmare." 
  When she reached the bed, she sat carefully down on the edge. He should be 
  awake by now. His screams should have wakened him, just as they did her and 
  probably most of the building. "Mulder, can you hear me?" She reached out and 
  touched his arm. 
  He jerked as if she'd touched him with a live wire, eyes wild and unfocused as 
  he scooted off the opposite side of the bed and scrambled to his feet. 
  He made a clumsy dash for the door, and she placed herself in his path, 
  acutely aware of the difference in their sizes. She planted her feet and 
  shouted, "MULDER, STOP!" To her utter surprise, he did. 
  And suddenly, he was on the floor in a heap, his collapse so abrupt that she 
  thought for a horrifying instant he'd had a stroke. She dropped to her knees 
  next to him and felt for the carotid pulse, shaking with relief when she found 
  it, fast but steady beneath her fingers. "Mulder, it's me," she breathed, 
  forgetting for an instant how little that meant to him now. 
  He struggled against her grasp, his eyes fixed in horror on something only he 
  could see. The nightmare was rapidly becoming a full-blown panic attack, and 
  there was nothing she could do but hang on. If he managed to get himself 
  together enough to stand up, there would be no way she could stop him. 
  The phone on his nightstand was out of reach. She'd have to release him in 
  order to get help, and that was out of the question. "Mulder, please wake up. 
  You're having a nightmare." She said it over and over like a prayer, holding 
  him as close as his panicked body would allow. 
  After an interminable few minutes, he began to run out of steam. The tension 
  in his limbs slackened, and he went silently limp in her arms. Scully pulled 
  him into her lap and held him, rocking back and forth, comforting him the only 
  way she could until he fell into an exhausted sleep in her trembling arms. 
  It was a long time after that before her own adrenaline rush began to 
  dissipate, leaving her shaky and weak. There was no way to get him back into 
  bed, so she reached up and pulled the comforter over him where he lay, then 
  carefully lowered him to the floor. 
  She had never seen him like this, not in his worst nightmares. Moving as 
  quietly as she could, Scully went back into the living room and collapsed onto 
  the couch. When she could trust her voice, she fished Dr. Klein's business 
  card from her pocket and dialed his home number. He answered on the second 
  ring, sounding sleepy and irritated, and she looked at her watch for the first 
  time. It was after four in the morning. 
  He listened to her clinical, if somewhat shaky, summary without asking 
  questions. She finished with "Do you think I should bring him to the 
  hospital?" 
  "You said his vitals are stable, and he's sleeping. I don't think a trip to 
  the ER is indicated." He yawned in her ear and apologized immediately. "Sorry, 
  I've only been in bed for about an hour." She heard him moving, then a door 
  closed and his volume went up a notch. "This isn't totally unexpected, and it 
  may even be an indication that his memory is returning. Do you have any 
  sedatives with you?" 
  Her medical bag was out in the trunk. She couldn't risk leaving Mulder alone 
  long enough to get it. "No, not with me." 
  He tried unsuccessfully to muffle another yawn. "Then let's hope the worst is 
  over for tonight. I'd recommend having something handy for the next few days. 
  Call me after he wakes up and let me know how he's doing." 
  "I will, thank you. Sorry for the late hour." 
  "Don't apologize. I gave you the number, remember?" He was chuckling when he 
  hung up. 
  "Who was that on the phone?" 
  She jumped half out of her skin, twisting toward Mulder's voice so violently 
  that she felt the muscles in her neck cramp in protest. He had traded the 
  comforter for his rumpled trousers, zipped but unbuttoned. His chest and feet 
  were bare, and he was watching her from the bedroom doorway. "I was talking to 
  Dr. Klein." 
  He squinted at the digital clock on the VCR. "At four in the morning?" He 
  rubbed sleepily at his eyes as he walked over to her and sat down on the 
  couch. "Why?" 
  There was no trace of the nightmare in his eyes. "Mulder, what do you remember 
  about the last few hours?" 
  "You mean aside from waking up on the floor a few minutes ago wearing nothing 
  but a blanket and a smile?" 
  "Do you remember going to bed?" 
  He frowned in concentration. "We ate the pizza, and I went in to take a 
  shower." He spoke haltingly, relating each memory as it surfaced. "I remember 
  sitting down on the bed for a minute, but ..." He shook his head. "I guess I 
  must have fallen asleep. And then I woke up on the floor." 
  "Nothing in between? You don't remember how you got to the floor?" Having no 
  recollection of the nightmare could mean any number of things, none of them 
  good. 
  "No. Nothing." He shifted under her gaze. "Why? Is that why you called the 
  doctor? Did something happen?" 
  His voice was rising, confusion turning quickly to alarm. She took his hand 
  and held it. "You had a nightmare, Mulder. You've had them before, but this 
  was different. You don't remember anything about it?" 
  "How many times do I have to say it? No, I don't remember." He was angry now. 
  "It's getting worse instead of better, isn't it? Now I'm losing short-term 
  memory, too." His eyes darted away from hers, and she tugged his hand until he 
  looked at her again. 
  "No, Mulder. You're not getting worse. Dr. Klein actually said that the 
  nightmare could be an indication that your memories are coming back, and I 
  agree with him." 
  His breathing had speeded up with the fresh burst of adrenaline, but her 
  reassurance seemed to help. He took another shaky breath. "I want to find out 
  what happened to me." 
  "We will, Mulder. It's just going to take some time be--" 
  "No." The quiet determination in his voice cut her off as cleanly as if he'd 
  shouted in her face. "I don't want to live like this. You said we investigate 
  paranormal cases? I want to investigate this one." She started shaking her 
  head. "Why did you have Frohike check it out, then? Because you intended to 
  follow through with whatever he found. Well, he found something." 
  He was right. She had taken him there and put the idea in his head, and 
  nothing was going to shake it loose. That she had quickly realized her mistake 
  mattered not at all now. And there was a good chance that she was about to 
  make another. "Let's see what more he found overnight. If the lead still 
  holds, we'll check it out." 
  The tension drained from his face, leaving a peaceful smile in his eyes. 
  "Thank you, Scully." 
  "You can thank me by getting a few hours sleep. We're both going to need it." 
  His gaze shifted to the bedroom door. "I think I'd prefer the couch, if you 
  don't mind." 
  She hesitated, fighting images of him wandering out the front door in another 
  dream. But he needed her faith as much as her protection now. "Sure. I'll take 
  the bed." 
  She brought him a blanket and pillow from the bed. "I'll leave the door open. 
  Call me if you need anything." 
  He stuffed the pillow under his head and smiled at her. "Go to bed. I'll be 
  fine." He watched her all the way to the bedroom door. 
  Sleep was impossible. She straightened the sheets and sat down on the edge of 
  the mattress, ears tuned to catch the slightest sound from the living room. It 
  wasn't long before worry and exhaustion won out, and she lay back. Just a few 
  minutes, that's all, and she would be fine. 
  *Blinding white light and the smell of antiseptic. A massive machine hovered 
  over her, surrounding her with the blue scent of ionized air...* 

  Chapter Four 
  Tuesday, 8:00 am 
  Panic shot her out of bed the instant her eyes opened to broad daylight 
  streaming through Mulder's blinds. The comforting hum of his electric razor on 
  the other side of the bathroom door cancelled it out a moment later, and she 
  sank back onto the bed to ride out the adrenaline rush. 
  She didn't even remember falling asleep. Judging by the kinks in her back and 
  the scrambled sheets, it had been far from a restful one. 
  No surprise there. 
  Her back creaked like a rusty hinge when she stood up, trying to stretch out 
  the knots. As she leaned to the right, she noticed Mulder's familiar suitcase 
  waiting patiently by the door. He'd apparently been up long enough to pack. 
  Drawers were standing partway open on his dresser and the closet doors gaped 
  at her. Of course. He wouldn't know where anything was. It would be like 
  packing for a stranger. 
  The humming stopped, and she glanced self-consciously at the dresser mirror. 
  She was patting her hair when he opened the bathroom door. 
  "I'll be out in a minute." 
  "No rush. I have calls to make before we can leave." And they would have to 
  stop by her apartment so she could pack. 
  "I made coffee, by the way," and he ducked back into the bathroom. 
  "Bless you." One of the calls she needed to make would be to the A.D., and 
  caffeine was definitely a prerequisite. 
  Mulder had not only made coffee, she soon discovered, but he'd set out a clean 
  mug, cream and sugar packets bearing various airline logos, and a plastic stir 
  stick. He had a drawer full of convenience packets, she knew. Some people 
  accumulated the little liquor bottles. Mulder collected condiments. 
  After a few fortifying sips, she picked up the kitchen extension and punched 
  in the Gunmen's number. 
  Byers answered the phone, "Good morning, Agent Scully. I think we've got 
  something for you." 
  She heard him hand the phone off, and Melvin Frohike's voice boomed in her 
  ear. "Debit cards." 
  "Yes, I've heard of them." 
  "Fastest update in the business. Same day, usually. Most merchants have POS 
  terminals, and the charges show up almost immediately. Credit cards are much 
  slower. It didn't occur to me until a little while ago, but when I checked 
  Mulder's debit card, there it was." He paused dramatically. 
  "Melvin." 
  "Okay, okay. A motel charge in Farmington from Sunday. I figure that's when he 
  checked out." Paper crackled in her ear. "I don't have the details yet, but he 
  stayed at the Red Mesa on Route 64. I've got the phone number, if you want 
  it." 
  She wanted it, of course. "You wouldn't happen to know the next flight out, by 
  any chance?" 
  "I can find out in two seconds. Want me to get you on it?" 
  "Thanks, but I'll take care of it. I really appreciate your help, I hope you 
  know that." 
  "No prob. I'll keep digging." 
  There was a long pause, and she was about to hang up when he finally spoke 
  again. "Uh, if you guys need anything once you're out there... I mean, if 
  there's any trouble or... You do know you can call anytime. For anything." If 
  it were possible for a voice to blush, his was flaming pink. 
  "I do, Melvin." He had touched her, and she let it show in her voice. 
  The little man cleared his throat. "Okay, then. Keep in touch. I'll let you 
  know what I find." The dial tone followed immediately. 
  Scully smiled at the receiver. 
  "Someone is in a good mood this morning." 
  She looked up to find Mulder leaning rakishly against the doorframe. He was 
  wearing a white dress shirt and the trousers to his gray suit. "I was talking 
  to Frohike. He found the name of the motel where you spent Saturday night." 
  The slouch vanished. "We need to stay there, wherever it is." 
  "I agree." She gave his outfit another look. "I think you should probably 
  dress down a bit. Maybe jeans." 
  He looked down at his clothes, then back at her. "Too much, huh?" 
  She smiled. "You look... outstanding, Mulder. That's the problem. We don't 
  want to stand out. Jeans would be better. Think 'country western'." 
  "I'll have to repack, then." He disappeared back into the bedroom. 
  Flight reservations were next. There was a Delta flight leaving at 11:44 that 
  they could make with a little luck, and she booked two seats. 
  A.D. Skinner answered his private line on the first ring. He listened to her 
  update without comment until she told him where she would be if he needed to 
  reach her. He would approve her own participation, he said, but not Mulder's. 
  With no memory of his training or experience, Mulder would be no better than a 
  civilian. A danger to himself, to her and to the investigation. 
  "I've considered that, sir, but I believe that Agent Mulder's presence is 
  essential. I wouldn't take the risk if I weren't absolutely sure. I won't 
  hesitate to call for backup if it's warranted." 
  She heard the creak of leather and knew he was leaning back in his chair. Long 
  experience told her he was pinching the bridge of his nose, glasses pushed up 
  to his forehead. 
  "I have serious misgivings about this, Agent Scully, but I don't imagine 
  there's much I can do to stop you." 
  "No, sir. There isn't." 
  He let out a long breath, and she heard acceptance, if not agreement. "Stay in 
  touch, Agent. Daily contact. Understood?" 
  She did, and the discussion was over. Mulder came up behind her as she was 
  placing the phone back in its cradle. 
  "I don't want to see you get into trouble because of me." 
  Pine-scented cardboard trees and liverwurst sandwiches danced in her head as 
  she turned to face him . *I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but 
  you.* "Mulder, I won't get in trouble. And if I did, it would be my fault, not 
  yours." 
  He looked at her with the same surprise she'd seen in his face that night in 
  his car, but with none of the wariness she'd sensed beneath it. And just as 
  he'd done that night, he changed the subject. "I repacked." He pointed to his 
  duffle bag by the front door. "And changed." 
  Jeans. Black t-shirt. Doc Martens. "You look like a native, Mulder." 
  His color pinked up a bit. "Thanks," he said to his shoes. 
  "Now we have to get moving. Our flight leaves in two hours, and we still have 
  to stop at my apartment." 
  By the time they pulled up to the parking valet in front of the terminal 
  building, they had less than twenty minutes to get on the plane. Scully 
  unlocked the trunk to retrieve their bags. When Mulder reached for them, she 
  snagged his arm. "Wait. I need to get something." 
  He stood back while she slipped their ID wallets from the front pocket of her 
  briefcase and handed his to him. "You'll need to show that at Security and at 
  the gate. We'll never make it otherwise." 
  He flipped it open. "Wow." When he looked back at her, his expression was 
  priceless. 
  She smothered a smile. "If you go up there with that look on your face, 
  they'll keep us both for questioning." She tapped her index finger on his 
  solemn ID photo. "Try to look like that." 
  Their dash through the terminal required three separate stops to display ID. 
  Mulder managed to get through all of them with a more or less straight face. 
  When they finally settled into their seats, scant seconds before the cabin 
  door slammed shut, his sigh of relief was audible. 
  Scully stowed her laptop beneath the seat and turned to look at him. "You did 
  fine, Mulder." 
  "Thanks. Do we always board planes this way?" 
  "More often than I'd like." 
  A chirpy flight attendant stopped to remind them that the plane was taking off 
  in just a few minutes and would they please fasten their seat belts? It was 
  one benefit to being late, Scully reminded herself: less time to anticipate 
  the take-off. It didn't matter how well she understood the physics of flying. 
  It didn't matter that her chances of being killed driving to the airport were 
  vastly greater. Take-offs and landings paralyzed her with fear, and she'd long 
  since stopped trying to talk herself out of it. 
  Mulder was aware of it, of course, but he had never once commented. Not even 
  on their first flight together, cross country to Oregon the day after they'd 
  become partners. She had been terrified by the rough landing, and deeply 
  embarrassed that it had to be happening in front of her new partner. His own 
  exaggeratedly casual demeanor had felt like a rebuke. 
  He'd said nothing about it, but on the return flight, he had silently taken 
  her hand. It became a routine after that. Whenever the seat belt signs winked 
  on, and until the take off or landing or turbulence had passed, he'd held her 
  hand. Wordless, blameless comfort. It had been her first glimpse into the 
  heart that hid behind his swagger. 
  But this time, as the engine noise quadrupled and the plane lurched forward, 
  Mulder's hands were occupied with holding the magazine he'd pulled from the 
  seat pocket in front of him. He didn't even glance her way. 
  He didn't know she was afraid because he didn't know her. She was a complete 
  stranger to him, and the reality of it crashed into her for the first time. 
  The memories they shared were now hers alone, and she needed to accept the 
  possibility that they always would be. 
  The plane's angle of ascent sharpened, the acceleration pressing her back into 
  the seat cushions. Scully gripped the edge of the seat with both hands and 
  closed her eyes. 

  Farmington, New Mexico was a lot bigger than she remembered. The dusty 
  crossroads town of her memory was actually a small city, complete with 
  mini-skyscrapers and strip malls. The Lariat rental clerk had drawn them a map 
  to the Red Mesa Motel, though she'd tried to suggest several 'newer' 
  accommodations nearer to town. The route took them through tidy residential 
  neighborhoods and past sprawling glass office complexes before finally heading 
  out into the desert west of the city. 
  The Red Mesa Motel was a long, low cement block affair with the requisite 
  office squatting out front. Its neon sign flashed 'Vacancy' with a faintly 
  annoying buzz. Just across the highway was a forlorn-looking bar with 'Cold 
  Beer on Tap!' in orange letters four feet high along its roof. 
  "Looks like we'll have the place all to ourselves," Mulder observed from the 
  Jeep's passenger seat. They had opted for the pricier four-wheel drive rather 
  than their usual Taurus in deference to the terrain. Mulder opened his door 
  and stepped down onto the sizzling pavement. "The air conditioning better be 
  working, or I'm sleeping in the car." 
  Scully followed him to the office through a wall of heat that made the chilled 
  air inside almost painful to breathe. It was a tiny office, and the man behind 
  the counter seemed to take up half of it with his bulk. He was easily as tall 
  as Mulder and outweighed him by a hundred pounds or more. Despite the icy air, 
  his face was beaded with perspiration. 
  "You folks need a room?" There was a guest register open on the counter in 
  front of him, and he spun it around to face them. "You got your pick." 
  "Do you have any connecting rooms?" Scully asked as she fished her wallet out 
  of her bag. 
  The man shook his head, and sweat dripped from his chin. "No, ma'am. They're 
  all the same. Two double beds. No queens, no kings, no jacuzzis." 
  "One room, then." She caught a glimpse of Mulder from the corner of her eye as 
  his eyebrows went up. 
  "I'll put you in number 6. Right in the middle by the ice machine. I don't 
  think you need to worry about any neighbors makin' noise." He reached behind 
  him and selected a pair of keys from the rack. "You'll likely be my only 
  guests 'til closer to the weekend." 
  Scully looked up at that. "Were you here last weekend?" 
  "No, ma'am. I trade off with Willis on weekends." He gave the neglected 
  register a pointed nudge in her direction. 
  She selected a pen from the counter and began to fill in her name and address. 
  "And where could I find Mr. Willis?" 
  "Willis is his first name. He's right across the road there at Cold Beer." 
  "Cold Beer? That's the name of the place?" Mulder asked, glancing at the 
  building across the highway. 
  "Yep. Old George never could come up with a name for the place, so it's been 
  Cold Beer long as anybody can recall." 
  Scully finished registering and the man spun the book back to inspect her 
  entry. "They serve pretty decent burgers and such if you want to avoid the 
  trip back to town." 
  "Thanks, we might do that," Mulder said, scooping the keys up from the 
  counter. 
  They walked back out into the blazing heat, and Mulder headed straight for the 
  bar across the street. 
  "Mulder, wait. We need to talk first." 
  He stopped and turned around. "I'm not gonna say anything to him, Scully. I 
  just want to get a look at this Willis and see if anything clicks." 
  She walked over to him, the asphalt like hot coals under her feet. "First, we 
  need to talk, and I'd prefer not to do it out here in the heat." 
  The room proved to be only slightly cooler than the parking lot. She let 
  Mulder bring in the bags while she bent over the controls on the antique 
  heater/air conditioner unit under the window, trying to coax air from the 
  battered vents.. 
  "Sleeping in the Jeep is looking better and better," Mulder announced from the 
  open door. He dropped their bags at his feet. 
  Scully gave the dented metal case a kick, and the fan came abruptly to life. 
  She straightened up and looked at him. "I got it working. It'll be cooler 
  soon." She held her hand in the feeble stream of air. "Sooner or later," she 
  amended. 
  Mulder stepped around the bags and closed the door behind him. The room 
  instantly felt ten degrees cooler. "Maybe when we get back from the Cold 
  Beer?" He hoisted the bags from the floor, tossed them onto the nearer bed, 
  then flopped diagonally across the other with his legs hanging off the side. 
  Scully walked around the bed and shoved the suitcases aside so she could sit 
  down facing his knees. "We need to talk." 
  He raised up on his elbows and looked at her. "You have a one-track mind, has 
  anyone ever told you that?" When she didn't rise to the bait, he sat up the 
  all the way and sighed. "Okay. Talk to me." 
  Deep breath. "Shortly after we took off this morning, I'd decided that coming 
  here with you was a horrible mistake." She held up a hand to halt his protest. 
  "I'm not as certain now, and that's what we need to talk about. I want to make 
  sure that you understand the situation before you decide whether you want to 
  stay." She paused to gather her thoughts, and Mulder jumped into the silence. 
  "I'm not leaving here until I find out what happened." 
  She regarded him silently for a long moment. "We have some very powerful 
  enemies. People who move in the highest circles of power, not just outside the 
  law but totally above it. They're virtually untouchable, and that's one of the 
  things we've been trying to change." She sighed in frustration. None of this 
  was coming out the way she'd intended. "What I'm trying to say, Mulder, is 
  that you're no longer a threat to them. You can live your life unmolested. I 
  know it's a terrible price to pay, but if we leave matters alone, what they've 
  done could give you a fresh start." 
  "Then you don't believe my memory is going to come back by itself." 
  "No. I don't." 
  He shifted his focus to the window behind her. "But you would still be a 
  threat." 
  "I don't think they'd see it that way. They see me only as a tool to use 
  against you. There would be no reason to bother with me if you were no longer 
  coming after them." That was far from the truth, but she didn't want him 
  considering her in his decision. "Mulder, you could have a life." 
  His gaze came back to her. "You said the work we do is very important." 
  "It is, but we're not the only ones doing it." Just the best, she added 
  silently. 
  Mulder took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And all I have to do is go 
  back to D.C. and pretend that my life began two days ago?" He leaned into her 
  space. "I don't care what it takes. I don't care what it costs. I want my life 
  back." 
  He stood up and walked over to the window. "And I want you to go home." 
  "No way in hell." 
  "That sounded final." His back was to her, but she could hear the smile in his 
  voice. 
  "It was." 
  He turned back to face her. "Then we have a potential witness to interview." 
  She joined him at the window. "Looks like a nice evening for a walk." 
  Mulder moved to the door and opened it, letting in the scent of sun-baked 
  asphalt. "After you." 
  Halfway across the parking lot, Scully's cell phone started to ring. They 
  stopped walking while she answered it. 
  It was Frohike. "What's up, Melvin?" She smiled at Mulder's exaggerated eye 
  roll. He was already fidgeting and they'd been still less than a minute. 
  "Got an update for you on Mulder's debit charge. I'm not sure what to make of 
  it, but he paid for two rooms for two nights." 
  "Are you sure?" 
  "Looking at a copy of the slip on my monitor as we speak." 
  "Does it say who was in the other room?" Mulder had gone utterly still. 
  "Nope, just the dates and room numbers. He had 6 and 7 both nights." After a 
  moment of silence, "Scully? You still there?" 
  "I'm here. Thanks, Melvin. Keep checking and let me know what else turns up." 
  She clicked off and put the phone back in her pocket. 
  "Scully, talk to me." 
  "He says you had two rooms, not one." 
  "I got that much. What does it mean?" 
  She gestured toward the office. "We're about to find out." 
  The office was empty, though they could hear someone moving around on the 
  other side of the door behind the counter. The guest register lay on its 
  turntable, open to the page she'd signed earlier. "Keep an eye on the door," 
  she whispered to Mulder as she flipped to the previous page. 
  It took only a second to find the first entry for last Saturday's date. 
  Running her finger down the list of names, she found Mulder's signature 
  halfway down. But it was the signature just below his that stopped her heart. 
  Written with a green ballpoint pen that had obviously been running out of ink 
  was literally the last name she could have expected to see. 
  Her own. 



  Chapter Five 
  Red Mesa Motel
  Farmington, NM
  Room 6
  Tuesday, 7:40 pm 
  "It's a forgery because it can't be anything else." The initial shock had worn 
  off, yielding to common sense and a certain amount of shame that she'd fallen 
  for so obvious a ruse, if only for a moment. 
  "You don't think there's any possibility that you were actually here?" He was 
  sitting on the other bed, facing her. 
  "No, Mulder. There's no possibility that I was here." She made her voice 
  confident and steady in hope of somehow erasing her first reaction from his 
  mind. The last thing he needed now was more uncertainty. 
  Mulder studied the wall behind her, his voice as faraway as his eyes. "Then, 
  maybe I wasn't here, either." 
  She had considered that. The flight manifest only proved that a Fox Mulder had 
  boarded. It would have been a simple matter to fake a photo ID and impersonate 
  him. The question that kept coming back to her was 'Why?'. 
  His question had been rhetorical, but she would answer it anyway. "Maybe you 
  weren't." 
  That snapped his focus back to her. "Did you suspect this all along? Is that 
  why you didn't want me to come?" 
  "No," she said honestly. "I had every reason to believe that you came out here 
  over the weekend, and that whatever happened to you happened here. Nothing 
  we've learned proves otherwise." 
  He nodded faintly; acknowledging, not accepting. "We have to keep looking." 
  The set of his jaw was as familiar to her as her own reflection. "We will keep 
  looking, Mulder, but the rules haven't changed. You have to promise me that--" 
  "I know, I know. Let you take the lead." He stood and held out his hand to 
  help her up. When she was on her feet, he gestured expansively toward the 
  door. "I'm right behind you." 
  The parking lot across the highway was no longer empty. A battered pickup 
  truck that might once have been blue sat in front, and a late model station 
  wagon was parked in the shade alongside the building. Mulder tromped up the 
  wooden steps ahead of her and held the door. Scully preceded him into the 
  bar's dim, cool interior. 
  There was a woman behind the bar, and two customers perched on tall stools. 
  Mulder and Scully stood just inside the door for a moment, then walked the 
  length of the room, threading through a maze of empty tables to the row of 
  booths along the far wall. The bartender was washing glasses in the sink and 
  glanced up as they passed. "I'll be with you in a sec." 
  Mulder slid into the seat facing the door. "I'm guessing that's not Willis." 
  He tilted his head toward the bartender. 
  "Maybe he comes in later." She checked her watch. "Shift change at eight 
  o'clock?" It was five of eight. 
  As if in answer, the front door opened to admit a tall man wearing a cowboy 
  hat that made him even taller. "Thought I was gonna be late again, didn't ya?" 
  The bartender looked up. "Not on my bingo night, buddy. You know better," she 
  chuckled. "Now get that skinny behind over here so I can make the lightning 
  round." 
  "That has to be him," Mulder breathed, already rising from his seat. 
  Scully grabbed his hand, and he sat back down. Before she could remind him of 
  his promise, the departing bartender called across the room. "You folks need 
  anything 'fore I take off? Willis here won't get to ya 'til you're ready to 
  dry up and blow away." 
  Willis chuckled at the playful dig as he walked around behind the bar. 
  Mulder cleared his throat and called back, "Just a couple of beers." 
  "Comin' right up!" She came around the end of the bar and crossed to their 
  booth carrying two long-necked brown bottles in her right hand. The fingers of 
  her left were speared into a couple of pilsner glasses. She plunked them down 
  on the well-worn wood table. "Those are on the house cuz you had to wait." She 
  flashed Mulder a blinding smile that made her weathered face look ten years 
  younger. "You're welcome back here anytime, sweetie." And with that, she spun 
  on her heel and headed for the door. 
  "You've made a conquest," Scully turned back to tease Mulder, but his 
  attention was on the new bartender, eyes narrowed in concentration. "Do you 
  recognize him?" 
  Mulder swung his gaze back to hers. "I don't think so." He picked up his beer 
  and took a long drink. 
  "It's important that you don't say anything to lead him, Mulder. We need his 
  honest reaction. No prompting." 
  "And what if he doesn't react?" 
  Scully took a sip from her glass. "Let's not anticipate, okay?" He looked back 
  toward the bar, and she could feel his legs jiggling under the table from the 
  tension. She sipped her beer and waited. 
  Less than ten minutes later, the two customers at the bar got up to leave. 
  True to the woman's warning, their bartender had yet to glance their way. 
  Scully's heart rate tripled as Willis bantered with the departing customers. A 
  moment later, the door closed behind them, and it was just the three of them. 
  Across the table, she heard Mulder's breathing quicken. 
  "You folks ready for another round?" Willis called from behind the bar. 
  Mulder held up his bottle, his eyes riveted on Scully's. 
  "Be right there." A cooler door slid open, bottles tinkled together, and 
  Willis was on his way to their booth. 
  Mulder and Scully kept their eyes on each other as the footsteps approached, 
  halted briefly, then sped up. They both turned to find the man coming toward 
  them in long, menacing strides that brought both of them to their feet. Mulder 
  stepped forward holding up his right hand and putting himself between Scully 
  and the advancing man. "Just hold it right there." 
  So much for the rules. Scully moved to Mulder's side. 
  Willis halted so abruptly that one of the beer bottles slipped from his 
  fingers and crashed to the floor at his feet. The noise made them all jump, 
  and Scully saw Mulder's hand go automatically to his right hip, reaching 
  unknowingly for the weapon that wasn't there. 
  Willis' eyes followed Mulder's reflexive movement, and his hands came up 
  defensively. "Hey, take it easy, okay? I'm just glad to see you." 
  Mulder didn't relax his stance an iota. 
  The man turned to Scully. "What'd I do?" 
  "You startled us," she told him. Mulder took his cue from her calm delivery 
  and lowered his arm to his side. 
  Willis dropped his hands in response, the remaining bottle dangling all but 
  forgotten from his right. "Sorry. I thought you said you'd come back to see me 
  before you left. Then, I go in to work Sunday night and you're gone. I thought 
  maybe something happened to you out there." 
  Scully searched her mind for a cover story, one she now realized should have 
  been agreed upon before they came in here. Mulder, thankfully, appeared to be 
  waiting for her to take the lead. The only thing she knew for certain was that 
  revealing their ignorance was not an option. "We need to talk, Willis. Pull up 
  a chair." She slid back into the booth. 
  The man stepped over the broken bottle and did as she asked, keeping a wary 
  eye on Mulder who was still on his feet. "Mulder, sit down." He did, but not 
  until she nailed him with a look. 
  Willis turned his chair around backward and rested his arms on the back, a 
  casual pose that didn't quite match his darting gaze. He seemed to be trying 
  to watch both of them at once. 
  "What did you think might have happened?" She asked him finally. 
  He spread the fingers of both hands without taking them from the chair back. 
  "The same thing that happened to Eric?" He turned back to Mulder. "I thought 
  that's what you were trying to find out." 
  Scully started to answer for him, but Mulder didn't need any help. "What do 
  you think happened to him?" 
  "Well, Jeezus, if I knew that ... " He gave a helpless shrug. "When we talked 
  before, it seemed like you already had a pretty damn good idea. I don't get 
  it." 
  Scully stepped in. "Thinking that you know what you're looking for can 
  sometimes hamper an investigation. What we need to do is step back and take a 
  fresh look. We need you to go back to the beginning and tell it all one more 
  time." 
  Willis gave her a blank look. "What?" 
  "It's important," she prodded. 
  He looked at Mulder, then back at her, finally nodding. "Okay, if you think it 
  will help." He puffed out a breath. "Eric showed up on my doorstep about three 
  weeks ago, so freaked out that it took two beers to settle him down enough to 
  tell me what he was doing there at four in the morning. He said two guys had 
  been following him and he needed a place to hide out." 
  "Did he know the men?" Scully asked. At his incredulous look, she added, "I'll 
  be asking you questions that you've probably answered before. Please bear with 
  me, okay?" 
  He sighed heavily and nodded. "He said they just showed up at the college. San 
  Juan College, in town. He was taking some classes that sent him out digging in 
  the desert every weekend. That's how he found the ring those guys were asking 
  him about." 
  "A ring, as in jewelry? Something valuable?" 
  "I don't think so, but I never saw it. All he said was, it was made out of 
  something weird. Some metal that changed color when he picked it up." 
  Not even Mulder would come halfway across the country for a mood ring. This 
  was looking less and less like the lead she'd hoped it was. "So, he found a 
  ring in desert that changed color, and somehow decided that these men wanted 
  it. How would they know he had it?" 
  Willis lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Who knows? He said he showed it around 
  at the college; talked to his professor about it. It wasn't a secret." 
  She added the professor to her mental list of potential interviews. "Do you 
  know the professor's name, or the name of the course?" 
  "No," he dragged the word out wearily, "he never said." 
  Sensing her window of opportunity slipping shut, she smiled reassuringly. 
  "Just a few more questions. Did you go to the police at all?" 
  Willis snorted. "Yeah. They made two phone calls and told me to forget it. 
  Eric's boss said he'd gotten a call from him the week before saying he'd be 
  gone for a while. They called his landlord and found he'd moved out. End of 
  story." 
  It was hard not to sigh in frustration. "And what makes you believe that your 
  friend didn't leave of his own accord?" 
  He squinted at her. "I'm not following." 
  "You said the police investigated and found evidence that your friend had left 
  his job and moved from his apartment. I'm asking why you don't accept that." 
  The puzzled frown deepened. "You're putting me on." 
  Scully suddenly wished that she knew the man's last name, because calling him 
  by his first name felt wrong under the circumstances. "No, I'm afraid not. 
  Nothing you've told me so far indicates anything but a voluntary--" 
  "Okay, what the hell's really going on here?" He seemed ready to rise out of 
  the chair with outrage. "Last Saturday, you guys were as concerned as me! What 
  the hell happened?" 
  His reaction wasn't entirely unexpected, but it took her a moment to process 
  what he was saying. When she did, her mouth went dry. Either he was the most 
  convincing liar she'd come across in a long time, or... 
  Willis turned his glare in Mulder's direction. "And you talked to Eric 
  yourself. He called you from my house, so I heard what he told you." 
  Mulder's level voice was aimed at Willis, but his eyes were locked with hers. 
  "Willis, could you give us a moment?" 
  The man made a disgusted sound and stood up, sending his chair skidding 
  backward. "You two are worse than the cops." He stomped back to the bar. 
  Mulder's expression was unreadable. "You were here." 
  "Mulder, I remember every moment of last weekend. And even if I didn't trust 
  my own memory, I have a witness. I spent most of Sunday with my mother." 
  "Call her." 
  She shook her head, keeping her voice as low and intense as his. "Mulder, the 
  man has been paid off--or threatened-- into concocting this story. Someone's 
  gone to a great deal of trouble to keep our focus here. While we spin our 
  wheels chasing lies, whoever did this to you is destroying the evidence 
  elsewhere. We're being diverted." It was the only rational explanation. 
  "Call your mother, and then we'll know for certain." 
  Her mother would think she'd lost her mind, but it seemed the only way to 
  prove it to him. "All right." She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the 
  number. 
  Maggie answered on the first ring, sounding half asleep, and Scully abruptly 
  realized that it was after ten o'clock back home. "Hi, mom. I'm sorry, did I 
  wake you?" 
  "No, sweetheart. I was reading. Is everything all right?" 
  In bed, obviously. Scully could hear Maggie's bedside clock ticking. It was an 
  old brass wind-up alarm that had sat next to her parents' bed for as long as 
  she could remember. "Everything's fine. I just need a favor." She had a cover 
  story in mind for the call, but no clue how she would broach the subject of 
  Sunday without worrying her. 
  "Of course. What do you need?" Sheets rustled as she sat up. 
  "I had to go out of town unexpectedly, and I forgot about a package that's 
  coming tomorrow. Could you stop by my apartment and bring it inside? I don't 
  want to leave it out in the hallway until I get back." There would be no 
  package for her to bring in, of course, but that could easily be explained 
  later. She was searching for a segue to her real question when Maggie 
  innocently brought the universe to a grinding halt. 
  "You're still in New Mexico, then?" 
  It must have showed in her face, because Mulder leaned across the table as if 
  he expected her to topple from her seat. "Y-yes." 
  Maggie yawned in her ear. "Do you know yet when you'll be home? We could 
  reschedule dinner for next Sunday, if you'll be back. You could bring Fox." 
  "A few more days, I think." Her voice was surprisingly steady. "I'll call 
  you." 
  Another yawn. "Okay, sweetheart. Tell Fox I said hello, and ask him about 
  dinner." 
  "I will, mom. And thanks. Good night." She clicked off and laid the phone on 
  the table. 
  "Scully?" 
  She shook her head slowly, trying to grasp what she knew he'd already guessed. 
  "It's true, isn't it?" He phrased it as a question, but there
  was no doubt in his eyes. 
  And now, there was none in hers. "I wasn't with her last Sunday." 
  Mulder sagged back in his seat. "Then we're back to square one." In his case, 
  it was literally true. 
  She was gathering her thoughts as she spoke. "I wouldn't have come here with 
  you unless there was more to it than we just heard." There were several 
  reasons why she was so certain of that statement, none of which she was going 
  to share right now. "So we have to assume that Willis wasn't our only source 
  of information." 
  "He said I talked to his friend." 
  "Yes, but he also said he heard everything the man said to you." 
  Mulder glanced toward the bar. "Then, maybe he has more to tell us." He got up 
  and headed across the room before she could get her legs under her. 
  Willis watched them sullenly. "You got any more questions, I'm fresh out of 
  answers." He bit the words off, his voice still tight with anger. 
  Mulder looked down at her when she reached his side, a question in his eyes. 
  Scully nodded, and he turned back to Willis. "Has anything odd happened around 
  here lately, other than your friend's disappearance?" 
  Willis snorted. "Buddy, this is ground zero for 'odd'. Lights in the sky, UFO 
  nuts, unexplained blackouts-- people, not electricity, haunted ruins. You name 
  it and--" He stopped dead, the anger draining from his face. "Jeezus, it 
  happened to you, didn't it?" He turned stunned eyes on Scully. "That's why 
  you're acting like you never heard any of this before." 
  There was a genuineness to the man's shock that overrode seven years of 
  experience. "Yes." 
  "Jeezus." He looked at Mulder. "Then, Eric's still out there." 
  So were two days worth of her memories, and all of Mulder's. She pulled up a 
  stool and sat down. "If he is, we'll find him, but we're going to need your 
  help." 
  "I owe the guy my life. Anything you want, you got it." 
  Mulder settled in the stool next to hers. "Now that you know the situation, we 
  can drop the pretense. Let's start with Eric's last name." 
  "And yours," Scully added. 
  Willis nodded. "Mine's Jordan. Eric's is Hosteen. He said you were friends of 
  his grandfather." 

  Cold Beer
  Farmington, NM
  Tuesday, 10:30 pm 
  Now that she knew, it seemed so obvious. What other 'Eric' in Farmington, New 
  Mexico could have prompted her to make the trip she seemed to have made last 
  Friday night? Mulder had probably called her as soon as he'd hung up with 
  Eric, and they would have taken the next flight out with no questions asked. 
  Well, with very few questions asked. She hoped they'd had the good sense to 
  consider that Eric's call for help could have been coerced. It wouldn't be the 
  first time that their enemies had used someone Mulder cared about as bait. 
  If it was a trap, they were about to walk into it for the second time. 
  "If we leave right after we talk to Eric's professor tomorrow, we can be there 
  by noon," Mulder broke into her thoughts. Willis had drawn them a map on a 
  cocktail napkin, and Mulder had been studying it in between bites of 
  cheeseburger. "Do you think we need to take camping gear?" 
  His child-like excitement made her smile at the same time that it chilled her. 
  There was so much he didn't understand. "I guess it couldn't hurt to be 
  prepared." 
  He nodded, returning to the map. "The Jeep was a good choice." 
  Willis was still behind the bar, tending to the dozen or so customers who had 
  begun straggling in about half an hour ago. He kept glancing apologetically in 
  their direction, but it was clear that their conversation was over for the 
  evening. He'd written his home phone number beneath the map. They could try to 
  catch him tomorrow before they left for the site. 
  "If we want to get an early start tomorrow, we should get some sleep." 
  Mulder looked at her plate. "You're not gonna eat?" 
  She had choked down only a few bites. "We'll have a big breakfast in the 
  morning. Right now, I need a shower and a bed." 
  He nodded, glancing toward the bar. "Looks like we've had our last crack at 
  Willis for the night." He dropped a ten dollar bill on the table and got up. 
  No coaxing her to eat. No worried frown. Scully got up to follow him out, 
  feeling inexplicably abandoned. 
  The night air felt almost icy as they made their way back to the room. Scully 
  was shivering by the time they locked the door behind them, only to find that 
  the A/C had kicked in with a vengeance. 
  While Mulder fiddled with the controls, Scully fished through her suitcase for 
  her pajamas and toothbrush. "Do you mind if I have the bathroom first?" 
  He waved over his shoulder, giving the unit a solid thump with his other hand. 
  "Take your time." 
  The hot water was surprisingly plentiful, and she let it cascade over knotted 
  muscles until her fingers pruned. When she emerged in a cloud of steam thirty 
  minutes later, the room was lit only by the glow from the television. Mulder 
  was stretched out on the other bed with his eyes closed. She snapped off the 
  television and got into the other bed, shivering between the cold sheets. 
  She was just drifting off when Mulder's soft voice came out of the darkness. 
  "Good night, Scully." 
  "Good night, Mulder." Wide awake once more, she listened as his breathing 
  began to slow and deepen. It was as if he'd been waiting for her to return 
  before he would let himself sleep. 
  Sleep eventually claimed her too, but with a much lighter grip, snapping her 
  awake every time he stirred. 

  San Juan Community College
  Farmington, NM
  Wednesday, 8:30 am 
  The college was perched on a hillside above town, its sprawling campus as 
  improbably lush and green as the narrow strip of land that bordered the river 
  below. They found the registrar's office in a glass-walled corner of the main 
  building, overlooking the meticulously landscaped grounds. 
  "Eric Hosteen, you said?" The young woman at the counter consulted her 
  computer screen. "Ah, here he is. And this must be the class you're talking 
  about, Anthropology 288. Meets Wednesdays and Fridays at 9 am. Professor 
  Wilson Kendrick." 
  "Where would we find Professor Kendrick?" Scully asked. 
  The woman glanced at the clock. "Getting ready for class, I would imagine. 
  You'll probably find him in his office on the third floor. Take the elevator 
  and go to your right, all the way to the end." 
  As they rode up, Mulder shared a cheery thought. "You don't suppose we've 
  already been here, too." 
  "Let's hope not." Scully doubted that the same ploy she'd used with Willis 
  Jordan would fool a college professor. 
  The office door was open, and a middle-aged man with a gray ponytail looked up 
  as they entered. "Can I help you?" 
  They displayed their badges. "I'm Agent Scully and this is my partner, Agent 
  Mulder. We're investigating the disappearance of one of your students, Eric 
  Hosteen." 
  The man frowned immediately. "You said you were coming on Saturday. I waited 
  for two hours." 
  "We were unavoidably detained," Mulder responded smoothly. "May we have a 
  moment of your time now?" 
  "I have a class in twenty minutes. I'll give you ten." He waved at the chairs 
  in front of his desk and sat down 
  They took their seats, Mulder on her right. Scully began, "We understand that 
  Eric Hosteen came to see you before he disappeared, and that he showed you 
  something he found in the desert." 
  "He told me about it. He didn't show it to me." 
  She saw Mulder frown out of the corner of her eye and surreptitiously touched 
  his arm. "What did he tell you?" 
  Kendrick sighed impatiently. "Look, don't you people share information? I've 
  already been over this with two of your colleagues." He looked at his watch. 
  "When was this?" 
  "Monday morning. I assumed they'd been sent in your place." 
  Mulder leaned forward in his seat, ignoring her touch. "What did you tell 
  them?" 
  Kendrick frowned. "They wanted the location of the dig site the class had been 
  working. I gave it to them, and they left before I could ask how this concerns 
  the FBI. Perhaps you would enlighten me?" 
  Scully stepped in. "Professor, the people who came to see you were not with 
  the FBI. We believe they were after the artifact and may be responsible for 
  Eric's disappearance." 
  That shook him. "Oh, my god. You don't think I... that it's my fault...?" 
  "No, not at all. But we do need you to tell us exactly what you said to them." 
  "I don't understand." He was shaking his head slowly. "From Eric's 
  description, it wasn't even a valuable piece. I told them that." 
  "What exactly did Eric tell you about the ring?" Mulder asked. 
  "That it was made out of something that changed color and texture in his 
  hands. He wanted to know if I'd ever found anything like it. Of course, I 
  hadn't." 
  "Is that were he found it? At the class dig site?" 
  Kendrick gave Mulder an appraising look. "That is an excellent question. One 
  the other men failed to ask." 
  "Would you have answered if they had?" 
  The man tipped his head back, squinting at the memory. "I had the distinct 
  impression that their interest in Eric was a ruse. I'm not sure why." He met 
  Mulder's gaze once more. "So, no. I don't believe I would have." He opened a 
  desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Eric never told me the precise 
  location," he handed the sheet to Mulder, "The blue outlines are the sites 
  we've been working for this class. The area shaded green is a secondary site I 
  offered for extra credit. I believe that's where he was working when he found 
  the ring." 
  "May I keep this?" Mulder held up the map. 
  "Of course." Kendrick looked at his watch and stood. "Now, I'm sorry but I 
  really need to prepare for my class." 
  When they got back to the car, they compared the professor's map to the one 
  Willis had drawn for them. The area Willis had marked was near the center of 
  the professor's secondary site. 
  Scully started the engine, adjusting the air vents upward toward her face. 
  Just the short walk from the building to the Jeep had sweat trickling down her 
  back. "I think we need to get out there before it gets much hotter." 
  "You don't want to wait for dark?" He sounded mildly alarmed. 
  "I think it would be more dangerous skulking around out there at night. We'll 
  blend in with the tourists this way." 
  Mulder shrugged and returned to his maps, but the way he was chewing his lip 
  spoke volumes. 
  "Mulder, do you want to wait for darkness?" 
  He put down the maps and looked at her. "Willis said we went out there in 
  daylight the last time. I was just thinking that we'd be less... conspicuous." 
  She pulled out onto the highway before she answered, choosing her words. "We 
  aren't familiar with the area. The site is remote. It's going to be difficult 
  enough to find it in broad daylight." 
  He was silent for a moment. "That didn't stop us last time." 
  Last time, I had a partner with his training and memory intact. Out loud, she 
  said, "And we know how well that turned out." 
  He tipped his head, conceding the point. "So, what's the next step?" 
  "Wills is meeting us at the bar. I called him while you were in the shower 
  this morning. He's bringing supplies." 
  There was a lone pickup truck in the Cold Beer parking lot which they 
  correctly assumed to be Willis Jordan's. They found him inside mopping the 
  floor. "Have you all had breakfast? I could fire up the grill." He plopped the 
  mop into the scrub bucket, drying his hands on his jeans. 
  "Thanks, we stopped at Denny's on the way to the college," Scully responded. 
  "So, you saw the professor? Was he any help?" 
  Mulder handed him the maps. "He never saw the ring, either, but he thinks this 
  is where Eric must have found it." 
  Willis studied the markings. "Where?" Mulder pointed at the shaded section. 
  "That's a lot of ground to cover." He looked at them, frowning. "You won't be 
  able to do it in a day. Three, maybe, but not one. You sure you don't want me 
  to come along and help?" 
  It wasn't the first time he'd offered. Scully turned him down each time, but 
  he kept trying. "Thanks, Willis, but you know that's impossible." She glanced 
  out toward the parking lot. "How much do we owe you for the supplies?" 
  He made a dismissive gesture and headed for the door. "I owe Eric my life. You 
  find him, and that's all the payment I could ask for." 
  Scully had parked next to the pickup. As Willis unloaded the supplies and 
  handed them to Mulder, he explained why each was essential. The sleeping bags 
  seemed silly for a day trip, but Scully supposed that they would preserve the 
  illusion for any observers. Next came lots and lots of water, a first aid kit, 
  plus the requisite flash lights and spare batteries. Mulder passed the items 
  to Scully, and she packed them away in the Jeep. 
  When a two-man tent and camp stove appeared, her eyebrows shot skyward. 
  "Except for the canteens, this stuff is going to stay in the Jeep. Don't you 
  think we're taking 'appearances' a bit far?" 
  "I might have agreed with you before I saw the area you're trying to cover. 
  Now I wish I had a CB radio for you, 'cuz your cell phones aren't gonna work 
  worth a damn." 
  His genuine concern touched her. "We'll be fine." She waved at the impressive 
  pile of gear in the backseat. "Even if we have to spend the night. Thank you, 
  Willis. I mean that." 
  They all shook hands, Willis looking worriedly from Mulder to Scully. "Just 
  take care. I don't need two FBI agents on my conscience." 
  Scully smiled at him. "We'll be back in time for supper." 
  At Willis' insistence, Scully trotted back to their room for heavy clothing. 
  She tossed sweatshirts and jeans in a duffle, then added their toothbrushes. 
  Just in case. 
  When they finally pulled out of the parking lot, their benefactor stood there 
  waving like a nervous mother sending the kids off to summer camp. 

  Wednesday, 12:20 pm 
  Both Willis' and Kendrick's maps left a lot to be desired in terms of 
  landmarks, and the street signage had disappeared when they'd left the main 
  highway outside Chaco Canyon Park. Still, Scully was reasonably confident that 
  they were on the right course, albeit forty minutes behind schedule. The road 
  was simply too difficult to distinguish from the surrounding sand, and they 
  hadn't been able to drive much above forty miles per hour for the past thirty 
  miles. 
  "How's the gas?" Mulder broke into her concentration. 
  Scully risked a quick glance at the gauges. "The gas is fine, but I'm starting 
  to worry about the radiator." The engine temperature indicator had been 
  creeping steadily upward almost since the moment they'd left the highway. 
  "Maybe we should stop and let it cool off." 
  "We should be there soon. Then it can cool off for a few hours." She smiled 
  reassuringly, already sorry that she'd given him something more to worry 
  about. "Keep an eye out for the pueblo cliffs." 
  Mulder nodded and started looking. 
  The Jeep's digital clock read 1:49 pm when Scully realized that the distant 
  hills had begun to close in on the road from both sides. They were getting 
  close to the site. 
  "I guess we don't have to worry about blending in with the tourists," Mulder 
  observed dryly. They hadn't seen another car for over an hour. 
  "I think that's our destination," Scully squinted through the glare, pointing 
  toward a cluster of rocks with a distinctive shape that both maps described. 
  "Finally." Mulder undid his seat belt and reached into the backseat for their 
  canteens. 
  Scully parked next to the rock formation to make it easier to find the car 
  later. When the doors opened, the heat nearly took their breath away. 
  "Your hat, ma'am." Mulder handed her one of the baseball caps Willis had 
  thoughtfully included. The bills were long and wide to keep the worst of the 
  sun out of their eyes. 
  Scully pulled her hair back with a rubber band, then plunked the hat on top. 
  "Let's make this quick." 
  They found the excavation site almost immediately, and soon devised a search 
  pattern that seemed to work. Mulder took one side of the wide expanse of sand, 
  and Scully started from the opposite side. The plan was to meet in the 
  center... unless one of them turned up a clue sooner. 
  Twenty minutes passed, then forty, and all they were finding was sand, rocks 
  and empty holes marked with sticks and twine. Scully kept glancing up to make 
  sure Mulder was still in sight, his crouched form shimmering in the waves of 
  superheated air. As they approached the one hour mark, she was deeply 
  regretting her insistence that they do this during the day. 
  "Scully! Over here!" 
  Thank god! she whispered through parched lips, and stood up. 
  Mulder was about fifty yards away, waving his hat in the air. 
  "Put that back on your head before your brain fries," she yelled over to him 
  as she trotted around holes on her way to see what he'd found. 
  She was close enough to see his sheepish grin as he started to comply. And 
  then he froze with the cap halfway to its destination, all expression gone 
  from his face. "Mulder, what--?" He seemed to be looking behind her, and she 
  automatically glanced back over her shoulder. There was nothing to see. 
  Before she could turn back to Mulder, it hit her: tingling waves of sensation 
  that seemed to be everywhere at once, over every inch of her skin, tickling 
  the pit of her stomach and the tips of her fingers and toes; a deep droning 
  buzz in her head that set every bone in her body vibrating. 
  An instant later, it was like throwing a switch. There was no sensation at 
  all. No thought. 
  Nothing. 

  Chapter Seven 
  Scully opened her eyes to a bright white light hovering overhead. It took her 
  a long, shivering moment to realize that the cold surface beneath her wasn't 
  the metal table of her nightmares, it was sand. She was outside, and the light 
  above her was the moon. 
  Memory flooded back. She had been driving to the dig site with Mulder, in the 
  middle of the day. It was night now. Had they been in an accident? She bolted 
  upright, and immediately grabbed her pounding head with both hands. 
  "Mulder?" She called out, peering into the darkness. If they'd had an 
  accident, where was the Jeep? 
  There was no response for a moment, and she struggled to her feet. It was so 
  cold that her teeth were chattering. 
  "Over here," Mulder's voice drifted out of the darkness. 
  She spun toward the sound and lost her footing, falling to all fours on the 
  rocky sand. Mulder lay a short distance away, his face turned toward her. She 
  scrambled over to him, heedless of the damage she was doing to her knees. 
  "Don't try to move. Let me look at you first." She dusted her hands off on her 
  slacks before she touched him. "How do you feel, Mulder?" His skin was icy. 
  "Funny. I musta been laying on my side. My arm feels numb." 
  His words slurred together, the syllables lazy and indistinct. She took one of 
  his hands in each of hers. "Mulder, squeeze as hard as you can." He tried to 
  comply, and her heart sank. His grip was noticeably weaker on the right side. 
  "Does your head hurt?" 
  "Yeah, now that you mention it." His eyes kept slipping shut. When he wrestled 
  them open, the right eyelid lagged behind the left, never reaching more than 
  half-mast. 
  She felt along his right side, checking the reflexes in his leg. Everything 
  indicated an injury to the left side of his brain. Maybe a concussion, though 
  she could find no external indication of trauma to the head. It was also 
  possible that they had come into contact with whoever had altered their 
  memories before. But why were they hurting him like this? Why just him, and 
  not her? 
  He had been shivering hard a moment ago, but barely at all now. Hypothermia on 
  top of a brain injury could kill him, if she didn't do something quickly. "I'm 
  going to look for the Jeep, Mulder. We need to get warm." She moved to get up, 
  but he made an uncoordinated grab for her arm. 
  "Don't go." 
  She sat down next to him and pushed the hair away from his forehead with 
  gentle fingers. "Mulder, we can't survive out here all night without warmer 
  clothing. The sleeping bags are in the Jeep, and they'll keep us warm until 
  the sun comes up." 
  His eyes slipped shut and stayed that way. "Just don't forget to come back." 
  She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I won't forget." 
  The moonlight was strong enough to show her the immediate area, but the Jeep 
  was nowhere in sight. Directly in front of her, and stretching into the 
  darkness on the right, was a line of huge boulders. To their left, cliffs rose 
  several stories high. With one last glance at Mulder, she headed for the 
  boulders. 
  There was an opening large enough to walk through, and what looked like a 
  path, though it would take her out of the moonlight. Feeling her way along the 
  rocks with both hands, she moved forward. It was hard to judge distance over 
  such uneven ground, but it seemed less than twenty yards before the rocks 
  parted and she found herself in another clearing. Not ten feet away was the 
  Jeep. 
  She felt a twinge of panic, digging through her pants pockets for the keys 
  until she found that the doors were unlocked. Underneath the floor mat, she 
  found the keys. She stuffed them into her pocket and pawed through the 
  supplies in back for canteens and sleeping bags and flashlights. The duffel 
  where she'd put their sweatshirts came next, and she quickly pulled hers on. 
  She grabbed Mulder's and added it to her bundle, then headed back to him 
  loaded down like a pack mule. 
  It had been less than fifteen minutes since she'd left him, but his condition 
  had gone noticeably downhill. She could barely rouse him. "Mulder, you have to 
  help me." Trying to get his arms into the sweatshirt was like pushing a noodle 
  into a straw. "Can you sit up?" 
  Getting him into the sleeping bag was easier, but by the time he was tucked 
  in, they were both sweating in spite of the freezing air. She held the canteen 
  to his lips, trying with limited success to get more of it into his mouth than 
  down his chin. The paralysis on the right side of his mouth made it very 
  difficult for him, and he coughed when he tried to swallow. 
  "Mulder, are you having trouble breathing?" He shouldn't be, but it certainly 
  looked as if he were. 
  His response was so garbled that she had to lean close and ask him again. 
  "Head hurts." He squinted up at her. "Can't see you." 
  She couldn't wait for morning. He might very well be dead before then. "I'm 
  going to find a way to get the Jeep in here so I can get you to a hospital." 
  He murmured something unintelligible. "Mulder, I have to leave you here for a 
  little while, but I'll be back as soon as I can. Do you understand?" She put 
  one of the flashlights in his hands and turned it on. "Keep this lit, okay? It 
  will help me find you." 
  She cupped his cheek and watched him struggle to focus on her face. "Mulder, 
  can you hear me?" 
  "Be back soon," he slurred, smiling with one side of his mouth. 
  "Yes," she whispered around the lump in her throat. "Be back soon." She kissed 
  him softly and stood up, then walked quickly back to the Jeep before she could 
  change her mind. 
  The Jeep didn't start on the first try, or the second. Her heart was in her 
  throat as she turned the key for the third time, and the engine roared to 
  life. She put her head down on the steering wheel for a moment to wait out the 
  shakes. Then she turned on the headlights and stared at the rocks. There had 
  to be a break in the wall. She just hoped it was soon. 
  For some reason, she had expected the line of boulders to run straight into 
  the desert. It did anything but. She noted the mileage on the odometer and 
  headed into the darkness. In the first mile, she judged that the wall had 
  angled to the left at least thirty degrees. She was moving farther from Mulder 
  in two directions at once. And her speed had to remain below forty in order to 
  make sure she didn't blow past a narrow opening in the wall that could take 
  her back to him. 
  It was many minutes before she remembered the weapons in the glove box and 
  slammed on the brakes. Dammit! How could she have left him out there totally 
  defenseless? There were undoubtedly animals out there at night. Snakes. 
  Coyotes. God knew what. And she had both guns. 
  For a moment, she weighed the odds that he might be attacked by an animal 
  against his pressing need to get to a hospital. If she turned back now, she'd 
  add an hour to the delay. He couldn't afford it. 
  The wall moved back and forth over the next several miles until she was no 
  longer even sure of her direction. For a few desperate moments, she considered 
  turning around and driving for help, or at least until her cell phone started 
  working again. At least, she could be with him while they waited. 
  She was about to turn around when the gap she'd been looking for showed up on 
  her right. Please be wide enough. The odometer showed that she was nearly ten 
  miles from where she'd started, but the gap was her way back to Mulder. It was 
  narrow and very rocky, but it was also his only chance. She fastened her seat 
  belt and drove into it. 
  It was like driving over bowling balls, and she was afraid at several points 
  that the Jeep was going to tip over. Getting back through it would be rough on 
  Mulder, she knew, but there was no choice. 
  When she reached the flat desert, she breathed a huge sigh of relief and 
  stepped down on the accelerator. She could follow the tire tracks back to the 
  passage. Right now, all she could think of was getting back to Mulder. 
  She'd expected it to be simple to find him. Just speed across the desert until 
  the rock wall appeared in front of her. Mulder was lying a dozen yards from 
  it. It wasn't easy. The wall of boulders moved in and out just as the one 
  she'd followed to the gap had done, and she was soon worried that she had 
  missed him. 
  And then she saw the cliffs looming in the distance and knew she was close. 
  She slowed to a crawl, straining for a glimpse of the flashlight, praying that 
  he hadn't turned it off. 
  There! The light was on the ground, its beam shining toward her like a beacon. 
  She stopped the Jeep ten yards away from him and ran the rest of the way. 
  She dropped to her knees at his side. "Mulder, I'm back." He had pushed the 
  sleeping bag down, exposing his upper body to the chilly air. His face was so 
  cold... "Mulder?" 
  For one horrible moment, she thought he was dead. And then he moved. "Mulder, 
  I have to get you into the Jeep. Can you sit up?" He mumbled something and 
  tried to roll away from her. "No, Mulder. You have to help me." But first, she 
  had to get the Jeep over to him. "I'm going to bring the car over. Don't 
  move," she added unnecessarily. 
  She ran back across the sand and parked the passenger side of the Jeep 
  alongside Mulder's inert form. Reaching over, she threw the door open and got 
  out to run around the other side. "Sit up, Mulder. Try to help me. Please." 
  His right side was completely useless now, but he did his best to help her. 
  She got him propped against the right rear tire first, then helped him scoot 
  more-or-less upright, braced against the Jeep with his left leg. Getting him 
  to the door and then inside exhausted them both, but they made it. 
  Mulder was panting for air. "Scu... Scully. I... can't breathe." 
  "Here, sit up a little more. Can you sit up?" She kept asking him that, she 
  thought hysterically. "Just try to take slow breaths, Mulder. Easy and slow." 
  She stroked his forehead and prayed. It was all she could do. "That's it. Slow 
  and easy. Take it slow." She said it over and over, and he began to relax. 
  "I'm going to strap you in now and go over to my side. Just try to stay calm." 
  Her hands and her legs were trembling by the time she got in behind the wheel. 
  She put the transmission in gear and headed back toward the gap, praying that 
  she could get back through with Mulder's added weight. 
  The Jeep was actually steadier with the balanced load. She made it through the 
  rocky pass and back to the road, such as it was, with very little trouble. 
  Mulder's head smacked into the doorpost at one point, but he barely seemed to 
  notice. 
  Now, all she had to do was find the main highway. The moon had set, so the 
  little light it had provided was gone. Several times, she didn't know she had 
  left the road until a rock or a bush appeared in front of her. Each time, she 
  turned back toward what she thought was the right direction, always wondering 
  if she might be driving further into the desert instead of back toward town. 
  Next to her in the passenger seat, Mulder was slipping away. His breathing had 
  slowed almost to imperceptibility, broken by occasional gasps. She tried 
  shaking him a few times. He winced as if she were hurting him, but he didn't 
  wake. 
  The drive gave her plenty of time to think, and to worry. He seemed to 
  remember her, but they had obviously been taken again and their memories 
  altered. They had reached the dig site, and possibly found something. Or 
  maybe, they had been assaulted as soon as they reached the site. There was no 
  way to know. Whatever they had done to Mulder had made him much worse, at 
  least physically. Her own headache was relentless, but she showed none of the 
  symptoms Mulder had. 
  So why was this happening to him? If they wanted to kill him, why not just do 
  it? Why the slow torture? Had their enemies tired of the cat and mouse games 
  and decided to finish him off? Ineptly? 
  None of it tracked for her. The ring that Eric Hosteen had found seemed to be 
  the key, but to what? Or was the whole thing a ruse to get them out here? 
  Her head was pounding with tension and confusion and something worse that she 
  wasn't ready to examine. 
  And then she spotted headlights in the distance. 
  It took another twenty minutes to reach the main highway, but her cell phone 
  suddenly showed a signal. She punched in 911 as she finally turned the Jeep 
  onto solid pavement and gunned the accelerator. 
  She was near Nageezi, New Mexico, the 911 operator informed her. That put her 
  over an hour from Farmington and the nearest medical facility. Did she require 
  an air ambulance? Scully all but shouted in the woman's ear. "Yes! Send it 
  now!" 
  They told her to look for a gas station, six miles ahead on the left. The life 
  flight would find her there in twenty minutes, and they would transport the 
  patient to San Juan Medical Center in Farmington. 
  It took her less than four minutes to make it to the glaringly bright gas 
  station parking lot where she spent the longest fifteen minutes of her life 
  watching Mulder breathe. 
  The helicopter landed with three minutes to spare. The medics loaded Mulder 
  onto the gurney with ease, and trundled him off to the waiting chopper. They 
  allowed her to board when she flashed her badge, but they wouldn't let her 
  near him. All she could do was sit and watch as he was quickly examined and 
  intubated as the chopper lifted off into the night. 
  He was whisked away from the landing pad at the hospital before she could get 
  out of her seat, but it didn't take long to catch up to him in the ER. Once 
  again, officious staff members seemed intent on keeping her away from him. 
  "I will not wait in the lobby," she ground out. "The patient is a Special 
  Agent with the FBI, and he's been attacked. I will stay with him until we can 
  secure guards from the Albuquerque bureau to assist. Do I make myself clear?" 
  Mulder was already on his way to get an MRI and CAT scan. She ran alongside 
  the gurney, holding his hand until they slid him into the machine. Then she 
  stood behind the technicians and watched the results come up on the screens. 
  Even before the doctors met with her, she knew there was nothing in the scans 
  to explain Mulder's condition. He had some bleeding, but it was minor. 
  Medication could handle it. 
  "We don't know what we're dealing with, " the taller doctor told her. They 
  were in a small conference room, standing in front of a bank of lighted 
  panels. Mulder's brain scans were mounted in a row at her eye level. "He's on 
  full life support, but I'll be damned if I can see the cause. You say he 
  suffered no head trauma?" 
  "Dr..." she checked his name tag though he'd introduced himself five minutes 
  earlier, "... Warren, I told you that we woke up in the desert a little over 
  two hours ago. Mulder was coherent for a few minutes, but his condition 
  deteriorated rapidly. He may have been subjected to some drug or procedure 
  intended to alter his memory. I don't know what." 
  The man shook his head, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I have to admit, I'm 
  having a hard time accepting your story." 
  "It's not a story, it's what happened." 
  The other doctor cut in, "Is there anyone at the Bureau who might be able to 
  offer some... insight? I was thinking that if this is some sort of espionage 
  that maybe--" 
  "No one can help except the people who did this, and we have no idea who that 
  is at the moment. You'll have to treat his symptoms until we know more." She 
  was angry, but not at them. It just sounded that way. 
  Dr. Warren snapped off the panel lights. "We're doing all we can, but I doubt 
  it's going to be enough unless we can get more information." She had 
  apparently irritated him to the point that he no longer bothered to sugarcoat 
  the news. 
  Scully sank into the nearest chair. "I'll contact my supervisor and see what 
  help he can offer." Shock and worry and pure exhaustion were taking their 
  toll. 
  Dr. Warren sat down next to her. "I'll see that you have permission to stay 
  with the patient when we take him to ICU. He should be settled in his room in 
  about thirty minutes. Why don't you make your calls now? There's a phone on 
  the desk over there. You're welcome to use it." He stood up and patted her 
  shoulder kindly. 
  Feeling slightly ashamed of herself, she nodded. "Thank you. I'm sorry if I 
  sounded..." 
  "Don't worry about it. I understand." Both doctors left the room, and she 
  sagged back against the wall. 
  It was six a.m. back in D.C., which meant that Skinner was probably still at 
  home. She moved over to the desk and picked up the phone. He answered on the 
  first ring, fully awake. She summarized as much as possible, finding that she 
  had to backtrack several times to fill in important details that her frazzled 
  brain had skipped over. She ended with Mulder's prognosis, which was grim. 
  "Unless we can determine what's been done to him, the doctors have little hope 
  of treating him successfully." 
  Skinner had asked no questions during her narrative. "Are you injured?" 
  "No, sir. I don't think so." 
  "I'll contact the Albuquerque field office and get you some help. Can you hold 
  out for a few hours?" 
  "Yes. I'm fine, sir." He would recognize that for the lie that it was. 
  "Of course. I'll be there later this afternoon." 
  That surprised her more than it probably should have. "Yes, sir," was all she 
  could manage. 
  She listened to the dial tone for a long time before she hung up the phone and 
  put her head down on the desk. He hadn't once reminded her of his warning not 
  to bring Mulder out here, but the words hung between them just the same. 
  There was a coffee machine in the hall and she stopped to buy a cup on her way 
  to ICU. It tasted like the paper cup it came in, but it was hot and might keep 
  her awake for a few hours. 
  She found Mulder's glass-walled room across from the ICU nurses' station. No 
  one gave her any more flak about going to him, thanks to Dr. Warren. There was 
  even a reclining chair waiting for her next to Mulder's bed, with a blanket 
  folded neatly on the seat. 
  She pushed the chair as close as the machinery around him permitted and sank 
  into it, pulling the blanket up to her chin. The room was freezing cold, as 
  hospital rooms always were, sending a steady stream of steam from her cup. 
  After a few sips, she put the coffee down on the floor next to her chair and 
  took Mulder's hand. 
  He looked even worse, now that she could study him in the light. His color was 
  better with the respirator and oxygen, but there was a marked sagging to the 
  right side of his face. She was holding his right hand, and it was utterly 
  lifeless. 
  "Mulder, it's me." The words caught in her throat, and she tried again. 
  "Mulder, I know you can hear me." But she didn't know. Not really. Not with 
  what may have been done to him. He might never hear her again. "You can beat 
  this." 
  The words sounded hollow, even to her own ears, so she stopped talking. In 
  spite of her best intentions, she was soon asleep, lulled by the beeps and 
  hisses of the machines keeping Mulder alive. 

  Chapter Eight 
  San Juan Medical Center
  Farmington, NM
  Thursday, 8:40 am 
  Scully woke with her heart in her mouth to the frantic shriek of alarms going 
  off in the next cubicle. Mulder's life support machinery beeped tranquilly 
  before her, but the adrenaline rush refused to let go. She had to get up and 
  check his vitals herself before she could begin to calm down. It was a hell of 
  a way to greet the day. 
  "Rise and shine, Mulder." She leaned down and kissed his forehead, resting her 
  cheek against his cool skin for a moment. He needed another blanket, she 
  decided, and headed out to find one. 
  All hands were busy with the patient next door, so the nurses' station was 
  empty. As she made her way to the supplies closet down the hall, her bladder 
  made its presence known. She took a few extra moments in the restroom to wash 
  off the remnants of her makeup and make a stab at finger-combing her hair. 
  Continuing on to the closet, she found a thick blanket, then started back to 
  Mulder's room. The tantalizing scent of fresh-brewed coffee prompted a second 
  detour to the nurses' lounge. 
  She set the coffee down on the shelf just inside the door of Mulder's room 
  where the nurses kept his chart. When she looked back at Mulder, she dropped 
  the blanket at her feet. 
  His eyes were wide open and his heart monitor was climbing into the 
  stratosphere. 
  "We need help in here!" She called back out to the empty station as she dashed 
  to Mulder, pressing the call button for good measure before she grabbed his 
  shoulders. "You're on a vent, Mulder. You know the drill. Calm down and we'll 
  get you off of it as soon as possible. Let the machine do the work." 
  She knew he was trying, but his body had other ideas. The cardiac monitor 
  began to wail as his pulse rate passed 150 on its way to full arrest. Scully 
  pressed the call button again and kept reassuring him with words and touches. 
  She was on the brink of pulling the damn thing herself when the flurry of 
  activity moved from next door to Mulder's side. 
  The room filled up quickly and she had no choice but to step out of the way. 
  The machine was detached immediately, but they left the tube in place to 
  assess his ability to breathe on his own. She could hear him trying to talk 
  around the tube, but her view was blocked by the crash team. 
  The alarms went abruptly silent, and she heard Mulder gagging. They were 
  pulling the tube, thank God. A moment later, the crowd parted and she could 
  see him again, redfaced with exertion and panic. His eyes were darting 
  frantically over the faces crowding his bed. When his gaze found hers, he 
  mouthed her name, and she all but knocked the others to the floor getting to 
  him. 
  "You're okay, Mulder. Try to relax. I'm right here." She took up her new 
  mantra, repeating it as the crash team gathered their equipment and filed out 
  of the room to await the next crisis. 
  "What am I doing here?" His voice was scratchy, and it obviously hurt him to 
  talk. 
  "Save your voice, Mulder. I think I can anticipate your questions." She filled 
  a glass and held it to his lips. "Small sips. Go easy." 
  He took one good drink and turned his head away. "What happened?" 
  She sighed and set the glass down on the bedside table. "I woke up in the 
  desert last night. You were lying a few yards away, unable to move. I got you 
  into the Jeep and we came here by helicopter. You had--" It hit her with the 
  force of a physical blow. "Mulder, your face... " He gave her an odd look, but 
  all she could see was the evenness of his mouth. She grabbed his hands. 
  "Squeeze my hands as hard as you can." 
  He squeezed, and his grip was equally painful on both sides. "Okay, that's 
  good. You can stop squeezing." She extracted her fingers from his and moved to 
  the end of the bed. Whipping the blankets out of the way, she pressed her 
  hands against the soles of his feet. "Now, push against my hands with the 
  balls of your feet." 
  Equal on both sides, and strong. She knew she must be grinning like an idiot. 
  "Wanna tell me what's going on?" He returned her smile with perfect symmetry 
  on both sides, but his forehead wrinkled in confusion. 
  She came back and sat down on the bed. "I have no idea how, but you seem to 
  have recovered completely in the space of six hours." 
  "Recovered from what?" 
  Before she could answer, a man's voice drew their attention to the door. 
  "Well, this is a pleasant surprise." It was Dr. Warren, and his smile was as 
  puzzled as Mulder's. "Mind if I check you over?" He came into the room and 
  repeated Scully's exam, shaking his head in wonder each time Mulder performed 
  as requested. Finally, he tucked the sheets back at the foot of the bed and 
  folded his arms over his chest. "How do you feel?" 
  "My throat's sore, and I'd like to know what I'm doing here. Otherwise, I'm 
  fine." 
  "You're here," the doctor began, "because you couldn't breathe on your own, 
  among other things. You presented in the ER early this morning with--" 
  "Dr. Warren, if it's all right with you, I would like to tell him myself." She 
  gave him a conciliatory smile and hoped for the best. 
  Warren nodded. "No problem. I'll be in my office if you need me, writing up my 
  journal article." He looked at Mulder for a moment, then walked out of the 
  room, still shaking his head. 
  Mulder was looking at her when she turned back. "So, tell me." 
  "What do you remember?" 
  He huffed impatiently, then winced at the stress it put on his abused throat. 
  It pleased her to no end when he reached over and got the water glass himself. 
  After a long sip, he handed it to her. "I remember standing in front of the 
  bar, loading the Jeep. Reading the map while you drove." He squinted, 
  searching his memory for more. "It was a dirt road... " He shrugged. "That's 
  it." 
  It was more than she'd expected. "You were showing signs of neurological 
  trauma, Mulder. Paralysis on the right side, slurred speech, vision problems, 
  pain on the left side of your head." 
  Mulder dropped his chin and zeroed in on her eyes. "That sounds like a 
  stroke." 
  "It does, but it wasn't. And before you ask, I don't know what was really 
  going on. I can only guess that we had another encounter with whoever took 
  your memory." 
  "It must mean we were close to finding Eric, or the ring. Or both." 
  "I would have to agree." 
  He studied her face. "And you're okay?" 
  "Other than a headache that doesn't want to let go, and a few hours of my 
  memory that seem to be missing, I'm fine." 
  "Like before." 
  "I don't remember a headache last time..." And suddenly she was faced with a 
  whole raft of questions that should have occurred to her long before this. "We 
  woke up back in D.C. How did we get there?" 
  "I assume that's a rhetorical question. Because if it's not, you are really 
  asking the wrong person." 
  "Maybe it didn't even happen out here." She saw the stricken expression on his 
  face, but kept following the thought. "It could have started here, but maybe 
  we were followed back to D.C. and attacked there." 
  "Or anywhere in between," he said softly. 
  "No, Mulder. The only reason I'm considering D.C. a possibility is that I 
  can't imagine how we were transported that distance after the... procedure. I 
  don't think we have to include everywhere in between." 
  He sighed. "Then we have twice the area to cover, and we can't afford to waste 
  any more time. I need to get out of here." 
  It shouldn't have surprised her, but somehow did. "Mulder, I don't think you 
  realize how serious your condition was just an hour ago. We don't even know 
  what caused--" 
  "Yes, we do," he cut in. "The answer is out there, not here." He gave the 
  mattress a frustrated thump. 
  She found Dr. Warren in his office a few minutes later. Not surprisingly, he 
  thought she'd taken leave of her senses, but he listened to her reasons. He 
  agreed to discharge Mulder within the hour. Her cynical side pointed out that 
  continuing to treat a patient in Mulder's current condition would demand long, 
  fruitless battles with the managed care nazis, and Dr.Warren had no doubt 
  taken that fact into consideration. Regardless, it was a refreshingly painless 
  process. 
  Mulder's clothing had been unceremoniously cut from his body in the ER, which 
  left the practical problem of what he was going to wear out of the hospital. 
  "I'll go to the motel and pick up a change of clothes for you. I'll be back in 
  half an hour." 
  "I'd rather not give them time to change their minds. Can't I just wear what I 
  had on?" 
  Scully extracted the plastic bag marked "Patient's Belongings" from the closet 
  and dumped the contents on the bed. 
  His eyes widened. "Get back here as soon as you can, okay?" 
  She didn't remember that the Jeep was still in Nageezi until she started 
  looking for it in the parking lot. When she headed back inside, feeling like 
  an idiot, there was a standard issue blue sedan idling at the curb in a 'no 
  parking' zone just outside the door. The driver's side window hummed down as 
  she approached, releasing a blast of cooled air that smelled of Old Spice and 
  stale cigarette smoke. 
  "Agent Scully?" The man behind the wheel was middle-aged with close-cropped 
  light hair. He flipped open the familiar black ID wallet. "I'm Special Agent 
  Alan Gillespie with the Bureau agency office. My SAC sent me here to talk with 
  you." 
  She stepped back and Agent Gillespie got out of his car. "I called ICU a few 
  minutes ago and they said you were on your way back to the motel. Has... 
  anything happened to Agent Mulder?" 
  "He's being discharged. I was going back to the motel, but I just realized the 
  Jeep is parked in Nageezi." 
  "That's over an hour from here. I could give you a lift to the motel and send 
  someone after the car, if you like." 
  She heard the passenger door lock click open. "Thank you." She walked around 
  the car and got in. "I appreciate this." 
  Gillespie put the car in gear. "SAC Stonecross in Albuquerque sent me to help 
  out until reinforcements arrive. He said you and Agent Mulder had been 
  assaulted, and that Agent Mulder was in critical condition. That's obviously 
  no longer the case." 
  Reinforcements. Of course. Skinner would have contacted the local field office 
  to assist them until his arrival. She should have called him. "He's much 
  better." 
  The car moved out onto the highway, heading for the Red Mesa without her 
  having to tell him. "You haven't asked where we're staying." 
  "A.D. Skinner called me from somewhere over Kansas. He told me I'd probably 
  find you at the hospital, but that you were staying at the Red Mesa." After a 
  moment, he added, "I'm a little surprised that you didn't contact me yourself 
  when you came to town. I think I could have saved you a lot of grief." 
  Scully turned in the seat to look at him. "How's that?" 
  "You're here on the missing persons case, right? Eric Hosteen? Well, he's just 
  the most recent in a long line of similar cases I've been accumulating data on 
  for the past eleven years. I could have helped you avoid what apparently 
  happened to your partner, for starters." 
  "We didn't know there was an agency office in Farmington." It probably 
  wouldn't have mattered if they had. Following protocol would have been very 
  low on Mulder's list of priorities. "And it was more of a personal 
  investigation, to be honest." 
  Gillespie's eyebrows went up. "You have a personal interest in this case?" 
  She did a quick assessment of the man's trustworthiness and decided she didn't 
  have enough information. "We've met Eric Hosteen." 
  "So, someone contacted you?" 
  "Yes." 
  The man frowned. "Look, Agent Scully, I'm on your side, okay? No matter what 
  you have to say, I promise that it's not going to surprise me. I've heard 
  about the cases you and Agent Mulder work, and I think I know where this is 
  going." He checked his mirrors and changed lanes for the next turn. "I'll let 
  you decide how much you can tell me after you see my files." 
  The rest of the ride passed in silence. When they reached the motel, he asked 
  her the specific location of the Jeep, then got on his cell phone. Scully left 
  him in the car and went on to the room. When she came back to the car, 
  Gillespie was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette. He immediately donned 
  an apologetic wince and jettisoned the butt. 
  "I've got someone bringing your Jeep back to the motel. Should be here in 
  about two hours." He seemed to be making an effort to exhale the excess smoke 
  away from her direction. 
  "Thank you. That should work out fine. If Mulder's still feeling up to it, I 
  know he'll want to stop by your office and see the files." 
  When they walked into Mulder's room twenty minutes later, the bed was not only 
  empty, but stripped down to the mattress. Scully stopped so suddenly that 
  Gillespie ran into her. 
  "What--?" Gillespie wondered aloud, but Scully had already stepped around him 
  back to the nurses' station. 
  She found a familiar face from this morning. "Where have you moved my partner? 
  Fox Mulder, he was in that bed when I left less than an hour ago." 
  "Dr. Warren sent him down for another CT. I imagine they'll just discharge him 
  from Imaging." Her tone was exaggeratedly calm in counter to Scully's. 
  Scully took a breath. "I'm sorry. I thought something might have happened to 
  him." 
  The nurse smiled apologetically. "Housekeeping got a little ahead of 
  themselves this morning, but he won't be needing that bed, even if they keep 
  him another day. He's fine." She touched Scully's shoulder gently and went 
  back to her paperwork. 
  They found him fidgeting in a chair outside Diagnostic Imaging. Someone had 
  found him a robe, but underneath was the too-small hospital gown he'd been 
  wearing when she left. 
  "Have you seen Dr. Warren?" was his first question. "I need to get out of here 
  before they think of something else to irradiate." His hair was still damp, 
  smoothed flat to his head from a recent shower, but he hadn't shaved. 
  "Not yet, but I'm sure he'll be here shortly. Mulder, this is Agent Gillespie 
  from the Farmington agency office." 
  Mulder stood up and offered his hand. "Agency office?" 
  "I'll explain later. Find a restroom and get dressed. I'll look for the 
  doctor." Scully handed him the clothes. Mulder went off in one direction, 
  Scully in the other, leaving Agent Gillespie to fend for himself. 
  When Scully returned, Mulder was dressed and talking with Agent Gillespie. Dr. 
  Warren had been reviewing the scans when Scully found him. Apparently he'd 
  been satisfied with what he found, because he finally signed Mulder out. At 
  least, there would be no insurance hassles from an AMA discharge. 
  "Scully, we have to stop at Agent Gillespie's office," Mulder pre-empted her 
  question. "He has some files I'd like to take a look at." There was some 
  residual gruffness in his voice from the respirator, but he was otherwise 
  disturbingly normal. 
  "I thought you might." 
  The trip to Gillespie's office was so brief that she wondered why they hadn't 
  walked. The office itself was a storefront, one-room affair with a couple of 
  desks behind a low wood railing, a unisex bathroom at the rear and a line of 
  chairs out front for customers. Scully imagined that the majority of those 
  chairs were usually empty, which might explain why Agent Gillespie found the 
  time to compile folders on eleven-year-old cases that had already been 
  resolved. 
  Gillespie set them up on either side of the spare desk and plunked a stack of 
  folders between them. "Any questions, just holler. Most of my notes are typed, 
  but you might have trouble with my shorthand." He grinned, then pulled up a 
  chair to watch them read. 
  The cases were impressively documented, Scully soon discovered. Photographs, 
  interviews, even some bits of evidence taken from the subjects' clothing and 
  the areas they last recalled. The more recent cases contained the most data, 
  but even the earlier ones had been given a great deal of attention. "Agent 
  Gillespie, I--" 
  "Alan, please," he interjected. 
  "Alan, then. I was wondering how you managed to get all of this old case 
  information. None of them were FBI jurisdiction." 
  He sat back, chest puffed out a bit. "I put it together myself. No one in this 
  town pays any attention to these kinds of cases anymore. Been going on for 
  more than fifty years. Every four or five years, give or take, somebody 
  wanders off and then reappears a few days or a week or a month later, thinking 
  it's only been a few hours. Nobody even blinks." 
  Mulder looked up from his file. "This woman, Helen Minton. She was the first?" 
  Alan nodded. "She's quite a character, too. The last time I talked with her, 
  she was on her way to a white water rafting vacation with her grandsons." He 
  chuckled at the memory. 
  Mulder put down the file. "You talked to her? When was this?" 
  "Four years ago, just after the last disappearance. She's got insights into 
  the cases that nobody else wants to hear. She said I'm the first one who 
  listened to her without suggesting psychiatric treatment. Believe me, the lady 
  doesn't need it." 
  "Is she still alive?" Scully calculated dates. "She'd have to be in her lat 
  seventies." 
  Alan Gillespie laughed out loud. "Seventy-two, but don't let her hear you talk 
  like that. She'll drag out her competition shooting medals." 
  Mulder's eyes lit up. "Could we talk to her? Is she still in the area?" 
  "She's the only one who is, except for Eric Hosteen. All the rest have moved 
  away or died." 
  Not surprisingly, Mulder wanted to call her immediately. "I think we should 
  read the rest of the cases, Mulder. We also don't have a ride yet." She looked 
  to Gillespie for confirmation, but he was holding out his car keys. 
  "You go on ahead. Your Jeep will be back here in an hour or so. I'll call you 
  when it shows up and you can either come back here or I'll meet you at the 
  motel. Either way, I can walk home from here." 
  He was smiling a little too broadly for Scully's taste, but she accepted the 
  keys. "You think she has something useful to add?" 
  Mulder was on his feet, heading for the back door. Alan Gillespie jerked his 
  head in Mulder's direction. "Your partner thinks so. I think you will too, 
  once you talk to her." He wrote down directions on a piece of scratch paper. 
  "I'll give Helen a call and let her know you're coming. She'll probably grill 
  you at the door, but I promise it's gonna be an experience you won't want to 
  miss." 
  Helen Minton lived in a small log home with a porch that spanned the front and 
  faced the San Juan River just across the road. As Mulder and Scully came up 
  the wooden steps, she opened the front door but made no immediate move to open 
  the screen door. "You the folks Alan called me about? I'd like to see some 
  identification." Her voice was strong and steady. 
  They each flipped open their badges, and Helen peered at them through the dark 
  screen as Scully introduced herself and Mulder. 
  "Alan said you two would appreciate hearing my story. I'll talk to you, but 
  the first time either of you says the word 'crazy' or anything close to it, 
  you're out the door." She unlatched the screen and stepped back, letting them 
  in. "And you have to promise that you'll stop looking for Eric." 
  They both stopped and looked at her. Scully said, "We can't do that until we 
  find him. Are you saying you can tell us where he is?" 
  "I'm saying that if you really listen to what I'm going to tell you, you won't 
  want to go back." 

  Chapter Nine 
  Helen Minton's home
  Farmington, NM
  Thursday, 11:30 am 
  Alan Gillespie's phone call had gotten them in the door, but staying there 
  proved to be another matter entirely. Helen Minton invited them into her 
  living room with all the warmth of a Marine drill sergeant reviewing a new 
  batch of recruits. 
  "Alan is a good man. I'm seeing you because he asked me to. Where else this 
  goes is up to you." She had sat them down on her overstuffed sofa, then pulled 
  up a straightbacked chair to face them, arms folded over her chest. 
  Scully resisted an urge to fidget under the woman's intense gaze. "Agent 
  Gillespie thinks very highly of you." 
  That almost teased a smile from her. "We've had some good long talks over the 
  years. He's the only person I know in this town who doesn't think I'm a little 
  crazy. Even my kids," she waved at the framed photographs occupying every 
  level surface, "aren't too sure. That's why I don't talk about it anymore." 
  Mulder leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "But you'll tell us." 
  The woman studied him closely for a moment. "This isn't just a missing persons 
  case to you, is it? Alan said you were in the hospital. That something had 
  happened to you." 
  "Mrs. Minton, we don't know what happened to him. We were hoping you might be 
  able to shed some light on that." 
  "I might. Maybe you could tell me why I should." 
  Mulder answered for both of them. "Last Friday, I came out here to help a 
  friend. Four days ago, I woke up back in my apartment with no idea who I am. 
  The doctors can't tell me why. I'm hoping you can." 
  There was a wistfulness in his eyes that made Scully's throat ache. It wasn't 
  lost on Helen, either. The woman leaned toward him and placed a hand on his 
  shoulder. "You may not want to know." 
  There was no hesitation in his answer. "I want my life back." 
  Helen gave his shoulder a squeeze and sat back. "I'm not sure this is going to 
  make you feel any better, but I'll tell you what I know." 
  She told the story in a voice that was almost defiant, but her eyes gave away 
  how important it was to her that they believe. Scully had always thought 
  Mulder owned that approach. Seeing him on the receiving end this time was more 
  upsetting than she could ever have anticipated. 
  Helen had been camping that summer night fifty years in the past, with friends 
  from school. It was the last weekend before they were to begin their senior 
  year in high school, and even the relative innocence of that era allowed for a 
  bit of mischief, it seemed. The girls had brought some beer along, and soon 
  everyone but Helen had been sound asleep... or passed out, depending on your 
  definition. 
  "I wasn't ready to sleep, so I went for a walk. I'd meant to stay near the 
  camp, but the night was so lovely and warm that I wandered too far. By the 
  time I realized I couldn't see the camp any longer, it was too late. I was 
  afraid if I kept looking, I'd just get more lost, so I sat down to wait for 
  the sunrise. The next thing I knew, it was broad daylight, and everyone was 
  gone." She shrugged. "That's all I remembered for nearly thirty years, until 
  the night my husband died." 
  "Thirty years?" Mulder's shocked whisper needed no explanation. "It took 
  thirty years before you remembered?" 
  Helen reached over and gave his hand a pat. "Your situation is very 
  different." 
  "How do you know that?" There was both hope and defeat in his voice. 
  "You'll see in a moment," she told him, then resumed her narrative. "I walked 
  to the road, expecting that I would have to find my own way back to town. A 
  car came by a short time later, and that's when I found out I'd been missing 
  for five days. I couldn't believe it. See, I was the first one this happened 
  to, so no one could understand how I'd stayed alive out there for all that 
  time with no food or water." 
  "And you think people understand it now?" Scully asked. 
  "Maybe 'understand' is the wrong word. I think they've come to accept that it 
  happens, and that the people who return will never be able to tell them the 
  details." She snorted. "I can, of course, but no one wants to hear it. Except 
  Alan Gillespie. And now you." 
  She gave Mulder a long, tender look that Scully found oddly disturbing. then 
  resumed her story. "I was taken by men who looked like you and me, but they 
  weren't like us. They didn't speak, but I could hear them thinking. Not in 
  words so much as feelings. Impressions. I knew they weren't going to kill me, 
  and I knew they were afraid of something. One of the other abductees. A young 
  man who was lying on a table next to mine." 
  Beside her on the couch, Mulder sighed audibly. "Aliens? You're saying you 
  were abducted by*aliens*?" There was no mistaking the disbelief in his 
  tone. 
  Helen frowned at him. "What did you*think* I was going to tell you? You 
  know of anyone on this planet who can erase inconvenient memories?" 
  Sadly, they did. Or, Scully did. Mulder was merely taking her word for it. He 
  looked at her now, eyebrows raised as if to say 'Go on. Tell her'. She turned 
  to Helen. "Yes, I do." 
  Mulder's eyebrows climbed even higher. His body language said he was more than 
  ready to leave. 
  Helen's frown was aimed at Scully now. "You haven't heard the rest of it. I 
  assure you, these people weren't people. The man I mentioned? The one on the 
  table next to me? Well, he was one of them, too, but different. Like I said, 
  they were afraid of him." 
  Scully put a placating hand on Mulder's left knee to keep him in his seat. He 
  crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw set in a very familiar way. If the 
  situation hadn't been so deadly serious, she might have appreciated the irony 
  a little more. "Can you remember why they were afraid of him?" 
  Mulder snorted beside her. Helen ignored him, truly addressing herself to 
  Scully for the first time. "There are good aliens and bad ones. He was one of 
  the bad ones. They seemed to have a hard time deciding which kind he was at 
  first. Until they put him on the table, and it changed. Then, they did 
  something to him that they wouldn't let me see. They put me to sleep, but I 
  still heard him screaming." 
  "I need some air." Mulder brushed off her hand and stood up. Before either of 
  them could react, he walked out the door, letting the screen slam behind him 
  as he stomped off the porch. 
  "Let him go," Helen told her when Scully started to get up. "There are some 
  things I need to tell you that he shouldn't hear anyway." 
  Scully felt in her pocket for the car keys. At least he wouldn't get very far. 
  She turned back to Helen. "What things?" 
  "In a minute." She studied Scully's face for a moment. "I need to know what 
  your relationship is to Agent Mulder." 
  It was the last thing Scully had expected, and her surprise made her bluster. 
  "I don't see how that's relevant." 
  "Get down off that high horse. If it wasn't important, I wouldn't ask. Before 
  this happened to him, were you close? Were you lovers?" Her gaze never 
  wavered, and her tone was gentle, but insistent. 
  "We were very close." That was as far as she was prepared to go. 
  Helen studied her closely, then her expression softened. "I see. I'm sorry, 
  dear." She reached out and touched Scully's cheek so kindly that it brought 
  tears to her eyes. "It's hard, isn't it? Knowing he may never remember what 
  you had together?" 
  Scully looked away, blinking furiously. "You said the table changed. Tell me 
  about that." 
  "The metal was smooth until they put him on it, and then it wasn't. It turned 
  dark and... bumpy. Twisted, I guess. That's when they put me to sleep. When I 
  woke up, the table was back the way it had been, all smooth, and the other man 
  was gone." 
  Scully's mouth went dry. "Did you talk to Eric before he disappeared?" 
  Helen's surprise seemed genuine. "Me? Good heavens, no." 
  "Then you didn't see the... artifact he found?" 
  The woman's eyes narrowed. "What kind of artifact?" 
  "A ring. Eric never showed it to anyone, but he told several people about it. 
  He said it changed when he picked it up. He said men were chasing him for it. 
  That's why he called Mulder." 
  "He found it in the desert." 
  It wasn't a question, but Scully answered it anyway. "Yes." 
  "That's how they identify each other. Their ships are made of it. I don't know 
  why the other aliens use it, too, but it's why some UFO stories talk about 
  smooth shapes and others about dark, contorted ones." 
  Scully stared at her. "How can you possibly know this?" 
  "They communicate telepathically. Every thought is shared, not just the ones 
  they use to direct their test subjects. Maybe I got to hear so much because 
  the bad alien was there. Maybe they're always that open, and I just happen to 
  have lived long enough to remember." She got up from her chair and moved to 
  the couch, taking both of Scully's hands in her own. "You must never go back 
  out there, and you must never let him go back. If you believe nothing else 
  that I've said, please believe that. You're disturbing something you can't 
  begin to understand, and the next time, I think they'll have no choice but to 
  kill you both." 
  The urgency in her voice and in her eyes made Scully's blood run cold. 
  "Disturbing what? You have to tell me." 
  "The only reason we haven't been run off this planet is that the good aliens 
  keep it from happening. They came here to do research, millennia ago, but they 
  were followed. They stayed to keep us safe, but I've sensed a change over the 
  years. Almost as if they've begun to wonder how much effort we're really 
  worth." 
  "You're still... in contact with them?" 
  "I sense them sometimes. More over the past few days than ever before. I think 
  that's because of you and your friend, but I don't know why." 
  "If you can still communicate with them, maybe you could persuade them to undo 
  what they've done to Mulder." 
  Helen must have heard the plaintive hope in her voice. She shook her head 
  sadly. "I can't do that." 
  "How do you know? Won't you even try?" 
  "This is the part I didn't want him to hear. The aliens can't give him his 
  memory back because they didn't take it in the first place." 
  Scully actually shivered. "What are you saying?" 
  "That's why I asked you how well you knew him. I think you sense the truth 
  yourself, but you don't want to believe it." 
  "I don't know what you mean." But she did. She'd wondered if he wouldn't be 
  better off this way. Was it so much of a stretch to think he might not have 
  wanted it for himself, even unconsciously? 
  Helen seemed to read her thoughts. "What man wouldn't be tempted by the 
  possibility of a new life?" 
  Scully shook her head. "Not this man. He would never do this deliberately. His 
  work...*our* work... is too important to both of us. You're wrong." She 
  stood up, wishing desperately that she believed it herself. 
  "Wait." Helen rose from the couch and caught up with Scully at the door. "You 
  have to let him find his own way, even if that way doesn't include you. It's 
  not just your own life that depends on it. Or his. It's all of us." 
  "That doesn't make any sense." 
  "I think you know that it does." 
  She found Mulder across the road, sitting at the treeshaded end of a long 
  wooden dock with his bare feet submerged in the river. His shoes and socks sat 
  next to him. When Scully approached, he said nothing, but reached over to move 
  his shoes so she could sit down. His gaze remained fixed on the opposite bank. 
  It was a long time before either of them spoke. 
  "So, what did she tell you?" 
  Scully leaned forward, trying to see his eyes. "She said if we go out there 
  again, we'll probably be killed." 
  "Do you believe her?" He was definitely avoiding her eyes. 
  Long pause. "I don't know." 
  Mulder looked at her then. "Agent Gillespie called. They found Eric Hosteen's 
  body about an hour ago. In this river, a few miles downstream." He kicked at 
  the water, splashing surprisingly cold droplets on her bare legs. "They think 
  he killed himself." 
  "He didn't." 
  Beat. "I know." 
  "I want to do the autopsy." 
  Mulder sighed, then pulled his feet out of the water and stood up. Scully's 
  shoes were still on her feet, dangling a good foot above the water. She 
  accepted the hand he offered and let him pull her up. "We'll talk later," he 
  told her softly, but the words felt like a physical blow. There was something 
  in his eyes that squeezed her heart. 
  She handed him the keys without a word and followed him back to the Jeep. The 
  ride to the sheriff's office passed in chilly silence. 
  The sheriff was considerably less subtle than Alan Gillespie had been. He 
  greeted them at the door with, "You've been in my town for four days, and this 
  is the first time I hear about it?" He shook Mulder's hand with enough force 
  to make him wince. Then he stalked back to his office, apparently expecting 
  them to follow. 
  They found him standing at his desk, dialing the phone. He jabbed the air in 
  the direction of two chairs facing it. Scully took her cue from Mulder and 
  remained standing. The sheriff, whose name she still didn't know, barked into 
  the receiver. "Yeah, they're here... He is?" He straightened noticeably. 
  "Well, tell him I'll send a car around to pick him up... Yeah, twenty 
  minutes." He hung up the phone and turned to the two agents. "Your boss is 
  here, and he's not happy." 
  This was not news to Scully, but Mulder gave her a mildly surprised frown. "I 
  thought you were going to call him." 
  It was completely unlike him to call her on something in front of a stranger. 
  "I didn't have a chance." She could feel the flush in her cheeks as she turned 
  to the sheriff. "I'd like to perform the autopsy on Eric Hosteen's body. Could 
  someone take me to him?" 
  The man shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He picked up the phone, tossing a sarcastic 
  look her way. "Anything else?" 
  Mulder shifted next to her. "I'd like a ride back to the motel, if it's no 
  trouble." 
  "No, Mulder. You take the Jeep. I'll get a ride back later." 
  He nodded and left the room without further comment. 
  The body was at the hospital morgue. Not surprisingly, the autopsy revealed 
  very little. There was water in the lungs and no sign of physical trauma. She 
  x-rayed the body for implants almost as an afterthought. There was nothing. 
  Eric Hosteen drowned in five feet of water, less than a dozen feet from shore. 
  She took blood samples to have a tox screen run, knowing the results would be 
  negative. 
  And if he'd had the ring with him when he went in the water, it was gone. 
  When she got back to the sheriff's office, Walter Skinner's booming voice 
  sounded from the other side of the closed office door. Scully sagged into a 
  chair to wait for the inevitable. 
  Virtually every decision she'd made since Monday morning had been wrong. She 
  had disregarded Skinner's caution and brought Mulder out here, nearly costing 
  him his life. She had ignored her own instincts and not told him what she 
  really believed. She had taken him to see Helen Minton without preparing him 
  for the story she knew he would hear. And she'd let him go back to the motel 
  alone. To brood, as only Mulder could. 
  The door burst open and Walter Skinner's forbidding bulk came toward her. She 
  saw Sheriff what's-his-name come out after him, looking very much like a man 
  who'd just been raked over the coals. 
  "Agent Scully, we're through here." The kindness in his voice stunned her. 
  "Agent Mulder has the car." 
  He just looked at her and pushed open the door. She followed him out into the 
  late afternoon sunlight, shielding her eyes against the glare. There was a 
  black SUV parked in front of the building, which she assumed to be his 
  car. Sitting next to it, obscured from her view when she'd come in, was the 
  Jeep. 
  "Sir, that's our Jeep. Mulder must still be here." 
  Skinner reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the Jeep. He 
  dropped them into her hand. 
  A ball of ice formed in the pit of her stomach. "I don't understand." 
  He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I drove him to the 
  airport about an hour ago. Scully, he's gone." 

  Chapter 10 
  Hegel Place
  Alexandria, VA
  Friday, 1:38 am 
  The flight back from Farmington had been silent and uneventful. Beside her in 
  the aisle seat, Walter Skinner had had little to say beyond the brief 
  explanation he'd offered in front of the sheriff's office. Mulder had asked 
  him for a ride to the airport, and the A.D. had seen no reason to refuse. 
  Scully would have begged to differ, but there'd been no point. Mulder was 
  already gone. 
  And now, he was home. 
  All the way back, she had told herself that she would give him the space he 
  obviously needed. Leaning her head against the cool glass, she'd watched 
  twinkling patches of civilization drift by in the darkness six miles below and 
  promised herself that she wouldn't come here until he asked. 
  But she knew he'd never ask. Not while he considered himself a liability. Or 
  defective. Or whatever the hell else he'd talked himself into believing 
  somewhere between Helen Minton's house and the sheriff's office. She might not 
  be familiar with this new version of Mulder, but she knew the original pretty 
  damned well. 
  This was so like him that it made her want to bang her head on something. Or, 
  better still, bang his head until she knocked some sense into it. 
  His lights were off, but the flickering blue glow from the television gave him 
  away. Knowing he was home safely, she had no earthly excuse to sit out here 
  watching his windows. He needed time to work through it all. And so did she. 
  She would call him from work tomorrow. There was a case report to type, and a 
  discussion she planned to have with their boss. Tomorrow would be better. 
  That decision held nearly as long as it took her to open the car door. By the 
  time she reached his apartment, she had stopped pretending that any other 
  course of action had ever been possible. 
  The door swung open under her knock and Mulder stepped back to let her in. "I 
  wondered how long you were going to sit out there." 
  She moved past him into the living room before she answered. "Are you all 
  right? I was worried." 
  He closed the door and then leaned back against it, arms folded over his 
  chest. "That's what I've been trying to decide." He pushed off and walked past 
  her to the desk. It was his computer that was on, not the television. "Did you 
  know that I kept a journal?" 
  "No, I didn't." And frankly, the implications scared the hell out of her. 
  He tapped a few keys. "Not a journal, exactly. More along the lines of 
  personalized case notes." He leaned back to let her see the screen. "I'm up to 
  1998." 
  Scully leaned closer and looked where he was pointing. The date was August 
  17th, a few weeks after they'd come back from Antarctica. Five years into 
  their partnership. After Diana Fowley slithered into their lives. Before his 
  mother's death. Before... She moved to the couch and sat down. "Does any of it 
  seem familiar?" It was the most neutral thing she could think of to say. 
  "I've gotten some... impressions," his voice was as careful as hers, "but no, 
  I don't remember any of this happening." 
  "Impressions about what?" 
  "First, tell me why you came here tonight." 
  He was studying her face the way he sometimes did. It always made her wonder 
  if he might be reading her mind. Or trying not to. "Mulder, you left without a 
  word. I was afraid something happened to you." 
  "Something did." 
  "I meant something new." He was making her absurdly nervous. "Mulder, taking 
  off like that was incredibly foolish. There are some very dangerous people out 
  there and you aren't able to recognize them." 
  "But they don't know that." 
  She bit back an exasperated sigh. "Tell me why you left." 
  "I left because there was no point in staying. The answers I'm looking for 
  aren't in Farmington, New Mexico. They're here." He tapped the desk next to 
  the keyboard with two fingers. "And they're in the office, if the FBI will let 
  me back in the building. The journal talks about case files that I gather are 
  in paper form. I want to read them. Ironically enough, I've discovered that I 
  do seem to have a photographic memory." 
  His half-smile pleaded for a response, and she answered with the best she 
  could muster. "If all you want to do is read files, Mulder, I'm sure they'll 
  let you back into the building. It's working the files that's always been the 
  problem." 
  "We'll cross that bridge when we reach it." He turned back to the computer and 
  shut off the monitor, then stared at the blank screen for a moment before he 
  looked over at her. "I wanted to ask you something, but now I'm not sure how 
  to put it." 
  "I've never known you to be shy, Mulder. Just say it." 
  "But that's just it. You don't know me at all. Not now. And I don't know you. 
  I'm beginning to realize how... difficult that must be for you." His voice had 
  dropped into the velvety register he reserved for their most intimate 
  discussions, and his eyes were soft with something uncomfortably close to 
  pity. 
  I've gotten some impressions. 
  It was apparently a very personalized journal. Her cheeks flushed, but she 
  regarded him levelly. "You don't have to worry about my feelings, Mulder. I'm 
  fine." 
  His chuckle surprised her. "Do you have any idea how much he hated those 
  words?" At her blank look, he tipped his head at the computer. "It's the only 
  time he used exclamation points." 
  Hearing him refer to himself in the third person was downright eerie. "You, 
  Mulder. You hated the words, but that doesn't make them any less true. I said 
  you don't have to worry about me, and I meant it." 
  Suddenly, all she wanted was to get back to her apartment where she could lick 
  her wounds in private. Getting quickly to her feet, she pasted on a 
  convincingly neutral expression. "I'll see you at the office in the morning, 
  unless you need me to pick you up." 
  He shook his head. "I can find my way." But when she took a step toward the 
  door, he snagged her wrist in a gentle grip. "Scully, wait." 
  His touch felt like warm silk. "We'll talk tomorrow, if you want. Right now, I 
  need to get home to bed." 
  He dropped his hand at the first tug of resistance, the pity in his eyes 
  unmistakable now. "I'll see you in the morning." 
  He let her go this time, not even getting up to walk with her to the door. For 
  that, she was grateful. 
  She drove home through deserted streets, virtually on auto pilot. Her empty 
  apartment's utter normalcy mocked her. A hot shower did nothing to ease the 
  chill that had settled into her bones. When she finally crawled into bed, it 
  was after four in the morning. 
  But her racing thoughts would not allow her to rest. 
  She had been prepared for the possibility that he might never remember their 
  relationship. It wouldn't have been so different from the way they'd been with 
  each other for the first six years, after all. Hiding her emotions from him 
  had once been a way of life. She was confident that she could do it again, for 
  as long as it took. One day, even if his memory never returned, he would love 
  her. It was as inevitable as the sunrise. They were destined to be together. 
  She still believed that. 
  What made the situation unbearable now was that he knew. He knew that she 
  loved him, but he felt nothing in return. She could have lived with almost 
  anything but that. Almost anything but the cautious care she would now see in 
  his every action. Mulder's innate kindness would make it just as unbearable 
  for him. 
  The irony of Fox Mulder, paranoiac extraordinaire, keeping a written record of 
  their relationship had blindsided her completely. 
  And he hadn't even reached the point where they had become lovers. Had she 
  really been that transparent, even then? The thought that he might have been 
  giving her all those tender looks out of sympathy rather than affection made 
  her face burn with shame. 
  At least now she would have no doubts now about the source. There was 
  something to be said for certainty. 
  When the alarm cut into her misery at 6 am, she dragged herself out of bed and 
  into the shower. She reached the basement office an hour and twenty minutes 
  later, still with no idea what she would say to him. 
  It was early, even for Mulder, so she wasn't surprised to find the office dark 
  and empty. Her first task would be to finish the case report. When Mulder 
  arrived, she wanted to have it ready for his signature. It would give them 
  something neutral to discuss until the initial awkwardness eased enough for 
  her to think clearly. She had made nothing but bad choices for the past week, 
  and the decision she was about to make was infinitely more important. 
  When the phone rang a moment later, she nearly knocked the receiver to the 
  floor reaching for it. It was Skinner, and he wanted to see her in his office 
  as soon as it was convenient. That meant now. 
  She half-expected Mulder to be sitting in his customary seat in front of 
  Skinner's desk, though she suspected this meeting was about him. 
  "Sit down, Agent Scully." 
  Her pulse spiked at the kindness in his voice. It was totally at odds with his 
  formal bearing. "Will Agent Mulder be joining us?" 
  "No, I spoke with him earlier this morning. That's why I wanted to see you." 
  His tone had a ring of finality that sent her nerves over the edge. "Sir, 
  Agent Mulder isn't himself. I think you know that as well as I do. If he's 
  made any decisions that might affect his job, I think you owe it to him to--" 
  He held up a hand, halting her in mid sentence. "I'm aware of Agent Mulder's 
  limitations. So is he. That's what he wanted to see me about in Farmington. 
  It's why I didn't try to stop him from leaving then. It's also why I wouldn't 
  have tried to stop him now." 
  The emphasis on "wouldn't have" was clear. "Then, he didn't resign?" 
  "Quite the opposite. He asked me to help him remain on active duty. With you." 
  "But I thought..." It was no doubt obvious what she had thought. 
  "He was concerned that you might have some reservations you wouldn't feel 
  comfortable expressing if he were present. I have some serious concerns of my 
  own that I'd like to discuss with you, beginning with his prognosis. Mulder 
  tells me it's very unlikely that his memory will return soon. Is that your 
  assessment as well?" 
  "His doctor felt that familiar surroundings might help trigger his recovery, 
  but he didn't offer any estimates on how long that might take." 
  Skinner removed his glasses, a sure signal that the gloves were about to come 
  off, too. "I didn't ask for the official opinion. I want to know what you 
  think." 
  No, you don't. Aloud, she said, "Agent Mulder's condition is unexplained. 
  Given the lack of empirical data, I--" 
  "Scully," he cut in, "tell me what you think." 
  It took the bluster out of her voice. "I need to talk with him, Sir. There are 
  other issues that I don't think I can assess without his input." 
  He studied her for a long moment, looking very much as if he were censoring a 
  number of his own questions. When he spoke, his voice had regained its 
  professional smoothness. "I think you're aware that keeping Agent Mulder on 
  active duty would involve a certain amount of... subterfuge on both our parts. 
  If his amnesia were exposed, we would both be in a great deal of trouble. I 
  won't consider it unless I'm convinced he poses no danger to himself or to 
  anyone else. I wouldn't consider it at all if we were talking about anyone but 
  Agent Mulder. You understand what I'm saying?" 
  "Yes, sir." 
  "I'd like to resolve this right away. Would Monday morning be possible?" He 
  picked up a pen and poised it over his open appointment book as if they were 
  discussing a luncheon engagement. 
  "I... yes, I think that will be fine." She stood up, her head already spinning 
  with questions. When she reached the door, she turned back to ask the most 
  immediate one. "Sir, where is Agent Mulder?" 
  "He said if I needed to reach him, he would be at his father's home on the 
  Vineyard for the weekend. Do you have the address?" 
  "How did he..." she began, then realized that Mulder's journal must have 
  included a lengthy reference to his father's death. It would be just like him 
  to seek out such a traumatic locale to work through this. "Yes, sir. I have 
  the address. I'll go out there this afternoon after I finish up the case 
  report." 
  "The case report can wait. This can't." 
  "Yes, sir." 
  "I'll see you Monday morning." He picked up the telephone and punched in a 
  number. She was dismissed. 
  It didn't occur to her until much later that an Assistant Director of the 
  F.B.I. had all but ordered her to spend the weekend with her partner. 
  She didn't hesitate over how to pack. There was no question that she'd have to 
  stay at least overnight. It was far too long a trip to do otherwise. The house 
  was large, and she was reasonably certain that Mulder had never disposed of 
  the contents. She would have a place to sleep, no matter how their discussion 
  turned out. 
  There was a United Airlines flight leaving Dulles at noon that would get her 
  into the Vineyard by 3pm. The nine-hour drive was completely out of the 
  question, though she would have liked having her car available. 
  The sky had turned dark and threatening by the time she boarded the plane. 
  When she landed at the small island airport, it was raining buckets. The air 
  was surprisingly cool, and she felt chilled to the bone by the time she got a 
  taxi. 
  Mulder was sitting on the enormous front porch when she pulled up in front of 
  the house. Her heart rate climbed another few notches as she climbed the wide 
  front step. He looked pleased to see her, but he could have been smirking at 
  the suitcase in her hand, for all she knew. She stood there shaking the rain 
  from her hair. "Nice weather you're having." 
  Mulder hauled himself out of the low wooden chair and picked up her suitcase. 
  "If you came here to sunbathe, I think you're out of luck." He leaned around 
  her and opened the front door. 
  "I didn't." 
  He paused in the doorway and gave her a long look. "I know." 
  It wasn't much warmer inside the house. There were shapes where furniture 
  should be, but everything was covered with drop cloths. The drapes were all 
  closed. Mulder moved through the vestibule, down the hall toward the kitchen. 
  "I didn't buy much in the way of food," he called back to her, "but I've got 
  coffee." 
  He was pouring her a cup when she caught up to him. She accepted it gratefully 
  and wrapped both hands around the thick mug, absorbing the heat into her icy 
  fingers. He had set her suitcase on the floor next to the tiled center island 
  where he'd obviously been working. 
  "I didn't know you had a laptop." 
  "I don't. Frohike brought it over this morning and downloaded all the files 
  from my desktop. I thought I'd catch up on some reading." He leaned back 
  against the long counter, sipping from his own mug. "I guess Skinner told you 
  we talked. I didn't know if you'd come." 
  He suddenly sounded as nervous as she was, and it almost made her smile. "I 
  wasn't sure myself." 
  He nodded, looking down at his feet for a moment before he met her eyes again. 
  "I want you to know that I realize how much I'm asking of you. From what I've 
  read, working with me has never been a picnic." 
  She chuckled, surprising both of them. "Mulder, you do have a gift for 
  understatement." 
  "I'm serious, Scully." 
  His tone sobered her instantly. "I know that, Mulder. I'm just not sure you 
  realize what you're asking of yourself. You could have an entirely new life. 
  You have a lot of options aside from the basement of the Hoover building. We 
  talked about that." 
  "And I said that I wanted my old life back, not a new one. Even before I knew 
  what I'd be giving up." 
  Panic bloomed in her chest. "Mulder, you need to think before you read any 
  more. How will you know what's memory and what' s just your mind expanding on 
  the journal entries?" 
  He put down his mug and walked to the laptop. "I read some more last night 
  after you left." He turned the computer so she could see the screen. 
  Scully read far enough to see the date: January 2, 2000. The day after their 
  first night together. There was no shred of her dignity left now. It must have 
  showed in her face, because Mulder's eyes filled with shared pain. 
  "If we're going to work together, we have to get past this," he told her much 
  too gently. "Do you want to do that?" 
  She couldn't tell whether he was asking if she wanted to 'work together' or 
  'get past this'. It didn't matter. She didn't think she could do either at 
  this point. "I didn't know it was going to be so hard." She couldn't put 
  enough breath behind the words to be sure that he heard. 
  He heard. "Scully, I wish I could explain how this feels. I can't imagine what 
  it's like for you." He looked as if he were about to put his arm around her, 
  and she stepped back. 
  "I can't do this." She fled, making it halfway down the hall, before he caught 
  up to her. She spun on him, both hands held high in defense... not surrender. 
  Never that. "I thought I was stronger than this. I really did." Hysterical 
  laughter bubbled in her chest and she bit her tongue until she tasted blood. 
  "I guess it's just one more thing I was wrong about." 
  "Come back and talk to me. Please." He held out his hand to her but kept his 
  distance. 
  God, this wasn't the way she'd intended to behave. Where the hell was that icy 
  calm she had spent a lifetime hiding behind? But she knew. She had left it in 
  a pile of clothing on Mulder's bedroom floor one New Year's night three years 
  in the past. She had always known that giving in to her consuming need for 
  this man would one day be her downfall. Well, here it was. Doomsday. 
  She forced her voice to steady. "I will tell the Assistant Director that 
  you're capable of working. That's all he wants to know." 
  "Then you didn't listen to him, if that's what you think. The only way he'll 
  let me work is if you work with me." 
  She lowered her hands and stared at him. "Mulder, how can you possibly want to 
  go back? You've seen what your life was like. You have a chance that most men 
  would sell their souls for. You have your mind, your intelligence, but none of 
  the pain. You can walk away from it all without a moment of guilt or regret. 
  Why would you not want this chance? Tell me so I can understand." 
  "The work is important. You told me that. Helen Minton has proof of the aliens 
  you and I have fought against for years, even before you believed." His voice 
  softened. "Even though I don't believe it now, if there's any chance that it's 
  true, I want to do something about it." 
  She gaped at him. "Mulder, we were tilting at windmills for seven years. Helen 
  Minton just proves it. If she's delusional, we don't have to worry. If she's 
  right, there are forces much stronger than we could ever be already aligned 
  against colonization. The work isn't a good enough reason. Not anymore. Tell 
  me why you want to keep trying." 
  His posture sagged everywhere hers had stiffened, and his voice fell to a 
  whisper. "Because I read what he felt... what I felt... for you. I can't 
  imagine anyone deliberately giving that up. You said most men would sell their 
  souls for another chance? Well, I think any man alive would sell his soul for 
  what I had." He studied her eyes. "It's still there, and I'm not going 
  anywhere as long as you feel this way. Not because I feel sorry for you, 
  Scully, but because I want that feeling back. I want it back." 
  And at that moment, she could see the familiar intensity in his gaze. The 
  longing. The hunger. There was no possible way to keep from touching him. When 
  she moved toward him, he reacted like a drowning man. His arms folded around 
  her, pulling her against his chest. His heart slammed beneath her ear, his 
  breath warm and soft in her hair. She snaked her arms beneath his jacket, 
  encircling his waist, and lost herself in the pure scent of him. 


      Epilogue

      FBI Academy
      Quantico, VA
      Monday, November 3, 2003
      1:40 am

      Mulder reshuffled the stack of photographs and dealt them out one at a 
      time into two even rows, matching crime scene images with the victims' 
      living portraits in his own grisly version of solitaire. He tilted the 
      desk lamp's shade until all of the faces lay inside the yellow pool of 
      light. Five young women smiled up at him, captured in life, posed now 
      above the obscenity of their deaths.
      He knew a lot about the man who had ended their lives. The things he had 
      done, both before and after he killed them, showed the physical prowess of 
      a young man, but with the cautious control of maturity. He had raped, then 
      tortured his victims to death in their own cars near places they 
      frequented, suggesting he had stalked them until the right opportunity 
      presented itself. His choice of locations indicated familiarity with the 
      area. The greatest distance between crime scenes was less than two miles, 
      which probably meant that he either lived or worked nearby.
      Those impressions could be gleaned from careful study of the case file and 
      photographs by any reasonably skilled investigator. The rest of his 
      conclusions were harder to explain.
      Mulder regularly and accurately predicted factors such as the UNSUB's 
      occupation, family background, level of education, and lifestyle, as well 
      as the kinks that motivated him. He might not see it all every time, but 
      did so often enough to merit virtual autonomy. Being an icon was a heady 
      thing.
      No one seemed surprised by his impossible leaps of intuition. No one 
      except himself, of course. The images that filled his mind when he
      reviewed a case sickened him, but what he could do with those images 
      fascinated him. And it was getting easier every day to distance himself 
      from the horror.
      He didn't like what that said about him, but the list of things fitting 
      that category was growing by the day.
      What little he knew of his life prior to three months ago had come second 
      hand, filtered through the perceptions of others. Even his journal was 
      written by a stranger, for no one was more foreign to him than himself. 
      Looking in the mirror was as disorienting now as it had been that first 
      morning. The face was no longer unknown, but it was not familiar. The 
      person behind it, even less.
      There was something cosmically ironic in his ability to read the minds of 
      killers when he had no access to his own, and Mulder could appreciate a 
      cosmic joke with the best of them.
      Some might say he embraced it to an unhealthy degree.
      When he ran out of current cases, he had taken to digging through the 
      inactive files. The murders he was exploring tonight had taken place in 
      the Chicago suburbs over a six-week period nearly ten years ago. Five 
      young women, slashed to death. One every Friday for five weeks, and then 
      nothing. Mulder shared the original profiler's conclusion that the killer 
      had not ended his spree voluntarily. He was either dead or in custody. 
      Mulder was working with the assumption that the man had been arrested for 
      another offense within two weeks of the last murder. The profile he had 
      just completed was geared toward picking him out of the hundreds of felons 
      jailed during that period.
      This final review of the victims' photographs was a kind of ceremony he'd 
      developed. It was his closure and, hopefully, the victims' as well. For 
      the sixteen cases he had reviewed so far, it had been. Closure, if not 
      peace.
      Mulder opened the case folder and added his handwritten profile. Then he 
      gathered the photographs together and placed them in the file.
      Forty minutes later, he was parked in front of Scully's apartment 
      building, looking up at her windows. The lights were on, and that troubled 
      him.
      He knew she thought his transfer to BSU was a flight from her, but it 
      wasn't. He was running from the things she wanted him to remember, the 
      things that reached for him in his dreams. His nightmare was that he would 
      wake one morning to find all the horrors he had lived through separately 
      crashing into him in one catastrophic rush.
      The man everyone seemed to think he was would do whatever it took to 
      retrieve those memories. Mulder was finding it harder and harder to 
      believe that that man had ever really existed.
      He glanced at the dashboard clock and settled back to resume his vigil. 
      One more hour, and he would go home.
      * * *
      Georgetown
      Monday, November 3, 2003
      3:23 am
      Scully had given up on sleep hours ago, having decided that trying to 
      force it was more tiring than going without. Mulder used to tell her that 
      when she caught him watching television in the wee hours of the morning. 
      She would get up to use the bathroom and see the light under his door. 
      Infomercials with the sound muted. Cable at four a.m. in the middle of 
      nowhere. Now here she was, broadcasting her own insomnia to the car she 
      knew would be sitting out front by now.
      The first few times, she'd been careful to keep the lights off. Afraid he 
      would think she was asking him up. Equally afraid that he would refuse. It 
      felt safer to sit in the dark. Sometimes, she even fell asleep waiting to 
      hear him drive off. Often, that was the only sleep she got.
      He'd gotten here later than usual tonight. So late, in fact, that she'd 
      begun to worry that something might have happened to him. Old habits died 
      very hard indeed. Worrying and wondering about Mulder had long ago become 
      part of who she was.
      For years, she had wondered what he would have been like if his sister had 
      grown up with him, safe and normal; if his father had never made his deals 
      with the devil; if his mother had been less concerned with appearances and 
      more interested in her son.
      And now, she knew.
      The Mulder she had come to know over the past three months had a lot in 
      common with the original, but the differences were staggering. His 
      photographic memory was still there, and it was the only reason Skinner 
      had agreed to let Mulder out of her sight. That first week, she had shown 
      him the personnel files online. In less than a day, he had reacquainted 
      himself with everyone he needed to know in the Hoover building and wasn't 
      above showing it off. He pretended to develop a yen for cafeteria food, 
      but Scully knew what he was up to. It was an opportunity to dazzle her 
      with how easily he could handle encounters with anyone and everyone, 
      calling them by name and adding a carefully chosen fact or two for effect.
      She hadn't been dazzled, or even surprised that he could do it. The 
      unsettling difference had been in the execution. He was enjoying it too 
      much and too visibly.
      He smiled. The darkness that had always been a part of him was gone. When 
      he was quiet now, it was because he was engrossed in a profile. The 
      x-files themselves had merited a read-through, but they couldn't seem to 
      hold his interest.
      And neither, apparently, could she.
      One of Mulder's favorite paranormal tales had been "The Monkey's Paw" by 
      WW Jacobs. Scully had always liked it too, but not for the chill factor. 
      The story was a parable; a morality play that illustrated the danger of 
      wishing for something you weren't meant to have.
      *When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.* She had never 
      grasped the irony until now.
      Mulder's nocturnal pilgrimages had prompted another prayer that the fates 
      chose to answer. She'd been looking for an excuse to work with him again, 
      if only to reassure herself that he was as well adjusted as he seemed. 
      Walter Skinner had called her a few hours ago and granted her wish.
      There was a serial killer loose in northwest Pennsylvania, and she was to 
      accompany Mulder on his first trip back into the field. Mulder wasn't 
      aware of this fact as yet, he had told her, but he would be in the 
      morning. They were both expected in Skinner's office at 8am. If she didn't 
      go, he'd pull Mulder back to the x- files without a moment's hesitation.
      So their uneasy separation was about to become a wary alliance. Mulder 
      would be too careful with her feelings, she would resume her tap-dance on 
      the razor's edge, and their work would provide the common ground.
      Who said the fates had no sense of humor?
      Outside, a car started up. For the first time, she walked to the window 
      and let him see her watching as he pulled away.
      * * *
      Continued in Dreamcatcher.