Dark Beyond the Stars (2/4)

[vivfic]

Fandom: X-Files

Part 1



Unknown location
September 17, 1998

The first two days or so had passed in a blur of light and dark and
shadows, a surrealistic collage of moving, bending shapes that
finally resolved themselves into the all too real faces of Alex
Krycek and Marita Covarrubius. It had not, after all, been simply
another bad dream. Or if it was, it was certainly not one that
showed any signs of ending. In a moment of dark humor, Scully
found herself wondering if it had been worthwhile to return to
full consciousness.

The pure white hot rage of seeing Krycek's face had burned away the
last of whatever drugs they had used to knock her out and keep her
compliant while they transported her...wherever it was that she was.
The searing clarity of her fury had initially frozen her in stunned
inaction, and then she had exploded into action--lunging toward
him, almost reaching him before that blonde, who was stronger than
she looked, had yanked her back and pulled a gun.

Krycek.

It was hard to even know how she felt about....that man.

Mulder had long ago told her of his suspicions that Krycek had
somehow been instrumental in her abduction. The missing time in
her life. She also knew that Mulder thought Krycek was probably
responsible for killing his father.

And here she was again--at his mercy.

The thing that frightened her most of all was that, relatively
speaking, Krycek did seem the more...merciful of her captors. It was
at that point that Scully found herself wondering if the drugs
had fully worked their way out of her system after all. But there
was just something about that blonde woman. Something cold and
calculating and not fully human. Almost reptilian.

Scully shivered briefly--she was letting the situation get to her
more than she should. She tried to rationalize her instinctive....
fear of Krycek's accomplice on the grounds that she was simply the
more unknown quantity. Better the devil you know, Dana? In the
end, she supposed, it probably didn't matter a great deal. They had
taken her--neither was her friend.

The question, though, was who was her enemy? Why had this happened?
Why now? To what end? Nothing that had happened since she got
here gave her any insight into what was behind this maneuver.

In fact, boredom seemed to be the principal danger. She'd had
three days of pacing. Three days of learning every last little crack
in each of the walls. Of memorizing the 17 separate and distinct
water stains on the ceiling tiles, which she was seriously beginning
to contemplate naming, simply to have something else to do.
Three days of wondering exactly the hell was going on.

As usual, it didn't make any sense. That in and of itself should
have been reassuring, but Scully decided that she simply wasn't
going to deal with the fact that her life had come to the point
where abductions could be classified as "usual," and that she didn't
even expect those to make sense.

The problem was that she had nothing to do but think and mull things
over.

Dropping abruptly onto the bland bed that occupied one side of the
room, she stared up at the darkest of the 4 orange-y water stains
(Fred), and finally let herself think about the latest dark insanity
to stain her life.

Fact: she'd been abducted by Krycek, a rogue ex-Agent, and Marita,
whom she had not met previously, but whom she knew had been feeding
information to Mulder at some point or another.

Fact: they had drugged her long enough to get her here, but since
then had studiously left her alone.

Fact: they were feeding her regularly, and had made no attempt to
torture her beyond the one odd incident.

The second morning after they'd taken her, she had been awoken by
someone tying a blindfold over her eyes. She'd been hauled roughly
out of the bed and tied to a chair, although not too tightly. Blinded
by the cloth, her hearing muffled by the blood roaring in her ears
from the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she was momentarily
disoriented, completely lost.

A muffled and almost inaudible voice muttered "sorry," and then
there had been a sudden stab of pain at her left temple, followed by
the wet stickiness of what she knew to be her own blood. Then
nothing. As the sound roaring in her ears quieted, she'd been able
to distinguish the sound of a video camera running. She counted to
nearly 180 and then heard the abrupt snap of the camera cutting off.
There was an odd rustle of paper, then the sound of footsteps
withdrawing and the door shutting and locking behind them.

It had taken her less than 10 minutes, as best she could estimate,
to undo the loose bonds around her wrists. She'd removed the
blindfold to find herself alone. Since then, she'd seen no one.

It was that last fact that disturbed her most of all. She was
increasingly positive that she had been videoed, which begged the
question of who had received the tape. Somehow, she was sure it
was Mulder.

Mulder. He was a fact of her life, too, only she didn't know how to
define him anymore. Except that he was elemental. Necessary.
What was this doing to him? Did he think her dead? Was he
looking for her?

She shook her head, allowing herself an almost fond smile.
Completely inappropriate under the circumstances, of course, but it
was almost getting to be funny. The searches that they each
undertook for the other. The searches that inevitably led them back
to each other. Of course he was looking for her...unless. Unless
he'd been taken, too.

She froze on the narrow bed, paralyzed in fear for the first time
since her ordeal had begun. Mulder. Was he ok? Was he somewhere
in a room like this? Did he even know she was gone? Mulder....

The searing in her chest finally reminded her that she had to breathe
--one tearing gasp and then another. A tiny detached part of her
brain recognized that she was close to hyperventilating and tried to
control her sobbing breaths, tried to slow her racing heart, tried
to stop the sudden and irrevocable tears. That part was
overwhelmed, and overtaken.

A long time later she woke, aware that for the first time since
Junior High school she'd actually sobbed herself to sleep. The
lights in her room had been dimmed, an action that she associated
with "night" in this place, although she recognized that she really
had no idea of what time of day it truly was. She was still wearing
her watch, which indicated that it was 9 p.m., but she didn't trust
it--they could have reset it at any time in those first two days.

She got up and walked over to the sink and splashed cool water on
her face. There was an "institutional mirror" over the sink--a
polished piece of steel firmly riveted to the wall. Her vaguely
muted reflection stared back at her. Who was this woman? Who
had she become? What was she now?

Even in the ambiguous reflection of her image, Scully could see the
changes the last five years had wrought. She was not who she once
was. But did it matter? She remembered that Mulder had told her
the man they had known only as Deep Throat had told him once that
sharks have to keep moving or they drown and die. It seemed an apt
analogy and warning.

Humans, too, she supposed, had to keep moving, or die. There were
so many ways to die, and she'd always preferred the certainty of
the death of the body to the ambiguity of deaths of the spirit, or
heart, or soul.

Her thoughts drew her right back to the autopsy bay in Kansas, and
her unexpected reaction to the final body of the case. At last she
realized the source of her distress that day. It wasn't death, per
se, that had stopped her in her tracks. It was the other deaths
that threatened--loss of faith, loss of focus, loss of meaning, loss
of love.

Ensnared in her own gaze, hypnotized by the eyes of Dana Past and
Dana Present, she was nearly overwhelmed by a jumble of memories.
Cases, friends, conversations, random moments in time. And
throughout them all--Mulder. Always Mulder. They hadn't really
ever stopped swimming, she and Mulder. They had paused sometimes
--sometimes caused the other to falter a bit--flounder, sink. But in
the end, they had always buoyed one another.

Mulder. He was ok. He had to be ok. She wanted to whisper his name
simply to reassure herself--a talisman against the surrounding dark.
She held onto the thought of him, seeking the calm center of
herself that she had once been able to find so effortlessly.

A sudden whipcrack of pain across the back of her neck jolted her
forward. It lasted no more than a micro-second, but the after-echoes
of the sensation washed through her in olive-grey aching waves.

God. What was that? Pointless to ask the question, really. She
knew. She knew long before she reached back with shaking fingers.
Long before she touched the small scar that marked where the chip
had been implanted under her skin. She knew even as she touched
the skin that burned with a contained 3 millimeter-square fever. She
knew what it was. The chip. On which they had gambled everything,
without ever understanding all the stakes that might be on the table.

~ ~ ~

FBI Headquarters
Situation command room
September 20, 1998

The nightmare had extended into what felt like weeks of endless and
frustrating waiting. Although one part of Skinner's brain was fully
aware that the investigation into Agent Scully's abduction had
lasted almost precisely six days, ten hours and several more
minutes, there was an angry hole in his gut that calculated the time
since her disappearance to be closer to six or seven months.

He sighed and ran a hand over his head, wondering with a grim
bemusement if he'd lost even more hair in the past week. He'd
personally taken command of the investigation into this matter. It
was not quite standard practice, but apparently the look in his eye,
and the tone in his voice when he'd announced that decision, had
been enough to convince his superiors and fellow ADs that there
would be no arguments brooked.

Anyway, his commanding the case was the only way he had to
ensure that Mulder would be a part of the investigation, and
having Mulder an official part of the team was the only way to
have any chance of holding the agent under control.

The issue of keeping Mulder under control would be touch and go at
best anyway.....or so he'd expected.

He grimaced as he stood--he felt like every individual muscle in his
body was aching at a slightly different pitch. It wasn't just his
age, it was a stress he hadn't felt since..... He looked down at the
papers scattered across his desk. The ones he'd been staring at
and shuffling through for the better part of the last 20 minutes.
The pictures and laboratory analysis of hair and fiber from Scully's
car had long since blurred into meaningless random collections of
shadows and numbers and letters.

Two days ago, it had been a source of hope, a break-through. The
Virginia State Patrol had found Scully's car abandoned in a truck
stop in Stafford County. It had been camouflaged with piled up
branches and shrubs. A sudden windstorm in the area had blown
away the covering, and a patrolman had spotted the car during a
routine check of the stop. The license plate number had long since
been distributed to law enforcement agencies in DC, Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia, so the connection had been made quickly.

The truck stop had resembled a national convention of police,
staties, sheriff's deputies and federal law enforcement officers
in a matter of hours.

No other tire tracks, no viable footprints, virtually no
fingerprints, except Scully's had been found. It was clear that
the significant surfaces in the car had been wiped down, and the
floor mats were clean enough that it was just possible that the
kidnappers had actually vacuumed them before stashing the car.

That was in fact the part that worried Skinner the most. They were
clearly dealing with people who were beyond simple "pros."
These people were players in ways that he could barely imagine.
Yet, they had left the car within 100 miles of where they'd taken
Scully, and they had sent the video. It simply didn't add up.
Mulder was the profiler, but even without that background, Skinner
knew that there was a very deep game being played here. Too many
unexplained coincidences. It was all too much like a cat and mouse
game, and Skinner was damn sick of feeling like the mouse.

He looked over to the group of Metro DC police, State Troopers
and FBI agents who were huddled over the same maps of Virginia
that they'd been analyzing for the last hour or so. They were still
cross-referencing them with census and industrial tract information,
trying to break out the most likely locations that would be
sufficiently secluded, yet still contain an industrial structure that
seemed to be implied by the video of Scully they'd received. The
men and women were gesturing--pointing from one map to the next,
voices rising in anger, and sheer weary frustration.

As he had for the last six days, Mulder stood apart from everyone
else. Surrounded by the noise of ringing telephones, screeching fax
machines, blipping computers, he was remote--isolated in a silent
and silencing aura that surrounded him and shielded him from all the
frantic and inane activity swirling about him.

At this moment he was staring out the window--his unseeing eyes
focused on some middle distance that had nothing to do with
Pennsylvania Avenue below, or even the famous Washington skyline.
His stillness drew the eye, sucked in a watcher's focus to the
vortex of Mulder's aggressive non-movement. The frozen stiffness
that was beyond the simple exertion of control. His stillness was
that of a bomb, quietly ticking toward detonation.

Skinner watched his Agent for a long moment. Mulder was beginning
to worry him. He snorted to himself. How things had changed. Had
he ever imagined a time when Mulder not flying off on his own
would be a source of worry? Yet it was.

His dream came back to him, suddenly. The wolf's palpable
resignation. In spite of the warmth of the room, Skinner was
chilled to the bone.

What might Mulder do? He'd tried to make a deal with the smoking
bastard when Scully's cancer was diagnosed. Skinner had barely been
able to step between Mulder and what surely would have been his
downfall. He nearly shuddered. Lost again momentarily in his
servitude to that cancerous SOB, the hopelessness of realizing the
trap that he'd stepped into. Scully had been cured, or at least sent
into remission. And Skinner had seemingly been released from the
terms of his deal after the smoking man's "death" and apparent
resurrection, but still... There were nights when he dreamed of the
fire of the furnace that burned Jane Brody's body, and he knew
there was a hell that waited for him. He shook off the thought.
There were other things to consider.

Mulder. The question now, was what would Mulder do? Six days of
endless, tensed waiting. He was more than ready to snap. If past
history was anything to go on, he might already have done
something rash. But Skinner knew exactly where Mulder had been
for just about every minute of the past week.

After his initial frantic rush of activity, Mulder had settled into
an eerie calm. He'd participated in the briefings, offering
thoughtful, rational insight into possible motives, profile
construction, and ways of tracing Scully's movements. He hadn't
insisted on leading every field expedition. Had, in fact, stayed
away from the Stafford truck stop when Scully's car had been found.
The one time he'd stayed away from something big.

And now Skinner realized the source of his deepest worry. Had
Mulder cut a deal? Tried to cut a deal? Had he approached the
smoker and finally traded away his soul in return for Scully's safety?
Was his calm only because he believe that all this activity really
meant nothing--that the price had already been paid?

Hands on his hips, Skinner stared again at Mulder and then back
to the room. His own focus now pulled back, blurred. Jesus.
Had he just lost both his agents--Mulder to the shadows and Scully
to...to whoever the hell had her?

He didn't want to think about. He had to know.

Walking over to Mulder, he spoke quietly. "Agent Mulder. A word?"

For a second, Skinner thought that he hadn't been heard, that Mulder
was so far away that he had never even felt the AD approaching, but
then Mulder turned, and met him eye-to-eye. The gaze was clear, but
worried. "What? Has there been...?"

"No, I just need to speak to you. Privately."

Mulder paled briefly, then shrugged. "Ok."

Glancing around the command room, Skinner realized there was no part
of the room quite far enough away from the other agents bustling
around. It would have to be the hallway. It was late enough in the
evening that it seemed certain to be deserted.

Still, old paranoia lingered, and Skinner led them to a corner of the
hallway so that they could see anyone approaching from either side.

"What's going on?" His own fatigue had rendered him clumsy,
imprecise.

Mulder, rightly, looked confused. "What do you mean?" Glancing down
and then up again, his grief now evident. "I'm sorry I haven't come
up with any new...."

Cutting him off. "No, no that's not what I meant." Uncertainty still
gnawing at his gut. "It's just that you've been awfully...quiet these
last few days."

The flare of temper was entirely unexpected, but familiar
nonetheless. "What do you want me to do? Should I be screaming
at the agents? God, I'd love to, but I don't think that will help
her. I don't think..." He broke off, now visibly trying to
control himself.

Skinner allowed himself to put a hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Mulder,
I'm sorry. I'm not saying this very well. No, I don't want you
screaming at people. It's just that I also don't want you talking
to certain other people because you think it's time to make some
kind of deal."

Mulder wouldn't look at him. Voice tense, thin. "We've had this
conversation before...sir."

Skinner dropped his hand and barely controlled a sigh. "I know. I'd
like to think we both learned something from that...experience."

Eyes now meeting his--still furious, defiant. "Did we?"

"Yes. I think we did." Quietly, urgently. "These people are not
to be trusted, Mulder. No matter what they might promise. Making
deals will do nothing but trap you in a meaningless bargain with
the devil. Utterly meaningless."

Something that sounded almost like sympathy colored Mulder's reply.
"I know." He looked off into the distance again. "I do know.
Really. I haven't...." He broke off. A long beige pause that
threatened to suffocate. "I haven't figured out why they took her.
If I could just figure that out...."

Skinner recognized the fatigue. Remembered abruptly that Mulder had
basically not left the Hoover Building except to chase down a few
early clues for the past six days. Noticed the ashen pallor, the
deeply bitten lines of tiredness.

"Go home, Mulder. Go home. You're no use to us like this." The
tone was gruff, the AD was speaking, but Skinner imagined that
Mulder could hear the underlying promise. I'll keep the team
going. None of us will give up.

Mulder almost began to argue, and then reading the set of Skinner's
jaw, simply nodded and strode down the hallway to the exit.

Watching him go, Skinner thought he heard a quiet howling in the
back of his mind. This was a temporary victory. The clock was now
running on both of his agents.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Unknown location
September 19, 12:24 p.m.

It was twilight again. It was always twilight in these damn rooms,
even at high noon. He sucked in the smoke greedily, impatiently,
feeling the bitter-hot sting in his lungs. Aware that every year he
felt it a little less acutely, which was probably something he
didn't want to think about too carefully. Unexpectedly, he found
himself remembering the confrontation with the "Jeremiah Smith"
in that prison cell. ...lung cancer. He shrugged to disguise the
shiver that wanted to rip down his spine. Everyone was going to
die--it was simply a question of timing.

The dark-paneled room was quiet. The muted clink of ice in glasses
and crystal being set down on coasters were the only sounds to break
the muffled brown of the silence. The meeting had not gone well,
and the men of the Council had retired to their individual corners
and chairs and offices to sulk. Well, the official word was that
they were "considering the situation." But the smoking man knew
petulance when he saw it.

Hell, he needed to some time to indulge in it himself.

In point of fact the meeting had been a complete disaster.

There is nothing quite so guaranteed to produce dissent, gridlock
and general distress as a meeting full of powerful men, none of
whom have the full picture, and each of whom are convinced that
the others are conspiring against him. It had almost been funny.
Almost.

The bombshell had been dropped in the opening minutes of the
conference. The First Elder with the ridiculously crooked teeth
had begun the attack.

"You have taken a rather hasty measure. Was this wise?"

He had responded immediately--not even bothering to think too
carefully. "All my measures are taken after deliberate consideration,
gentlemen. The situation is under control." Meanwhile his brain had
begun scurrying to all of its darkest corners trying to remember
what actions he had taken recently. The problem with playing a
game at multiple levels is that it sometimes got confusing even
to him which moves had been approved by which people. And
which moves he had simply made up.

"How can you say that? We cannot afford this sort of high-level
activity by the FBI at this time. You know this."

The FBI? That was the point at which he began to realize that
something was seriously wrong. He hadn't done anything that he
could recall, hadn't even ordered any of his minions to do anything
that would evoke any sort of FBI interest. CIA maybe. But not
the FBI.

What the hell had set Mulder off this time? He had no doubt that
Mulder was in the midst of whatever had upset the council. The agent
always was, somehow. He'd long ago accepted the dangers of
presenting himself as the person who could control Mulder. It did
mean that he tended to get called on the carpet--the very expensive
Oriental rug--more than he deserved, but he'd also long accepted
that life was inherently unfair. Mulder was a complete wild card
--that was both his appeal and his danger. The smoker had gambled
more than he liked to admit on the pure hunch that one day backing
Mulder would be the ultimate advantage.

Years of playing this sort of poker had left him a seamless bluff.
"It is under control, gentlemen. As you know, I have certain points
of...leverage within the FBI. There is no reason to concern
yourselves."

"We are concerned." Strughold had decided on the grave, statesman-
like approach today. An ironic pose for a German industrialist who'd
barely gotten through high school, and had made his fortune through
brute strength and some rather conveniently disposed of bodies. "I
thought we had agreed, after this summer, that Agent Scully was not
a viable target. She is valuable to the project, of course, and
would be...." He suddenly broke off and paused briefly before
continuing. "Taking her may not be the wisest course of action.
We cannot afford to have Mulder either too focused or too distracted
right now."

Agent Scully? "Of course." He hoped the brief phrase would convey
his complete command of the situation, and that the council need
not bother themselves with it any further. The difficulty of that
was that he was genuinely worried. Something was afoot, and the
timing was far too suspiciously close to the execution of the next
Phase that it had to be related to it.

He was surprised when the meeting had moved on rather quickly after
that to other subjects. He was only left with a clear imperative to
make sure that "things don't get out of hand." Oddly he had the
impression that the other members of the group didn't really want to
know what he was up to "with Agent Scully"; simply wanted him to
make sure that nothing interfered with their latest plans. That in
and of itself was grounds for further thought and worry.

The meeting had rapidly degenerated into acrimonious debate over
the shadow group's decision to set up an ambush to assist their alien
"allies" in drawing in and crushing the rebel forces. A timetable
had been set--only 3 days from now--and the training camps had
already been put into overtime preparations and last minute drills.
Listening to the briefing on the preparations, he had been nearly
overwhelmingly tempted to add "Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs
of war!" He had refrained, however. Although his colleagues would
have recognized the quote, they undoubtedly would not have
appreciated the source.

He had not participated in the debate, understanding that the
juggernaut of their response had already been set in motion, and
there was no turning back. What some of the other men who had once
populated this room had always failed to appreciate was that trying
to oppose the processes of the consortium was simply a good way
of getting crushed by them. The trick in survival and in acquiring
more power lay in learning how to subtly steer the forces in
directions that favored your own interests.

This time, though, even the smoker was at a loss. The opening
confrontation over something that had apparently to do with
Scully was....well, interesting was one word. He detested ever
admitting to not understanding what was going on, but there were
limits. Who could have taken Scully in such a way that the elders
would be convinced it was him?

He hadn't lied to Mulder. He did like Scully. It hadn't been his
decision to include Scully in the pod experiment on that ship.
He hadn't even known the decision had been made until he'd been
standing on the transport plane and realized with a shock who had
lain in that bio-chamber. He'd looked out over the tarmac that
night, before the bay door had closed, pondering again the knee-jerk
stupidities of the shadows.

At the time he'd thought it a tremendous loss of potential. Scully
was an excellent investigator in her own right, and even working
"against" Them, was not infrequently the source of interesting
secondary scientific analysis of their work. He smiled grimly.
Stolen copies of her lab reports had often pointed out rather useful
avenues for further explorations. Moreover, as long as Scully was
alive, they had an irrevocable hold on Mulder.

So who had taken her? This time. Games within games. Circles of
conspiracy that were Byzantine in their entangled intricacy.

The conspiracy was getting ever more complex. Too complex. Players
were entering the stage from the wings at a rate that truly left him
breathless. Although he had one of the best counter- and counter-
counter intelligence networks in the world, it had begun to occur to
him lately that there might be yet another group of forces at work
that had been unrecognized until now.

The problem was that it was also possible that this was the simple
law of entropy. Chaos did tend to rear its ugly head at rather
inconvenient times.

Had Scully been taken by another faction from within the Consortium?
By another as-yet unknown group who also somehow knew of the
plans to collude in the alien civil war? Or simply by a random group
of terrorists?

He ruled out the possibility of another Consortium faction. He knew
everything that was going on with the shadow government, and there
was no chance of something that big being planned and carried out
without him catching wind of at least some small part of it.

He stubbed out his cigarette impatiently. Ordering another scotch,
he looked around the room at the other men. Old. They were all
getting so old. Inevitable, of course, but it struck him that maybe
that was the biggest danger of all. They were getting old and
cautious. They had all seen too much, and so now believed
nothing and everything.

The Englishman had shown all of them the danger of actually thinking
about the future and implications of their actions. Suddenly growing
idealistic about having a safe world for your grandchildren to
inherit was a sentimentality that none of them could afford. There
had been no particular love lost between him and that effete snob,
and he'd actually rather enjoyed the sordidness of the man's death
--a car exploding in a rather bad section of DC was scarcely a
discrete and dignified end for the aristocrat. Still, the Brit had
been the voice of reason in some of the more heated councils, and
that presence was missed lately.

For reasons that he absolutely could not name, the smoker found
himself thinking of his former lackey Alex Krycek. A pretty man.
A dangerous man. Krycek was a player, but one who would
ultimately get ground up by the machine because he played the
game solely for his own ends. He never looked at the big picture,
simply hopped from the shadow of one protector to the next--each
time trying to work his way up the food chain a little higher, always
failing to understand that he would never work his way up high
enough to rate being taken seriously.

Still, he was dangerous because he was ambitious, and not stupid.
Moreover, there was still a great deal of inconveniently missing data
about exactly what Krycek had been doing in Russia and whom he'd
been doing it with or for. In an information age when it should be
possible to track someone's every sneeze, Krycek had done an amazing
job of disappearing for quite some time.

Scully's apparent kidnapping had the random and violent flair to it
that felt like Krycek. It was just possible that Krycek had taken
her, but if he had, then someone was helping him, and that was
the important factor.

It kept coming back to a question of timing. Given all the
circumstances, that Scully would disappear now was unquestionably
linked to the consortium-alien plot. She would be used in this
process somehow, but the question was by whom and to what end?

Dammit! He hated being in the dark about such an important thing.
She was too valuable a piece of evidence for him not to be
controlling.

It was perhaps time to set in motion his own game. Time to find
Krycek and see what could be seen. There are many ways of leading
rats through mazes, the trick is to wave the cheese, never allowing
the subject to see the trap until it is far, far too late.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mulder's Apartment
September 21, 2:49 a.m.

He knew Skinner had meant sending him home as a kindness. Had
probably even imagined that Mulder would actually get some sleep,
rest, change his clothes and come back to the investigation
refreshed and with new insight. Because that's what Skinner would
have done. Hell, it's what Scully would have done. They would have
stepped away, for a brief moment, slept a couple of hours and
returned once more as functional human beings.

He'd seen it happen more than once during those intense cases that
they'd all been involved in. Had seen Skinner, even in the midst of
the craziness of the Teager case, able to walk away briefly to
regroup and return a stronger, more controlled field commander.
He'd watched Scully do it during their road trips. She somehow
knew when she was getting too close, and she'd back away--sometimes
for just 15 minutes while she got a cup of coffee, but in that time
she would refocus, renew herself.

Her ability to handle her emotions was a self-discipline that he knew
cost her no small amount of energy, but made her so terrifyingly
effective. Just as it did the AD. He resented it. It seemed to him
that he spent far too much time being hauled back from the brink
of some mental abyss by Skinner and Scully and that tonight was
just one more manifestation of it. He felt like he'd been sent to
the corner because he hadn't been playing well with the others.
He wondered whether Skinner could really believe that this was
going to help anyone.

But that wasn't quite fair. He knew that there were times when
neither Skinner nor Scully could completely disentangle themselves
from some case or situation. He'd seen it happen--the time Skinner
had been framed for murdering that prostitute, the case of with the
seraphim that Scully had pursued. He knew that they knew what it
was to lose themselves in a moment, a case. He also knew what it
was to be the one there for them to pull them back from the brink.
He felt the resentment ease just a bit. Skinner had sent him home
with the best of intentions.

He shifted on his couch a bit. The bubbles in his fish tank rose
with a comforting regular irregularity. Each one slightly different,
moving at a different rate, rushing toward the surface of the empty
water, heedless that they were bringing oxygen to a system that no
longer required it. Their monotonous duty fulfilled without thought
or remorse. Damn. He was more fatigued than he'd even realized.
He'd begun to envision an army of faceless, dutiful agents hurling
themselves through fields of inquiry into Scully's disappearance...
rank after rank of unimaginative investigators, trying to stumble
their way to light and answers.

He wondered if he were really any better. He felt like he'd been
living underwater for the past week. He wanted to move, to do
something, but felt weighted down by something that wasn't quite
despair, and wasn't fear. He'd studied all the evidence. Formulated
a half-dozen profiles of a possible kidnapper, but none had seemed
right. He'd even quit going out to followup leads in the field.
He'd taken to simply standing in the command room, listening to the
evidence as it came in, commenting on it as appropriate, but mostly
simply staring out the window.

He knew he was waiting, but didn't know for what. Half a dozen times
a day he would find himself walking down to their former office and
opening the door, expecting to find her there. The void at the
center of his being ached a little deeper each time the room was
empty. But the thing was that he knew he was waiting for her. He
knew somehow that she was alive, and that it would be ok. It had
to be ok. It had to be. If he could just wait long enough, it
would be ok.

Fuck. He needed to do something. Skinner had probably told all the
guards at all the entrances to the Hoover Building not to let him
in until at least 8 a.m. The AD was nothing if not a thorough
son-of-a-bitch.

He briefly contemplated running, and discarded the thought before it
was even half-formed.

He turned his gaze back to the ceiling, absently noting the patterns
of cracks that had become so familiar that he no longer even saw
them. They were now simply a part of the fabric of his life--the
small imperfections that underlaid everything. The cracks and small
holes that seemed to appear in everything while he wasn't looking.

That appeared in almost everything.

And then, because there was nothing else to do at this hour of the
night, on this day of the week, at this godawful time, he found
himself thinking directly about Scully.

Well, letting himself think about her fully. Sometimes it seemed
that she was really always there, quietly shadowing the back of his
thoughts. More so lately, of course, but always. Since the first
day. The first minute.

What was he going to do? This was the third time she'd been taken.
Fourth, if you counted the time at the dam, and he wasn't quite sure
he was going to make it without her much longer. He felt so
melodramatic thinking that, but it was a fact. He could feel himself
eroding, ebbing away with each passing moment.

Skinner had been right, actually. He had been thinking about trying
to track down that smoking bastard and offering something, anything,
himself in exchange for her return. Mulder was reasonably certain,
though, that the smoker wasn't a player in this particular drama.
If pressed, he really couldn't have said why he knew that, it was
simply there. That gut-certainty had been the only thing that had
prevented him from seeking exactly the sort of deal that Skinner
had gotten himself into last year.

But the clock was still running, and they were no closer to finding
Scully than they had been 6 days ago.

Someone somewhere knew where she was, but who? He kept coming
back to the video. And the question of why? Whoever had her
obviously needed her alive, but why? Why make the video? Why send it?

His mind slipped around and around circles of speculation, partially-
formulated theories, wild guesses.....a rat running around and around
an exercise wheel--futile movement, helpless learned behavior. He
kept coming back to the consortium, the syndicate, whatever you
called it. The jumble of forces and events of the past years, all
somehow interconnected, but he'd be damned if he could find the
connecting thread. The smoker, aliens, missing time, the chip,
Krycek, Deep Throat, Skinner's deal, burned files, Scully.....

Scully. Scully. Scully. A mantra, a prayer, a talisman. He knew
why he would kidnap her and take her far away to a secret location.
Only he wouldn't bother with a videotape message. He wouldn't
bother leaving partly-concealed cars. He would simply take her and
vanish forever.

It was so tempting to let his mind free. To let himself wander down
these quiet avenues. But far too dangerous. He would not, could
not allow himself to think about some future that right now he
couldn't even dream of owning. She wasn't here. He had to find
her. But he was so tired, and he didn't know where to look anymore.

He would find her. She would find him. Far below any awareness,
any rational thought, even beyond intuition, he simply knew this.
They would find each other. They always did.

There would be a price to be paid for that finding, he knew. That
was also a part of the bargain. And then he realized how things had
changed. He would always pay whatever it cost to find her, to be
reunited with her. Everything but his soul. He had learned that
from Skinner's servitude to the smoker. He couldn't give that in
trade anymore, because it was no longer on the market. He had to
hold that in reserve, so that when she was returned to him, he could
face her with clarity and force. Could meet her eyes in the
conviction that there was nothing between them, but them, that he
could offer her all of him, and take all of her in return.

When she was returned....

For just a little while he let his thoughts wheel and drift. Turning
his mind over and over to shake loose the kaleidoscopic fragments
of memories that contained her. Her smile, the loose fall of her
hair as she bent over her desk, her touch in those rare fleeting
moments when she would reach out to hold him, or allow herself to
be held. For just a while, he let himself be warmed by the meager
candle flame of remembrance.

Then, inevitably, he returned to the here and now. Lying on his couch
in this dead of night. He wondered if she were asleep somewhere,
or if she were also awake. Was she alone? Frightened? In pain?
Was she dreaming of him? Did she know that he was looking for her?
Surely she knew that he was looking for her. If nothing else, the
past 5 years must have taught her that he would always search for
her.

He was dreaming of the forest in Florida where they'd spent the night
while chasing after the mothmen. It was night, and she was holding
him, and singing to him. But this time he didn't recognize the song.
It was low and sweet, but somehow achingly sad. He felt her gentle
hands running through his hair, touching his body, and he wanted to
turn and look up at her face, but he couldn't move.

All around them, in the darkness, he could see glowing eyes that
came closer and closer. They were surrounded, and in danger, but
as long as she was there, he would be safe. He couldn't move and
he couldn't see her, he could only listen to her song, which grew
fainter and fainter.

The footsteps in the hallway were too quiet, too deliberate, and that
was what woke him. He knew the treads of all the residents on his
hall--none walked with the stealthy tread that spoke of unmentionable
training. He was kneeling to the side with his gun pointed at the
doorway when the paper abruptly slid under. His still partially
sleep-addled brain was expecting something so entirely different,
that by the time he rose to his feet and yanked open the door, the
hall was empty.

The note was to the point. Directions to a location in Virginia. He
was dressed, and sliding his cel phone into his pocket and clipping
his holster on before it even occurred to him that maybe he should
call Skinner. That he should call for a backup team, just for once
play things by the book.

He didn't.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

FBI Building
Command Post
5:30 a.m. September 21, 1998

Waiting. So much of his life was waiting. Had been waiting.
Endless moments lost to the tiring and frustrating expedients of
others' incompetence, the necessity of circumstances, the
inevitable grinding slowness of bureaucracies.

This time the waiting was even harder. It was darker, colder,
sharper. He felt this waiting eroding something that he thought
he'd already lost years ago in a jungle clearing. Something that
had been lost again during his ill-conceived bargain with the
smoking man. But this week, this moment was inextricably bound
up with a single image: Scully in that chair--blood running down
her face, posture defiant and somehow vibrant. And that image
was threatening to undermine his entire foundation.

He wanted to shake off the thought. Wanted to believe that he
was overreacting. She was, on an objective level, merely one of
his agents. A subordinate for whom he was responsible, like a
commander of a unit on a battlefield, but no more or less
valuable than her fellow agents. She was a strong member of his
team, and he would feel the same fury and pain at the snatching
of any of his agents in this manner.... Wrong. Dead wrong.

There was something else. Something that had drawn him down into
the basement of the FBI building more than a year ago. Some
bright, shining possibility and truth that had lured him into
making a deal that had nearly cost him everything. That might yet
cost him everything.

In the pre-dawn dark of the command room, the only light coming
from the various screen savers of the computers scattered on
every work station, he had nowhere to look but inward.

Not for the first time he found his memories drawn to that
hopeless time. Scully held hostage by a disease that was slowing
wasting her--leeching her fire, her passion--slowly diminishing
her before their eyes. She had probably seemed, to most
observers, to be functioning capably in her job. Continuing the
investigations with Mulder, functioning as part of the X-Files
team. But Skinner knew battle fatigue. Knew what it was like to
have your soul slowly draining away. That the next sniper's
bullet would be for you.

He'd seen the toll that the cancer had exacted on both of them.
Seen the ashen pallor overtake first her, then him. Mulder and
Scully. Scully and Mulder. Partners, friends, inextricably
linked in ways he'd long ago given up trying to define. He knew
only that their partnership was worth fighting for. That
together they were something that had meaning in this insane game
they were all embroiled in, and that they had to win.

He'd been certain that if Scully had died that Mulder would have
followed her. Nothing so dramatic as a gun to the temple at her
graveside. Simply that he would have been a little slow dodging
the next bullet. Wouldn't have quite made the leap to the top of
the next train that he tried to board from a bridge. He would
have slipped away in some quiet, but definite way. They needed
each other in ways that could not be explained--could only be
respected. It was a partnership that had already transcended, it
seemed, the borders of life and death.

It had been that partnership he had tried to save when he went to
the smoker and offered a deal in exchange for a miracle.
Instinctively he'd needed to step between Mulder and the abyss
that was any dealings with that bastard. He knew that if Mulder
had made the deal, the poison of it would eventually seep
across all that Mulder did, and the Mulder-Scully
partnership would suffer and finally fall apart. That
circumstance, at all costs, he needed to prevent. He needed them
strong. Together. Fighting for truth and justice and other
constructs that were all too often mere abstractions.

More than that, though, the deal had been Skinner's chance to
enter the game on a different level.

He had, of course, been a player from the beginning. Without
even overtly being aware of the names of the sides in the battles
being waged in the halls of the Justice Department, in meetings
that he attended, in the cases that crossed his desk, Skinner had
long known that there was a war. And, he had instinctively begun
choosing his side almost from the moment he'd been promoted to AD
in charge of the Section that included the X-Files unit.

Almost from the first, it had been clear that the X-Files were at
the center of something that was so critical and so dangerous
that it didn't even have a name. The man with the cigarette had
been in his office before he'd finished unpacking his meager
personal possessions.

"Assistant Director Walter Skinner." The tone could almost have
been congratulatory, but instead seemed condescending. The face
and man were unfamiliar.

"Yes?"

"Welcome to your new....office. I have heard a great deal about
you."

"Yes?" What in God's name did this person want? He was
beginning to wonder if he needed to call security. The man
across from him wore no building pass, but somehow seemed to
belong.

"That's all really," an almost airy wave with the cigarette, "I
just wanted to drop by and see the new AD." He'd turned and
walked out of the office. But at the door he'd stopped suddenly
and turned back. "Oh, by the way," the tone was almost casual,
"You might want to review the materials on the X-Files first."

Yes, from the beginning the lines had been drawn, and Skinner was
sick of being on the losing side. Brief victories were just
that--too brief. You don't get to be an AD in the FBI without
being a tough-minded SOB. A tiny bit of arrogance didn't hurt,
either. He'd tried to muster resources, gather information,
develop allies. But time and again, he'd been forced into
untenable decisions by the smoker--made to suborn justice and the
principles that he'd sworn to uphold to the whim of a man whose
authority he still didn't fully understand. It had infuriated
him, and he had sworn each time that he would somehow best the
smoker the next time. The next time.

Then he'd made the deal. In retrospect, he was forced to
acknowledge that it had been, on some levels, unnecessarily
quixotic. Or maybe not. He'd desperately needed to prevent
Mulder from going to the smoker, and he had honestly thought that
maybe, just maybe, working for the smoker he would
eventually find a way to take him down.

On that wish and prayer he'd sacrificed a great deal. Skinner
had learned more about the smoking man and the organization he
seemed to work for than he'd known previously. He'd fulfilled
his objective of keeping Mulder and Scully functioning as a team.
He had not, however, been able to penetrate more than a layer or
two of the shadow group. Had learned only bits and pieces of
their objectives, their needs, their weaknesses. Not enough.
Not enough for the price he'd paid.

He turned abruptly and began pacing the room. It would seem
there still more questions than answers, and yet another decision
that would have to be faced.

He had once more prevented Mulder from approaching the smoker.
Thinking again about his conversation with the agent he wondered
if it really all gone too smoothly. Had Mulder acquiesced too
readily? What was being hidden under that too-calm exterior?

No time to consider. The issue in front of Walter Skinner now
was what was he going to do about Scully's kidnapping. It was
clear, had been clear from the moment they received the bizarrely
undemanding video of Scully, that this was not a standard
abduction by any stretch of the imagination. And, while standard
channels of investigation had been implemented to deal with her
case, it was also clear those channels weren't doing a damn thing to
find her. Wouldn't do a damn thing to find her.

Non-standard channels. Something Skinner was all too familiar
with. He knew the gatekeeper to the "other ways" that existed.
But what was he willing to risk this time? What would he hazard
to secure Scully's safe return? What remained of him to be
offered? Why did he remain willing to offer anything at all?

Everything had changed and nothing had changed. Scully was
threatened once more by unknown forces. He had a gut feeling
that there was something important and dangerous about to break
loose from the shadow forces and this might all simply be a feint
to distract him and Mulder while it occurred. He couldn't shake
the memory of those charred bodies at the dam. Scully, too, had
an implant. Dangers everywhere, and no apparent way of defusing
them without accidentally triggering a boobytrap.

For now, there was nothing to do but be the AD. Command this
team. Collect what evidence he could. Keep Mulder sane and
alive until they got Scully back.

Dawn was just beginning to break, and the first of the agents
began straggling into the room. Lights were flipped on,
computers re-booted. He absently listened as the first reports
of the morning were given, detailing the progress since the day
before. Detailing the lack of progress to discern anything new
at all.

Nothing. Nothing at all had changed. Not even the waiting.

~ ~ ~ ~

Antarctic
September 21, 1998

Cold beyond the mere white of ice, the mere blue of death. Ice,
frozen wasteland of nothingness. A land that should have been
completely barren--unable to support any life at all.

The movement was at first imperceptible. A shudder that
disturbed the vision of the few creatures around to see it. Then
a low, ominous growl that accompanied the deeper shaking and
trembling. Finally with a crack-roar, the iceberg calved away
from the ice shelf.

It was larger than the state of Delaware. It had not been formed
by random forces of nature.

It began its journey out to sea.

~ ~ ~ ~

Unknown location
September 21, 1998

"We already agreed to this." Her voice was flat, uninflected and
just a little bit sibilant. The 's' a tiny bit prolonged, the
faintest suggestion of a hiss.

"We talked about it, but I don't remember any definite agreement.
Anyway, I think we need to keep our options open. If we go with
your plan, we lose an option. Besides, what do we really know
about all this?" He was surprised to find himself taking this
position.

"Nothing, of course. Knowing nothing, Alex, is the safest thing
in the world right now."

He couldn't help himself. The laugh was slightly bitter. "So we
at last have proof that ignorance is bliss?"

Her eyes were blue, but not warm. "No, ignorance is survival."
She regarded him clinically for another moment. "Think about it.
There isn't much time left." She stalked out.

Ah, yes. Survival. He knew a great deal about that.

He continued watching their captive, who was doing....nothing.
It worried him. Scully, like Mulder, was actually at her most
dangerous when still like that. He'd watched her, off and on,
over the years, and had come to the clear understanding that
underestimating her was a mistake people generally didn't live to
make twice.

She was sitting on her bed, her back against the wall, legs
pulled up against her chest. Her eyes seemed to be focused
directly at him, although he knew that she hadn't yet discovered
the placement of the surveillance mechanism, or at least had
never shown any awareness of it. He thought that she was simply
staring at the wall, and thinking.

It was that thinking that worried him. Her face was drawn in
a slight frown, and he could almost see the wheels and gears
turning in her mind. She had to be wondering what the hell she
was doing there. Scully was, as far as he had ever been able to
tell, one of the world's true rationalists. Oddly, he actually
admired that about her. He lived instinct to instinct--a creature
of impulses--it kept him alive. But just every once in a great
while, usually when hiding out in yet another dingy safe house,
nursing a bottle of vodka through another uncertain night, he
found himself wishing that he could make sense out of the
randomness that had become his life.

For the second time in 15 minutes, Scully reached back and
touched the base of her neck. That worried him, too. Was
something happening with that chip? So much hinged on that tiny
piece of metal and circuitry.

Marita had returned to the room without him noticing. Her voice
was quiet, but the surprise of it still caused him to flinch.

"So?"

He was still feeling the adrenaline of being startled. "I don't
think so."

"You understand the risks of not removing the chip?"

"Yeah, probably better than you do. So far as I know, she's
never pointed a gun at your head. But, more to the point, I
think the risks of removing the chip are greater. According to
what you told me, they're interested in how the chip is
interacting with the vaccine. We remove the chip, and maybe the
data gets lost or fucked up."

"If we don't remove the chip, we have to turn her over to them-
-alive. That could be inconvenient in terms of Agent Mulder."

"Well, Mulder hasn't exactly been inconvenient so far, has he?"
That did surprise him, but he decided that he wouldn't raise
the point with the blonde. He understood Mulder's doggedness
when it came to Scully. Had, indeed, witnessed it first hand. He
wondered if his former partner had lost a little of his fire.
The more worrisome possibility, of course, was that Mulder was
doing something pointlessly heroic like trying to cut a deal with
the syndicate. Of course any deal between Mulder and the shadows
would undoubtedly only end in aggravation for everyone and
probably a lot of dead bodies.... He realized that Marita was
still talking.

"...just been lucky. It's only a question of time. So far, so
good, but we can't run on luck forever. My sources aren't what
the used to be, but I hear the investigation is somewhat at an
impasse. What concerns me, though, is I keep hearing references
to a video." She stared at him impassively--the question and
challenge quite clear in her eyes. He stared back equally
impassively.

"How odd. Maybe your sources are confused about what evidence has
been recovered--if any."

She nodded slightly. "Yes, odd indeed. Still, we have to make a
decision, and fairly soon. The date is only 2 days away."

She was absolutely relishing this, he realized. Not just the
intricate game of double and triple cross, but having another
person completely at her command and control. She had never, so
far as he knew, had any interactions with Scully, but there was a
quiet malicious delight evident in Marita's desire to make
decisions about Scully's fate.

It was one of the coldest things he'd ever seen. Personal
revenge was something he understood entirely. The need to avenge
insults and betrayals ran deep in his blood. But her pleasure in
this situation stemmed from some entirely different place and it
chilled him.

Just for a moment he found himself reassessing why it was that he
was participating in this mad scheme. Watching her watch Scully
like a lab specimen, he wondered, not for the first time, what
Marita saw when she looked at him. He felt very small.

In one of those mercurial mood switches that always left him
reeling in vaguely sea-sick nausea, she turned back to him.
"Well, we do have 2 days left to make the decision, and in any
case, we need to keep her alive at least that much longer, no?"

"Uh...right."

A fine impatience remained. "We've been over all of this. We
have three options: kill her and remove the chip, remove the
chip and release her alive, or simply turn her and the chip over
to them. We've discussed all the pros and cons of each scenario.
I would think by now it would be obvious what we need to do."

"Well, it's not so fucking obvious to me. Since I've never
talked to them directly, I still don't know what it is
they're really looking for. Clearly the value of it...of her is
that she's only one with the chip who's also been exposed to the
vaccine. I assume they're hoping the chip will somehow give
them information about the cure for....whatever the hell it is.
I'm no scientist, but I'd tend to think that they'd want the
whole package intact." The sarcasm was a good cover for his
essential insecurity about this whole operation.

For the first time since he'd known her, she looked
uncomfortable. "I'm not a scientist, either. And my par--they
weren't exactly clear. I think we have to consider the option
that poses the lowest level of risk, and the highest possibility
of return."

He let the slip pass by unremarked. But now his brain was
furiously turning. What game was she really playing? She hadn't
talked to them directly at all. She was running through this
maze as blindly as he was and he was following her. Fuck.

The problem with running on instincts is that sometimes you
follow them right into dead ends.

He turned back to stare unseeingly at Scully. Who was still
doing nothing. They were looking for the center of the
maze...but would it hold the prize, or death?