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Resurrection (4/8)
by darkstar
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I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
infinitely suffering thing.

- From "Preludes" by TS Eliot

For three minutes and twenty-five seconds, she dreamed she was tumbling head over heels off the edge of the earth, and his eyes were the spin of the nebulas and the iridescence of the stars. There was no defense against the seduction; she never felt the ground shift until it fell away beneath her feet. All the promises of strength, all vows of detachment were forgotten, consumed by the force of his hunger. Even from across the room, waves of energy pulsed from him into her until she could not have moved away.

Hands met and flesh bonded to flesh. The gentle sensation of his fingers against hers, after so long, turned her dizzy at the temples. He alone existed. Nothing else...nothing....

The final kiss woke the dreamer.

She simply remembered that she loved him, but that love was nothing if not honest. There was no room for lies, not even in the small space between their lips. Even if the lie tasted sweet, promising to give them each other without any price of questioning or searching. No painful prodding of wounds. There were truths to be uncovered; issues to be discussed that held sway over entire futures. She wanted to know what he was kissing. A woman or a memory.

Or did she want to play blind? To continue the deception? Her body gasped yes, but her mind seized control, pulling her mouth away from his and forcing words out she did not wish to speak. "No."

"What?" He choked on the word. He did not understand.

"No." She couldn't bring herself to say anymore.

His entire body stiffened, chest tightening under her hand. For a handful of seconds, she held his heart underneath her palm, and felt it throbbing under the skin.

Then she felt it break.

He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet in haste to put distance between them and nearly falling to the ground. Scully's hand twitched with thoughts of reaching for him, steadying him, if only the gesture would be imagined as love rather than pity. The pain on his voice twisted her inside. /You have done this? You have done this?/ Broken words tumbled from his lips to crawl toward her on half-formed legs, but he would not look at her.

His eyes were bleeding his soul all over the carpet, but still he would not meet her gaze. That stung.

"I.....am sorry. You have every right to be offended....I never should have presumed that I had the liberty....or you wanted me to-"

"Mulder." Her voice pulled his face up as a gentle yet firm touch. /Look at me, Mulder. You look me straight in these eyes and you believe these words I say to you./ "It's not a question of what I want or don't want. It's a question of what's best."

"Best." The word struck a slightly sour note in her ear as he lifted his face, the right half of his lip skewed into a sardonic smile. "Are you waiting to see if I'll get blood on you? If I'll hurt you?"

"Don't you talk like that." She sharpened her tone, using it as a slap across the face to bring him back to his senses. "You and I both know I don't have to be afraid of that." A patch of silenced softened the effect of the words, and she took a step closer to him to prove she meant it.

Her hand covered his and his skin tightened, the muscles flinching, but he did not pull away. /Please understand, Mulder. Please know I'm doing this for us./ She spoke in little more than a murmur, just as much to herself as to him. "There is a time for everything, and everything for a time. I can barely remember a life when fighting and death wasn't my full time occupation, when I didn't have to sleep with a gun or wake up in the morning to face what is left of Earth. The killing time has lasted so long for both of us. I want peace just as badly as you do. I want to forget, Mulder, and pretend that none of it ever happened.......but that won't heal the wounds. We tried that before." She remembered Chile well, but the memories were all flutter but no real substance.

"We weren't supposed to be scarred like this." His finger ran over the rough black callus of the identification brand on her wrist, a souvenir of the prison that nearly killed both of them. He bore the same stain upon his wrist as well, she knew, but now she noticed fresh marks on his hands. Nicks, cuts, scars, a map of his recent darkness etched in thin white lines along the skin.

Not for the first time, the tears slid back and forth behind her eyes, seeking a way out. She denied them their very presence and forbid them to soak her voice as she spoke.

"No one is, Mulder. No one. We don't even have to wonder about fairness. Just what we intend to do about it."

"I am not the man who left you a year ago," he said, his hands tightening ever so slightly on her wrist. "I won't give them any more of me."

Those eyes burned so bright, Scully noticed. Beautiful, even now.

She tried to smile and suggested he show her where she would be working. They would both do well to step away from the room for a while, into the fresh air where the scent of desire did not so strongly linger.

It would feel good to breathe again.

Together they walked out the back entrance, through the beautiful garden where no birds sang, onto sidewalks that changed from pristine white cement near the government buildings to muddy slabs of broken stone almost as filthy as the streets of the "real" city. Together they stepped through the door of the Medical Center, his hand hovering like a ghost of yesterday above the base of her spine in a gesture she knew was by now instinctive. As was her body's natural suppression of the electricity it produced. If she closed her eyes and listened only to the click-clack of her shoes on the white (it was always white) tile, they were back in the real United States of America, in their real lives, investigating yet another monster sighting. This was the local morgue where she would do an autopsy and he would spit sunflower seeds on the floor of her "sanitary medical area" while he told her of his brilliant theory. Of course, she would offer her explanation. Her *logical* explanation. If the dice rolled right, the friendly duel would be followed by hamburgers at a greasy spoon restaurant then a backrub in those cockroach motels she'd trade the Ritz for now.

But her eyes were not closed.

They were opened and they noticed the cold sterility of the interior, as if the cleaning crew had been instructed to bleach away any kind of warmth or cheer along with all other infectious diseases. They remembered that Mulder was not wearing his favorite gray suit, the one he paired with a tie loud enough to announce his arrival from three miles out of town. His military uniform was the same drab brown as every other soldier. His eyes held the same bland stare, no longer dancing with the laughter of an inside joke the two of them shared against the world.

/And you, Special Agent Dana Scully of the FBI, what have you changed into?/

/So many things, so many things./

The wall to her left suddenly sprang into color as a full length poster showed her the Technicolor bright smile of a mother balancing a cooing toddler on the swell of her gracefully pregnant belly. Sunshine yellow letters splashed across the top of the sign encouraging mothers to engage in "Family Planning-- Hope for tomorrow lies in the children of today."

She might have asked questions but their tour guide had arrived. Beyond the poster, a pair of metal doors swung open in the wake of a lean black man who had the gray hair of a sixty-year old but the determined stride of someone who believed age was something you only felt if you wanted to. The lines of his doctor's coat were perfectly smoothed, the ID attached to his pocket in clear sight.

Dr. Elias Field, Director of Facilities.

Level Five Clearance.

The doctor seemed to recognized Mulder at once, extending his arm into a handshake when they reached each other.

"Commander Mulder, welcome. I trust your arm hasn't been giving you any trouble?" There was only a professional friendship between the two, she decided. Most likely the only friendship the good doctor allowed with anyone.

"Not at all. Your boys always do good work." Mulder's smile came easy enough with everyone, when he wanted it to.

"Mission injury ?" Scully sent him a "remember I was your doctor first" glance, disliking Field for taking her place, even for a while. She chided herself for the feeling, knowing full well that it was her own fault.

"Nope." He grinned with the exact degree of boyish mischief he used to use when he reported the loss of yet another cell phone or gun. "Training accident...."

"Maybe it's good I came back now, before you killed yourself." she murmured, a smile of her own sitting on her lips before shifting into courtesy as she held her hand out toward the doctor.

"My name is Dr. Scully." She let the *Dr.* fall with a bit more weight than the rest of the greeting. "I am pleased to meet you.

My name is Dana Scully. I'm pleased to meet you." She shook his hand with the firm, no-nonsense grip she remembered using on her instructors at medical school. "My formal degree is in forensic pathology, but I have gone through medical school as part of that, and have plenty of field experience in general medicine, especially since the invasion." There, that was a tidy little resume. Just enough to dispel any notions that she some first-day intern hoping for an easy job. She was here to work.

"The pleasure is mine, Dr. Scully. You come highly recommended-" here his gaze flashed to Mulder for a split second. "and I can assure you there is no lack of work to be done. The heart of the war effort *and* the relief projects lies within these walls."

"I believe that, sir."

He led them toward the door, already beginning instruction as they walked. It reminded her of her first day as a resident, and that day seemed too far away from comfort, so she listened instead as he told her the responsibilities she carried as a doctor.

"We've only got a limited number of full time medical personnel, so the Center works on a system of rotations. We've got a few specialists who stay in their areas of expertise, but most of our staff spends two to three months in one wing before moving to another. It ensures that each area is adequately covered, and also keeps our people from getting too bogged down. Right ahead is the maternity wing....where you've been assigned this rotation, I believe. Our family planning clinic is here as well. "

She nodded, pleased with the sense of efficiency she got from Dr. Field. Perhaps this would be a return to normalcy, if only in this tiny part of her life. Medicine didn't change. It was science and it was logic and worlds may pass away but it would always remain.

Then the metal doors opened.

"Maternity wing" had always meant, in her mind, airy rooms with pastel walls and the sweet intimacy of a mother's first moments with her child. This proved the complete opposite. She had expected to find a series of small, individual rooms, but here was one immense space, packed with row after row of white metal beds. Less than half had any concession to privacy at all by way of drab green curtains that did little to soften the glow of the fluorescent light.

Life was not born here. It was mass produced.

Her gaze swept to the left wall, which was made partly of glass that gave a glimpse of three large delivery rooms, and she became even more certain of the fact.

Dr. Field must have followed her eyes, because he began to guide her toward the rooms. "This is our maternity wing. Here is the main recovery area, and to your left are the delivery rooms. As you can see, they are usually full."

They paused a moment at the window, her eyes falling on the women caught in various stages of the agony of new life. The sedation didn't seem to be very heavy at all....in fact, the force that kept them on the table belonged more to the thick leather straps about their arms and ankles.

"Are those really necessary?"

Dr. Field nodded. "Unfortunately, medical supplies are exceedingly hard to obtain. Most are locked up in high-security biotech labs that cost a devil's price of men to capture. What we do have is prioritized, and naturally the precedence goes to the military bays. We use the straps here to keep the women from hurting themselves."

Scully nodded in half-disbelief, and her hand crept to her stomach of its own accord, reassuring herself that it was flat. Lifeless. Ever since Emily, she had felt a primal envy for those gifted with the ability to recreate a part of themselves. Not here.

"What is your mortality rate?"

"Three in ten." Field rattled off the statistic as if he were doing nothing more than announcing the scores at a pee-wee baseball game. "Infection is usually the killer here. Again, antibiotics are limited."

"First come, first serve basis?" She found it startlingly easy to pretend she understood as her eyes strayed to Mulder's, searching for an echo of her disbelief. She might have had an easier time searching for tears in stone.

Repulsion, cold and clammy like the belly of a toad, flickered across the inside of her skin and forced her to look away from him. Scully swallowed the feeling whole, refusing to cringe away from any part of him. /Those are not his eyes./ The whisper echoed so loudly inside her mind she feared she had spoken it. /Those are the calluses he has built up over his eyes to allow himself to survive. I will make him cry again. And laugh.

"If you're ready, Dr. Scully, we can proceed to the family planning center." Field's words offered her a polite hand out of her reverie as he gestured toward a second set of metal doors. "This program was instigated by Nicolas as a method of controlling our population increase and guiding it in the most productive course possible."

There were too many babies around her for a place designated as "population control". The back of her mind told her that she was about to learn a new definition of the word.

The second doors swung open and she was greeted by a larger version of the poster she had seen earlier, along with several other variations on the theme. Whoever ran the propaganda department at this freak show had obviously spent some time on this. Everywhere she turned there was light, color-- quite different from the Spartan atmosphere of the maternity wing next door-- and bold, inspirational slogans concerning motherhood's role in patriotism.

The sons of today are the soldiers of tomorrow.

Give birth and give freedom a chance.

Donate a life to the future.

The bright colors and cheery words did not seem to cheer the collection of approximately twenty-five women and girls sitting or standing in the waiting area. The ages, she estimated, were anywhere from twelve to forty-two. Some of them paced back and forth restlessly, fingers wringing through fingers and faces bathed in shades of gray. Others-- mostly the older women-- sat with a rock solid sense of calm....or was it resignation, Scully wondered. To the right of the waiting area, a receptionist took care of paperwork for the small line of women in front of her, smiling in syrupy reassurance in response to their questioning.

To the left, a series of doors lay dark and brooding. Five or six, she counted. They must do a brisk business....whatever business that was. If it was indeed a birth control clinic, why were none of the women showing signs of pregnancy?

Dr. Field began to explain before she even had a chance to ask. "This is where we create tomorrow," he said, his eyes taking on a new sheen as he swept his hand across the room in a gesture that reminded her of a sales executive showing off his latest growth chart. "War is a terribly hungry monster, Dr. Scully. It takes its fill of our men. Here we combat that, while at the same time ensuring the purity of the human race in the future. Contaminated breeding-- the crossing of the human gene with the filth of inhuman DNA-- is strictly prohibited, and this is our way of regulating the quality of the births here. All female citizens are registered, and when their first two ovulation cycles have passed, we admit them to the clinic. If their DNA is clean, they are given their first child."

"Given?"

"Yes. That is the main purpose of the clinic. Sometimes we have to purge a womb if it contains an Impure fetus that has resulted from union with a contaminate, but that is rare. The women know the law, and most abide by it. We tailor the production rates to the individual capacity of the mother, of course, but the normal rate is two successful births every three years."

"Is this a voluntary procedure?"

His smile stretched. "Of course. We offer each participant extra ration or trade credits as an incentive."

"I see." She was beginning to. Now for the million dollar question. "Where do I work? I don't have experience in genetics..."

"You are assigned to delivery and post-natal care for this rotation. We are short-handed there as it is, and Commander Mulder tells us you have a special gift with children..."

Her eyes flitted in surprise to Mulder, finding his face had shifted again to press the warmth of shared secrets into her mind. She hadn't realized the gift he was giving her until she remembered her past experiences in post-mission field hospitals and the screams of those who were dying or those who wished they were. She remembered telling him she never wanted to go through that, far back in a time when death still touched her emotions in a far closer way. It had been eternity plus two years but he hadn't forgotten.

Perhaps the calluses did not run as deep as she had feared. That tiny hope nursed the wan flame of a smile into her eyes.

"I do what I can." she said.

"You will be expected to do no more or no less." Dr. Field glanced at his watch. "Now if you will excuse me, I have rounds to make. Your shift will start tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM. Please try to be on time."

With another courtesy-smile, he turned on his heels and left the room. Scully didn't wait to see him go, intent on leaving the subtle darkness of the impregnation rooms to the lighter weight of the maternity wing. It didn't have to be as sterile as it looked. Maybe that was just the covering, the outer layer that existed because of the business of the place.

Her eyes floated from bed to bed, mother to child to mother, and every part of her reached out to feel the pulse of life in the air. The echo of humanity. She wanted to capture it, to wrap it in the folds of her soul and then believe she could make a difference here. She knew she had failed to save her own child. She had failed to save her family, her world....had failed the man she loved.

Time for a little penance, Dana.

"You okay, Scully?" Mulder shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he spoke, and she wondered what happened to the days when they read each other's minds and felt at home beside one another. They were coming back, she promised herself.

"Just a little tired. It was a long trip."

Gold flecks of concern surfaced in the black marble stare that she had feared would never melt from his eyes. A sign of hope....

"I can take you back to our room if you'd like to rest."

"I'll rest at night. I came here to see you...."

"And I'm not going anywhere--"

He didn't even get a chance to finish talking before the com link at his waist interrupted him, as if to act in self-important contradiction to his words. It was at his ear before it could ring again, and she noticed his shoulders stiffen as if he had been called to attention.

"I was told I had leave for the day...." His lip twitched down in a scowl. "Yes, I know it was my plan. Yes, the other Adviser disagrees. How am I supposed to help that?"

Whoever was pulling the strings on the other end talked for a moment, and Scully waited for Mulder to tell him where to put his timetable, but instead all she saw was a nod of assent. "I'll be there in five minutes."

He punched the OFF button with a vigor that belied his true frustrations, then seemed to remember that she was waiting for his explanation. When he turned in her direction, his face was all apology. She didn't want apology. She wanted to sit with him and talk and regain memories.

"One of those bureaucratic types I used to get along with so well is complaining about one of my mission profiles. He's taken it to Nicolas, so I'd better make an appearance as well. It won't take long, I hope."

She smiled though she knew it was coming across synthetic even as she did it. Could she help it? After God only knew how many hours of travel through the desert and the heat she wanted more than a five minute tour with him. /Selfishness is not becoming....you knew he had a job to do. So let him do it. / "That's alright. I think I can find my way back."

"I can get an escort for you-" His hand moved in quick eagerness to his com link.

"No...thank you. I'm still a big girl and directions are easy enough to ask."

"Are you sure?"

"You're going to be late, Mulder."

He flashed her an old-life smile. "I'll just tell them I was detained by a beautiful woman."

This time her smile was pure, warming her from lips to feet. "And get in trouble for lying?"

"Only by understatement." A flash of his fingers brushed his knuckles against the inside of her palm, and then he was gone. Not for the first time, she wondered what she was supposed to do with a man that dragged her from darkness to light and back again with the ease of sunlight weaving in and out of clouds.

She'd decide after she had a bit of rest. A night of attempted sleep in the back of a truck full of soldiers was not conducive to rest in any way at all. There was a bed waiting for her back in the barracks, and a shower with *hot* water....

"I see you found your soldier." A naggingly familiar voice tugged her around to see Che seated on the edge of one of the beds. His hand rested on the shoulder of a freckled thirteen year old girl who slept with an hours-old baby at her side. "He looks to be a good man."

She nodded. "So you work here as a nurse?"

"No. I applied for the job, but it was denied for fear I might contaminate someone." He pointed from his blue-gray jump-suit to the mop and bucket that sat beside him on the floor. "I just clean up."

"Oh." /Way to put your foot in your mouth, Scully./

"You say that like you're ashamed of it. I'm not." His eyes fell back to the sleeping children. "I can be close to them here. To help when the other doctors won't."

"They told me there were shortages."

"More like intentional omission. Individual patient care takes too much time. Think of it like an assembly line. They go for quantity, not quality. The doctors see these women as numbers, nothing more. They barely take the time to clean them up before they ship them off the table and make room for the next one."

"And you do what they won't?"

"My gift is healing." he said simply. "I try to cure the infections, stop the bleeding..." His words tightened as he continued, giving her the impression of a tightly wound spring. "Relieve the pain."

She took a moment to watch the young mother sleep and to digest his words.

"What's her name?"

"Deborah." His fingers moved from the shoulder to brush a strand of damp blonde hair from the girl's face. "Her mother and father were refugees from the north, but the black oil got them during the trip to our city. She came alone. According to our law, she must prove herself a valuable member of society if she wants to stay. This is what she is forced to do....bear children for strangers... even though they will be taken away from her by the time they can walk." There it was, again, in his eyes. Hatred kept back only by the power of restraint held by one who has a vital reason to silence his honor.

"Taken where?"

"Nicolas wants to make sure his future soldiers get off to the right start. Once a child reaches the age of two they are sent to a converted Colonist base up in the Rocky Mountains. Of course they're taught the Corps philosophies from day one. When they're old enough to hold a gun, they're sent back here to fight beside the rest of us."

"How old is that?"

"Twelve, thirteen. Sometimes younger."

"Children have no business in war."

"And they don't belong here either. That's where I come in. Trying to keep them alive long enough to give them a future. This is Deborah's first time...she's actually one of the lucky ones. The doctor actually bothered to check the stitches this time."

"Oh God." Her throat tightened in disgust. /No more. If they want to butcher cattle, they'll have to do it in someone else's rotation. Tomorrow, I'll show them what medicine is. If they don't like that, they can try and cross me./ "How is she now?"

"Resting. The healing process was successful, but it always takes energy out of both the healer and the patient."

"This isn't legal, is it." She knew the answer, but wanted to hear his reasons.

"Scully, law does one of two things. It sets men free or it crushes them. I can't stand by and watch it crush innocent children."

She looked at Deborah's face, pale and drawn when it should be crinkled by laughter and colored by early experimentation with makeup. "Neither can I."

The silence dropped against her heart like a tiny rainfall of lead. Penance. No one said it would be easy.

"Go now. You need to sleep," he told her, flashing her a smile again. "You can save the world tomorrow."

"What if you're caught?" She couldn't drop the thought as easily as he seemed to.

"Depends on what mood they're in. Minor infractions are punished by public flogging. If they consider it to be an "anti-human insubordination", I would receive the full extent of the law."

"And you're not afraid to die."

"Let's just say I make sure I'm not caught." Again, there was that flicker behind his pupils, emotion, mingled with restraint. Scully That paradox intrigued her.

"Be careful."

Then she left him, each step driving the weariness another layer deeper into her mind and body. She needed to sleep so she could dream. She needed to dream so she could escape.

Yet she would inevitably wake up and it would all be waiting for her. Che's words spun lazy circles through the placid surface of her thoughts. /You can save the world tomorrow./

Could she?

She slept willingly, but it was not long after her eyes closed before she found herself tumbling from the edge of sanity into a familiar abyss.

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White light dropped like acid rain on her skin from the powerful bulb of the lamp above her head. The paper thin film of her eyelids crackled and itched like it would incinerate any moment and leave her pupils bare and naked before the fire. Oh, but the darkness was there as well. It was a thick, viscous presence that oozed decay and fear into her mind. Corroding her. Breaking her down. Leather straps pressed yellow-blue bruises into her wrists.

/Mulder, where are you now, I am bound for the sacrifice and I cannot move..../

Her mind prayed it. Her voice whispered it.

"Mulder...."

"Scully?" So far away, that voice. So far away, but yet drawing nearer.

"I'm here! I'm here!"

Her voice was snuffed by a sudden sense of movement within the darkness.

Evil stirred from its haunches to stand behind her, his hands covering the skin of her neck above the chip that marked her as the devil's plaything. She knew the hands and she knew the devil. Pavlov's voice taunted her even within silence. With infinite slowness the creature slid his fingers up the contour of her neck to her temples, his touch mockingly delicate, a whisper of black lace across a dagger.

/Your mind belongs to me./

She trembled. /Mulder, where are you now, the devil stands over me and I can't save myself.../

"Mulder...."

"Scully!" Closer, now. Even closer.

"I'm here...."

A second stirring of shadows, a new set of fingers splayed against her skull and a new consciousness thrust into her mind. She did not know the touch, but the voice.....had it called to her before? This demon did not know the restraint of Pavlov. His mind pushed ruthlessly into her thoughts until blood seeped from the cracks in her skin to run down like tears on her face. He twisted her emotions until they lay broken and trampled like chaff after threshing.

/At last I, have found one worthy./ Hissing words. Satan's words.

/Mulder, where are you now, evil smothers me and it hurts/

"Mulder...."

"Scully!" In the room! Close to her! Salvation...deliverance....

"I'm here...." Bone splintered and popped as the straps did their work of restraint despite her attempts to break free.

But why wasn't he coming? Why?

Pavlov and the Stranger began to talk inside her mind, conversing with one another. Arguing.

/She is mine; I found her first. I broke her in./

/She is mine; I own her now. I will possess her./

/She is mine; I will walk her mind and drink her soul./

/She is mine; I will take from her what I desire./

She squeezed her eyes shut as if she was pressing a lemon peel between her thumbs until the pulp ran out. Her mind was torn. She cried it in her tears. Bloody tears.

/Mulder, where are you now, they divide me up to spoil and you do nothing?/

"Mulder!"

"Scully!"

She could see him now....groping his way through the darkness, stumbling and falling as he searched his way toward her voice. Yet he did not find her. He came close, tantalizingly close, but he no longer seemed to hear her voice or see her bleed.

His face turned toward her for an instant, and she saw his eyes were gone. Stolen. All that remained were the blackened scars where sight once lived.

She screamed, the sound tearing from her throat to flutter with broken bat wings against the darkness.

The Stranger's voice dominated Pavlov's to hammer against every crevice of her mind. She saw its eyes now, electric blue and burning against her.

/The blind cannot save you. You will see I own him too./

She awoke to find blood seeping from cuts her fingernails had made in the palms of her hands. There was a small consolation that Mulder was not in the room and therefore could not ask her what was wrong.

You're blind, she would have said. You're blind and I'm torn. The shower washed the stains from her skin but even though she let the water scald her, it couldn't cleanse her mind.

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

When Mulder opened the door, thirty minutes later, he prayed she'd still be there. It was too easy to fear that this all had been some sort of dream, that any minute he'd wake up on his bed with a tequila bottle in one hand and a bloody gun in the other.

When he saw her, he knew he never wanted to wake up like that again. Only, always, with her. "Hey." She turned her head in his direction and raised her voice to speak over the whining of his hairdryer. "Is it alright if I use this?"

"Help yourself." He unbuttoned the stiff buttons of his collar so he could breathe. The uniform was the singular most uncomfortable suit of clothes ever foisted on humanity, but it was only partly responsible for the sudden lack of air. His eyes hadn't fully adjusted tothe phenomenon of seeing the "real" Scully again, not some faded, finger-worn photo but real, flesh-blood-skin beauty.

He pretended to pour himself a glass of water so he could stare again. Update his memory files. Yeah, that justified it. Her hair was a bit longer than in the photographs, reaching just to the curve where her neck blended into shoulders. She'd changed into a dress, he noticed. Did it mean she preferred them now? Or did she just wear it because she wanted to see how close she could drive him to insanity?

If that was her motive, it was working all too well. The material flowed around her in a seamless ocean of brilliant blue, clinging with toying innocence to her skin. The only thing holding it on her shoulders were two straps of pale blue lace, and he watched the light swim in a few stray drops of water her shower had left on her skin. The drops began to slide as she lifted her hand to move the hairdryer, and his eyes followed them down the curve of her back until the fabric of her dress had swallowed them.

This was getting dangerous.

He set the glass down with firm resolve to keep control of his senses, and walked very slowly, very discreetly, toward the bathroom. A little cold water to the face was enough to cool his brain and cleanse his thoughts. /Have you already forgotten? You can't touch her. You don't even deserve to look at her. Not until you get the blood off your fingers, and cold water isn't going to wash it away./

Mulder raised his head to meet his reflection in the mirror, closing his eyes and imagining the past away. How had the world turned so ugly so fast? Why hadn't he been able to stop it, at least for her? Then, maybe it wasn't so much that the world had changed. Evil was not something brand new the Imperials had brought in their spaceships. Maybe the only difference was that for the first time, he'd let the world change *him*.

He reached for a towel, wiping the water from his face, the memory from his mind. Everything would be fine now. Scully was here. She was all he needed to become human. If that process required space, he could give it to her. Besides, how hard could it be for two responsible, disciplined adults to co-exist in the same apartment?

As he hung the towel back on the wall, he noticed a certain, uh... article of clothing.....she must have forgotten when she changed for her shower. Something black and satin and....

Think responsible. Think disciplined. Oh yeah, this was going to be real easy......if he practically lived in a cold shower. It'd probably come to that before all was said and done. Cold showers and sleeping in the hall.

A tiny smile glinted off the corners of his mouth.

Bring it on. There were a million things in the world he could trade this for, but he didn't want one of them. Not one.

Scully had just set the hair dryer down when Mulder appeared behind her, wearing his patented James Bond grin, the one he used to pull on the secretaries back at the Bureau when he wanted to get out of doing paperwork. Even worse, most of the time it'd worked. Of course, she'd never been totally resistant to the effects of Muldercharm herself....

"You only give me that smile when you want to drive," she said,combing her fingers through her hair one last time to smooth out a tangle. "And since I doubt we're taking any road trips, what else do you want?"

"Can't a guy just smile?" She wasn't blind to the way his eyes followed her movement as if it were his fingers moving softly through each strand. He stood close enough to her to violate her personal space oh-so-slightly, enough to generate sparks between them but not flame. The muscles of her throat tightened as she swallowed the desire to lean back until she rested against his chest, inside the circle of his arms.

She had been the one to ask for distance. Now all she had to do was live up to her own demands. He could, however, try to make it just a little easier on her. He knew exactly what he was doing. /But so do you, don't you? You're not about to say you put on this dress just because you happened to feel like it./

For seventeen seconds it felt like magnetism alone would pull them together. His hand brushed the skin of her shoulder ever so slightly, then abruptly pulled away as he stepped back, nearly stumbling in his haste. Relief came hand in hand with regret.

"Actually I was going to ask you if you were hungry. Believe it or not, I can make a mean chicken pasta when the occasion calls for it. Of course, we don't have real chicken here but I've got the next best thing-"

"Stop." Scully held up her hand. "I don't want to know. Just cook it and I'll eat it." She felt the residue of their brief closeness in the smile easing the wrinkles around her mouth. Had it always felt this good to smile at him? "Ignorance is a form of bliss, you know."

"I can think of other forms." His eyes deepened to a richer shade of jade and fastened on her lips.

She had to look away before steam started rising from her skin. /C'mon, say something. Change the subject. Something nice. Benign./

"Do you have any coffee?" She blurted the question out as soon as it popped into her head.

"Coffee...."

"Uh, yeah." She scrambled to piece together a reason. "It's been a long day. Maybe we could have some with dinner, if you have any that is-"

"I want to know everything about you." The simple statement cut off her rambling and her eyes snapped back to his to see that the intensity of his gaze had only deepened.

"What?" The sincerity of it blindsided her, knocking her common sense back even farther from the forefront of her brain.

"You said we need to talk. So start talking. I want to know every minute of every day that I missed. What you did, what you thought...." He paused, his voice dropping to a slow, honey-over-gravel crawl. "...what you want from me...."

/Breathe, Dana./

"What do you think I want?"

"I want to hear it from you." He moved forward in another calculated invasion of her space, the borders of their existence overlapping so that she could touch him if she extended her fingers a matter of inches. "Tell me everything because we are together now and we have all the time in the world-"

At that moment his phone rang.

He ignored it.

It rang again, the sound scraping against the air with all the grace of cat's claws running down a tin roof.

"You'd better answer it." She said, softly, her shoulders rising and falling in a sigh. "It might be important."

He hesitated a moment, then picked it up by the third ring. "Mulder."

Something at the center of her began to sink as she watched him listen dutifully to his latest set of instructions. She knew what he'd say even before he hung up. The Almighty Cause required his services. Again. He turned the phone over in his hand, staring at the black plastic casing rather than at her as he spoke. Scully already missed the bridge between their eyes.

"They, um, need my patrol to go out early tonight."

"I see." Another small space of silence. "You couldn't tell them to send someone else?"

"It's my job."

His tone left no room for further argument. She briefly considered trying anyway, but decided it wiser to pick the battles she could win.

There would be other nights, other chances to talk.

Or so she hoped.

"Do you know when you'll be getting in?"

"We have the late shift tonight. Maybe 1:30, if we're lucky."

"I'll wait up."

"You don't have to." Mulder crossed the room to the door, taking his gun and holster off its peg and strapping it around his shoulders. A second gun slid into a holster on his leg, followed by a pair of smooth silver knives, both tucked into sheaths beneath his sleeves.

"We're supposed to talk." They had been so close....it was difficult now to let go.

He paused, hand frozen around his weapon. "We will soon. I promise."

Then he said goodbye and the door shut behind him. She leaned her head against the wood and listened to his footsteps fade down the hall. Away from her. If she pressed her hands on the door, she imagined it was still warm from the remnants of his presence, his aura.

What was it he had said? /Tell me everything because we are together now and we have all the time in the world./

/Sure, Mulder. Sure, we do./

They were together but somehow she had ended up alone.

And she was still alone four hours later, after the curfew s irens had sounded and the city lights dimmed, when a knock at the door stirred her from light sleep. She opened it to see two soldiers standing on her doorstep.

"Come with us."

The tone was polite enough, but they didn't have to show her their guns to let her know that it was not a request.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Where do we go from here?
This isn't where we intended to be.
We had it all; you believed in me.
I believed in you....
Why are you at my side?
How can I be any use to you now?
Give me a chance and I'll let you see how
nothing has changed....

You must love me.

- "You Must Love Me."
Evita

In the two minutes they allowed her to dress, Scully ran through the mental calisthenics of possible escape scenarios. The gun was in the dresser, but her "visitors" were blocking both that and the door. If it had only been one man, she would have risked a physical attack. But this time there were two, and though their backs were momentarily turned in concession to her privacy, it would have been foolish on her part to think they were not ready for any tricks. No, it would be best to go along for now, at least until she was out of the building and could work with a wider range of options.

Then again, she had no idea what they wanted with her. They had made no threats, yet there was a silent pressure in their eyes that pushed against her as if the men were trying to crowd her into an invisible corner. Stranger still was her perception that they expected her to know what was happening.

/Sorry, boys./ She buttoned the top of her jeans and slid her T-shirt over her head quickly, just in case they had grown tired of playing nice. /I don't have a clue whose game this is./ The thought crossed her mind that Skinner might somehow be involved...perhaps he had voiced his political ideals to the wrong person and her name had surfaced as a possible witness. Maybe these men were here to convince her to make accusations.

Yeah, she'd like to see them try.

At the same time, she harbored serious doubts that Skinner would have given her name to Nicolas or anyone else. Loyalty had never been in question between the two of them, and even more, her old boss was a dyed in the wool Marine. All he knew to give was name, rank, and serial number. Her eyes flicked to the backs of the men waiting for her. If they hurt him, they would die soon enough. Blood for blood.

Then, this could be something entirely different.

There was only one way to find out.

"So, you boys want to tell me where we're going?"

Now they'd left the officer's quarters, taking a back route through an alley that stank of urine and garbage. The avoidance of main roads indicated that the purpose tonight was not official, and her mind raced to realign her plans with this new information. It also interested her that they had yet to draw their guns or impose any sort of physical threat on her. Did they think her incapable? If so, now would be the time to make her move. Before they changed their minds and started guarding her closely....

"It's not safe to talk on the street." The boy beside her-- and he couldn't have been more than nineteen, now that she saw his face-- answered her question with a terseness that made her think he expected some kind of ambush any moment. "The city police might pick it up."

Ok, that just about proved she was not out here for any government business. The knowledge provided a form of relief, doubled with new uncertainty. Here she was, without a weapon, standing in the middle of an alley in between two armed strangers. For some reason she felt no fear, nor any reason for it. The slight whisper of her intuition, velvet soft in the back of her mind, told her to follow. To trust.

They turned into a side street, crossing it hurriedly before fading back into the shadows of another alleyway. The nineteen-year old that had told her not to talk walked slightly ahead of them, as if he were watching for someone or something. City police, he'd said? Well, they were out past curfew. In this place, she suspected that was worth at least a beating.

Three alleys and two streets later, there was a van waiting. The taller of the two climbed into the driver's seat while the nineteen-year-old held the door open for her.

"Get in, please. Stay out of sight until I tell you otherwise."

Now it was time to lay it on the line. "Tell me why I should go with you." Her muscles tightened as she spoke, winding around into a tautly coiled spring that would release at the slightest threat. The boy's throat was white and exposed in the streetlights. Skinner had taught her a defense maneuver that could crush the windpipe with one blow. Two at the most. She could grab his gun and disappear within thirty seconds. Thirty seconds....

"Skinner said you were for our Cause." His eyes were frank. Honest. "He said to bring you to him."

"Why doesn't he come see me himself?"

"He is at a meeting now. A meeting which could cost him his life if the wrong people knew he attended."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it."

"You can take whatever your want. We will escort you back to your room if you wish, or we will take you to meet the General. But either way we have to hurry. The longer we are out here, the greater chance we will be caught."

She hesitated, staring at the boy's face as she searched her instincts for the gut reaction. It said to follow. And if instinct was mistaken, what chance did she have of finding her way back through the streets at this hour of night even if she escaped?

"Let's go." She took the boy's hand and climbed into the van. "But if you're lying to me, remember that Commander Mulder and I used to kill little boys like you. I don't think I'd have a problem doing it again."

The boy grinned. "I don't think you would, Ma'am."

Ten minutes later, the vehicle stopped and they allowed her to sit up. She stepped onto the street, for the first time gaining a glance at her surroundings.

It was not a pleasant place.

In the building across the street, a child began to screech, the sound harsh and loud as a cat pinned beneath a lawnmower. The sound grated against the underbelly of the night, and rubbed rough as blown sand against her nerves.

"You'll have to excuse him." The younger of her escorts said, his eyes lifting to the other building as his companion knocked on the door before them. "He's only two. Doesn't understand what starvation is.."

"So you're the good guys here. Help him."

"Once you've been here longer than a night, you'll realize it's never that simple. But we try."

The door opened, smearing yellow lamplight thick as paint across the charcoal street and faded buildings. A familiar shadow fell across her face, and she looked up to see Skinner looming in the doorway, hand extended to hers to hurry her inside.

"Quickly...they don't usually patrol here, but when they surprise us, it's never pleasant." He waited for her and the two soldiers to enter before shutting the door behind them. As soon as he moved away, a sentry fell back into place, the metal of his gun only half as cold as the stone of his face. Such a young face. Much too young to be so hard. Once the deadbolts were locked again and double-checked, Skinner allowed a few of his muscles to relax, turning back to her with the slightest of cat smiles.

"Welcome to the Quarter, the politically correct dumping ground for hybrids, clones, and any other form of human refuse-- which includes us, by the way." That elicited a skitter of laughter from the small crowd that, Scully began to notice, pressed into all corners of the tiny room. There were twenty of them, mostly men with the exception of one or two women. All stared straight at her. It was a meeting, obviously, no doubt political. Scully wondered how he had convinced them to let her join in. Zealots did not usually welcome visitors.

"How was the trip?" Skinner's eyes flicked a double meaning into the question. Were you followed?

"It was...uneventful."

"Excellent." He glanced back at the two soldiers, a tacit nod of approval from him sparking them to stand up even straighter. "Good thing your trip was quiet. It was a risk bringing you here tonight-"

"Indeed it was, General." A short man with bone white hair and hawk's eyes stood up from the table, advancing until his gaze pressed against the invisible borders of her personal space. She resented the intrusion, but she made no protest or attempt to move. A blind man could see that a trial was taking place. Judgments were being made, dice rolled. Everyone was watching her. The man continued. "We only have your promise to assure us that she can be trusted. What proof has she shown-"

"Proof. " Skinner interrupted, the skin of his jaw tightening at the seams. A bad sign. "Don't remember your history, Strauss? This isn't some rookie I pulled off the streets and slapped in this meeting. She is Dana Scully. She and Mulder were killing aliens back when the rest of us were still running around like headless chickens, squawking about a world that was already dead. They saved us."

"And where is Mulder now?" The man called Strauss made only a token attempt to cover the contempt lacing his words. "Does he still fight? Does he still save us? No, he betrayed us long ago to the Enforcers. Killed more than one of our men, not to mention their families. Now he fights for Nicolas. Tell me which evil is worse, if you can. He's out there leading patrol as we speak, no doubt up to his elbows in blood-"

"Strauss!" Skinner hurled across the room to cut the man off before he could continue. He saw the barely suppressed shudder that shook Scully's body, the half-stricken gleam in her eye. "That will be quite enough." He hardened his voice until it wrapped like iron cords around Strauss' throat and kept him silent. Caution he could empathize with, paranoia he could understand, but no one talked like that in front of her. Not while he was in the room. All eyes rested expectantly on him, and he stepped back to expand his gaze until he met every one of them, heartbeat for heartbeat.

They waited, silent as any spider, for him to allay the suspicions raised by Strauss and his insinuations. Something more than Scully's reputation was at stake. The more subtle challenge had been placed against his leadership itself. It was expected. He took a deep breath.

/Time to see if the magic is still there, old boy./

"I don't blame you for caution. It's what keeps us alive." He sought out each of them, one by one. Demanded, not requested, their attention. "But it could also kill us, and it will, the moment we turn it against our own." He could read the scars in their eyes. For these past many months, he had somewhat forgotten what it was like within these walls. They had not had that luxury. He'd left them alone and now could he honestly blame them for their misgivings?

They could judge him but they had better keep the gavel away from Scully. This thought urged him to forge ahead, answering the silence pregnant with question. "The woman beside me has been through more hell for the Cause than any of you will ever imagine, much less survive. I trust her with my life, and with every dream I have for freedom. I ask you to do the same. She is our last chance to get through to Commander Mulder. All of you-- even you, Strauss--have admitted to me that Mulder is the only one who can stand against Nicolas and win. The people will follow him in a way they won't follow any of us. If we don't use that, Nicolas will. And right now, he is using that against us. Rest assured of that."

He strained through the lamplight to read their faces, though it was not enough to tell whether the shadows he saw were doubt or mere contemplation. Then someone spoke, a voice soft yet firm from the back of the room.

"I will speak for her as well." Che rose to his feet, and like a magnet, drew the attention of the entire room. The light flickered across his dark skin and across the barely visible scars etched across his face. "She is to be trusted. Those who know me know that I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it one-hundred percent. But we're asking all the wrong people here. It doesn't matter what the General says, or what I say. You want to hear the truth? Ask her."

Suddenly the eyes were back upon Scully, pricking with needlepoint delicacy at her skin in attempts to punch through to her soul. She stared back and refused to be intimidated. Strauss stood again.

"Miss....Scully, don't think that we're here to accuse you of anything. We are desperate men in a desperate world, trying as best we can to survive, and to help our families do the same. General Skinner's word is more than enough,--and Che's only adds to that weight-- but he's right when he says we need to hear it from you. What assurance can you give us that you share our goals?"

The eyes waited, hungry for answers. Skinner waited, nodding slight assurance in her direction. She took a step away from him, closer toward the crowd, and pulled up her sleeve until her bare wrist was revealed, chalk white tinged with a dusting of yellow from the light. She lifted it high enough to capture that dusting, and show them all the black smudge of numbers burned into her skin. Trust was not earned by a thrilling speech or a confirmation from great men. It was worn in scars upon the hands and feet and soul.

"Three. Seven. Eight. Four. One. Nine." She made all of them see it. Especially Strauss. "This was given to me on my arrest two years ago. I was sent, with Mulder, to a concentration camp where the enemy did all in their power to break me. It went beyond my body. They invaded my mind itself." Here she fought to keep her voice from breaking at the memories of slashed thoughts and more recent nightmares. "Some of you know what that's like. Then you will also know that resistance is possible. But not alone. It takes faith and stubbornness and most of all it takes trust. That's all I'm asking for here. This was my fight, and Mulder's fight, before there even was a war. It will continue to be my fight, and all I want is for you to give me the chance to prove it. If we lose the distinction between friend and enemy, we are no different than Nicolas and certainly no more human. It's that easy."

Her eyes swept each of their faces, and again she felt Strauss pushing against her eyes, probing her for falsehood. She pushed back for one moment before dropping her gaze and moving back beside Skinner, the breath coming in ragged jolts through her lungs. This *was* her battle. If she had forgotten it before-- and she had, at least a little-- then she remembered it now, with every part of her. This was the dream she had shared with Mulder a thousand days of struggling and nights of running. Resist, but never serve. Never! She had told herself that before, but tonight she believed it for the first time since the gates of the camp had closed behind her. There was something here so much greater than survival. The call of it intertwined with her soul and with her destiny. It was sewn into Mulder's too, whether he accepted it now or not. She would make him accept it.

Skinner spared her a brief glance before turning to the crowd, and he didn't even have to smile. His eyes said it all. "You've heard the truth." he said. "I move we accept Dana Scully into the confidence of this body. Now make your decision."

Che, she noticed, was halfway to his feet when Strauss stood, his eyes never moving from her, yet somehow softer now, and kinder in intent. "I second the motion."

"All in favor let it be known by saying aye."

Twenty voices-- her judges and jurors-- responded in a unison "Aye." She was acquitted of all charges, all imagined crimes.

"Any opposed?" Skinner asked it out of formality's sake, his voice half-daring anyone to contradict. No one so much as peeped. "It's unanimous." he turned back to her, offering her hand in official friendship. "On behalf of the membership represented here tonight, I welcome you to First Strike. You already know our aims-- the restoration of the resistance to its original cause-- and here are the leaders who will make that happen. Colonel Strauss is ranking officer and acting leader in my absence. The others you will meet later, but now we've got business. Please, sit."

Scully took the chair offered, here eyes wondering until she caught sight of Che, who flashed her a toothy grin from his corner. His arm rested in gentle protection around a woman whose head rested on his shoulder. She was a delicate beauty, feathery black hair brushing her chin to accent bones tiny enough to break under a harsh glance. Just this morning, Scully had wondered why he accepted the abuse of the other soldiers, why he never struck back at their mockery or challenged their rules. Now she knew. That girl was his world; even across the room, you could read it in his eyes.

Mulder used to look at her that way, his arms wrapped around her just so and his lips soft in her hair.... Now his eyes were changed. The "look" was still there, but different on some fundamental level.

Either way, she envied the couple their innocent affection. Naivete in love could make up for so many other, more harsh awakenings, and both were so young. She judged Che at about twenty-one, but the girl couldn't have been much over eighteen. A rose-pink blush still lit up her face every time Che leaned forward to whisper in her ear or press kisses onto her skin. Eighteen, Scully decided, or nineteen at the very most.

"I need a status report. Tell me where we are."

Scully became aware that Skinner was speaking again and turned her attention to him as a dutiful schoolgirl back to her books. One eye, however, she kept on Che and the girl. It was easy, achingly so, to picture her and Mulder in that corner, oblivious to all but each other.

"Each day is worse." Strauss answered first, his voice showing strain to match the dark furrows of his eyebrows. "After you left," Nicolas began to take open action against the rest of us."

There might have been a hint of accusation in that question, just enough to leave shadows of implications lurking in the corners of everyone's mind. That was a bit below the belt, she thought.

Strauss continued. "Rations were cut and our families starved until we signed oaths of complete loyalty. We each had to turn over a son or daughter to his army to prove our 'sincerity'. Even then, we were barely allowed to breathe."

Another voice. "Tell him about the raids. And don't forget all those 'spontaneous' street beatings by 'indignant citizens' who couldn't contain their rage to us 'traitors'."

More joined in, until the room buzzed with the fever pitch of angry men.

"My daughter was fourteen when they forced a child into her in the clinics. She nearly died giving it birth only to have it taken!"

"Yeah, and we all know sometimes Nicolas likes to do the job himself. We're afraid to let our women even set foot in the street. Especially those of us who are 'Impures'. He's given his soliders special liberty....after all, you have to keep the butchers busy between missions."

Che, she noticed, flinched as if the last part of the man's comment had flown under his skin and stung his nerves, his arms tightening around the girl's shoulders. His hand slid down to her stomach, and for the first time, Scully saw the swell of late-term pregnancy-- seven or eight months, it looked like, though the darkness of the room made it hard to tell. No wonder the glint in his eyes shone so fierce, half-determined and half-afraid.

Voices and passions continued to rise and fall as the hours slid by. The conversation eventually lapsed from complaints and political ranting to more practical matters. Tonight's agenda dealt with the need to secure a steady source of food rations for the Quarter, and who to bribe or threaten to get it done. Opinions were declared, opposed, then argued and on and on and on the cycle spun. She'd been out of the loop a long time, but even she recognized that they were going nowhere. Poor Skinner looked like he was about to loose the rest of his hair. After a while, cramps in her legs and a prelude to a headache

demanded she stand; she took the opportunity to slip into the next room. The debate had again grown heated, faces flushing fists beating the air to a pulp over the correct choice of contacts. No one would even know she was missing...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The throbbing in her legs moved up to her head as she walked, pounding behind her eyes in balls of tiny white fire that flashed in time to the pace of the voices that bled through the wall, even after she shut the door.

"They aren't always like this."

Scully turned to see the girl standing behind her, a shy smile creasing her lips as she entered the room. "It's been hard for all of us, lately, and they're getting tired of standing by and watching."

"Who wouldn't?" Scully returned the smile, drawn to the unfeigned open nature of the girl's eyes. They reminded her of her eyes, back when the term "X-File" was not a word she recognized, and when aliens lived only in cheesy Friday night horror flicks. She extended her hand. "My name is Dana."

"I know." Her smile crinkled as if she were about to laugh. "Che's told me all about you. He thinks you're a good woman. I'm pleased to finally meet you in person. My name is Aida." "I don't think he ever mentioned you to me before."

"Please don't be offended. He's just trying to protect us." Her hand patted her womb. "I'm not registered. General Skinner helped Che smuggle me here right before he left."

"Are immigration laws that strict?"

"For hybrids, always. But Che had a different reason. He....didn't want to share me with any officer." She said all this matter-of-factly, brushing a lock of hair from her face. She regarded Scully for a moment. "You are wondering why the risk?" The angles of her chin tilted upward with a determination that seemed out of place in her tiny frame. "Everything in life is a risk when you are what we are. No one's going to keep us from facing those risks together."

"Don't justify it to me." Scully said. "I understand." /Believe me, I understand. More than you think./

"I believe you do." The girl's eyes took on an odd sheen, soft as the sun reflected in ebony. That light passed right through Scully, effortlessly sliding from one end of her bones to the other. "You have this kind of love inside you. It's wounded now, at least on the outside, but still strong. Don't hold it back. Let it heal with him....not apart."

For a full twenty seconds, Scully could not speak, surprise and emotion choking all words. "How...do you-"

"Empathy." She said.. "It's my trait. Che's is healing, as you know. Mine is an extreme sensitivity to emotions. I guess you could call it healing too, only a different kind."

"I see." The words were of necessity brief, for there was still a fight to keep the tears back. Scully was half-angry at the girl for brushing uninvited against wounds still raw, but at the same time, something on a deeper level told her that the words were true. More so than she would like to admit. /But how do you find the balance? If I open myself totally to him, what is to keep me from being swept away?/ A second, harsher voice inside her mind answered her own doubts. /Is it really that? Or do you just want to make sure he's good enough for your love?/

Ouch. That hurt.

"I've upset you." Aida frowned, her hands fluttering about her mouth in butterfly concern. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." /When in doubt, change the subject./ "Tell me how long you've known Che."

The question had a calming effect on the girl, restoring tiny slivers of the smile that seemed to come and go across her face with the carelessness of spring breezes. Either Che really had succeeded in sheltering her from the outside, or she had met the dangers and chose to ignore them all. No one smiled like that in this world. No one who knew what was going on.

"Two years, ten months, and twenty-seven days." She laughed. "Crazy, but I still remember every detail of the first time I saw him. I never lived in a laboratory, you see, although I was created in one. The scientist who created me got tired of doing dirty work for the Colonists, so he split and took me with him. We had a little store about fifteen miles from the Rio Grande. He made great coffee...."

She must have realized she was wandering, because she shook the far-away look from her eyes and continued. "To make the story short, I caught Che trying to steal food one evening. He was bleeding from his side-- that's how I knew he was one of us-- and looked three steps away from total exhaustion. He'll laugh if you told him this, but I fell in love with him right then. We took care of him, and found out what the Colonists had done to his village. Has he told you?"

"Yes."

"Horrible." A brief shudder skipped across her shoulders but she seemed to put it quickly from her mind. "Anyway, he stayed on to help us at the store. Two months later we were married. I know, it sounds like we rushed in, but we just knew, right?"

"You two are married?" She couldn't help the surprise. There certainly wasn't much of that going on now. Maybe it was the uncertainty of life that made people hesitate to commit to anything so binding as "'til death do us part."

"Yes." Aida blushed again, a deep rose glow underneath her skin. "We're both Catholic, and even if we weren't....it was still important to us. I can't explain why exactly. We just knew that we would be together forever and we wanted everyone to know. It certainly wasn't anything fancy.... The only priest we could find was half-drunk during the ceremony, and the "chapel" was the back room of a bar. It smelled of cigarettes and stale tequila but none of that mattered. It was perfect for us. I wore a pink sundress and-" She stopped, as if it had just hit her that she was talking to another person. "I'm boring you to death, aren't I?"

"Not at all." Actually, Scully found herself the slightest bit envious. When she was eight, she had a secret box under her dresser filled with cutouts of wedding dresses and handsome men from magazines. Even when she was old enough to pretend she was independent, there had always been that bit of a dream. Then came Mulder, and the X-files, and the end of the world...

But maybe that wasn't the reason he'd never asked her to take that final step. She had thought of it before, briefly; only now she wondered if he had wanted to leave himself an out. An escape from her. "Is this your first child?" Another subject change; now was not the time to deal with her doubts or her fears.

"Two years ago, our first was born. A baby girl." The laughter in her eyes ebbed away for a scattering of moments. "She was two weeks old when we woke to find she had died in the night. We still don't know why. Poor Che....he never forgave himself for not being able to save her. As if he could have known."

"I'm sorry." The words sounded trite, but Scully hoped the girl felt her sincerity. She had her own sort of empathy towards the death of a child, the kind that came from the core of sacred memory.

"She was not a healthy child to begin with, I think. My link to her was weak. Not strong, like this one here." Her gaze dropped to her womb with a warmth Scully could only imagine. "He's a fighter. Already he tells me he wants to be just like his father--"

"He communicates with you?"

"Telepathy isn't uncommon among those like us. Che and I share it to some degree, but not like I do with my little one. I think it's because of my empathy. I don't question too much, though. A gift from God is not made to be questioned."

She might not have believed it three years ago, but now she found the concept not so far beyond thought. "What does Che think?"

"Oh, he's a regular skeptic. He laughed, at first, until he felt it too, when we were sharing thoughts. He hasn't said a word about it since. I think it scares him."

/Can't imagine why./ "Because he's not used to it?"

"He's never let go of our daughter's death. I can feel the fear inside him, a constant thorn, that it will happen again. I don't think it will. Our son has a strong soul. He'll have a strong body too, thanks to his father. In between missions, Che volunteers in the maternity wing so he'll have access to vitamins and other things like that." There was a tremolo of pride in her voice, not in herself but in her husband. She believed so readily that he could keep her safe.

Scully hoped that faith would be enough. "You are lucky to have someone like that."

Aida responded with a sideways glance and an elfin smile. "You're lucky too, Dana Scully, and don't you forget." The words had no sooner left her mouth when she gave a start, her hand flying to her forehead. "Oh, dear!"

"What???" Scully sprang forward, searching the girl's face for any indication of pain that might reveal a complication with the pregnancy. "Is it the baby?"

"Yes and no." She said, the wrinkles in her forehead easing back into placidity. "Nothing's wrong with him....he just reminded me we haven't said our prayers yet today. We burn a candle every evening, just to make sure heaven knows we're here....tonight the meeting distracted me. Would you excuse me, a moment?"

"Actually, I'd like to come with you, if that's all right." In Chile, she had resumed her old habits under the shadow of the small crucifix Skinner had salvaged from an old mission. Since she had entered the city, she had fallen away. It was as if a hideous monster sat upon her shoulders, his leathery wings blinding her eyes and his weight pressing his talons deep into her soul until it bent. Evil-- she knew that's what it was-- lived in this town, and it haunted her dreams. "I have a few prayers to catch up on myself."

"Of course."

There was that smile again, the flash of sunlight that stirred up dust mites of emotion in places Scully had considered sealed for years. Apart from Skinner and Mulder, she couldn't remember the last time she had called anyone friend, even before the Invasion. Too long, that was certain.

"It's this way." Aida walked across the room to a small enclave in the wall, where a small statue of the Virgin Mary sat in front of an intricately carved crucifix. A rosary was draped around it, the beads golden brown in the soft light. "Che's father made them for his mother. When the Imperials came, they were all he could save." She kissed her fingers and placed them reverently on the head of Christ as she dropped to her knees, her voice fading to a whisper of satin. "He gave them to me on our wedding night."

Scully followed suite, kissing a blessing onto the Christ and then kneeling in rituals as familiar as communion yet alien in a way that should not have been.

The girl began to pray, her lips moving in recitation that reminded Scully of Melissa at Easter Mass. It had always been Missy's favorite prayer....

"Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we come, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears...."

Scully echoed the words; they throbbed through her veins with resonance deeper than blood and more ancient than pulse. Fragility was not a crime, here. It was beauty, breaking out from her fingers. She knew that sometimes even a tiny beam could pierce darkness. The prayer continued.

"Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us. And after this our exile, show unto us The Blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. That we made be made worthy. Amen."

"Amen." Scully's eyes closed, and for the first time in weeks, she opened her soul.

/Beatus Maria, forgive me for I have sinned. Speak to the Father and to your Holy Son on my behalf tonight. I know I have strayed from the path many times. Moments come now, when I am barely sure of who I am, of what I believe. May I never lose faith in You. May I never forget.

Beatus Maria, forgive him for he has sinned. Speak to the Father and to your Holy Son on behalf of the man I love. He has spilled blood for me, but do not judge him alone. It is my sin as well. He did it because of me. (He shall come to judge the living and the dead.) Tell the Father, Maria, that I would walk to Jerusalem on my hands and knees if it would but serve as just penance for us both. But that wouldn't be enough. He must forgive himself. Oh, make me his reason to forgive...not his condemnation.

May I never lose faith in him. May I never forget.

Speak to my daughter, and tell her not a day goes by when I do not ache to see her. Tell her it will be soon, but not yet. Not with so much left to do.

Kyrie, elison

God have mercy on us.

Amen./

When her soul returned to her body, and her mind glided on reluctant wings back into its cage, Scully opened her eyes too see Aida looking back at her.

"You pray with all your soul, like I have never seen before." That was all the girl said before standing again and walking back to the main room.

Scully remained still, the paralysis of the moment not quite yet wearing off her bones, her gaze resting on the statue of Mary, at the serene peace in the woman's face. A rare thing, peace. She prayed with all her soul? Simple....it was the only way she knew how.

Would it be blasphemy, though, if she asked God for one sign--just one-- that he was listening?

The meeting had dissipated by the time she rejoined Skinner in the main room. It was nearly two-thirty, but Scully suspected that the lateness of the hour was not the only reason for the hollows smudging his eyes.

"How'd it go?"

"I don't blame you for leaving." He said. "We argued for three hours over the correct methods and procedures of bribery. Like children." He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I've been away too long. That's all there is to it."

"You're still their leader." Scully told him, her hand brushing his arm. "When you spoke, they listened. Even Strauss."

"Maybe they did listen, but how can I know I am still able to tell them what they need to hear?"

"You will tell them the truth. What else is there?"

A breath of silence preceded his next words. "It's time you left. It's too late at night for you to stick around listening to the problems of a tired old man."

"Tired, maybe." She bounced a smile toward him. "But never old."

He barely grunted a response as he turned away, though somewhere underneath it she suspected she saw a bit of a grin mixed with the worry-wrinkles. It was no easy matter to pick up leadership of a group after so long an absence. If anyone could, it was this man. He had his work cut out for him, however, and faster and faster the days seemed to fall. Time was of an essence.

Scully exchanged farewells with Che and Aida, promising to visit again as soon as she had the chance, then followed her escort back through the cement and the darkness to the officer's barracks. They left her at the gate. Once she was alone, the chill in the air bit at the back of her neck with sharper teeth, and the walls around her cast uglier grimaces in her direction. Already she missed the warmth of the place she had left only moments ago. Already she wished to return.

/You've been standing here too long, Dana./ Her mind-voice gently shoved her away from the wistfulness. /Go inside, where you belong./

Or did she belong anywhere?

The stairs and hallways were deserted, save for a loose dream or two that chilled her skin as she passed by doorways. She remained alert, one eye trained over her shoulder for any sign of a more corporeal observer. Caution cost nothing, and it had saved her life on more than one occasion. A quick survey of the apartment from bed to bathroom ensured that it too was empty; by chance or a small miracle, Mulder had not yet returned. Just how long did a "simple patrol" take?

Strauss' comments reverberated in the silence of her mind, hollow and cold. /No doubt, up to his elbows in blood./

She shivered, and this time it was not from the night air.

With mild hurry, in case he should return and catch her off-guard, Scully slid out of her clothes and into the over-sized flannel shirt she wore as pajamas. The fabric lay downy soft against her skin, warming quickly from the heat of her body. If only it warmed souls as well. She carefully folded her clothes back in their proper places, and began to tuck her gun into the folds of cloth but impulse-- or instinct, depending on which view you chose-- changed her mind. Desperate men, Strauss had said,
in a desperate world.

No one had followed her that she could see....although there was much, in the middle of the night in a strange city, that might slip between vision's cracks. Tonight she would sleep with the hardness of her gun cutting into her skull from underneath her pillow, and with the sharp corners of an extra clip jutting through the mattress. Just like all those old nights. Just like the nights that Mulder promised her were over forever.

The sheets had barely grown warm over her body when the door opened, and the sound of his breathing, as native to her by now as her own, encroached upon the silence. The cadence of breath had a ragged quality to it that she had never heard before. It mixed with a sudden bile of liquor in the air to form a disconcerting cloud of suspicion from the loose vapors of her thoughts.

Was he....

No. Impossible. In all of her time with him, only once had she seen him even close to drunkenness. After the Invasion, he had not so much as touched a drop of anything harder than a soft drink for fear it would ruin their survival odds. No, he could not be drunk. Maybe his patrol had stopped by a bar after shift, and he had carried the scent back with him. It explained his late return as well. A nice, satisfying, logical explanation.

It crossed her mind to ask him, but instead Scully decided to watch. And wait.

to be continued ... part 5