A Path Of Salt --Book I
By Analise
analise@2cowherd.net

Category:T,X,MSR

Rating:R 

Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Fox and 1013. No
disrespect intended.

Note: I hate tacking long speeches onto these things, so I'll just 
thank Craig for lending an objective eye and Meredith, for lending an 
eagle eye.

 +++++

There is a unique imprint that any one person in your life will leave
on your own experiences. An imprint that somehow shapes the way your
life flows..decisions you make, paths you choose. Something that
remains grafted onto your soul.

Of course, that can be said for nearly every event in your life. My
sister was taken, hence I spent the rest of my adult life looking for
her. That most certainly influenced the roads I chose to walk, but I
think, no -I believe- that there is a difference between the events
that you have no control over and the events you choose to
deliberately shape your life. How can you tell the difference? You
just can. 

I could do nothing about my sister's abduction, that path was set
without my say...but in the case of SculIy, I deliberately chose to
let her insinuate herself into my heretofore one-dimensional
existence. I knew the consequences, the risks inherent in any
breakdown of the careful walls I'd built around my heart. It was a
conscious decision to simply open a door in the barrier that had never
been breached before. Why? Who the hell knows? Not me. All I do know
was that one day..there she was..on the wrong side of the wall.

She was that one soul who could lift me out of the enclosed maze I'd
been scurrying around in..lift me out and show me how much more there
was..how many ways there were to look at something, she opened up
entirely new avenues in my life. 

Cheesy, I know. Sounds like a hallmark card. What can you do? So paths
converge and diverge and meld to the influences of fate and will
within the context of a lifetime..but like I said, that imprint..it
exerts a force all it's own. A watermark on your heart.

And so I took and have taken paths that perhaps were wrong, made
decisions that changed my life and ultimately discovered..that after I
met Scully, her imprint was burned into me..into my actions and
thoughts..forever.

++++++

The rock seemed to ripple under the burden of the sun's passively
fierce attack. Waves of heat skimmed the top of the slickrock plains
in shimmering distortions of color and temperature. Here and there a
small patch of Prickly Pear cactus, defiantly green, crouched in the
cracks and dips of the sandstone..a lizard scampered on unconcerned
paper feet across hot stone..a parliament of ravens gathered and
swooped against the aching clarity of the reflection of blue sky.

Peter paused for a moment in his trek across the open face of the
burning anvil and lifted his hat to wipe his dripping forehead. One
hand slipped to his side to pull a half-full bottle of water from his
belt and he brought it to his mouth for a long pull. It was hot, but
still refreshing. As soon as he replaced the bottle, he was crouching
down, pulling his camera out of another pouch at his belt. A click and
he'd forever captured the sight of the irritated Rattler coiled and
basking a few feet away.

Grinning at the warning shake of the maracas he moved slowly away from
the snake..out of it's threat radius.. and then resumed his walk
towards the Mesa.

He was oddly eager to reach the top of that eponymously named 
butte..it remained the only area of the park that he'd never been to
in all his years as a ranger. He'd finally finagled some time off from
the Director,  packed up his gear, driven as deep as he could into the
Maze, parked and started hiking. Two days into the deep desert, and he
was starting to feel the addictive pull of the solitude that was one
of the hallmarks of such places. Hardly a living thing at all was out
here..especially now..walking in the heat of midday. It was easy to
believe that you were alone on the earth.

Even in the 100 degree heat, he grinned. Readjusting his pack, he
leapt down into a small wash, landing heavily in the deep sand. He
walked along the sandy bottom for a little while before he found a
good place to climb back out to the other side. He could just see
Pete's Mesa in the distance, looming like a fortress. The view from up
there would rival the one from The Island In The Sky overlook. Even if
it didn't, it would be worth it. He could say that he had been
everywhere in the park after this trip.

For whatever that was worth. 

He found a suitable ledge and he was about pull himself up and out of
the wash, when something white snagged in his periphery. Frowning, he
let his leg fall back to the sand and he moved slowly towards it. It
looked..like a coyote. 

Sort of.

Crouching down next to the form, he reached out to touch it. There was
not much left of it, but it was definitely a coyote. He could see the
remains of a scruffy coat.  Only problem was..it was not rotting. It
was not desiccated. It was completely ...alkali. His fingertips came
away from the corpse covered with a fine dusty white powder. Frowning,
he brought his fingers up to his nose. Salt. It smelled like salt.

He pulled his camera out, snapping a number of shots off...all the
while fighting a deep sense of wrongness. He had never heard of such a
thing in all his years in the desert. Never. It looked like the entire
body had been turned to salt. He could see where one leg had broken
off sometime in the past...and though he could still make out where
the bone was..the fleshy matter itself was nothing but coarse chalky
powder.

He reached into his pack to pull out the spare ziploc he used for
trash and he carefully placed a chunk of the coyote's crystallized leg
into it. He knew his trip was over. He would have to get out to the
Mesa some other time. He had to take this back. 

He felt excitement override the deep sense of discomfort the oddity
gave him. What if he had found some now lifeform..some new parasite or
organism?  Certainly there were hundreds and hundreds of species out
here that had never been catagorized...but something so drastically
different....how had no one ever run across something like this
before?.

He quickly marked the place on his tattered map so they would be able
to return with Ed, the park's staff researcher. He was certain he
would be able to find the place from the air.

Map noted, sample taken, photos snapped..he reluctantly turned away
from the odd corpse and started back the way he had come, dusting his
hands off on his pants as he went.

If he had examined the coyote's unfortunate body for a moment longer,
if he had been able to see the clumps that lay scattered around the
remains as more than simple dirt...he would have known to be afraid.

+++++CHAPTER ONE 

The ground was moving below him, shifting color and form in a
shapeless, distant sort of way. The grey rock of the mountains to the
green of the sub-alpine slopes to the yellow and brown of the plains
to the reds and oranges that made up the bare bones of the desert.

He barely saw any of it. His eyes stared sightlessly through the
window, his mind elsewhere. Every trailing thought in his head 
seemed to be tied and knotted to a single entity back the way he had
come. He could practically hear it, the unraveling sound his soul made
as it unspooled over the ever growing distance between him and DC.

Waxing poetic, Mulder..the first sign of insanity. Just ask Byron.

Chuckling humorlessly, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to
the cool of the sturdy plexiglass window at his right. This was
proving so much harder than he had thought it would be. He had left
her behind before...more than once. Each time he had done so it had
been with the firm belief that he was protecting her from something,
danger or boredom or simply the weight of his own problems. This time
was different in so many ways he could scarcely count them.

In the crystal window of his mind's eye he could still see her lying
tumbled in the sheets of her bed, hair tousled and cheeks pink with
the relaxation of slumber..dawnlight and the wet smell of the night's
rain spilling through the half-open windows. He had stood over the bed
for a long time, simply staring, committing to memory every detail of
the sight of her dormant strength, her steely vulnerability. It was a
vision that was only his, that she had gifted him with and it had been
perhaps the hardest thing he had ever had to do to turn away and walk
out.

"You ok buddy? You need the bag?" The pilot's voice startled him back
to the present. The bag? Oh, the airsick bag. He shook his head,
moving to sit all the way back in the co-pilots seat, letting his head
fall to the headrest..his gaze now studying the worn ceiling of the
small plane.

The vision of her sleeping form was replaced now with one of her
reading his note. What would she think? Would she rage? More likely
she would dip into that icy calm, her perfect lips thinning..blue eyes
hardening. The fragile, helpless sheet of paper inscribed with his
poorly written words would crumble under the steel of her fingers. She
would think he had ditched her. Again. Even after.

After. Yes. Especially after. She just might thank him for the
opportunity to step away and clear her mind of the tangles of morning
after regrets. He wanted her to be able to look back over the past
five years they had spent together and realize that it was a
culmination of everything that had happened to them. That last night
had been inevitable ... and that because of what they had always meant
to each other, his sudden departure should ultimately not matter.

He grimaced at his internal choice of words. They sounded weak and
pathetic even to him. Imagine how they would sound to her. 

The fact of the matter was that he had run away. He could hand out as
many explanations and cleverly forged notes of excuses as he wanted,
but it came down to the fact that he had made a deliberate choice to
leave in the way that he had. He had faced down flukemen and vampires
and dank, frozen alien ships, but it was all nothing compared to the
fear he felt at the thought of those blue eyes opening and reflecting
regret in their depths when they looked at him.

Coward.

Mulder pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. If he was going to
believe his own cover story when he got back, he'd better start living
it. He'd come out here to help a friend, not to run away from Scully.
Right? 

Sure buddy, whatever helps you sleep at night.  

Funny enough, it wasn't really the night they had spent in each
other's arms that was the crux of the thing..that alone just 
cemented it. It was everything that had been changed  two weeks 
earlier outside his apartment. He'd finally told her how he felt..he
had spoken out loud the words that had been a silent litany in his
head for years. The floor had *not* swallowed him up. Scully had *not*
mocked him or made a joke of it. She had *not* dismissed it or
discounted it. She had embraced it, she had drawn closer to him. 

He sighed out loud, of course, things could never be the same between
them again and it was so much more than the aborted kiss in his
hallway..so much more. That she had not pulled away, that she had
leaned into him, her hand on his neck, her eyes full and
burning...that might not have been enough on it's own. After all, they
had made an art out of ignoring the feelings that existed between
them. It was what had come after that that had, at least for him,
exposed exactly how he felt. 

It was the cold, hard fact that he would and did journey to the
literal end of the earth for her, to keep her...to save her. Pulling
her out of that place, what he had done and gone through to find
her..these were things that he had done without thinking. It was only
in retrospect that he was able to understand the impossibility of his
actions. It was amazing. And the way he had felt when she had been
lying under him..cold and unmoving in that frozen alien lair...he'd
known with crystal clarity how much she meant to him.

Almost two weeks passed after he'd come to that stunning realization,
and neither of them had spoken. Not in person, not on the phone, not
even via email. He grimaced silently to himself. Perhaps they had both
been hoping to wait out the storm. But then four days before they were
due to return to the X-files, yesterday, he'd gone for a run in the
late summer rain and hadn't stopped until he found himself standing in
front of her door well after the sun had set.

Dripping wet, the faintest of steam rising off of him in the
humidity.. standing in his own puddle of rainwater in her hall, he'd
felt uncertainty drain away as soon as she'd opened her door. She'd
stood in the doorway surrounded by a halo of light from her living
room lamp, dressed in a T-shirt and sweats, glasses perched on her
slim nose, red hair pulled back into a clip. All he saw were her eyes.

"Mulder." It was all she said. The two syllables had driven a thrill
down his spine. 

"Scully", his voice had been a harsh whisper. The book she'd been
holding slid to the floor, unnoticed. He'd stepped inside, pushed the
door closed behind him, their eyes remaining locked. 

It had been so simple, in the end.

She'd met him halfway, both their bodies moving in unison.  Mouth on
mouth, tongue on tongue, flesh on flesh.. they crushed together, his
soaked clothes drenching hers. She tasted just like he'd always
suspected.. heady and sweet, her hands on his damp skin like fire and
silk. And then she was gasping, pulling back..liquid blue eyes
searching for his hazel ones, small hands holding his face between
them.

They hadn't spoken for a long pregnant moment. The front of her
T-shirt was clinging damply to her body, her face was glistening wetly
from where his hair had dripped on her cheeks and brow.

"Mulder?" she'd asked softly, and again he'd savored the taste of that
word on her tongue, the way it sounded when she said it then, breathy
and heated...erotic. He'd never heard her say his name that way before
and he wanted to hear her say it again. He'd nodded, eyes burning into
hers, knowing what she was asking...wanting to reassure her. But it
had all been said. Over the years they had told each other everything
with a touch, a glance,a rare word here and there. It was all
accessible in the past, everything they needed. Programed, 
categorized, and easily referenced.

He'd placed one finger on her shapely lips and shook his head. 

The bed. Somehow they'd made it into her bedroom, falling to the
mattress, mouths first feeding on each others and then exploring new
territory.  The taste of her skin, the smell of her arousal, the feel
of her hands stroking his back, his flanks, curling around the hard,
heavy muscle that pressed between them. Sweat sliding, bodies
grinding, mouths sucking..it had been as passionate and heady and
ecstatic as anything he had ever fantasized. Their joined bodies had
fallen into a rhythm as natural as any give and take they'd ever
experienced together..as if they had been making love for years. 

Afterwards they'd curled together, tears and sweat and silent words
mingling together ..clinging to their skin like perfume. Still not
speaking, simply stroking and holding..and they'd fallen
asleep..together. 

Finally together.

A smile tugged at his mouth as he opened his eyes again, returning his
gaze sightlessly to the window. There had been so many things that he
wanted to say to her, but he'd ended up saying nothing at all. 

Other than each other's names, they'd still not spoken since Skinner
had put them on forced sick leave two weeks ago. Was that irony? He
wasn't sure. 

A change in the sound of the engine alerted him that the small plane
seemed to be descending.

He watched the ground draw closer, seeing the sparkling blue of a
large body of water to his left, nestled amidst the barren red rocks
of the desert. Lake? His lips thinned in self condemnation at the
sight of his destination. What the hell was he doing here? He was a
thousand miles away from where he was supposed to be right now. What
in god's name had he been thinking to leave like that?

It had been before dawn when he'd heard the unmistakable sound of his
cellular's muffled ringing from the folds of his coat out in the
living room. Scully had been a deliciously warm weight in his arms,
their bodies twined together, sheets wrapped and twisted around them.
He'd been watching her sleep, wondering what he would say when she
opened those blue eyes. He didn't know what *she* was going to say and
frankly, it scared him. 

More than anything else, he was terrified of seeing regret painted
softly, apologetically on her face..of hearing her say words like
'shouldn't have happened' and 'mistake'. 

The phone had been an excuse to get up and distance himself from that
fear.

A voice out of his past. One from so far back, he hadn't even known
who it was until she'd told him her name. Memories of high school prom
and secret stolen moments under the bleachers..things that he'd left
behind him so long ago they were like memories in a scrapbook. Images
of your face and body doing things that no longer held meaning. Paths
abandoned and forgotten. 

Kelly Larson. Tall blond tomboy. Best friend and first love.  He'd not
kept up with anyone from back home. After High School he had
completely distanced himself from Chilmark and everything about it.
Oxford had been part of that. how better to escape than going to the
other side of the ocean?  And so he'd not known that she'd become a
park ranger in the southeastern desert of Utah. Until that early
morning phone call. 

Emergency, Kelly had pleaded. Please help, she had begged. She knew he
was with the FBI..he was the only one she could turn to right now..the
only one she could trust. No more would she tell him over the phone. 

And somehow, somewhen, he had agreed to help a woman he hadn't seen or
heard from in 18 years...standing nude in Scully's living room.

He ran away. See Mulder Run. He could have woken her and asked her if
she wanted to come..knowing that she would. Or he could have sat down
on the side of the bed and told her up front that he was scared. It
was not that things had happened too fast, it was that they had
happened too slowly and there was too much at stake. He didn't want
anything to wreck either the fragile new strands of the bond they had
spun last night or the incredible creature that was their partnership.
It had just taken them too long to get this far.  She would have
understood.

But those options would have meant he would have had to wake her. And
that was what he was most scared of.

Coward.

The plane bounced snapped him out of his reverie. Once, twice more
they jolted and then they were rolling along a red dirt strip. He'd
arrived. 

He opened the door of the plane and was hit with a blast of
furnace-like heat that seemed to sear his skin to his skeleton. The
pilot was shutting down the plane, the engines going from a high
pitched whine to a lower, slower gait and then fading into silence.
Hopping out of the aircraft, Mulder took in his surroundings,
astounded.

He had paid not one whit of attention to the landscape he'd flown
over, had not even really thought once about where he was going and
why. All he'd thought about was what he was running from, what he'd
left behind. Now he was standing in an alien land on the edge of a
short cliff overlooking an enormous lake. Uneven sheer red rock walls
seemed to be surrounding the water on every side, bordering the deep
blue with a dark orange hue. It was surreal looking..all that water
and all that red rock. Not a tree or a plant in sight. Far out on the
lake he could see the white spray kicked up by a water-skier, could
hear the distant echoing roar of the motorboat's engine. Overhead a
pair of ravens circled, black brush strokes against the brilliance of
the desert sky.

"That's Powell." The pilot said from behind him, coming up to stand
next to Mulder. He felt a moist tickling on his spine and realized he
was already sweating. He quickly shucked his leather jacket, stripping
down to just his white T-shirt. "It stretches down this canyon for
about 90 miles." He said, pointing south. "This is the northern end of
it."

Mulder looked at the man for the first time since he'd boarded the
tiny Cessna in Grand Junction. He was a small man, brown as a nut with
dark, dark hair so black it was almost blue. Perhaps in his 40s,
Native American..he looked Navajo, or maybe Hopi. He grinned at Mulder
then, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin.

"Name's Harold Paivuta, but you can call me Harry." He said. Mulder
nodded, returning his gaze to the lake.

"Ok Harry. Maybe you can tell me why I'm here." Mulder asked softly
without taking his eyes off the water-skier. The question had numerous
levels, but Harry only heard the one.

The small man pursed his lips, his dark eyes seeming to size up the
federal agent.

"That I can't tell you." Pulling a bag of pumpkin seeds out of his
front pocket, he tapped a handful out and offered the flat white
teardrops to Mulder. When the dark-haired agent refused, he put one
between his lips and cracked. "My thought is that you're going into
the Maze, stupid as that may be this time of year.." He said, spitting
the salty husk into his hand. "We flew over part of her when we came
in. You might have seen it. It's a maze of canyon systems..a real
honest-to-god labyrinth. " 

Mulder hadn't seen a damned thing he'd been staring at the entire
journey, much less the last leg. His lips twisted wryly.

"Maze? That's part of the National Park?" he guessed.

"Yup. Canyonlands. Kelly..the lady that arranged for me to pick you up
in G.J., is a ranger for Canyonlands... and this is Hite Crossing.
There's nothing out here except the only real entrance to the Maze by
vehicle. So unless you're planning on going boating, I have to assume
that's why you're here." 

Mulder shrugged. Not really. He was here because he was afraid of the
future. 

"So why is it 'stupid' to go in there this time of year?" he asked,
his face expressionless.

"It's too hot, for one. Even the lizards hide in August. But
heat exhaustion isn't the real threat. Right around now is flash flood
season. You get stuck down in a canyon when one of those ragers comes
through, you might as well get ready to meet your maker. Nowhere to
run." He grinned a little ghoulishly at Mulder. "Best part is that
you'll never know it's coming. The worst floods start miles and miles
away. It might be a clear blue sky with no hint of rain and suddenly
-wham!- you're 30 feet underwater." He spit a shell out emphatically.
"It's best to just stay the hell out of the canyons in August."

"I'll keep that in mind.." Mulder said, frowning.

"Yeah, you do that. The weather report said that scattered
thundershowers were likely this weekend."

It seemed hard to believe, looking at the blaring blue sky overhead,
the bone dry rock surrounding them.

Harry glanced sidelong at him, one black eyebrow tilted up.

"You some kinda police?" he asked, punctuating the last word by
snapping a seed open between his teeth.

Mulder turned to him, a question on his lips. Harry only gestured to
his back to make him realize that he had exposed his weapon when he'd
taken off his jacket. 

Foolish. How many mistakes was he going to make today?

The sound of tires crunching on rock behind them stalled any reply
Mulder might have made. They turned to see a mint green bronco with
the seal of the Park Service pulling up the hill towards the strip
where the plane sat.

"There she is. Perfect timing." Harry said. He turned to look up at
Mulder with suddenly all-seeing eyes. "Don't worry son. You'll figure
it all out. Besides, I can think of worse ways to spend time then
heading into the Maze with her." He jerked his thumb at the bronco and
winked. "Just don't shoot anything." Grinning, the small man trotted
out to meet the newcomer.

A tall woman in a park ranger's uniform topped with a worn brown
baseball cap replete with NPS seal was striding across the strip
towards them, raising her hand in greeting. Harry met her halfway, a
huge grin on his face. Staying where he was, Mulder watched the pair
exchange a friendly greeting, a few quiet sentences, and then Harry
was moving briskly towards his plane. The small man glanced back at
Mulder and raised his arm in farewell before he climbed into the pilot
seat.

Looking at Kelly as she approached, he recognized little of the
fearless 18 year old he had known in her face. This woman was afraid
of something. He could practically smell the cloying odor of panic on
her, even though outwardly, she seemed calm and smiling.

The true fear he sensed on her shut the door he'd stepped through,
shut it firmly behind him. There was no going back now. He had chosen
this route, he had to see it through to the end now. He would just
have to hope that Scully wasn't too mad, he thought with an internal
wince. 

His face turned back towards Harry and the Cessna, and a moment later
the plane was hurtling down the runway.. taking his last chance to go
back to that dawnlit room with it.

+++++++
She awoke slowly, languidly stretching her body under the sheets,
feeling the warmth of the morning sun caress her face. She felt heavy
and peaceful, a sensation that seemed almost alien to her. 

Certainly since she'd been pulled from that frozen ship she'd gotten
little sleep..her dreams plagued with nightmares of a green tinged
ice, feelings of every part of her being invaded, devoured by cold.
The only thing that had chased the night phantoms away were thoughts
of a single thing. Mulder's face was the last image she'd had had to
cling to before waking up gasping like a dying fish on the icy floor
of a nightmare...and he'd been the only beacon in a soup of inky fear.
Awake, heart pounding, she would close her eyes and remember his eyes
when he told her the things that she had somehow always known, but
never really believed. He needed her. The pain in his regard had
pierced her heart. 

So close, they had come so close to finalizing their feelings with
action, and then it had all been ripped away. He had brought it back
last night, she thought with a smile. Had brought it back with an
exclamation point.  One arm slid sleepily across the rumpled cotton,
searching for the heated silk that was his skin. 

She found only a pillow and a crackling that spoke of paper.

Frowning, she opened her eyes, pushing her hair out of her face with
one hand and levering herself up onto an elbow. Slender fingers found
the rectangle of notepaper and she tilted it up, her forehead wrinkled
slightly as she read it.

Scully, 
I hope you can forgive me for this, but I had to go. I got a call from
an old friend this morning and she needs my help. I think it would be
best anyway if we both took a moment apart to come to grips with what
happened last night, I don't want to mess this up. Trust me, I'll be
back as soon as I can, Mulder.

She stared at it in disbelief for an eternity. He'd..*ditched* her. 

After what had happened last night, he'd gone and done it again. She
was stunned for a long moment, simply looking at the strong black
marks that passed for his handwriting.. and then she sat up, the
covers falling away from her body. She crumpled up the note and flung
it at the wall with all the strength she possessed.

Damn him! He had run away. She pushed herself out of the bed, pulling
her discarded T-shirt over her head and stalking out into the living
room. There, sitting on her coffee table like a Monolith with a
Message, was Mulder's cell phone.

 It was as if he was trying to tell her that he would be out of 
reach. All the anger flowed out of her abruptly and she sank to the
couch, staring at it. Slumping back onto the cushions she closed her
eyes, collecting herself.

Think, Dana. How do you handle this? How do you *ever* handle it when
he leaves you? You sit, you fume, you wait for his call..the call
that's the signal that he's ready for you to come and rescue him. But
this time there would be no call.

 She sat forward again, rubbing her face, crossing her arms and 
leaning on her knees. She stared at the phone like it was a cross
between an oracle with all the answers and a steaming pile of vomit.

After a moment she got up and walked into the bedroom to retrieve the
crumpled note. Spreading it out as best she could, she returned to the
couch and scanned the words again. 'come to grips', 'don't want to
mess this up'. She sighed. She could *just* see the edges of his
twisted reasoning.

It had been five years of repressed feelings for both of them. There
had been reasons for that repression..real ones. The job, their
enemies...but the reason that mattered, the one that had truly kept
them apart had been their own closed off hearts. If they had anything
in common, it was the 'hands off' signs they wore on their feelings.
Feelings were not things to be shared, they were things to be hidden,
locked away and secreted..lest weakness was shown. 

Last night they had finally edged opened the heavy doors that they'd
unlocked in the weeks before outside his apartment. It had been an
agonizing two-week limbo.. both aching to take the last step and both
too shuttered to risk exposing themselves first.

Seeing Mulder outside her door last night ..it had been as if all the
walls had crumbled into ash before her very eyes. He'd stood there,
staring at her with a banked fire smouldering in those hazel depths. 

Just looking at him, water dripping from soaked hair , his shirt
plastered to his body..she had felt every suppressed desire and
emotion she had fought down for five years welling up to the surface,
threatening to overwhelm her. 

And for the first time, she'd let those dark waters close over her
head. She would not smile over the memory, not in front of the phone,
no matter how good the sex had been. 

Mulder's phone.

This was the same man who periodically forgot she even existed and ran
off into the netherlands without so much as 'see ya'. And after last
night...after last night, he had done it again.

She felt her anger start to well up again. Selfish prick. She was
taken with the sudden urge to throw his phone out the window..to smash
it against the wall and then shove the remains down her garbage
disposal. 

-Ring-

She almost jumped. For a second she was convinced that it was Mulder's
phone that was ringing, so intensely had she been staring at it.
Staring it down.

It was hers. She leaned across the couch and brought it to her ear
almost fiercely. It better not be him or she would ...

"Hello?"

Ah, her mother. She refused to feel disappointed, letting her mom go
on and on until she reached her point.

"Tara's giving Matthew a birthday party?"

It was difficult to concentrate with Mulder's phone staring at her
like that.

No. No she wasn't going after him.

"Isn't he a little young for that sort of thing?" she asked. Oh, it
was to be a mothers-and-babies kind of party. Wouldn't that be
glorious. Lots of be-childrened women asking her why she hadn't
settled down yet and had some babies of her own. She didn't think she
could take that, actually. Normality made her awkward, not to mention
how it would make her feel to be around all those babies.

She glanced up to see the phone again. Her brow lowered.

Somewhere in her mind, she sighed.

"Uh, I can't mom. Mulder and I are going out of town on a case." 

I'm just a few steps behind him, she thought grimly.


++++++++CHAPTER TWO 


Late afternoon sun streaming down into the empty gym, dust motes
floating in the light. The smooth, crisp sound of pages turning under
her fingers. Distantly she could hear students in the hallway,
laughing, joking..their voices echoing faintly off the high ceiling of
the enormous room. 

She resettled her long legs, folding them under her, wincing as her
sneaker squeaked loudly against the polished wood floor. Biting her
lip against the unwelcome noise, she folded her body back against the
wall, lowering her head back into her book.

"What're you doing down there?" 

The voice nearly made her scream in startlement. Wide green eyes
glanced up from under the curtain of blond hair and rested on a lanky
boy peering down at her where she sat under the bleachers. He held a
basketball loosely under one arm. The sunlight seemed to silhouette
him and she couldn't see his features clearly. 

"Reading", she'd said, annoyed that her privacy had been forsaken.
He'd grunted non-commitally, flipping a length of dark bangs back from
his forehead with an impatient jerk of his head. 

"I can see that.." he said, his voice still uninflected..like he
couldn't care less what she was doing. "Why aren't you out making
merry with the populace?" he asked. "You know..homecoming..all that
glorious school spirit?"

She refrained from wrinkling her nose in disgust, it was a habit she'd
worked hard to cease.

"Because it's lame. Why aren't you out there if it's so great?" she
hated her words. She sounded like an idiot. Her lips firmed and her
fingers tightened on her book. She would just have to go somewhere
else to read.

"What're you reading?" he asked, leaning one arm up on one of the
bleacher slats, the ball still loosely cradled against his hip.

Why couldn't he just go away? She'd come in here because she'd known
that no one would be in here. 

"Stranger In A Strange Land" she said tightly..waiting for the
recrimination simply because she was reading on her free time. She
still couldn't see his face, but he suddenly dropped the basketball,
bouncing it up and down a couple of times against his palm..the sound
echoing like gunshots in the empty gym.

"Wanna play?"

She'd looked up at him in surprise, finally adjusting her eyes enough
to recognize him. That odd Mulder kid. He was always off by himself
somewhere..and she'd taken note of the fact that he seemed to dislike
his peers almost as much as she did. No, dislike was too strong a
word. Distanced herself from them. That was more appropriate. 

"You don't mind getting your ass kicked by a girl?" she'd said, the
beginnings of a grin starting on her face as she pushed up to her
feet. Ducking under the bleachers and standing upright, she found it
oddly comforting that he was almost as tall as she was. There were few
boys in school who were, and her height had often drawn ridicule. 

"If you think you can kick it." he said, mouth softening just a touch.
Not a smile, but an acceptance of sorts. There was a challenge in his
eyes. She had the choice just then to accept it or go back to her
book. 

She'd snatched the ball out of his hands and walked out onto the
court.

--

A long time ago, she thought wryly, a distant smile in a face
dominated by serious, sad, green eyes. Funny that she could still
remember it so clearly..all the way down to the musty smell that had
always permeated the high school gym. The road curved sharply and she
snapped her attention back to the black pavement, hauling the vehicle
around the sweeping corner, barely letting up on the accelerator.

She'd won the game that day, and somehow they'd become inseparable for
the rest of their high school years. How was it that they had not
spoken one word to each other since then? Was he still the same
person?

She'd practically flown the bronco from the Canyonlands Ranger station
down to Hite Crossing..afraid she was going to be late. Afraid that he
hadn't come. Afraid he would leave if she wasn't there. She knew it
was dangerous to pin so much hope on him..to expect his presence to
make everything better, but he was the only one who could help her
now. 

Her eyes had fluttered to the rear view mirror a number of times on
the drive, half-expecting to see someone following her..unlikely as
that would be. She'd left Needles early enough that no one would
question where she was going..and Lee was covering her shifts at
Upheaval Dome for the next few days. Hopefully it wouldn't take that
long. Hopefully the Director would not notice her absence.

Pulling up the rocky slope, she saw that Harry's plane had already
landed..but that there were two figures standing at the edge of the
lake, looking out over the water. It was him. He still had the same
posture..the same body language. Relaxed, outwardly calm...but
underneath so easy to snap to passion.

Harry trotted out to meet her, leaving the tall, dark-haired man
standing alone..hazel eyes boring into her from 15 feet away.

"Kell.." he grinned. She smiled down at the small Hopi man. 

"Harry..thank you so much for bringing him out here. I owe you big."

He eyed her, she could tell that he was suspicious of this entire
thing. She knew that he was fully aware that she could have had the
Park Service plane that was stationed at Needles fly this stranger out
here.

"Who is he?" he asked. Kelly bit her lip, shaking her head. She
couldn't bring him in on this just yet. She hadn't told him about
Jake's disappearance. If she did he would insist on helping..and his
involvement might tip off the director.

"I can't tell you. Later, but not now." she pleaded, her eyes begging
him to trust her.

He stared at her for a moment and then slowly nodded. She could tell
that he already had a pretty good idea forming. He wasn't stupid, and
he'd always had a sixth sense about these sort of things.

"Ok, Kell...but you know where to find me. I might just be stopping
back at Needles in a day or two..and I want a few answers. Otherwise I
might have to go and find those answers myself." 

It wasn't a threat...more of a promise. She smiled, a forced thing
that seemed to sit on her face like an alien creature. Harry saw right
through it. He nodded grimly, then he turned to the figure who still
stood at a distance and raised his hand in farewell. One more long
look at Kelly and he was striding towards his plane without a backward
glance.

She felt her pulse pounding a little harder than normal as she turned
towards the man who'd shaped so much of who she was now. As corny as
it sounded, she'd always carried Fox Mulder in a special part of her
heart. They been each others only friends in high school. A
relationship first formed out of lonliness and then later, love. He
had been brilliant, intense, relentless..and she'd known even then
that he could never be for her.

She had married Jake almost 9 years ago and she loved her husband
dearly, but there had been more than a few days in her life when she'd
wistfully wondered what it would have been like if she had said yes to
Fox Mulder back at the side of that moonlit lake. She had loved him in
that all-consuming way that only inexperienced teenagers can manage,
and she had thought at that time that the sun rose and set on her
tall, gawky 18 year old boyfriend. Even with all that, she had always
been a level-headed girl and when he had handed her that ring the
summer after graduation, she had tearfully refused. 

Her intuition had told her even then that he would burn her out. He
was like a live flame..beautiful to look at but hot to the touch.

She didn't regret her refusal to this day. But still. It was so easy
to play the 'what if' game. It was a safe, silly little thing to
do..and when the subject was as compelling as her old boyfriend had
been..well. She smiled a little, smoothing a strand of blond hair and
tucking it up into the cap. She was allowed a little vanity, after
all, she was 18 years older now. What would he think?

As she drew nearer she saw immediately that the years had not dulled
his brilliance or his draw, his hazel eyes were still burning with
that same banked fire. No longer a teenager, he had gone from a youth
with promise showing in his growing limbs to a sleek bodied, handsome
man. Even dressed as he was in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, he
carried himself with the confidence and assurity of an adult who had
seen a great deal. Anyone who did not know him might think that those
deceptively sleepy hazel eyes seemed passive, subdued. She knew
better. Somehow, now that he had come, she felt her fear start to ease
a little.

"Fox" she said softly, stopping in front of him, looking at him,
letting him look at her. "It's so good to see you." Her voice was full
of relief she did not try to hide.

 Watching his eyes, she knew immediately that he didn't trust her. He
had used to, she knew. Trust was so very important to him. And his
mistrust did not spring from some foolish boy's long-ago bruised ego,
it had an entirely different source. One that she sensed she could
never understand.

"Kelly" he said, his eyes searching hers like he was pointing a
spotlight into her soul. She shifted uncomfortably under his regard.
What was he looking for? "What's wrong? Why couldn't you talk on the
phone?" Was that a touch of bitterness she heard in his voice? What
had she pulled him from?

It was not like she'd expected him to fling himself into her arms or
any such girlish nonsense, but a part of her was stung by the
callousness of his attitude. Perhaps he had changed a great deal more
than she had thought at first.

"So that's it?" she asked, looking up at him with cool hurt in her
eyes. "Straight to business? Don't you want to know how I've been all
these years?"

He was silent for a moment and then his face softened just a tad. He
pulled her into a brief embrace and then set her back from him,
looking down at her. They'd been of a height in high school,
apparently he'd continued to grow.

"How have you been all these years Kell?" he asked, one corner of his
mouth twitching, the skin around his eyes crinkling just a touch.

She felt relief flood her body.

"Fine, Fox. I've been fine. Married, you know. You? What have you been
doing with yourself?" she answered softly, feeling more at ease with
the reassurance that it really was the same Fox. His eyes still seemed
shuttered, though his smile remained.

"Oh you know. The usual. Government conspiracies, goatsuckers, aliens,
mutants .. just day to day stuff." He quipped. She snorted with
laughter. Goatsuckers..where did he come up with that stuff?

"You haven't changed." 

His mouth twisted a little.

"Oh, I think you're wrong there." He said quietly. "Look, Kelly, what
is it? Why did you call me?" Her face grew serious as he reached a
hand up to brush his forehead clear of the beaded sweat that dripped
there. Enough banter then.

"Fox..the reason I called you..I didn't know who else to turn to. I
know you're in the FBI and I thought maybe you would be the only one
who could help me."

"Why not go through regular channels?" he asked. "We're all one big
happy government here." He said, a trace of bitterness in his voice.

She looked reluctant to speak for a moment, and then she took a deep
breath.

"I'm not so sure I can trust channels," she said in a low voice.
"Something terrible is happening, Fox..and I think that CNP..or at
least the Park Director is a part of it." She looked up cautiously at
the man beside her, expecting disbelief or at the very least, tolerant
condescension. She saw neither. He was looking at her, waiting for her
to go on. Emboldened, she did.

"About a month or so ago, a ranger disappeared in the deep desert area
of the park..the Maze. That's not too unusual in and of
itself...believe it or not, we actually lose a fair number of hikers
out there. It's really dangerous country..so easy to die." Her voice
caught a little as she thought of Jake and she struggled to regain her
composure. No. she had to get this out, only once she was sure that
Fox would help her would she have the small luxury of breaking down.

"But this was Peter Kleivert. He's one of the best desert rangers in
the country. He lives and breathes it. We called him half-lizard,
half-cactus. When we found him he was ..it was like..he was turned to
salt..." her voice was hushed as she remembered the sight of her
friend's body. It hadn't looked real but for the t-shirt she'd given
him for his birthday a year before that still fluttered in shreds
around his limbs.

"Turned to salt...like Lot's Wife?" Fox asked. She looked at him and
she was a little startled by the sudden, avid interest in his eyes.

"I don't know about that...but he was crumbling and ..so white. His
body looked like it was made up of grainy chalk." She pulled her lower
lip up under her teeth, waiting for him to dismiss her outright. 

He gestured for her to go on.

"Well, we..the rangers..we wanted an explanation. We were scared. We
wanted to investigate his death, at the very least get the law
enforcement involved. The Director wouldn't allow it. He wanted to
keep it quiet. Revenue has been very poor for Canyonlands National
Park..we just don't get the traffic that the other big parks do. He
didn't want to do anything that would scare people away." She shook
her head, looking out at the water as a pair of jet skiers went past,
the wakes splashing up against the base of the cliff they sat on. The
breeze off the lake was warm and dry, but it helped take the edge off
the heat.

"We complained and those of us who were most vocal were fired on
trumped up charges..drummed not just out of Canyonlands, but the
entire Park Service. So we shut up." she swallowed. 

"Peter didn't have any family to protest too loudly beyond us and we
were ordered to turn the body over to a military base in New Mexico.
Director Wexler didn't answer any of our questions." She sighed and
closed her eyes. "When I quietly checked on my own with the New Mexico
base, they said they'd never received any body...even though we'd
turned him over to military men."

"Anyway..we, that is, my husband Jake and two other rangers, we talked
about secretly calling in the FBI, someone federal and out of
state..but..if the Director was involved, we couldn't go through
channels...and if we don't go through channels--" 

"--No one federal will touch you.." Fox finished.

"Well, I knew that you were in the FBI, but I wasn't sure that you
would be able to help. I mentioned you to the others and we agreed
that you might be an option. A last resort. It wasn't until three days
ago..when my husband Jake went out into the Maze to find a few answers
of his own..that I determined to contact you."

"Your husband.." Fox was looking at her, sympathy etched in his
features. She nodded, her throat suddenly closing. After a long
moment, she forced the words past the lump.

"He's vanished. He had a radio with him to keep in contact with us,
but a day ago, he stopped sending the signal that told us that he was
ok. We went out looking, but we found nothing. We didn't want to send
out official searches because the Director had specifically told all
the rangers not to patrol the Maze..for our own safety of course. He
even blocked it off to tourists." her words were bitter. "Jake wasn't
supposed to be out there. That's when I decided to call you. I don't
know what you can do, but ..but..it has to be more than we can. You
have resources, investigative skills..you -"

He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She glanced at him again
and the look in his expressive eyes helped a large weight lift from
her back.

"I'll do what I can." He said softly. "And you don't know Jake's ended
up like the others..there's still hope. If there's anything that I've
learned so far, there's always hope."

She looked at him for a long moment then, feeling her eyes burning
with anxiety and gratitude.

"Thanks Fox." She whispered. "Somehow I knew that I could count on
you. I didn't know where else to turn." He nodded, and she caught a
glimpse of his eyes for a split second. They looked somehow 
regretfully.
And then he was leaning down to pick up his bag and sling it over his
shoulder, leaving her to think she'd imagined it.

"So now what, Ranger Kelly?" he asked, looking around him, hands on
hips squinting into the glare of the sun. She started towards her
bronco, dusting off the rear of her beige ranger uniform as she
walked. 

"We can't go to Director Wexler yet. We have to find out what killed
Klieve and bring back proof. Otherwise, I suspect that whatever the
Director is involved in...will clean itself up. So first, we go into
the Maze."

"I thought you said it was blocked off.." he grinned.

"I know lots of ways around that.." she smiled.

Of course.

+++++
Hard footfalls echoed in the metallic hall as he headed for the
elevator, two of his men in tow. A moment later he emerged from the
artificial cool of the lab into the blazing heat of the summer desert.
A flick of his hand and the men stopped where they were, letting him
continue on alone.

He walked all the way to the edge of the mesa, not very far, and
pulled out the satellite phone. A quick glance around told him that
there was no one to hear him.

"Yes?" The voice on the other end of the line was cold. He wondered
which one he was speaking to only briefly before deciding he couldn't
care less. They were all the same creature.

"This is Perel. No progress." his voice was raspy in its attempt to
be quiet in the dry air.

"Do you recommend Plan B?" the voice was only mildly interested. It
helped to know that this was only one of the lesser projects. Lesser
pressure.

"Give it another day or two. We might turn it up."

"It can't be allowed to be discovered. I don't have to tell you that,
do I?"

Perel shook his head.

"No"

"You have your instructions. You know as well as we do that the
project is a failure. It needs to be terminated as soon as the
organism is found."

"Of course. What do you want us to do with the scientists?"

"They've produced a failed project, wasting 10 years of time and
money. What do you think?"

"That's what I thought." Perel's voice was almost predatory with
anticipation.

"Good to know we're on the same page. I assume you have the
capabilities to carry out Plan B?"

"Yeah, we do." He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes caressing the
four matte black Apache Longbow attack helicopters that crouched under
a massive rock outcrop on the mesa. Beyond them, covered with a desert
camo net, were several large crates. His mouth curled at the sight.

"Very well. We'll give you 48 hours to find the thing. Find it, kill
it and clear out the Lab.  Failing that, you are authorized for a full
clean-up. We want no trace of Lab Fifty-eight remaining and nothing of
the failed organism left for anyone to be able to pick through."

"Understood."

The line went dead and Commander Perel slipped the phone back into his
pocket with a nod to himself.

48 hours. Good, he worked well under deadlines.


++++CHAPTER THREE


It's hard, Scully, he thought to himself. Hard to describe this to
you. He squinted through the polished smoke of his sunglasses at the
amazing vista that spread before him. 

Stretching out underneath the dome of brilliant cerulean sky, lay a
heat-shimmering ocean of rock. Waves of multicolored sandstone seemed
to ripple, crest and swirl around him in an unceasing frozen moment of
geologic time. 

The bronco had traversed across the stone sand dunes, guided only by
the occasional piles of broken stones that marked the 'road'. Those
piles seemed be the only thing tying them to the world..the only
things that kept him from thinking they were simply driving across
untracked territory into nothingness.

It was so alien out here, like nothing he had ever seen. Where there
weren't miles of barren rock, there was only the occasional stunted
tree..Juniper and Pinion, both species looking like something you
might see in a fantasy artist's paintings. They were twisted and bone
dry, yet somehow still showing green in their needles. There were the
odd, spiky yucca plants...a leafy cactus that looked like a massive
green sea urchin and was as tall as a man's chest. Canyons, invisible
until you came up on them, fell away in sheer drop-offs of hundreds of
feet; deep sand washes snaked through the rock, washes that would mire
the tires of the bronco; and the odd, rock goblins and hoodoos..
formations caused by wind and water that seemed to watch them from
ridges and buttes. This was not the desert of the westerns he'd
watched as a kid, nor was this the desert of Lawrence's Arabs. This
was a land of stone and heat.

And it's hot Scully. Really, really hot. 'Africa hot'.

Kelly had pulled the bronco off the 'road' for a light lunch and
parked it near a spot of shade roughly the size of a Xerox machine. It
was all they could find on the slickrock mesa they were navigating.
According to the thermometer built into her watch, it was almost 120
degrees in their patch of shade. Way, way too hot.

Underneath a twisted juniper tree, he sat and looked out over a deep
canyon that snaked through the arid sandstone landscape in a jagged
tear. He had long ago shed his T-shirt, soaked it in water and wrapped
it around his head. It had dried out some time ago, but he kept it on
just to keep the sun off his scalp...his dark hair only soaked up the
heat. Kelly had offered him a pair of her husband's shorts and sandals
that she'd had stowed in the truck and he'd eagerly changed into them.
It hadn't helped a great deal, but he was more comfortable.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, he told himself that he was
glad that he hadn't dragged Scully along with him into this. Her fair
skin would crisp up like fried chicken out here in less than 10
minutes, he thought. I bet we could time it. 

Kelly appeared at his side, moving to sit at the edge of the canyon
and setting a water bottle and a bag of trail mix down next to her.

"I'm sorry I didn't prepare you more for this, Fox. I wasn't thinking.
At least there's enough of Jake's stuff in the car to minimally outfit
you. Here," she pointed at the trailmix, "sit, drink, eat."

He followed her lead and sat, dangling his legs over the edge.

"So, where are we?" he asked, peering down into the depths of the
canyon they sat over.

Kelly took a swig of water from the bottle and dipped her hand into
the bag of dried fruit and nuts.

"Well, down there is Rock Canyon." She grinned a little sheepishly at
Mulder, handing him the water. "Yeah, I know, not very imaginative.
But the guys who named these places were either prospectors or
surveyors. Those romantic explorer-types only name the big grand
stuff." She pointed up in a north-easterly direction. "We're going to
follow this rim for a bit 'til we get to dead-horse pass. That's where
some old uranium miners cut a mule trail into the side of the
canyon..we'll be able to drive the bronco down it, but I warn you now
that it'll be a little hairy."

"So long as you watch the road." He quipped, throwing a handful of
gorp into his mouth. "You start to check your make-up in the rear view
mirror and I'm driving."

She smiled, but he could see that she was still too worried about her
husband to take humor in full stride. He could understand. He knew how
it felt in that dark pit of worry and fear..he'd been there a couple
of times himself.

"So, that's where we'll descend into the Maze itself." She was
continuing. "From there it gets complicated. Lets just say that I know
where I'm going. We're going to have to go on foot
tomorrow..impassable for vehicles. It'll be a hike of about two days
before we get to the place where Klieve was found. It's where Jake was
headed. He has the map Klieve was writing on, but I remember the basic
area. It's the real thing out there, Fox." She said, looking him up
and down. "I'll help you all I can, but I have to warn you that the
desert has an effect on most people. Especially when it's as hot as
this."

"What kind of effect? If you mean a lot of sweating, I've noticed that
already."  Her lips twitched a little.

"Seriously. It's more than just heatstroke. It's something..the lack
of shade, the isolation, the mirages.. it tears down mental barriers.
Emotions rise to the surface. I've seen experienced rangers just break
down and cry after 6 or 7 hours of hiking on the anvil."

"Anvil? Were all the good names taken up?" He grimaced.

"It's the open sandstone. It traps heat, soaks it up, intensifies it.
For shade, we're going to try and hike in the canyons themselves as
much as possible,even as dangerous as that will be this time of year
with all the flooding. We'll have to do some cross-country on the
anvil when we start to get near the Cryptogamic fields."

"Dare I ask what that is?" he grinned.

"Crypto is this living dirt." She said, looking around her suddenly
like she'd lost something. "Well, not dirt..it just looks like dirt.
But its actually an organism that's similar to lichen and fungi." she
stopped, her eyes finding what she was looking for. 

"Here," she said, getting up and leaving the Juniper's shade to walk a
few feet away next to the base of a large yucca plant. Mulder got up
and crouched down to see what she was pointing at, he could feel the
sun searing his bare shoulders. There was some dark lumpy looking loam
near the roots of the cactus. "This stuff grows very slowly, this
little patch here is probably over 70 years old."

She moved back into the shade, Mulder following her gratefully, even a
few moments in the direct sun was hard.

"Remind me not to ask anymore questions, Ranger Larson." He teased.

She glanced at her watch suddenly, her smile fading. "We really have
to get moving." Kelly's face was grim as she scooped up the water and
the gorp and headed back to the bronco at a trot.

Mulder sat at the edge of the canyon for a moment longer, trying to
wrap his brain around what he knew and didn't know. As far as he was
concerned, it sounded like there was something loose out here. Animal,
chemical..that he didn't know. Something that the government, or at
least the Park, didn't want anyone to know about. It was the only
thing that fit. There was a dead ranger, missing before a proper
autopsy could be performed and it looked like the Park Service
management was trying to cover something up, possibly in cahoots with
the military. 

There was a chance that this was localized..that the government (or
that unnamed group within the structure of the government) was not
involved and this was only Canyonlands' internal coverup..but somehow
he didn't think so.

Thing was, it had only started recently. Last month, if that ranger
was the first incident. What did that mean? He needed more
information. He needed ..Scully. He felt naked without her.

He got to his feet and adjusted the T-shirt on his head before
stepping out into the direct sun again. This was a mistake..coming out
here without her... his mind whispered. He could see Kelly waiting for
him in the bronco, the engine was already going.  Odd. I've gone off
without her before..many times. Why is this time so different? 

Climbing into the truck there was no answer for him. Not that he
needed one. He knew the answer. It's because I'd never admitted to
myself that I loved you before. That's what's different. How could I
walk away from that?

This time, he had nothing to say to himself. He just didn't know.

++++

Harold Paivuta was just finishing up. He squeezed the last of the
water out of the sponge and gave the wing a final swipe. He stepped
back to admire his handiwork. Beautiful. He glanced at his watch.
Good, plenty of time to make it to the softball game. 

He'd decided on the flight back not to worry about Kelly and what she
was up to. Worrying changed nothing, did nothing except give you
ulcers. She could take care of herself. But just in case, he'd fly
down to Needles tomorrow and ask Tiny what the hell was up. He'd know.

He ducked under the wing of his Cessna, whistling tunelessly to
himself as he scooped up his bag from where it lay next to the front
wheel. Peering inside the cockpit of his plane, he checked to make
sure that neither he nor his quiet passenger had left anything behind.
Satisfied, he turned and started across the hanger floor towards the
office. It had been early when he'd left this morning, but the heat of
the Grand Junction summer day was already seeping into the large metal
and concrete space.

"Mr. Paivuta?" The voice was behind him and he swung around, stopping.
A small,slender woman with a short sleek cap of red hair was coming
towards him, a no-nonsense expression on her beautiful heart-shaped
face.

"Yes?" he asked, one eyebrow raising. She stopped in front of him, and
he was struck momentarily by the intensity of the blue eyes that
drilled into him. One narrow hand reached into her slim fitting suit
jacket and pulled out a badge. FBI. He tilted his head to one side,
looking at the ID as he wiped his hands dry on his pants.

"What can I do for you, Special Agent Scully?" he asked, folding his
arms and waiting.

"I'm looking for someone. Security told me you might be able to help."
She said, reaching into her jacket again. He already knew who he was
going to see when she handed him the photo. He grinned at the image of
the dark-haired young man with the intense sleepy eyes, nodding.  He'd
seen the gun the man carried, taken note of the quiet confidence he
carried it with. He'd thought the man a policeman, now he suspected he
was a federal agent..just like the beautiful woman in front of him.

"I just got back from taking him to Lake Powell." He said, returning
the photo. He caught a flash of triumph in the woman's face and
something else..relief?

"Can you tell me more? Where, specifically, was he going? It's
imperative that I ask him some questions." She said, tucking the photo
back where it belonged. He scratched his head, contemplating the woman
before him. After a moment, he nodded. 

"I took him to the Hite Landing strip. It was a favor I a friend of
mine. She asked me to meet the man here and take him to Hite. I did.
As for where they were going, that I don't know..but like I told him,
I suspect that they were going into the Maze."

"Maze?" Special Agent Scully seemed skeptical. "What's that?"

"It's one of the three districts in Canyonlands. Out of the three it's
the one no one goes to because there are no real trails, no real
roads..no real access. I don't have the faintest idea why they would
head that way, unless it was just for fun. Although this is a bad, hot
time of year to do anything out there that could come close to being
termed 'fun'."

She nodded, her little cupids bow mouth pursing.

"So there would be no way to know where they were if they went in
there?" she asked.

"Unless she was in touch with the other park rangers." Harry surmised.
"They tend to stay in contact when they go out into the outback." He
was silent a moment, staring at the small woman thoughtfully. "If you
expect to find him, you can't go in by yourself. You'd get lost in
about..oooh..five, no,... make that two minutes." He grinned, holding 
up two fingers. "Unless you have some sort of homing beacon sewn into 
his collar."

One of her eyebrows raised sharply and he wondered if perhaps she
hadn't already considered that. He scratched his chin for a moment,
staring at her and weighing facts. Looking at her face, seeing through
the placid expression, he could see the frustrated anger and
consternation lurking there, too powerful to hide. He'd always been
quick, and he suddenly put a few things together. Sad, mopey,
thoughtful man on his plane..not sure why he was going where he was
going. Intense, tenacious woman in front of him..certain she needed to
find him. Seeing the woman's expression, he suddenly knew why Kelly
had gone in with the Fed. It had to be Jake. Jake must have gone
missing like Klieve had. Shit.

"You wanna have a seat?" he said suddenly, gesturing towards the small
pilot's lounge. She moved after him, her lovely face thoughtfully
cautious, allowing him to lead her into the tiny room and set her on
the ugly brown vinyl couch. He went to the water cooler and filled a
small paper cup with some water, handing it to her wordlessly.

She drank the entire thing and then leveled a measuring stare at him.
It was a stare that he figured most guys would shift uncomfortably
under..he just stared back. He thought he knew what she was about to
ask him. Good. It was the perfect opportunity to get back to Needles
and see if he was right about Jake.

"Sure" he said. This would be the chance to get some answers of his
own. She raised those perfectly curved eyebrows at him again.

"Sure? Sure what, Mr. Paivuta?" she asked, setting the paper cup
aside. "I haven't asked you anything."

"Sure, I'll take you out there." He said. " I know the Maze pretty
damned well, and if you've got the money and know how to play poker,
there's a helicopter I know of that we can rent at the ranger station
out there at the Needles Outpost landing strip." He nodded as if to
himself. She was still staring at him.

"What makes you think that I was going to request your services?" she
asked, her mouth curling slowly into a small mona lisa smile.

"Call it a hunch. Let's just say that I've been around the block a few
times and that I know a lovesick guy when I see one." He grinned.

Her eyes hooded as she sat back into the couch and looked at him. The
only things moving on her were her fingertips tapping ever so gently
on her bag.

"I'm not sure what that comment means, Mr. Pa-"

"Harry, please. Everyone calls me Harry."

"Harry." She amended. "I don't know what you think you know about this
situation, but I can assure you that it's none of your business." She
quirked one brow up a tiny notch and then demurely reached into her
purse for her visa card. "That said, thank you very much for your
offer. And, for the record, the man in question does not get
'lovesick'." She let her mouth relax into a genuine smile.

Taking her card, he stood up.

"If you say so." His face told her that he didn't believe it for a
minute.

"I think it will be my pleasure doing business with you, Special Agent
Scully.." he sketched a tiny bow, his black eyes twinkling. "I hope
you know what you're getting into here. The deep desert is no place to
be this time of year." He said, suddenly thinking of Klieve.

"Well," she said, standing. "I'm not planning on waiting till winter."


+++++++++++++CHAPTER FOUR


He had never considered himself afraid of heights, but when the bronco
crested the last small rise before the descent into the canyon and
stopped right on the edge, he thought that he might perhaps be
changing his mind sometime soon. 

Like *now*. 

Kelly opened the door and swung out on the sideboard, squinting north
into the sunlight.

"What?" he leaned over to her side of the car, trying to see what she
was looking for. Hopefully the elevator.

"I'm just checking for thunderheads." she said. "We really don't want
to go down there if it's raining in the north." He remembered what
Harry had told him about floods then and he peered back through the
windshield at the narrow deep canyon they were about to go into.

"Isn't there another road we can take if this is so dangerous?" he
asked hopefully.

She slid back into the car and slammed the door, grinning at him. 

"Nope. This is the only way. We have to drive in this canyon for about
8 miles before we come up and out the other side. Don't worry. The sky
is clear out there, which is where this particular canyon's drainage
starts. We won't have to worry about flooding because we'll be up and
out of this slot before we stop tonight."

Mulder was only moderately reassured when she started the bronc back
up and eased it over the side. They slowed to a crawl, tilting forward
at a 45 degree angle downwards..giving him a perfect view of a 400
foot drop straight down.

Jeezus..

"Kelly?" he asked, his voice making an attempt not to be breathless.

"Don't worry Fox. I've done this a few times before. The road is
perfectly safe. It's been around since the 1800's." she grinned over
at him. He slowly brought one hand up to clutch at the handle over the
door.

"And that comment is supposed to make me feel..*better*?" he squeaked
as the bronco began to inch its way down the tilting, rocky track.
He'd done plenty of reckless, dangerous things in his life, but this
time he wasn't the one in the driver's seat. It was unnerving.

The road was perhaps just a foot or so wider than the car, a sheer
drop just inches away from his door. He studiously kept his eyes on
the shelf in front of them, declining to notice the cliff. He was
trying desperately not to close his eyes. Not in front of the girl. 

The engine was grinding along in low gear, Kelly riding the clutch and
the brake as she eased the big bronco down the slope. The sound of the
tires snapping sandstone shards was making him jumpy..imagining the
rock beneath them crumbling away.

"Just stare straight ahead Fox. Try and think of something else."
Kelly said, not taking her eyes off the road. "Tell me about your
job." she suggested helpfully.

Mulder grimaced. Yeah, there was a topic for discussion. Alien ships,
virus carrying bees, pancreas-eating mutants..where to start?

"I'm with the X-files division," he gritted as the entire truck tilted
precariously towards the drop-off. When it returned to a semi-level
state, he went on. "We investigate cases that the FBI has closed
because they are simply unexplainable."

"If they're unexplainable, what can *you* do with them?" One eyebrow
was quirked in a manner that suddenly made him miss his partner very
much.

"They're cases that are closed because conventional methods have
proved unsuccessful. We simply apply more..liberal thinking, and more
often than not, we achieve success. We have an almost 80% solve rate."

"I take it that's good?"

Mulder tried to grin, but it came off looking like a death mask.

"Yeah. That's good." he said.

She was quiet for a long moment and glancing at her, he could 
just tell what she was going to ask next.

"Did you ever find her?" she asked finally.

"I don't..know." he finally said, the words grinding out of his soul.
He had not been able to believe the woman that cancerous bastard had
brought him was really Sam.

Kelly had always known when not to push..and which subjects were
usually off-limits. She changed back to a safer line.

"So, at the FBI, are you the boss? Do you run the show?" she asked, a
small smile on her face that told him she was letting him off the
hook. He accepted it gratefully. He did not want to talk about
Samantha right now.

"No." He said without hesitation, even though he *was* technically the
senior agent. "It's just me and my partner. We're basically equals."

"Basically?" The truck heaved itself over a large rock, scraping
itself against the side of the cliff. He risked a peek over the side
and quickly retrained his eyes out the front. Bad idea. That's a
really long way down.

"She might be a little more equal than me." he said. 

That's when they both heard the innocuous cracking sound. 

It seemed to vibrate through the truck and Kelly hit the brakes,
listening. No sooner did she stop the car, then another mighty
cracking sound shook through them. Mulder grabbed at the steering
wheel as the truck suddenly and forcefully dropped to the right,
tilting dizzily. He didn't have to look out the window to know what
had happened. The supporting shelf the road was blasted out of had
collapsed underneath them.

He moved wide, shocked eyes up towards Kelly, who was pale as a sheet,
staring over his shoulder out the window behind him. In turn, he was
staring past her at the bending whining metal that was the side view
mirror stand where it was caught on a jutting rock. It looked to be
the only thing that was keeping the car from making a slow, silent
tumble into the abyss below.

"Kelly." his voice was quiet, little above a whisper. "Don't open your
door. We're going to have to get out through your window." She nodded,
a tiny movement of her chin. The only sound in the truck was their
breathing and the scraping, squealing sound of metal on rock.

Very slowly, her teeth clenched in fear, she reached out her window
and grabbed onto an outcropping of rock. She could see how the truck
was clinging to the cliffside by the tiny metal thread of the mirror.
Trying not to touch the truck itself, she pulled herself up and out of
the open window with sheer upper arm strength, acutely aware of every
sound the bronco made.

She was out.

He watched her find a firm foothold and then her hand was stretching
out for him to grab. He fixated on her palm, her fingertips..the
whorls and patterns of the lines etched there.  It took a long moment
before he could convince his fingers to uncurl from the steering wheel
he had grabbed what seemed like eons ago. Slowly, slowly he began to
inch his way up the car towards her window, towards the lifeline of
her outstretched hand.

The bronco began to squeal like a living thing, shaking ever so
slightly..and he could literally 'feel' gravity twining its tentacles 
around the car..tugging.

Pulling.

Gritting his jaw so hard he thought his teeth would splinter..his eyes
stinging from the sweat that was pouring from his brow, he took a deep
breath and reached out with one smooth motion to grab Kelly's
outstretched fingers.

No sooner had he grabbed onto her hand than the entire vehicle
shuddered. There was a tiny snapping noise..such a small noise..and
suddenly the mass of the car simply fell away from his body in a great
whoosh of air. He felt the door scrape his stomach as the truck
plummetted, his only lifeline the strength of Kelly's arm... leaving
him dangling and twisting and gasping in midair.

The world seemed to lurch into slow motion. The entirety of his field
of view seemed to be taken up by the sight of Kelly's slim fingers
grasping his..white with tension.

One breath. Two.

His foot swung and scraped the rock wall for purchase, scrabbling for
any kind of support. Panic was crawling up his throat, his heart
seemed to have stopped but for the horrible pounding in his ears.

He could see the tendons popping in her neck as she grabbed onto his
wrist with her other arm and slowly, pulled him closer to the remains
of the road. Her breath was a wheezing whistle as she fought with
gravity for possession of his body. His flailing arm caught on a rock
frantically, grabbing it so hard he felt a fingernail peel back like
tinfoil. And then he was clinging to the solidity of the earth,
feeling the warmth of the dirt, pushing himself as close as possible
to the far rock wall.  Time snapped back into motion and a moment
later the smashing sound of two tons of metal hitting the rocks below
echoed up through the canyon with a thundering crash.

They both inched away from the gaping hole where the road had fallen
away and, clinging to each other, they sank, trembling to the dirt.

It was a long while before either of them could speak over the
cacophony of their own heartbeats. The sun sank a few more inches in
the sky, turkey vultures soared effortlessly in the hot updrafts, and
blood dripped slowly from his finger, kicking up tiny puffs of dust.

"Perfectly safe?" Mulder croaked finally, one eye sliding sideways to
look at her. She just shook her head weakly, still unable to talk.
They sat in the dust of the road for almost 10 more minutes without
another word passing between them before Mulder finally moved to
inspect where the road had fallen away.

Crawling on his belly, still weak from the retreat of the adrenalin
rush, he leaned over the edge, scanning for the truck. He finally
spotted it far below, lying upside-down in the dry river bed of Rock
Canyon. It hadn't exploded, he noted a little offhandedly. So much for
the movies. His eyes returned to the empty space where the road used
to be, amazed that they had managed to survive.

Suddenly, his gaze caught on something. Frowning, he hung over the
side a bit, snagging the object with his fingers and pulling it up
into view.

"What is it?" Kelly asked, her voice still thin from the shock that
had gripped her.

He held it up for her to see. She frowned and pushed herself to her
feet to come closer.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked. Mulder's face was carefully
blank, but inside his thoughts were churning around the implications
of what he held.

She took the length of fuse line from his fingers and examined it.

"It's new." Mulder said. "Smell it. It's even been lit recently."

She lifted it to her nose and he watched her nostrils flare
delicately. There was real fear in her eyes now.

"Someone weakened this rock with explosives?" she asked, her voice
faint.

"Looks that way to me. I'd say they intended whoever drove over that
spot next to take the express elevator down."

"Then I was right. Someone really is covering something up out here."
she said. And this road is old..it wouldn't be questioned if it were
to collapse." She seemed to suddenly be on the verge of tears. "If
there are more of these traps out here, Jake would have likely
stumbled onto one--"

Mulder cut her off.

"Don't talk like that. You can't just assume he's dead. After all, we
survived." He stood on shaky legs and took the fuse wire from her,
tucking it into his pocket. "I'll send this back to the lab once we
get out of here. It could be a good lead to who put it here."

"Fox," she said quietly, looking at him. "There's a really good chance
we won't get out of here without a car. We have no water, no gear. The
desert isn't like the woods...it's so very easy to die out here if
you're not prepared. And we definitely fall into that category."

He gave her a grin.

"Kelly, if a day comes along where I'm not in a situation where I
might 'very easily die', I'll worry." he said. She gave a weak smile.

"You joke, but it's true." she said, sighing. "The first thing we have
to do is go down and see if we can salvage anything at all from the
Bronco. Even one water bottle might make the difference. And since it
doesn't look like it exploded, we can probably get the sleeping bags
out.." she trailed off, tapping her teeth with a fingernail. She
looked at Mulder and nodded. 

"Ok, lets go." She let her eyes stop on his bare shoulders. "You'd
better put that shirt back on, Fox. If you get burned, this is going
to be extra hard for you."

We wouldn't want that.

He pulled the shirt over his head and settled it onto his back.

"Lead on Ranger Larson." he spread his arm out in front of her.

They started the long descent into the canyon even as the sun started
to slowly set in the west.

++++

++++++CHAPTER FIVE

The sun was just touching the line of the horizon as Scully set one
sneakered foot down onto the hard packed clay of the landing strip at
Needles Outpost.  The sound of the propeller faded from a high whine
to a slower chop and then fell silent. She pulled her bag from behind
the seat and squinted across the glare of the runway at a couple of
small wooden buildings set amongst a tiny colony of trailers.

She'd been travelling all day, but she didn't feel any closer to
tracking her errant partner down than she had this morning. She'd had
the last call in to Mulder's phone traced and discovered that it had
come from this very place. Needles Outpost. But from what she had
since learned, this was not the place she needed to be. 

Patience, Dana, she told herself. He'll be just as easy to kill
tomorrow as he would have been today.

Harry came around the front of the plane, gesturing for her to follow
him across the heat-baked distance towards the clump of buildings.
'Needles Outpost' was painted in white on a large clapboard sign
nailed to the front of what now looked like a small general store.

"This privately owned outpost is just off National Park Lands." Harry
explained to her as they trudged through the blazing heat, the rays of
the setting sun seeming to sear into the left side of her face. He
pointed into the west and through the blinding light she could just
make out a long low building with a parking lot around it about a half
mile away. "That's the Canyonlands Park Headquarters right there."

Scully glanced around her a little skeptically.

"And where do I sleep tonight? Is there some kind of hotel?" she
asked..a little afraid of the answer.

"Nah. Don't worry. I've got a friend we can crash with tonight. Same
guy who owns that copter I was talking about renting." He gestured
back towards the strip and she saw a small multi-colored chopper
sitting amongst the 2 other planes parked on the runway.

"We won't be imposing?" she asked, following the small man as he
trotted up the wide, railroad tie steps to the general store.

"Nah." he said again. "Tiny doesn't care."

She gave a mental shrug and pushed through the swinging screen door
after him.

The general store looked like a study in organized chaos. Uneven
shelves lined the walls and clustered in unsteady lines in the center
of the floor covered with everything from insect repellent to Doritos
to tent stakes. Old peeling photographs of what looked like early
shots of the park dotted the walls accompanying posters, maps and
postcards of desert scenery. Behind a counter nearly hidden against
the far wall sat an amazingly obese man, most of his face covered with
a grey and brown ZZ Top beard.

"Harry! You short little motherFUCker! What the HELL are you doing in
my store?!" the man roared, coming to his feet. Dana jumped a little,
her hand almost instinctively clutching the bag she had stowed her
firearm in.

Harry's mouth stretched into a grin that nearly covered his face.

"I've come to collect all that money you owe me, Tiny." he said,
walking towards the moving mountain.

"Money? Harry my poor boy, clearly you've been flying at too high an
altitude again. I seem to recall paying you back in full the last time
I saw you."

They clasped forearms and Scully let her hand relax. She watched the
big man's small eyes drift over Harry's shoulder to land on her.

"Who's this? Did you finally sucker some poor woman into actually
spending time with you?" Tiny boomed, his big hands slapping down on
the counter so he could lean forward and peer at her, his gaze raking
her from head to toe.

"At least she's your size.."

Unoffended, she folded her arms and stared back, giving him her best
sarcastic "like what you see?" look. After a moment of failing to
intimidate her, he sat back into his chair, the wood groaning in
protest. A grin had split his monstrous beard.

"Tiny, this is Special Agent Dana Scully. She's with the FBI." Harry
said, chuckling at the silent standoff he'd just witnessed.

"FBI?" The big man seemed little impressed, in fact, he seemed
suspicious as he reached one finger up to scratch at his eyebrow.
"What are you doing out here in the sticks, Fed?"

"Actually, it's ..not an official matter." She said, stepping forward.
"I'd prefer it if you referred to me by my name and not my title while
I'm here."

"Ok, Mizz Scully. What is it you're here for? With him? Not vacation,
surely."

"She's looking for someone. I think he's gone into the maze with
Kelly." Harry said, diverting his attention to the postcard rack,
spinning it as he pretended to look at the cards. "We were hoping to
rent your chopper tomorrow." Harry risked a glance at his friend.

"My baby? You?" The big man chortled. "Not even if you suddenly
sprouted horns and a tail and claimed you were the devil himself."

"It's not like you fly it." Harry grumbled, but Scully noted that he
didn't seem particularly put off. She suspected this was some sort of
age old ritual between the pair.

"Tell you what, chief..We'll play for it tonight. I assume that you
will be staying with me?" he asked.

"Both of us..if it's not a problem." Harry said.

"Do you play poker? For money?" Tiny turned his gaze onto Scully. She
smiled. In her sleep she could strip these fools to their underwear
playing poker.

"I've played before." she said demurely. "I'm not very good." she
amended, enjoying the predatory look that suddenly gleamed in the
large man's eyes.

"We'll go easy on you." Tiny chuckled. Suddenly he heaved himself up
from his chair and came around the counter. Moving to the door, he
pulled a key down from over the sill and lumbered outside, flipping
the sign on the door to CLOSED as he passed. "Come on. We'll head over
now. I'll invite some of the guys. It'll be like old times." he said.
Harry and Scully followed him.

"Not quite the same.." Harry muttered. The big man's eyes flickered
back at the pilot.

"Yeah. Not quite." he agreed solemnly. Scully noted the exchange with
veiled interest, but did not pry. 

They were on the slanted porch outside the store when a round little
man with a wide-brimmed ranger's hat and a dark brown mustache came up
the path. He paused at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the
trio, one foot on the first step.

"Harry." He said, a smile on his face. "I thought that was your plane.
How have you been?"

Dana watched every muscle in Harry's body seem to go on alert.

"Director Wexler. I've been fine." he paused for a moment as he saw
that the little man was looking at Scully. "This is .. Dana. Old
friend from college." he nodded as if to himself. "I thought I would
borrow Tiny's chopper and fly her over the Needles District
towmorrow."

The little man was quiet for only a moment, but Dana could just hear
the gears turning. She said nothing, letting Harry spin his tale. She
wasn't sure she understood, but for now she'd play along.

"Sounds nice..be sure not to go below the proper altitude. Don't want
to kick up too much dust now." 

"Of course." Harry said, his grin so clearly false that Scully was
sure she could chip it off his face if she wanted to.

"Don't forget the flight restrictions over the Maze..." Wexler said
mildly. Scully could see those beady eyes were much sharper than she
had at first thought.

"I won't" Harry said, nodding.

"Tiny.." The Director nodded at the storekeeper. Tiny barely inclined
his chin in acknowledgment. Then the round man turned to Dana and
smiled. "Have a nice stay in Canyonlands, miss."

And he was gone.

"Sniffin' around.." Tiny grumbled as he led the pair down the steps
and around behind the store.

Harry glanced at the agent, noting her questioning gaze.

"College friend?" she asked. 

"One of the rangers was found dead in the Maze about a month ago." he
began. "The Director ordered that no one go into the Maze until we got
the mystery sorted out."

Scully frowned.

"I didn't know you'd worked for the Park Service, Harry." she said,
moving down the steps into the dusk of the desert evening.

"I did. Not any more." he said, his usually cheerful voice suddenly
grim. "But," his tone picked up again, albeit a little forced, "I
still hang around with these losers."

"Jake's been gone for three days now. No word." Tiny said suddenly.
Harry seemed to go pale. So it was as he'd suspected.

"She wouldn't tell me..but I figured it out.." Harry said, his voice
quiet.

The big man nodded solemnly. They were approaching a double-wide low
slung trailer. Faded plastic pink flamingos decorated the dirt in
front of the door and a couple of dead heat-baked rosebushes flanked
the entrance. Quaint, Scully thought dryly.

"He went out to Pete's Mesa." Tiny continued, pulling open the screen
door and pushing inside.

"I knew it...damn him. What was he hoping to find?"

"Looking. You know what happened with Klieve's body.." he seemed about
to say more, but stopped when he remembered that Scully was there.

In silence he pointed to the double set of couches against the fake
wood paneling of the walls. A TV, a small PC in the corner and a big
table occupied the bulk of the living area. "Go ahead and throw your
stuff anywhere. Hopefully the couches will be good enough to sleep
on." he said, moving into the kitchen. "They're all I have for you."

"That'll be fine." Dana said, setting her bag down on the floor next
to the couch arm. Tiny was coming back into the living room with a six
pack of beer in one hand. He set it on the table and then sank into
one of the chairs, breathing heavily from the minor exertion of the
walk from the store. He seemed to be thinking furiously to himself,
his eyes flicking between Harry and Scully. Harry was watching him
back, and Dana just knew they were both debating whether they could
talk in front of her.

She solved the problem for them.

"Should I take a walk?" she asked bluntly. Harry looked at her and
then Tiny.

"The man she's looking for.." Harry began uncertainly, but seemed to
gain confidence as he went. "..He's the one that I flew out to Hite
this morning as a favor for Kelly."

Tiny said nothing, but he nodded slowly.

"She did it then. The man is FBI too, isn't he? He's the old friend
that she was talking about contacting." Harry nodded. "So," he
continued, his gaze fixing on Scully, "Why are *you* looking to go
after him?"

"He's my partner." Scully wasn't about to tell these men her life
story..which was what it would take to explain to them what Mulder was
to her.

"Why'd he leave you behind then?" Tiny asked, one eyebrow rising.

Good question. Too bad I can't answer that one.

"He probably thought he was protecting me." she said. "Why did Kelly
think she needed the FBI's help?"

And why did she go straight to Mulder instead of requesting him
through channels?

Another shared glance between the men, and then Tiny sighed.

"Look, we'll tell you, but we'll wait till Len and Terry get here.
It's kind of a long story, and it's pretty unlikely that you'll
believe it."

Try me, she thought. I highly doubt that you will be asking me to
believe anything that even comes close to the stuff Mulder asks me to
believe on a daily basis. 

She simply nodded, reaching out for one of the cold beers and moving
to perch on a chipped chair as Tiny set a well-worn deck of cards on 
the table..

All the sad, worried looks these two kept exchanging every time they
mentioned people going into the maze ..they were making her nervous.
Making her remember  other times that he'd run off and ditched her. It
was rare that he didn't somehow end up in a hospital. And it didn't
look like there were a lot of hospitals out here. Her gut was twisting
with worry.

And all she could do was play cards.

++++

The loss of the Bronco changed a lot more than just the fact that they
were on foot. It was now impossible to make it out of the canyon
before it got dark. And so, when they had come upon PeekaBoo Spring,
Kelly decided to call it a hike and camp. He could clearly see that
she was nervous and worried about the possibility of flooding, but
there was little they could do about it now. He had been utterly
exhausted by the time they reached the seep and he doubted he could
haul his sorry, sunburned ass one step further.

She'd given him a long look and asked him if he was a gambling man
before dropping her pack and pulling the empty bottles out. Cute.
They'd been looking for water all day and now she was telling him to
be afraid of it. 

Peekaboo Spring was the last spring they would pass that ran
year-round, so even with the flood  danger, at least they would have
fresh water. The spring itself was buried off the main canyon in a
tiny little side slot. A twisting narrow little rock hallway led off
the dry riverbed and dead-ended in a tiny round amphitheater that was
lush with green maidenfern. Water dripped out of the rock all around
the small circle and they'd filled their bottles and the one battered
cook pot to the brim.

They sat in the soft starlight of the narrow canyon, their sleeping
bags spread out, their tired, sunburned bodies sprawled on top of
them. They'd managed to salvage a large amount of Kelly's gear from
the ruined mass of twisted metal that had been the bronco, and she had
clearly gained some hope from that fact. 

"Jake loved coming out to the Maze alone just like Klieve did."
Kelly's soft voice broke the silence. They had just ravenously
devoured a meal of smashed crackers and hot soup, one of the
best-tasting meals he'd ever eaten. Hands down. "He'd come out by
himself just to regroup...to sort out problems or just to soak up the
solitude.

The  fear he heard in her voice was making him ache in 
empathy. He certainly understood that lonely dark place she was in at 
the moment.

"How did you meet?" he asked quietly, anxious to draw out some of the 
pain. Exorcise some of the worry.

"Out here..Canyonlands." He could hear a little smile in her voice 
now. "He was so..." she paused, as if unable to find the word she 
was looking for.

Unbidden, he flashed back on the day that his new-and-unwanted 
partner had bearded him in his den for the first time.

"Compelling?" Mulder offered.

"Yes. Compelling. I was drawn to him. He was so..competent, so 
capable. I was a rookie, fresh out of school..and he'd been a desert 
ranger for 5 years at that point. He seemed to epitomize everything 
that being a ranger was." She laughed softly,  a sound that seemed to 
bleed into the night. "He was assigned to take me out into the Maze 
for the first time. He left me out here for a day and a night with 
only an old topo map and a canteen of water. He wasn't supposed to, 
not according to regulations..but he wanted to see if I had the 
mettle to be a real desert rat."  

Mulder could see Kelly's profile in the starlight as she looked up 
into the sky, her eyes glistening with moisture in the dry night air.

He trained his own eyes up at the sky, his arms folded behind his
head, offhandedly marvelling at the unbelievable intensity of the 
stars out here. He'd never realized there were that many. He could 
hear the unshed tears in Kelly's voice as she spoke. She'd cried only 
once in the entire time he'd known her back then. The day that she 
had refused his proposal. That had been hard..he'd been so sure she 
was the one for him. Looking back now, he could see that Kelly had 
been so much wiser than he. She'd known somehow. 

He let her ramble about her husband..knowing that she didn't need him
to hear the words..knowing that she was conjuring memories for her own
benefit, to ease the fear and lonliness she felt.

"Oh god, I hope he's ok." she whispered, her voice breaking down 
suddenly.

"You can't give up hope. You just have to keep going." he said the
empty words softly.  He was on the verge of telling her about Scully's
missing three months..but couldn't bring himself to. The pain of those
endless days was too personal. Even now.

She was silent for a long while, her throat working as she struggled
not to cry. Finally she let her arm fall off her face and she looked
over at him, her eyes puffy in the starlight.

"Did you ever marry, Fox?" she asked.

Hmm, private territory, he thought.

"Didn't you hear? I married Lisa Marie Presley..it was in all the
papers." he said lightly.

Not even a smile. After a moment he let out a sigh.

"I did." he said, his voice flat. "But it didn't work out. We were
together maybe 8 months. It was a mistake. I was young. You were
smarter than I was back then. You always were."

"I wanted to say yes to you that day, Fox." her voice was soft. "More
than anything. But I knew..even then I knew that it would have
destroyed both of us. You need someone who will be able to ride that
line with you. I would have just held you back."

I just hold you back.

There it was again. That line. The same line Scully had used as an
excuse to leave him. He felt sudden anger brewing like a storm cloud
on the horizon as he snapped back to that moment when she had walked
out on him. When she had decided what was best for 'them' all by
herself.

"What the hell right do you have to say something like that? How do
you know what holds me back and what drives me forward?" he growled. 

He knew that in his mind's eye he wasn't talking to Kelly..there was 
a slender redhead in her place. "What makes you think you can just
decide the course of my life by assuming that you know my needs better
than I do?" He stopped abruptly, realizing what he was saying..and
that he was saying it to the wrong woman.

Kelly was staring at him, eyebrows raised. He held up a hand, shaking
his head.

"No. I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. I didn't mean any of
that." he said softly.

She was quiet for a heartbeat and then she cocked her head to one
side.

"No. You did mean that. But you weren't saying it to me .." she mused.
"Is that what your wife said to you?"

"My wi-?" he snorted. "God no."

"Then who?"

"My ...partner. She was going to quit the FBI..go be a doctor." he
murmured..the shock of that entire situation had not worn off. He
still remembered the wet ripping sound his heart had made when she had
walked out his door that night, leaving him behind.  He pinched the
bridge of his nose tightly. "She tried to tell me she was doing me a
favor." He looked up at her, but this time his smile was soft and
genuine. "Just like you told me all those years ago by the lake. Only
when you said it, you were telling the truth."

"So she didn't leave?" Kelly asked, twisting her body so that she
could reach the water bottle. She tossed it to him wordlessly. He took
a deep drink of the seep water, amazed at how good it was.

"No. Some ..things.. happened to change her mind." he said, unable to
refrain from smiling again. No way was he going to tell that story.

"How long have you been partners with her?" Kelly asked. He knew she
was trying to draw him out...trying to get her mind off her husband.
He obliged, albeit uncomfortably. Sharing his life was not something
he did naturally.

"Five years, going into six." he said.

"What's she like?" Kelly asked, her eyes flickering with genuine
curiosity. Her mind seemed to have thankfully skidded off the rutted 
path of worry she'd been mired in.  "What kind of woman joins the 
FBI? What kind of woman can be *your* partner for five years?" she 
teased softly, pulling her hair free of her ponytail and deftly 
setting to work braiding it.

"She's simply the best Agent the FBI has." he said, picturing her in
his minds eye. Unfortunately the image that came up was the last time
he'd seen her, pale naked limbs entwined in dawn kissed
sheets...rumpled apricot hair turned molten copper in the new sun. He
cleared his throat and immediately decided to change the subject, his
body suddenly, painfully awake.

"Too bad she's not here then.." Kelly said. 

Yeah. Too bad. If he kicked himself any more his ass would fall off.
He sighed. Definitely time to change the subject.

"Look, Kelly." he started, "About that fuse we found.."

She nodded, tying off the sleek braid and wrapping her arms around her
upraised knees. Her eyes were serious and frightened in the pale
starlight.

"I don't understand it, Fox. Why would anyone sabotage a 4-wheel drive
backroad that maybe 10 people in a month drive on total?"

"That fuse was freshly lit." He mused, thankful the spotlight was off
of his personal life. "It had to have been within the last month or so
that that rock was deliberately weakened. Are there any other roads
that lead towards this part of the park?"

"No. That's the only one. There are other ways into the Maze..through
the BLM and from the North near Hans Flat, but if you want to get in
to Pete's Mesa, you have to go down Dead Horse Pass."

"So we have to assume that we are on the right track then. Why else
would someone go to the trouble of booby-trapping a common-use road in
a National Park?"

Mulder pursed his lips. "I think it's pretty obvious that the Park
Service itself, or at least Canyonlands NPS headquarters is involved.
You said that they were the ones who ordered you not to look into
it...on pain of dismissal."

She nodded, her eyes serious.

"Director Wexler did. But Fox, he's practically unimpeachable. He's
been running Canyonlands for so long. His reputation is spotless."

"Well," he mused, "First we need some evidence of what they are doing
out here. You said that this area is never visited, that would make it
ideal for any sort of secret government testing ground. Biological,
chemical, I don't know. If it's some sort of virus we could be in 
big trouble out here."

"Do you think that's what it is?" she asked, her voice a little over a
whisper. Almost as if she were actually worried someone might overhear
out here.

"I don't know. I can't guess. My gut tells me that, yes, that's what's
happening out here...but in the past year I've learned not to leap to
conclusions quite so hastily. So far, all we've got is a fuse line
that probably points to sabotage. Beyond that it could be any
right-wing, or left-wing for that matter, group of extremists basing
out here. It could be the DOD, it could be the CDC for chrissakes. We
need more information." 

He let his eyes return up to the star-studded velvet of the sky. "Will
we be much closer to that mesa by tomorrow?" he asked.

"By tomorrow night we'll be up on the sandstone. It will be another 2
day cross-country walk before we'll be in the area. Hopefully we'll
run into Jake by then... " she said optimistically. Her hope sounded
flat to his ears. She didn't really believe that they were going to
find her husband. He couldn't argue with her. He didn't really believe
it either.

No more words passed between them. They lay on top of their sleeping
bags in the warmth of the night air and simply watched the stars in
shared silence. He knew where her mind was, it was looking inwards for
any trace of her husband in the long dusty hallways of memory.
Something to cling to for reassurance and comfort..a glance, a shared
touch, perhaps even a moment - preserved in glass like a tiny
vignette. Anything to hold to when you could feel a loved one slipping
away..out of time, out of mind..away from where they belonged.

Mulder let his eyes slide gently shut against the unmuted brilliance
of the sky. His own thoughts cycled helplessly back to the absence
from his own side that was like a gaping vacuum, drawing him into it
in search. Moments of his life seemed to glisten and plummet like the
tiny drops of water that fell from solid rock in their slow shower
across the canyon.

He saw her standing before him that first day, face open and so
young.."spy". 

Her silhouette as she held a gun on him, shot him, assured she was
doing the right thing. 

The moment when he felt his finger helplessly tightening on the
trigger of the weapon pointed at her, her expression full of fear, but
all for him. 

Her lovely face, eyes glistening and full of tears as she looked up at
him.. trust and love and regret shining in her gaze..their lips slowly
drawing together...


It was hard to say when his slow perusal of shared moments, that
infinite paging through the snapshot memories of their life, folded
into sleep. But he had drifted off thinking of her and somehow, in
that inimical way that dreams have of communicating..it became
something entirely other.

It had the flavor of a nightmare, shifting and moving in his mind on a
thousand clicking millipede's legs. It was a suffocating nothingness,
filling in the cracks of his consciousness with a dry crackling
hand..it seemed to engulf him, clogging his mouth, filling it with
musty, dusty fingers. And then he saw Scully's blue eyes peering at
him in the dark.. when he came closer, it was only her eyes. Her
beautiful eyes surrounded by a blackened, lumpy mass. A mass that
seemed to flow around him, filling his eyes, his nose, his mouth..air
ceased, he was gagging, his throat working helplessly--

--and he woke up with a deep gasping breath like a swimmer breaking
the surface.

He sat for a long moment, just gulping air, his hand almost
automatically searching for the gun he kept in the end table drawer by
his couch. His fingers buried in sand. The maze.

Right.

He was about to reach for the water bottle that sat between him and
Kelly, when one of the shadows beyond the ranger's sleeping
body..moved.

Gun, gun. He thought. Where had he put it? It was in his pack. He
remembered pulling it out of the wreckage of the bronco. His hand
fumbled behind him for an elusive zipper, his eyes searching the
night's shadows.

A soft clicking, almost a chitter seemed to fill the air with a
whisper of sound. It was as if a breeze had stirred the treetops. Only
there was no breeze, and there certainly were no treetops. Trying not
to let what would be anyone's natural reaction to the dark and the
unknown overwhelm him, he forced his hand into his pack, feeling for
the cool metal of his firearm.

His fingertips had just brushed it when the shadows slithered again.

Something that looked to be a piece of the night itself flowed from
thin air and engulfed Kelly. She awoke instantly, shrieking. It seemed
to be trying to devour her head..he vaguely made out limbs clinging to
her pale form.

Mulder pulled the gun out of his pack in a fluid motion, bringing it
to bear on what was now a moving mass of both Kelly and the ..whatever
it was. The chattering, clicking noise seemed to clog his
brain..making it difficult to think. An odor filled the air, thick
with must and ozone. He dared not take a shot.

He was about to fling himself bodily into the fray, when Kelly broke
away..kicking and gasping in terror. She seemed to be covered with
some kind of dark crumbling matter, she was choking and coughing it
out as she tried to crawl away from the thing.

A shot rang out.

Kelly rolled away, retching..her eyes bulging. The shadow was still
moving. He fired again. And again, frantically gesturing Kelly closer
to him as he backed away from the thing. It seemed to
falter..stumbling. Parts of it were falling away..and then, it simply
stopped. The unceasing chattering halted, filling the canyon with
silence once more.

He was still on his knees, his gun pointing at the now still mass of
shadows. Kelly was clinging to his T-shirt, still gagging. He noted
offhandedly that his arms were shaking.

"Kell?" he asked, refusing to look away from the thing. "Are you ok?"

She coughed violently for a long span, and then she was leaning
against him, nodding into his arm.

"I..I think so." Her voice was rough and gravely. "It was trying to
kill me."

Mulder shook his head, finally getting to his feet to move closer to
the thing. The moon was nearly in full view and the light it gave off
was almost bright enough to see by. Up close, the creature looked
almost human in form. It had two arms, two legs, a torso, a head...but
that was where the similarity ended. The body seemed to be made up of
a dark, crumbling substance. He crouched down as close as he dared to
the thing, studying what he could. Kelly had come to his side, peering
down at it, her breathing harsh.

"W-what is it?" she asked.

"It's not the Avon lady." He said, his grim voice belying his light
words. He looked down at the shaken blond. "I'd bet everything I've
got that *this* is what they don't want us to find."

Both their eyes returned to the dark mound of crusted shadows. Slowly,
a dark pool spread out from underneath the form..soaking into the dry,
dry sand.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Two Apache attack helicopters flew in loose companionship across the
night, only the faint hushed chop of their rotors set to silent
running could be heard as they skimmed the sandstone.

Kyle Hanson glanced back at the man who sat in the weapons cockpit
impassively as he expertly flew the attack craft, surrepticiously
watching him scan the ground through a set of infrared goggles even
though the Longbow they flew gave him infrared and radar on the
console in front of him.

"Anything Commander?" he asked through the headset, knowing the
answer. 

Perel did not even reply. They had been scouting the sandstone
surrounding the mesa almost the entire night. The sun would be up
soon. They had to find the thing. He only knew that it would be on an
animal, most likely..and that the animal would be acting strangely
from a distance. Up close, it would be completely covered with a black
crust. If the animal was dead white, it was too late, the organism had
generated spores and moved on. They had to find it on a living host
before it could migrate.

All of them felt the same urgency. If it did manage to make its way
out of the wilderness...the project would not only be over, but it
would expose the entire group that had funded it. And once exposed,
like flipping a rock over in the forest, all the crawling,
multi-legged creatures would be brought to light. Those that did not
scurry away fast enough would not be caught and held, they would be
stepped on.

Hanson himself did not understand a great deal about the organism, and
that was by his own choice. Plausible deniability were words to live
by, in his book. They were words that every last man involved in the
project lived by. Don't ask questions..not if you don't want to have
to live with what you know. 

He slept just fine at night, and he wanted to keep it that way. Not
that he was a sentimentalist by any stretch..but some of the assorted
projects he'd been assigned to over the years had come close to
horrifying even him. The less you knew, the better you could do your
job. 

What he did know was that the project was on a timer, counting down to
it's final hours. The scientists at the Lab were too boneheaded to
realize it...to look around and see what the men under Perel's command
were up to..to understand there was a deadline and their lives had
little to no value left to anyone. Soon, whether they found the thing
or not, he knew they would have to terminate every last researcher.

The thought did not bother Hanson. He'd been with this group long
enough to have participated in a Cleaning many times, it was the
number one reason he tried not to learn anything about any of the
projects he'd been on. It was why he was still alive.

He saw the uneven silhouettes of the Land Of Standing Rocks coming up
and he got ready to bank the chopper. 

"We're coming up on Standing Rocks." he told his Commander. "I'm
turning away."

There was no sound from the man. He knew as well as the pilot that
there was a chance of civilians near Standing Rocks, even with the
Maze blocked off..and they couldn't afford to be spotted during this
critical time. He also knew that those civilian lives, if they were
there, were expendable if they didn't find the thing soon.

"We'll find it." he muttered to himself.

Whatever the hell it was.

Probably another day at most. That was likely all they had before the
Men would order the area wiped. A major Clean up like that would be
nothing compared to what they would have to do if the organism escaped
the Maze.

Or so they said.

Hanson just didn't want to know why.

+++++