below . the . moon

Title: Becoming Judas
Author: darkstar (clone347@aol.com)
Rating: pg-13
Classification: see part one
Disclaimer: see part one
Summary: see part one

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becoming judas 11/12
darkstar
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The sky was restless, changing from sun to storm, from peace to violence in little more than a change of the wind. Gray clouds churned and toiled among themselves and against a sun that struggled to shine through gaps in the clouds. The uneasy earth only mirrored the tension mounting in his own gut with each step.

He had been on the move for three days. Walking, running, jogging, sometimes staggering but always moving. He could sleep when he was over the border. When he was sure he had not been followed. The disrupt had ran out of energy over forty eight hours ago, and each minute since then had been one of mounting anxiety that he would turn to see a shadow team sweeping down on him from the horizon. But there had been nothing, which in a way frightened him all the more.

Mulder's fingers ached from clenching his gun but he would not release his weapon for a moment. Something dangerous rode on the wind, something that tasted of fear and evil and death. And despite the precautions he had taken, he couldn't help feeling that that same darkness was laying wait for him in Soledad. But that was impossible. If Pavlov had indeed found his location, he would have taken him long before now.

He realized the logic but still didn't let go of the gun or slow his pace.

If the danger compounded with each mile he traveled, so did a growing seed of hope within him. Scully was the light at the end of the very long and black tunnel he ran through, a light he had to see no matter the cost or the peril to himself. She walked the halls of his memory freely, images of her laugh, her touch, her smile sustaining him when his body begged to stop.

A square of brown appeared on the far horizon, standing apart from the parched earth only by the way the torrent of sky rushed around it and over it rather than above it. Soledad. Beyond it lay the border and a continent of desert and mountain and jungle. He could lose his way or he could lose himself but once he was in the middle of it, even the sharp eyes of the Colonists would be a distant past.

A chill not from the wind passed over him, the same breath of warning in his ear. Mulder shook it off but had the sense to suspend logic enough to walk not run toward the town. A very slow, very careful, very deliberate walk. Shadows may be shadows but he had chased them long enough to know that they meant what they said.

Call it premonition, call it paranoia, but it might just save his life.

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

"Command central this is Position One. Target is approaching due east, I repeat, target is approaching due east. All posts alert."

The young soldier finished his report, then pressed his back against the clapboard walls of a run down store and threw the safety off his rifle. Everyone had their own theory on the identity of the mystery man they had been ordered to capture- alive no less. Some said he was a rogue agent, making a run for the border and the resistance. Others said he was a Commander gone AWOL. Still more insisted he was a trained assassin who had gone delusional and now must be captured and re-educated. Personally, he didn't care which story he took his theory from. All meant someone highly capable and highly dangerous.

This was his first mission. He was nervous enough after seeing that....thing...or whatever it was that their leader had mutated into. One thing he did not need was ghost worries about some assassin, or a Commander, or a rebel agent.

He eyed the street the target would have to take, since the dirt road was the only street in the town. If things went well he would have a clear shot at wounding the man. If he was the one to bring the target down, it would atone for his earlier loss of control- and of lunch. The soldier tightened his grip on his gun and waited.

The target appeared minutes later, and even without his binoculars the soldier could see him walking past the edge of the town, taking it slow and casual with his hands in his pockets. If he used the binoculars, he could see the man's face clearly. It was blank, without emotion or suspicion.

"This is One, visual is confirmed. Target has just entered the town. Is not aware of net." he spoke into his earpiece. "Requesting permission to neutralize."

There was a pause and the crackle of static before his team leader replied. "Position One this is Command Central, you had go to bring the target down. Non-lethal force. We want him alive."

"Yes sir. Alpha over and out."

He clicked off the transmitting end of his earpiece and lifted his binoculars to his face again. A ricocheted gleam of sunlight struck the glass, blinding him in a flash that was gone after a second.

When he looked up the street was empty.

"What in the-" he scanned thestreet, finding only dust ghosts and buildings. The man had vanished, almost like he was never there. The soldier clicked the transmit button on his earpiece, frantically searching for any sign of the target.

"Command this is One, I have lost visual! I repeat, visual confirmation no longer possible! He just vanished...."

The very soft click of a safety being released just behind his ear told him otherwise.

His muscles began to freeze in a wave of paralysis slowly rippling over his body. Turning his head to the left, he saw the target standing over him, that same non-expression masking his features.

"Surrender and I won't have to kill you." the man said, looking down at him from behind the business end of a silenced nine millimeter.

The soldier stiffened with pride despite the fear running wild inside him. "An Enforcer *never* surrenders." As the nerves in his fingers regained feeling, he tightened his grip almost imperceptibly on his gun, waiting for one slip in the target's guard.

"Suit yourself." There was a very real sadness in the man's eyes as his fingers increased pressure on the trigger.

He reacted at the same moment, swinging his rifle up a moment too late. The bullet beat him to the punch, entering his temple and exiting through the base of his neck along with most of his brains. But in the half-second between the entry and exit, the sudden pain was cut off by and equally as sudden blackness as his life was stolen away.

Mulder wiped away the blood that had splattered his clothes in distant regret. The kid was young, one of the few that had actually believed in the cause he was fighting for. It had been in his eyes, the moment before the bullet fractured his skull. He pushed all thoughts of tragedy aside. This was war and death was just one of the casualties.

"Postion One?" An earpiece microphone sputtered to life from what had been the soldier's ear. "Have you reattained visual? Come in, position One."

He reached down and picked it up, wiping away the gore with his shirt before speaking into it. "We're sorry, this number has been disconnected."

There was the static of shocked silence for one moment as the leader recovered his composure. "Identify yourself."

"Among you my title is Commander Mulder. Come and get me, boys."

Before the other man could answer, Mulder dropped the tiny microphone on the ground and crushed it with his foot. He picked up the dead soldier's gun, along with the two spare ammo clips the boy had been wearing on his belt. Scavenging from the dead was distasteful, but it was the easiest way to get weapons. There was always more than enough death to go around.

He looked up to see the face of a little girl watching him from a window in the building to the left of him. She stared until her father or a brother pulled her away from the window, pulling the curtain after a wary glance himself. So the town was not deserted after all. The residents were staying inside. If he had any doubt about the ambush, it was gone now. Mulder just counted himself lucky he saw the blink from the soldier's binoculars when he did.

But there would be others coming and he had to be ready. Mulder tucked his handgun and the spare clips of ammo in his belt. He cast one lingering glance on the man he had just killed, then disappeared back into the refuge of the alley.

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

"What do you want us to do now, sir?"

Pavlov didn't tear his gaze away from the street, looking calmly out the window as if he was watching a tranquil sunrise. "The objective has not changed. Find the target and apprehend him. Alive."

"Sir, he killed one of my men in cold blood!" the team leader protested, silenced at a raise of Pavlov's finger.

"This is a combat situation. People die." He let his words sink in before continuing his order. "Send your men out in pairs, starting from Position One and working their way through the town. Don't worry, commander. Justice will be served, and I promise you will be there to watch when it is."

Not entirely satisfied but unwilling to challenge his superior, the soldier began issuing orders to his men. His team was close, and all of them by now knew that one less of their group was walking away from the mission. He hoped that in itself would be enough for one of them to make a "mistake" that would prove lethal.

If not, he might have to make one himself.

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

Mulder crouched in a doorway, across the street from the alley and the dead soldier. It helped when you knew the standard response protocol of your enemy. He had led missions not entirely different from this one, and knew that the leader's first move would be to send a pair of men to the last known position of the target. The other four would be closing on from other sides, but he could deal with them later.

It turned out he didn't have to wait long. The two came out of the woodwork like any other resident poltergeists, guns at the ready. One played sentry at the same time the other checked the body. It was the sentry that spotted him first.

The stacatto crack of gunfire broke the whisper of the wind, and the bullets drove into the doorframe uncomfortable close to his head, chips of wood spraying out to sting his cheeks like tiny needles. Mulder raised the Uzi to his shoulder, squeezing off a two-round burst before rolling out from the doorway and into the street. He landed on his feet, drawing the rifle up again for two more shots. This time both struck the sentry, one in his shoulder and the other in his throat.

He didn't wait for the soldier to hit the ground, diving behind the shelter of a rusting car as the other Enforcer charged him, paving the way with a stream of steady fire. Bullets shattered the windows and punched holes in the metal siding, and every so often he would feel a slight tug on his clothing as one passed too close.

The waiting game was over. Instead of standing, he fell to his stomach, sending a spray of bullets underneath the belly of the car. A garbled scream ended the soldier's gunfire as the bullets cut his feet out from under him. Despite the primal adrenaline of warfare, Mulder retained enough mercy to put another bullet through the man's head before leaving.

This time he ran down the street, hugging buildings and the ground as he moved in the direction the two had come from. A shadow Enforcer team meant only one thing. Pavlov was here to bring him back. He remembered the stiletto in his pack at the same time a rash of gunfire opened up at his heels.

A spasm of instinct hurled him to the ground, bullets kicking up clods of dirt around him as he worked to bring his rifle up into firing position. A sliver of lead fire seared its way across the skin of his cheek, a thin line of blood warming the area where the bullet had grazed him. The shelter of a corner shielded him from the gunfire. This kill had to be quick and it had to be neat. He wouldn't get a second chance.

Jamming a fresh cartridge into his gun, he picked up the waiting game where he had left it off. The bullets stopped coming the instant before a soldier appeared around the corner. Mulder squeezed off two shots in reaction, killing him but allowing his partner to move in. Now he was the one looking down the barrel of a gun, into eyes filled with stone cold hate.

"Drop your rifle!" The soldier yelled, brandishing his gun. "On your face!"

A slow sigh of defeat sagged his shoulders as he tossed the rifle aside. The soldier retrieved it cautiously, glaring back at Mulder and daring him to try anything.

"I said *on your face*! I already have a reason to shoot you- don't give me an excuse!"

He lowered himself to the ground, hands folded underneath his stomach. There was the soft buzz of static in the background as the Enforcer radioed his commander. "Command central this is Position Three. I have him."

The response was quick this time. "Keep him contained until reinforcements arrive. All units are moving your way."

The soldier turned his attention back to Mulder. "Ok, scum, hands behind your head."

"If you insist." Mulder rolled over, his hands coming up with his pistol, a single shot dropping the soldier before he had time to react. He was on his feet before the other man's body hit the ground, moving to retrieve his rifle. Now the field of play had opened up into two choices. He could continue evasive maneuvers or he could sit and let them come to him.

His eyes lighted on a fire escape in the building beside him, leading up to the roof and an idea began to form in his mind. No, he would not run this time. Let the soldier boys come.

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

"Sir, we've lost contact with all but two of our positions." The team leader could barely control his frustration as he turned back to Pavlov. "Who is this guy ? He's taking them out one by one like he was one of-" His words trailed away at the impossibility of the thought.

"One of us?" Pavlov turned at long last from the window. "You are quite right in assuming that. He is a Commander, with experience in both shadow units and assasination detail until he went AWOL on leave."

The soldier was stunned. "And you didn't think that information would be important to the success of this mission,"

"Success is slowing him down. We've accomplished that. One of your men seems to have control of the situation, and I suggest we waste no more time here. Which way did the communication come from ?"

"Near Position Eight. A warehouse not far from here."

"Then we should move now." Pavlov began to move at a fast, clipped walk. "The other pair should be arriving as we speak."

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

Mulder lay flat against the roof, his chest and lungs heaving from the hurried climb up the fire escape. And not a moment too soon, for the sound of footsteps and voices announced the arrival of the last team. Two voices, each displaying different levels of shock and anger at the bodies of their comrades. One was loud and irate, burning the air in a streak of language that would have made Scully's Navy brothers blush. The other said nothing more, but Mulder could hear footsteps as he moved into a wary position.

He would take the big mouth first.

The elevation gave him an almost unfair advantage. He chose the true aim of his 9 mm over the messier firepower of the Uzi. All thoughts of death and tradegy and casualties were gone from his mind, pushed aside by finely honed instincts of war until he was almost proud of himself for orchestrating such a kill. Rising to his feet, he fired twice. The first bullet went true to its course, killing the loud soldier instantly. The quiet one was harder, ducking out of the path his death was taking toward him. He brought his rifle up, already firing, towards the roof, but Mulder had already pulled the trigger a third time. The bullet struck him in the chest, knocking him backwards and sending the stream of gunfire in another direction.

It was over that fast. Little by little Mulder became aware of the sweat and blood, both his and his enemy's, which soaked his skin and his clothes. He rose to his feet, staring down at the dead soldiers as he moved toward the fire escape. Their ammo clips would come in handy....

The crack of a pistol jerked his guard to the left, down the street at the same moment the knife-like sensation of a bullet gouged through his ribs and out his back.

The team leader and Pavlov. He hadn't expected them so soon.

In a cry more like surprise than anything, Mulder fell to his knees on the roof, clutching his side. Blood seeped through his fingers, staining his hands, and he gasped as the air hit his wound, heightening the first promises of pain. He pulled his hand away, running a two second assessment of the injury. The wound felt shallow, and in all likelihood he was lucky. It looked like the extent of the damage was the chunk of flesh it had torn away, before bouncing off his ribs and out of his body.

He didn't feel fortunate. He felt sore and he felt stupid as yet another voice, one he surmised belonged to the team leader, called out to him.

"Throw down your weapons and then proceed slowly down the fire escape."

<Options....we need options....> None came readily to mind, the block of pain making it difficult to concentrate, and Mulder realized that for now he would have to play along. He tossed the 9 mm and the rifle over the edge of the roof, then reached to do the same to his pack. A gleam of silver winked up at the sun as he noticed the stiletto sitting in the front pocket.

An option.

Pulling the weapon out of the pack, Mulder slid it up his sleeve and then hurled the rest of the back pack to the ground. Shaking his head to clear away the red fuzzies that often came with injury, he rose to one knee, then to his feet. His hands, slick with blood, maintained an unsteady grip on the rusted rails of the fire escape as he moved down one step at a time, very glad that it was only two stories.

By the time he reached the ground, the soldier and Pavlov were waiting for him. The team leader, or at least that's what Mulder guessed him to be, kept his fury back except for his eyes as he trained his rifle on him. Pavlov carried no weapon, but wielded his trademark smile like a dagger.

"You've cause quite a lot of trouble, Mulder." he said smoothly. "Six Enforcers, all dead at your hands. They're not going to like that very much back at Headquarters." Something in the way he said that tipped off suspicion in Mulder's mind.

"But I'm not going back, am I?" he asked, knowing the answer before he asked the question.

"Perceptive man. It's true at one point I wanted you alive. Your behavior has changed that. Now I see that you are too much of a risk to be kept around like a time bomb on a short fuse."

"Sir-" the team leader diverted his attention to Pavlov for one moment. "I may be mistaken but the law requires you to bring any deserters back alive to stand trial for high treason. Killing this man would be illegal."

Pavlov's smile wore thin as he turned to the man. "Thank you for the advice, Commander. You and your team have been most helpful." His hand descended on the back of the soldier's neck with such force that Mulder heard the bones crack even from where he was standing. The Commander's body went slack as he crumpled to the ground, open shock following him into death.

"You killed your own man,"

"No witnesses." Pavlov said. "I wouldn't want the High Command to get word of this little incident. Losing a whole team would be bad on my record, especially when I failed to bring the target back alive."

"So I'm next on death row,"

"You could say that. So is the woman as soon as I find her."

He took a step back, noticing the way Pavlov's flesh was starting to ripple and wrinkle in places and ways totally unnatural to a human body. Then he remembered. Pavlov looked human enough but he was truly an alien underneath all the trappings...

"But that's just it. You won't." he said, his hand closing around the cylinder handle of the stiletto as he gathered himself for a sudden attack. "And at risk of sounding cliched, this town ain't big enough for the both of us." The stiletto whispered softly as the blade slid out of the cylinder.

Pavlov cocked his head to one side, the smile distorted as the flesh of his face began to lose shape and form. "You're right. It's not." he said, the words turning into a hiss as his human appearance fell away totally.

A grumble of thunder above them split the sky almost the same way Mulder's heart split his chest at the deep-seated unease, even fear, that came bubbling from the depths of his being. He was standing toe to toe, eye to eye, with a nightmare.

He thought he had seen horror in the newborn versions of this creature, but though the appearance was identical, it was totally different. The monsters he had killed had been new to the world, equipped with instinct and primal strength but none of the evil and cunning and assurance reflected in the ebony eyes that watched him now. Now, as he stared into razor teeth and dagger claws and a hundred different ways to die an agonizing and bloody death, Mulder felt very close to terror, closer than he would ever like to admit. The thing leaned back on it's haunches, a thin black tongue flickering out of it's mouth. He had no more time to reach afraid.

An unearthly shriek scraped the sky under the roar of thunder, and it scared the earth itself to tears. Soft pitter-patters of rain begain to fall around them, but Mulder barely noticed.

For a fraction of a heartbeat the creature paused, muscles coiling, and then an intense scream erupted from its jaws as it pounced.

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

A gray torpedo of slashing claws and glistening fangs hurtled toward him, catching Mulder solidly in the stomach and propelling him backwards and flat onto his back. He didn't have time to wait for breath to return as he rolled over, out from under the powerful jaws. The fire that flared up from the wound on his side was dwarfed by the mind blowing pain raking his arm as the claws caught his shoulder.

He screamed, stabbing the stiletto into the monster's heart in an attempt to gain release from the agony. The alien recoiled, it's tongue flickering out in a low hiss as it looked down at the weapon. Mulder backed away as fast as he could, trying desperately to make it to the guns, but when the thing looked up, he swore he saw Pavlov's same smile.

<You thought this could hurt me?> A voice that sounded like Pavlov's spoke directly into his brain. <Watch and see your death coming.> The creature grasped the cylinder of the stiletto, hissing again as it pulled it out of it's flesh, sticky threads of black clinging the point.

Mulder watched helplessly as the only weapon that could do anything to save his life went sailing through the air above his head, down the street. He threw himself backwards, his hands finally closing around the Uzi as the Pavlov-monster charged him again.

Now he was on his feet, jerked up by the iron cords of adrenaline and desperation. His fingers squeezed the trigger and held it down as a steady stream of bullets plowed into the alien. Each one seemed to disappear into the slimy meat of its flesh, a tiny spurt of black blood the only thing marking the damage. The gunfire was not meant to kill, because it could not, but he hoped it would hold back the beast just long enough for him to reach the stiletto.

He was moving, as fast as he dared, never letting go of the trigger. The ploy seemed to be working, for each time the alien charged him, the thud of bullets would drive him back. It threw its head back and shrieked it's frustration amidst the rain and the storm. The stiletto was within sight, a flash of metal and of hope in the mud, when the unthinkable happened.

The bullets stopped coming.

He stopped cold in shock and frustration, desperation setting in as he realized he didn't have another clip. "Pavlov" must have realized the same thing, for his smile returned, made even more demonic by the rows of teeth flashing death in his direction. The alien raced toward him, claws extended and jaws gaping.

Mulder ran. Faster than he ever had, faster than he thought he could, like a giant spring had been released, and was throwing him through the air. Just not fast enough, as a heavy weight slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground an arm's length away from the only thing that could save his life and Scully's.

The claws sank into his shoulder again, flipping him over onto his back. He tensed, expecting his death to begin in slashes and screams. Nothing happened. Instead, the creature leaned forward, its face inches from his own while it kept him pressed firmly into the mud by its weight. The voice returned, speaking in his mind with a breath almost as foul as the odor in his face.

<You lose, human.> The words were much less cultured now, more primal and truly alien. Pavlov drew one claw across Mulder's throat just enough to break the skin into a scarlet choker of blood. <The birds will feed off your flesh and drink of your blood.> There was triumph in those words, the gloating of one who knew for certain the victory was his. He kept his eyes focused on the alien, but his hand stretched out in a painstakingly slow grab for the stiletto.

Yeah well if the thing would be arrogant a moment more, Mulder might have a last chance at life.

The creature's tongue shot out, black and slimy, across his neck, lapping at the stray blood. the voice promised. The pleasure in Pavlov's tone when he spoke of it made Mulder's blood boil. He kept his emotions in reign, however, because his fingertips were flirting with the cylinder.

Closer....closer...got it! He closed his fingers around it, pressing the button to release the blade as he let his rage build his strength.

<Do you know how beautiful it sounds when she screams? I made her scream once, you know, when I was inside her head. I know her far better than you ever will...I was inside her mind, reading every one of her precious thoughts. She never lets you read her thoughts, does she Mulder?> The creatured raised one hand, claws fully extended and shining with wet blood. <Too bad, because she loved you, you know. Her memories of you were strong...they kept me out. But let me give you something to carry with you into the afterlife....>

His muscles tensed like a steel spring, ready to strike at the perfect moment.

There was a pause. <And I will take her away too. She !belongs! !to! !me!!!!>

"Think again." Mulder said, staring straight into the coal black eyes as he released his hand in a vicious arch that embedded itself firmly in the alien's neck. "Game's over, Pavlov. You lose."

A scream unlike anything he had ever heard in his life tore lose from the creature's throat, and it clawed at the back of its neck, ripping it's own flesh in an attempt to undo the fatal damage. Mulder shoved the monster off of him, rolling to the side and breathing in gasps and heaves as the pain tried to take over. He fought it back, clinging to consciousness long enough to watch his enemy die.

Pavlov thrashed about in the mud, shrieking and hissing. The noise grew less and less as his body began to disentigrate, eating away at itself. Finally there was nothing left except a puddle of bright greenish ooze that mixed with the mud and the shades of red and black blood.

Mulder closed his eyes, letting his head sink against his arm. He lay in the mud, staring up at an upside down view of the slackening rain. Overhead the sun dared show its face again, peeking out in rays of palest yellow now that the nightmare was gone. Part of him realized the magnitude of what he had just done. The rest was too tired and sore and bleeding to take pride, or to care, or to do anything besides lay where he was. He didn't want to move again. Ever.

His eyes eased shut, not sure when or if he was ever going to open them again.

"He's alive, Father!" The voice of a little girl snapped his eyelids right back open. "I told you he was alive!" There was the sound of footsteps skidding to a halt and then the face of the little girl from the window peered down over him. "Hey, mister." she said, smiling. "What's your name?"

"Mulder."

"My name is Melissa. My daddy is a good doctor. He can patch you up."

Another face joined hers, a man about forty-five with a kind look about him. "Melissa, go tell Mommy to get a room ready."

"Ok." the child brightened. "But what's that green stuff right there?"

"Don't touch it. Just go tell Mommy." The man looked back down at Mulder. "I didn't know those things could be killed."

"There are ways." Mulder groaned as he turned his head. "Not pleasant, as you can tell. Do you see a metal cylinder on the ground anywhere near the... ummm....green stuff?"

The man walked away for a second then returned holding the stiletto. "This?"

"Yeah...it belongs to me..."

"My name is Doctor Warchol." The doctor helped Mulder to his feet, supporting him as they walked towards the house. "You can stay at my house until we clean you up. Once the rest of the town figures out it's safe to leave their homes, you'll be a pretty popular guy. We share your feelings towards the Enforcers, if not your courage."

"I can pay." Mulder grunted, fighting the urge to throw up. "Hard cash."

"No need. We've had our share of resistance fighters in our time, but none have taken down a whole shadow team singlehandedly!" Warchol laughed like he found the concept amusing. "No, we'll take good care of you while you're here."

"If you can just patch me up and give me a room for the night, I'll be out of your way."

"Oh." the doctor sounded disappointed. "You have someplace you gotta be?"

Mulder turned his head back toward what little of Pavlov the earth hadn't absorbed, thinking of the alien's words.

"Yes." he answered. "I do."

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

The west coast of Chile

Two months later:

He had heard the footsteps before he had seen the man that caused them, a lone figure in moonlight walking towards the house from the direction of the mountains piling up behind them. Skinner chose stealth over confrontation, picking up his shotgun and moving between the door and a window, so he could maintain visibility. The man looked non-threatening, but years of experience told him not to believe his eyes too readily. For all he knew the stranger could be an assassin sent to finish the job on Scully.

They'd had to get through him first. And that was something Skinner knew would not happen.

However there was something familiar about this "stranger", in the way he walked, in his build. True, the man was coming around the back way but the house faced the ocean so he reasoned anyone would have to. Not that they'd had many visitors.

His thoughts flashed to Scully, asleep in her room. If push came to shove would she be able to get out in time? Would she even want to? He flipped the safety off the shotgun. It was up to him to make sure those questions never had to be answered.

The man stopped at the door, his face still cloaked by the veil of night. Skinner moved away from the window, stepping back and bracing himself for a gunshot and the mayhem afterwards.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The soft sound was almost anti-climatic, and while his muscles relaxed, his grip on his gun did not. "It's open." he said, just loud enough for the man to hear without waking Scully. The doorknob turned, and the door swung open.

He blinked twice as the face became visible, the one man he had never expected to see.

"Agent Mulder..." he cleared his throat, stepping back but not lowering his gun. "Come in."

Skinner watched Mulder as he did so, walking inside and dropping a worn back pack on the floor. It was his old friend all right, but so many things had changed about his face and his eyes that it was no wonder he had mistaken him for a stranger. If it was, however, truly Mulder and not a hybrid or a clone.

"Why have you come here?" he asked.

Mulder seemed surprised to a degree at the question. "I got your letter. You said to come."

"I sent that almost three months ago. Why didn't you come sooner?"

"I had some loose ends to tie up."

Now that Skinner had a clear look at Mulder, he could see the ugly red scars running down his arm from his shoulder past his elbow. "Loose ends" was certainly an understatement, so it appeared, but there would be time to swap stories later. "I thought you had obligations." He chose the most diplomatic word possible, but found it hard to keep the edge off his voice. For over a year Mulder had stayed away, and then he shows up now, now when it was almost too late...

"I did." he said. "But I no longer have to answer to them." He pulled something out of his belt and set it on the table. A 9 mm handgun, equipped with silencer. There was a moment of silence. "Where is she?"

"She's asleep." Skinner said, sitting down in a chair and laying his own gun idly across his lap. "That's all she does now. In between doctoring and walking for hours on end." He shook his head.

"Does she eat?" The open concern suddenly flooding the man's voice dispersed any doubts to his identity. It was trademark Mulder, the way any mention of Scully flipped a switch that turned on emotions otherwise dormant. Scully used to talk about him the same way, before...

"When I can talk her into it." He had no intention of softening the truth any longer. "Your death has been hard on her. Harder than I imagined it would be."

"You said she was fine."

"I *said*," Skinner glared up at his former agent with a look used a thousand times before. "that she was coping. There's a big difference between that and *fine*." He sighed, a sadness of sorts creeping around his voice. "It doesn't matter, not anymore. She's not even bothering to cope now. As long as she had her vaccination research, some way she thought she was fighting back, she could make it."

"What happened?"

"She hit a wall. I'm not the scientist she is, but the tools I found for her just don't cut it all the way. She wanted to take her information to the resistance."

Worry edged Mulder's next question. "You didn't let her, did you?" <After all the precautions...he didn't send her out there->

"No." he replied. "She gave up on the idea and gave up on the rest of life at the same time. I don't know if even you can reach her now."

"I want to see her."

"As I said, she's asleep."

"I won't wake her." he promised, a sort of almost pleading to his voice. "I just want to see her, that's all."

Skinner opened his mouth to refuse, but one look into Mulder's face changed his mind. The pain and guilt and sadness reminded him without words that Scully had not been the only one to suffer during this time.

"All right." he nodded. "But do it quietly. Her room is down the hall."

He didn't get up from the chair, watching as Mulder disappeared down the hallway. There was something about the way the man moved, a purpose in his step that convinced him that he would have found her anyway, even if he had told him no.

The man had come too far and searched too long to stop at anything less.

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

Mulder hardly dared breathe as he opened the door to her room, half-believing that if he did, he would wake up back in New Orleans to find it all a blissful dream floating amid a sea of nightmares. But it was not a dream. He never dreamed of things so beautiful they made his eyes hurt like they were hurting now. Or was his heart that felt the pain?

She lay like a butterfly in a chrysallis of moonlight, the beams of silver spread over her like they were protecting her somehow. Her hair was the brilliant copper red of old times, spilling around her like a cascade of spun fire. The ivory of her skin seemed almost translucent in the light, soft and pale. It was her face that melted the night into nothing by comparison, stopping his breath and stopping his heart.

Her eyes were closed, tiny wrinkles along her brow furrowed in concentration even as she slept, lips parted slightly. It was a different face, sadder, but marked with something he had not seen in a long, long time.

Innocence kissed her features as she slept.

He should go, leave forever before the horrible decay of his soul spread to her as well, taking away the thing he had most wanted to give her. Peace. But he could no more move than look away, trapped by a power she did not even know she had over him.

Before he could know or care what he was doing enough to stop himself, Mulder reached one hand out toward her, needing to touch her just once. Once to assure himself that it was real and she was here and both of them were alive. Then he could leave and go meet his fate a happy man, because he would die free and he would die with her face on his mind and across his soul.

His fingers brushed the skin of her cheek, following the familiar line of her face in a simple gesture he had ached to do so many times during the past year. A lock of hair had fallen across her eyes, and he curled it around his finger, smoothing it to the side.

<God, she is beautiful. And I am so ugly...what am I doing?!? Dare I touch an angel with bloodied hands?>

Mulder pulled his hand back like it had been burned, a pain truly like fire stinging his flesh. Struggling to breathe around the intense tightness of his chest, he turned and walked back toward the door. Her whisper struck him like a harpoon in the back.

"Mulder???"

He had awakened her. How could he be so stupid? Now there was no easy closure, no melting into death unmourned and unnoticed. Swallowing hard, he turned around.

Scully felt her face shift as her emotions ran from shock to surprise to joy to shock again until they all collided and tears thickened her voice, nearly reaching her eyes before she remembered that this was Mulder. She didn't cry in front of Mulder.

"You're alive..." she could barely speak, the heavy weight of emotion crushing her words. "No." She shrank back against the wall, holding her hands in front of her to ward off whatever demon had come to visit her. Mulder, her Mulder, was dead. She had heard the gunshot! "NO!" Her voice was louder this time. "Get away from me! You're not him! I heard the shot- I know he's dead."

"Scully, it's me. There was a shot, but it wasn't me. I'm alive." He walked toward her slowly, his hands up to show his meant no harm, until he stood beside the bed again. "I escaped...and I've been looking for you ever since." The lie soured the back of his throat, but he would rather die for real than have her know what he had done in her name. Who he had killed, what he had destroyed.

"Mulder..." her voice collapsed and she wrapped her arms around him with all the desperation that was in her. He was alive...he was here....why had Skinner lied?

Mulder held her in the embrace, remembering all the times he had feared he would never hold her again, never be near her. She clung to him tightly, almost cutting off his breath, but he welcomed it. More tangible proof that it was really happening.

<What am I doing?> Scully found her senses a moment after her face was buried in his chest, and pulled away just as suddenly. She leaned back on the bed, wrapping a blanket around her as the night air sent a shiver through her.

"How did you escape?"

"Get dressed." Mulder said. "We'll take a walk. I can explain everything then." His smile was warm and she found herself smiling back like she never thought she would.

"Ok. I'll be out in a moment."

He squeezed her hand one more time, and she found herself staring unbashedly as he walked out the door. It was impossible. Flat out impossible. But it was him so she'd better get dressed.

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

The moist sand felt delicious on her bare feet as they walked along the shore. She smiled as she remembered how Skinner had watched them like a hawk until they had gotten out of sight, his shotgun still held ready. It reminded her for all the world of the way her father would act if she was on a date. But she was all grown up and this was no childhood sweetheart. It was Mulder.

He had told her the story of his escape, how he had double-crossed Pavlov and his men after offering to exchange his life for her safety. From his words, he had only told Skinner that he was making the deal, not how he planned to overturn it. Scully was glad Skinner hadn't lied to her, tried to change reality for a truth that might fall easier on her. Mulder had been searching for over a year, he said, from the top of Canada on down. The Lone Gunmen had helped him find her in the end. When she asked how they were doing, he fell into silent sadness, and told her how they had been killed in an Enforcer raid.

Now there was nothing left to say, so they walked without speaking, enjoying each others company. The more she looked at him, the more Scully noticed that something was wrong, that the shadows under his eyes and the pain on his face came from far more than the memory of a friend's death. He wasn't telling her something, and that something was killing him.

"Mulder, something's wrong." She stopped, looking up at him. "There's something different about you. Something you're not telling me. I want to know what it is."

He smiled at her, his hand finding hers again. "I'm just tired." he said. "It's been a long journey. At times I never thought I'd be standing here right now, with you." His arms formed a circle around her.

She leaned into his embrace readily this time, resting her head against his chest and allowing a smile of her own to cross her face. "Neither did I." she admitted. Closing her eyes, Scully let the sea breeze, spunky and spiked with a hint of salt, to play with her hair and cool her face as she relaxed. This was Mulder, she reminded herself. She could trust him completely and totally, because he would never lie to her...

Scully felt something flat and stiff like leather push into her cheek, and pulled back a little to notice that there was an object in the inside pocket of his overcoat. "Mulder, I didn't know you kept your FBI badge..." she said, reaching toward the wallet, or whatever it was.

"I didn't." his voice sounded surprised, and his eyes matched it. "I shredded it when we changed our identities. You were there."

"Then what's this?" she pulled out a thin brown object that looked for all the world like a badge of some sort.

"It's nothing- give it back." His hand moved to grab it, but she was faster, pulling it away teasingly as she dance out of his reach.

"Let's see what we have here...." she said, flipping back the cover. "Commander Fox Mulder, Shadow Team 4280-" The teasing note in her voice died straight away and when she met his eyes, her gaze was dark with fear and suspicion.

"This is an Enforcer identification badge. Krycek had one..." This was not true, this was not happening... Mulder would never turn on her. Would he? "So did all the other bounty hunters we killed." The betrayal suddenly became clear to her, and Scully dropped the badge in the sand, moving back from him. "Why do you have one?"

The cold dread in her voice shook him to the core. He was stunned that this was happening. How could he have forgotten about his ID? Oh yes. He had been preoccupied with seeing her again. And now, he had reached his goal but had it come to this?

"Scully, wait-" he took a step toward her, his hand held out as he begged her to understand. "I can explain."

"Don't-" She held up her hand, a detachment to her tone he recognized as the way she always spoke to Pavlov or a guard. She had never used that voice with him. Never. Until now. "I'm sure you'll have a very good reason and an even better lie." Now a little of the coldness wore away and her words were colored with pain. "Just tell me if you're one of them or not."

He couldn't meet her eyes, staring miserably down at the earth as he spoke, dreading her reaction. "Yes. I worked for them." Only when the words were out in the open, breathed like a plague into the air, could Mulder look up to see her flinch at his answer. The open shock of betrayal in her eyes wasn't so very different from Samantha's the moment before he had shot her. But he had done this for her...she had to believe that.

"I can explain Scully..." he moved closer. "If you'll just listen for one moment." His fingers made contact with her shoulder.

"NO!!" The word flew into the air in a mangled scream and she turned away from him, running down the beach back toward the house. Skinner was there...Skinner could protect her....

Unless he was in on it too.

The thought frightened her beyond words, adding fuel to the fire that drove her forward. She could hear Mulder's steps fall heavy and fast behind her, the way he called for her to stop. If she did, then what? He would kill her? Was that his assignment here? No, she would not stop. She had to run, get away. The sea and the sky and the sand became a blur around her, the beauty of the night choked by her terror and the utter horror from the truth.

"Scully- stop!" Mulder ran after her, the speed at which she fled surprising him. He was having trouble catching up with her, and if she didn't stop when he did he would have to stop her. It wouldn't exactly help his case. She had to know the whole truth. The truth he should have told her from the beginning. Now he was in reach of her, gaining speed and asking her to forgive him as he jumped forward.

The weight of his body hit her from behind, knocking her to the ground. Another scream tore from her throat as she kicked and struggled against the hands that held her down.

"Scully, listen to me. Just for one moment."

"Let me go!"

"No!"

"I said to *let* *go*!" She drew back her hand, and slapped him as hard as she could.

The sound of the blow froze both of them as realization set in of what just happened. The thought was paralyzing. Mulder moved back, letting go of her, but she didn't run. When he spoke again his voice was soft.

"I can tell you what happened."

"I know what happened!" she spit the words out, trying to feed from her hate rather than the tears that she knew were in her eyes. "You sold out! They released you from the camp because you handed them your allegiance and your soul on a silver platter! What did they offer you Mulder?!? Freedom? Money? Your sister?"

"You." His voice was low and pained as he spoke, but she had no room left for sympathy. Surprise, however, was another matter entirely.

"What did you say?"

"They offered to release you if I joined them. They were going to sell you as a slave." Now that he had her attention, he had the hope that she would somehow understand. "Please believe me Scully. I couldn't let them do that."

"Believe you." Her echo of his words was bitter, and she looked up at him, her soul bleeding through her eyes. "When you told me you had escaped I believe you. When Skinner told me you were dead, I believed him. I mourned for you Mulder! I felt like I was dying because I !believed! the lie that you were dead." She rose to her feet. "But now I wish you had been."

Her words hit like a blow to the head, and Mulder couldn't look at her. Then he realized she was walking away from him, and he couldn't let that happen either. Springing to his feet, he grabbed her elbow. "You can't walk away from me yet. Not without knowing why I did what I did."

"I don't care." She tried to pull away from him. "I need to go."

"No! You have to hear this. When I'm finished you can leave and never look back but let me talk."

Scully didn't answer, standing in angry silence for a moment. "Let go of my arm, and I'll listen." she agreed, not bothering to look at him. The pressure on her arm disappeared, but still she kept her face turned away. The sight of him made her sick, the thought that the one person she trusted completely had betrayed her completely.

"You saw me at the slave auction. It was Palov's idea. He knew what seeing you there would do to me."

"Why should you care what happened to me? You were quick enough to save yourself when the deal was offered."

"The deal wasn't for me, Scully. I signed away my allegiance, as you called it, to get them to release you. You were dying in there. No, you won't admit it to me or anyone else. But you were." When she didn't move, didn't look at him, he continued.

"Have you forgotten so soon? I was right there with you. I took solitary to get you medical treatment. I killed a man to keep you safe. I looked away when you cried and I held you when you got sick, even though you wouldn't tell me what was making you throw up. How could you even think I would betray you?"

When Scully blinked, the pools of tears in her eyes overflowed and ran down her cheeks. She wanted to believe him, wanted to with every part of her, but he had lied once. What was to keep him from lying again? What one thing kept their whole relationship from being a lie? Everything she had thought they were and wanted them to be... "I want to believe you, Mulder." she spoke very softly, like the falling of snow at midnight. "But you have to convince me that it's not another lie."

"You heard a gunshot." he said, pulling out his darkest demon in an attempt to just make her look at him. The thought of baring the decay of his soul was no pleasant, but he would do it for her. "When you were being released."

"So?"

"So that was when I shot my sister."

Scully snapped her head back around to meet his gaze so fast her neck popped. Truth or lie was forgotten in the pure, numbing shock of what he was saying. His sister...his faith...his belief. "You what?"

"I shot her, Scully. In cold blood. That's why they let you go. It proved my loyalty to them. But it saved your life, and that was why I did it."

She stared at him, her eyes uncomprehending of the truth or simply refusing to believe. "You killed her because of...me?"

"There was no other way."

It was so much easier to be angry, to push away her humanity with walls of iron hatred and righteous indignation. She had asked for the complete, total truth and she had gotten it. Along with every ounce of the bone-crushing guilt that accompanied the knowledge. And she still couldn't look at Mulder. Not out of loathing for him, but out of loathing for herself, what she had caused him to do.

She walked away.

Mulder watched her disappear back toward the house before dropping to the ground. He stared at the sea, listening to the breakers pound and beat on the surf. It couldn't drown out the groaning of his own soul. If he had his gun, he would have ended his suffering right there. Scully didn't believe him. She thought he had sold out, had cashed in to save himself. He had thought his universe was dead, but now the decaying bones of it crashed down around him.

So he had not been alone in that kind of pain. <But now I wish I had been...>

"So do I Scully." He said, laying back in the sand and closing his eye. "So do I."

to be continued... part 12