Title: Becoming Judas II : Resurrection
Author: darkstar
Email: clone347@aol.com
Rating: PG-13 for war violence
Classification: see part one
Disclaimer: see part one
Summary: see part one

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Resurrection (8/8)
by darkstar
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The force of Mulder's attack knocked Nicolas back into the wall, cracking the plaster behind him. The guards moved in immediately, plowing their clubs into Mulder's back and sides but the rage, for the moment, blocked out the pain.

And Nicolas-- as the air began to leave his throat, as he was thrown to the floor, pinned beneath the weight of a very angry man-- felt the first glimmerings of something he would later admit to be fear. He had never seen eyes like the eyes that stared down at him. It was not senseless hatred, not mad rage, not even disgust. It was something entirely different, something glowing white and searing like the point of a finely honed sword.

The words were cold and emotionless, spoken in a low rumble meant for only Nicolas to hear.

"You touch her, I will kill you. Make no mistake. Whatever you need to satisfy your sick little game with, you get it from my mind. You take it from me but you leave her alone."

Just as his fear began to blossom into something real instead of imaginary, his men managed to pry Mulder away. He remained on the floor a moment, gasping for breath and taking satisfaction from the dull thud of the clubs into Mulder's body. From the not-quite-concealed gasps of pain that followed each blow.

He let the beating continue a full minute more, then waved at the guards. "Let him go. We want him well so he can testify. And he will testify." He placed his boot on the small of Mulder's back as the man tried to rise, shoving him back onto the floor. "He knows I don't make idle promises." One last kick to the gut, to make clear the point. "Take him to the woman's cell. Our two lovers will no doubt want to make the best of their last moments together."

He smiled as they half-led, half-dragged Mulder from the room, but as the door shut behind them, that smile faded imperceptibly. He remembered the blade in Mulder's eyes, the marble gravity in his voice. That was not a man to make idle promises either.

Then he reminded himself that he was the Leader, and he was the one who made the rules, and with this thought to calm his nerves, he returned to his quarters.

He knew Mulder well. The man did not have the stomach to let his woman die slowly and painfully. It was only a matter of time before he came crawling back, ready to deal. Begging for mercy. Then they would see who was the whipped dog.

And if he chose to play the hero, that was all good and well. Let them die for their honor and their love. Let them both find out how futile such delusions really were.

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

Why did the lights have to be so bright? Why did they have to grate along the ragged edges of his nerves, burning his brain and the lining of his eyes? He watched the cold white fire as it danced along the surface of the metal bars opening before him, and then all he could see was cement rushing towards him as the guards shoved him into the cell. His hands shot out, palms flat, seeking to spare his ribs the added punishment, wincing in advance at the thought of peeled skin and fresh pain, but he never hit the ground. Someone caught him first. Someone small and soft, whose arms kept him from the pavement then wrapped in a crushing circle around his neck. His senses still reeled from the lights and from the fall, so he could not yet see her, although this did not matter. He felt every part of her-- the warmth of her face pressed into his neck, the needle-prick sensation of her fingernails digging into the top of his spine, the heat of her breath against his skin. Mulder moved his arms automatically to return the embrace, and through her back, his fingers could sense the frenzy of the pulse.

For those first few moments, the lights did not matter and his ribs did not ache. All he could think was "she is alive. She is safe. He hasn't taken her from me yet." And all he could do was hold on to her, try to pull her so close that they blended into one person, because then no one could separate them again. No one could force him to kill just to keep her safe.

That thought brought him back to the unremitting glare of white and the dull thudding pain in his side. Over her shoulder he could see the splatters of blood still on his hands. Still on his clothes.

The irrational fear that he would stain her with it struck him suddenly and nearly overwhelmed him. He remembered what he had almost done, what she had watched him do.

"Don't touch me, Scully." His whisper disappeared into her hair. "Please."

The muscles in her shoulders tensed beneath his hands into tight, angry bunches. "They did something to you." Her hands slid over his face, down his shoulders, along his sides, seeking out the injury. "They hurt you." She spit out halfway between a question and a curse.

"It's not that." He broke the embrace, sliding away from her to lean against the wall. Trying to hide his hands beneath his legs, behind his back. Blinking to wash the dry ache from his eyes and wishing ten times to heaven that it was dark, a deep oil dark, so she could not see his hands or his clothes. Or his guilt. /So easily do you forget. She stopped you from killing one man and now you're considering killing another just to keep her alive. You'll never admit that you're thinking about it, but you are. You've already betrayed your sister, the human race, your faith.....what's an old friend?/

/Stop it./ His lips moved in a words that held no sound. He closed his eyes, forced the lids shut to escape the fluorescent nightmare. The light pounded through his defenses in a violent wash of red. Why did his world always have to look like blood? He almost remembered a time when it was another color, the shining white of distant spaceships and his sister's nightgown and a truth he had somehow lost along the way.

"Mulder...what...." Her voice jerked him back to awareness of reality--- though it was becoming harder to stay focused on the present and not slip into the dark waters of his mind-- and he realized she sounded confused. Maybe even scared. He had to find a way to re-connect. Had to be strong now, for her. Had to let her know it was all going to be okay.

Even if it wasn't.

Mulder began to search his mind for an excuse, a diversion, but suddenly his thoughts froze in the attempt. No, he would not lie to her this time. It was time, at last, to tell the truth. To lay all the cards on the table and turn them over one by one to read his fortune.

"I'm afraid." His throat was sandpaper; each word a harsh and strained sound.

"Of what?" Tiny wrinkles appeared at the corner of her eyes. She edged closer but made no attempt to touch him again.

He swallowed hard. "You."

He counted fourteen seconds of silence.

Her voice trembled when she spoke again. A very thin, very tiny voice that did not quite believe itself.

"Me?"

He nodded. His eyes fled upward, to the lights, preferring their sting to the hurt in her eyes. No one said this was going to be easy. Only that it had to be done.

"Why?"

A deep breath. A struggle for words. Then--

"You are the only thing I have left to lose. The only thing about my life that is worth anything. It was that way long before the invasion ever hit. Because of this I have done....things...." His eyes thickened but he told himself it was the brightness of the room and forced himself to continue. "I have betrayed my people. I have given my gun and my allegiance to the killers of innocence. I....myself....have become such a monster. Men, women. Friends. My sister...."

Here his voice broke. Thin lines of moisture leaked from his eyes and he ran his hands over his face to brush them away. The momentary shadow of his hands over his eyes was like heaven.

"Mulder." Her voice hung heavy with the effort to restrain her own tears. "Mulder, you don't have to do this--"

"Let me finish, Scully." He spoke through his hands, the words muffled as he dragged his fingers across his eyelids. Rubbing away the pain. "For once, let me finish."

Mulder let his hands fall to his lap, slowly bringing his eyes to meet hers. This was the key moment. His soul hung or fell depending on her reaction to his next words.

"I became something ugly and dark. Something I could barely recognize as myself, even as a human. Scully, it was hell every day. My sanity was so close to breaking. You'll never know how close. That's why I had to run. I had to find you again, be with you again, because I knew that you were the only thing that could save me." His voice dropped even lower, stretched by the crushing weight inside his chest.

"I only wanted to be forgiven. By her. By you. By myself. I came here looking for redemption but when I saw you, I couldn't tell you the truth. You were too beautiful for that. I couldn't bear the thought of infecting you with my ugliness. I tried to think of a way to tell you. I would lay awake at night and try to piece together the words, but nothing ever seemed to be enough. So even though I was with you, I was still living the lie. I tried to pretend it didn't matter.But I knew, inside, that the darkness was still there. Nicolas knew that too. He fed on it. I made it strong with denial. And I almost killed a boy because I would not tell you the truth. So I am going to tell you. Now. This moment."

He paused, moving close to her until his hands rested over hers. /Blood against ivory,/ he thought. /Beauty and chaos and will she still love me when it's all over?/ He brought his eyes to meet hers until the core of his soul was dead level with the center of hers. He saw the tremble in her jaw, the glistening rim of tears in her eyes. He suspected she saw the same in his face.

"I ask you to forgive me, Dana Scully. Knowing everything I have done-- that I have killed for you, that I have lied and destroyed--I ask you to forgive. I can't justify what I have done except to say that I have loved you through all of it. If you asked it of me, I would do it all again. I hate that truth, but I believe it. Anything you ask of me. Anything." He barely heard his words, barely knew whether she heard them or not but he kept talking through the pain. It always hurt to bare the soul but this was a good, clean ache. The ache of healing. He dropped his head onto her lap, pressing his face against their hands. His eyes squeezed tightly shut, his breath frozen. He pressed a kiss into her open palms. A prayer.

"Please....find something inside me that can be saved. That can be loved. Walk with me. Stay with me. Please."

A wetness filled the space between his face and their hands and realized he cried onto her skin. But there was no shame. Not here.

The silence was short but it seemed to Mulder so very long.... an endless agony of waiting measured in fragments of seconds and pieces of heartbeats. Her hands remained limp under his face. Her body tensed.

Then slowly, with infinite gentleness, her fingers moved up the side of his face to smooth back his hair. Their warmth spread through his whole body. She folded her hands on top of his head as to give him a blessing, and lowered her forehead to rest on her hands. A sensation of rain falling onto his hair let him know that she cried as well. "I will always walk with you. I will always stay." The words so soft, echoing through every level of his being. Shattering the darkness. Creating new light. She pulled his head up so their eyes could meet, and again he thought of her as an ocean. Wide, deep, all-compassing. He never wanted to return to land.

"And though I have doubted myself, though I have doubted why you would do this for me, there has never been a time when I have had to search for a reason to love you. That has always been a natural part of me. Nothing can take that away."

She kissed his forehead, smoothing the wrinkles under her lips until his skin was smooth and untroubled. His arms moved up her arms to cradle her face between his hands. He brushed his thumb across her eyelashes to remove a stray tear. She smiled at him and he leaned forward to taste it by placing a kiss gently across the curve of her lower lip.

"What took us so long to say it?"

"You weren't the only one was afraid."

"So how 'bout we run to Vegas and get married? I'm sure I could find us a slot at the Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel. Only $19.95 plus tax....but five dollars extra if you want the King to serenade you as you walk the aisle."

She laughed. "Only if we get to honeymoon in Cancun."

"Deal."

And he smiled.

Yet even at that moment, even in the midst of rebirth, one thought played in the farthest back corner of his mind.

/Tomorrow she will die. Unless you choose to fall all over again. Unless you turn this into a lie as well. Unless you betray./

No, no, he would not. There had to be another way.

Please, he begged in silence, let there be another way.

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Restons immobile
rien ne nous attend
rien qui ne soit plus futile
que ce doux moment....

(Let's stay still
nothing awaits us
nothing more futile
than this sweet moment...)

Restons encore un instant
un instant comme s'ils etaient cent
rien ne nous attend...

(Let's stay for one more moment
a moment like there was an hundred one.
Nothing awaits us...)

- Immobile
Autour de Lucie

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

The waiting was hardest on both of them.

It would have been an easier thing to walk directly from the embrace to the scaffolding, from the kiss to the flame, but Scully knew the real valley of shadow would not be then but now. It was always harder to wait for death than to merely die. The true test of courage came in a harsh white silence broken only by the faint buzzing of the lights and the fainter, stiller whispers of seconds as they passed. Each minute told a different story... of the wedding night she would never see, the names of children she would never hold. She and Mulder lived out a thousand lifetimes in her mind before even one hour had passed. The images rose clear and sparkling inches from her fingertips only to shimmer into vapor when she tried to touch them. The false memories seemed at times more real than her past itself. Oh, she remembered that too. Those pictures surfaced every so often amid her day-dreaming, appearing suddenly on the forefront of her mind as an old black and white photograph falling out of a pile of color snapshots.

Sometimes she saw her mother, her brothers, her first catechism teacher, her high school boyfriend. These were happy memories, to be taken out one at a time and savored. Sometimes she saw barbed wire and mass graves and chains around her wrist as a fat man sold her to the highest bidder. She saw the look on Mulder's face when she found his Enforcer badge, remembering the horror that had flashboiled her inside. For the only three seconds of her life, she had entertained the idea that he had been working for them all along...

Scully shoved these memories away quickly and tried not to even acknowledge them. They took time which was not theirs to waste.

Sometimes she drifted back to the present. This came over her as a diffuse awareness of pain, of discomfort, of the contrasting warmth spread over her eyes as his hands shielded her from the lights. She could almost hear his blood flow. He was that close. Yet she felt the separation between them stretch with each new moment of the horrible silence. It was as if the absence of sound devoured them piece by piece, and if she did not speak soon, they would be quickly nibbled to the bone.

She spoke because in the end it was the silence, not the death, that drove men mad.

"Skinner came, while you were gone."

"What did he say?" He had been hungry for sound as well.

"Nicolas is calling for blood. He has legal grounds for an execution and plans to drive it through. Skinner has taken it before the generals, though. He used your status as Commander to provide reasonable merit for an appeal."

"They'll never listen. Nicolas has them all under his thumb, one way or another."

"Skinner seemed to indicate we had allies, though not enough to overturn Nicolas in a vote. But he did mention another factor that could play in our favor."

"What?"

"The people, for the majority, side with you. Nicolas has to call on them for our death....all part of the glorious brotherhood of humanity we have here. Everyone shares judgment and responsibility. Only he knows exactly how to control the mob. They've all heard rumors of what you've done, of what you can do, but it's going to take a lot more than hearsay to get the mob on our side."

"So I'm supposed to do what....walk on water?"

She smiled. "Maybe just call down an angel or two to help us out."

"Nah, I already caught one." Her skin sensed his gaze on her even though his hands still covered her eyes. "And she's more than earned her wings."

Part of her laughed at that, singing out that this was what it felt like when love was restored after so many months of doubt. This made you fly. Yet just as soon as the impulse left the ground, remembrance of reality sent her crashing back into the rocks. They would die tomorrow. Both of them, unless it started raining miracles, and the sky had been dry for very long. It was at that moment that she struggled with the fate of it, trying to reason the justice of a universe that would let love die so soon after it had been realized. That would take him from her despite the long struggle to save him...

There had to be something she could do. And then she knew what it was. The idea crawled from the pit of her stomach, repulsive as it coalesced into a thought. She swallowed back the bitterness and spoke with deliberate detachment. If she even listened to her voice speak the words, she would shrink from them. But she had to say it.

"Wings won't save us tomorrow, Mulder. I know what will. I am going to go before Nicolas and appeal myself."

"No." The answer came hard, fast, plated in iron resolve. "I don't see a choice." Scully pushed herself up into a sitting position so she could stare him eye to eye. The light stung her after the darkness under his hands. She blinked twice and tried to focus. "He won't listen to Skinner and he certainly won't listen to you, but I...I have something he wants."

The renewed horror in his eyes cut her off. "No. Just...no. I know exactly what he wants from you and....how can you even say it? Not for one moment do you dare think that I would send you back to another Pavlov just to spare myself a little pain. I thought you knew me so much better than that. So much better."

"I'm sorry-- I mean, I do. I just thought--"

"I know." His thumb brushed the corners of her mouth, smoothing away the frown. "But it'd never be worth it. Even if it was, he can't be trusted to keep his word. The man is evil. I am convinced of it."

She shivered on instinct, though she had not meant to let it show, and she tried to pretend the chill was from the cell and not the temperature of her thoughts. "He reminds me of Pavlov. The way his eyes kill the light, the sound of his voice. The tingle in my skin above the implant when he walks into the room...like something is always hovering just outside my mind, just waiting for me to let my guard down."

His hands moved up the back of her neck to trace slow circles on the skin above the hated metal, massaging the warmth of his fingers into her body. She never feared becoming frozen inside, of losing her humanity, when she sat beside him. He could always thaw her. He could always keep her warm, no matter what. Yet in this touch, there was a stiffness, a knot around his joints as if they held back a question he wanted to ask but feared.

She counted to twenty twice and his hands had stopped moving. He'd found the nerve to speak.

"Did he approach you....like Pavlov did...."

"No." She shook her head. "Not directly, at least. I'm not sure what held him back. He used different methods of getting to me. Through Aida, through Che. Through you. And--and I think he was in my dreams, sometimes." The entire length of his body tensed. Scully hastily continued in attempt to put his mind at ease. "But never like Pavlov. Nowhere near that deep."

"Lucky for him."

The words floated into a moment of quiet thought, and then another, before he dragged another question to the surface of their minds. One from a far deeper past.

"It was bad for you with him, wasn't it. With Pavlov."

Bad. She almost laughed. "Bad" didn't describe it at all. She let him continue, though, because each of the thousand words springing to life inside her mind was either an admission of weakness or a lie.

"I had already suspected Nicolas was influencing me," he said. "But that didn't help much when I realized he had been manipulating my emotions the whole time, twisting me for his own gain. There was a kind of shock, at first, and I didn't want to believe you because it made me feel so hollow. Like something had been taken from me, something integral and sacred, and I had no idea how to get it back. That was all I thought of at first. How to regain what had been stolen. But he was only on the barest rim of my mind....I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been to have something inside your thoughts themselves. I can't even begin to fathom how it would feel."

"Filthy." The word shattered in harsh fragments on the floor. Scully stared straight up into the lights as she spoke, until she saw and felt nothing but a thick white that separated her fromwhat she was saying. Not that she could stop herself now, even if she wanted to. The gates had been unlocked. "Naked. Burned. You don't know how to make it stop, so for a month of midnights you wake up hearing the same voices, feeling the same sensations, and worst of all the same fear. There are nightmares, of course, but you are never entirely sure whether they are your dreams or his. That's because part of him is forever wrapped around a part of you, just waiting in the dark corners of your soul. It never goes away. You just learn to lock it out of reach and move on...."

He kissed her again, then, and she did not know he was shaking with as much hatred as a man could feel. All he could do to keep it inside was remind himself over and over again.... /I killed him. I killed the monster. And I am glad of it./

Instead, he said---

"I should have been there, after it happened. Me, not Skinner, though I'm sure he did all he could. But I should have been the one...if you had asked, I would have found some way....

"Don't apologize, Mulder." She hushed his regrets by placing one finger over his lips. To touch him was a craving, just to feel the solidness of his flesh against hers as if even her hands realized on instinct that these moments were their last. She set aside the thought, for now. "What is in the past is in the past and it will stay there. Until tonight, I wasn't so sure about that. Not until I stood in the room and stared down Nicolas. I felt nothing. No fear. No memory. Not even hate. What Pavlov did will always be a scar across my mind, that much I know. Nothing I can do will change that, but I won't be controlled by a dead man. Not anymore."

He only needed to nod for her to know he understood. It went far deeper than a mere understanding of her words, but it came from intimate knowledge of the experience behind them. They had taken the same journey-- though on different paths-- fought the same war--though on different battlefields-- and slain the same demons-- though under different names-- and tonight they had won the same victory. Freedom.

The cost, however, had been high. Even now, the final casualty report was not in. One...final...sacrifice was required of them both. The thought struck her as if for the first time. In the space of a blink, the light seemed to invert into darkness. The chill of the room became a hot wind against her face, driving her further away from Mulder, into the final void...

A desperate grab for his hand, afraid she would not feel it. A momentary quiver of faith.

/I can't believe. It's too dark./

/What if I fall apart? What if I fail him?/

/....that we may be made worthy./

/I still believe. Mulder, kiss me just one more time, to make sure.../ But she did not ask for a kiss. And when her eyes opened again, the vision disappeared.

Suddenly she was very tired with the weariness of an old woman who had lived through too many dry summers and now only wanted to sleep and dream of thunderstorms. She leaned back against his chest-- where she could feel pulse by pulse the life pounding through him, where he could feel it in her-- as her fingertips threaded through his, easing them back across her eyes. To hide her from the light once more. Or maybe just to hide.

/Close my eyes, love./ His fingertips sealed her eyelids shut, his whisper telling her to rest. /Close my eyes and tell me of the rain. Tell me it will fall soon, so very soon, and we will never be thirsty again./

"It feels like its day now." She whispered. "Or very close to it."

"Pretend its midnight."

"That won't make the sun go away."

A slight pause. "No, it won't."

They were falling again, into the pale silent chasm, and she had to stop it.

"Talk to me, Mulder."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything."

She let her mind wander. Her thoughts snagged on a stray piece of a memory. Their first night on the run.

/The green neon glow of the cheap motel sign outside the window. The stiff ache along the sides of my jaw as I tried to hold back the tears, the screams. We were never supposed to be right. And it was the first time he held me like this, his arms so tight with something made of desperation and need and something more beautiful. Only we didn't speak of that. We didn't dare./

That night, he had not talked to her of the falling sky or of the breaking world. He had placed his mouth next to her ear and told her of a dream. She wanted to hear it again. She wanted to pretend.

"Tell me about the house."

He grinned. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"I've never forgotten."

"Neither have I."

Mulder paused momentarily, shifting her into a more comfortable position against him as he began to speak. He blamed the sudden watery sheen over his vision on the light rays bouncing off the walls and tiles. The lie was scientifically accurate and technically perfect. But it did not take away the ache in him as he spoke.

"It's on the western coast of Canada, not too far north but far enough to make sure no one ever finds us again. It sits on a bluff above a rocky beach that drops straight into the ocean. This ocean is bluer than anything you've ever seen. From our bedroom window we can trace the path of the sun straight back to the horizon. The first thing we hear in the morning is the tide breaking against the rocks, and the wind over the waves is the last thing we hear before we go to sleep. Well--" He was grinning again; she could almost hear it. "Almost the last thing."

"Where does the baby sleep?" The question cut an odd ache through her chest.

"In the nursery, of course. That's next door. You wanted to paint it lavender and I wanted to paint it blue, but after much deliberation and two pillow fights, we decided on yellow. So nice and cheery, you'd tell me. Just like hope--"

"Is that her name?"

"Whose name?"

"Our daughter's."

"And who said it was a girl, pray tell?"

"Call it maternal instinct."

"Who am I to argue with that? Our daughter sleeps in the nursery, and you're right....Hope is the perfect name for her. She's our new start in the world, our new beginning."

"She'll be beautiful. Just like her father."

"Let's hope she's not cursed with his nose. Though even that could be forgiven if she has her mother's eyes."

"What does the house look like?"

"It's built to face the sea, made of pine that shines like gold when the afternoon sun hits it. There is a front porch with a cedar swing--we broke it on the first night of our honeymoon, by the way-- and there is a garden out back. We grow some herbs, some vegetables,some flowers."

"Roses." She said. "Wild roses that no wind or storm can kill. They grow just underneath our window, and in the summer we sleep with it open until the whole house smells like salt breeze and rose petals. It's so strong I can even taste it when you kiss me...."

The moment came then when neither of them could go on; it hurt.

"Scully, I-" His voice formed a heavy cloud across her mind as a thunderstorm brewing over their ocean.

He didn't say anything else, not with words.

He just kissed her. Nothing remained to distinguish the ache on one side of her soul from the love flooding the other. This was where love really existed, she realized, on the razor wire line between pain and beauty. You found yourself in the middle and you did not know what to do other than call it love.

"Mulder," she spoke the words with her lips still against his. "You remember this." Another kiss, deeper, stronger. "No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what they do or how bad it gets, you have to remember this." Tears in the corners of her eyes, though she tried to keep them back. "You hold onto this, Mulder. You put it somewhere deep inside you and don't let go. When they start...the beatings....you disappear into your soul because you'll find me there and you'll know I'll love you forever, and then you won't feel a thing. Then they can't hurt you." Her hand smoothed his forehead, tangled in his hair.

"Then they can't hurt me. Because I am only as alive as you are. You are only as alive as I am. Remember that for both of us."

"You, Scully," He breathed hard and fast, his words broken by the heaving of his lungs. "You remember this."

He pulled her closer and pushed his mouth to hers like he wanted to pour his breath and life and soul into her body. It was thunder and lightning and rain all at once, washing over them and soaking them to the bones with all the things she had never thought she would feel alone. And between these things, it smelled like roses, and likethe salt breeze coming on over the cliffs. She knew, beyond any doubt, he smelled it too. Because he smiled just that way.

Then it was over, and she realized it had also been goodbye.

"Do you think," Shadow words. A hush. "do you think that somewhere in the world there is a house just like ours, and two people living in it with just that kind of happiness?"

"I have to believe it." His eyes burned hers. "If not, then what kind of world have we been fighting to save?"

She closed her eyes.

Exactly one hour later, the guards came.

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

For only the fourth time in his life, Walter Skinner found himself totally helpless.

Place him on the battlefield, an automatic rifle hot between his hands, his enemy plain before his eyes, and he could perform as well as any man. Ask him to command-- even to send men to their deaths-- and he could do it, so long as the objective was clear. But he could not fight the invisible things, such as the cynicism or fear in the eyes of his fellow generals as they one by one abandoned Mulder in favor of Nicolas' demands. Nor could Skinner fight the mob he watched fill the city square to overflowing. Like a net full of fish, he thought to himself, and about that stupid. Every man, woman, and child in Freedom City would witness the execution, via their presence in the square or over a special television broadcast. Most of them had no idea at all what they were about to loose. Mulder and Scully were not merely heroes of the resistance. They *were* the resistance. Without them, the war was already lost because it didn't matter how many battles the humans won if they lost their humanity itself along the way. The people needed Mulder for his passion, and Scully for her faith, and both of them for their love, but he feared he was the only who realized that.

Maybe a handful of the people in the square realized it too. Most of those who did, however, would throw vegetables and hurl insults anyway because such "spontaneous displays of patriotism" were often rewarded with extra ration cards. Nicolas' executions always had that sort of flamboyant violence, a garishness that drew the fascination of the people like any other horror. Nicolas thrived on it. Skinner found it repulsive.

/There was a time,/ He reflected as he screwed the cap from his Jack Daniel's, /when we used to believe in something and fight for it. Now we're all cynics-- even my old friends, even myself-- and we stand in the street throwing rotten vegetables at our saviors just to earn an extra pound of hamburger./ He began to reach for a glass but changed his mind and drank it straight from the flask. He drank it like a soldier should drink it.

/Maybe I am an old man. Maybe I have lived too long to adjust to this new world, but I can't fight for this warped cause anymore. Not that we'll survive for much longer anyway, not as long as we're cutting the throats of our own people. Today will save us or destroy us. If the people let Nicolas murder Mulder and Scully, then we are all lost. Nothing will save us. But if the people prevent it...or at least try....then there is hope.../

It was so easy to think that "hope" was not even a word anymore. That years of blood and hate and lost worlds had erased it from the human vocabulary. But he still believed in it. He had seen it in the eyes of his men, late last night, when they had pledged to stand by him even without the support of the generals. A direct intervention in the execution was the only way to save Mulder and Scully's lives. No more playing safe. The plan was to attempt to sway the people to demand mercy, but if they didn't listen....

Well, each of his men had been told to bring their guns. They agreed to this without hesitation, knowing full well the possible consequences to them and their families. He admired them for this. They were young and had wives and baby children. He was old and had nothing much to loose but his life. But they had promised to stand with him....on one condition. Mulder had to appeal to the people. He had to defy Nicolas directly. Skinner understood this request. The crowd in the square weren't the only ones looking for something to believe in. His people searched for it as well, and they weren't going to lay their lives down for Mulder unless they had proof that he could deliver. He had told Scully this.

She had nodded, and thanked him. Then she'd kissed his hand through the bars. /You are father and brother to me./ She told him, her eyes unnaturally bright but making even the ugly light seem beautiful in reflection. She remained the most beautiful woman he had ever known. /You are all that is left of us, once we are gone./

But he would not be left. He knew this.

His eyes drifted over to the gun lying before him on his desk, the metal gleaming with a sheen of gold in the morning sun. It was the same weapon he had carried back in the FBI days. He had come to rely on it as friend, protector, and confidant. Today he would use it to save his friends or he would use it to die trying. Either way he would not be left behind.

He did feel old, after all. His hands shook ever so slightly when they held the flask, and his back ached often when he returned from missions. It would be easy to stay in his office, with his whiskey and his memories of better days, and hide from a world he did not understand nor wish to understand. It would be very easy.

But it would not be honorable. It would not be a soldier's action, nor that of a father nor that of a brother. He remained all this even if he was an old man with too many memories and aching bones.

And so he took one last swig of his whiskey, strapped on his gun one last time, and walked out his door to meet fate. He paused, for a moment, on the steps, as a swell of shouting rose up from the crowd outside.

This would mean, he knew, that the truck bearing the prisoners had appeared. The beginning of the end.

/Someday, when this is all over, will our children be able to forgive us for the things we've done? The future we sold out, the men and women we betrayed? The innocents we killed?/

Walter Skinner walked out the door to join the mob.

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

Mulder's first thought when they led him from the truck onto the scaffolding was that the glow of the morning sunlight across her face and hair had to be what heaven looked like. Her face tilted up upward to meet the sun, spilling the light over her skin and through her hair like water. It took him into another reality, one more real than the handcuffs around his wrists, or the whipping posts waiting for them. The reality he saw in the first few seconds held nothing but Scully and the sunlight and a sky too blue to be real. It was beautiful.

Then the rest of the world forced its way through the cracks.

The taste of dirt and mob hatred entered his mouth, gritty and dry between his teeth like sand. The heart of the sun poured down on his face and back in torrents of clear fire. The thirst.... The distant, pinched ache of his wrists pinned tightly beneath the steel handcuffs. The distant, pinched ache of her eyes pinned tightly beneath her steel control.

(He wasn't sure which he felt more keenly or more painfully... the lack of blood in his wrists or the lack of feeling in her eyes.)

The screaming of the crowd destroyed the final illusions of beauty. The sound rose up in dark, salt desire for death; the bloodlust hung above their heads in almost visible waves of shimmering heat. They hated what they were told to hate. Feared what they were ordered to fear. This was the thing Skinner had told him to challenge. Appeal to the people. Ask for mercy, ask for truth. It's our only hope.

Mercy. Truth. He was not sure if they were capable of such things

The cries of the mob merged together into one pitch black tidal wave inside his mind, swelling to push out all other thought.

/Kill them!!!!/

/Traitors!!! Colonist sympathizers!!!/

/Die!/

/Betrayors!/

/Coward!/

His mind was going to rip at the seams. Right down the middle.

And there was so much hate...

And there was so much darkness...

He pressed his eyes closed before his brain tore in two. Begging escape. Begging silence. But even then he heard them, even in the golden-brown darkness. He heard the screams, the curses, the fear. All of the confusion, all of the anger, all of the lost faith and jaded belief.

His own question to Scully turned back to haunt him.

/....then what kind of a world have we been fighting to save?/

He did not know. He did not know. That set off a panic within him, deep and slick with cold sweat despite the heat. Had he been wrong the whole time? Had it been futility all along? The fighting, the bleeding, the dying. Maybe the only truth was that they just did not want to be saved.

Maybe they only wanted to destroy...

The rough wood of the post sent splinters into his cheek as they slammed his body against it, two men pinning his shoulders down while two more freed his hands and retied them above his head. The ropes tightened around his wrists, pulling his body until the skin on his back stretched tight. Heat washed over his bare skin as they tore his shirt away.

He buried himself in her eyes. Never moving. Never flinching.

/I am only as alive you are./

Deeper, deeper, beyond her mind, into her soul. Just like he had promised.

/You are only as alive as I am./

By then the crowd had fallen silent. Everyone heard the rip of the fabric as they tore the back of her dress open, exposing the skin to the sun and to the lash. Everyone watched her flinch.

Mulder leaned his forehead against the wood. Her voice, always and forever a part of him, played out as a second string of thoughts inside his head. More real than his pulse. More real than his breath.

/Remember....then they can't hurt me. Then they can't hurt me. Can'thurtme can'thurt me can't hurt me.../

He stared out at the sea of blind hatred and hoped to God she was right.

"You look tired, my friend," Nicolas' voice. Mulder looked up to see the Leader standing beside him, the glow in his eyes betraying the politically appropriate gravity of his face. "Didn't sleep well?"

"Let's get one thing straight here and now. I am not your friend."

"But I want to be yours, Mulder. It's not too late to save your life. Or hers."

He followed the man's eyes over to Scully. Her eyes stared blankly into the sky above the heads of the crowd, and from the small distance he could see her lips moving.

"If she's already praying for mercy," Nicolas whispered, "What do you think she'll do when the pain hits?"

"I think you are a dead man. Maybe not by me, but by someone. Soon."

"Who? Skinner? Your old comrade Krycek? Don't insult me. No one can touch me. No one can threaten me. I own this city. It's mine and I refuse to let you or anyone else take it from me. You have no options left but to cooperate. Step out and denounce Skinner and you can take your woman and go live happily ever after. Or would you rather me begin the execution? Don't think the people will save you. They belong to me as well. You heard them all screaming for your death."

"Kill me, kill her, you'll only make what we stand for stronger. You know that. You're afraid of it, even now."

The light in Nicolas' eyes turned cold in a spasm of sudden anger, his voice razor-edged. "Fine words. Dying would be easy enough, I admit, but it's the slow minutes before death that you will hate and fear. Long before you die, long before she dies, both of you will have cursed everything you think you stand for. You will destroy it with your own mouths."

"I will only curse you."

"Very well." The left corner of his lip twitched as if he was trying to contain a grin. "You want your honor and your death? I'll give you what you want."

He stepped away from Mulder, raising his arms to gather the attention to the mob. The perfect Caesar, the perfect leader. The perfect murderer.

"My brothers and my sisters," Oh, the voice held so much pain, such a reluctance to duty. "A great tragedy has befallen our ranks. Two of our own have left our side to be counted with the enemy. You know them both by name, though perhaps not by sight. The man is Fox Mulder, a onetime defender and champion of our cause. Yet last night he deliberately defied my personal order to execute a Colonist prisoner, a monster responsible for who knows how many dead innocents? The woman, Dana Scully, urged him to commit this treason."

Nicolas allowed the murmurs and whispers to continue just long enough to provide the optimum impact, then held up his hand for silence and continued his speech.

Mulder had no stomach to listen to the lies.

His gaze threaded through Scully's again like two hands seeking one another in a darkened room. Despite the crowd packed in on all sides, he fought an increasing sense of desolation and abandonment. Of utter aloneness, except when he looked at her. Except when he met her eyes. When he looked at her this time, her face was white and pained as she listened to Nicolas manipulate the crowd, and there thin wrinkles of anger creased the skin around her lips.

"No justice." She mouthed, forming the words with careful deliberation so he could read her lips. "No truth."

"Truth is you." He mouthed back. "All I need."

The sun cast a shadow of a smile across her eyes, but he noticed too a glimmer of pain as she turned her face away from him. A whisper in the back of his mind told him to look away as well, not to make it any harder than it already was.

But he kept his eyes on her a moment longer in defiance of the insistent ache within his chest. He watched the sun slide down her hair, again, dripping in waterdrops of light to her shoulders, down her back. Her naked back.

Mulder flinched away from the sight. The exposure was too cold, too ugly, too brutal. Too helpless, and helplessness drove him closer to madness than any pain. Already the sanity wavered.

He focused his entire mind on that sanity. He no longer saw the crowd as individual faces and individual hate, but only as a blur of humanity, a shimmering mirage in the heat. And beyond them, the sky. And beyond the sky, the sun. And beyond the sun, a sister.

"Dearest Sam,"

In all the letters he had written, even in his darkest moments, he had always believed she somehow heard him. That she somehow understood. Now there was only one letter left to write. One request left to make.

"When we were children, we filled our heads with many things, many plans for our lives. This was never among them. But now, at this moment, I only ask to live these next minutes with honor..."

Nicolas' voice sounded to Mulder to be very distant, as if he was underwater listening to the man speak. He heard no words, only impressions of speech colored with vague anger and indignation. Then the answering thunder of the mob, rumbling low and ominous to answer their Leader....

Nicolas flicked his hand toward the soldier holding the whip.

"For the things I have done that should never have been done,"

/Blood on hands in downtown city streets, an Enforcer badge and a hired gun. Dead friends, a murdered sister. Hard liquor, broken faith, and the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke in the background./

"For the things I have lost that should have been saved,"

/Innocence and laughter and summer afternoons in Maine. Sleep without nightmares. The ability to look myself in the eyes without guilt./

"For the things I should have been that I will never be,"

/An idealist. A crusader. A hero. A husband and a father.../

The whip hissed softly in the air as the soldier drew his arm back. Mulder could see it out of the corner of his eyes, a long black snake glistening in the sun, fangs bared to strike.

"I ask you one last time...." His lips barely formed the words. "For forgiveness."

The first lash fell.

A jagged pain sliced the length of his back like barbed wire dragged across his skin, white hot but at the same time filling him with a cold and terrible nausea. A scream started at the base of his spine and burned through his nerves into his brain at electric speed. Only his jaw and his sheer will held the impulse in check. A craving to release. A desperation to breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, and it seared, and it wouldn't go away until he screamed and let it out.

He couldn't hold his silence...couldn't...even...breathe.

/Remember...disappear..../

Her words faded in and out of his mind, fuzzy and distorted like static on a broken radio. A moment of clarity.

/Can't hurt you. Can't hurt me./

He forced his eyes shut despite the first and in one act of desperation, Mulder threw his mind. Somewhere distant, many miles beyond the horizon. Somewhere safe.

His lungs unfroze in a fierce passion for air, though the oxygen barely reached his brain before the second blow fell. The impact ripped his eyes open but this time he saw nothing of the world before him. The skin tore but he did not allow his mind to register the sensation. Sunlight scorched his pupils but it was not this sunlight but another kind of burn, from memory or from dream he did not know, only that it shone so much brighter than anything he had seen before....

/July desert heat sliding across a cheap motel bed, quivering in waves of light above the curve of her dress along her hair as she watches the metal fan blade stir the air. Sweat plastering your skin to your clothes and to the sheets and to her skin and you hand her another piece of ice. Passing it between your palm and hers until the fingers are dripping wet, smoothing the moisture across foreheads and necks and lips. She is golden in the sun, a sculpture of light.../

A white flash of pain tore the vision in two.

Number three.

His fingers tightened around the ropes, muscles taut and quivering as his blood turned to ash and his entire body burned from inside out.

Mulder gritted his teeth and willed himself back into his mind.

/Caribbean blue sky and two black pigtails flying in the wind, the ends tied with orange and red ribbon to match her dress. A tire swing and the last day of summer vacation. Higher, Fox. Higher. The sun stings your eyes, a pale yellow blindness that sharpens to the hottest white, growing whiter and hotter and hotter and swallowing her shadow as she spins out of your arms..../

Four.

His body arched in a spasm in response to the new pain, but it was the instinctive reaction of his cells more than his mind. His mind still hovered in separation, waiting for him to give the order for it to disappear again into the never-ending solace of a perfect memory. Every minute of his life stood ready to be called to life again at his wish, to take him from the present nightmare.

But he hesitated at the sound of a woman's scream, for the voice sounded far too much like Scully. He heard it but chose not to accept it as real, just as he was choosing not to acknowledge the thousand stings across the skin of his back-- assuming he still had skin.

A mechanical voice in his mind told him not to be preposterous; it would take more than four lashes to flay a man. That would not occur until twelve, perhaps thirteen...

The nausea returned, partly because now he smelled his own blood. Hot. Thick. It was time to escape again, and quickly, before she screamed again, because if she did, then it would break him.

He shoved his mind away from him, letting it drift out into oblivion, but this time his eyes would not close. Something kept them open, though it was not the prodding of pain or the relentless heat. Instead, the feeling was as if invisible hands rested on either side of his temple, cool and soft, urging him to watch something....what he did not know....]

Then a voice, but not Scully's. Not this time.

/Hello, Fox./

A woman walked toward him through the crowd, moving easily through the mass of flesh as if she passed right through it. He could not clearly see the face yet, but he knew it was Samantha. He knew because the hair was parted into two braided pigtails, tied at the ends with scraps of orange and red ribbon. She smiled.

/You like it....I knew you would. It makes me think of old times, but you were already doing that, weren't you? I could feel it./

The voice was so soft, so warm, without a trace of anger or condemnation, but suddenly he wanted to cry. At her beauty. At her innocence. Her dress was white, again, made of layers of nearly transparent gauze that turned colors wherever the light touched. The closer she got to him, the harder it was for him to l ook at her and remember what he had done, even as he paid his penance for it.

His head dropped as shame sent a flush through his face.

/You should hate me, Sam./

/Do you want me to hate you?/ She climbed the steps to the platform now, walking right in front of Skinner though he did not know it. /What is easier for you to accept, the fact that I would spend eternity hating you for my murder or that I would know full well what you did and why you did it and choose to love you anyway?/

He could think of nothing to say to that, so he tried another question. /Why are you here now? Am I dying?/

/Not yet. I wish you were, though. It is hard to see you in pain./

/I feel none of it./

/You feel more than you admit. Not for you, though, but for your woman. You ache with her pain and she with yours and in between neither of you have time for your own./

/Tell me this will not be in vain. Tell me if it is enough to earn forgiveness....if you can look at me as a brother again and not as a murderer. Tell me that and I can die well./

/Oh, Fox./ She stood directly in front of him, and reached out to trace her fingers along the side of his face. He sensed every detail of the caress-- the smoothness of her skin against his, the coolness of her fingertips. /You never had to earn anything. Not from me. Only from yourself. And I think that today you have more than filled that debt. Today you are free. You understand? Free./

Samantha leaned forward, the smile of a sad angel on her lips and in her eyes, and kissed him gently on the forehead.

/Until we meet again, brother./\

The fifth lash fell, screwing his eyes shut in sudden and intense darkness. When he opened them again she was gone. For a moment, he thought it nothing more than another dream, another vision created to save his sanity. Yet his skin still felt her kiss. His words still spun circles within his mind.. Today you are free. Free.

Free.

He would have tried to smile if it hadn't hurt just to breathe. If it hadn't hurt so much to think what this "freedom" was doing to Scully no more than five feet away from him.

He knew he should look at her, but he could not. He did not want to see the blood.

"Hurts, doesn't it." A hiss in his ear sent a live wire of hatred running straight through his veins into his soul. He turned his head slowly to see Nicolas standing beside him, a mocking grimace on his face. "Stings, doesn't it."

Mulder ground his teeth together as the man traced his finger along the raw skin of his back, exerting just enough pressure to send the exposed nerves along the lash marks into a concerted scream of pain.

Nicolas leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart.

"Look over there, at your whore." The man pushed his face back toward Scully. Mulder forced his eyes shut before he could see her. "She is dying with you."

More pressure.

"She has such a beau-ti-ful scream."

More pressure.

"You've killed for her before. You've already gone as far as a man can go. But I'm not asking you to kill. Just to tell a story. Tell the truth about Skinner, how he is their enemy, how he has been against them all along."

More pressure. Agony. Fresh blood oozed between his torn skin and Nicolas' hands. A dizziness, the sensation of falling without any particular direction, just tumbling over and over and over without control.

"Then you will be forgiven. You will be set free."

More pressure. Mulder gasped for air through his teeth.

The hiss faded to a mere breath against his cheek. "Do you really want her to die this way? Open your eyes. Look at her. Or are you afraid?"

Yes. Oh yes.

But he looked at her anyway. Just because he had to know what they had done, what he had let them do. He had to know if it was worth a betrayal to stop.

She slumped against the post, held upright more by the ropes around her wrists. A fine sheen of sweat filmed her face, and her eyes were very wide, though he did not notice this so much because her back drew his gaze immediately. Four ribbons of blood split her skin from shoulder to hip, stray rivulets of crimson soaking through the material of her dress. The entire length of her body shook like a child's body shakes when the thunder is loud.

Mulder barely recognized her. He did not want to recognize her at all, not like this. Not when her eyes met his, clinging with such stubbornness to her strength yet at the same time begging for mercy. No one but him saw the plea. No one but him held the choice, save a life, destroy a life. Betray a friend or betray a life.

Or was there a third choice, a glimmer of hope that would either save her or kill him or perhaps both?

Nothing mattered if she died. Not the Resistance. Not the truth. Not his own life. His breath served only as extension of hers, his heartbeat merely the echo of her pulse.

/I am only alive as you are./

All this flashed through his mind in a matter of seconds, though it felt much longer. His breath leaked from his lungs with the sound of an old man's sigh.

Appeal to the people, Skinner said. They will listen.

Time to see if that was true.

He turned his face back to Nicolas and met the full fury of the man's gaze measure of measure. "If I do this thing, you will let her go. I have your word."

"You have my word. You will both walk away free."

Mulder shifted his eyes to Skinner, standing on the fringe of the crowd, his forehead wrinkled in suspicion and worry. When the time came, Skinner would understand. He would be ready. He knew he could count on that much from a friend.

He had to drop his eyes before he could speak. "Cut me down."He spoke the sentence in a jumble of words and syllables so he would not have to hear what he spoke. "I'll say what you want."

Nicolas glowed.

He said nothing further to Mulder, but flicked his wrist toward the soldier standing behind them. "Cut him down. Make sure he can stand."

The Leader replaced his smirk with a benevolent smile as he walked to the edge of the platform.

"The Corps is always merciful to her errant children, always ready to bring them back to her side. Commander Mulder has sought this mercy and we will grant it. He will now confess to us the true force behind his crimes, and reveal the enemy in our midst. I myself am unaware of what he will say, other than that it is a truth he has been willing to die for. But never let it be said that a good man had to die before justice could be done. I call General Walter Skinner forward to act as official witness to this confession."

As the soldier cut his wrists free, a ball of nausea blossomed within his stomach. Mulder fought to remain standing, but his legs bent more like rubber than bone, and he slid to his knees. His back shrieked at even the slightest jar of impact.

/Pull yourself together, soldier./ He ground his teeth together until he could hear the bone slid across bone. /That is an order. You've been hurt worse than this before. Act like a man. Act like an Enforcer./

He pushed away the soldiers reaching to pull him up. Laying his palms flat against the wood, he supported his weight on them while he worked one leg into position. Halfway there. He paused to allow the dizziness and nausea to ebb away, then carefully moved the other leg. And pushed. And then he balanced on his feet, shaking at the arms and the knees, but standing nonetheless.

Two soldiers hovered on either side of him in case he should collapse again or entertain any thoughts of escape. They began to walk toward the edge of the platform, where Nicolas waited. His back throbbed with every step but he staunchly refused admittance to any sort of pain sensation.

"Mulder, no!"

Scully's voice hooked him by the shoulder and jerked his head toward her once more. The horror in her face shock him; the utter disbelief and betrayal in her eyes froze him where he stood. She shook her head violently, begging him not to do it. Not to give in.

Two small tears in her eyes.

She did not understand, but she would.

He had to believe that if he was going to do what he needed to do these next few moments. He needed her strength, her defiance, her passion. Her trust. Most of all, her love.

/Please believe in me./ He pleaded with her in his mind. /If there was ever a time for trust, believe I can never betray you again. But belief or unbelief, I will do what I have to do. I will save your life./

He stopped on the edge of the platform, twenty feet from the people who held their lives in careless hands, fifteen feet from the man he had sworn to publicly condemn. Skinner kept his face expressionless, but trust flickered in the man's eyes. Confidence.

Mulder hoped he would prove worthy of it. And even if, in the end, he failed....well, at least they would be forced to kill him outright and he would not be strapped back to that post.

"You may begin, Commander."

"No! Mulder! It's not worth it!"

Her voice, a faint cry for sanity. A plea for honor.

Ignoring her ranked among the hardest things he had done in his life. It stung far worse than the whip to know she believed he had betrayed her. She believed he had betrayed their friend. Maybe, when it was over, if he lived, she would still love him.

But now he was very afraid she would not.

This was the last thought in his mind to fade to silence before he began to speak.

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

"My name is Fox Mulder. I am a Commander in your resistance, but this war is not new to me as it is to many of you. For those of you who may not know, I was a federal agent before the Invasion. My partner and I fought the same battle we do now, only then without the luxury of an enemy we could see. I learned from those days the important of truth. Of honor. Both are at stake today, not just for myself, or for my partner, but for the Humanity Corps itself."

Those who had called for his death now listened to his every word. A noticeable irony. Their faces showed what even might be an air of respect, though perhaps it was merely surprise that he still stood. The surprise was mutual. Pain from his back ate away at the corners of his mind with slow acid, forcing him to battle for each clear thought, each coherent sentence. He seized the words one by one from murky darkness and strung them together like beads on a string. His existence stretched no further than the next sentence, then the next, then the next...

"Some of you here think I am a hero. Others of you believe me to be a traitor. I have been both. I stood up for truth and I betrayed those closest to me. Those decisions were mine to make and mine to bear the consequences for. I have paid the price a hundred times, but do not stand here today to seek your forgiveness. Or your applause. I will not stir your emotions with high words, and I will not sway your greed with promises of more food or better housing. I will simply offer you the truth. Whether you accept it or not is up to you."

He must choose his words carefully. If Nicolas suspected he had anything other than full cooperation in mind, he would be silenced. Instantly. And he knew he had to finish. It was not just about Scully, anymore. He had to do this for himself, to prove that just once-- once-- he could save those he had started out to save and protect those he had promised to protect. If he could open their eyes, if he could make them see, then it would be worth a death.

"I came here for the same reason as many of you. A search for redemption. For hope. I did not find hope here. Instead I found a reproduction of many of the same evils I had left with the Colonists. Despair. Corruption. Brutality. I found a city that has lost its reason to fight but continues to shed blood while humanity-- the very thing for which you are named-- disappears in the struggle. And I promise you that it will not matter if we own this planet again if we lose ourselves along the way. If we are no longer human at the end of the battle, it will be the same as if They had won. It will be worse."

A nod, here, there, in quiet agreement; an echo of quiet agreement scattered throughout the crowd.

"The beliefs of a people determine their course. What you are really witnessing this morning is a crisis of those beliefs. A line has been drawn. On one side there is the true soul of the Corps and the resistance. On the other, there lurks a dark and bloody lie spread by one of our very own leaders. A trusted man, one you have looked to for guidance and salvation. He used this trust to deceive you and distort your perception of everything we stand for. I myself was deceived by this man, for I called him friend. I trusted him and in turn he betrayed me as he did all of you. You are not blind to this. You have sensed the symptoms of the disease but have not known the origin. You have felt the presence of the enemy among you and reached for your guns, only to discover you could not identify him. Today I will identify him for you. Is this your will?"

For a fraction of bent sunlight, there was nothing, and he was afraid he had lost them. And with them, Scully. Then a woman near the front stepped forward, balancing her toddler on her hip as she called out--

"Who is he? What is his name?"

Others joined her. Hesitant, at first, but gaining confidence as the momentum of the voices swelled.

"Tell us!"

"We want the truth!"

"Enough with the corruption! Restore the Resistance!"

His eyes locked with Skinner, who edged his hand with casual grace toward his sidearm. A brief nod, a momentary exchange of glances. An agreement that the moment was now; there would be no other chance.

Beside him, Nicolas' smile shone golden in total assurance of his victory. Totally drunken with his power.

"I accuse this man of polluting the Cause with his own lust for power and bloodshed and brutality, even against our own brothers and sisters. If you still fight for freedom, then I call for you to reclaim what has been lost. Carry out the justice for which so many have given their lives."

He hesitated just long enough to breathe. Just long enough to kill the pain, to promise Scully that even if they shot him where he stood, he died with her face behind his eyes. Her love within his heart.

And with freedom....

"That man is Nicolas."

Silence.

A soundless tsunami whipped across the square and paralyzed every man, woman and child with shock. Even Nicolas, whose smile still molded into place but lacked suddenly its suave assurance.

Skinner stepped closer to the platform, flanked by two "civilians" armed with very non-civilian rifles. White static whisperings scraped against the underbelly of the silence as the people began to realize what was happening.

Skinner spoke before any of them, even the soldiers, could react. "Leader Nicolas, by the authority of the people, I place you and your associates under arrest until inquiry can be made into these allegations. Lay down your weapon now and you will be escorted without harm to the detention quarters." Then he turned to the soldiers ringing the square, his tone clear and authoritative. A general's voice. "Be advised that my men are placed in strategic locations throughout the area and they will fight if necessary. But we do not wish to shed any blood here today. We merely seek to take custody of the Leader until his crimes can be investigated and brought to trial. For the sake of the people, hold your fire. Allow us to do our duty."

His words dragged out in the dreadful calm one second longer, stretching thin as a rubber band about to snap, or as the last second on a timer before the bomb exploded.

It all happened within seconds, but it unfolded before Mulder's eyes with the lazy blur of a dream or a late Augsut afternoon by the lake. He stood outside his own body and watched the world go insane. He saw first the fire in Nicolas' eyes as the man's hand moved in sharp, silent command to the soldiers beside him.

The man drew his weapon and fired three rounds into the chest of one of Skinner's bodyguards. An instant later, the soldier crumpled with a scream as the bullet shattered his torso. Two shots unleashed twenty as other men appeared in twos and threes from the crowd and from the doorways of buildings. The soldiers opened fire first. Or at least a number of them did....most appeared to be fighting on the side of Skinner's people.

It was then Mulder became aware of the blood splattered against his cheek, and of Skinner's frantic motion for him to come, but as he began to move, the butt of pistol caught him across the back. A wave of red fire engulfed his entire consciousness. It singed away every other aspect of existence. A small part of his body realized that he had been shoved to his knees, and that the pistol now rested against the back of his neck. Someone spoke to him, but the roar in his head all but drowned out the words.

"....move.....you..die...."

He could not see the face of his killer, neither did he see that Nicolas had vanished. He heard the staccato of gunfire as it were the rumble of an earthquake underneath the ocean of screaming that washed the air in fear and panic. The platform beneath him shook as everyone in the crowd raced for cover in different directions.

Mulder forgot the burning and the gun at his neck in the sudden, frantic need to reach her. Images of her-- still tied to the post, defenseless-- sprang in garish clarity to his mind. With them came a numbing sensation within his chest, something cold like fear yet frenzied like panic.

That was when he heard her scream.

His body reacted with every instinct of a trained Enforcer.

His hand shot behind his head to grab the soldier's wrist, twisting it until he felt the bones pop. The sudden movement stretched the skin of his back and his grip faltered before he could completely get the gun. The man's good hand smashed into the side of Mulder's face once, twice, three times....he responded by jerking the injured wrist even more out of proportion. A scream. A sweaty fingered fumble for the gun.

A single shot.

The soldier fell to the platform, dead from a bullet that passed neatly through the base of his skull. Mulder wiped the blood from his eyes to see Skinner standing behind him. A thin curl of smoke trailed from the barrel of his automatic.

He glanced from his friend down to the soldier's body.

"Nice shot."

"Good to know I haven't lost the touch. You all right?"

"Yes." His mind registered the facts that his hands were shaking, covered in blood that was partly his own, partly a dead man's, that his back had started bleeding more heavily, but he did not feel these things as a man felt wounds. He merely catalogued their existence then filed them away for later use. This was a mindset of an Enforcer and it had helped him survive more than one field injury. This would be another.

"Scully--"

He spun to see a horror of nothing. The post stood empty. His pulse skidded to a stop and he struggled to keep it moving and to keep breathing and not to think about the panic and the possibilities and the fact that he didn't see Nicolas either and....oh.. God...

"She's gone."

Skinner spoke calmly but now that Mulder looked closer, the man's eyes betrayed his fear. "Mulder, you listen to me. We will find her. She will be all right. You are in shock and you are losing blood, and the only place you are going is to the infirmary--"

He ignored the words, jerking free of Skinner's grip to reach for the dead soldier's gun. He ejected the ammunition clip for quick examination. At least ten rounds left. More than enough to exterminate a rat.

"Look, I said I'll find her. You know that."

"I know." He jammed the clip back into the gun. "But you're the leader here. If you leave, who will keep it under control?" He motioned to the square around him. "And this is something I have to do myself."

Skinner said nothing for a moment, then nodded curtly. "I can't stop you anyway, I suspect. He's probably headed for the transport vehicles; they're on the southern end of the square. Expect body guards, at least three. Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"

"Yes."

"Be careful."

"Always."

A slight pause.

"Are you going to kill him?"

"Yes."

Then it was down into the whirlwind of panicked bodies and gunfire and screaming children, running as fast as he could push people out of the way, shouting he would shoot and meaning it, his breath hard and his pulse mad, and a hope, a prayer, a scream in each step, that he would not be too late.

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

A gun to her temple, a scream wrapped around her throat, every cell in her body saturated with pain, and her only fear stemmed from the fact that she had seen Mulder fall but had not seen him rise. If he died, there would be no way for him to know she believed in what he had done. That she may not have understood at first-- the fire in her mind being great, then-- but now she understood fully. And she would trade worlds to stand beside him, to taste the defiance with him until freedom won or life ended.

That wish was not granted her.

Instead she stumbled through a haze of gunfire and smoke and panic, pinned against the body of a monster who pushed her to run faster, faster though she could barely walk, his voice uglier than the barrel of his gun.

"Don't even think about slowing down, Dana-girl. We're going for a ride, you and me. They won't come near me as long as your pretty little tail is on the line."

His fingers dug deeper into her arm, bruising to the bone. "I am secondary objective." She hissed the words through her teeth. "They won't stop for me."

"Oh, but Mulder will. And he is the only one I need to kill."

Anger. Fear. The overwhelming helplessness of being bait. She grabbed at hope the way a falling man clutches at a rope. "He'll never find us. Not in this crowd."

"You doubt your lover, Dana? He could be blind and deaf and still know a way exactly to where you are. Trust me on this. I've been inside his head. Quite an exhilaration....a bit rough, but sometimes it's better that way...." He pressed his face against hers until she smelled the rot of his breath. "You'll see."

"Freak--" She shoved back with all her strength, squirming, writhing out of his grip, screaming to kill the pain as she threw her body forward. Half-falling, half-running. All she knew was that if he did not have her, then he could not have Mulder, so she had to get...away....

Three steps into her escape, her body turned traitor under its own weakness and her legs crumbled underneath her. On her knees now. Begging strength, just enough for one more step...one more...

His hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking her body to his in one sharp movement that crushed her back directly against him. Ten thousand screams inside her mind. Nerves crackling,popping, shriveling under their own heat. Any thoughts of struggle turned to charcoal and ash and then disappeared. A sob for breath, an attempt to fight, but her lungs were filled with fire and not air.

"Do. Not. Try. That. Again. Ever."

He slammed his fist into her back, and this time she couldn't hold back the scream. Her blood formed a second skin between their bodies.

"Now move."

The rational part of her body prepared to refuse, to let him shoot her and be done with it, but rationale no longer functioned and she walked under mechanics of instinct.. One step. One breath. Then another step. Another breath.

A string of frantic liturgy unraveled within head, thoughts within thoughts, deliberate yet subconscious. The words flowed without her control. Stained glass fragments of prayers and meditations, whispered penances of confession cells and votive candles, pleas to saints and sinners and the mother of God. Throughout them all, a plea that Mulder would live.

/Hail Mary, full of grace...tell him I love him....Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...I am alive only as he is alive... Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit... he is bone of my bone..../

Pushing through the crowd, staring blankly at the brown uniforms of Nicolas' bodyguards as they cleared a path by threats or force, walking but standing still, awake and asleep and maybe it was all a dream after all, if only she didn't taste the blood in her mouth so strongly.

/As it was in the beginning, and now, and ever shall be...where is hatred...hatred...hatred...let me sow love...let him know I believe.... Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb...where there is darkness, light...He is flesh of my flesh..../

A parting of the sea of flesh and she sees the truck. The same vehicle that brought her into this nightmare will take her into another, darker dream. She will die but not until she has wanted to be dead many times over. No. That part is not true. She will destroy her life with her own hands before she will let Nicolas touch any piece of her, flesh or mind. A flash of a mirthless grin across her face. Now she has resolve. All she needs is the chance.

"Almost there, Dana. Keep behaving and I won't have to shoot any of your limbs off. I wouldn't want you around if you were missing parts."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smile. His breath, hot against her neck, soiling her skin and her hair in corruption of Mulder's old habit of kissing the top of her head. She would like to be kissed that way, now. And to be held, with fingers and knees and elbows touching at all the safe places. All the places he protected her.

She shut her eyes.

The rhythms of her mind sped and the words flew by.

/pray for us sinners that I may not seek to be loved as to love (him) always in the hour of our death as it is in pardoning that we are pardoned in dying that we are born to eternal life world without end. world without end./

From another world, a dying world, someone called her name.

"Scully!"

His voice. His voice. Oh God. She opened her eyes to see him moving out from behind the truck toward them. The world was a blur within a fog within a dream but he was there. Clear. Sharp. Alive. His eyes burned through all mists and all confusion as they fastened onto hers and told her in no uncertain terms that she would be all right. He would not let anything else happen to her.

But there was a danger, something she could not remember but needed to warn him of...desperately...

Metal drove further into her skull, grinding against the bone through the skin. And suddenly she remembered. All her last energy and last breath spent in one final shout.

"Mulder! No! Go back--"

/World without end to be loved as to love in the hour in the hour for thine is the kingdom, for I am his and he is mine.../

Too late....

Nicolas' bodyguards were used to proving their might against frightened hybrids and starving civilians. Neither of them had met an Enforcer-trained killer, and their clumsiness with their weapons ended their life just as surely as the bullets which shattered their foreheads. He killed them quickly, coldly, not even stopping to watch the bodies fall. There had been pain, moments ago, but now there was only electricity, pounding in his pulse. In his brain. The metal of his gun sang to him through his fingertips, a familiar mantra of violence and blood and hot lead splintering bone. The sound throbbed through him, his muscles twitched in time to the beat, waiting. Begging release.

But he could not, he *could not*, because in between him and his target stood a woman with blue eyes that flared wide with fear for him, whose body shook with pain that he had to end.

This and this alone quelled his urge to kill Nicolas immediately.

"Do it, Mulder! Try to shoot me!" A wild laugh, not the laugh of a man but of something else entirely. "You'll probably kill me but I'll have more than enough time to take her with me."

"Let her go."

"Oh, no, you're gonna have to do better than that. C'mon, make another speech. Stir me to patriotism. I might be moved enough to keep her alive." Nicolas slid his hand across the bare skin of her shoulder where her dress had torn. "For a while." He moved his hand down her arm, leaving a smear of her own blood on her skin.

Mulder's hand trembled on the gun with the effort of restraining rage and passion. Neither had place in a mission. One did not indulge in feeling but merely carried out one's duty and never, never, let the other side get into your mind.

Not even when they were holding a gun to the only reason you have to live.

He held his voice flat. Cold. Just like the metal under his fingertips.

"This has nothing to do with her and you know it. This is between you and me. You knew it would go down this way ever since I came into the city. You've always tried to beat me. To control me."

A cracked ice smile, something he learned from Krycek back in the Washington days. Always make them think you have nothing to lose. Especially when the reverse is true. "So why not take your shot? You and me. No guns, no weapons, no bodyguards. Just flesh and bone and may the best man win."

Outside a stone mask locked his features in place but inside he begged Nicolas to listen. It had not yet occurred to him how he would keep his sanity if he had to watch Scully die.

Nicolas stared at him, his eyes glittering Pavlov black, the barrel of the gun pressing into her temple until the flesh underneath turned white. Then the smile returned. "I can beat you without a gun."

"Prove it."

"Drop your weapon."

"Drop Scully first."

"No, first the weapon."

This time his Enforcer instinct screamed for him not to be stupid, not to expose himself to the enemy without a weapon. But there was not a choice. His weapon dropped to the pavement in a clatter.

"Ok." He held his hands out to show they were empty. "Your turn."

"You're a dead man, Mulder."

He shoved Scully away from him. Before her body had reached the ground, Nicolas slung his gun aside and flung himself forward with lightning speed. Mulder barely had time to brace for the blow before the full impact of the dive caught him square to the chest, knocking him off his feet. To land on the back would be deadly. He twisted his body as he fell, landing instead on his side. Nicolas' momentum still carried him forward, and Mulder stuck out his leg to meet the man in the gut. He heard the air leave the Leader's lungs in a *whoosh*, forcing him to fall back and gasp for breath.

Mulder used the opportunity to jump to his feet, a tiny smile on his face, but there was no time to revel in victory. Nicolas ran at him again, this time heading his attack with a series of quick punches aimed at his temple. Mulder swung to avoid a left hook and countered the blow with a fist to Nicolas' rib cage. One good hit, two good hits. His defense slipped. Stupid mistake. A powerhouse right collided directly with his forehead. Blood in his eyes. He stumbled back, shaking his head to regain clarity, and another right connected with his solar plexus.

This time he fell on his back.

He screamed more from frustration than pain, but it was the pain that paralyzed him. His arms and limbs turned to lead and refused to obey his frenzied commands to *get up*. Nicolas' foot slammed into his kidneys. Once. Twice. After the third time, the edges of his vision began to tinge with black and he no longer felt the boot in his side. The battle for consciousness grew harder by the second.

He could not see because his eyes were closed though he distinctly remembered trying to keep them open. Tiny crimson and yellow balls of light danced before his vision. He watched them in childlike fascination as they throbbed in time to his racing pulse. The longer he stared at them, the further they led him into a growing darkness far within his mind. A cold, thick, seduction that promised no more pain and no more fire within his nerves.

But he remembered blue eyes. Blue eyes and a reason he needed to get up, a reason to fight. If he thought about the blue eyes, the darkness shrank. He could not remember what they meant to him, only that he had to focus on them and find a way back to them. Close behind him, a woman screamed. He knew the voice. He knew it as the voice of the blue eyes. In it was fear; in it was pain. That sound raced along the course of his veins until it collided head on with the agony in his head and dissolved all knowledge of injury.

She shouted again and this time he picked one or two words from the background static in his mind.

"Mulder.....knife...."

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

His eyes flew open in time to see a blade arching through the sunlight in dead trajectory for his throat. Survival pushed the feeling back into his arms along with a sharp command. Move. Now. Now. Now. His hand snapped up to catch the knife along the edge of the blade. Metal death stopped four inches above his throat.

The skin of his palm split open, turning steel to crimson. He was aware of the blood spilling down his arm, though he did not see it; he saw instead Nicolas' smile, ruthless and gloating, as the man begin to push the blade through the rest of his palm.

"Looks like she's mine after all."

Another push; more blood.

/Don't feel the pain. Feel the hate. Feel it./

"That's something to remember when I slit your throat. That in the end, I owned her. I was the one to break her and you just died in the street like any other animal. How about some last words? Make the moment stretch." The grin, again.

"I'm more a man of action."

He jerked his palm away and grabbed Nicolas's wrist with his right hand. He twisted the knife while his legs shot up at the same time, knocking the man in the lungs. Nicolas' body sailed back toward the street. Mulder followed the motion of the fall, his hand still locked around the wrist that held the knife. At the moment Nicolas hit the pavement-- hard-- his grip weakened. Only for fraction of a second, but that was more than Mulder needed. He tore the knife from the man's hand.

By the time the shock of impact had faded, Nicolas found himself staring up into eyes that held a razor soft whisper of anger. But mostly they held resolve. That frightened him far more than rage.

The blade of the knife kissed the skin of his throat, like a teasing lover.

Nicolas pulled his fear together into a cracked grin. "What now, hero?"

"Take a guess." No smile in return. Not even a flicker of emotion.

"Do it. Prove that you're a killer, no matter what your whore says. C'mon, you know it's the only way. You know you want my blood all over your hands. You know you're just like me. You always will be."

Mulder increased the pressure of the blade until it coaxed thin bubbles of blood to the surface. "That was always your mistake, Nicolas. I am nothing like you."

The knife rested against the throat; vengeance rested within his hands. The blade gleamed silver in the sun.

/This what you did to me. Inside my head. Inside my thoughts./

/This is for what you did to Scully. This is for the way her skin shivered in the light before the whip drew blood./

/This is for her./

He brought his hand down in a stiff karate chop to the man's temple.

Time, which had slowed to the measure of blood and heartbeat, sped up much too quickly and reality slammed into his body with all the grace of a freight train. The pain returned, dizzying waves of heat and nausea that set the sky to spinning above him and the ground spinning below him. He rolled away from Nicolas, tearing oxygen from the air in great gasps and heaves as full awareness of his injuries returned. With that came a different sort of numbness. He could not convince his fingers to release the knife. His hand clenched it with a stubborn grip of their own free will. No mental command could shake it. He could only sit and stare at the blade, a wicked silver grin underneath a sheath of blood.

The end.

The end.

He had expected relief but instead he felt nothing. A vacuum over his soul.

Then a hand closed around his. He flinched, his eyes flashing upward to see a pair of the deepest blue eyes hovering close to his face, so close he imagined he could dive into them and be part of their secrets forever. Soft hands pried his hand open around the knife blade; thin fingers worked their way through his fingers until the grip loosened. The weapon was laid aside; instantly forgotten. He closed his hands around the fingers, pulling them to his lips as her other hand stroked the beard stubble along his jaw.

The sunlight framed her face and her hair until she was made of nothing but light and beauty and every time she touched him, a little leaked through her fingertips into him. Making him light as well.

He realized that there was no more gunfire. Only silence. The silence of peace.

Beyond her, he saw for the first time the circle of people watching, them. Waiting. How could they have been there the whole time and he not even notice? Had his focus been that intense? He glanced back to Nicolas' unconscious form. Intense was not the word.

The next wave of pain washed over his mind, and he closed his eyes in a grimace. Her fingers tightened around his, her voice raised in a command despite the fact that the sound barely carried.

"We need a healer over here! Now!!!" Her face turned back to him, the eyes clouded with worry though her voice soothed like her touch. "It won't be long, Mulder. Just hold on for me until then. A little space of seconds and they'll fix you up better than ever..." She blinked and a drop of liquid splashed onto his cheek. Her tear. For him.

He would tell her not to cry. That yes, he would be all right, whether the healer came in time or not, because she was there and she was turning him into light, and he loved her.

Why was it so hard to talk? Why did he have to struggle for words?

"Don't....worry..."

A flicker of a smile. "After all this I am entitled to a little worry, I think."

"Sorry....you....hurt....because...me."

Her face sobered in an instant. She laid her hand across his lips as if to erase the residue of the words. "Not hurt because of you. Alive because of you."

"Love you."

She bent over him until her lips touched his forehead. "Me too."

He smiled because the effort of speech quickly turned to a burden he did not wish to bear. Again the darkness called him, not the cold darkness of before, but a warm, familiar shadow like a blanket wrapped around you in the night.

The warmth was very much like sleeping in her arms, which was all he wanted to do. To sleep, and to rest, and to know she would be there when he woke up again. She would always be there.

His eyelids fluttered under their own weight and began to ease shut. But he remembered there was one last question he had to ask. One thing he had to know.

"Scully,"

"Yes."

"Samantha....proud...of this...wouldn't she?"

She smiled, and the sheen of tears shone brighter over her eyes than they had a moment ago. He knew they were tears brought by the smile, not working against it. "Yes, Mulder." she whispered, her hand tightening around his. "Samantha is so very proud of this."

He nodded, just once. And closed his eyes. The last thing he saw before oblivion was the outline of her smile in the sun. The first thing waiting for him inside his mind was the smile of a little girl on a tire swing, orange and red ribbons tied around her braids as she stretched out her arms to him.

As she welcomed him home.

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

Dana Scully awoke to the sensation of feeling the morning sunlight from the inside out. It was warmth. Contentment. And, for the first time in many mornings of waking up, peace.

The events of the previous day seemed distant and blurred, as if she had just dreamed the most terrible, beautiful dream of her life. The details slipped in elusive fragments through her fingers-- sunlight in her eyes, a pain that burned but also cut, a gun to her head. One thing alone remained concrete.

The simple relief in Mulder's face as he passed into unconsciousness a forgiven man.

She even remembered his last words. /Samantha would have been proud of this, wouldn't she?/

Samantha wasn't the only one.

A knock at the door drew her attention, and a moment later Skinner peeked cautiously into the room.

"You're awake."

"Yes. I'm getting quite used to this coming in and out of consciousness thing. A few more times and I'll be a real pro."

"This isn't going to happen to you again." The simple conviction in his statement and in his gaze surprised her. "Ever."

He coughed then, and averted his eyes to scan the room. "Too much white in these rooms. Not enough color. That's something I'll change once we get things settled down, but for now, I thought these might do."

He brought a vase of daisies from behind his back and set them on the table beside her bed. "These are donations from his ex-Leadership's Nicolas private garden," She caught his grin as he talked. "So you can be assured of the finest quality."

"Thank you." Scully brushed her fingers over the softness of the petals. "What does Nicolas think about your invasion of his garden?"

"The Leader isn't in a position to think much of anything. My men currently have him in the barracks under heavy guard-- more from the people themselves than from any possibility of escape. He's not going anywhere until he can answer for what he's done."

"Has there been much fighting?"

"Here and there. Some is still going on, but we're lucky. Only a small contigent of soldiers remained loyal to Nicolas after the people turned." The wrinkles around his eyes deepened. "We've had a few outbreaks of mob violence, so I'm keeping the city under martial law for a while longer. Just until everyone calms down." He sighed. "I waited and waited for this and now that it's hear, I'm not even sure if they're ready for it. If any of us really are--"

She placed her hand over his to quiet him. "You are ready, Skinner. And you will make them ready. I believe that."

He squeezed her hand. "You always believed."

"Not always." She said. "I had to have help along the way. You'll be there for the people just like you were for me. That's how I know this will all turn out okay."

She pulled her hand away to fiddle with the daisies.

"How's Mulder?"

"Fine." he said. "The healing process went well, but he'll be out of it for a while longer. His injuries were more extensive than yours."

"What will happen when he does wake up?"

"That will be up to you two. You're free to stay here or free to walk away. No obligations. After all this, you've more than earned the right to live your own lives."

Another pause, and she took the chance to speak her mind.

"I never did say thank you." She looked up from the flowers. "For getting my back through all this. There were some times when I didn't know if I'd make it, especially the beginning, but you were always sane when I needed you to be. I should have told you a long time ago, but I guess I didn't know how."

"You told me." A slight grin began to ease the tautness along his jaw. "Maybe you never said the words, but you let me know."

The grin stretched into the kind of smile she hadn't seen since they'd come back to the States.

"Now get some rest, Scully. That's an order."

She smiled. "Yes sir."

He closed the door and left her with the flowers and the sunlight.

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

THE CALIFORNIA ROCKIES
THREE MONTHS LATER

As an infant sun learned the first words of daylight, a man left his wife in their bed, kissing her once in the twilight, and picked up his pen to write a letter to his sister. It would be the last letter, for after this there would be no more need. No midnight confessions of vodka and dead men. No more hate. Just a goodbye.

Dearest Sam,

He paused, fingers tapping against the pen as he searched for a beginning. Good-byes were always difficult for him; he preferred to think of reasons not to say them. This farewell, however, was long overdue. She deserved her peace just as he deserved his sanity. At times it seemed the past had been lived by someone else, and he merely heard the story. He still wondered, at times, if it really happened to him. But it did. It was real. The scars on his back, on his mind, on his dreams, proved it beyond all question. The first slivers of sunlight flirted with the edges of the paper as his thoughts began to translate into words. The intangible captured with pen and ink.

Today is the last time I will write to you.

These letters have been my confessions, my sanity and my hope during this travel through hell, but now I stand among the living again and feel it time at last to give the past its rest. The path has been hard-- a barefoot walk over fire-- but you were always there to guide me when I was alone. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have given up long ago if you had not been there to guide me. My northern star, you led me through the darkest midnight back into the light. It has been three months since I stood on the scaffolding and you kissed me, but I still feel it when I wake up at night. Scully tells me it was a hallucination, but we know better, don't we? I told you many times before how I craved death. When you looked at me that morning, I knew I wanted to live. So you have saved me life, Sam, but much more. My humanity. My soul. My capacity to love and be loved. For this I owe you an infinity of lifetimes, but I can only offer this one. I will live it well, I swear to you. I will not waste a day.

You are probably interested in news of the Resistance. We won. Some confrontation was inevitable, but I am glad to tell you that very little blood was shed. Skinner knew exactly when to shoot and when to talk, and the people listened to him. He is a natural leader and his dedication to their cause is obvious, even to the cynics. Right before Scully and I left, they elected him Leader. It was not a job I would have wanted. There is much pain and much to rebuild. The previous Leader, Nicolas, came very close to devastating everything we had worked for.

He was tried and found guilty of corruption and unnecessary brutality. The very people he controlled for so long sentenced him to public hanging. For those of us who personally met with his evil-- Scully, myself, Skinner-- the penalty seemed light in comparison. I have asked myself many times why I did not kill him when I had a chance. The knife was in my hands, and I could smell his blood in the air. I could have paid him back in pain for the things he did to me, even more to Scully. But when the moment came, I decided he was not worth a murder. He did not deserve to stain my hands with his blood, or my mind with his screams. Perhaps it would not have been so much murder as justice, but for me the two have been tangled for so long that I feared to risk tangling them again. Just because I have turned from darkness does not mean it has left me. I can feel the violence and the bloodlust waiting, just waiting, in a far corner of my soul. That will be the battle now; to keep it locked away. Permanently. The more human I become, the easier this battle grows.

That was in part the reason Scully and I left the Resistance. We need time to remember how to live, to find out who we have become after all this. I would like to think we are unchanged, but of course we are not. It will never be "the way it was." But I do believe it can be better. We are going to prove to anyone and everyone that there is life beyond war and survival and hate. I'll settle if we can prove it to ourselves.

She is my wife now.

I am more in love with her each time I wake up beside her, each time we touch. That will never change no matter what else around us does.

Further change will, inevitably, come. I know this, though right now the world and its uncertainty seems so far away. Someday we'll leave this secret place and go back to trying to save the world. Someday, but not yet. Now is a time to live, not to kill.

This is not to say our lives are perfect. The guilt remains a constant, threaded through every day and every thought. The past remains an ever-present ghost in our mind. We still wake in screams, some nights, from the nightmares. The important thing is that we do not wake up alone, anymore. I hold her hand when she sees Pavlov or Nicolas inside her head. She wraps her arms around me when I hear the screams of the men I've killed. Until I die, I will live with those screams. With the knowledge of what I have done. That cannot be changed.

But ask me about the future, and that's a different story.

I'll be your Don Quixote once again, little sis. I'll believe every impossible thing and hold on tight to every impossible dream. We'll take off, you and me, and tear down every windmill in the land. Only we won't just knock them down. We'll load them up with dynamite and blow those suckers sky high.

You and me, Sam.

You and me.

Always and forever, your loving brother,

Fox.

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finis.

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to read this story and come on this little journey with me. It has truly been a pleasure to write and I hope it has been the same for those of you who have read. If you have any questions, comments, or other thoughts, I would be delighted to hear them. My inbox is always open at clone347@aol.com Feedback is worshipped with candles and Mulder clones :)

One more round of applause to Suzanna, Lixy, and Do, the Beta-Angels who helped me turn this story from incoherence to fiction. ::claps enthusiastically::

Thank you all for reading.

darkstar