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

Category:T,X,MSR

Rating:R 

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

++++++++

Tiny's multi-colored chopper buzzed fast and low through the morning
air over a landscape that Scully would never have imagined existed
outside of photographs. Those glossy Technicolor shots of brilliantly
red rock against blue skies, streaks of yellow and brown and orange
and tan....they had never seemed real to her. It was almost like the
photographer had somehow altered the colors, painted them in. It just
didn't seem like they were images of real places.

But they were real. She was witnessing that for herself.

She glanced over to the pilot. Harry had been quiet most of the 
morning, and she didn't think it was because she now had nearly all 
of his spare cash tucked into her bag. It was the same acrid cloud of 
worry that she herself now sat in that kept him from chattering. The 
need to find his missing friends.

She turned her attention back to the ground as a massive canyon 
dropped away spectacularly from under the helicopter, easily 1500 
feet deep, a river glinting dully at the bottom. Tiers and tiers of 
different colored and textured layers of rock and sediment were 
exposed by the ancient river's endless grind through the stone

"That's the Colorado River herself" Harry yelled to her over the noise
of the rotors. "A few more miles down and she backs up into Lake
Powell. A few more after the dam and you have the Grand Canyon." he
grinned down at the amazing spectacle of the river's trench. "They
call the Mississippi the Old Man, but that fat, lazy river's got
nothing on the Colorado."

They were almost over the immense gorge, returning to a low glide over
the pale golden slickrock. Everything was so big. It seemed so close
and then she would catch a glimpse of a tree or a bush and it would
pull everything into perspective. It was all huge. The trees were
specks. How would they find anyone out here?

"Oh Jeez.." she heard Harry mutter an oath and she looked at him.

"What?" she called out. He pointed to the clouds in the distance. She
frowned. Clouds? She could see that there was a grey haze beneath the
large billowing thunderheads that spoke of rain. 

Was that what he was concerned about? Flooding? That storm was too far
away for them to worry about. She looked at him, her eyes demanding an
explanation for his unease.

"Flooding." He said grimly.

"You think that storm might come over here?" she called, feeling a
little frisson of disquiet pass through her.

He eyed her for a moment.

"Out here," he yelled, "When it rains really hard..even if it's 50
miles away..that water doesn't soak up into the ground. It's all
rock." 

Her eyes widened as she began to understand his concerns.

"It just flows downhill. Water is the main shaping force on the
slickrock. Every hump and bump and dip out here is formed by
rainwater. The entirety of the area acts like a giant funnel..driving
every drop that falls down into the canyons. If you happen to be *in*
a canyon when it rains..especially if it rains upcanyon..even as far
away as 50 miles or more...that's when you're in the greatest danger."

"You think Mulder and Kelly are in danger?" she yelled, her voice
steady even in the whirlwind of sound.

"Who knows? But those clouds are in the perfect place to flood this
area. We'll just have to hope that they're not in a slot." He said.

Scully retrained her eyes onto the desert floor..mentally urging Harry
to go faster..

She shook her head. If he was still alive when she found him, she was
gonna kill him.

A stray strand of her hair escaped the clip she'd gathered her red
locks into and whipped wildly around her face, snagging in her
sunglasses as she gripped the bar by the opening that was the door and
leaned out, letting the immensity of the world below fill her
vision...trying to catch a glimpse of cars, people, anything.

Everything that she had heard the night before as she'd sat around the
table with Tiny, Harry and 2 Park rangers..darkly tanned, rangy
men..both with tight white lines of despair around their eyes..it had
convinced her that she had done the right thing to come after her
partner. He'd gotten in over his head again. It had nothing to do with
coming out here to beat his ditching little ass into a pulp..now it
was back to the old pattern of her moving in to see if she could help
extricate Mulder from whatever trouble he'd managed to mire himself
in.

But she was still pissed. 

So she kept telling herself anyway, especially after they had not been
able to raise Kelly on her radio this morning before they'd left
Needles Outpost. Of course, deep down, she knew very well that it was
about all those things, especially the ass-kicking part. This Mystery
of the Alkaline Ranger was just something she could use to cover up
the fact that she was chasing after him.

Again.

A tapping on her arm broke her out of thoughts of sable hair and hazel
eyes and she pulled herself back into the chopper the whole way,
looking over at Harry. He was gesturing downwards. She peered at the
sandstone landscape, trying to make out what he was pointing at. Then
she saw it. A road of sorts. Here and there she caught sight of two
parallel tracks that looked like tire marks. The chopper began to
bank, following the road.

"This is the only road that accesses Pete's Mesa" he yelled to her.
"If they drove in here, this is how they would have to come."

She nodded, her eyes trying to follow the irregular marks on the
barren sandstone.

They swooped up and over buttes and pinnacles of stone, weaving their
way into mini-canyons and dipping through arroyos. And then the
chopper burst out over a deep straight-sided canyon, the drop-off at
least 500 feet. Her eyes watched the road dip down along the side of
the wall..a track that looked barely wide enough for a bicycle much
less a car. And then she blinked. The road..where? There. She frowned,
her eyes backtracking. The road had fallen away. There was a 20 foot
gap where the shelf simply disappeared.

"Dana.." Harry's voice was chilly, even over the noise of the copter.
She looked where he pointed.

At the base of the cliff, the twisted remains of a Park Service bronco
lay glinting in the blistering sun.

Scully was sure that she had stopped breathing. Her heart seemed to
have seized up in her chest, frozen in a moment of time that didn't
seem to end. A moment in which, angry with him or not, she was forced
to contemplate life without Mulder.

Her eyes were glued to the truck, a thousand images pouring through
her mind. She didn't even notice when the chopper started to descend
into the bowels of the narrow canyon..all she could see was Mulder's
body shattered and mangled within the metal husk below.

She was jumping out of the helicopter as soon as it was within a
reasonable distance from the ground, stumbling as she landed on the
rocky terrain. Running through the whirlwind kicked up by the rotors
and across the dried riverbed, feet and body numb, she stopped dead
about 10 feet away, suddenly unable to go any closer...irregardless of
the doctor in her that was shrieking to move.

She could feel something inside of her twisting and choking the life
out of her lungs..a lump of solid fear rising in her throat. It had
not burned, she  noticed as if from a great distance. The gas tank had
miraculously not sparked. It was merely no longer recognizable as a
vehicle.

One step closer. Another.

Eyes closed, she knelt down amidst the rocks and the broken glass,
uncaring as both bit deeply into her bare knees. Eyes open, she looked
inside.

A great heaving breath shook her body as she suddenly sucked in the
air she'd been denying herself. Coughing and choking, great deep sobs
came welling up from within her, shaking her entire body with their
violence. She fell down to her hands, head hanging, and she let her
breakfast come up in a hot gushing spill. She vaguely felt hands on
her head, holding her hair back from her face, supporting her as she
heaved until she was empty, and then gagged until only a thin yellow
bile came up.

She hung there, letting the relief wash over her, letting the
painfully intense despair recede back into that tiny room she kept
only a few things locked in. Emily. Melissa. Ahab.

Something white fluttered in her field of view. A handkerchief. It
struck her as unspeakably odd just then, that a man like Harry Paivuta
would carry such a snowy white kerchief. Harry. God. She had just...in
front of... She'd broken down in the presence of a complete stranger.
Somehow, the horror of her humiliation, her embarrassment.. was muted
as if through many layers of thick cotton. Cotton that cared about
nothing but the fact that Mulder had not been lying broken inside the
truck.

She sat back against a boulder, taking the square of cloth and wiping
her mouth. She finally let her eyes, puffy with tears, meet Harry's.
He looked at her with sympathy, not the pity she'd been expecting. A
long moment stretched, pregnant with words neither of them said.

"Thanks" she said finally, offering him back the linen a little
lamely. He nodded but refused the cloth, directing her attention to
her bloody knees. She was grateful he did not try to pry or question
or fuss. He simply sat, his dark eyes deep in thought.

"They'll have gone on. I don't think they were injured."

"No blood" Dana said, suddenly realizing that fact even as she said
the words. Except the blood on my knees, she thought wryly.

She bent down to dab at the cuts. That was bright, Scully. Real
bright. She picked a couple of broken bits of glass out of the skin,
brushing away pieces of gravel and dirt. She offhandedly wished for
water, but knew better than to ask for it. Water was for drinking out
here. Nothing else.

Harry was walking around the site, staring at the ground intently. He
looked up at her then, a small smile on his face.

"Here." he said. "Footprints. Does your partner have pretty big feet?"
he asked, one eyebrow quirking. She grimaced.

"Huge." she said, standing up and wincing as her cuts pinched. She
walked over to where he was and looked down. Indeed there were a
number of footprints in the dry sandy bottom of the riverbed. "How can
you tell which are theirs?" she asked. There were definitely more than
just two pairs of tracks there. It reminded her she was in a
recreation area...that people came out here to play. As isolated as
she felt right now, it was hard to picture.

"That print there belongs to Kelly." he said, pointing. "She wears
Nike hiking boots, and has fairly large feet herself.."

"How could they have survived that fall?" she heard herself whisper,
looking up and up and up to the distant ledge the road had been on.
Harry shrugged.

"Maybe they weren't in the car. Actually, I would *have* to say that
they weren't because you're right. They couldn't have survived." He
looked over at her. "Come on, lets get back to the chopper. Depending
on how long ago this happened, they can't be too much farther if
they're on foot now."

She nodded, her heartbeat picking up slightly just at the thought of
seeing Mulder now. Especially after the shock she'd just had. She
wanted desperately to reassure herself. She'd come out here of the
mind to vent her anger on him for deserting her. For deserting her
*after* they'd finally opened all the way up to each other. Now all
she wanted was to see him, to touch him and make sure he was whole.

Climbing into the copter, she glanced back at the wreck with only a
vague frisson of the fear that she'd felt when she'd first seen it. It
still held an echo of terrible possibility..and there was an
overwhelming feeling of menace associated with it. It was too much of
a coincidence that all these terrible things were happening here. Was
there a connection? She was sure there was, but she didn't have
Mulder's ability at making enormous leaps of logic in order to connect
the dots.

Even over the growing concern for her partner..she had found herself
reluctantly intrigued. She tried to smile, imagining what Mulder's
reaction must have been to the tale of the body-turned-to-salt. She
could almost see that electricity that came into his eyes when a new
puzzle was placed in his hands. She loved watching his brain work..the
uncanny way he could find an obscure tidbit of information and use it
as the key. It gave her a proud rush most of the time..when all the
clicking gears and whirring wheels snapped into place in his head..and
he would have the answer...no matter how improbable. No matter if the
facts themselves disagreed.

The alkaline body..she would have given a lot to be able to autopsy it.
It was impossible, the story she had heard. The human body did contain
a certain percentage of salt and minerals, as did any living
thing...but for the flesh itself to be reduced to nothing but? It made
no sense. She could only assume that the man who had found the body
was exaggerating. There was a chance that the corpse had simply been
covered with an alkaline deposit. It was the theory she was leaning
towards.

She climbed into the chopper and strapped herself in. Harry was
looking at her with an unreadable expression on his angular brown
face. She raised her eyebrows.

"We'll find them." he said. She let her gaze rest on him, unflinching.

"I know." she said. "I always do."


++++

Mulder woke to the sound of sobbing. He cracked an eye open, unsure of
where he was. His back was screaming an endless litany of curses at
him, reminding him that he had slept the remainder of the night
sitting up with his back against the canyon wall, gun in lap, Kelly
slumped next to him.

He saw that Kelly was gone. And that brought him back to the weeping.

Staggering to his feet, he managed to walk stiffly towards the sound,
his body moaning in a chorus of stiff muscles. He moved around the
large boulder they had put between them and the creature's remains for
the night and found Kelly slumped on her knees, her head in her hands,
sobbing.

A white man. Pure, crystalline white. The body lay in a face up
position, shrunken crusted face looking skyward with hollow eye
sockets. The tattered remains of a Park Service uniform clung to the
chalky remains. There were three holes in the chest cavity where
Mulder's bullets had pierced the torso.

"Kelly?" he whispered. She gave him no response, one hand hovering
over an open white palm. He saw the glint of gold there. A wedding
band.

Mulder staggered back from the body, tripped over a rock and
fell..hard onto his ass. His hazel-green eyes were wide with horror as
he realized what he had done and why Kelly was crying. His throat
seemed to close in on itself, a horrible tearing feeling he recognized
overwhelmed him. Guilt.

"Kelly.." 

She looked up at him finally, and he saw fierce anguished rage in her
eyes.  He shook his head, feeling tears well up. God, what had he
done?

"He was trying to kill me, Fox.." she whispered. 

Astonished, he realized then that the anger was not directed at him at
all, but towards whatever had done this to her husband. "Look at his
eyes..he had such beautiful eyes.." her voice was almost tender now,
fluctuating so quickly that Mulder blinked. Swallowing, he crawled
forward and looked.

Jake no longer had eyes. Deep in the white-rimed sockets sat two tiny
rasin-like clumps...utterly dry of moisture.

She was looking down at the body of her husband, a tender, heartbroken
expression on her face.

"I knew." She said softly, her voice catching on a sob. "I just knew."
Mulder could only nod. He understood.

He would know too.

Staring down at the thing that had been her husband, his mind was
detachedly gleaning information. Biting his lip, he crouched down next
to her, not touching the corpse. Complete desiccation, he thought.
From what he could see it was not quite the pillar of salt that Kelly
had described. There seemed to be more of a white alkaline crust on
the body that, instead of being on the skin, was simply the skin
itself.

"I wish..I wish I'd called you sooner. I wish I'd come looking
yesterday. I wish.." she was whispering to herself, still clutching
Jake's crumbling hand, her eyes fixed on a far distant point. Mulder
reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but stopped inches away and
slowly retreated.

Pushing himself to his feet he walked across the low bench they'd made
their small camp on and on down into the dry river. His feet made
echoing sounds as they clattered off rocks and stones. He stopped in
the middle of the canyon and just looked down at his feet. The gun was
still clasped loosely in his hand, and he stared at it for a long
moment. Suddenly his body uncoiled and in a sudden rage he flung the
weapon away from him as hard as he could. It skittered across the
rocks on the far side of the canyon and came to a rest.

He felt like screaming, like breaking something. He simply stood.

If Scully was here...he might be useful. He felt like he couldn't
think. He felt empty. The frustration was building the longer he stood
there with no idea what to do next.

He'd helped her find Jake, and then he'd promptly killed him. 

Mulder fought his way past the guilt to try and see things clearly.
Finding the missing man did not answer any questions..in fact, it only
raised more terrible ones. Was Jake the victim of some undiscovered
organism? Perhaps not undiscovered..but engineered? He was more
inclined to believe the latter..the pieces fit better that way. Why
else would the Park Service try to hide the truth. Why would they
protect a hostile life form? 

He clamped the inside of his lower lip between his teeth suddenly. 
What if it were some sort of viral contagion? The first ranger had 
succumbed to it, and now it looked like Jake had. His gaze narrowed 
onto the sight of Kelly holding the white hand and his blood turned 
cold. Of course, if it was indeed a contagion...it could easily be 
airborne. In which case, it was too late.

He pushed down the panic and guilt as best he could. There was a good 
chance it was not a contagion too. No need to jump to conclusions. 
Even as he determined to set the fear aside, his mind would not let 
it go. It crouched over the possibility and fed it.

Everything hinged on Kelly right now. Would she want to continue to
try and find out what was going on out here? Or now that she had found
her husband, would she want to return? He was at her whim, because if
he had learned anything yesterday, it was that he would not only
become instantly lost out here, but he would also die without her
guidance. How would she handle Jake's death? He tried to imagine how
he would feel if he lost Scully, flashing onto her cold, lifeless body
lying under him..chest still...trying to imagine what he would have
done if she had not revived under his desperate CPR. He would have
probably sat there and let the ship destruct around him.

A sound broke him out of his reverie. It was a deep rumbling sound. He
looked up in the sky, expecting a plane to sail overhead..or a
chopper. It got louder..and louder and suddenly he stopped looking
up..because it was not coming from the sky.

His eyes shot towards Kelly who was looking up at him now, pale pasty
horror written all over her face.

And then the ground began to shake. Earthquake?

A sound like the roar of a crowd in the distance seemed to fill his
head.

"Flash flood!" Kelly screamed.

++++

Harry had been muttering about the clouds on the horizon again as soon
as they were airborne. Dana couldn't really hear him, and so she paid
him little mind. Her eyes were trained on the canyon below as they
flew along its twisting length. Each newly exposed bend she expected
to catch a glimpse of his dark head.

The chopper lifted up and out of the canyon, skimming along the rim as
it became too narrow to navigate inside. They were able to fly faster
on top, and Scully found herself leaning out the side of the thing as
far as she could to get a better view.

That was when she heard the roar. Even over the cacophony of the
rotors it was a deep rumble..and she didn't even have to look to Harry
for confirmation. She knew what it was. As the helicopter sped up the
canyon, she began to frantically scan the interior for some sort of
rope, trying to think ahead. Her eyes landed on a coil of it, complete
with clips and harness sitting on the floor behind her seat. She
quickly unbuckled her belt in order to reach back and grab it when the
chopper suddenly bucked to the side, nearly tossing her out the door.
Gasping, her hands white knuckling the safety bar, she twisted to see.

She almost regretted looking.

What had been a dry, rocky slot had become an instant raging
watercourse. The flood rumbled like a high speed train, huge boulders
and dead junipers ground and crunched against the walls and each other
as the water swept them along like so much flotsam. It had to be 50
feet high..a solid, thrashing ram of water and debris..scouring along
the canyon, sweeping everything it could knock loose along with it.

She was staring at with a sick fascination..the harness and rope
clutched forgotten in her hands. There was no way..she thought
faintly. No way he could be in that. 

So intent on the angry brown waters was she that she didn't hear the
new noise. Not until Harry suddenly yelled and wrenched the chopper to
one side did she see it. A black form blotted out the sun, sleek and
deadly. An AH-64D Apache Longbow Attack helicopter, her brain
identified it even as the outclassed chopper she perched in lurched
wildly from side to side in a futile attempt to dodge the thing.
No...*two* Apaches... Where on earth had they come from? 

She clung like a leech to the metal safety bar, wishing she hadn't
undone her belt as the little helicopter bucked wildly. The first
Apache had roared past them and she watched the pair of narrow black
birds split and bank into wide turns to each side..coming back. Silent
running, she thought distantly...they hadn't heard them coming. What
in hell was going on?

She glanced at Harry. The man's jaw was clenched so tightly she was
surprised his teeth weren't splintering. He'd regained control of the
aircraft and now raced them up alongside the canyon as fast as he
could, perfectly aware that the Apaches could catch them in seconds.

He glanced over at her, his eyes saying things his jaw would not
unclench for. Buckle yourself back in. Hold on. We're likely about to
die. 

Apparently she wasn't the only one who knew what Apaches were for.

She heard a sound like hot gravel hitting a tin roof and the craft
jerked as if it had been swatted at. Harry shook his head grimly as he
struggled to control the rocking.

"Those bastards.." he muttered under his breath. "They shot up the gas
tank." he tapped angrily at the gauge on his instrument panel. "We're
going to have to land.."

Scully twisted behind her seat again and reached into her bag, feeling
her fingers close around her gun. Pulling it into her lap, she checked
the clip. Full. Grimly she tucked it firmly in her grasp.

"Then land" she said, not looking at him. 

+++++

Sand. He had sand in his eyes..in his mouth. Coughing, he was bringing
it up from his lungs in a gagging rush. Brown water..like soup. Hands
were pulling at him, turning him over onto his face, holding his
shoulder while he retched up the muddy paste.

"Just let it out.." the voice said. Female.

"Scully?" he croaked, turning his head to look up with red, irritated
eyes. 

"Don't try to speak, Fox." Kelly said.

Fox.

No, it wasn't Scully.

Kelly was covered from head to foot in a thin veneer of mud. Her blond
hair was painted a dull brown, her skin coated in thin streaks of mud
and silt. He suspected he looked the same.

Blinking, he remembered the wall of water coming towards
them..screaming and moaning like a living animal. It had been one of
the more terrifying things he'd ever seen. And then Kelly had hit him
like a linebacker, propelling him across the canyon and into the side
slot where the seep was ..so fast that he'd barely had opportunity to
think.

The slot had been only about as narrow as his shoulder width, and he'd
had to twist sideways as they raced around the constricting curves
towards the tiny amphitheater where the seep steadily dripped fresh
water into a shallow pool. They'd burst into the small chamber just as
the wave hit their camp out in the canyon.

The torrent had been intent on one thing..going down canyon. Nothing
could stop it...boulders roiled and rumbled and groaned as they were
swept along with it..it was not interested in side canyons. But that
hadn't stopped water from smashing into the little slot like a
freight train.

Mulder had been stunned into speechlessness as the brown water began
rapidly filling up the tiny round chamber they were in. The walls had
been too steep and smooth to climb..and the water level kept
rising..swirling them around in an enormous eddy as it found nowhere
to go.

He'd been able to feel rocks and tree limbs raking into his legs as he
thrashed to keep his head above the water. Kelly had been screaming
something at him over the din of the flood and he'd tried to
concentrate on both her and not drowning in the mini whirlpool. She
was trying to gesture at something. He'd followed her movements and
saw that not only were they rising...but they were rising towards a
ledge that they might actually be able to use to climb out of their
smooth rock prison. Kelly had struggled in the current towards the
side, but they were getting spun around faster and faster as more and
more water gushed into the chamber.

The suction was fierce. Mulder had begun to feel exhaustion creeping
into his limbs from fighting to keep his head up. He was nearing the
side again and he'd managed to get one hand up and wrapped around a
rocky outcrop..but the current had wrenched him away like he was a
child.

He'd seen that Kelly had grabbed onto a boulder sized rock with both
arms, gasping in the current, and was trying to pull herself out. He'd
swept past her once, trying to grab onto her and failing. But on his
next circle, he'd caught one of her arms and hung on with every last
ounce of strength he had.

It had been like holding onto a rock in a waterfall. The water had
pounded at them as it spun around, driving bits of gravel and debris
into their flesh, into their eyes, down their throats. He'd felt his
free hand grab onto another rock and he'd forced himself to pull. Once
more they had nearly been swept from their tenuous hold, but by then
the waters already seemed to be calming, retreating..ever so slowly.

Mulder had made it up first..the ledge they were on had been almost 45
feet over their heads when they'd filled their water bottles the night
before in that dead end slot. Dragging Kelly out behind him, he'd
simply collapsed onto the rock. He'd vaguely remembered Kelly saying
something to him and then he had slipped into darkness.

"Fox." She said again, pulling him back to the present. "We have to
get up onto the rim." Her voice was harsh, flat. He nodded wordlessly
at her.

It was a fairly easy climb out of the canyon. The flood had boosted
them right up to the exact spot they needed to be to get out. As soon
as they hit the rim, the full sun hit them, and Mulder could
practically feel the water drying where he stood. He simply let
himself fall into the partial shade of a rock outcrop, hearing a thump
as Kelly followed suit.

"Kelly?" he asked, his voice raw.

"Yeah?"

"Never, ever ask me for your help again." He said. He was rewarded
with a tired giggle that sounded almost like a sob. Another moment of
silence passed where he just lay there and revelled in being alive.
Scully would have never forgiven him if he'd been killed. 

She likely wanted that honor for herself.

He sat up a little groggily and looked around.

And that was when three helicopters roared over their heads.


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

The Apaches waited, hovering effortlessly until they had set all the
way down, the rotors slowing. She could see the heavy weaponry
clustered menacingly on the undersides of the matte black machines as
they seemed to hang in the air, covering them. She knew what the
Longbows were capable of..she knew they had no chance of making a run
for it. Even if there had been any cover.

Scully deliberately focused her mind on her situation, driving any
vestige of fear for Mulder from her thoughts..letting visions of his
body sucked under that brown churning mass fade. The black helicopters
demanded her full attention. They heard the Apaches land... rotors
slowing to a high whistle, but not stopping fully. And then the sound
of booted feet rang on slickrock, the metallic clatter of weapons.

"Step out of the chopper slowly..hands on your head" A voice rang out
over the whine of the aircraft. She could see a loose half-circle of
men surrounding Tiny's helicopter, semi-automatic rifles cocked to
their shoulders. All pointing at them.* Not* standard issue, she 
thought grimly. Real great.

Scully glanced at Harry again. The sight of the men, decked in full
desert camo, heavily armed and serious told her that she had no chance
with her gun. She would only risk both their lives if she were to try
to use it. She had no choice. She unobtrusively shoved the gun deep
under her seat and then nodded at the pilot.

"Do as they say." she said softly, "These guys are not real military."
She could see the questions in his eyes as the implications of her
words set in, but he silently nodded, his face calm.

And so, slowly, they placed their hands on their heads and jumped 
down onto the sun-heated rock. Instantly two men were behind them, 
patting them down and then training their rifles at the backs of 
their heads.

"Down on your knees.." one of the men behind her grated. Nervously,
she complied, trying to ignore the pain of the gritty sandstone on her
already ravaged kneecaps..watching as Harry followed her down.

"We didn't do anything.." Scully started, her eyes trying to find the
leader among the four men. They stopped searching on a thin, rangy man
with a close cropped shock of prematurely grey hair. He wore no
insignia, but he carried himself like a man in charge. As if on cue,
he stepped forward, his eyes hidden by mirrored glasses. He was a hard
looking man, his thin mouth set in a weathered face beset with a fine
scattering of stubble. His muscular body was clothed in a tight beige
tank top and tan and brown BDUs. Unlike the other men, he simply
carried a huge automatic pistol and a long Bowie knife strapped to his
boot. A simple brown camo cap topped his head.

"I'm Commander Perel." he said, looking from one to the other. "You're
trespassing on military grounds. State your purpose."

His voice was husky and tight with ...eagerness? She didn't let her
brow wrinkle into a frown at his blatant lie. Military grounds? She
was no expert on this area, but she knew enough about the Park to know
they were still well within its boundaries. Still, she sensed that his
line was designed to test their knowledge. To see if he could ferret
out their purpose here.

Her mind whirred as she tried to discover what kind of answer they
could give without getting them both killed on the spot. It would take
no effort at all for the man they faced to order the guns pointed at
them to go off. These men wore military issue clothing, were using
military aircraft, but their weapons were so far above standard army
issue that it boggled the mind. She had seen this kind of thing
before, and she didn't think Mulder would have any trouble jumping to
the conclusion that these men were involved with the Consortium's
group in some way.

Perel was waiting, his face unmoving.

Harry solved her dilemma for her.

"Oh..god...I'm sorry...I..I thought we were still in Canyonlands...I
mean I know that this is pretty far out, but I thought for sure we
were in the Maze." Dana was convinced that if she looked over at the
small man, that sweat would be dripping down his face. He was going
all the way with this."I'm a commercial guide..that's my chopper..I
was just giving this lady a tour.."

The Commander held up his hand, cutting off Harry as he took off the
sunglasses, exposing pale, pale blue eyes. His expression chilled her.
This man did not care one way or the other about their lives..it was a
simple matter of whether she and Harry would be more trouble to him
dead or alive.

"Shut up.." the icy-eyed man said, running a hand through his cropped
grey hair almost wearily. He looked behind them, and Scully realized
with a terrible chill that one of the other men was going through the
chopper behind them.

"Found the license papers..sir." a voice floated forward in the
heat."Registered to a Tiny Polchineski.." The leader nodded. Her heart
felt like it was going to pound out of her chest. If he looked in her
duffel..if he found the FBI badge..she and Harry were dead for
certain. She felt the ice chip eyes return to Harry and her.

"We're going to have to take you in." he said finally. "Don't worry,
you'll be released when we've verified your story." Lies. Scully
thought. He was only going to take them in so he could find out what
he was supposed to do with them. Likely this man did not want to have
to make a decision that might get him in trouble.

"Commander!" The voice from at her back was raised now. "Look at
*this*!"

That did it.

The last thing she saw was the grey head nod slightly and then stars
exploded in her skull and everything went black.

++++


It was almost three hours of walking before the multi-colored chopper
came into view. There was no sign of the other two that he had seen.
He had been positive they were Apache Longbows. That in itself was
odd. The Longbow was the new breed of Attack Helicopter..and Boeing
was still making them. The production would not be finished for
another 5 years or so. Sure, there were legitimate Bases that had
gotten prototypes and the early versions...so would that make this the
military they were talking about? It certainly was within the realm of
the possible, he thought sarcastically.

Of course, it wasn't that hard to get your hands on a few Longbows
here and there if you knew how and had the money. So it really didn't
mean anything, he thought grimly. It doesn't tell us any more than we
knew before about who's behind this.

The mystery had him in its teeth. His mind was turning it over and
over again like a rubiks cube, unable to set it down until he had at
least one side all the same color. They just had to survive long
enough to get the hell out of here and do something about this
nightmare. It was painfully evident, however, that they still had no
real evidence. Jake's body had been washed away. 

Kelly had been silent the entire walk, her eyes seemed dead and flat.
He'd tried to draw her out, help her talk about it, but it was like
she was in a different place. He knew how she felt. He'd been there
himself. The difference here was that Scully had come back..Jake never
would. 

He felt a tightening in his chest at the thought of how he would feel
in Kelly's place. Thank god Scully was safe back in DC. Right now he
didn't care how much she was going to rage at him when he got back, he
only knew that he didn't want her out here with the killer salt and
the black helicopters. He had a brief vision of her lovely blue eyes
leached of all their moisture like Jake's had been.

As they stood on the gentle rise overlooking the cheerfully painted
helicopter, he grimaced. He could see from where he stood that the 
tail had been shot up, a streaky stain on the ground under the bird 
where the fuel had leaked out. There were no bodies, but he 
desperately wished he hadn't stupidly thrown his gun away in the 
canyon this morning. He felt naked without it.

He trudged tiredly down to the deserted craft, praying that there was
a water bottle stashed in it somewhere. He'd never been so thirsty in
his life. Kelly followed..almost like a zombie. 

He didn't know what he was going to do with her, what he was going to
do next. Not only would he not be able to find his way out of this
place without her, but he didn't know how to find water. It had only
been three hours without it and he already felt nauseous and faint.

There was some partial shade in the chopper and he laid his torso
across the co-pilot's seat, closing his eyes briefly with the minor
relief. The intense heat was making him feel groggy..disconnected.
After a long moment, he remembered that he was looking for water, his
parched throat was croaking for it. He was leaning into the back
compartment, rummaging, when Kelly arrived, a mild frown on her face
as she scratched the back of her neck.

"I wasn't sure before..but now I am.." she said distantly. "This is
Tiny's helicopter." Her fingers ran across the rainbow of stripes on
the side. "Jake and I used to fly this all the time." she said, her
voice wistful. 

Aha. His hand closed around a warm bottle of water, eagerly unscrewing
it and putting it to his lips.

"Don't guzzle." Kelly's voice was admonishing, if still soft and
disconnected. "You'll cramp up terribly. Just a little at first."

Mulder decided to take her word for it, but it was much harder than he
thought to force his body to stop swallowing. He passed it over to her
and watched her take a large mouthful, frowning.

"You say this belongs to someone you know? What were they doing out
here?"

She shook her head, her brow wrinkling a little ..like a child working
at a tough math problem.

"No. Tiny doesn't fly anymore. He's...a little overweight. He lets
Jake fly ...and sometimes Harry."

"Harry? As in the Harry that flew me to Hite?" Mulder asked, turning
away from her and poking through the rest of the chopper. There wasn't
much there, but he did spot a large 5 gallon canister of water, a
first aid kit, a plastic container of snack bars and a blanket. He
opened the front compartment, finding some matches, a map and a
compass. That was good. 

"Yeah. That Harry." she said, her voice was regaining a little bit of
strength as she pondered the situation. "He did say that he was going
to go back to Needles and ask some questions if I didn't get in touch
with him and let him know what was going on."

"So you think that's what he did?" Mulder asked, flipping up the mats
and reaching under the seats, continuing to search while she talked.
His hand closed on warm metal.

"I guess so.." she faltered as he pulled his hand out from under the
seat clutching a gun. He abruptly stopped listening to her.

Mulder stared at it like a man in a trance. 

Scully.

It wasn't just that it was a Sig Sauer P229..*her* gun..it was that it
had the dent in the barrel right where her's had one. It had a scuffed
butt from the time it had fallen two stories to land on a concrete
sidewalk...it was *her* gun. 

Scully. 

She was here.

She had followed him. She had found Harry. Harry had flown her out
here after him.

Of course she had followed him. 

His mind seemed to be moving very slowly as it connected the dots. 

She had followed him. In the helicopter. The helicopter was empty. She
had been taken by the Apaches.

Taken by the Apaches. Wasn't that droll. He had a momentary picture of
her tied to a pole with indians dancing and shrieking around her.

Kelly was talking to him.

"...OX!" 

No, Kelly was yelling at him.

"FOX! What's wrong?"

Fox. He hated that name. She'd been calling him that this entire trip.
Scully never called him that. He turned to look at her. For the first
time since this terrible morning, there was a little life and color
back in her face as she stared at him.

"Scully.." he said, his voice low and hushed.

"What?" she leaned closer. "Jesus Fox, what's the matter? Is it
heatstroke? Do you need some more water?"

He shook his head, his brows coming together.

She wasn't dead. If she were dead, there would be a body out here..or
some blood. Besides, he would know. He.Would.Know.

He looked Kelly straight in the eye, suddenly snapping back into the
blazing heat of reality.

"They have Scully." he said. "My partner. She was here. This is her
gun." his words were spit from his lips like bullets. Already he was
pulling everything he'd been able to find out of the chopper, trying
to figure out how he was going to carry the water...trying to
calculate how fast he could run in this heat.

"Fox, stop." she said. He didn't. 

"Fox ..STOP!" she shouted. 

He was pulling a length of harness rope out of the back of the chopper
when she grabbed him and spun him to look at her. Her face was
flushed, her eyes still mired with grief, but she'd managed to push it
down under the surface. She held her hand up in front of his face. And
he caught a glimpse of a round metal shape before she snatched it away
again.

"This is Harry's compass." She said. "He was flying that chopper.
Whatever happened to your partner has happened to him too." she
snapped. "So don't you go getting all fixated and run off on me. You
won't make it five miles out here alone. If you want to help her, we
stick together."

How had she known...he hadn't ..he wasn't..was he? 

He had focused on Scully, and the rest of the world had dropped away.
Again. Just as it did when he focused on anything. 

And ditched the people who could help him.

"Of course." he said faintly, looking at his friend. She was still his
friend, he thought. After all these years, she had known him well
enough then to still know him now. 

She nodded and then folded her arms as she looked down at the pile of
scavengings.

"Not much.." she mused, "but enough." Walking around to the pilot's
side of the chopper, she leaned in and looked at the instrument panel.
A grim smile lit her face. Mulder had been watching her and he leaned
in from the other side.

"What?"

"There's still some fuel left in here." she said, tapping the gauge
and looking up at him. "If we patch those holes up, I bet we could get
about 20 miles out of this bird."

"How close does that get us to Pete's Mesa?" he asked, staring at the
gauge.

"Close enough." 

++++++


"Why the hell didn't you just kill them?" Tyler whined. "What were you
thinking to bring *her* here?"

The little man was clenching the leather-encased Federal Investigation
Bureau badge in his fist like it would escape if he loosened his grip.


Perel stared at him impassively, uninterested in his theatrics.  The
weasel, the name he'd silently given Joseph Tyler, the head dweeb on
this project..sat at his desk clutching the woman's badge and trying
to look intimidating.

It was almost enough to make him crack a smile. Almost.

"Look, Tyler." Perel said, his voice uninflected. "I don't know where
you get your ideas, but I keep the security around here. I'm sure if
it had been you, you would have sent a sidewinder or two up their ass
and left a fireball in the sky to be seen for miles. I'm sure if it
had been you, you would have shot her and let the fucking Bureau track
her out here to find us with our pants around our ankles. Or maybe you
would have thought it out and realized that bringing them here was the
only option."

"What I want to know.." he was looking up from his desk, glasses
reflecting the light in two round circles on his face, "..Is *why* 
she's out here. How did she know where to look?" Tyler was looking 
right at him. Perel shifted his shoulders uncomfortably under his 
uniform, suddenly bored with talking to the dead scientist. Damn he 
hated how it smelled down here. Acrid and moldy.

"She didn't get a tip off from Wexler..that's for sure. That guy is so
deep in our pocket he couldn't find his way out with a ladder and a
flashlight. It had to have been one of the park rangers. We knew they
were a security risk..especially after last month when one of their
own died. However she found us, one thing is clear, the Lab is no
longer secure."

The weasel was staring at him and Perel knew that he was starting to
finally understand what was happening to his project. For a supposedly
'brilliant' scientist, he was pretty slow.

"You're closing everything down, aren't you?!"

Perel said nothing, silently enjoying the fear that was growing in the
weasel's face.

Tyler, suddenly pushed to his feet, his jaw trembling, his eyes large
and watery. 

"No! I've put 10 years of my life into this project! You do whatever
you have to do to see to it that we continue. We are very close.."

"Close to what?" Perel's voice had dropped to a sweet purr, alerting
everyone in the room that something was about to drop. "You've been
out here now for almost 10 years. State of the art equipment,
unlimited funding..what have you come close to?"

The weasel opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking for all
the world like a gasping fish. His fists were clenched on the desktop.
Perel smirked at his lack of response.

"Like I thought. Maybe we should bring some of the Project leaders out
here to have a look at what you've come so close to? Maybe they could
see the value in your lifelong 'achievement'."

"I just need a little more time..." he was pleading now. Pleading with
Perel as if he man could do anything for him.  " The spores aren't
acting like normal fungus, it's something to so with the symbiosis of
the algae...the new parasite.."

Perel cut him off with a sweep of his hand.

"..Is a failure." he said sharply. "It was meant as an untraceable
killer, and clearly...it is very traceable." He folded his arms and
stared at the weasel as if daring him to refute it. 

"Ho...how?" Tyler was stuttering in nervousness. Perel felt only
contempt for the man. Didn't he realize there were no secrets? Not
with the Men.

"The Project Leaders know everything, every aspect of their plans.
Don't presume to outthink them." Perel was almost grinning..a death's
head mask.

"You played your little game with them and you lost."

Tyler was almost weeping now.

"What do we do with the Fed?" Hanson asked from his place near the
wall, disgusted with the scientist's show of weakness. Perel picked up
the badge and flipped it open to look at the photo of the woman
inside.

"Dana Scully." he said softly, rolling the word around on his tongue.
There was something in the way that he said the name that alerted both
Hanson and Lyder. 

"Do you *know* her?" the pilot asked, surprised. Perel did not look at
him.

"I know who she is." he said, almost to himself. His voice returned to
it's steely tone suddenly. "More importantly, I know who her partner
is. If she's here, he's not far behind."

"What about the guy who's with her now?" Lyder frowned in confusion.

"That's not him. He's not important. The one I mean is another FBI
agent...he's the one with the nose for getting into our business... We
have to do a thorough cleaning job before he gets here."

"Cle..eaning?" Tyler asked, his hands still clenched. 

Perel nodded. 

Then, almost casually, he drew his pistol and shot the man between the
eyes. The slender man's body flung back into his chair, the wheels
squeaking slightly as they rolled into the wall with the impact.

Perel's two men didn't even flinch. They'd seen the shot coming a mile
away. Every one of Perel's men had known months ago that the
scientists on this project were simply walking corpses, their lives
running on a timer. 

He let his eyes meet those of his men coolly.

Perel crooked a finger to Lyder and Hanson. The men snapped to
attention.

"Have the other scientists rounded up and disposed of. Put the bodies
in the cooler. Then begin the info dump. I want every scrap of
computer data, hardcopy and lab sample loaded and ready in 10 hours.
Tear down begins at 2100 hours. This Fed has picked up our timetable."

Both men nodded assent, then each took one of the weasel's lifeless
arms and dragged him smartly from the room.

Before they were all the way out of the room, he spoke once more.

"Leave her locked up downstairs. Don't let her out, don't talk to her.
Keep your eyes open for her partner. Too many others have been lax
around these two, I won't be one of them." A slight grin thinned
Perel's lips. "We're wiping the entire area in 24 hours. If we leave
her here, that'll take care of her along with her partner if he's here
and the failed organism...if it's still alive."

The men nodded and smartly dragged Tyler's corpse out of the room. A
drop. They knew what they were going to do.

In 24 hours, they were going to drop VX gas on the Maze.

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


The air smelled like ozone. Or maybe it was more like the smell a moth
made when it flamed it's life out in a halogen floor lamp. 

He cracked an eye open, noting immediately that his body was not the
same one he'd gone unconscious with. This one was aching and stiff and
he wasn't sure, but he thought that his left arm was asleep. At least
he *hoped* that was the reason he couldn't feel it. He carefully
pushed himself upright on his cot, moving to lean against the cool
concrete of the wall..working his arm in small circles to get the
blood flowing again. His head began pounding uncomfortably as soon as
he shifted, and he clenched his teeth against the pain..shutting his
eyes in the dim light.

After a moment, the throbbing subsided to a minor roar and he managed
to look around. He was in a room about 10 X 10 square, a small dim
lightbulb caged against the far corner. All concrete, the room had two
cots on the floor, one metal door in the wall and a small vent on the
ceiling. Oh, and one Special Agent Scully on the other cot.

He closed his eyes as the throbbing started to increase again. Why'd
they have to hit him? He would have gone willingly. Had he looked
menacing? He was like the towel boy on a football team to these
gorillas. Were they afraid he was going to gnaw on their ankles?

Still unwilling to touch what he knew was an astounding lump on his
head, he carefully pushed himself off his cot and moved slowly over to
where the small redhead lay slumped on her thin, dirty mattress. He
touched her slender white neck, feeling for a pulse. It was there,
steady..but too slow. He leaned down and gently slapped her cheeks.

"Dana?" he murmured anxiously. Had she gotten a concussion from those
baboons? He slapped her a little harder and then sat back on the edge
of the cot when she moaned.

Her eyelids fluttered and he watched her blue irises roll forward
uncomfortably.

"M..Mulder?" she whispered, blinking at him in the murky light. Her
voice was soft and husky as she said the word, and for a moment envy
claimed him as he realized he wanted to have someone say *his* name
like that.

"No, Dana.." he said.  As soon as he said 'Dana', her face seemed to
stiffen slightly and she focused her eyes on him. Her pupils were a
little too dilated. It was possible she had a mild concussion after
all.

"Harry..where are we?" He helped her to sit and let her hang on him
while she tried to stop the room from spinning. 

"No idea. I've been just as unconscious as you till now." he said
wryly.

"I..I don't feel so good.." she whispered, one slender hand cupping
her head.

Definitely concussion.

"Just lie back down. Talk to me. Don't fall asleep." he directed,
pushing her shoulders into the mattress.

She nodded, understanding. 

"Is there any water?" she asked after a moment.

"No. I looked. There's nothing. Not even a bucket, so I hope you don't
have to use the ladies room." he grinned.

Her eyes slid back over to appraise him.

"What..are you making jokes?" she asked, her mouth curving softly.

"Somebody has to." he said with a smile. "It doesn't look like it's
gonna be you."

She shook her head ever so slightly.

"You sound like my partner." she said with a little laugh. "He's
always making light of serious situations." 

She was silent for a long moment, her blue eyes staring at the ceiling
as if in entreaty. "Do ..do you think that they were in that canyon
when the flood..." she stopped, hairline fractures in her voice, one
hand coming up to press against her lips.

"I don't know.." he said honestly, moved by the pain he saw in her
gaze. "It's possible that they made it out. Kelly is one savvy
desert rat, if anyone could find their way out of there, she could."
The chances that Kelly and this woman's partner *had* made it out of
that canyon were very slim, but he didn't say that.

She nodded, her eyes closing as she took a deep shuddering breath. 

"I think I would know. I think I would.." she said so softly he barely
heard her.

Harry had nothing to say. He could only lean forward on his cot and
take her hand in his.

A gesture. Besides pumpkin seeds, it was the only thing he could give
right now.

+++++

There was something wrong with Kelly. 

She had flown the chopper farther than they had hoped to, making it to
within visual of the Mesa itself. The sight had not necessarily given
him hope. First of all, they had no idea if the mesa was their
destination...it was only an educated guess. Secondly, the thing 
looked like a fortress. Sheer sides seemed to rise straight up for a 
thousand feet in the distance..a veritable island in the sky. Kelly 
had assured him that there was a fairly easy way up on the other 
side, but he didn't know what that meant, coming from her.

And then there was the matter of his friend. Although initially, 
after they'd landed the chopper at a discreet distance, she'd led the 
way across the rocks in the fading light of the day, now she was 
lagging far behind. By fact of gender, he'd been volunteered to be 
the one to carry the water container..strapped to his back with the 
cannibalized harness from the chopper. Even with all the extra 
weight, his slow dragging pace was still faster than hers. 

She would stop every few hundred yards and hang her body down, head by
her knees, eyes closed. She would take a couple of deep breaths and
then she would walk another stretch before she'd do it again.

At first, he said nothing. After all, he was exhausted too. But after
the fourth time, he stopped and waited for her to catch up to him. Her
eyes were bloodshot and glazed, her skin pasty pale under her tan and
seemed to be stretched tightly against her skull in the reddish light
of the setting sun. Alarmed, he made her sit down and drink some
water, holding her neck as she drank.

And that was when he felt something under her shirt.

"Kelly..what's this on the back of your neck?" he asked. Peering at
the skin that poked up from the dirty beige collar. She frowned,
hanging her head down as she rested her elbows on her knees.

"I think it's some kind of rash. It's been pretty itchy. Probably a
heat rash." she said  distantly. 
Mulder pulled the collar back, and jerked away in horror. The cold 
knot that had awoken in his mind after they'd found Jake came 
gibbering to life.
Kelly looked up at him, her eyes unfocused. For the first time, he
noticed what looked like tiny clumps of dirt clustered around her
eyes. He'd thought they were freckles or moles.

But they weren't.

"What is it, Fox.?" she whispered...glancing up instinctively at his
gasp. "What's wrong?"

He could tell, just from looking in her eyes, that she already
guessed. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, leaving him
gaping like a fish. She swallowed.

"It's...it's what killed Klieve and Jake..isn't it?" she said flatly,
her voice hushed. Defeated. He could only nod helplessly.

"It looks like that dirt you showed me..." he stared at it. "That
kryptonite, or whatever you called it yesterday."

"Cryptogamic soil?" she asked, her voice confused. "I have crypto
growing on my neck?" She shook her head. "How can that be? Crypto is
not a parasite, its a symbiote."

He shook his head helplessly..wishing for the thousandth time that
Scully was here.

Silence stretched tightly between them as the sun touched the horizon
and began to sink.

"It's ok, Fox.." she said finally..quietly. "You remember how I told
you to get up on the mesa, right?"

He wondered if she'd even heard her own words. He doubted it. Gently,
he pulled the collar of her shirt down as far as he could, being
careful not to touch the stuff. Already there was a large clump of the
blackened clots at the base of her neck..an area spanning about the
width of his spread fingers. Surrounding that on all sides, almost
covering her entire back...the skin was turning white with growing
blackened spots. It had even crusted through the dirty white of her
bra straps. 

The clumpy fungus was almost spreading before his eyes. And the lower
the sun got..the faster it seemed to spread.

"Does it hurt?" he whispered, both horrified and fascinated at the
same time.

"No.." her voice was calm. "Other than the itch, it just feels
normal." She looked around at Mulder then, fear trembling in her eyes.

"Do you think I'll ..go berserk ..like that?" she whispered, her eyes
pleading with him for reassurance. He could feel his heart trembling
in his ribcage, unsure and unwilling to watch her die and so certain
he had no choice. 

"I.I think so Kelly. There's no reason not to think that this is the
same thing. I could be wrong..but I don't think I am."

"Why do you think that you don't have it?" her voice was as distant as
the newly emerging stars in the twilight, her eyes were not even on
him anymore.

"I..don't know." Frustrated guilt boiled and seethed under his skin.
"Maybe because I didn't touch Jake?" 

They sat there in silence for a long while..dusk growing around
them..the air cooling and thickening as the sky slowly turned royal
blue. The clicking was whisper-faint, but he knew it from his dreams,
from last night's nightmare. 

"Fox?" her voice was thick with fear and tears she would not shed. 

"Mulder."he finally said, keeping his voice steady, giving her
something to anchor to. "Just call me Mulder. I've always hated Fox."
he swallowed.

She didn't move for a minute and then, she nodded, her movements
stilted and shaking.

"Mulder." The word was like a talisman that he had given her, and he
knew that she knew it was not a light thing he had handed over. 

"Do you ever wonder about paths in life? You turned left there, right
here..up some stairs instead of down..and you end up who you are
because of it." Kelly was still not looking at him, at her body. She
could or would not see the seeping blackness that was crawling down
her limbs.

"All the time.." he said softly. "Why? Do you regret your choices?"

"No..not at all." This time she looked directly at him. "You know why
I said no to you all those years ago. You know how that decision
changed not just mine but your life as well. Are there ever times that
you wonder what it would have been like if I'd said yes?"

Mulder was silent for only a few heartbeats. 

"I wondered for a few years..but I respected you too much to dwell on
it." he admitted. 

She sighed.

"That was a fork in the road. I went left and you went right..but
F--Mulder, I always carried you with me. Like an imprint on my soul.
You made me into the woman who could fall in love with Jake. I.." she
stopped and finally met his eyes. Schooling his features not to
reflect horror when he saw the blackness that was eating her face was
one of the hardest things he'd ever done. It was as if a steel bear
trap was closing around his lungs.

"..I know that I didn't, couldn't make that same imprint on you.." her
voice was getting thinner, as if she couldn't get enough air into her
words to give them weight. 

"Kelly.."  She cut him off.

"At least I'll be with Jake now..." she gave a weak, hideous semblance
of a laugh..coughing up something brown and wet. "Thanks for helping
me find him.."

Mulder was too overwhelmed to feel the proper horror at her words,
instead he could only watch as the darkness began climbing up her
cheeks. She'd seemed to have moved abruptly beyond the barrier that
allowed speech. He forced himself to stay where he was...not to back
away. 

He *had* loved her. No one had come close to his blond high school
tomboy until Scully had blown them all away.  She had been his only
true friend in school..his only confidant..the most important person
in his life during his adolescence.

He could see her face, tanned and fresh with youth as they'd sat in
the monstrous oak tree outside his parents house. They'd often
retreated up there to read, study, just be with each other. No one
ever thought to look for them in that tree. And they'd gotten a good
deal of necking done up there as well. It was hard to reconcile that
image with the one in front of him now.

The clicking sound was growing louder, sending chills up his spine.

"Fox..." her voice was a frightened reedy whisper pushed from
somewhere deep inside her..the black moldy dirt was swarming,
multiplying, crowding her mouth. Her hands came up to claw at it, her
eyes wild with sudden panic. And then it was forcing itself between
her lips, covering her nose, her ears, her eyes. Her hands were coated
with it...the stuff clumping the fingers into obscurity. She surged to
her feet as she began to suffocate, her hands scrabbling frantically
at her face.

Mulder was moving slowly away..he'd never felt so helpless in his
life. He knew that touching her would pass it to him as it had when
she'd touched her husband. He couldn't bring the sun back up...he
couldn't do anything. 

Except one thing.

His hand curled around the skin warmed metal of Scully's gun tucked in
his shorts, pulling it out as he backed away from the thrashing
figure..tears flowing freely down his cheeks now. His shaking hands
lifted the weapon in a two handed grip.

And he fired.

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

Harry wasn't sure how to react. His natural impulse was to squirm,
fight and beg..but he was fairly certain that it would accomplish
nothing.  The two Vogon rejects who had him by each arm would likely
shoot him just to shut him up.

They had come through the door at the beckon of the head gorilla..that
grim Clint Eastwood sort..and dragged him out. He'd only had time to
exchange one long terrified look with the small redhead on the cot
before he was out the door...the metal portal clanging shut behind him
like a death knell. He wasn't sure whose.

"Where are we going guys?" he asked cheerfully. 

As he suspected, they didn't answer. Didn't even look down at him. Not
for the first time in his life, he wished that he could be a little
taller..a little bulkier. He might have more of a chance that way.

His ever present grandmother's voice sprang to mind. She had always
told him that everyone had their strengths and their weaknesses.
Certainly he'd been gifted in other ways beyond the physical. Maybe he
could challenge them to a game of chess.

He was marched up a short flight of metal stairs. The air was a little
better as they went..but it still smelled of endless recycling. It was
his guess that this place had been built deep in the rock of the mesa.
It just felt underground somehow. Down another long metal hallway,
past a few glass windowed rooms where he caught a glimpse of camo-clad
men working at loading papers and disks into boxes. Another room
contained a large tank that seemed to be smoking and smouldering..the
automatic fans in the room were working overtime to clear the haze.
Whatever they had burned in there had created a big smoke.

Definitely a Lab, but no scientists anywhere, he noted. Somehow the
thought made him feel queasy. 

Another flight of stairs and then they were in an elevator..up. It was
quite a ways, he estimated..the place must be drilled deep into the
rock..deeper than he would have figured. And then the elevator doors
swished open and they stepped into some sort of airlock. A motor
whined..and the far door slid open.

He took a deep breath of real air. It tasted so good. It was so easy
to take fresh air for granted. They were standing on a rock shelf.
Hidden from view from above, 4 Apache Longbows crouched like black
beasts of prey in a giant rock alcove, next to them squatted a
behemoth cargo helicopter and looking like the tired old uncle at a
reunion, a Huey transport helicopter. He could see men scurrying
around the cargo behemoth, loading boxes and equipment in the light
of only a few dim, shielded halogens.

A shadow was striding towards them. A glimpse of prematurely white
hair told him it was the same man who had originally taken them from
Tiny's helicopter.

"Here he is sir. What should we do with him?"

Yeah sir, what are you going to do with me?

The man's eyes were unreadable in the dark. 

"We need to tie off the loose end of his abandoned chopper. Take him
back out there, dispose of the craft and make sure his body is found
in the wreckage."

Harry sighed. Not such a bad idea. That way no one would ever think to
look out here on the mesa. Especially if the Park Director was in
these guys' pockets like he thought he was. Only Tiny and the two
other rangers knew that Dana was with him...he suspected they would be
quietly taken care of as well.

Nice. Well, not for him..but nice for them.

His escorts were nodding smartly and saluting like morons, moving him
briskly away from 'sir' and towards the Huey.

Ok. He had to think of something ...fast.

They left the Commander behind, walking through the enormous alcove
that held the choppers. As they approached the edge of the mesa in the
light of the rising moon, he craned his neck to peer over the
side...and an idea suddenly popped into his head.

"Hey..uh, guys?" he asked as they walked..trying to slow his steps.
They were having none of it. "Since..since I'm about to die, do I get
a last request or something?" He tried to plant his feet more firmly.
Finally the pair stopped and eyed him. One put his hand on the butt of
his gun.

"And what would that be Tonto?"

Ooh. Tonto. He put on a grin.

"I'd like to watch the moon come up and finish my pumpkin seeds." He
patted his front pocket, the packet crackling in response. They both
stared at him for a long moment in which he thought he might have
sprouted horns,and then one of them shrugged, dropping Harry's left
arm and pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his belt.

"Why the hell not? The moon's gonna be up in a couple minutes." The
other one was less interested. He glared at Harry for a long moment
and then at his partner, who was already lighting up the cigarette.
Keeping his hand on the butt of his gun, the non-smoker nodded
sharply. 

"Go ahead then." he growled. "But you try anything and we have no
problem with shooting you here and then dragging your brown-skinned
ass out into the desert." Harry could see the gleam of white as the
man grinned, "Maybe we even scalp your ass first.."

"Oh..of course. I understand completely." Harry said, nodding like a
fool. Inside he was grinning as he pulled out the bag. There were very
few of the white, flat teardrops left. Which suited him just fine.

Moving over to the edge of the cliff, he carefully poured out
everything that was left in the bag into his hand. There were maybe 4
seeds left. He heard the smoker chuckling.

"Not much of a delaying tactic, Tonto." Smoke curled around in front
of Harry as he stood at the edge. He glanced down again impassively. 

The last seed went between his teeth just as the remainder of the
white disk slipped above the horizon, bathing the entire desert in a
pale unearthly glow. 

Beautiful. 

"Times up.." said the non-smoker, reaching for his prisoner.

Harry's hand came up with the pile of discarded salt and shell
fragments and he flung the entire mess into Non-smoker's face. The man
screamed as the salt hit his eyes and before Smoker could spring into
action...

.....Harry leapt straight off the side.

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

It was late night when he finally went down to where she was kept. In
a few more hours the majority of the data would be shipped
out..everything else, including the organism, was being prepared for
incineration. Explosives were almost ready to bury the only parts of
the lab that were visible from the surface. When they were done, this
place would be a tomb of empty secrets.

He'd been staring at the plastic encased photo of her in her ID for a
long time before he made up his mind. 

He was more than curious, he was fixated. He had been for some time.
He'd never met either of the two Federal Agents that were so often the
topic with the Project Leaders. Never met them, but he knew of them.
Anyone who knew anything about any of the projects knew of them.

And just looking at her picture, just knowing that he had one of
them.. seemed to stir something dark and pleasurable inside of him.
Something that made him ache to wipe that confident look off the face
he saw in the photo. The Project Leaders had given explicit orders
that this pair remain off limits in all but the most extreme of cases.
Well, this was extreme, wasn't it?

"Dana Scully." his voice was cold, his eyes colder. She was alone now,
he'd just sent the little indian off to die. His gaze flicked up and
down her assessingly. She showed no fear..he'd known she wouldn't.
He'd expected it. "You're the one they can't seem to get rid of." he
smirked.  "You don't look like much to me." he said. She didn't move,
didn't change her expression.

He needed to see fear on her face. He wanted to hear her beg for her
life.

Patience.

He continued to stand where he was.

Slender body, shot with tensile strength, blue eyes burning with a
fierce intelligence, a beauty born of presence and charisma and a
porcelain heart-shaped face.

"Do you think he'll come for you this time?" he asked.

Still, no response.

He leaned down, fists pressing into the filthy mattress, face inches
from hers.

"He'll fail you know." There, a reaction. She was responding to
mention of 'him'. It made him angry somehow. "He'll fail because I'm
going to ignore the standing orders not to kill him." He leaned closer
and she, in her pride, refused to give an inch. His breath was
stroking her skin now. Her eyes flickered.

"Yes..you didn't know that , did you? That the only reason he is still
alive is because we are not to kill him. You on the other hand... You
never had any such tag on you. In fact, you've been a pawn all these
years." He smirked, his icy eyes  boring into her. "I' m sure you
must've at least known that." his voice was a silky whisper now. "That
that was why you've been allowed to live for so long. Because you are
the one weakness he has. If we have you, we have him." he grinned.
"And that's why we make you suffer. For him. Is it worth it?"

He detected a faint tremor in her lovely little china doll's mouth and
it made him feel a surge of triumph.  It was a simple challenge, he
told himself...not a bone-deep need, to break this woman. 

"Have you fucked him?" he asked then, his voice a low throb. "Is that
why you follow him around like a lap dog? Does he have a sweet cock?"
Her face was flushing with fury now, she seemed helpless to suppress
her emotions when her partner was concerned. Certainly if she was his
weakness, he was hers.

One of his hands came up and cupped her face, his thumb pressing into
the soft skin under her left eye...harder and harder until she gasped
out loud..those velvety lips parting.  Her breath was coming faster
now, fear and anger were starting to ooze from her pores. He pressed
harder, eliciting a sharp cry from her at last and he eased off,
smiling at the dark red mark he'd left on her pale skin. There were
tears of pain glistening in the corners of her blue eyes.

Still, she did not back down from him, her eyes spitting hatred and
disgust along with the fear.

He smiled. As long as she was afraid, she could hate him as much as
she wanted. Dana Scully..the woman whom the Men had placed so much
faith in in the beginning. How she had failed them. She had not become
the controlling force against Mulder and his ludicrous quest..but the
impetus and the support structure for it.

It was likely that Mulder would have either slipped into insanity or
been killed years back if it hadn't been for this woman. Somehow the
irony made him angry.

It was all over now. He'd already decided to let her die here. The Men
had not been notified, but they would have concurred. The X-Files had
been reopened against all odds and forces. Killing both of these
people would be saving the Men a lot of trouble in the future. The
words spilled in his mind, justifying. 

It didn't occur to him to wonder why he was justifying anything. He
never had before.

"I wish your partner could be here for this.." he said honestly, his
eyes burning into her. "I would love for him to see what I'm going to
do to you.."

She spit in his face.

The defiance snapped his control and he backhanded her so hard he
knocked her unconscious.

Cursing and wiping the spittle off his cheek, he pushed to his feet.
He nudged her with his foot. She didn't move. Did he break the little
bitch's neck? That would be disappointing. Who figured she was so
fragile?

He bent down to press his hand against the side of her slender neck.
She was alive. He straddled her, shaking her roughly until her eyelids
fluttered. And that was when she struck.

Quick as a cat, her body surged up, her knee smashing into the
juncture between his legs. Pain exploded behind his eyes and he howled
like an animal as he felt his body curl involuntarily into a fetal
ball. Again she kneed him, shoving him onto the floor where he cracked
his head against the concrete floor and darkness spun in on him.

+++++

Mulder was alone as he clambered awkwardly up the steep sandstone
slope, only the moon and his thoughts to keep him company. He was
trying to remember Kelly as she had been when she'd meant everything
to him. Trying to keep that memory alive..trying to exorcise the image
of the blackness crawling up her face..trying to forget that he had
killed her.

He had left her under the Juniper where she had fallen. He knew that
he couldn't touch her. He could only hope that it wasn't airborne,
whatever it was that had killed both her and her husband. The fact
that he was still free of the creeping mold reassured him..though his
hand crept up to the back of his neck regularly to make sure there was
no clumpy growth forming.

He slipped as quietly as he could along the rock once he'd reached the
top, thankful for the soft nature of the sandstone that allowed him to
move so silently even with his limping gait. He could hear the murmur
of voices ahead in the darkness..two men. A giant behemoth loomed over
him..a rock amphitheater curling over him like a cobra's hood. He
could see the bobbing lights that indicated flashlights further down
and the ominous, sleek outlines of the matte black Apaches crouched
under the rock overhang. Beyond those a faint light barely illuminated
what looked like an enormous cargo helicopter.

Pressing against the rock wall, he slid into the enormous alcove and
began to skirt along the back of it, keeping the insect-like shapes of
the attack helicopters between him and the men by the cargo chopper.
From what he could see, the men were heavily armed and outfitted in
full desert camo. They appeared to be carrying boxes and loading them
into the big helicopter.

Moving closer, keeping his movements as silent as possible, he scanned
for any sign of an entrance to what had to be a base or an
installation. He darted behind a tall stack of crates, holding his
breath until he was sure that no one had spotted him. Slowly he peered
around the side, keeping an eye on the men near the cargo helicopter.

One was now gone, the other was leaning against the side of the
enormous aircraft, lighting a cigarette. Mulder saw the tiny flare of
the match as the man lit up. He strained for a glimpse of the other
soldier. He thought he saw a flash of light further along the alcove,
beyond the monstrous chopper. And then two more men appeared with a
dolly, loaded with boxes.  It looked like they were clearing the place
out, he thought grimly.

They were already starting to cover their tracks.

He pressed his back against the rough wooden crates he was leaning
against, nibbling on his upper lip as he thought. Words caught the
corner of his eye and snagged his gaze like a splinter. Frowning, he
sat forward and turned his aching body to see what was written on the
side of the crate he was leaning against.

He felt his veins go cold with shock.

The bio hazard sign stencilled onto the side of the wood with red
paint would have been enough, but there was more.  VX, it said.

VX.

Suddenly he desperately had to get to Scully. He had to get both of
them the hell out of here. The panic in him was almost suffocating.
They couldn't mean to drop this stuff out here..did they?

They would. They had certainly done worse in the past.

It would easily cover their tracks. The terrible thing that had killed
Kelly, killed Jake..if it was still viable..the VX Gas would most
certainly destroy it.

Along with every other living creature in the Maze.

The thought galvanized him into action, pushing his tired, sunburned,
ravaged limbs up and forward. There had to be a door beyond the cargo
craft. He could hear voices, echoing faintly off of the impossibly
high roof of the overhang.

"...stupid fucker...can't believe he did that.."

"Crazy, I guess. We're going to have to go down and get the body
before we wipe this place, y'know."

"Shit! You're right. We can't leave him right at the doorstep of this
place."

"No big deal...we'll just use the Huey. We can take his body out to
the abandoned chopper and pitch him into the canyon over there."

"Yeah...ok.."

The voices faded as he moved on past them, closer and closer to the
entrance.

After a few heart-pounding moments when the door suddenly slid open
and spit out a man with an armful of boxes ..bathing the immediate
area with light, he made it to the wall. Flattening himself against
the slickrock, praying no one else would come through, he peered at
the opening mechanism.

It was not keyed. He supposed that wasn't too strange, considering
their location. Now it was a matter of getting through the door
without alerting anyone. That wouldn't be quite so easy. Every time
the thing hissed open, light would flood the rock around it. It was
like a beacon. He pressed his back to the rock next to the door. He
would have to gamble.

A twinge as he remembered Kelly asking him if he was a gambling man.
That was right before they decided to camp in the canyon and risk
getting caught in the flood. So far he wasn't running on great luck.

No choice now. He had to find Scully. His mind refused to let him
consider that she was dead.

The door slid open so quickly, he almost missed his chance. A man
carrying a deadly looking rifle stepped out, blinking to adjust his
eyes to the dark..close enough to touch. Mulder took a silent breath
and shot himself through the doorway behind the man just as it closed.

He stood inside for a moment, his chest heaving with quiet gasps and
then he immediately had to dart to one side, diving into a rack of
Haz-mat suits just in time. A soldier pushing a now empty dolly
stepped inside, the second man following him.

"A couple more runs and we're done." The dolly pusher said, grumpy.

"Thank god. If I have to carry another goddamned box.. ." he trailed
off as the pair passed through another set of interior doors.

For a moment, he crouched within his nest of white suits, his eyes
scouring the area for cameras. There was one. He had to pray that no
one was monitoring them...otherwise his game was already up.

Moving quickly, he slunk over to the secondary doors and without
stopping to think about it, he pushed inside.

And stepped right into two men.

++++++

Harry had been taken off to die. She knew that..she could see it in
the cold man's eyes.

She was going to die too. Only her death would be much slower.

He'd talked to her..taunted her. She could see something dark and
unpleasant in his eyes, something that spoke of pain and hate. And the
need to hurt her.

She'd hurt him. 

Driving her knee up as hard as she could, she felt it connect squarely
with the obscenely hard area between his legs. The howl of animalistic
pain might have been more satisfying if she'd been more coherent. He
rolled to one side and she kneed him again for good measure. Moving as
quickly as she could, she staggered over towards the door, hoping that
the guard would have heard his commander's cries and would open the
portal.

The room seemed to be spinning a little shakily. The man was already
starting to move.

"Sir?"

She grabbed the soldier's shirt and hauled him into the room, pulling
him off balance enough that he fell face down onto the concrete ..
almost sending herself down after him. She didn't wait to see what
happened, she slipped out the door slamming it shut behind her and
taking off down the dim metal hall.

The place was a warren. Halls led off in different directions, dark
maws that promised nothing more than another similar path. 

She forced herself to stop and think. Leaning against the cool of the
metal, her heart pounding fearsomely in her breast, she took a deep
breath and look around her for a path to an exit.

A scuff on the floor looked to be the best she was going to do for a
clue. There was almost no dust down here and the walls seemed spotless
darkly gleaming surfaces with no clues upon them.

The scuff would have to suffice. She picked her pace up again,
trotting as quietly as possible around corners and past glass doored
darkened labs. A staircase loomed and she moved stealthily up it,
regretting that she had not thought to grab a weapon from either the
commander or his man.

She jumped slightly, her heartbeat ricocheting in her ribcage as a
loud banging sound started from back the way she'd come. Apparently
the new prisoners were not enjoying themselves. She wondered briefly
how long it would take someone to hear them.

Apparently not that long. She heard a startled voice from up the
stairs, an odd thump and then the sound of running feet echoing in the
narrow hall.

Gasping, she quickly retreated back down the steps and pressed herself
into one of the laboratory door alcoves, trying to make herself as
small and silent as possible..all the while wishing that the dim
yellow lights were even dimmer.

Two men dressed in the same full camo as those that had taken her and
Harry down out in the desert ran by, rifles up and ready. She let them
pass by and then darted back the way they had come, trying to keep her
footsteps quiet. She reached the top of the long stairwell and pressed
herself up against a corner. Peering around it, she froze.

There was a still form lying in the hallway. Remembering the thump
she'd heard a few minutes back, she quickly surmised that the two men
she'd seen had been carrying him. Harry? It was hard to tell in the
weak pale ochre light.

Knowing she had little time before the Commander was released from his
impromptu prison, Scully pushed herself towards the unmoving figure. 

She knew it was Mulder before she took two steps and she was barely at
his side when she heard the tell tale sound of booted feet running.
Running towards them. Gritting her teeth in panic, she cast wildly
around for somewhere to hide. The hallway was rife with doors of all
kinds, but she had no opportunity to check for the best one. She
pushed open the nearest glass door, hearing the whooshing sound that
spoke of a sealed room and the instant acrid smell of smoke assailed
her senses. 

She dragged Mulder into the room and pushed the door shut, pulling
both herself and the dead weight of her unconscious partner into the
darkest corner of the room. The fact that there were numerous windows
into this room did not make her confident..but it was dark in
here...and smoky. She squeezed herself up against the wall behind a
cabinet, letting the heavy press of Mulder lean into her as she tucked
her arms around him. She'd not had the chance yet to check if he was
even alive, but her fears were allayed when she felt the steady beat
of his heart under her palm.

The clatter of boots in the hall. She stopped breathing altogether.

"Where the hell did he go?" one voice exclaimed muffled by the thick
glass.

"Idiot..obviously she found him." she recognized the voice of the
Commander.

"Well, they can't have gone far, sir..we'll find them.." another voice
spoke up.

There was silence for a moment and then she heard the steely tones of
her antagonist again.

"Don't bother. They don't have the code to use the elevator..they're
down here somewhere. Let's leave em'. We set off the explosions in
less than 5 minutes if we hold to our timetable...that'll lock em'
down here for good. VX is heavier than air.  When we make the drop,
the gas should sink down here through the ventilation and finish em'
off."

She could almost hear the grin in his voice. Her teeth grated
together.

"So long Agent Scully!" The voice shouted almost gaily. "You too Agent
Mulder. Shame we couldn't spend a little more time together..but you
know how it is. We're all pretty busy people."

His laughter faded with the sounds of the footfalls.

Leaving her alone in the smoky darkness with Mulder in her arms.

An uncharacteristic sob caught in her throat as she readjusted
Mulder's head into her lap, stroking the soft, dark hair back off his
forehead. He *was* alive. Banged up, but alive. He bore a large
purpling bruise on his hairline, his arm was a scabbed mess, one leg
was almost completely bruised down one side and he was covered with a
terrible sunburn.

Alive.

She leaned down and brushed her lips on his brow.

She had found him. Or he had found her. It didn't matter.

Especially if it was true that they were dropping VX gas. The most
terribly destructive of all the nerve agents.

"Mulder?" she murmured, letting her fingers gently stroke the stubbly
jawline.

He moaned again and his long eyelashes fluttered. She managed an odd
sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob and he looked up at
her.

"Scully?" his voice was hoarse, unbelieving. "Am I dead?"  This time
it was a genuine laugh..low and happy, even in the face of their
death.

"No" she whispered the almost-lie easily, bending down to let her lips
touch his in a gentle kiss. His arms came up to clasp the back of her
head almost roughly, pressing her into him. After a moment he twisted
his lithe body up and around and pulled her into an embrace like
iron...their legs tangling together.

"Scully, Scully, Scully.." he was whispering a litany of her name into
her hair, rocking ever so slightly back and forth. "I...I thought." he
stopped and resumed his rocking in silence. She buried her face into
his filthy t-shirt, fighting back the surging emotions that threatened
to shake the last of her control from her.

They simply held each other in silence for a long while, luxuriating
in thinking of nothing but that they were together again. It couldn't
last. It never did. Mulder's voice rumbled in his chest.

"Scully..we have to get out of here. They're going to drop VX gas on
the Maze."

She knew..but hearing him confirm it suddenly made it a reality.

"Why?" she finally managed, moving her head to look up into his
hazel eyes.

"The organism. They have to destroy it. They have to destroy all trace
of this lab."

Even as he said it, the ground rumbled suddenly and the dimness
streaming in from the hall flickered..a tiny hairline fracture raced
across the glass that looked out into the yellow light. They were
silent for a moment.

"I guess they forgot to pay their electric bill.." he said. She didn't
laugh.

"He said they were setting off explosions to bury this place.."

And then the faint whirring that had accompanied them since they'd
been down there..stopped.

"They turned off the air recycler." Scully whispered, clinging a
little tighter to Mulder.

Neither of them had a thing to say to that.

+++++


Another shock rumbled through their little room and Mulder clutched
Scully a little closer, bowing his head over hers as cracks raced
across the glass walls and ceiling. The light flickered again as dust
poured down on top of them.

Black dust. 

A cold, cold hand closed around his heart as he stared at the crumbly
matter that now sprinkled Scully's smooth red crown. Not dust. He
could see tiny clumps within the dirt. 

He'd seen this stuff before. Closing his eyes, he knew suddenly and
certainly, that they were going to die. 

"I'm sorry Scully." he whispered into her hair, not opening his eyes.
"I think I've really done it this time." 

She moved her head out from under his cheek and met his eyes. She
didn't understand. She still thought there was a chance. He shook his
head, a tear slipping down the side of his face.

"We'll get out of this Mulder. We always do." she tried a smile on. He
shook his head again.

"Not this time." he wondered if he would have to watch her face close
underneath a wave of black crust..like he had with Kelly. He
shuddered. Her fingers were on his face, gently wiping away the tear.

"Tell me Mulder." It was a command..and it held so many questions. On
that level that only they seemed to inhabit, he knew what she was
asking first.

"I...I was afraid, Scully. I was a coward. I should never have left
you like that." his voice was soft and ragged. He did not look at the
lights in the hall...did not think about how much time they had left
before darkness fell and the organism he knew had already infected
both of them woke. "It was more than just the newness. I mean, I'd
already been 'with' you for so many years, in my mind and my heart
that making love to you was ..." he faltered.

She smiled, letting her hand cup the side of his face as she curled in
his lap. She nodded. She knew what he meant. 

"I was just so...I thought you might wake up and decide that it had
been a mistake. That you would regret...." he choked to a halt. She
was shaking her head, reproof and amusement in her eyes. Her fingers
covered his mouth.

"Mulder..don't you know anything?" she said. "I didn't just let the
moment take me. Does that sound like something I would do? I let what
happened between us happen the same way you did. It was a conscious
decision to take that step. God, don't you know that I love you?" she
asked. "Didn't what happen between us tell you that?"

He was shaking his head ruefully. 

" It took me leaving to figure that out. And by then, the path away
from you had reached out and sucked me in. I couldn't get back to
you."

"But I followed."

"I wish you hadn't." his voice caught. He took her face between his
hands. The light was flickering. He could already feel an itching at
the back of his neck. Sliding his fingers into her hair, he gently
reached around to the back of her delicate skull. There was a faint
clumping of crust building there already.

"Mulder.." she started. He pressed a thumb to her mouth, silencing
her.

"No. Scully. The organism that these men are trying to destroy..it's
all around us." His eyes flickered to the clumpy black dust that
littered the floor. "It looks like its been building colonies behind
the walls down here for years." 

She looked around, seeing the dust. Seeing the black crust that seemed
packed like insulation behind the ceiling..revealed now by the cracks.

"What is it?" she whispered, her blue eyes returning to his face.

"I don't know. It killed Kelly and Jake.." His eyes averted from hers.
That was a lie, *he* had killed Kelly and Jake. He felt her hands on
his chin, turning him back to her. 

"They're dead? Harry was so worried.." she whispered. Her eyes fell to
a point on his chest as she thought sadly of Harry and then they shot
back up. "This organism..we're infected...aren't we?"

He nodded, his throat closing. He didn't want to tell her about the
crust that would blanket them. Devour them.

"How long?" she asked. I'm not afraid, Mulder..her eyes told him, not
if we're together.

"As soon as the light goes out.." he whispered. As if on cue, the
thing began to flicker. 

They watched it, hearts in their mouths, until it steadied and
continued to burn. 

"I'm sorry Scully.." he repeated, self-loathing and guilt evident in
his voice. She shook her head.

"Mulder...what would you have done if Kelly had called you while I was
awake?"

He looked at her for a long moment.

"I would..I would have asked you to come." he said truthfully. 

"Would I have refused to come?" she asked him, making sure he was
still looking at her.

"No" he said, a faint, sad smile on his lips.

"Did you really think that I wouldn't follow you?"

This time the silence was longer.

"No." he said, a whisper. He had known she would. Had hoped she would.

She reached up to press another kiss on his lips.

"We're here Mulder. There was no other path to take." Her eyes were
sad. "At least we're together. I don't have any regrets..."

The words were so like Kelly's that he was momentarily struck dumb by
the lump in his throat.

He opened his mouth to say that he regretted not growing old with her,
that he regretted the years they could never spend together now, but
the words froze on his tongue. No. He had no regrets at all. The years
with her had been the most incredible...she'd fulfilled his life in a
way beyond words. How could he regret anything?

He folded her tightly against him. Shaking his head.

An eternity in each others arms. Minutes passed, waiting. Waiting for
a miracle. Waiting to die. It was a race of sorts..would the Gas
filter down here before the light went out?

No sound in their concrete tomb but the soft breath of one another,
the beating of their hearts. He let himself feel her skin under his
palms, the warmth of her body, the scent of her hair, the weight of
the whole of her against him.

It was Scully who moved first, her small, slender hands smoothing
their way up his back, leaving a pressure trail of heat and tingling
flame in their path. Her chin lifted, her blue eyes met his and he
felt a shiver shoot up his spine. He could see it in her face..the
need to have this last thing from him, the need to have him want it
too.

He did. Oh, he did.

The world consisted of six sides of a box with them at the center, a
wash of lemon-pale light their only guard against the black death that
crouched so benignly around them, on their very skin.

His back pressed up into the cool metal of the wall as her legs moved
to straddle his thighs, pushing her slim body up against his chest,
the hard tips of her breasts gouging trails of heat up his torso. His
hands came around to clasp her hips, crushing her warmth against his
belly, cupping her soft bottom in his palms. Their mouths met in a
slow, deliberate way.. tongues ever so slowly dancing with each other,
she pulled his lower lip between hers, gently sucking on it, running
her tongue along it's length until it tingled and burned.

Gasping, he wrenched his mouth away from hers and fastened it to the
length of her white neck, finding the tender spot below her ear that
made her body go deliciously boneless against him. His hands clutched
at her hips more firmly, pushing her back down along him until the
burning heat of her sex was pressed against the raging flame of his.
Tears fell unnoticed by both, mixing and painting their cheeks with a
glistening skin as they moved together in a slow deliberate dance of
farewell.

When he pushed aside the flimsy barricade of her shorts and lifted her
onto the achingly hard length of his penis, neither noticed that the
light was gradually fading in long slow ever-weakening waves like a
flashlight with a dying battery. Locked together, eyes open and
staring into each others', they moved ever so slowly..drawing out the
sensation, clinging to the physical joining of their bodies even as
they savored the intimacy of their love.

She was beautiful, he thought..watching her..barely blinking..her face
was clouded with passion, her eyes smoky with desire. She moved so
slowly on him, sliding her tight warmth up and down his shaft..sending
lightning bolts of intense pleasure spiralling up and down his body.
His breath was coming in short gasps. He saw her eyelids flutter as
she neared the edge..watched the light grow dimmer and dimmer until
her face was a shadow.

And they both exploded together in an ecstasy of overwhelming
pleasure, climaxing as one.

They were still joined when the light faded completely.

And they clung together, faces pressed into each other's necks as the
chittering, clamoring crust surged up and over them both.

+++++++

White. Everything was white. Her eyes were tender and painful as she
squinted against the simple glare of the sheets.

She could see her hands... they were white too. Swathed in soft
bandages. Her skin felt odd..muffled, enclosed. She tried to move her
head.

"Ah, you're awake then dear." said a woman's voice..a stranger's
voice. Her mind railed at the wrongness of it. There was someone who
should be here.  Her mouth opened to make a sound of protest, and
nothing came out.

"Don't try to talk, dear. Everything is alright. You're in St.
George..in the hospital."

She could finally see the woman. Tall brunette leaning over her
bedside.

Mulder.

Her voice tried again. The woman didn't understand. She tucked Dana's
hand gently back under the covers.

"Try to rest. The doctor says your voice will be back soon. Here" she
helped Scully to drink a little water, and Dana let it slide down her
throat..easing the sandpaper burn. "Rest now." the woman repeated.

Mulder. Where was he?

She couldn't think.  Sedative? She drifted back into the dark.

+++++

Mulder blinked. His eyes felt sore..his head pounded terribly and he 
had a gaggingly sweet taste in the back of his throat. Every bone in 
his body seemed to be aching in its own separate and unique way. All 
in all, he felt about right.

A hospital. That was right too. He was confused about it. The
familiarity of being in the white room with the soft beeping of the
machines and the tight discomfort of the IV needle in his arm was
conflicting with the one thing that was missing.

Scully.

He frowned and tried to push himself upright. Bandages. He was covered
with them. Reaching a hand up to his face, he felt the soft thickness
there as well. Only his eyes and mouth were uncovered.

"So. You're awake."

He looked across the room, startled.

Walter Skinner sat in the corner..a worn paperback turned pages down
on the table next to him, arms folded, an unreadable expression on his
face. Mulder frowned again. His mouth opened and no sound came out.

"You can't talk just yet." Skinner said, a faint smile on his face
that indicated he was pretty pleased about the fact. "The VX gas did a
lot of damage, but not as much as it could have. We haven't figured
out how you're still alive."

Mulder blinked at him. He was starting to remember enough to know that
Skinner had not mentioned the one piece of information that was more
important to him than the fact that he had inexplicably survived.

He started to swing his legs over the side of the bed, if Skinner
wouldn't tell him, he would find out on his own.

"Whoa..whoa." Suddenly the AD was across the room and pressing Mulder
back down into the bed. "She's here. She's fine." he said, his hands
on Mulder's shoulders. He waited until he was certain that the injured
man was going nowhere before he returned to his seat. "You can see her
when you're both better."

He chuckled a little at Mulder's angry glare as he returned to his
seat.

"I know you're still recovering..but believe me..I want to know
exactly why you were out here..and how lethal doses of VX were dropped
over a National Park. I want to know how you survived and I want to
know what the hell is going on."

You and me both. Mulder mused. He needed to talk to Scully. He needed
to see her for himself. He stared at Skinner. How had he gotten here?

As if answering him, Skinner began to talk, his voice a low rumble to
Mulder's muffled ears.

"A call came in to the switchboard saying that they had information
about a Dana Scully. Of course, she was still supposed to be on sick
leave, so the call ended up at my desk. It was some crazy store owner
who operated in Canyonlands National Park. He said something about
her being in danger and something about VX Gas being dropped."
Skinner scrubbed his jaw, his expression wry. "Well, I figured if it
had to do with her, it had to do with you..and it was likely true. 
Especially when we couldn't find hide nor hair of you in DC. So I 
scrambled the cavalry.

"By the time we got out to the coordinates that the store owner had
given us, it was nearly dawn. We were out on some godforsaken mesa in
the middle of nowhere, the scanners picking up lethal doses of VX
clinging in a mist to the ground...and this guy," he glanced at a
small notepad that was sitting on the table.." a Harold Paivuta, comes
running up to us in a Haz-Mat suit screaming something about Scully
trapped underground. " 

Skinner was shaking his head. "We uncovered the area the man told us
to look in and sure enough, there was an entire illegal installation
in the rock...which I'm sure you know. Since we found you and Agent
Scully..uhhem..inside."

Mulder remembered vividly the last thing that they had been doing
before the light had gone out and he felt a flush crawling up his
face. He was suddenly grateful for the concealing bandages. The
embarrassment quickly turned to uncertainty. What would Skinner say
about it..what would he do?

The AD was deliberately not saying anything. Mulder could see that he
was enjoying the stew his agent was soaking in.

"The entire installation was completely inundated with the gas. ..and
yet both of you only seemed to suffer from minor side effects. The
most interesting part was the fact that both of you..your entire
epidermis was completely dead. Dried up. The nurses had to completely
exfoliate your outer layer of skin..it was pure alkaline. That's what
the bandages are for. Letting your new skin settle in."

Mulder was confused. Why hadn't the organism killed them? And even if
they'd survived it's attack..why hadn't they died from the gas?

He was confused and his head was starting to pound violently. He shut
his eyes against the light. Skinner seemed to sense his discomfort.

"Just sleep, Agent Mulder." he said, picking up his book again.
"You'll feel a lot better."

He slept.

++++++++

"Alkali", Scully said.

He blinked at her. He knew she knew that he didn't know what she was
talking about. It was just a matter of waiting for her to let him know
she knew that he didn't know. He grinned at his internal monologue. He
needed a vacation.

No. Maybe not. Time off was too much trouble.

"VX Gas is neutralized by Low pH. Alkaline will cause it to degrade
much faster. The organism completely lowered the pH of our bodies..it
essentially saved us from the Gas..while the Gas killed the organism
completely..saving us from it."

She spoke quietly, looking up from the ground as they walked up the
hill. "So basically we just got a really good skin peel and a bit of
minor VX poisoning."

"And all for the low-low price of $19.95." Mulder's grin was just a
show. "Quite the stroke of luck, don't you think?"

"Yeah, that's what I would call it. Of course, you also have to factor
in the fact that Harry survived as well. If it hadn't been for him, we
simply would have died of starvation down there."

"He said he jumped over a cliff." Mulder grimaced. "I'm not sure if
that's a metaphor or.."

"He really jumped over." Scully smiled. 

"He explained it to me. See, he grew up in the red rock deserts. He
used to play on mesa tops and canyon rims. His ancestors used to
scamper around on those rocks like spiders on a wall. He said that
most mesas are composed of different layers..and that the top layer of
sandstone is almost always harder and less erodable than the layer
directly under it...a sort of desert pavement he called it. Much
softer. It erodes faster than the top layer which forms an overhang of
sorts..the softer part becomes a sort of shelf notched out of the
rock. It was places like those that the ancient Anasazi used to build
their cliff dwellings in. He just rolled off the side and hoped that
that pocket would be there. It was, and he managed to tuck himself
into it. It was dark, so he could convince the men that he'd fallen to
his death."

"He hoped?" Mulder had not missed the word she used. Scully smiled.

"Yeah, well. He said he was worried that the pocket might not be
there, but it was a risk he had to take. It was either that or get
killed."

"So really, we don't owe anything to luck, we owe everything to
Harry."

She smiled up at him as they topped the rise, reaching out to tuck her
hand in his.

"Yeah." 

Neither of them mentioned the fact that the Park Director had been found 
dead of what appeared to be a Îself-inflictedÌ gunshot wound to the head.
There was no sense of justice to be had by that knowledge, only a vague 
disquiet that the men who had silenced him were still at large.

A moment later they were standing on the edge of a massive
cliff overlooking the most spectacular view he had ever seen in his
entire life. It looked like they stood on the edge of the world...a
vista of outstanding proportions spread out before them. Two massive
river canyons cut enormous swathes out of the rock below them in
tiers, the land carved and eroded away in a beautiful sculpture of
wind and rock.

"I guess this is why they call this place 'Island In The Sky'" Mulder
said quietly.

She only nodded.

They stood there in silence for a long while, simply being together,
not touching.

"What did Skinner say to you?" she asked finally.

He knew what she was talking about. They both knew how they had been
found by their rescuers.

"He said 'That's a fine filly you have there Agent Mulder, take her
home and boink her one for me.'" Mulder grinned. She flashed him a
patented 'look'.

"Boink?" she asked dryly. "Try another one, Mulder."

"Actually, he just said something to the effect of 'don't let it
affect your jobs and I don't have a problem with it'"

"That's a little more like it." she nodded. Her eyes slid up to him.
"And will we?"

The skin around his eye's wrinkled as he smiled.

"Are  you asking if I'm going to stop trying to protect you and ditch
you ? Or are you wondering if we're going to start having sex on my
desk?"

"Both."

"I can't make myself stop protecting you." he said seriously. "But I
will stop ditching you. Just look what happened this time. As for the
desk thing..I can't make any promises."

She stared at him for a long while, a smile hovering around the edges
of her mouth.

"Good enough for now." she said. "I might think of some rules later."

He only grinned.

The sound of footsteps on the rock alerted them both as they
remembered why there were here. The enormous form of Tiny nearly
eclipsed the small figure of Harry as the pair walked down the path
towards the overlook. Tiny clutched a pottery jar in his hands.

They greeted each other quietly. And then Tiny handed Mulder the
jar.

"I..I can't, I shouldn't.." he started, staring down at the
hand-painted pottery through eyes narrowed with sudden overwhelming 
guilt.

"Yes, you should. You were there at the end for both of them. You are
the one who needs the closure. You can't blame yourself for their
deaths." Harry said. 

Mulder stared at the small man..how had he known?

Harry was shaking his head.

"I know that you think that you failed Kelly. You didn't. Jake was
already dead. She simply joined him.  Some paths can't be changed."

Mulder stared at the jar for a long moment and then he nodded. He'd
figured that out himself somewhere in those eternal minutes alone with
Scully that terrible night.

Somehow, he knew what he had to do with the jar without asking. He
didn't open it and empty the ashes into the wind. He took it up 
gently, and with only a few silent words..he pitched the whole of it 
into the abyss.

Long afterwards. After Harry and Tiny had gone...he and Scully still
stood there. Standing at the end of the world. He felt the certainty
that he had not felt only a scant week earlier. He felt the rightness
of the presence at his side and the sudden clarity of the road that
now stretched out before him.  It was funny that Kelly had talked of
paths and how he had influenced hers. Now, in death, she had shown him
a way of sorts.

He looked down at his partner. Partner in so many senses of the word.
She looked back up at him. Their hands slipped into each others grips
and then slowly they turned back up the path..towards the car.

Back home.



--FIN